Shine—Meat Puppets

I had a friend, once. I wish I could say that I still had her around, but I am fairly certain that I am better off without her in my life. But sometimes I think about her and I miss being able to talk to her—well, I guess I miss listening to her complain incessantly for hours, with an occasional forced interruption so I could vent too—it was definitely entertaining, if nothing else. She told me that I was never really her friend. I guess she was never really mine, either. 

When I got divorced, when I was going through the divorce, I literally unfriended everyone who was also friends with my ex-husband on all social media platforms, but particularly facebook. I was going back through my old facebook stuff and, although I vaguely recall doing such, realized that I just started unfriending anyone and everyone, family members, friends, didn’t matter to me as much as it mattered that I was sealed off from him or anyone connected with him. Now I find myself feeling like I could come out of the bubble. I don’t need it as much anymore. 

Grief does strange things to you. I thought I had healed enough that it was time to leave that part of my life behind. I didn’t want to be a wife to someone who didn’t even like me anymore. I would and will always be a mother. But I didn’t have to try raise a fourth child, reign someone in, be their conscience, self-esteem, or their entire reason for keeping a job and making house payments. I didn’t want to always hold my tongue, hold my breath, wait for an argument, or try to de-escalate a bad situation made worse by inebriation. I mean, I suppose that I do have a particular set of skills now…

I was healed enough to accomplish that feat, obtaining the divorce officially in 2018. A few months later, I removed my longtime best friend from my life. A month later I broke up with my boyfriend and, because of the end of that, changed my number and culled my friends lists again. A little while after that, a brief engagement, two idiots thinking love could save the world, I suppose. He said we needed time apart to work on our own goals. He has a new wife? Anyway a new girl and a new baby were recently spied at a school thing I took my kids to—after I moved back to my hometown. Who says that you can’t go home? Isn’t that Jon Bovi lyrics???? Or someone else? 

None of that really hurts now. It didn’t matter a whole lot to me when I moved back home that I had been hurt, intentionally or not, by people who claimed to love me unconditionally. Whatever their intentions were, mine were always  to love and be loved. I still hold all the love I have ever had inside my heart. I came back here, my home, and last year, I was with my Grandmother when she passed. It wasn’t easy. In fact, I would say that all the other old wounds from watching other people die were clawed at all over again, fresh scratches atop even deeper wounds that had once been nicely scabbed over. Those deeper wounds had healed enough that, though freshly scratched again, their reopening did not cause me to completely unravel, like I eventually had after Mom passed.

I quit the job that I had at the knock-off bath and body works down the road. I had been working ten-hour days and my kids were really struggling without me being at home as much. This is a great understatement; the job was taking its toll on my body and my family. Some bitch decided to say some shit about dead grandmas again at work one day and I just clocked out and left without a word to anyone. Days later, I even went back to apologize to the HR lady for leaving abruptly in the middle of the work day—I called her first of course. Dad had insisted that I return and try to make amends. He wanted me to have that “good” job. He always wants the best for us. I told the kind HR lady that even if I could come back, would be allowed to come back by the hiring person, I didn’t know that I could actually tolerate what was happening at work. The two women in charge of making boxes were harassing me. I was fairly certain that one was a drug addict—I saw her several times outside my place in town, and at first I thought she was stalking me but then I was told that one of the neighbors was dealing hard drugs (don't worry, they moved). The grapevine was right, she was definitely on some kinda drugs (and NOT THE FUN KIND!), and not necessarily stalking me. But that other bitch. That was a whole other matter. She didn’t know me, and had she known my Grandmother, she would have been mourning as well. I tried to be nice to the woman, the box-makin’ bitch. She was a cancer survivor and if I had to work beside her on the line, I had tried to help her out because I knew that she struggled physically. Why did I do that!?!? Am I just a glutton for punishment!?!? I had to miss work abruptly because hospice said to come, and when I came back to work box-bitch started talking a lot about people dying, and not while using her inside voice (not that she had an inside voice, really). At first, the moronic local newspaper editor put Billie’s obituary as an ad in the newspaper because we wanted it to be in a certain format, and then, when he ran it again the following week, with the actual obituaries, the death talk at work by loud-box-bitch and her drug-addled sidekick became unbearable. I wore my headphones all the time. I spoke to people as little as possible, and only if it was absolutely necessary. I did the job they made up for me (because they had never dreamed of actually having someone to inventory as a job. Look, if I could make this shit up I WOULD). Then I did all the other warehouse jobs just because I could, I suppose, but all I was really worried about was taking care of my family. My mind was constantly preoccupied with what I needed to do next on the list to manage things as best I could at the time. People have been gracious and kind to me sometimes, and yet, those people who do it very consistently are the very assholes that I have spent my whole life with, my family. The HR lady said that they were waiting for good evidence of the two employees who were causing problems for me at work, causing problems for others, so they could properly dismiss them. I wasn’t wrong about what was happening, but I couldn’t fix it all by myself either. They knew it was going on, but did very little to stop it. So I left. I protected myself. And I spent more time with my family. I worked less hours, and, in turn, had less money, and not surprisingly (to me, at least) less stress. I drifted for a bit before I tried a job opening a restaurant and serving. Three weeks in I was left alone, except for the cook, a 20ish year-old who was just about as new to the job as I was, and, that particular morning I needed help. The tank thing to heat the food wasn’t working. It was supposed to keep the hot food hot. I called for help. And I waited for a few minutes and then turned everything off, left the apron and just clocked out and left. They called me a little while later to admonish me, so when I answered I said that I had needed help and when I called for it, no one answered. The woman said that I couldn’t do that. The nerve, really. I can’t recall my exact words but I think I just said that I could do whatever I wanted and hung up. I miss the guys that always came in in the morning and sat around and talked, the regulars who told me jokes and aggravated me about being the new kid. I loved serving. I think it might be my favorite job, so far, but I greatly preferred serving pizza and beer at Wick’s. 

