Death by a Thousand Small Cuts

According to Wikipedia, “death by a thousand small cuts” is a way major negative change happens — slowly, in many unnoticed increments not perceived as objectionable. It is akin to the expression “boiling a frog,” where the belief is a frog placed in a pot of hot water will jump out, but one placed in cold water and gradually heated won’t notice the danger and will eventually be cooked to death.

I think this was the manner in which my second marriage was ultimately, incrementally extinguished. 

In the beginning, as in the end, it was all about the small things. I believe that had we continued our attention to the small things we could have sustained what was once the most important big thing — our marriage.

Initially, we specialized in details, niceties, and politeness. He was in the US Army and transferred to Seoul, S. Korea while we were dating. Before he left we spent hours talking about our concerns for the forced separation, but it turned out we excelled on separate continents, emailing each other daily (often multiple times) with long messages recounting the day’s activities and filled with sentiment for each other and plans for a future together. I raced home to check for his emails.

On weekends we invested two and three hour blocks of time burning the international calling plan and bridging time zones to discuss everything under the sun, the moon, and the stars. Under the classic “way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” philosophy, I regularly baked cookies to mail to him.

Separated by half a world, we still maintained a magical closeness.

After 18 months of long-distance relationship nurturing and maintenance I quit my job, moved to Korea, and we married. Together in time and space, he opened doors to buildings and vehicles for me and I thanked him for it. Hand in hand we rode the subway and walked around Seoul. We talked about our future and planned our life back stateside.

Three months later, he retired from the Army and we returned to the house he owned in Tennessee and a new life together. We continued our habits of paying attention to each other by talking, dreaming, holding hands and opening doors. Married life was good.

But somewhere along the line we stopped noticing each other. I don’t know when it happened, I only know that about four years into our marriage, I realize with a shock the many ways our relationship had shifted. We had managed to commit the tiny crimes of neglect we vowed to never do when we first married.

When he walked in the door from work, the warm “Hi, Babe” and quick kiss had been replaced with a curt “What’s for dinner?”

Instead of rushing home, I found reasons to be elsewhere.

We stopped eating facing each other at the dining room table and were eating side by side on the living room sofa, facing the TV.

The routine question of “How was your day?” was met with “OK,” or “crappy,” instead of the once detailed stories of coworkers, bosses, work successes and frustrations.

Too much space in between.

Weekend walks in the woods had been traded for near-silent observation of outdoor shows on TV.

We never emailed or spoke to each other during the workday.

We stopped talking to each other and replaced it with watching other people talking on TV.

My self confidence took a nosedive and I began provoking arguments primarily for the conversation and attention.

The volume and resonance of his snoring increased. I resented what I perceived as his indifference to the effect on my own sleep, and stomped down the hall to the guest room, where I set up permanent camp.

Where we had once done everything together — talking, shopping, hiking, driving aimlessly around town holding hands — we had degenerated to living separate, parallel, mostly silent lives.

When I expressed my concerns, he didn’t want to discuss it. He said he was happy and that we had a great marriage because we rarely fought. The way I saw it, we rarely fought because we didn’t talk, and a marriage is only as happy as the least happy person.

On separate continents, we were able to focus on each other and maintain closeness, but under the same roof, we had incrementally neglected each other until there was too much emotional space between us.

One thousand small cuts later, we signed papers for our divorce.

Originally published January 22, 2014 on www.Unite4Women.com

Fresh Start

New Year. New start. New baggage.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think any other day of the year arrives with the attached pressure to improve, remodel, and/or reorganize one’s life and/or self as does January 1st. The ‘old’ year is kicked to the curb with the drying Christmas tree and wrapping remnants and the ‘new’ calendar year is ushered in with parties, trumpeted fanfare, and champagne toasts as resolutions often focusing on self-improvement are enumerated and hopes and plans for the coming year freshly formulated.

