I wanted to date someone who was emotionally well-adjusted, working hard, had a good job, maybe a house. Essentially, I wanted to date someone who was pretty similar to me, without the boobs and severe PMS. I also wanted someone who appreciated that I write, who likes interesting and diverse food, who’s healthy. When I type out all my wants it seems like a big list, almost unattainable. And when I returned to dating and met a wonderful man, I tucked that check list away.

If you really connect with someone, if there’s a possibility for love, how important is something like a checklist? What if they have a very good reason for starting over? What if they’re trying desperately to get on their feet? What if they don’t have a car because they moved home from a big city? What if they just need a little time to start over and find a good job?

What if the really important things are there: What if they love you? What if they love who you are at the very core of you? What if they love that you write? How important is it that they like things like baked goat cheese in a homemade marinara sauce? There’s a simplicity to a man who prefers turkey sandwiches.

Should I even be talking about any of this? Probably not, but I don’t know what else to do.

In the movies, the Perfect Man is easy for the female lead to spot: he’s the one that’s super cute. Maybe he’s awkward, but their connection is real. But movies don’t touch on real life. What if that female lead is a single mom and spends every moment of her day either parenting, teaching, narrating or prepping to narrate, promoting her work, or writing in the hopes of building a stable life for her and her children?

Here’s the big question I’m leading to: When is love not enough? Is it wrong to have a checklist? To want a partner who is secure in more than his affection for you?

There are more questions too. Questions I talk about with my girlfriends. Why do we so often justify relationships or behavior in relationships that makes us feel awful. One of my girlfriends went out on a date with a guy. She had a great time. When the bill came, he said “We’ll have to split it because I can’t afford to get yours. I’m kinda in transition right now and don’t have a job, and I wasn’t sure if this was a date or not.” She likes him. She wants to see him again. And we tried to figure out if it’s okay for a guy not to pay on the first date. Of course it’s okay. Then again, what if it’s not okay for YOU? What if, for you, that Bill Paying Issue is a sign of respect, of a man who wants to treat you well and like a woman. Then again, are these old-fashioned gender roles?

See what I’m saying? It’s fucking complicated. I don’t usually swear too much, but there are time when only a good ‘fucking’ will do.

Pause. Pause. Pause.

Ehm…moving on.

I’m at a point in my relationship where I feel like that Gilbert lady in “Eat Pray Love”. You know the part where she’s praying and says “God, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” I wish there were the Voice of God to tell me what to do, but not like in Monty Python. I’ve always found their 60′s show annoying and uncomfortably tripped out. I just want someone to tell me what to do.

I want Alec Guiness to talk to me like he did in Star Wars to Luke. “Tanya, you must feel the Force within you. The Force will tell you what to do.” And then he tells me that A) either my list IS important and valid and I need to honor that or B) Love supersedes any list of expectations.

"Tanya...Listen to The Force. Buy a cute dress!"

My boyfriend is having struggles. I want to be there for him, but I’m also terrified. Am I terrified of love? Yes. It’s very hard to trust. But it’s doubly hard to trust when your partner can’t find a job. I always look a few feet down the road. This is a writer thing, a neurotic thing, and a single-mom thing. If he can’t find a job, what happens in a month. What happens in two? What happens if I fall in love so deeply that I marry him? Can I be the sole provider for my family? Do I want to be?

For now, I’m re-reading my checklist. If I were updating it, I’d also add Do You Like To Take Walks and Do You Smoke? But I’m not updating it. I’m re-reading it to see what I really need. Do I need all of these things? Or do I just need a man who loves me with his whole being…because honestly I have that. Maybe I should just be grateful for that and hope the other things work themselves out.

Here’s the old application:

Application to Date Tanya

Please fill out this application to the best of your ability. You must fill it out yourself. If you need someone else to fill this out for you, then I’m sorry, you cannot date Tanya.

1) Are you currently:

a) Married

b) Separated

c) Divorced

d) Single

e) Separated but still living with ex

f) Separated but emotionally damaged

If you answered A, E, or F, you may not date Tanya. You’re too much work for her. If you answered B, C, or D…please continue with application.

2) Do you have a job and a car?

a) Yes

b) No

If you answered A please continue. If you answered B, please go out and get a job and a car.

3)  Do you currently

a) Own your home

b) Rent

c) Live with your mom

If you answered A or B, you’re doing great! If you answered C, Tanya feels bad for you. Please fill out this application at a later point, when you have moved out of the basement.

4)  Are you supportive of dating someone who is flighty, emotional, talks too much, has big ideas and writes long emails (sometimes drunken emails), and also narrates and is working on webisodes and in her spare time writes novels and plays in which people do, occasionally, have sex?

a) Yes. Love it.

b) I’m a little uncomfortable with this.

c) My mother would be offended.

d) No way.

If you answered anything other than A, then Tanya is not the right one for you.

5)  As an eater, what kind of cuisine do you like:

a) Plain old meat & potatoes for me

b) I’m a vegetarian or vegan

c)  Anything my mom cooks for me

d) I’m an adventurous eater. I’ll eat curry, chicken wings, lentil cakes, whatever. And I’m not opposed to chopping vegetables.

If you answered A, B, or C, it might be hard for Tanya to cook for you. Seriously reconsider filling out the rest of this application. She likes to cook and experiment with whatever she fancies, and she may offend your palate.

6)  Are you dating anyone else?

a) Yes

b) No

c) I’ve been dating someone for a while, but I want to make sure she’s the right one, so I thought I’d date Tanya just to be sure, then tell Tanya that while she’s intelligent, creative, and sexy, my heart belongs to another and I’m planning on committing to her. To the other woman. Not to Tanya.

If you answered B, congratulations! You may now date Tanya!!! If you answered A, please don’t date Tanya. She’s not good with competing, and it makes her feel very vulnerable. If you answered C, go away. Go far away!! Tanya does not want to see, hear, or speak to you.

Thanks for completing this questionnaire. Pleases send your $5 application fee and picture to Tanya at heyblunderwoman@gmail.com . She’ll get back to you once her sister has approved the application.

