A new restaurant has opened not far from where I work. I paused in my journey this morning to peer at the menu from afar. Words rang out. “Hey, Nigger. This is where people walk.” Startled I turned toward the voice to see a young white man striding past. Now I’d seen him earlier in the morning. He was clearly strung out on something so there was no need to say anything in return. But as I returned to work I was startled that the words of a junkie, someone clearly in need of some help of some sort, could touch me so. Probably doesn’t help that I am currently immersed in historical research about the profiling and imprisonment of free Black seaman in the antebellum south.
Nor does it help that as Steve and I continue to make our way in this world that people continually, immediately, assume that I am either the paid home health aid or the overnight caregiver. And so then the onus is on me to calmly explain that I am his wife. The onus. I know of a lovely older Black woman in an interracial relationship and she shared that in the retirement community where they reside she always carries her resident card to prove she belongs there and is not “just” a visiting care giver.
We live in a time of unprecedented whitewashing where people in power are trying to normalize outright racism and bigotry and even more so foment deep and abiding ignorance about this nation’s past let alone its present. People are not questioning their assumptions. Race does matter regardless of what a super rich and powerful white minority are trying to assert.
Just some Sunday musings … best get back to my research so that that forgotten story can be shared soon.
When my father was reassigned to Vienna we had to say good-bye to all of our friends. We had a party with my school friends. I “planned” it but my Ayah did all the work. The Ayah took care of me and my sister and made sure we weren’t stolen. She tucked me in bed at night, and chased the animals out. She got me up each morning. She was dark of skin with long dark hair. She would get me out of trouble and keep me safe. If I broke something, like a nice glass or cup, she often took the blame for me.
Hadi was the butler and oversaw the house and whole compound. He reported to my father. He was kind and gentle. One day I decided to cook a steak. I had to cook something. I was in the kitchen. I don’t remember why. He watched as I cooked the steak guiding me. When I thought it was done he said no but I didn’t listen. I insisted on eating it and it made me sick.
Let’s end with the Maharajah. My first impression of him was that he was fat. I mean he was a very big man to a small boy. My dad took me to work at the library that was located in Coorg. And that’s where I think I first saw him. He and my dad and I took a walk around his place. I wouldn’t call it a palace. Big compound is closer. The animals were loose in the compound. There was an elephant, gray, probably a male but I don’t know for sure. Probably a giraffe. He hunted. He shot a mother tiger and captured the cubs. There was a batch of those that I saw and played with. Four of them. They were very small. They would fit in my hands if I held them now. I think I told you they were white but they weren’t white solidly through. I don’t remember what year that was but I saw him more than once. I know he met with Queen Elizabeth in 1961 as she toured India. I remember seeing her driving in a convertible. I was looking down from the roof of the library.
I can’t think of these times as unusual. It was simply my childhood. We moved on to Vienna for a few years. I joined the Boy Scouts, an international troop, and received an award for knot tying. I had weak ankles and a doctor their prescribed ice skating. My mother taught me some fancy ballroom dances and my father tried to teach me guitar. There I was introduced to sachertorte. It is still one of my favorite desserts. Like I said, simply my childhood.
In Bangalore, I used to walk to the local Indian school, St. Anthony’s Boy’s School. Sometimes I took a rickshaw. The driver would be peddling on the street and I would wave him down. It was cheap and I had enough pocket money. I thought school was thorough and complete meaning subjects were covered thoroughly and completely without any gaps or holes. But when I went on to a British school in Bangalore I discovered there were holes in what I had been taught. It didn’t matter. I just loved learning and reading. Given that my father ran a library there were plenty of books at my disposal. My parents were open to me reading anything. There were no PTA (parent teacher association) meetings. No judgements. My father probably gave me the most books on all sorts of subjects.
The dachshund would meet me when I walked home from school. My general routine after returning home was to put on outdoor clothes and go climb a tree. There were not so many other kids around. Sometimes a few. We lived on Richmond Road, a street with lots of bungalows. White people generally lived in these bungalows, mostly Brits. They worked for the state I guess maybe civil servants.
after first communion
My dad had a jeep as part of his job. On Sundays we would drive to mass at the Catholic church. I remember the building as spacious. Sometimes he would drive me to the library where he worked. That seemed spacious to me too. Everything seemed spacious to me back then. Even our bungalow.