Judging by the volume of resolution-related news headlines and social media posts, the custom of New Year’s Resolutions, which according to Wikipedia was practiced by ancient Babylonians, Romans, medieval knights, and Methodist Christians beginning in the 1740s at watchnight services, is still practiced by many people in the Western Hemisphere. In spite of the guilt I may feel as a result, I am not always one of them. Not right away, anyway.

I might get around to drafting resolutions within the first couple weeks of January, if at all. While it’s a nice marker, unlike important calendar reference points like Thanksgiving, my birthday, due dates on bills, or artwork submission deadlines, I don’t see the creation date of my potential resolutions as critical. Heck, half the time I could just change the date on the previous year’s resolutions, which means I am probably not even doing it right.

Unlike my workday goals (back when I had a job), which would be as specific as “Call Denise at (Client) Bank to discuss website navigation, and brochure copy” and “Send home refinancing ad file to Kathy at (Client’s local) newspaper” my annual “resolutions” are often not drafted for precision. My personal goals generally include generalities like “exercise more,” “create more art,” and “write more,” with “more” more or less defined as exceeding whatever level of personal physical activity, journaling or artwork was produced the prior year. Some years I fail miserably on the “more” target, setting a new, low, more easily attainable bar that boosts the chances for stellar success in the coming year.

Back when he held the title “husband,” ex-husband 2.0 would insist we write goal lists each new year, which we shared and compared and more often than not, filed away somewhere, never again to see the light of day. While packing to move from Tennessee to Massachusetts, I found one such list, penned in red ink on a sheet of lined notebook paper. Some goals on the list, such as traveling and buying a different house, had been achieved, but more interestingly, were accomplished by me alone, post-divorce. While successfully cultivating our growing bank balances with Depression-era inspired thrift practices (acting like we were totally poor and rarely going out) we were woefully, shamefully, deficient at cultivating a marital partnership. For seven years, we spent most of our “together time” staring at the TV with him shushing me when I tried to speak. The realization that the majority of our communication was the direct result of me provoking a fight meant it was time for a goal list of my own, which included “save money and get the hell out” and was ultimately, supremely successful.

More recently, my philosophical approach to New Year’s resolutions is akin to the wish made every year on my birthday for as long as I can remember -- To be happy. General. Simple. Timeless. Renewable. Consequently, my resolutions are simultaneously perpetual and attainable. And like I said already, I’m probably doing it wrong anyway.

Adventureland

The search for a ‘real’ job has been going badly. And by “badly,” I mean absolutely horribly, which in this case can be more precisely defined as nine full months of full-scale networking, seeking out, and applying to positions in marketing, writing, internal communications, public relations, and assorted and sundry combinations of marketing writing, marketing communications, and public relations.

I may need therapy before too much longer. The mood swings are about to kill me.

There is an initial surge of optimism when reading a job description containing a perfect match of qualifications and experience, which provides energy to power through the requisite tweaking of the resume and original customized, carefully crafted cover letter. The exhilaration builds at the proofreading/polishing stage and reaches full pitch with the push of the “send” button that releases a simultaneous deep exhalation of relief and propulsion of history, professional qualifications, and best paper version of oneself through the cybersphere to a usually unidentifiable recipient.

And then .... the crushing burden of nothing. Or at best, an auto-respond message from a computer acknowledging receipt of the email, followed by nothing for days, weeks or even months. Once, I received a rejection letter within an hour of submitting my resume which resulted in a period of stunned shock at the near instantaneous rejection, but several months usually pass before receipt of a politely worded email notification that “after careful consideration of the many qualified applicants,” someone else who is not me was chosen for the job.

It was two months into the process when it first became difficult to maintain a level of optimism. This was after sending approximately 30 resumes in response to job postings for which I was an excellent match according to the stated requirements and qualifications and receiving no response. Now that the resume count tallies 80 specific jobs applied to (most with no response), most days it feels flat out impossible to muster even the tiniest spark of optimism. The light at the end of the tunnel is about as bright as the flame from a single, tiny birthday candle which has nearly burned out.