My ex and his wife had asked me to switch the holiday schedule in the custody agreement and, well, I’m not proud to say this, but I lost it. I Big Time lost it. You could blame it on just returning from a pretty emotional trip to New York, or blame the intense pain I was under because I needed a root canal. Blame the stress of realizing my bank account was really, really low; blame that my boyfriend is having job troubles and that freaks me out. Blame my hormones; blame the moon; blame the stars. Blame Glenn Beck just because. Mostly, I just blame myself. I felt like they’d asked me to (yet again) change my life to fit their needs, and because I didn’t matter and wasn’t important I should just do it.

And I got angry. Really angry. Angry enough to call my ex and yell at him and cry and tell him all the horrible things he’d done to me over the year. It went something like this: “Do you know what it felt like to have to take a picture of you and your new family on Halloween when we’d only be separated for a few months?” and “How could you bring the kids over on the day you got married when you were all still dressed up? Why couldn’t you at least have the decency to change your clothes so I didn’t have to see you in your wedding outfits?” Pointless stuff really. He didn’t say anything. He just listened. And then he said he was sorry.

Then that evening I wrote a long email. I pointed out all the ways they’d hurt me again. I threatened attorneys getting involved and possibly sending Mothra over to their house to get them. Did the venting, evil email make me feel better? Not really.

What did make me feel better was talking to my ex’s new wife. Boy, that’s a clunky way to refer to her. Let’s just call her Abby. My ex stayed home. Abby and I have decided to do the scheduling because my ex and I just can’t seem to communicate, part of the reason we’re divorced. So Abby and I went through the email and she asked me to be specific about what they had asked me to change over the year. I gave her details. Some she knew and disagreed with, some she didn’t know. What became clear as I talked to her is that I’m still angry at my ex for our years of miscommunication. I’m also angry about this year of divorce since he remarried so quickly with 4 new stepchildren, it feels as if again he’s more important than me. When we were married, his work and life were more important than me and anything I wanted or needed and I felt invisible. In our divorce, his new family is more important because there are more people. I’m just a single mom with Louis and Simone; he has a wife and (now) six kids. So, again, I feel invisible.

Abby said I should work on forgiveness. Now, if she’d said this to me earlier, I would have told her to go, er, have intimate relations with herself, but I didn’t. Why? Because she’s right. I have spent so much time and energy and emotion feeling hateful that’s it turning me bitter. You know those crazy dried-up apple faces they sell at arts and crafts shows? I feel like that’s who I’m turning into. It takes a lot of energy to be hateful.

The question is…how do you forgive? I’m not religious so I can’t turn it over to a higher power. I can only turn it over to myself. That’s tough when you’re neurotic because when you turn something over, you re-turn it and then analyze it and then get mad and then….it’s exhausting. But can I forgive? Can I let go? Can I move forward? Can I?

At what point do you stop feeling angry about the life that you don’t have and just focus on making the life you do have better?

Hmmm. Damnation. Harrumph! Blast. And I’ll throw an ‘egad’ in there for good measure.

It’s time for me to let go. It’s time for me to move on. My ex hurt me. I hurt my ex. This last year was horrible with starting over, seeing the kids in pain, fighting for a job, breaking my foot, fighting for a house. I’m so used to fighting it seems it’s all I do now. There’s a tiny realization happening here though that maybe, just maybe it’s time to stop fighting so much. I’ve forgotten to breathe.

Maybe forgiving for me starts with that: it starts with taking a deep breath and then gently, gently, letting the breath go.

We’ll see where I go from there.

I woke up feeling a little bit better. Must have been some powerful antibiotics. Still, when I turned to one side, I really did resemble Jay Leno. I was okay with this. I just pulled my hair over my jaw, batted my eyelashes and tried to look mysterious instead of bloated. I popped some Tylenol with Codeine (just one.  I’m a tender flower) and headed outside while my niece slept in. By Day 4, we’d fallen into a routine. She would stay up until 3am while I slept, and I’d wake up at 6:30am while she slept and explore the town.

I left the hotel looking for a flea market on 39^th street. I didn’t even make it. Around the corner from my hotel on 6^th Avenue, the entire avenue was shut down. Overnight a fair had sprouted…and they were selling stuff CHEAP! What was it with things sprouting overnight? In the country, mushrooms sprout. In New York movie productions and street fairs sprout.

I decided to check it out. I walked for blocks and blocks just looking—not just at stuff (though there was plenty) but at the people.

THE PEOPLE

What is so amazing about New York to me is the diversity of its people. In Michigan, pretty much everywhere you go you see people who look just like you or at least like your extended family. And it wasn’t just the cultural heritage of people that fascinated me, just the overwhelming diversity. So consider these glass necklaces I found: they’re all pretty much the same thing. But when you sift through them, you see all the different colors and shapes and…

Okay. I’m about to slip into Cheeseville.

Forgive me, but people are damned interesting. There were so many different skin colors and ages and shapes and eyes and I noticed that women (whether fat or skinny or curvy) all had little bellies sticking out. I found the bellies comforting. I found the differences comforting. I don’t know. I always worry that there’s something fundamentally different about me, that I stick out in some way. Then while checking out a random street on NY I see that everyone is fundamentally different. Epiphany: No one is perfect. Further epiphany: We’re all a little fucked up. No one even noticed my enormous half-chin. I rubbed my belly in happiness.

AFTERNOON

I took a rest and some more codeine. Strange. I’d taken Tylenol with codeine before and it was like floating on an uncomfortable ride through Disney World…or a tripped out Simpson’s episode. This time, it felt like it was having no effect, except I wasn’t in as much pain. That’s how I knew that I really was suffering. Ah well. I could bully through it.

My plan was to meet my cousins in Central Park for a couple of hours and then meet my very cool friend Dionne downtown to watch a play in the Fringe Festival and get Indian food. I made it to Central Park…but sadly had to bail on Dionne. At the end of the day I was throbbing all over, and not in the way that happens in romance novels.

I loved the park too. When I lived in the city, I’d take my lunch breaks there since it’s walking distance to Carnegie Hall. I love that everyone just hangs out, collectively but separate. There’s an ease to Central Park and, of course, people everywhere.

I talked with my cousins and their friends. Watched little Travis and Lizzie run up to people and dance and try to climb a gigantic tree. We ate popsicles and watched a group of break dancers do incredible flips and I worried whether they had health insurance.

At the end of the afternoon, I realized that there was no way I could make it downtown and handle another four or five hours of walking around. Frankly, I was sick and the pain in my tooth made me feel like crying. I said goodbye to my cousins, texted apologies to Dionne and made my way to the hotel.

