Day 11 :: Just plain show up
From Kathy Schuth in Indiana, a most marvelous email, with the subject line, “Mail is a Verb”:
I got my book from Amazon two days ago, but had to borrow a camera to send you a picture of the box! Do you know how delighted I was to see the embodiment of the book title?!? Apparently the mail delivery process was one HECK of a verb, so lively and um … squished, and a few band-aids that DHL threw on there too. Not a bad life analogy. But of course, Amazon uses tiny blacksmiths to create their packaging and the book is in great shape, and I am too, delighted for the beautiful object that you and your publisher present to us now. I’m a very visual person, and I am not disappointed by the presentation.
Kathy added her own answer on the question of having 37 days…
I know it would start with some thinking like so: “37 days, huh? Well that’s a kick in the pants. Actually, ironically, I was hoping to fit into those pants in 37 days. Maybe I should just give up on wearing pants. Maybe I should just give up on…who’s going to finish fixing up this lovely house? Ugh, who’s going to have to pay all those loans back. I really thought that I’d have had more sex by now. I really thought…I thought that I was so brave to go ahead and buy the house that I wasn’t going to buy without a husband, but I decided I wouldn’t wait, and thank God, because he never would’ve gone for the one I wanted anyway…but I thought that I’d have a husband. I guess I had expectations, didn’t I. Why I do I say that in the past tense now? I don’t want the hope to vanish, but the expectations have. Wow, that was fast. Unless there’s an elopement, but that’d be cruel, and no one’s going to come after me for the money….there are those loans…ok, that’s that. And it’s weird knowing that I only have to hold on hold on for 37 more days. Well, I guess I won’t worry about the pants. Or the mysterious pain. The long term physical therapy just doesn’t seem like a priority right now. Wow, I wonder if I can still swim. I really want to go swim. Alot. Until I’m a prune…”
The paring down would happen so fast.
I have not had the chance to create a family to extend the one I was born in to, so I know that it is to that born-into family I would return, and happily. But on the other hand, I know that I choose to live alone, right now, in order to have my days have some space on the edges. I tend to give that space away a little too freely, and so I often rebound from those times and cling too tight to the bits of time I do get. If I’m lucky, I listen to the voice that tells me that even though I finally had some time to cook, and all these vegetables just-on-the-edge-of-cookability to create with, and that all my other plans had been cancelled, and THERE’S THIS NEW BOOK ON THE TABLE, and I get the glass of wine – even though I deserve all of that, I think – listen to that – Kathleen, the neighbor’s daughter (who is six and starting school next week) has just rode her bike careening past my window with only one foot on a pedal, and the other ballasting. And she’s young enough to think that I’m cool. And she needs a learn-to-bike cheerleader. So I put dinner off until past school-night bedtime, and cheered. And watched her kid brother zoom past her on his training wheels, and present me with a worm, which was mostly dead, but not quite. And had her baby sister comb my hair with a stick from the yard, while her mother watched and laughed and caught up with me. And learned that our in-between neighbor has gotten a job again – a temp job, but it’s threatening to become permanent. And with all the bike riding going on, he must have gotten in the spirit, for he pulled out his family’s bikes for the first time since moving in this spring, and grabbed me later when I was putting out the trash to see if I knew anything about brakes. Me! The girl next door! Who knows nothing about brakes! But I cheerled for him too, and held some things (he called them ‘brakes’) while he tinkered and his wife sat on the porch shaking her head. And if you noticed – that’s a lot of ‘and’s.
So I feel like I may have at least gotten the evening right tonight. But it’s not at all what I expected or planned, and it’s better than I could have thought up. Is this what I could do for 37 days? I think it’s what I want, but I don’t think I could plan for it. To show up on a whim at my friend’s mother’s garden while she is up to her elbows in the dirt, and have her drop everything to offer me apple juice and Pringles. To catch these glimpses of grace and joy and share in it, and just plain show up.
I’ve also sent you a picture from my kitchen, where, since I live alone, I do not always have to clean up after myself. I’ve just started some renovation mewlings and pokings and fixings and the drill, and hammer, and crowbar are living next to the coffee maker and toaster oven. But even I had a double take when I noticed that the wine had ended up residing with the other construction tools. Do not worry for me, I promise not to mix the two (too much). So, it’s the kitchen, and it’s my life, and things look all a mess sometimes – but then again, all the best things I’ve ever learned required messes, (sometimes sustained messes). And if you were to somberly tell me ’37 days, kiddo.’ – I would flinch, and I would panic, but if I was lucky and I was listening, I’d at least get the evening right.
-Kathy Schuth
I liked what Kathy wrote so much that I decided to go to South Bend, Indiana, myself, and hand deliver the copy of Life is a Verb that will go to her for sending this essay.
No kidding. I told you that all you had to do was ask (and maybe make me laugh).
So, if you’re near South Bend, I’ll do a reading from Life is a Verb at 4pm on Sunday, September 14th, at the Studio Arts Center, thanks to Kathy’s invitation and her efforts in securing a fantastic space where we can gather and ponder and laugh.
If you’d like to answer the question, “What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live?”, email it to me. If your essay is posted here before the official publication date of Life is a Verb, you’ll receive a free, signed copy!
