The Orient

I.

Even if you have lived in Howard county for five years, you had better take an atlas out driving. You know, just in case. I say this because I happen to have lived in Howard county for about that long, and tucked between the driver's seat and the center console of my mother's car, there is always an assortment of complimentary AAA Mid-Atlantic road atlases and handwritten directions to the airport. My mother likes to tell people that we just moved to Maryland, and that it's a big adjustment, that fall is pretty here but gosh it's just so different. Different, but we're all getting used to it, she is quick to add. What she means by that is that it’s been five years and she still needs a goddamned map to get anywhere, and no, she doesn't want one of those “GPS” things in her car. She shouldn't need one, or it's just one more thing you're asking her to change, or why does everyone out here think they need to spend so much money all the time-- did you know those things cost something like one hundred dollars and people just assume she's going to run out and buy one like it's a loaf of bread? That's what she means when she says things are different here. Maybe you had better just take the atlas

I guess it probably seems like some version of pathetic, which isn't so terribly inaccurate, but it's got nothing to do with a hereditary dysfunction in whatever part of the brain is responsible for developing mental maps, or spatial memory or whatever that's called. Although, thinking about it, I should probably just speak for myself. My mother was never really known for her stellar sense of direction. And I would really like to be fair. I've really tried to be fair. What I'm really saying is I understand that we're all human. But, the most human of us all is James Wilson Rouse.

Jim Rouse feared God and built shopping malls. He was good at it, too. The historians say he never missed church on Sunday, and the suburbs of the Mid-Century Mid-Atlantic say, well, they say that Delaware Township, New Jersey changed its name to Cherry Hill in 1961-- the name of the brand-new shopping mall Jim built there. One thing about a shopping mall is that even when it still sparkles, and is covered in polished, gleaming terrazzo tile (all the better for echoing fountains and clicking high-heels), every shopping mall has got to say: "YOU ARE HERE". The shopping mall is, if nothing else, self-aware. It understands itself, the physical space it inhabits. There are no landmarks; there is no way to intuit its layout. Jim Rouse, urban visionary, bought 14,000 acres of Howard County farmland and built a city like a shopping mall. That was the idea, anyway. Forty years later, I scratched and I bit and I clawed, but a whole chorus of voices told me over and over again: "YOU ARE HERE".

II.

Once, Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads; sometimes I half expect to meet him on an exit ramp. Now, I don't want you to think I'm saying that because I'm still sore about moving to Maryland or something. I'm not. Saying it because of that, I mean. It's just, sometimes I get trapped here, like this year, and most days there is only the Little Room, a magic box of my own creation, and the quick-merging four-lane expressways, surrounded by the U-turning 3-lane highways, surrounded by the speed-bumping subdivision streets to exist within.

Howard County is not strictly for the banished, though. It summons. Over mountains and bean fields white envelopes will arrive, and they will slide quietly under your door, and they will sit on a table in your front hall, and they will lurk on your bookshelf until they tell you that your car, the way you got the hell out of dodge, is due for mandatory emissions testing at the Columbia VEIP. Welcome home, sister. We missed you, Kylie. How long are you staying, Kylie?

I had accompanied my sister to the VEIP before, when my parents first gave her the car, during her junior year of college. I guess she thought we’d pretty much remember how to get there. I should have known that nobody "pretty much" remembers how to get anywhere here. I can "pretty much" get you to the very center of town, but from there you'd be lucky if you didn't accidentally end up getting on beltway, hurtling towards D.C., or wind up driving laps around Great Drum Circle and Gay Topaz Court, or somehow making your way though the endless parking lot for Columbia Crossing Shopping Center, or worse: Columbia Crossing Shopping Center II. Did you want Snowden River Parkway or 175 North? Did you mean to exit at Columbia Town Center? Or wait, no, Dobben Centre? No, Center. Centre? Wait, Town Center is just what they call the mall. That isn't right. Pull over there. You can't pull over there. Make a U-turn and pull over there. Park the car. Flagellate. Good. Now, get out the atlas.