FINAL NEW YORK THOUGHTS

I picked up a slice of pizza and nibbled tenderly on one side. My niece met friends for dinner and I had the hotel to myself to watch “Dark Knight”. I have to say in the hotel room, I had another little epiphany. Living in New York was a time where my life fractured. If 911 hadn’t happened, I could see myself still living there. I think I’d have a small apartment in Brooklyn, a collection of friends, a boyfriend. I don’t know if I’d have children…though I might’ve if things had worked out with Harrison. I could see this Other Tanya and her Other Life. It would be fast-paced and energized and rich and creative. The truth is, 911 did happen and it did change me and the life of the Other Tanya never was. I moved back to Grand Rapids.

But here’s the moral, folks, and I’m sorry if it’s cheesy or pat. It’s the truth. I can see the Other Tanya and her life but This Tanya, the Tanya of right now, is no longer envious. See, I may not have the energy or the excitement of New York, but I have a beautiful house where I can hear the crickets at night. I have two amazing and quirky children that I love with all my spirit. I have dear friends, true friends and a wonderful supportive family that I can call and see whenever I want. I’m a professor of writing at an art college for as long as they’ll have me, and I’m writing and publishing my books. My life now is fast paced and energized and rich and creative and, possibly more importantly, filled with love and purpose.

And I can always visit New York.

Sunday my niece and I flew back to Grand Rapids. It was a long and exhausting trip and my face hurt; when I pulled up to my house, Biff was standing there. He opened the door. He welcomed me home.

To use a complicated and possibly mixed metaphor: You know that scene in the classic Godzilla story where he’s like smashing all of Tokyo and people are screaming and the beast is all “ROOOOAAAARR” with tiny arms flailing? The pain I’m experiencing is like that. Or it’s sorta like labor. Intense coming in waves, but at least with labor you get a baby out of the deal.

The Tooth has caused my deepest neuroses to surface. What if the infection spreads? What if I overdose on Ibuprofen and ice packs? I’m found dead in a hotel room and the paramedic shakes her head and says: “If only she’d taken antibiotics”.

Still, I did some cool things yesterday. Caity slept in and I explored the city in search of Orajel and coffee. Then we moved from out Times Square hotel a few blocks into Midtown: The Sofitel Hotel.

This place is so snazzy they actually had a bellman on his hands and knees scrubbing the sidewalk to get rid of any stains. I think he was a bellman. He might’ve just been a random guy with OCD. Anyway, the hotel is classy: wood and lush fabrics, classical music playing in the rooms, lotion scented with lavender. It’s got a French flare and it makes me want to wear a beret and speak in obtrusive poetical sentences like they do in French films: “Caity, I cannot accompany you to dinner because I am floating on a sea of pain and the pain is the color of emptiness.” You know, annoying stuff like that.

Caity was exhausted from walking Times Square until 4 in the morning. Uhm, not like a hooker, just a twenty-year-old exploring. So I had the afternoon to myself. I did my favorite thing in New York. Hopped on the N train to Lincoln Center and found my favorite art movie house. It’s a dingy, dirty little place that shows foreign films and independent movies.

When I lived here I’d go there on payday and see whatever movie was playing next. I remember seeing Swimming Pool there and a few others. I decided to roll the die and do it again. I walked up at 12:45; at 12:55 they had a movie playing. I bought tickets to that. Turned out to be “Soul Kitchen”. It was in German. Yay! And about a restaurant! Yay! And had Manni from Run Lola Run in it and Soul Music and montages of food and a guy who kept doing stupid mistakes….why…someone made the movie just for me.

I was the youngest in the theater by about three decades. I sucked on ice instead of eating popcorn. I actually couldn’t eat anything. By the end of the movie I was high on endorphins from seeing a really fun film, and from the intense pain. I called my friend Vicki in Michigan for advice. She’s a stay-at-home mom who was trained as a doctor. Her husband is an ER doctor. They discussed my symptoms and said I’d better get an antibiotic or I might have to go to an ER. They suggested I call my primary care physician and he could call in a prescription.

Look at my face! The jowl! Oh, woe is me! (You see it?)

Thus began my two hour search for medicine. My primary care doctor….I have several obscenities here. He wouldn’t prescribe medicine, feeling that I should get checked out first. I think he was afraid I was going to try to sell an antibiotic on the streets of New York, perhaps to earn plane fare back.

I walked to Carnegie Hall to have an anti-climactic “Oh I used to work there” moment and then started crying on the street corner of 57^th and 7^th. My body hurt. My face hurt. I was shaking with hunger. How was I supposed to find a doctor? Then a beaming ray of light fell on a Duane Reade and angels strummed harps. (That could be an exaggeration.) There was a Duane Reade with a “Doctor On Premises!” She saw me. She took a look at me and said, “Your face is all swollen”. I started crying again. “Look, I don’t know anything about teeth but I’ll prescribe you an antibiotic, okay, honey?” I loved her a little bit right then.

Prescription in hand, I hopped on the subway to Union Square and met my cousin Mike outside his work. He’s a very cool graphic designer and a director. That means he gets to tell people what to do. Caity and I walked around his office, met his coworkers. I was supposed to go with Mike and Caity to meet his wife Tessa in Central Park. We were going to have a picnic, but I couldn’t do it. I was either going to pass out or curl in fetal position and I sorta wanted some privacy to do that. I told them I’d see them later, made my way to the hotel, found a deli where I could get dinner: mashed potatoes, chicken soup, and rice. Best. Dinner. Ever. I took the codeine, the antibiotic, the ibuprofen, put an instant ice pack on my face, watched bad TV and got to talk to my Biff for a few minutes.

This morning I’m writing from a little diner down the street. The pain isn’t as bad but my face is still swollen. Not bad, I just look like I have a really defined chin on one side. If I’m lucky, I’ll feel well enough to meet my friend Dionne and go to a Fringe play and to Alphabet City (that’s the name right?) for Indian food. We’ll see what the day holds. So far, everything’s looking up and Toothzilla, for now, is taking a nap.

I wake up to a colossal headache. Correction. A toothache. In New York! You’re not supposed to get a toothache while on vacation. And you’re not supposed to have half of your face swell up so you look like you have an allergic reaction. Blast. And I have no hairspray or gel because of ‘plane safety issues’. I look bloated. At least half of me does. I pop some serious ibuprofen and hope this is just a momentary toothache and not, say, cause for a root canal.