Worse, it has become flat out embarrassing to continually contact specially selected references about the perfect job for which I am applying which requires reference information as part of the application packet, forwarding a copy of the resume packet submitted, and receiving a query a couple weeks later from said references who wonder if they will ever be contacted by the hiring director of the fabulous art museum, marketing company, public relations firm, or university department. Hmmm.... I was wondering if I would ever be contacted myself. No news feels like very bad news here.

I thought my self esteem was low in high school. This job search allows me to daily plumb new depths in mood and confidence.

As ski season and Christmas approached with the annual period of holiday/seasonal hiring, I decided to explore options in part-time employment because for one thing, there has been no income since mid-February 2013. For another, I feel better when I am around people, and I know from experience that I can tolerate even the most horrible job if I know at the outset there is a predetermined endpoint.

Armed with desperation and self-awareness, I applied to two retail establishments and a ski resort. I was really hoping to be hired at the ski lodge where I had worked as a waitress for six ski seasons a lifetime ago, but the call that actually (miraculously) came from HR was inquiring about my availability for a position that involved doing laundry for the departments with uniforms. The hours were not ideal, but the free season ski pass awarded to employees, coupled with the finite duration of the job made it palatable. The phone call was wrapped up with word that the ‘next step’ would be an in-person conversation in a week, but instead, the next week I received a polite email informing me “we hired someone else who is not you.” I was already engaged in training at one of the retailers by this point, which thankfully cushioned the blow a bit. At least I wasn’t completely undesirable, even though I couldn’t score a job washing ski parkas. I never heard from the second retailer, although its holiday job ad appeared regularly in my email inbox for several weeks after I had applied.

As for the job I accepted -- it’s going great. It’s retail, so the schedule and hours are irregular, ranging from eight hours a week during training and bouncing between 16 and 28 hours a week post-training, with no discernible pattern, rhyme or reason to the days or the shift hours. But I get a store discount, my checking account is receiving deposits for the first time in months, and I possess exactly the right amount of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to find the work meditative. Therapeutic. Challenging. Pleasant, even.

When facing a display of (once) folded jeans that looks like it suffered a violent ransacking or perhaps an explosion, it is gratifying to produce visible progress in the refolding and re-organizing of the colossal denim mess. It is satisfying to direct a customer to the brands of jeans that hit at the natural waistline, discuss tunic tops for leggings, and illuminate the way to the scarves or slippers. I get to be in control of an area, repeatedly picking up shirts with wide boat necks that cause them to spontaneously slip from hangers or items abandoned by shoppers in the fitting rooms, other departments, or on the floor.

One shift, while organizing the clothing on the fitting room rack which is strategically placed to allow customers to deposit the items they do not want to buy after trying them on, I overheard a conversation that made me want to slap someone, or at least deliver a lecture. It went thusly:
    Girl: “Mom, what should I do with the stuff I don’t want?”
    Mom: “Oh, just leave it there. Someone will take care of it.”

I wanted to say, “Oh, is that how it works at your home, Mom?”  But I didn’t. 

When I entered the fitting room vacated by the teenage girl, I was faced with a dozen empty hangers on the hooks and the fitting room seat and a knee-high pile of clothes turned completely inside out and left in a heap on the floor.

This is probably not how I will want to earn my living for the rest of my (many) working years. I would much rather be parked on my butt issuing  high-level strategic challenges to myself like “meet the designated word count/beat the deadline clock” while writing press releases or website content about exhibits or history or finance or economic development or free checking accounts.

But my self-imposed sentence reorganizing the wake of my fellow humans will be served once the New Year rolls around anyway. And like I said, I can tolerate anything for a discrete period of time, even if it is picking up behind people who behave as if the sole function of an entire class of low-wage workers is to clean up their trail of destruction.

