Compost Studios

(This post was inspired by  Neil and his musings on writing from a female point of view.)

She had a moment of epiphany when her girlfriend was telling her about a recent trip to the mall to buy summer clothes.

“I found this cute dress. I thought it looked really good on me, but I knew Jon would hate the print. I didn’t buy it, because every time I wear it, I don’t want to be thinking about how Jon doesn’t see how hot I am in it—he just sees the colors.”

Her girlfriend, married for well over a decade, cares whether her clothes turn her husband on! This is astounding to her, as is the next revelation: her girlfriend also refreshes her makeup just before her husband gets home from work each day.

She was curious: Did her girlfriend’s husband notice? Did he care?

In a flash realizes she has no idea what type of clothing, makeup, or hair style her husband prefers, what turns him on, what his ideal wife looks like.

They’d been together since she was a teenager, why was she so clueless?

Did he like tight jeans and heels? Hippie chick layers? Short skirts? Sweet and romantic dresses? Snug fitting scoop-neck shirts? The outdoorsy look? Sheer blouses? Polished professional separates? Traditional suburban preppie wear?

She’d worn her hair a half dozen different ways over the years—from long waves that trailed down to her waist to a short cut that buzzed off the nape of her neck.

How did he like it?

How did he like her?

He never said.

She never asked.

What were the larger implications of this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?

One time when she was about 25, he left on a two week business trip in the spring. While he was gone, she highlighted her hair with blonde streaks and worked on a tan, eager to transform herself  into someone worth missing, someone worth coming home to.

When she was younger, she used to model new clothes for him, happy to show him her latest look. Did he care? She remembers the lingerie she bought, the miniskirts, the attention to self improvement--everything that dissipated after the children arrived.

How long had it been since she started a diet or fitness program or bought an outfit, fragrance, or beauty product with the idea it would not only please her but make a difference to him? Was their mutual lack of interest a sign their marriage had advanced to a new level or that it was dying?

She can’t remember the last time he told her she was beautiful or sexy, the last time his face lit up at the sight of her, or anything even remotely approaching a public display of affection or a private display of deep tenderness. She tells herself that these things don’t matter, but if she’s honest with herself, she knows sometimes they matter a lot. They were, after all, a big part of the reason she married him.

True, when it comes to beauty and fashion now, her aim is to please herself and not him. The law of diminishing returns has become reality in middle age. There's only so much to be done with the face and body the years have delivered--why struggle? She wants to believe her attitude reflects maturity and confidence, but in her low moments she thinks it’s a sign of defeat, evidence she has surrendered to the idea that nothing she can do will ever make her desirable again—not to him, not to a stranger on the street, not to the cute guy at the grocery store who asks her where the Oreos are.

She’s sliding toward 50. She's almost invisible now. No one notices her. That phase of life is over for her. The conscious and subconscious focus on the strength of her powers of attraction no longer commands her attention or energy. 

She should be relieved to be free from it, but instead what she feels is resignation bordering on defeat. She carries a sense she has lost something she can never regain, and what feels inconsequential in one moment feels huge in the next. She considers whether she’s mourning a fantasy--the loss of a state and power she never had in the first place. She was never known as a beauty.

She always consoled herself with the statement that she’d rather be smart than beautiful, but she’s not sure being smart has worked to her advantage in any relationship. When it comes to love, a sharp mind can cut both ways.

She’d observed that smart girls make lively conversation at parties, but few men want to deal with being intellectually challenged at home. Smart women make bad partners—they think, talk, and care too much. They fight domesticity, question the status quo, and are never content—at least these are the messages she’s gotten over the years.

As her girlfriend prattles on about her shopping trip, she wonders what her husband thinks about the beauty myth, the impact it has on menopausal women, how it affects intimacy and marriage, how it has (or has not) affected them, affected her.

But she knows she’s not going to ask him about it.

And she knows she’s not going to tell him what she thinks.

She is a smart woman after all.

She doesn’t need his silence and tight-jaw to tell her that, yes, she thinks too much, and no, the dressing room mirror doesn’t lie.

When she strolls along the fence line, the warm air is heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, and it transports her back to a time when her life seemed full of possibility.