I need coffee. I throw on a 1980’s type floppy shirt over my yoga pants. One thing I love about New York is you can look swollen, puffy, and crazy in your yoga pants and 80’s t-shirt and NO ONE CARES.

Out the door of my hotel, there are all these trucks. Wait a minute…not trucks. Production vehicles. They’re shooting a film on my block. (I call it my block even though it’s mine for only twenty four hours.) I’m hoping a casting agent will see me and maybe put me in the film as a Crazy Cat Lady. I have the hair and face to prove it. I just need the cats. And a wool coat. And then it’s off in search of coffee….which I find at The Hot and Crusty. I’m not kidding you. It’s a deli called The Hot and Crusty…and it’s incredible. Eggs, toast, hash-browns and coffee for $4.65, and the guys behind the deli will flirt with you for free.

I don’t look flirt-able right now. Although, someone reminded me (Biff) that women hit their sexual peak in their late 30’s. Maybe that’s why everywhere I go men are awfully nice to me. It’s either that or because I have big boobs.

Afternoon

My niece Caity and I check into our next hotel, the Hilton in Times Square. Compared to our first night in the city, this place is gigantic. My brother booked the room for us using his super-important-VIP status. They let us check into the hotel three hours early. I think they would’ve given me a foot rub if I asked.

Then we explore Times Square a bit. There are people everywhere: most of them are obviously tourists. Caity and I try to blend in with local New Yorkers by walking really fast and looking mildly grumpy. It works.

We discover Bryant Park on our hunt for a sandwich and are smitten. The foodie in me emerges because I want to take pictures of all the delis and the buffets. Keeping my niece’s tender self-esteem in mind, I refrain, but it takes a lot to do so.

We shop at H&M. It’s a flashback to 1984 and I find that I am actually supportive of this. I mean, come on, paint splattered shirts are fun. It’s like “Look at me! I’m wearing paint splatters!” I like the oversized droopy shirts, the belts, the crazy patterns. I try to remember that I’m 37 and not 17 and that I really probably shouldn’t tease my hair again and wear rubber shoes and bangly bracelets and a Like A Virgin shirt. (Although secretly I really like the idea of being a mom with two kids wearing a Like A Virgin shirt. Something about that is very appealing.)

Evening

At 4:00 I get a call from my old boyfriend. He says “Hello, darlin’. How are you doing?” His voice is soft and low and I can hear him smiling when he talks to me. We decide that drinks are still on so I get dressed. Caity tells me what to wear. The long sundress I love is a big No. “You look like a soccer mom taking the kids on an outing.”

“But I have cleavage!” I say.

“Tanya, moms have cleavage too. They feed babies.”

Ah. So I try on a new dress I bought at Filene’s Basement. It’s short and tight and again, my boobs are enormous. I’m having Boob Paranoia. I can’t do that dress. I’ll wear that dress when I’m out with Biff. But not for an ex. So I put on a cute wraparound blue dress where the cleavage is easy. I mean classy. I was slipping into the Summertime song there. I apologize.

The bar we meet at is called the Vanderbar, on 45^th (I think) and Vanderbuilt. I get there early and sit by an open window. They have the air blasting so you get the benefit of open windows without sweating. New York is smart that way. I order a drink. A martini made with blackberry vodka with real berry bits. I don’t like how the term ‘berry bits’ sounds…sort of like something exploded. The drink, though, is good.

I watch men walking by the window, into the bar. They’re in suits and I have a surreal moment where I look around for Christian Bale thinking I’ve slipped onto the set of American Psycho.

My old boyfriend…let’s call him Harrison (with a nod to Harrison Ford though my ex doesn’t look like him at all) texts me and says he’ll be there in five minutes.

I try to relax and I find that I do. I also slip back into 2001 when I met Harrison. We met online and our first date lasted 8 hours. We went to restaurants and bars and kissed in a bar surrounded by hundreds of people. Our relationship was easy and intense and I loved him. After September 11^th, the city was so depressed, especially that first Christmas. I had no money and no family. I wanted a Christmas tree but couldn’t afford one so I drew a picture of one on a grocery bag, colored it and decorated it. I taped it to the wall and there was one present under it, a quilt I’d made for him. We spent Christmas together walking through the night to Central Park. There was a light snow and the world was draped in stars and Christmas lights. And menorahs too, of course.

A couple months later Harrison broke up with me. He said it was the timing and that “It’s not you, Tanya, it’s me.” I didn’t understand. I thought I’d found the One. I felt totally used and like I didn’t matter. All part of why I moved back home.

I think of this waiting for him. When he enters the bar we look at each other and we smile. He looks the same. Exactly the same. He’s married now with two kids and one on the way and he’s the kind of guy that is just plain comfortable to be with. We sit and talk and drink and laugh. He brings up the past. He says “You know, I’ve often thought about you and wondered what would have happened if we met a year later. I was just in a really difficult time in my life and I wasn’t ready.”

I get teary then because what he’s said is a gift to me. I didn’t imagine a connection; it was really there, and I mattered to him. And now, after being divorced, I understand what he means. It really was the timing. We talk about our lives and kids. I talk about my divorce and Biff. We toast to old times at another bar and then say our goodbyes.

I walk by myself through the streets of New York and I find that a little part of my heart has just healed.

I meet my niece at American Idiot and we see a show together. We spend the rest of the night walking around together and laughing. We eat Tasti D-Lite in Times Square.

The way I feel about New York now is the way I feel about Harrison. It occupies a little place in my heart, but it’s a place no longer of sadness but of a wonderful year. I used to think that moving to the city in 2001 was horrible timing, like meeting Harrison was horrible timing. Now I wonder otherwise. It was a year that changed my life and for the better. And I can be happy with that now.

When I sleep, I don’t dream. I wake up smiling…but I still have a toothache.

Here’s the Flash Forward:

I was so nervous about this trip that I had to take a Valium last night. It made me feel woozy and giggly and allowed me to actually sleep a bit. On the plane ride we (my niece Caity and I) were jammed in to this tiny plane that trembled at every gust of wind. I had to hold Caity’s hand while she tried not to roll her eyes. We got off the plane (once it landed of course) and then found a cab. I felt different driving into the city. The last time I’d done it, I had all my belonging with me. This time, I was a tourist. It was a lovely day, slightly overcast, cool, so the New York City Summer Smell wasn’t so bad.