Cakewreckers

Do you remember that time you found me sitting, all alone, on a bench outside of the Nursing Building? I knew you had been watching me. You probably thought I was wrapped up in that book I was reading and hadn't noticed your passing by three times in the last half-hour. Well, that was the idea. "Is there room on this bench?" That's what you said to me. I don't take up much space, you know. I think you meant, "Do you mind?" It hardly matters now. "I hope you won't mind my saying this," you said, "but, you look really sad. Is something the matter?" Now I think I didn't really look sad at all, I just was wearing a navy dress and sunglasses instead of blue jeans. I was reading The Idiot. Maybe you thought I looked lost. "Um, no. I suppose I don't mind, really. Nothing's wrong." Don't you think you should have left then? I went back to my book. It would have been rude to leave, I thought. It would have made it seem like I felt threatened. You were hardly threatening. You were wearing blue jeans-- the kind they sell at Kohl's. You were scrawny, and you had dirty, expensive running shoes. You probably wore that same pair for everything. Maybe you ran high school track. They made your legs look even skinnier. Do you remember those shoes? I hope you're not still wearing them.

We sat on opposite sides of that bench in silence for five minutes before you spoke again. "I just happened to notice that you've been out here by yourself all afternoon. You seemed lonely." Now I think I didn't really seem lonely at all, just different, and you were actually the lonely one. I don't know why else you would've sat yourself down on the bench and started up talking like you did. I think you must've needed somebody to talk to. I think I was polite. "Well, I mean, I don't self-identify as 'lonely' per se, but I don't actually know anyone here. I mean, well, what I mean is that you're the first person to talk to me." Do you remember how after I said that you leaned in all of the sudden? How your whole posture changed? Your elbow moved to the back of the bench, and you rested your head on it, so that you were angled towards me. "No! You? Really? How's that?" I think you were trying to flatter me with your incredulity. "I don't know. It's easy to not know anybody here. Nobody is really trying to know anybody here." I don't remember what you said then. I just started to think that you might have been trying.

You found me for a week. I never looked for you, though. I sat in different places, but there weren't too many places to be. If there were, I didn't know about them yet. I would find them later. I had to rotate, so that I wouldn't sit in one spot too long, because if I did it would look like I didn't have anywhere to be. I suppose I sat on that bench too long one day. It was so nice outside. I remember that. I think you found me the next day at a computer, and I had to try and explain to you what The Sartorialist was. I think I had to explain what sartorialism in general was, actually. You told me that it seemed like of waste a time, do you remember that? Do you remember what I was wearing? I do. There was enough nip outside that day for tweed, so I wore my overcheck herringbone blazer, the green one. I asked you what you did with your time, besides school. You told me that you liked football. "Oh, so do you mean that you like to watch it or play it?" You told me that was a stupid question. You were wearing a Baltimore Ravens jersey. I remember that.

It was your birthday on Thursday. You wouldn't have told me if hadn't asked where you were going after class. "Oh, I think some friends are gonna meet me for dinner or whatever. It's my birthday today, so I guess we're going out for that." You guessed at a lot of things, come to think of it. Like how you were going to get rich five years from now. "I guess I'll just go over and do some contracting work in Iraq. There's money in that, you know." "Oh. How exactly does that work? I mean, are you studying something in particular to get that job?" You told me that you didn't need to study anything. You just went. Do you remember saying that? For just guessing, you were awfully self-assured. I felt sorry for you just then, even though I was the one with the exotic neurological disorder and severely diseased social life. I changed the subject. "Well, where are you going with your friends for your birthday?" "I dunno. Maybe just Pizza Hut. I don't even know if they know it's my birthday." I think that's when I offered to bake you something.

You wanted chocolate cupcakes. I offered to bake a lot of other things, I know, but you just wanted chocolate cupcakes. I'm starting to think that's what people ask for when they don't don't know what ganache or tortes are. I explained almond-flour to you, in the hopes of trying some recipe I'd been saving for something suitably celebratory. "You like weird food". I told you I'd just make chocolate cupcakes. Then I told you, even though you didn't ask, about a cake I once baked when I was eleven without any sugar in it, and how my grandmother pretended to like it, and how I cried because I was so ashamed of my less-than-perfect cheesecake, all decorated with violets, and how my sister made fun of me for it, and still does. Do you remember that story? I still tell it to people, probably too much. "Well, uh, don't forget to put sugar in the cupcakes." I told you I wouldn't.

