Where's the Rand McNally Already?

They talk about weak spots in terms of chocolate cake and lottery tickets. My weak spot begins with a slow, internal sigh, a few hopeless thoughts flitting through my mind like forlorn moths bumping into screen and then a dive into a jagged hole of despairing introspection.

Where is my life going? If I grow, will I ever feel like it's enough? And, even then, will it all flop? Failure? Failure. Failure.

Weird coming from someone newly engaged, recent first home-buyer, less than one year old business starter. Yet I find my head constantly swiveling between black and white photos saluting the Statue of Liberty and Jesus returning on a horse.

I'm just saying.

I recently saw the new Alice and Wonderland. Aside from suddenly wanting cakes that say "Eat Me" to appear, there were three lines in it that stuck out in an eyebrow-furrowing, heart-thump kind of way. This was it: at three different points in the movie - three moments throughout the elaborate and adventurous and, of course, lesson-learning journey of Alice through Wonderland - the wise and mystical caterpillar (the one smoking the hookah, of course) said these things to Alice and in this order:

#1) You're hardly Alice.

#2) You're not quite Alice.

#3) You're Alice, at last.

Strangely, this helps me.

Because if I take a turn in my introspection from the gloom and despair and doubt and ask myself why I care so stinking much about where my life is heading, I realize this driving ache has been there since I was eating Gerber's and sitting in Desitin. I. want. to. become.

And then I remember this. Jesus actually knows who, as fleshy, pooping babies, we were intended to become. He knows how those few years in childhood put guilt on us we can't shake or how that relationship pumped us full of fear and worry or that we have been steeped in a culture that taught us to love and be loved conditionally.

He prods us. Pushes us. Asks for permission to change things, show us new organs he wants to put in us and does the surgery, to boot. Challenges us. Doesn't do the expected. Is painfully simple with his love. Treats us unlike the grandma or the boyfriend or the wife or the pastor or the best friend did.

We give ourselves to this and find out it's doing things to us. We. are. becoming. So much so that hope is snowballing and a part of me believes that at the end Jesus will take a drag of his hookah, exhale through his nose and say, "Jordan, at last."

Direction for a Self-Portrait

I’d start with a round shape. Well, I guess if we’re going to get fancy, let’s do almond. A Japanese person once told me I had an almond-shaped face. But they’re strange that way, always eating seaweed and bean curd and stuff.

Add some yellowy snarls of hair around that thing. Imperfectly parted and disobedient. Include some commentary from my grandmas while you’re at it – twenty-eight years into this thing called life and they still can’t get over that I have curly hair. Maybe they’re jealous I won’t need a permanent when it’s time for the round-head all women are fated for. Or maybe they’re flipping through the files of their brothers and sisters, in laws and uncles by way of my tresses, remembering which ones had curly hair, too, and how it was in great uncle Gordon’s hair as well. But we don’t talk much about him.

Don’t forget the fixings. Lips that pull over smallish teeth and gargantuan gums, two bluey eyes, a set of ears and an Anglo-Saxon beak. And skin. Sticks of concealer have told me I’m fair, ivory, light cream. I would suggest tying a whitish crayon to a pinkish one to an orangish one and giving the forehead a good scribble. You’ll get the point.

And of course there are the smatterings:

: The mini crater on the seam of my left nostril, once an astoundingly large pimple in tenth grade. My dad called it my twin sister. Mary Simensen and I, in our genius way of prescribing topical remedies, slathered wart remover on it. It burned through my skin – no, I should say it ate through my skin. But I guess it did the job.

: Scar on the bottom of my chin from a tragic roller skating accident.

: Slight circles under eyes.

: Constant flaring of nostrils (if you can do that on paper, that’d be great).

If you want to apply a general feel, I’d bend pieces and lines to the tune of intrigued - maybe an eyebrow up, or something. It’s OK if you can’t erase it. It’s a good idea to me. A life full of questions and interest and pursuit.

The Germans Call It Fruehling

The world smells like dog poop these days.

Thawing preserves from Labrador walks and Terrier runs, creating obstacle courses for melting streams of snow and strollers. Mutt Mitts are shockingly neglected in the months around the winter solstice. Probably secretly. And bitterly.

The earth squishes. As if it's given up its grudge, finally caved in on that thing it said it wouldn't do. Like the time Jennifer Zawislak did invite Karly Kaneski to the birthday party, even though the fight happened on the bus and there hadn't been much talking or notes or phone calls since. And like Jennifer, the ground is breathing is easier for it. Things seem to fizz and pop, as the juices exchange.

Alarm clocks seem too slow, as we lean into the sunshine instead and swap out dark stumbles to sinks and toilets for liftings of window panes and bypasses of wool ensembles.

The melt ensues and the Germans call it Fruehling.

Mobile

Some background:

I'm in the deep south where people regularly eat crawfish with sides of hushpuppies. And have winter jackets on even though it's almost 60 degrees. And pronounce words like "St. Charles" in a way that sounds more like "St. Chaaaawles."

My brother Jonah lives in the 15th poorest county in the nation. There are a lot of shacks, trailer houses, $2.99 shrimp baskets and Waffle Houses around this part of Florida. He drives a Saab.