We found our hotel on West 87^th street (The Belnord) and then went exploring. I quickly realized that this wasn’t the city I left ten years ago. Maybe because September 11 is no longer part of every waking moment. Or maybe it’s because I’m a little older. When I lived here, I was so immersed in my own experience, I never looked around. This time was different. It is different. (Tense change people. To my students: I apologize.) New York isn’t a place really…I mean it is…but what makes it interesting is the people. It’s People! It’s like Soylent Green only you don’t eat it.

We did eat Greek food. Grapes hung from the ceiling. Plastic grapes, thankfully.

Then we were off to kill two hours before checking into the hotel. We found this strange bookstore with books covering the walls from floor to ceiling. It smelled musty. And I listened to the clerk talk to his accountant. They were hipsters, in their late twenties.

“Dude, weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in here was a homeless guy came in with a plastic bag, he dropped his drawers right in the store man and took a crap. A crap! In the bag! Then he pulled up his drawers, grabbed the bag and left.” The clerk shook his head.

The accountant ( a redhead with a bad sunburn) said: “Well, how did he do that? I mean, wouldn’t that be hard to get all that shit into a bag and not make a mess?”

Clerk: “I don’t know man. I guess he had a lot of practice.”

Mmmm. My first New York Story.

We checked into our hotel. It was cute. And made for very tiny people. I’m 5’4 and nearly a giant, but it’s okay. I fit.

Then we went to Union Square. It was a mass of Hipsters. Skinny jeans, crocheted hats, thick glasses. Irony was in the air like a thick fog. Everyone was hanging out looking mildly bored. I wanted to take a brush and comb hair out of Hipsters’ eyes. I refrained.

While walking around Caity and I spied a beautiful man coming toward us. He had long curly hair, was wearing a skirt and a mesh lacy top. Like, totally a woman’s outfit, but he didn’t care. And he had amazing legs. Long, shapely and covered in dark hair. We both agreed that he was the hottest transsexual we’d ever seen, and utterly natural looking.

Caity met a friend of hers and I was left on my own to explore. I found a place to sit and have a drink and while sitting there that old boyfriend I told you about called me. “Hello, darlin’…” he began. I just laughed. It’s not ten years ago. I don’t have any feelings for him, and that’s sort of liberating. Plus, I have Biff waiting for me at home…and HE fixes sinks and stuff.

Then I took a subway to the hotel. I was all cocky like I Know The Subway I lived Here Ten Years Ago. Yeah. Not so much. I immediately got on the wrong train and ended up on the East side. I thought I stepped through a vortex. Then I realized I’d just used the wrong train. So, back to the subway and to Times Square to fix my error. Doors closed. It was hot and smelled of onions. That’s not a pleasant thing. Then we stopped. Mid-tunnel. The lights flickered. The driver came on the speaker “Look, folks, we’re stuck here for a while. Some guy in the train just ahead of us is sick. They’re trying to figure out what to do with him.”

A girl wearing a t-shirt dress (which I suspected might just be a t-shirt) said “Well, get the asshole off the train. We have dinner reservations.”

We waited. I thought, hmm. Someone’s sick? We’d been waiting for twenty minutes. I wondered if someone had a heart attack or explosive vomiting, then decided I didn’t want to think about it. Finally the driver came back on. “Okay. We need to evacuate. It’s not a big deal. Be calm. When I stop the train, you all need to move slowly to the front of the train, but be careful stepping between the trains ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE IN HEELS. There’s 600 volts of electricity down there, people. It’s not a joke. If you are in heels, be especially careful!”

I was in the last train. Do you know how long it takes to walk from the back of a NY subway train to the front, balancing between cars? It takes forever. And it makes you dizzy.

It’s an hour later now and I’m in my hotel room. I just ate a Tasty D-Lite Strawberry Cheescake cone followed by an enormous piece of pizza. If Biff were here, he’d probably have eaten TWO slices of pieces because he likes to eat things in pairs.

My feet hurt, I’m tired, and I don’t need Valium tonight. I’m utterly relaxed. And the New York I was so afraid to return to isn’t scary at all. It’s just wrapped in skinny jeans and has a wicked sense of humor. I fit right in. I’m wearing a cape after all.

“There are two people in this room, Doctor. One is sane. One is as crazy as they come. I assure you, sir, I am sane. So which one are you?”

-Handwritten note addressed to Dr. Kinney and marked PRIVATE

Second Street, Traverse City, 1952

My head throbs. My body aches. I feel as if every muscle has been straining to grasp something it cannot reach. Maybe it was the conversation with my mother. Your father, she began and then she said, Charlie…She paused here and her eyes filled with tears. I think, perhaps, mine did too. No longer was he simply my father; she had to specify that she meant her husband and the man that raised me. She continued, Charlie and I met because of Ama. She was raised in the tunnels, you see. Charlie had been bringing her food secretly for sometime and the others…

I slip my hands in the hot, sudsy water and grab a glass and begin to scrub.

The others, she said, raised her.

The glass in my hand is a fragile bird. I scrub. I said, but if Dad knew she was there…why didn’t he rescue her?

My mother looked at me and sighed. She was tired. She did not want to discuss this with me anymore. Her words were heavy with fatigue. Who would rescue her, Beth? A ten-year-old girl, raised by lunatics? Where would she go? Who would take that risk? Charlie was raised in an orphanage. He has the scars to prove it. And if you saw her…if you knew her…I met her when she was seventeen. We were the same age. I was jealous of her, of how Charlie would bring her things…ribbons, a slice of bread, a jewelry box. And so I started bringing things too. I think maybe she wanted him, but she could not go to the surface then and I could. And of course, Doctor Kinney arrived shortly after that. After that, everything was decided.

What was decided? I asked.

You. Ama. Rose. Me.

I say the four words as I scrub a glass and when the glass snaps in my hand, I don’t feel a thing. Not until I see the water beneath the suds and the swirl of red do I realize that anything is wrong. I call for Ray but he is not home. He never seems to be home anymore.

I pull my hand from the water and it seems to pulse blood directly from my heart. There’s a towel and I wrap it tightly across the gash in my hand. If I cannot get the bleeding to stop, I will call my neighbor Katy to help me. I will crawl to her if I need to. It’s not the loss of my own blood I fear, but my child’s.