I remember the bungalow had a veranda. I remember lots of plants on ours planted by the gardener and by my dad as well. My father liked to garden growing all kinds of plants edible and not. I remember everything from African violets to basil.
In addition to the dachshund and siamese cat, he owned parakeets. About four or five blue parakeets in a green cage. He also kept fish in a standard fish bowl. They were just plain old fish not very interesting to me. He also kept two horses. He loved animals. He’d grown up on a farm in Nebraska.
I fell from a mango tree and my dad looked at my arm and decided it was broken and took me to the doctor. I also fell while climbing a wall. A piece of the wall broke off in my hand and that’s how I fell. A stranger, an Indian man, picked me up and took me up to the house. Broke my arm that time too catching myself with my hand and elbow beneath me. But aside from events like this I felt safe and happy in Bangalore.
I enjoyed the food. My first glass of water there I drank not realizing there were peppercorns in the glass. Overall the food was not spicy. We had a cook. He would make me fried chicken. When my father was entertaining he would take over the kitchen. He greatly enjoyed cooking. From him I learned how to make pesto. He was a good cook.
My younger sister had been born in Italy. My mother had her hands full with me, a baby and my father and all our animals. She was very beautiful and always smelled nice. Like flowers.
I don’t remember writing the story in 2012 or so. What I do remember is that early on in our relationship I might say to Steve as we hiked, “Ah, we’ve come to a fork in the road. Which one do we take?” And his response was always something to the effect, “If there’s a fork in the road, pick it up.” Not so helpful a reply in the moment but more helpful creatively than I ever imagined. The seeds were planted so when one day a little girl asked me to make up a story about a stone in my rock collection … well, the following story somehow evolved. https://www.creativity-portal.com/articles/cynthia-staples/long-walk.html
Usually, in the morning, I let … I mean that I empower … Steve to roll out of bed, make coffee and cook me, I mean us, eggs over easy. Always one egg on one piece of toast and maybe some fruit on the side. Kind of spartan but it works. But in recent times I noticed the number of eggs in the fridge were diminishing at a faster rate. Now Steve’s tai chi instructor Jon makes occasional house visits because it can be a bit of a trek for Steve to make it to the dojo. Jon can come in the mornings usually after I’ve left for work. One day I called home to ask Steve if Jon had shown up. He said, “Yes. I cooked him breakfast.” I did a double take. “Aren’t we paying him to come over and give you a workout?” “Yes, but I asked if he was hungry and he said yes and so …”
Now what I remember from ages ago, after Steve’s surgeries and he could appear and was indeed pooped all of the time, is that for a visit with company customers he pulled together (without me being present as sous chef) an amazing fruit and cheese grazing platter BEFORE they all went out to dinner and THEN returned to our place for a nightcap that he orchestrated. He was in heaven. When I described this scene to his PCP she nodded sagely and said, “Some people are energized by being hospitable.”
And so this morning as I raced out of bed (alarms didn’t go off) and raced about to make coffee and check the egg situation … well, there were three eggs. I knew Jon was coming by for class. If Steve and I had one each that would leave just one for Jon. So I put the container back in the fridge and decided we were having smoked salmon and cream cheese on toast. Steve, without even knowing the egg situation, said that would be just fine.
When I returned home, I looked in the fridge. One egg in the case. I asked Steve, who was in another room, and already knowing the answer, “Did you fix Jon breakfast?” “Yes,” he shouted back. “He said thank you before we went outside to practice with the kendo sword.”
I smiled and closed the refrigerator door. Gotta buy some more eggs this weekend.
Yesterday Steve and I were looking down at a single sheet of paper. His last will and testament dated August 2018. In that year during that month just a few days before that will was completed we had sat in a doctor’s office, the top in his field. He stared intently at a scan of Steve’s brain. He eventually nodded and essentially said I see where it is, it is growing fast so how about we do the surgery early next week.
What followed was this blur of activity as Steve kept us focused on the practical like preparing his office to be without their scientist, contacting financial institutions, filling the fridge, making sure I knew passwords, and of course sharing the news with family and friends. We had been in the process of updating his will and doing my first will anyway. But there was no time to complete that process so the lawyer coached him through what to put on that single sheet and to sign with witnesses present.
As I have told Steve over the years he attracts a strong team and the medical team was strong for the surgery. And they were strong for the unexpected second brain surgery that took place the following year and the subsequent intensive physical therapy. In between the two surgeries my youngest brother died in Virginia. Steve couldn’t travel with me. Following the second surgery my second oldest brother died. Steve determinedly made that trek. He could not do so when my eldest brother died only a few months later of cancer during the midst of the pandemic. Nor could I.