We went to Mobile, Alabama for Mardi Gras on Tuesday. We could've driven two hours more for the experience in New Orleans, but settled for Mobile, which boasts being the site where the original Mardi Gras was started some 250+ years ago. We know nothing about Mobile or its neighborhoods. We're white Minnesotans who shudder at the thought of separate drinking fountains. We've been singing "We Shall Overcome" since elementary school with hands clasped and silhouettes of Martin Luther King hung obediently by our desks. And so we ended up on the corner of Government Street and Washington. We were the only white people there in a crowd of thousands.

And so:

We're in this place, watching black marching bands and elaborate floats go by. Sweet kids with weaved hair, collecting Moon Pies (it's what they throw from the floats) and gobs and gobs of purple, gold and green beads. A man with a straight set of gold teeth befriended us - his name was James - gave us the commentary the news anchors usually give us. Each of those floats represent a different society - a Krewe. They're all masked, they all have their private balls tonight and you have to be invited to be in with the Krewe. The Krewes are all white. Usually wealthy. Under their masks, their sparkly costumes say "KOR" (Knights of Revelry). We found out later that they began allowing black Krewes in the late 30's, but they couldn't use the same parade route as the white Krewes until 1994. They're still not in the same parades.

I kept looking around at all these people, wanted to ask with wide eyes and hand motions, "What do you think of this? Are you OK with this?"

At the turn of the 20th century, 50% of Alabama was black - all from slavery. As I looked around at the crowd surrounding us five, sore-thumb Scandinavians, I could not stop thinking about this. These people are descendants of slaves. Their grandma-grandpa family trees look like people getting sold here and working to death there. Not knowing real last names and one of heck of a road of poverty to work out of. And we found out later that somebody was shot two blocks down during the parade.

We got gobs and gobs of beads, too. 52 strings. One string whipped in our direction hit my mom in the teeth. She thought she lost a frontie. A black woman walking by told her "You gotta watch out for those - they sure send them flyin'!" My mom's eyes involuntarily watered. She said "thanks." We collected Moon Pies. And drove back to Pensacola in a Saab.

RSVP Ignored

I can imagine their wedding dance. My mom in her starched, 


lacey-white, matrimonial cowboy hat and my dad keeping


a beat with only the occasional squat and sway of his 
gray,

tuxed hips. And while they maybe two-stepped to a little 
John Denver,

a corsaged Aunt Kathy held post at 
the guestbook - the one with the

enormous plumed pen that 
ran out of ink somewhere between

Great Uncle Leonard and a 
surname of Lundgren.

Did someone scratch my name 
down in those gray, embossed pages?

I was there, too. I was there humming along to “Country Roads”

and feeling 
the waltzing chafe of Grandpa Shermer’s midsection

as he 
shuffled through a dollar’s worth of dance.

Between twirls 
and dips on chipped, church linoleum and

niceties with the 
horn-rimmed organist, I, too blushed at the

joke repertoire coming from 
Uncle George and

other schnockered uncles circling 
near the cake. Preludes of

“a guy walks into a bar” and 
“one man says to another man”

were met with slaps on suited knees, a swallow of Grain Belt and

bites of marble cake smothered 
in white-ish frosting.

And with each punch line, I made myself more at home in the first trimester. 



I hope Mom sipped a Grain Belt that night.


I hope her dress was cinched tight around her waist.


I hope that they had no idea I was there, hiding 


somewhere between her bladder and spleen, already


developing a taste for dancing around in dresses.

last family vacation

The main players used to be a gold, Silhouette van, a travel-size game of Connect Four sans 3-5 red or black chips every time we met a pothole, and my mom crying because the hotel room smelled like cigarettes/her Aunt Phyllis' house/swimming pool and we were too close to the raucous ice machine/parking lot/lobby. But we were going to Yellowstone/Gettysburg/Vancouver/Uncle Terry's. And dad had a whole week off and a cooler packed with Juicy-Juice and Duos (those cups of jello + yogurt purchased in tens at Super One). So it was vacation.

We went on for years like that. Hauling across the country, smelling geysers, downing juice boxes, taking blurry pictures of buffalo and mountains. At one point, probably on a stretch in Saskatchewan, my mom threw a whole ham sandwich at my dad. The whole thing. Smears of mayo, cheese and slimy disc of lunchmeat. All of it. None of us remember why, but all of us remember how things suddenly got very serious in that van and how dad got out and sat on the bumper for a full half hour afterwards.

It went on for years like that.

At some unnameable age, though, it all stops. Summer vacation completely disappears. We don't look at maps to National Parks. A week off isn't so easily taken as it was when you were at Dairy Queen. Keith or Gina aren't around to take your shifts and make Buster Bars just as well as you could. Nowadays, people are talking marriage and the van won't hold them all. Plus, the van got traded for something more practical. Something that doesn't need space for carseats.

What happens to family vacations then? Do they get multiplied the way a batch of rye dough gets turned into clovered, little potluck buns? Will our families throw sandwiches and demand you play Wee Sing America? Will we keep stealing each other's pillows, not keeping our hands to ourselves, but poking our neighbors instead and suffering from bloodshot eyes, filmed with hotel pool chlorine?