A Tribute to Anne & Ian

I want any where but here. I don't care if I'm alone. I just want out of this cubicle.
Seven years: some of them have been here, doing this, for seven years.

How do people do this? They say, "Easy job. Decent pay. Reasonable hours."

I say I'm going insane, sitting here staring at the same three textured little waist-high walls that shut me out from the rest of the office. I'm in the back with a real wall to my right, over the carpeted hedge.

It's almost demeaning. No windows, just three rows of little worlds: phone, computer, catalogs. I need out of here. Everybody should need out of here.

Just on a twenty minute call:
"Ok, ma'am, I'm going to spell that first name back to you. V like Victor-I-E-T like Thomas-R Robert-A, correct?"
She says yes and gets frustrated that I can't find her in the system. Exasperated. I ask her who she's shipping to and look up her boyfriend's name. Mark. I find him and the order confirmation.
My, my, Vietra, what cute little shorts you're getting for the boyfriend. Funny that you first referred to him as your husband. (I don't ask. There's a reason she's shipping directly to the man.)
"Ok ma'am, I apologize for the delay. I've found your order here using Mark's name, and just once more, I'm going to spell your name to make sure we've got it correct on the order here: V Victor-I-E-T-R-A and the last name starts with B like boy?"
And then she snaps, "No! It's a D. It starts with a D. Like... like Dead." Well, that's certainly uplifting, Ms. D--. Golly. "I see. Well let's cancel your original order and open a new one because it looks like the original was put in for cheer shorts, not boxers, and I'm sure Mark would prefer the boxers."
"What's the difference?" she scoffs.
"The cheer shorts are for women and fit like softball shorts, and the boxers are for men. Like boxers, ma'am."
"Oh." Yup.
Here's my issue: I pull up her order, and her initials: D. B. not V.D. Learn how to spell your name, Dietra. Are you even listening?
V like Victor. D like David. Not the same thing. What are you hearing?
Delaware. Another state I've never been to, but right now, I'm glad; at least I'm not going to run into Vie--I mean-- Dietra when I stop for lunch on the way to work.

So I send her boyfriend some boxers and roll my eyes; why don't people hear anything?


I spent last weekend in a blackhole, a parallel of lives that were not my own. And I came out on the other side with few lessons learned:

We all need people.
We all need books.

More noise. More poetry. More revolution.
More plumbers and Netflix and hardwood living rooms and Saturdays and lawyers and busses. And housewives and sisters. More Annie, more Ian.

Yes, more busses and streets and birds and mornings and floors.
Less carpet. Less work. More real. More laughter. More youth.
We need more hummingbirds.

("Yes, Ms. Humphries, I know that the website should tell you that there will be additional charges, and I agree that it is unfair as is... No, I don't write the code for the web so there's really nothing I can do." When did I become such a sell out? I should move to the city; this office is killing me. And Ms. Humphries, please don't call me sleazy again. "Yes ma'am, I do know how to spell sleazy... Yes, I did go to college..." not that it's any of your business. "Yes ma'am, I do have a conscience, a big one. My mother gave it to me, and I don't ever take that for granted... Yes, she is a good woman. She gets it from her mother." Was your mother a good woman, Ms. Humpfries? Are you?)

We get stuck. Not ruts. More like dry troughs or run-off ditches. More like deserts.

This is the desert and I am searching for Moses--lead me out, old bearded patriarch.
Or Aaron, too, a man with a voice.

Someone just lead me out, anywhere but this cubicle. Anywhere but Delaware.

"I'm glad your daughter is in love, Adelaide. Summer must be a happy girl, and I'm sure Charles is a lucky man. We'll get this order in and you'll be receiving your confirmation shortly." Thanks for reminding me about all of us who aren't happy-in-love. Thanks for bringing up summer, that season of empty passion. "Oh, no, thank you ma'am, it was a pleasure, and good luck with the rest of your holiday shopping. Enjoy the season!"

Because it's cold, because it's anything but summer, and I'll find a way to be anywhere but here.

We all need books.

More noise.
More poetry.
More revolution.

And all the president's men.

Anklet

If I were to make a road map,
I’d begin with where I am
which would span into the metro
and plains mountains deserts
oceans continents that haven’t
had the please of my bare
feet digging through their
soil grain dirt dust sand—
our toes sliding over white
porous stone on glowing
cerulean greenblue seas—

The map veins would circle
in the net of longitude-latitude
yarn choking the hemispheres
in place—a fat ham in my
mother’s Chicago Easter Morning
Kitchen, the lines holding meat,
threading spools of fishing line,
wrapping packages.

I’d sketch the map of every thing
that ever passed between us—
word and wave stitched together
with the string around your ankle.

Waking Up

I took a nap for the summer.

I slept in the wake of funerals and baseball games and hot afternoons. I curled up in a nest of cool basement air, of inconsistency and laundry baskets and evenings on front porches in recliners.

I was in a coma of lust for life and other things, a trance of disproportion and an adventure that took me no where in particular, but home.

And home is where I hope to wake up.

A professor told me near the end of last semester that I was in a funk, and that a trip to DC would pull me out. It did something, but I think I ended up losing part of myself in the capitol's old thick air and its sidewalks, which seem to know more than those of Chicago or Denver. The city has been breathing. The people wake and sleep.

When I returned, I moved out of my apartment and into my vagabond summer, the strangest of my life. And though it had some of the best days I'll ever know, I look back on an October morning and laugh: wasted time and useless motions.

What did I read? What did I write? Where did I spend my weekday mornings? When did I run? Who did I love? Why did I cry?

All just to end up where I began, another midwestern girl in a small town with a wish to get out. But this time, things are changing: Maybe I'll go somewhere new.

In the summer slumber, I fell into some directional blindness. I saw nothing of where I was headed until I was there, in everything I did: where I lived, somewhere new nearly every week); when I worked, checking my schedule only the morning of; who I saw, making plans on my own whims and movement. All these things with no intentionality.

And now I feel invisible. Youngest person in the office and all us little women answer the phones: "Thank you for calling. This is Emily. How may I help you today?" followed by either, "Great, may I have your order number?" or "Alright, are you calling with one of our catalogs today?"

What am I doing? Still sleeping.

But the choice now is to be awake and wide-eyed and ready--for a campaign, for a crowd, for a move, a leap, a change. And I will be.

There is no excuse for the post-graduation summer to linger through October morning moons.

So I say, "Good morning Moon," and Mrs. Hill of Indiana puts me on hold to the sound of country music while I'm waiting for her credit card number, then I laugh, and continue, "Good morning Sun."

I'm waking up.