And, if you have been following along, you know what I have been doing for the past year or so. The end is nigh!!! The auction draws to a close at the end of this week, and I have been juggling a lot of different emotions. I keep coming back to the most important one though: love. I keep sending it out there, in all directions, hoping that I can get just enough back in return to keep me going when things get tough.

Love. It really just boils down to how people feel about it. I like to think that love bursts from my body with every breath, every movement, showering all those around me with its presence and consistency. Some guard theirs. They offer it conditionally. Some give love pretty freely at times, and yet they try take it away whenever they think it will hurt you the most. It’s ok that they don’t understand that it can’t ever be taken away. All of the love that I have ever given in this world is still there, it can never be taken away, it only ever grows, just like me. I look around sometimes, and I don’t see the same people around me now—all I see is family. Maybe nothing was ever really missing at all. New family members appear, as you travel along this life’s path, and all of the love never really leaves.  

Radio — Sylvan Esso

We grew up with Dad going off to work early in the morning to what was known to us as “The Shop.” The front of the building had a big, hand-painted sign over the doors that said the words “Green River Machine Shop” painted alongside the arial image of a winding, pale green river. The Shop was always loud, full of sound—the ker-thunk of the machines running parts, the sizzling sound of people welding gates, and the twang of the music from the local radio station, cranked full-volume on a small radio somewhere in the back. 

At the shop we could only do certain things. Our Grandpa Bill taught us how to use a push broom and instructed us to sort nuts, bolts, and various other hunks of metal. Our parents had a small business that sold farm gates and made gate hardware. Of the many, many things we learned from our family as children, we quickly learned how to properly answer the telephone and take down a message, sometimes even an order. Mom taught us how to answer the phone, Dad told us to make sure we got a name and added the date and time. 

I remember when my Grandmother did the payroll; I rode with her to the bank to get the cash money for each employee’s paycheck. When we returned, we would place each check’s cash amount in an envelope with a name on it, paperclip the bills together with a pay stub, drop it in the envelope and make sure the amount, including the coins, was correct. Billie had a big bag to carry the bank stuff in and, back in her office, a long ledger in which to record all the information. In her bottom desk drawer there were a whole bunch of candy bars that she would give me when the other kids sent me after a treat. I think Billie liked that I was always too honest, “They sent me for candy bars again!”

Our whole family always attended a holiday party at The Shop, before Christmas, where our parents gave out envelopes with a Christmas bonus and a fruit basket that usually had some fresh fruit, nuts, and a ham. I remember going with Dad to pick the boxes up at the local supermarket and asking so many questions… Why did they have more boxes than they had employees? Why is it called a fruit basket if there’s a ham in it and there’s no basket? For the Christmas dinner at the shop, we usually had a pot of soup beans and cornbread and one (or more) of the ladies who worked there would usually have some kind of candy, cookies, or fudge. Billie always brought or sent a container of Christmas cookies that were her signature throughout the holiday season. Some of the employees always gave us kids a little gift of some sort, and I always remember how special that made me feel.  The Shop was always pretty quiet then, the noises of the machines and welders stopped for a long lunch break, replaced by the noises of a community meal and a couple of stove fires roaring in the background. 