KDrama Desires

If you know me offline, you are probably aware of my open love for Korean Dramas. It is possible you were forced to watch them in my home or endured hours of my babbling about them. You might have heard me say something perfectly rational like “I’m sorry, I can’t meet up for [some activity involving personal interaction] because [beloved KDrama du jour] is on.”

This morning over coffee, after witnessing me watching 14 episodes of  “Boys Over Flowers” on Netflix this week and once or twice remarking that I would do something or other in some number of minutes “when this episode ends,” Mom  looked at me and asked, “What is it with you and the Korean Dramas?”

I’ll tell you, like I told her.

My primary attraction to Korean Dramas is that the stories have a finite number of episodes and a beginning, a middle, and an end. And they really end. After 16 or 25 or some other number of episodes, it’s wrapped up with a bow on it. Over. Completed. None of this 50-year ongoing nonsense like General Hospital. My attention span is not equipped for American soaps. I want a story, not a lifelong commitment to fictional characters.

And speaking of the story ... KDrama stories tend to favor family values and issues of the heart. The drama may be based on a graphic novel. There might be generational differences as the younger character feels conflict over entering the family business (or not), or when a devastatingly attractive character from the upper class falls for a rather plain “commoner” to the utter horror of the wealthy parents and thorough delight of the less well off parents. There might be a stunningly beautiful dragon lady matriarch, especially on the upper class side of the equation. There is probably an adorable, intelligent younger brother in the mix to add comic relief to the stress of keeping the family from the brink of ruin.

Unlike American soaps, KDramas, for the most part, lack the near-nudity and bed hopping that seem commonplace in the midday soft porn of American soaps. I’m pretty sure much of my early sex education was delivered in the form of afternoon soap operas. It is still a cheap thrill on that rare, odd, glorious morning when I awaken with still neatly coifed hair and unsmudged makeup “just like a soap star,” except, unlike a daytime drama, there is never a witness to this miracle and I am likely wearing mismatched pajamas and not a shimmering designer evening gown or satin nightgown.

The downside for me with Korean Dramas is the invading sense of want experienced while watching them. The settings have me longing to revisit places I saw in Korea (like Namsan Tower, the markets, and Seoul Hyatt), and see those I missed (like Jeju Island and Busan). Note: This is not unique to Korea -- the same thing happens if I see a movie set in Paris or Reykjavik or Los Cabos or anyplace else I ever visited and enjoyed.

When a Korean drama series ends, it feels a bit like breaking up with a boyfriend. There is sadness, melancholy, closure, the freedom to move on to something else, and the wonder of what to do with all the new free time. Unique to the Korean dramas, there is relief at being spared an ongoing saga and string of characters killed off to later return as a previously unknown twin. (Yes, All My Children of my college years, I’m looking at you.)

KDramas often feature food and the result is I miss the food in Seoul even more. Sure, there was stuff I was afraid to eat like anything involving intestines and the silkworm larvae sold by street vendors. Thankfully, there is a good Korean restaurant in my current town and one I loved in my former residence in Tennessee that serve hot stoneware bibimbap (rice and vegetables with egg), but nothing quite compares to going to “Hooker Hill” in Itaewon at night to eat in the food tents that regularly and miraculously pop up after dark. Not to mention the pancake vendors in the pedestrian arts and antiques area of Insa-dong where we would shiver in the winter chill awaiting a fifty cent pancake filled with brown sugar and cinnamon, then step away from the counter to rejoin the end of the line and eat our way back to the front for another. Ahhhhh.

The cheesy hot pepper ramen at Yongsan Fast Food, down the hill from our apartment, radically and permanently changed my view of ramen. I miss the fish cake and the dried anchovies that seemed to be served everywhere. It’s now been 12 years living off my food memories. While I have worked out my own version of cheesy hot pepper ramen, I would fly back to Seoul in a heartbeat for the street vendor pancakes and fish cake I can’t find here.