For now, I slide down against the cabinets and sit on the floor.

I breathe.

You. Ama. Rose. Me. I repeat it. It’s a refrain. A dirge. The sound of a glass shattering.

What did you do to us? I ask the air. I ask Kinney. I ask the man who was my real father, and yet a man I feel nothing but contempt for. He doesn’t answer. He is not here either.

***

Northern Michigan Insane Asylum, 1933

“Mallie, I’d like you to assist me with a few things,” Kinney said to the young nurse. She stood in the doorway to his office and looked behind her as if to see if anyone were watching. “It’s perfectly above board,” Kinney said. “You have nothing to fear from me. Please come in and shut the door.”

“It’s just that…if you forgive sir, there have been doctors, sir, who…” she fumbled with her apron, twisted it with her fingers.

“I’m aware of the rumors. Do not fear. I have nothing but a professional interest in you. In fact, I have a proposition for you.” Mallie seemed to let that register. She entered the office and shut the door, though she stayed close to it, Kinney was sure so that she could escape if needed.

“You have a proposition, sir?”

“Tell me, has your family been struck by the wave of job losses?” Kinney knew the answer to this. Most of the country was under a serious economic crisis. Even now the asylum was filling with the deranged that family members could no longer support. He could surmise that Mallie’s family was having trouble, but he did not need to surmise at all. He knew that Mallie Lyn Peters lived with her single mother and four siblings. He knew that her mother mended patients’ uniforms. Harvey Biggart himself brought great stacks of uniforms for her to fix. He also knew that she had lost quite a bit of work lately because Kinney had quietly seen to it to find another seamstress.

Mallie Lyn’s face flushed red and she nodded. “Yes,” she said.

Kinney nodded, once. “I have a special job for you, one that you will be well compensated for. One that will require some additional time from you on your day off, and perhaps at night. You will be safe, I assure you. I have no interest in you of a physical nature, I assure you. I simply need a nurse to help me at my new house.”

“Your new house, sir?” She looked up at him.

“I have purchased a home not far from here, on the shore of the bay. I have, of course, decided to keep my appointment here at the asylum. You will assist me with some…” Kinney paused here as he searched for the word. “…experiments if you will.  A new method in healing the sick. We will start with one patient.”

“One, sir?” Mallie asked softly.

“Just one. And Mallie, if you assist me, perhaps I can send some more work to your mother and your young siblings.” He saw her eyes flash then and he could not be certain if it were from gratefulness or if she guessed how much of her family’s fate he truly held in his palms.

“Of course, sir. Whatever you need, sir.” She curtsied. “Just a question, sir. Who is the patient?”

Kinney walked to the window to hide his grin. “Ama,” he said. “But from now on we will call her Patient Rose.”

Mallie’s reaction was not what he’d expected. He’d expected her to harangue him, to fight. But she said with a voice that now had more strength in it, “Oh, yes, Doctor Kinney. I would be happy to take Ama away from here. To take…Rose. And watch over her, I mean, and help you with whatever experiments you need. No one need know. She doesn’t really belong here anyway.”

This time when Kinney turned to her, he did not hide his grin. It seemed that Mallie Lyn and he had a perfect understanding. “We will begin at once,” he said. “I am moving my things to the house tonight.”

“Tonight, sir,” she said, and she smiled at him in return.

***

Traverse City, 1952

I sit in the rocking chair and rock. I rock to the pulsing in my hand, to keep the sound of Ray’s voice from touching me. “What a fucking stupid thing to do, Beth! How could you cut yourself! Are you a child? Do you need someone here to watch you? I had to take work off. I lost a day’s pay. A day’s pay!” He goes on and on. I rock. I focus on the color of Ray’s hands, stained deep and forever with the cherries he cans. He smells of the factory, sweet.

I tell him I’m sorry. I tell him it was an accident. I tell him it will never happen again. I talk to him and while my mouth moves and say words, my mind is very far away. Back in the asylum my father took my mother from the only home and family she ever knew. How did he do it? How did her family react? I do think of them as her family, the inmates. They loved her, didn’t they? And isn’t that what family is? People who love you?

I have their pictures: Liliana with the long dark hair. The albino man, Timothy Beeler. The crazed and fierce looking Kostic. The old woman Lynnie. It is their voices I hear now, not Ray’s. They say the words I want to say.

Stop! What are you doing? How can you take her? She is ours ours ours. Ama! Ama! They cry.

They cry.

They are grabbed and thrown in cells. My father prescribes new therapies. They inject Liliana with insulin to trigger a coma. For Robert Kostic, it’s massive doses of barbiturates to control him and he sleeps the sleep of the dead. They lock Timothy in a room where he cannot paint or draw. And old Lynnie they treat by holding her food, and feeding her only broth. And later, there’s a new technique, electroshock therapy, and I see their bodies vibrating and bouncing and I see the foam forming in their mouths.

In my rocking chair, I imagine Ray doing the same to me. Shocking my system, only it is with words. Stupid, useless, ridiculous, selfish. Why I ever married you I’ll never know.

He’s chipping away at me. At the very core of me. I feel my self slip away under the cold water.

This, too, is what my father did to my mother. She may have started out as Ama, but she became Rose.

The question I have now is who, exactly, will I become?

In the morning Kinney awoke to the emptiness of the bed and his room, and the awareness that to accomplish his goal, he would need to take steps. First steps began with the ritual of shaving. Cold water, lathering the soap in the cup, dragging the straight blade down the sharp curve of his jaw. Just a touch of blood. Never mind. There was always a scratch or two when preparing to greet the world. And then the dressing: under garments, starched shirt, dark dress pants, shoes polished to a dark mirror. He smoothed pomade in his hair until every hair lay perfectly in place. And then he began his morning routine, or what had become his morning routine. He did not go to the dining hall for coffee and food to be spooned upon a platter for him. He went quietly down into the tunnels. He too could have a secret hiding spot. Kinney, you see, was a quick learner.

As a doctor Kinney had realized early on that before taking any precipitous steps with a patient, he must observe quietly first. Only after hours of observation, could he (as one would cut out a cancerous growth) know exactly how to remove the cause of his suffering. For Kinney suffered now. Every moment when Rose was not with him (for he thought of Ama entirely as his Rose now) he suffered gravely. He was losing weight, the sharp blades of his bones becoming yet more pronounced. He coughed more and at times had such trouble breathing he feared he’d pass out. When Rose was with him all signs of his illness abated. He was well. And so he must figure out a way to remove Rose from the darkness of the tunnels and take her into the light of his own life.