I didn’t know it then but these were all the people who showed me what it could be like at a workplace. At a home. In a community. They showed me what it takes to be a good and decent human. Being polite, kind, and caring toward our fellow humans—it’s so simple. Give more than you take, show people that you value them, and do the right thing. It takes empathy and kindness to make it through life without leaving others damaged in your wake. It takes effort to turn the other cheek. It costs nothing to lend a helping hand, say a kind word, or share a laugh with those who are around you. In your home, at your workplace, and in your community, you can make that little bit of difference to one more starfish. Learning someone’s name, shaking their hand, and teaching them how to do something new is only the beginning…over time you learn to motivate, encourage and care for them as fellow human beings. That was the lesson. I didn’t know that I was learning it. And I suppose there is a cost, if you don’t mind paying it, for not doing what you think you should be doing, not bothering with what you know you ought to do, not pursuing what you wish you could do, not doing what you hope other people would do—and that cost is your own humanity, one little bit at a time. 

When I moved back to my home town a couple of years ago my Grandmother Billie said to me, “Who says you can never go home!?!” And at the time I had just chuckled and replied, “Well, here I am!” I am not ashamed to say that I didn’t quite know exactly what she meant at the time. I knew it was a quote from something and I was even familiar with the phrase and, in general terms, its meaning. But I felt towards the words the same as I had always felt about them: home is the place where you can always go to feel safe, why couldn’t you go back there? Why wouldn’t you? Now that both she and some time have passed, I realize that not everyone can go home. Not everyone wants to go home. Not everyone knows how to go home—even if home is just a comfortable feeling of belonging. But you can learn to be home for those who need safe harbor, and you can teach them how to create it for themselves and others.

For those of you in the know, you may already be privy to the information, but this year our Dad has decided to retire. He is selling The Shop property and its remaining contents. After about a year of closing down and cleaning the business property, we are rapidly approaching the auction date. We were discussing such matters with Dad this morning as I was writing this. I meant to share a few nostalgic words as I posted the link to the auction website and it led me back here. Full circle, once again. In cycles, in circles.

It’s been a wild ride for me. I can’t imagine what coasting into the station must feel like for Dad now. This year I learned how to weld and work metal a little, on the remaining machines at The Shop—and with the help of my sister Sarah and our coworker Tazz. Together, the three of us cleaned up The Shop, the outside property, and the office. Over the course of the year we have heard numerous stories about hauling gates, making sales, meeting people, going to new places and having interesting experiences—Sarah and I have told Dad several times that he should write a book (or several books!) about all of his adventures in business and life. I will keep encouraging him to do so. In the meantime, if you get a chance, ask him to tell you something that you don’t know. 

The office building is so empty that every sound echoes inside it. The paint pattern that runs along the lower half of the walls was designed and painted by yours truly, my name emblazoned in the same red paint in the hallway instead of a final stretch of the pattern. There wasn’t a place in the shop or office that I had been as a child, a teen, or an adult that I didn’t write my name somewhere. Beth was here. When we went to box up the last of the photos on Mom’s desk at the office, there’s one picure that sits on her desk facing his and it’s a picture of me and Sarah, as toddlers, and Dad at our house, in the corner where they had put the home office at first. It’s a candid snapshot; Sarah is standing in the desk chair behind Dad, preparing to scale him and I am sitting on his shoulders, one foot not quite all the way over his other shoulder when Mom had come in to snap the picture. And there the memory floods back for me, a picture to tug it from the recesses of my brain. The picture is in one of those clear acrylic frames that Billie so loved. Dad is sitting at the desk with notepad, pen and phone, his face turned towards Mom at the last second, as he was really concentrating on getting his work done and we were working hard to prevent him from doing any more work! I remember us climbing all over him, a game where he peeled one kid off his back about the time the other had gotten seated on his shoulders and then Mom pops in to capture the memory forever on film. I haven’t forgotten, Mom!! I still remember. Just like I remember Mom taking me outside to play run-&-go-fetch-it while she was trying to work and all the other kids were at school. Just like I remember trying to type a paper in college and grad school with my little ones climbing up over my shoulders while I tried so hard to just finish this sentence. 

They say you can’t go home again BUT WHO’S GONNA STOP ME!?!?