And in the midst of all that we closed on a house just as the pandemic struck. It was one of the most onerous processes I’ve ever been through. We moved ourselves in. The backyard was a demolition area but we managed to use every nook and cranny on the side of the house to grow a garden. Steve had his tomatoes and basil. I had my herbs and flowers. I accidentally hoarded eggs instead of toilet tissue and Steve was able to work in the basement and build us a dining room table. We zoomed zoomed zoomed like everyone else for work and to connect with family and friends. We did make excursions around the neighborhood with me constantly snapping at Steve to pull up his mask. We were cautious but not afraid. In a sense we were resolute … you deal with what comes at you because that’s all you can do.
Before August, nearly three years later, we will have our official wills completed. That’s why we were looking at that older document, to remind ourselves, and to reflect, “Wow. Three years? Is that when this whirlwind journey began?”
The yard that was a demolition project is now a full-fledged garden with different raised beds that Steve built. He has retired, more or less, and now enjoys the ability if not the outright necessity of impromptu midday naps. I was able to remain employed and of late have been given leave to do more writing and historical research. I’m committed to resuming photography and more creative writing, with what extra time I don’t know.
Soon Steve and I will go outside to pick some basil. Pesto will be made along with dinner. He moves a little slower in the kitchen in the evening hours so I will be sous chef and perhaps take some photos for instagram. I’ve had more pesto this year than in all the earlier years of my life. I can’t complain. I don’t think I can complain about much of anything.
The backstory is that Steve and I moved just as the pandemic struck the U.S. and everything began to shut down around us. Given that he is a cancer survivor and over a certain age that put him at high risk. But we still had to daily get from point A to point B, continue (luckily) to work from home, pack a mammoth amount of stuff (mostly books), navigate in a necessarily socially distant world … and try not to confuse shortness of breath due to anxiety with shortness of breath due to the virus.
lemon verbena
We made our way into our new home where I immediately began ordering bookcases because neither of us realized that between our two book collections we could probably start our own bookstore. The previous owner had built out the interior of the home wonderfully but the back yard … hmmm … three plus months later we’re still waiting on a contractor to come in with a caterpillar to remove debris and put down loam and on and on … and all of that stuff takes time!
thyme
Now I tend to come across as a rather calm person but I can be as anxious as any other human and one of the coping mechanisms I have found in my life is gardening. Probably goes back to childhood in Virginia being in the vegetable garden with my dad and helping my mother plant the flowers. Anyway in a time of such great chaos on so many fronts I was determined to have a garden. Steve’s only request was to plant tomatoes and basil.
lemon basil
spearmint and orange mint
We’ve managed to do that and a bit more. The neighbors must think I’m crazy because I’m outside almost everyday to peek at the garden and take photos, and even Steve has gotten into the habit of asking me each morning, “How’s the garden doing?” I’ve forced him … I mean invited him … to put so much hard work into it that even now he owns it.
There is no rhyme or reason to the garden though I tried to be thoughtful at first. Keeping in mind pollinators. Keeping in mind bee-friendly. Keeping in mind full-sun, part-shade. Keeping in mind natural pest control. It became too much in this time. I just planted what would fit and tried to err on the side of edibility. The contractor is supposed to come next week. We’ll see … Chaos is still all around … in our personal lives, in the global realm … but for now there feels like space to breathe and to think and to consider planning.
I don’t feel like planning into the distant future right now but I can think about the seasons and what we might plant now to harvest in the fall and what we might plant now that will pop up in the spring. I think that’s good enough for now. 🙂
I don’t think the landlord’s landscaper purposefully planted the cosmos in the frontyard garden so that from the second floor I could stand at the kitchen window and find comfort in their pale purple color and swaying form down below. In the light of an overcast morning they appear pastel-like, soft and dreamy. I sometimes want to ask my landlord, can I please cut them so that I may place them in a vase and sit that vase on a desk just for me to see? But even if he allowed such a thing, those cosmos would no longer sway in the breeze. They would no longer offer sustenance to the creatures that feed upon their pollen. They would no longer be available to view by the landlord and his family who live on the first floor and from whose kitchen window they too can see the garden, though from a different perspective. They would no longer be available to view by the people on the street who pass by, on foot and by car, or who wait at the bus stop which is right there too. They would become a private thing, in decline in still waters, instead of public and vibrantly alive in the soil.