From the shadows he observed. This morning Rose was tended to by the albino, Beeler. The four inmates seemed to exhibit vastly different psychoses and on their own could barely tend to themselves, let alone take care of a child. Collectively, he noted, it was a different story entirely. They seemed to help each other. To communicate with one another. Where one patient had a weakness, another had strengths. The albino did not talk. It was either a self-imposed silence or perhaps his albinism was only one tendril of deeper malformations. Perhaps he did not have a tongue with which to speak. Beeler’s strength was tending to Rose, protecting her while she slept. He watched over her, fiercely at times Kinney noted. If there were no other noises in the tunnel room where she slept Beeler drew pictures for her.

Her room consisted of a stained mattress and an odd collection of broken toys and dolls on slanted shelves. Alone, the room would be dismal, but Beeler with his drawings had somehow transformed the small room into a childish paradise. While Beeler was without color himself, he drew and painted pictures with colors so vibrant they practically vibrated. The walls were covered with a deep blue waterfall and a woods so lush it seemed to hum. Butterflies of inexplicable colors flew and hid in flowers. Woodland creatures peered from branches and fields. And the ceiling was covered not with the brightness of a sun, but the cool simple beauty of sister moons.

Once, Kinney had stifled a cough and Beeler had immediately turned in place and seemed to stare straight at him. Kinney dared not breathe, especially when a growl of inhuman nature issued from the throat of the albino. Hours passed, seemingly, until Beeler returned to his sketching. Kinney had no doubt that if the inmate had caught him observing, he might have torn out Kinney’s own tongue, rendering him without speech too.

Kinney had observed the others with her too. Kostic was her guardian and storyteller. Kostic suffered from what was newly termed paranoid schizophrenia. He had moments of extreme lucidity, even an otherworldly calm, and moments of extreme violence…yet somehow he used this diseased part of his mind to spin incredible stories.

Kinney thought of him as a ruthless spider spinning nightmares and demons, saints and hellfire. Rose listened raptly, apparently transported as Kostic spoke. Through this way Kinney suspected Rose had learned language and a sense of wrong from right. There was always a hero in his stories; it’s just that many of the heroes were from the darkest parts of the underworld.

Rose’s sense of sensuality and gender seemed to come from (for lack of a better word) her two mothers. Liliana was a hysteric who suffered from bouts of epilepsy. She was considered feeble-minded, yet she had a way about her, a gentleness of spirit that was inviting. Her long curly hair fell to her back and surrounded her face in shadow, yet a calmness flowed from her. She seemed to feel deep empathy for the others. When Rose was troubled, she ran to Liliana and was soothed. And when the others were fighting or suffering an episode, Liliana stepped in and softly talked them down, or placed herself fearlessly between Rose and the other inmate who was about to strike.

And then there was Lynnie Grant, a lifetime ward of the asylum. Now in her seventies she was as withered as a dead tulip stalk. The years had bent her back into a sharp hook so that when she walked, she faced her own stomach. She could not straighten up entirely, but would twist her head up to see you.  She was notoriously promiscuous, even at this age, with language so base and dirty there were times they locked her in a private ward to keep her from infecting the other inmates. If witches existed, surely Lynnie Grant was one of them. Kinney could not discern her role in Rose’s life and did not care to ponder how Rose could be such a knowledgeable lover. Surely it was not from instruction but Rose’s unending passion for Kinney specifically.

And so it went on. And so Kinney watched and waited and listened. Listened to how the inmates related not to Rose but to each other. And every morning when he crawled out of the tunnels, he wrote copious notes so that he would not forget. He would use the information to cut out another cancerous growth, and it would allow him to finally possess Rose.

This morning, she slept. Kinney smiled to himself. He would not have to wait much longer. He had almost everything he needed. He would begin the cleaving soon.

It was a great afternoon. G and I are dealing with similar writing issues, and maybe some similar life issues too. And then while he worked on prepping dinner (that I sadly missed, had to get home before falling asleep) I tried to get online. No access. But my mail folder popped up and I clicked something weird and all of a sudden I was looking at email from 2008…and the first message was a harmless message I’d sent to my now ex.

Hi sweetie. Sorry lunch was so rushed. I was trying to get the kids to play and take a good nap. It worked. They’re both napping now.

I hope you have a great trip and all goes smoothly. I’m sorry I didn’t make you bread. I honestly thought you didn’t want me to make sweets right now. Maybe there will be something nice for your return.

I heard from Trillium Farms. Everything is confirmed; and got a receipt for Iowa. Both exciting. When we get our refund check and/or Brilliance money, we should set some aside to pay the balance on the farm. It’s due in April.

love you

Tanya

It depressed me. Deeply. Why? What’s wrong with this note? It’s a simple note from a wife to a husband. It’s about every day stuff. What saddened are the things that are not said. My ex in this email was on one of his many trips, and he’d come home briefly for food before heading out. At that time, I cooked everything from scratch. I apologize here for lunch being rushed. Louis was 4 and Simone was 2 and I apologized! I also apologized for not having homemade bread for him. Then I talk about Iowa. On Iowa, I’d scheduled a writing conference that I wanted to attend on my own, but my ex insisted that he go with me. I was angry at him, but you’d never guess it here. Also, I used money from my voice-overs from Brilliance to pay for it, because it was an extravagance and he refused to use any of our ‘regular’ income.

You don’t hear the sadness in here. You hear a woman being a wife and saying I love you and taking care of things. But how I felt…oh, how I felt. Why couldn’t I tell him? Why couldn’t I explain how miserable I was? Why was I, essentially, lying to him?

The truth is, I wasn’t just lying to him by pretending to be happy and pretending everything was okay. I was lying to myself. Every email I sent him tried so hard to be perfect. I apologized for the house not being cleaner, for not making better food, for spending $10 over our $250 monthly food budget. I said “I love you” more times than I can count. I asked him to forgive me. It turns my stomach now to read it. Why would I expect him to know what I was feeling if I was so very good at hiding it?

I think we all do this. We want a perfect life so badly, we tell ourselves we have it. We apologize for things we don’t feel guilty for. We say yes to things we want to say no to.