She remembers summer mornings that started with a six-mile run through the green tunneled country roads of her youth and sultry evenings when she couldn’t wait for a certain boy to park the car and kiss her while heat lightning flashed on the horizon.

The memories are sweet and powerful. Like the scent of the honeysuckle.

Thirty years later she escapes the house and walks in the evening. She feels the backward pull of the past as she slowly passes the manicured yards of her neighborhood. The brick houses and perfect lawns speak of stability and accomplishment, a life set in concrete, built on big decisions made long ago, commitments renewed every morning.

She knows all about that--the security of straight lines, the weight of steadiness.

She veers off the road and down a dirt path that takes her from the world of carefully planted azaleas, rhododendron, roses, and irises to woods touched by wild climbing vines and crawling groundcovers, steeped in last season’s leaves, scented with the sweet smell of newness and decay.

It’s buggy but cool, and she sees a doe and fawn bound off as she rounds a curve, their white tails flashing as they retreat to a greener place . The woods buzz and rustle with secret life and she likes it here, far away from the neighbors, the joggers, the cyclists splitting the air with aerodynamic speed.

The earth is soft and a little muddy and slows her pace. She plods on under the leafy canopy as the sky disappears and darkens. The light is steadily fading, the shadows deepening, but she’s reluctant to surrender the day and return to the safety of the paved road.

Instead she inhales the scent of honeysuckle and remembers a sense of freedom, her ragged breath, the way her legs, once lean and tan, pumped up and over hills, the way the wind lifted the curtain of hair off her neck like a lover and brushed wisps of it away from her face.

She remembers the boy, the exact way the hair curled on the nape of his neck, the worn cotton of his shirt, the faint whiff of soap, the silky feel of the skin on his bicep, the square firmness of his hands, the tender spot beneath his ear, and the words he whispered in hers.

She sighs and heads toward home, keeping her head down, her eyes locked on the thick and twisting roots anchoring the trees. In the gathering night, they resemble snakes across her path.

May 28, 2008

Copyright 2008 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and Compost Studios. All rights reserved.

It’s a gray Sunday afternoon and the doorbell rings. She makes her child answer it, expecting it’s a neighborhood friend, but it’s not.

She hears, “Can I speak to your parents?”

She leaves the blue glow of the computer, conscious that both her face and clothes are rumpled, her hair uncombed. She is bringing her private self to the front door.

As soon as she sees the two young men in crisp white shirts, ties, and black pants, she knows they are from the Church of Latter Day Saints.

She wonders why the Mormons don’t rule the world because their missionaries are so much cuter than everyone else’s, but she doesn’t say this to the earnest young men at her door, one with dark wavy hair, hazel eyes, and perfect teeth, the other with bangs, brown eyes, and the easy smile of the boys that used to play softball on Friday nights in her hometown.

They ask her how she’s doing and she says OK.

Then they rephrase the question, say it a bit more slowly: “You had a good day--really?”

And she sees the sincerity in their eyes, their unlined faces, their unblemished cheeks, and she decides to tell them about the cracks in the basement wall, her broken foundation, the influx of muddy water. No, she did not have a good day.

And they surprise her by immediately saying, “Do you need help?”

She knows--she knows if she says she needs help they will roll up those perfectly creased white sleeves and descend into the messy dimness of her life.

And she isn’t even pretty or young or crying—all the things that normally elicit chivalry from men.

She stares down at her scruffy sheepskin slippers. She hides her hands in the pocket of her big sweatshirt. She hates that her glasses are magnifying her eyes in all their bleary weariness.

"No," she says, offering them a smile. "I don’t need help at the moment. I just need it to stop raining." 

They ask questions and listen to her answers. She confides about leaving Europe, the toughness of the move tempered by the joy of the new house, and then the terrible discovery, the financial dilemma, the breach of trust.

They don’t look bored. They don’t interrupt.

The boy with the bangs shares a story from his hometown of a similar predicament, a house with a cellar that the buyers didn't even know about, a hidden cellar that threatened to bring the whole house down. She feels the dark pull of this dirty space, can smell the dank air, the stench of secrets.