F4 in Boys Over Flowers. Yaban Çiceği /2009 / Güney Kore

It’s depressing that smartly dressed, fashionable KDrama characters don’t exist in my real, American, every day existence. As a kid, I imagined adult life as a stretch of dinner parties populated by well-dressed people, and maybe when I was a kid, that’s what adult life was like. For one brief shining moment in the mid-to-late1980s, when Miami Vice inspired throngs of American men to give a crap about how they dressed, my life was like that. At the time, I had a (now-ex) husband who loved to dress well and sought opportunities to wear a suit and tie. (If only that trait could have offset all the problems we had. Sigh.) The law of nature seems to dictate that all good things must end too soon and it’s been a depressing landscape of men in crappy tee shirts, ball caps, and baggy-ass jeans ever since.  Except in my imagination. And my Korean dramas.

Dying Daily

After six months formally and officially dedicated to searching for a job since my return to Massachusetts, which were preceded by six months of a slightly more casual long-distance job search while still in Tennessee, I’m beginning to feel like some sort of an expert. An expert in what, I am not entirely sure, but 12 months invested in an activity must qualify me for some level of something, right? Even if the “something” is banging one’s head against a wall.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned throughout this soul crushing experience:

1. Searching for a job is the hardest job of which I know. Parked at the computer for three to six hours daily, I plow through job postings and company profiles until my eyes feel like they are going to bleed. Simultaneously, my shoulders are screaming in hunched over agony from sitting in a dining room chair perfectly suited to the height of the dining table, but not at all suited for long term use at the computer desk. It doesn’t help that almost nightly (and each morning), my head routinely bangs the upper bunk when I have the audacity to sit up straight in the futon/bunk bed in Mom's spare room. Between hunching in the “bed” and slouching at the computer, I fear I am now permanently stooped, like the stereotypical crone. Fortunately, the Halloween season is approaching and my elderly witch posture will seem appropriate, for a month anyway. Maybe I can get a job in Salem at one of the several witch museums!

2. Job search agents miss the mark. Often, and by a lot. I have “job search agents” established on job boards, company sites and social networks. The search terms are primarily “marketing” and “writing.” Can someone please tell my why the emails cheerfully touting the subject line “20+ new jobs in marketing” contain plentiful openings for dock and warehouse workers? Please? Although .... were I to become a dock worker, a gym membership would no longer be necessary, and I might even shed the 10 pounds I have acquired since “the broken leg incident” of October 2011. Maybe it’s time to redirect and set up additional job search agents for “laborer” and “witch historical interpreter.”

3. Some hiring managers are dreamers. Or they just lost a superstar employee they should have tried harder to retain. A shocking percentage of the marketing job postings I have seen require someone who not only knows how to write, develop and execute marketing strategy and tactics, and maintain client relationships (my last job), but also has extensive experience dealing with vendors and all aspects of production, expertise in every graphic design program available, years of HTML coding, and experience with a multitude of databases and content management systems. No kidding, this represents the combined skill set of three departments and four individuals at my last job. Maybe I need to go back to school and learn all this stuff, although that still wouldn’t provide me with the years of “increasing responsibility” demanded.

4. Passwords suck. Each company career system and automated job board requires a login and password, which wouldn’t be so bad except the criteria are always slightly different than the 32 logins and passwords already established elsewhere. The login might be an email address, but sometimes it is not. Some systems require passwords include a mix of capitals and lowercase. Some demand use of numbers and/or symbols, while others forbid such usage. Six character minimum, eight character minimum. It’s insane! My journal contains enough logins and coded password reminders to look like I am inventing a new language. Maybe I should.