I went home that night and made you miniature chocolate pound cakes. I laid them out, twenty-four of them, in a grid on the countertop and glazed alternating cupcakes with checks and dots. I was going to make them prettier, and use mint leaves or something, but you didn't seem like you wanted pretty cupcakes. I'd never made a handsome pastry before. I thought maybe you could appreciate geometry. It would be a shame when I had to move them from their neat rows into a box to take to school with me the next morning. I remember thinking they were kind of pretty, despite myself. You called me at seven-thirty, as I was admiring my labor,and I wondered why you weren't out with your friends. "Have you made those cupcakes yet? Why don't I just stop by and eat some?"

You must not have been very hungry. "These are delicious!" You told me that. You told me that after you ate one-half of a miniature chocolate pound cake. They're very rich. I don't blame you for not being able to finish it. I managed at least two, but then, I don't remember if I'd eaten. "How was your birthday dinner? Did you have a nice time? Did your friends remember it was your birthday? Did you remind them?" You reassured me: "It was fine". I remember sensing that it wasn't, and I told you about the time I went to Belmont and Clark with my friends for my sixteenth birthday, but really it wasn't for my sixteenth birthday, and nobody said anything about it the whole time, or offered to pay for my coffee or falafel sandwich, and I had just the biggest crush on my friend that had gone, and all I had wanted was for him to pay attention to me, or buy my five-dollar Metra ticket for me as a present or something. "Why are you sitting so far away?" I didn't understand what you meant. "Far away? You're in the chair right next to me."

Do you remember the dress I was wearing that night? I know you didn't really pay attention to what I wore, but I kept pulling it down over my knees, and I remember thinking how conspicuous it must have looked, so I thought you might. Then again, it was sort of dark in the living room, so maybe you didn't get a good look at it. You got up and sat down on the couch with me. "There. Now we aren't so far away." It's also possible you don't remember the dress because of the pillow I was so tightly hugging. I think it covered a lot of detailing on the garment, like its empire waist. "Why don't we go sit in the study?" I turned on all the lights, and waited for you to sit down. I settled in the armchair across the room. You laughed when I did that. You must've thought it was funny. You must've thought that because you got up and sat on the floor in front of me, and rested your head next to my legs. "Now we aren't so far away." I stood up. "Do you want to take any cupcakes home?"

My parents were glad when you left the pound cakes on the countertop. The grid was gone the next morning. There was instead a cupcake scatterplot. I was glad when you stopped finding me. I only saw you once more, do you remember that? I was walking from the library to McCuan Hall, and you were headed straight towards me, looking me right in the face. At first I waved, but I said hello when you were closer. I said hello and I said your name. I smiled, too. You looked back. I think what you did counts as sneering, and I know what you did counts as head-shaking. I remember thinking that I was going to forget everything about you, and how repulsive you suddenly were, and there would only ever be but two things to make me think of you.

You should know that I've baked chocolate cupcakes for people since you. Until now, you didn't even cross my mind. I baked regular old chocolate cupcakes, intentionally plain chocolate cupcakes, and I didn't even remember that you existed. I made them messy, and frosted them in the shape of a sheep, because my friend Audrey and I used to look at Cakewrecks our freshman year and laugh more than we should. I met somebody that has your name, too. I even kissed them once. I didn't think about you, and how you told me that girls "like me" shouldn't wear high heels because they looked like they were trying too hard. No, it turns out that the only thing that's made me think of you is my acceptance to Howard Community College for the Fall 2010 Semester, and wondering if it'll be any different this time, and trying to remember where I ought to sit, so that it wouldn't look like I didn't have anywhere to be.

Some Girls Cannot Remember the Last Time They Went Swimming

Once in a while, you ought to let folks talk you into things.

You will probably look very silly.

(You would be foolish not to.)

Cultural Schism

I am to the Midwest tomorrow, with my parents and poodle, and I have reunions of all sorts in mind. 

When my father's side of the family still hosted picnics every summer at the various parks of Branch County and called them Carpenter Family Reunions, Child-Krissy (who never turned down an opportunity for praise) was always recruited to bring pasta salad, folks oohed and ahhed over her omission of mayonnaise, and her clever addition of feta cheese and olives, because of how exotic and "gourmet" they were.

Fine, Fresh, Fierce, We've Got It On Lock

There were great ineptitudes on my part, I know, when I tried to unlock the car. The heat was suddenly very noticeable to me, or maybe it was just the flush on my cheeks as I fumbled with the manual key-- because there is only a manual key, and everybody refuses to go to the dealership and just pay for a new push-button one. I managed to swing the drivers' door open, finally, and in the sweltering car I located on the floor the lever that opened the trunk.