I’m mad at myself for being so phony, not only with my ex (because there is an element in there that isn’t fair) but also to myself. If I could’ve been strong enough earlier…

I did the best I could.

While G cooked, I had flashbacks to my life as a wife. There are things I miss so much about it. I miss the comfort and security. I miss the predictability. I miss having my kids all the time. I miss planning menus and having a husband that would eat anything I set in front of him from crazy vegetarian food to extravagant roasts to, fresh ciabatta bread. I miss the ring on my finger that seemed to prove to myself that, yes, I was loved.

Sorry to wax poetic here. My ex has taken the kids camping with his new wife and her children and it makes me feel vulnerable and sad.

I haven’t deleted those emails yet. I can’t bear to look at them all, but maybe they’re some kind of reminder, and maybe those emails, the things I don’t say are part of the reason that right now, I’m saying so very much. After five years of self-imposed silence, I find I can’t shut up.

At least now, I like to think that I’m saying all the things I should. There aren’t any spaces between. It’s sometimes hard to live honestly, to be authentic with the loved ones in my life, but I think too, that the life I have now is richer because of that. And while I still want some kind of proof that I have love in my life, I don’t need the ring anymore. I just look at my kids and I know.

There have been rumors circulating the facility that an inmate gave birth to a child in the tunnels. This is a fallacy. Yes, a young woman was found in an exhausted state and she had signs of a physical attack, but she shows no signs of having been pregnant at any time. The woman has been transferred to another location and is recovering. Her family has been informed. The breech in the tunnels has been fixed. Dear fellows, rumors circulate, you must know that. Especially in an asylum for the deranged.

-Signed, P. Callahan

Letter addressed to Doctor Grooms, Superintendent, 1912:

I am writing because I cannot live with this secret. You know as well as I do that the woman in question had a child. Where has that child gone? If the child has been taken, it is kidnapping. If the child…if the child is dead then perhaps it is murder. How am I to cover this up? You cannot ask it of me! I no longer wish to be a part of this establishment. I cannot continue in this subterfuge and so I am taking another position. Please allow me a two weeks pay stipend, in return of which, I promise not to speak of this. I have written to the board as you requested, but that is the last of it. I wash my hands of this affair, sir. I beg you never to speak of it to me again.

-Signed, P. Callahan

On the walls of the tunnels in green crayon:

***

Northern Michigan Insane Asylum, 1932

The ice storms of November slipped into the soft snowfall of an early winter. And in the cool fresh air, Kinney was renewed. He slept deeply. He woke quickly. His movements took on a vigor that he had lacked for so many years. When he polished his shoes, the brush snapped across the surface. When he shaved, his blade was quick and did not shake. He walked briskly as if his feet could at any moment propel him into the air. He saw his patients and monitored, tended. He ate lush meals with the board of trustees and his fellow doctors. He found a new way to laugh, deep from his belly. His eyes sparked. And every day he used his energy to propel him into the next moment, the next second, because every second that clicked by was another second closer to seeing his Rose.

Of course, he knew that the woman that came to him at night and slipped into his bed was not his wife. He had buried his wife, seen her eyes sewn shut. But this woman, when she whispered his name, when she kissed him, when he trailed his hands along the curves of her breasts to the flat of her stomach, this woman in the darkness and the quiet might as well have been his wife. She was his wife in every way but one. She was his wife in the shadows; in the daylight he was still a widower.

She would tell him nothing. She knew nothing. “Where were you born?” he asked her one night after making love. Their bodies were warm against the clawing cold of the night air.

“Here,” she whispered and then kissed his chest.

“Here? You  mean here, here at the asylum. But how?” He tried to pull away, but she kissed him again, the side of his neck, his ear.

“Yes, here. Here. Everywhere.” She kissed him again and he lost all sense of himself.

He could not let go of not-knowing. “What do you know of her, Mallie?” he asked while following Mallie to visit the women’s ward.

“I can’t speak of it, sir,” she said. And she would not.

So Kinney took it upon himself to discover the origin of this woman, a woman of his dreams, surely, who came to him at night and loved him fiercely and then disappeared with the morning. He searched records and files. He dug through other patients’ paperwork. And then he began to talk to the patients themselves, probing tenderly with questions to find the truth. What do you know? He’d ask. And sometimes he’d say just her name, just Ama, and see if there was a flicker in their eyes. A flicker that said they knew.

He gathered truth like berries. He held them close to him and in time he discovered the truth. Ama had been born in the tunnels of the asylum. Her mother was an inmate. She had no parents, no wards, except for the people who visited her and tended to her. There were four patients she looked to as her family, although over the years there had been many others. Two mothers, two fathers, all of them, all four of them inmates of the asylum. And yet Ama was nearly perfect in every way. She seemed not to exhibit any psychosis at all. How could a child born in an asylum and raised, it seemed, by a collective of lunatics, have survived at all let alone flourished into such a woman?

Kinney could not understand. He wanted to. He wanted to crawl into the tender pieces of her mind to discover the magic of it. How was it possible? It wasn’t! But, of course, it was.

Ama was perfect in nearly every way, except she seemed to have no concept of time or place, of memory. She lived fully in the here and now.

It was this, along with her striking resemblance to Rose, that gave him the idea. If he could give her some memories, implant them if you will, if he could change the inflection of words, make her say certain phrases, if he could get her to say to him how much she loved him, the way that Rose had said so many times before she slipped away from him…wouldn’t that be a way of bringing Rose back? Ama was a blank slate, a personality that had not been shaped or formed. She was a child trapped in the body of a woman he loved.

“I can free her,” he thought. “I have the power and the knowledge to do it.” In the past, he’d attempted to free lunatics of their diseased spirits by cutting out portions of the brain. To transform Ama would require no surgery, though. Just a steady hand in manipulation, an understanding of the brain and memory. He could do it.

“Ama,” he said and pulled her on top of him. Her smooth skin warmed him. Like this, their bodies pressed tight, there was no space between them. Not even air could separate them. “I want to call you something else. A name. A pet name. A name I will whisper to you and you will know is yours.”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her body moved against him.

“I will call you Rose,” he said, and this time he kissed her. Drank of her. Breathed her in. “Rose,” he said again. It was as if her silence accepted him, pulled him in. Then he was lost to all thought…at least until the morning dawned.