5. Some companies request seemingly illegal information. Exactly why is my social security number needed in this first step of the process? And if it is illegal for an employer to ask an applicant’s age, why does their automated job application system require a birth date? Is that not the same thing? And the questionable questions come after one has already invested a solid 1.5 hours (or more) inputting information and uploading resume, cover letter and sample writing files. I suppose the company figures after they’ve already robbed you of that much time, you will just key in the info requested in an effort to stop the pain. And they are mandatory elements, so don’t think you can just skip over those fields and move onto the next screen. I tried. Screw you, companies of questionable questioning. Purely on principle and the advice of dozens of articles about preventing identity theft, I’m out.

6. The state’s “Career Center” is full of well-meaning people, but that doesn’t mean it’s helpful. My visit to the local career center was draining. I met with a “career adviser” in a sea of cubicles within earshot of countless other similar cubicles. I know we were within earshot, because I could hear the conversations emanating from ajoining cubicles. My visit was filled with special moments. Like when the adviser practically screamed, “What? A Bentley MBA can’t find a job??” Thanks, dude. I don’t feel enough like shit and die a little bit more inside every day as it is. Then, based on my income for the past six months (exactly zero dollars), Mr. Helpful practically demanded I visit the office that handles the SNAP program (food stamps). Recognizing he was doing his assigned task of pointing people to available resources, I managed to harness every ounce of strength I possess and not burst into tears right there in his cluttered little cubicle. I held back the flow until I got to the privacy of my car, where I then faced the additional challenge of restraining myself from punching the dashboard. Logic, finances, and my illegal absence of state-mandated health insurance won out (another tragic tale), saving both the dashboard and my fist.

Each day in the job search process is a new learning experience. I recently read somewhere that the average job search can take 12 months, but the average job seeker gives up looking after five months, so in between spells of pondering what these people do after the five month mark (give up eating?) I congratulate myself for persevering. I have a new hobby with the potential to bring in a bit of income once I find a venue at which to sell. In an attempt to prevent my spirit dying a bit more each day, I am focusing a different type of dyeing and an experiment with thrift store clothing to “upcycle” it with a fresh new look. For now at least, it keeps me busy. And if I can’t sell the stuff, I guess it will be a hand dyed Christmas for my family.

Vantage Point

On a breezy, sunny, summer afternoon, my oldest niece (age 14) rang me up asking if I wanted to go to a park with her, her two sisters, and my sister (aka their Mom). Amazingly, even though I was deep in the brain-fried vegetative state induced by moving digital candies around a screen in Candy Crush, I managed to wrest myself away from the computer and prepare for a trek to the great outdoors. I trotted upstairs to lace on some sneakers and realize that my one pair of jeans that fit were still in the washer. Sweat pants it is!

They picked me up and using the democratic process of majority rule and the civilized process of compromise we decided on Coggshall Park, a 212-acre city park not far from the family homestead. It had trails for the elders, a playground for the two youngest, and ducks, swans, and turtles for everyone.

As kids, my brother, sister and I trudged to Coggshall with our friends after school to ice skate on the frozen pond in the winters and rode our bikes there to enjoy the cool, shady roads and the playground in the summer. It’s where my brother and I were routinely flung from the treacherous, old mushroom shaped merry-go-round, and where we once (perhaps on a dare, the details are a bit fuzzy) marched into the mucky lake, soaking our jean shorts and prompting us to hide in one of the now extinct tree houses until we dried. It is the place where, as an adult, my brother demonstrated for a friend how he used to “ski down Moses Rock in his Sunday shoes.” Unfortunately, that particular day he was wearing construction boots which have radically different traction than dress shoes, and, as he put it, “Theisman-ed” his leg, snapping it just above the top of the work boot.

In short, the place is full of memories for us. Now we take my nieces so they can have their own memories, which lately include counting the turtles.

On this day, we decided to walk one of the trails, and the girls chose “yellow.” We began following yellow dots into the woods, passing the gigantic rock and scene of my brother’s leg incident, from which he was carried out of the woods by two EMTs (but not the original two female EMTs who first responded, because they couldn't actually pick him up). Sadly, that trail quickly became narrow and overgrown just beyond the boulder, so we turned back and decided to take “the trail that goes to the top of the hill where you can see over to KMart” on the other side of Mirror Lake. Even though I looked it up, I still have no idea if the trails have names at Coggshall, but since finding it previously, this is how the trail is referred to by my family.