It was one of those rare times in suburban parking lots when there are hardly any signs of human life, which I suppose means there are hardly any signs of life in general, being the paved expanses they have a tendency to be. It was possible that I, with my bag of spring onions, was the only customer outside of the store. There was a man hauling carts, too, which I had some vague awareness of, only because of that steady, empty sound of rattling metal and creaking wheels being pushed across pavement. I hardly thought of it. It was too warm, too warm to hoist bottles of ginger ale into the trunk, or I was too clumsy, or the sun was too high, or there wasn't room in the trunk, because it just wouldn't fit, and the glass bottles kept slipping out of my hands. Here I was, alone in this lot where I could hardly be trusted to unlock a compact car and now the task of lifting groceries seemed so complicated, and what would I do when I lived all alone and had to go out and buy myself ginger ales and spring onions and Oh God. What if I wanted prosciutto and cantaloupe, and had to carry a melon?

"Can I help you, miss?" The cart-man was there, in his apron. He had abandoned his carts. "No, thank you. I'm fine." I looked for my mother. The cart-man hovered. I looked for anyone. I wished it wasn't so hot, and that it wasn't so quiet, because without the sound of the carts rattling across the parking lot, there were only the sounds of distant highways and my own, audible pulse. I dropped a bag of nectarines. "You sure you don't need any help?" The cart-man was persistent. "No, thank you." So was I. He walked away, and I heard the carts again, and I shoved bags and bags and endless bags into the trunk with shaking hands before stumbling to front seat and blacking out briefly.

"Sorry I took so long. I forgot what kind of beer to buy. " My mother shut the drivers' door, started the car, and turned on the radio as she pulled out of the grocery store parking lot. California Gurls by Katy Perry came on, and my mother turned up the stereo. "You know, this song is so inappropriate, but I like it anyway." And she drove the five minutes back to our house, swaying along to the thumping bass she so adores, mouthing the words along with Snoop. I looked up through the sunroof, and I clutched my purse, and all the inane pop in the world couldn't have made me anything but rattled, like a loose wheel on a shopping cart.

Photographs: my sister, Kylie

Resort

"Which is not to say that the world owes M., or anyone, a living; alas, the way things are with her, she most likely could not make a poem, a good one, that is; still, she is important, her values are balanced by more than the usual measure of truth, she deserves a finer destiny than to pass from belated adolscence to premature middle age, with no intervening period, and nothing to show."

-from New York by Truman Capote

For the third time this summer, I am going to go back to Michigan. There have been so many long car trips, so many back-seats, so many reminders that I am somebody's child and I had better buckle up and put headphones on, because it will be nine hours and four states until we get there. I long for these trips, for the 500 miles that get put between myself and the State of Disarray, but the family vacation is so bitter; it takes such dedication to make it sweet.

Just this morning, there was the reminder from my mother that four out five doctors think I'm worse than sick: I am wretched. I stood in the kitchen and sliced limes and felt the gentleness shrivel up inside of me, and anger without even a sliver of gentleness makes a person believe they really might be wretched, and so there ensued this great adolescent scene of fleeing to my bedroom, where I could cry properly, and knowing all the while I was only sealing my sad little fate. Sixteen-year-old girls have got to sit in the back-seat, and if nine hours seems long, or if they do not relish a week with their parents and extended family, surely it's because they are at a difficult age. Still.

For the perpetually coming-of-age, Michigan is a trap with all the trappings. It is a lake, a wood, a house, a cottage, a boat, a road, a lawn, a pond, a swamp, a garden, a garage, a field, a canoe, a television, a steak dinner, a croquet set, and an antique pickup truck all in one. It is no reason to leave, and no way out if you wanted to go, anyway. The visitor comes and goes, but I won't. My family has come here to relax. They don't want to drive anywhere. Why on earth should they drive anywhere? Of course they shouldn't drive anywhere. We have each other, at this lakeside complex, and all the driving will be to madness, while we cheerfully see off friends who have done us the invaluable favor of dropping by.

Photos: Courtesy of my sister, Kylie, who sometimes takes me away for little trips in her car, and when we're both bound to the Cutcher complex, makes things seem infinitely more idyllic and lovely.