They ask how her walls and foundation can be fixed, and she tells them how everything will be dug up: the very ground they’re standing on, the flowers that are blooming on every side, the flagstone sidewalk, the view she adores. All the beauty, torn apart.

They nod with sympathy. Their black pants are so dark against her white porch under the gray sky. With all her faults revealed, they open a conversation about Jesus, and she listens because they have listened to her and because it is comforting to bask in the warmth of their youth, their innocence, their faith.

Once upon a time, she was like they are.

Once upon a time.

They ask her how Jesus manifests himself in her life and without thinking she says, “I’m still here… I’m still here.”

But that’s another story, too complicated, too personal to share, so she quickly retreats to a safer topic.

She says that she is an Episcopalian, and they ask her what that means to her.

And that’s when she lies to them, claiming membership in a local church she has not attended. She hasn't been to church since she arrived in America months ago. 

Her untruth hangs in the air and pings their radar. It seems they're testing her veracity when they ask, “Where is St. XXXXX’s? Is it near here?”

Yes, she says, it’s downtown.

She doesn’t say, “It’s the church with the Tiffany window, tall steeple, and gay rights activists.”

But it is.

These Mormon boys seem so pure and she feels so shabby, her sins clinging to her like burrs on a sweater. Lying about church, unwilling to admit how lost she is,  how the church located only a mile away feels like it’s in an alternative universe and exerts no gravity on her.

They continue to talk to her about God.

Then, repentant, she shares a big truth: the work of her faith now is to forgive, to let go, to move forward after being betrayed, to trust again.

And they know it’s about more than the basement.

Or maybe she just imagines that they understand. They're only boys. But then she thinks, they're old enough to have had their hearts broken.

They once again offer to help her. "Can we  move plants before the excavators come and put them back later?"

And she is touched by their willingness to try and salvage her life and restore it to some semblance of normality, some former state of beauty.

They add a bit conspiratorially: “If we do some service hours, then we get to get out of these shirts and ties.”

She laughs then. “When you see how dirty the work is, you’ll be wishing for a tie instead.”

They give her a brochure with their names and phone numbers on it and tell her to call if she needs them.

She smiles. She thanks them. She wishes them a good evening.

The door clicks shut.

Her family ambushes her as soon as they leave.

Her smirking husband says, “Why didn’t you invite them in and offer them a beer or cup of coffee?”

Her kids are impressed that these young men were willing to help strangers. She tells them they did that because they’re Christians. She then gives them a 60-second summary of Joseph Smith and the Mormon faith. She tells them all the young men in the church spend a year as missionaries.

Her daughter says, “Sounds cool but they shouldn’t HAVE to go door to door in order to belong to the church.”

Her husband says, “I heard you tell them we’re Episcopalians! I bet they’re writing our address in a little black book with a note that says, ‘Family here is condemned to hell.’"

She laughs.

But she holds onto the brochure they gave her, the one with Jesus cradling a lamb on the cover.

She’s holding onto their faith.

Holding onto their promises.

Holding on.

May 19, 2008

Window shades drawn, messages under lock and key, so many stone walls, a lamp not lit...

A Secret Life

Why you need to have one

is not much more mysterous than

why you don't say what you think

at the birth of an ugly baby.

Or, you've just made love

and feel you'd rather have been

in a dark booth where your partner

was nodding, whispering, yes, yes

you're brilliant. The secret life

begins early, is kept alive

by all that's unpopular

in you, all that you know

a Baptist, say, or some other

accountant would object to.

It becomes what you'd most protect

if the government said you can protect

one thing, all else is ours.

When you write late at night

it's like a small fire

in a clearing, it's what

radiates and what can hurt

if you get too close to it.

It's why your silence is a kind of truth.

Even when you speak to your best friend,

the one who'll never betray you,

you always leave out one thing;

a secret life is that important.

--Stephen Dunn

In 1972, my sister Louise was planning a big adventure. A 24-year-old secretary, she had saved up a sizable amount of her modest income so that she could travel Europe for a month with her best friend. In the spring, she bought a set of Samsonsite luggage, and it came with a bonus gift, a little sprig of a miniature orange tree.