This trail with blue markings is more rugged than my orchid colored Converse All Stars are prepared for, and I wished I was wearing my hiking boots, especially when facing a section of trail that was basically a steep wall of rock. But we come from hardy (some say stubborn) Finnish stock, so onward, ho!

The trail sparkled with mica which fascinated me as a kid. Actually, anything even remotely shiny fascinates my middle niece and me, so perhaps there are some crow genes mixed in there, too. This would explain a lot, most notably our unexplainable affinity for rhinestones, sequins and crystals.

My oldest niece and I reached the top of the hill a few seconds before my sister and the two younger girls and instead of the magnificent and sweeping view, the first thing I saw was a couple standing at the absolute best vantage point, pressed against each other, engaged in a full-blown standing lip lock. It reminded me of a high school dance make out session, except they were adults and this was the middle of a public park in the middle of an afternoon, not a darkened gymnasium.

 I shuffled around and called out to the others in my group, figuring the make out couple would stop and maybe even tear their bodies apart in an effort to remove awkwardness and share the view with us. I figured wrong. The female facing our direction just kept peering at us over the shoulder of her companion, and beyond that, there was no acknowledgement that they were no longer alone and that this is a public space. I remember being younger and in lust, but damn, I at least tried to be mindful of other people. Maybe it’s just my upbringing in the Puritan-founded Congregational Church where we sang regularly from the Pilgrim Hymnal and I shouldn’t apply “what I would do” to others.

When the other two nieces and my sister arrived, the first thing one niece yelled was “Hey, I can see Burger King!” which sounded better than “Hey, are the kissing people gonna fall off the rock?” or, “Is Auntie going to go shove those two people off the hill?” Because believe me, shoving them off the rock was kinda what I felt like doing. Luckily, I have a decently functioning internal editor when my nieces are concerned, and I was able to suppress my “Trail Rage.”

Having hauled my ten-ton Nikon up the trail, I tried to get photos of the long-awaited vista, but I was reluctant to march over to where the Make Outs were hogging the view. Consequently, my photos are from a crappy perspective. A few even include the amorous duo, but without actually zooming in on them.

Hopefully, the next time I hike up there the scenery will be absent a love scene worthy of a soap opera. After all, I’d like to get closer for a better view of Burger King.

Mystery Woman

Another day in the job search, another trip into Boston to meet with a recruiter, and another journey involving an automobile (which came dangerously close to running out of fuel on the return trip), multiple subway trains and a motley cast of characters, and my own two feet, clad in fashionable footwear that proved thoroughly unsuitable for hoofing it on brick sidewalks. Oops.

The Alewife Station parking garage was quite full on my arrival and I ended up parking on the rooftop level, but the weather was nice, so it was no big deal. Inside the station it was quiet and I took advantage of the absence of a queue to feed the pay station for my parking ($7) before visiting a different machine to feed more bills to add $10 value to my MBTA fare card (“Charlie Card”). 

In contrast to Alewife, the Downtown Crossing Station where I needed to change from the Red Line to the Orange Line to head to State Street was bursting with people, many quietly interacting with their personal life-support systems (aka cell phones). Music weaved into the buzz of trains and people and ventilation systems as I descended the stairs -- slightly Celtic, sounded like a fiddle, but not quite.

When I reached the platform to await the train which the info board said would be arriving in seven minutes, I found the source of the music. An elderly Asian man was seated on a bench with an Erhu, an Asian two-stringed instrument played with a bow. The music was light and pretty. It reminded me of the time I spent in Korea. An instrument case lay open at his feet and dollar bills and assorted coins had been tossed into it. After enjoying the music for about a minute (per the train arrival countdown on the message board), I dug a dollar out of the dwindling funds in my wallet and dropped it into the case. The Musician looked up at me, said “Thank You,” and kept playing.