In the garden there are also sunflowers, some open and dying, and others yet to bloom. Milkweed is tucked here and there attracting (yay!) Monarchs, the first I’ve seen in a long time around here. The leaves of the lilies persist vibrant green though the flowers have long since had their glory in profusion. They line one wall of the garden while the other wall is lined by lavender. It is rectangular this garden. Not big, just big enough.
When I sit at the kitchen table, as I do now to write this post, I cannot of course see the downstairs garden but I can see my little upstairs indoor garden. And through the window I can see the the branches of the towering oak. It grows on an adjacent small plot of land, its shade not interfering with the garden at all. I enjoy the dark green of its leaves. I think the acorns have mostly fallen or been eaten by squirrels and blue jays. When winter comes and those leaves are gone, if I am still here in this place, I will be able to plant a whole new indoor garden in the hallway because light will stream in past the then-bared branches. My microgreen sprouts await, their seed packets tucked in a cool corner, awaiting their chance to thrive before I harvest them to add some spice to some winter soup or such.
In writing this post, I am procrastinating. Arrayed around me on the table are books and papers and pretty markers and a calendar or two. I have deadlines to meet on several writing projects. That’s a whole different side of my brain than the one I use for photography and design. That work is more free flowing. The writing has to be structured and I struggle to be in a structured place at the moment. I want to sway like the cosmos, go where the wind takes me but … I need to plant my feet (or actually my bottom to this chair) and focus. My writing deliverables are clear and to be honest not that hard to complete. I just need to do it, and stop contemplating about public and private spaces or the tumult that is this present world. And most of all I should not try to track down my crusty watercolors and try to paint purple cosmos and yellow sunflowers. At least not today. Alrighty … back to work. 🙂
The heat is making me and my little tabletop garden a bit droopy. But we’re hanging in there. Unruly or not, it’s nice to see that spot of green next to the window. Next major gardening goal is to plant the nasturtium seeds that my cousin gave me. I’ve got the dirt now I just have to find the gumption … which will most likely happen after the temperature falls tomorrow. 🙂
Yesterday I sat by the pond in Copley Square. It was just late enough and just chilly enough that few other people sat by the water that day. The light was low and golden. It bounced off the water to beautiful effect. Leaves drifted by in different colors and when they circled the concrete stretch they’d catch the light and glow.
Fallen leaves in swirling waters. I’ve photographed those a lot but that day I did not have my camera. Just food. I was kind of glad because then I could just eat and behold the beauty without trying to “capture” it on the screen. No camera also gave me freedom to look around me and so I noticed the woman across the pond, on the sidewalk side, next to Boylston Street.
She gazed in my direction but I do not think she saw me because she was quite focused on cleaning herself. She was deliberate and calm. You would have thought she stood in her own home staring into a mirror. First brushing her teeth and then flossing. A wet brush through her dark brown hair. Then a wash cloth to her face and other exposed bits of flesh. Just a quick wipe here and there. Like I said, it was cold that day. She did not fully take off her coat or the many layers beneath. All of the items she had pulled from a plastic ziploc bag which she tossed in the trash after cleaning herself. Then, after collecting several large trash bags, with great dignity she walked away.
Then my gaze fell upon the man who sat not too far from me. He was well-dressed. I imagined he was taking a respite from his workspace in one of the neighboring office buildings. I yearned to borrow his thick wool blazer as the wind created eddies in the pond. In his hand was a notebook. On occasion he would pull from his knapsack a pouch full of fancy pencils. I recognized them from one of my favorite stationery stores. The pencils were all sharpened and the page of his book was blank. He would take out pencils and then put them back and I wondered what vision he was hoping to realize on the page. In between reaching for the pencils he would reach into his pocket. At first I thought maybe for an eraser but instead he pulled out a little bottle and downed it in one sip. He didn’t toss it on the ground like I’ve seen some of the guys on the benches do. No, he simply gently placed it back in his pocket and reached for a pencil again.
By the time I finished my lunch the man had emptied several small bottles, and as I rose I could see the large brown bag tucked next to the brown leather of his shoes. Something to take home I guess. His head remained low the entire time. Only his hands moving really except for the quick tossing back of his head.
As I walked away, still, there was nothing on his page.
Words + Images 