My sister Louise gave the orange tree to my mother Louise, who had a knack with houseplants. It grew from a six inch stick to several feet in height under my mother’s loving care. Much to our delight, it burst forth with sweet-smelling white flowers followed by oranges the size of walnuts. It seemed a bit magical, this tree, producing baby citrus fruit in our house.

When my parents moved from New York to Virginia, my mother managed to move the orange tree too, and it kept blooming in its new location in my mother Louise’s sunny kitchen. It was ten years old and thriving there in 1982 when my sister Louise died after a long battle with cancer.

It was twenty years old when my mother Louise died of cancer ten years later, in 1992. Still in the kitchen, it was a bittersweet reminder of the two Louises.

My husband, an avid gardener who shared a special bond with my mother, loaded the tree (and most of my mother’s other houseplants) up in his pickup and transported them to our home in Virginia, about 180 miles away. He pruned the little tree, occasionally fertilized it, treated it to a special citrus tree “cocktail” once or twice a year, and treasured the way its blossoms perfumed the air in the winter. When our children came along, they too delighted in the novelty of miniature oranges being produced at their house.

When the time came for us to move to Belgium, we gave away most of our houseplants, but we couldn’t possibly give away the tree that reminded us of the two Louises. The orange tree in its enormous white pot was driven 180 miles to western Virginia and put in the care of my big brother.

It was 2005, and the tree was now 33 years old.

Maybe in a stroke of what Buddhists refer to as “interbeing,” the tree remembered that my sister Louise had only been given 33 years on the planet.

Maybe it missed my mother.

Maybe it missed us.

Whatever the cause, despite my brother’s diligent care, the tree started dropping leaves and losing its vitality after we moved.

E-mails were exchanged between my husband, the master gardener in Belgium, and my brother, keeper of the family tree,  in Virginia. The Virginia Tech extension office was consulted for advice. My husband shared the recipe for the special "cocktail" my mother had fed the tree with. All sorts of actions were taken, and my brother and his wife were more than a little dismayed when they had to tell us that despite all their efforts, the tree had just died.

All that remained...

They moved the dead tree outdoors, under the watchful eyes of the statue of St. Francis, and my brother, who had saved some of the seeds from the last harvest of oranges, planted them in small pots and watched them sprout and grow. It was my family’s way of remembering my sister and my mother, of keeping them alive in our hearts.

The baby orange tree, grown from seed 

Maybe it was that act of faith.

Maybe it was a manifestation of our hope of one day seeing the two Louises again.

Maybe it was further evidence of “interbeing” and mystical connection between ancestors and future generations.

Whatever the cause, my brother and his wife witnessed a miracle on their front porch: the “dead” orange tree, now 36 years old, came back to life.

Somehow, out of all the dry brown wood and a long season of nothingness came new green leaves.

 A bit scraggly, but alive

Today the orange tree is once again under my husband’s TLC.

And the baby orange tree? My kids consider it their own.

See, not all family heirlooms are silver and gold--some are green and leafy and offer lessons in resilience.

I'm keeping faith that the tree, like our family, will bloom again and bear fruit.

May 9, 2008

the prompt: what are you afraid of? really afraid of?

i'm afraid:

i will turn into a shapeless dumpling

of the day i won't be able to go out walking in the woods

the meds won't work

i will never be loved that way again

i will never love that way again

i've fallen off the pedestal he put me on years ago

i will hide behind khakis, loafers, my address, his income

i will be silenced

people will discover i'm not so smart after all

i'll stop sharing the truth of who i am

i'm a fool for sharing the truth of who i am

i'll be forgotten by people i want to remember me

i'll never again be held just for the sake of being held

i'll never be able to support myself

i've lost my faith

i will never see you again

and never get over it

i'll travel to the end of my life still hungry

with no one to hold my hand. 

What are you afraid of?

May 4, 2008

The financial planner handed them copies of his report and reviewed the recommendations.

"Based on current models, you can expect to live to 95, and your husband until age 92."

The numbers were in front of her, and at 46 she saw her life spiraling in two directions, one toward death, one toward birth.