As I returned to the spot near the the wall that I had momentarily vacated, a  guy in tan chinos and a pastel oxford shirt standing to the left of “my place” looked at me and raised his eyebrows, which I took to be a sort of greeting. Maybe it was an acknowledgement of my contribution to the entertainment. I smiled back.

A few minutes later, a guy wearing long shorts, a tee shirt, a sideways ball cap and sneakers, and drinking a beverage from a tall can entered the scene. He paused in front of the musician and set a handful of change into the case. The musician looked up at him, said “Thank You,” and kept playing.

Suddenly, a cluster of people arrived, probably transferring from another rail line within the station. Touristy-looking families in shorts, some dragging wheeled cases, jostled alongside men in business suits and women in dresses.  Amongst them was a round elderly woman, wearing a crocheted cap that covered most of her hair and was festooned with a large rhinestone pin. Tufts of gray hair poked out of her cap near her ears. She was dressed in rusty earth tones and carrying a plastic grocery bag. I heard her before I saw her. Over the noise of the station and the music, she arrived ranting loudly to nobody in particular or maybe everyone in general. “They don’t know nothing about giving directions! Nope. Nothing about directions. They don’t know a thing.” I thought for a second that she may have been talking via Bluetooth, but there was no evidence to support that theory.

The guy standing to my left caught my eye again and raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, as if to signal, “Uh oh, here come the crazies.” I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes in return. “Yup.”

The lady in the cap wobbled over to the bench with the Musician. She paused in front of a woman sitting on the bench and, still muttering about directions, bent over to peer at the screen of the iPhone the woman was using. IPhone Woman didn’t acknowledge the character standing before her and gawking at her phone, she just kept tapping letters on the screen. Then Talking Woman squeezed herself into the not really wide enough vacant space between iPhone Woman and the Musician, saying quite loudly and almost angrily, “And they don’t know a thing about Tokyo Rose,” shaking her head in dramatic disbelief.  The Musician slid away from her a little bit towards the edge of the bench and kept playing.

The guy to my left did his eyebrow thing again. It seemed we were both wondering what might come next, but it didn’t seem anyone else around was watching the show.

Talking Woman, who now captured my full attention with her sudden silence, started rooting around in her plastic bag and removed a large, smooth, beautiful plum. She held it close to her face and contemplated it for a few moments. Or something. I expected her to bite into it, but instead, she tucked the plum into the crook formed by her crinkly chin and neck and held it there with her hand. Her eyes closed for a second, and when she opened them, they began to tear up and her lip quivered a bit. It looked like there was a whole lot of something major going on inside her head and maybe her heart and she was on the precipice of a good cry.

I wondered what she was thinking and feeling. She looked sad. Maybe even distraught. I suddenly wanted to hug her. I wanted to ask if she was okay. I wanted to take her picture. Everything I suddenly wanted to do to this stranger felt invasive, including my inability to stop gawking. She was too far away to speak to and approaching her might have caused a commotion.

The information board counted down the minutes to the arrival of the next train. The Musician played. The Mystery Woman held her perfect plum under her chin. I watched and wondered.

When the message board and paging system announced the arrival of the inbound train, people rose from benches and stepped away from the walls in preparation for boarding. My Mystery Woman lowered her plum from under her chin, looked at it in her hand, and stood up. She turned towards the Musician still playing his music, leaned over, and gently placed the plum in his instrument case. She did it quietly, almost lovingly. The musician said “Thank you,” and kept playing. She had tears in her eyes as she entered the crowd to board the train with the rest of us.

I lost sight of the woman in the boarding process and didn’t see her in my train car,  but I’ve been thinking about her ever since. Who is my Mystery Woman? What’s up with Tokyo Rose? Is she really sad or am I misreading her? What is the deal with the plum?