Part of her was elated at the thought she might be less than half way through, and for a second her brain teemed with hope that she might have time to satisfy all her unfulfilled desires. But then the vision of a 95-year-old woman crashed her party, and she recoiled from frightening thoughts of a walker and a single bed, days spent alone, eyes glued to a spot on the ceiling.

She stared at her hands--already bony with prominent veins--and imagined them 50 years later, stiffened and covered with paper thin skin, purplish bruises that never heal, and age spots announcing decay.

What could those hands accomplish?

Would anyone hold them?

Would they dispense tenderness or tremble with the futility of having nothing left to hold on to?

Her husband saw his life as a straight journey from cradle to grave, a linear progression of events and milestones. He moved steadily forward and left everything behind.  There was no reason to waste time looking back or fret over what was ahead.  He was programmed to let the days of his life slide back and click behind him in neat rows, like the uniform beads on an abacus that calculates costs in dollars, not sense.

But her life was different. It was a long strand of multicolored beads coiled in the bottom of a deep pocket, the shapes irregular,  the beauty varied, the texture uneven. Each bead was a moment in time and they all touched one  another. The threads connecting them circled and spiraled and threatened to tangle and knot. She carried all her days and all her years with her at once, tucked into her pocket, heavy with meaning.

She could not discard a single bead of experience or failure, or relinquish her dreams and lighten her load. Even the rough and ugly ones mattered, a foil to the ones that shined. While the pearls of her existence were lovely and luminous, the best moments glowed  with energy and clarity, the color of wine and roses.  How many red days would she have? What would the color of her life look like in the end?

The financial planner continues to speak for nearly an hour. She and her husband are side by side, but they don't hold hands. Their legs don't brush each other under the table. Their shoulders don't touch. In theory, they have 42 more years of marriage ahead of them. He sits obediently with his head bent, studying graphs, tables, and pie charts. She is lost in thought, fingering the beads in her pocket, riding the wake of his words.

April 30, 2008

Copyright 2008 Compost Studios and Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

Be on my side, I'll be on your side, baby
There is no reason for you to hide
It's so hard for me staying here all alone
When you could be taking me for a ride.

Neil Young--Down by the River

April 16, 2008

I like to think

I was your favorite

mistake.

We only had silver--

never gold.

Diamonds were too hard

the cost too high--

We chose onyx and turquoise instead.

Today all I see is black and blue--

All our bruises

Still tender

After all these years.

We never stopped

circling each other.

Another round and

I'm dizzy wondering

When will this end?

I am done with rings.

I  am turning--

Searching for hands

reaching out

holding on

steadying me

while the world tilts and spins.

April 11, 2008

The past retrieved from a distant place, cut open, unwrapped, laid bare:

A silky ivory nightgown trimmed in lace with a matching robe. A honeymoon trousseau.

She has no memories of wearing that gown.

What she remembers about her wedding is the unexpected snow storm that blanketed the Blue Ridge that Sunday in spring.

After the reception, they left town, on their way to a rustic mountain lodge. They kept losing traction on the roads.

He stopped to put chains on the car tires. As he struggled to fasten them, his wedding band slid off his cold hands and disappeared into the drifted snow. The evening turned a darker shade of gray and the landscape became monochromatic.

When he told her he'd lost his wedding ring, she thought it was a joke, and then she worried it might be a Sign.

And when he found it ten minutes later, she once again considered the message the universe was sending.

The snow kept falling and deepening.

They moved forward ever so slowly, heading into the wilderness in the dark.

There were no plows. There was not a tire track or a footprint or a sign of life on the winding road. Uncertain about lanes and shoulders, he drove down the middle,  just to be safe, hoping to see headlights, taillights, some indication they were not alone on the journey.

But they were.

And when they were alone later that night, she knows she slipped into that ivory gown, but she doesn’t remember the way it felt on her skin or the moment it ended up in a heap on the floor.

What she remembers, what she will always remember, is the black sky clearing of clouds, the stars emerging, a full moon rising over the lake, bathing the snow and the water in shimmering light.

This is the scene she holds onto:

the way the heavens and the earth sparkled in the bitter cold,

the way their laughter rose in the heat.

The ivory gown?

She's not going to save it.

April 5, 2008