Laundry: A Poem

image by charlie cravero

I'm trying something new tonight: sharing a poem with you. Seeing this artist's rendering of dryer lint reminded me of a poem I wrote in college. The scene that unfolds in it is fictional, but feels very real to me.

I'm rather shy about sharing this with you. Poetry is like singing for me: I enjoy it, but haven't the faintest idea if I'm any good at it. With my narrative non-fiction writing, I can usually get a handle on things and decide if a piece is good, or at least passable. But my own poetry leaves me baffled. I know I like some of it, but I have no bearing beyond that. Perhaps therein lies my answer: If I like it, it's good (enough) for me.

And so, I stand up and sing in front of the world:

Laundry

The agitated sloshing of cold water Tide
Is white background noise
To accompany silent swirling snow outside.
Two chairs from the door, resplendent in purple polyester pants,
And a gold paisley shirt
Plumps a sitting woman, serious about her breathing.
Across the room, brown and stout, the change machine crouches.
A small boy, same shade as the machine, though slighter in build,
Reaches on tip-toes to feed it a limp dollar,
Laughing with accomplishment as four shiny quarters clatter
Into the curved cup.
In the corner, farthest from the windows
(Though the fluorescent lights allow no shadow)
Entwines a couple, as agitated as my washer.

A harsh buzz,
The spin cycle stops.
Time to dry.
I open the smooth white lid to towels and shirts
Stuck, wet heavy cold, to the pin-holed sides of the steel tub,
Like people pressed to the walls of that amusement park ride
Spinning wildly and the floor dropped out and your face flattened
With the pressure.

The lint in the tray is soft speckled grey:
Leftovers of some stranger's laundry.
I'd like to keep it --
Collect the lint of a hundred machines,
Weave a familiar eclectic sweater
To wear when the wind threatens my warmth.
Instead, not to look odd in front of the wheezing polyester woman
(now sucking on a soda)
I toss it away and heap
My own into the dryer.

In the corner, the couple giggles.
The little brown boy stares until
Mother reprimands,
Her arms full of kiddie clothes,
A yellow, green, and white box of fabric softener wedged between her chin and chest.
The boy spies Polyester's Mountain Dew and clamors
For more change.
Another washer shutters to a stop.
The girl of the couple swings her tight acid washed jean hips to the machine,
Peers inside, unsure of the next step.
I wonder if her man will strut to her side and save his distressed damsel;
But he just stares at her backside leaning over the open lid.

A click and a beep.
My towels are warm and fluffy,
But too worn
For a Downey advertisement.
My basket piled full of woven lint,
I set it on the orange plastic scoop chair beside me.
The smell of static-electricity,
Like metal-vegetation:
Tiny crackling sparks as I pull apart
Washcloths and socks,
Pillowcase and bathmat.
The mother drops a small pair of overalls
And the boy asks me, "Do you have a quarter?"

Lessons from the lightning bugs

video originally uploaded by fimoculous

What the fireflies teach me:

• Magic is happening all around you. (look: here. and over here. there. here and here. look.)
• Fences are artificial divisions. There is no real difference between my land and yours.
• Not all creepy crawlies are scary.
• There's always room and time to play.
• There's light in the darkness if only we can see it.
• Joy and wonder are ours for the taking and giving.
  
• Even the most ordinary-looking little thing is full of unexpected possibility.
• Whimsy is not limited to little children.
  

Saturday Sayings: Present question marks

image by MsAnthea

Your present question marks are going to succeed.

~from a fortune cookie

What We Call Ourselves (Part 2)

image by jack dorsey

I sit down in the chair at the hair salon and Stacy, my stylist, says to me, "I have to tell you something. My name's not really Stacy." She's completely deadpan about this. I ask her if she's in the witness protection program and suggest that she not reveal her true identity. I don't want to end up at the bottom of a river somewhere. She glosses over my joke and says, "My name's not really Stacy. It's Jody."

Turns out that when Jody started working at the salon, there was already a Joni working there. And the receptionists couldn't distinguish who clients were asking for over the phone. So Jody, being the newbie, was forced to choose a new name. Thus, Stacy was born.

About a year after I started going to Stacy, Joni quit. And Stacy became Jody once more. But here's the thing: She was totally a Stacy. Even now, I sometimes have trouble remembering her real name. To me, Jody is the essence of Stacy.

What's in a name? I disagree with Shakespeare. I'm not so sure roses would still smell as sweet by any other name. Words in general, and names in particular, mean a lot to me. Just a small change in spelling affects how I perceive a word, even if the pronunciation doesn't change. For me, the words "gray" and "grey" are completely separate colors and ideas. (Grey is always much nicer, by the way.) Start mucking about with the pronunciation and my world turns topsy-turvy. An American to-may-to and a British to-mah-to might as well be completely different vegetables. (Okay, different fruits.)

What we call ourselves shapes us. Our names meld with us, becoming part of the fabric of our being. They also give us shape, acting as a sort of architecture on which other people can hang their understanding of us. Names become nearly inseparable from who we are. But what do you do if you don't feel like your name fits?

I had a friend in college named Katherine, but she went by Kat. After she graduated, she decided that Kat didn't really suit her and started calling herself Kate. That was fine for her new, post-college friends, but the rest of us had trouble letting go of Kat. I still have a hard time adding that extra "e" and remembering to make the long vowel sound in the middle. To me, Kat(e) will always be Kat, even though I honor her wish to be called Kate.

My failed attempt to rebrand myself from Jenn to Jenna wasn't the first name makeover I'd attempted. When I was much younger and people called me Jenny, I decided on "Jennie-with-an-i-e" instead of "Jenny-with-a-y." I chose that spelling, of course, because it seemed so much more sophisticated than "Jenny-with-a-y." But really, how sophisticated can the name Jenny get? It's young and cutesy. Perky, even. It's also the term for a female donkey. So essentially Jenny is an ass. It's also a type of bird, a jenny wren, which is rather sweet. (As is the Paul McCartney song of the same name.) And also? Jenny is the name of the world's oldest gorilla in captivity. It turns out that Jenny is really quite diverse.

Nowadays, the only people who still call me Jennie are a few family members and one friend from college. (She's Jessie and I'm Jennie. I think we should be characters in series of children's books about solving mysterious crimes.) The year I lived in England, people automatically shortened my name to Jenny. I'd say, "Hello, I'm Jennifer." And they'd say, "Hallo, Jenny!" I let it slide due to the accent. (That accent will let you get away with a lot. Just try it. Tell off the next person you see using a British accent and see what happens. They'll probably ask you out for fish 'n chips. Or spit on you. Proceed at your own risk.)

I never really liked my name until I discovered that it derives from Guinevere, which was Gwenhwyfar in the original Welsh. Still, I hated how commonplace Jennifer was. (This belies deep-seated insecurities, I'm sure.) When I grew out of my Jennie phase, I needed something more mature. This essentially meant that I needed something with as few syllables but as many letters as possible. And so Jennie became Jenn. I loved that second "n". I cherished it like it was my lifeline to individuality. It showed the world that although I had the most common name for girls my age, I had put some serious thought into my nickname. It gave me an edge. A certain je ne sais quoi. That's a heavy burden, even for such a stout little letter.

I still go by Jenn to almost everyone who ends up knowing me in person for longer than a month. But here's the thing: I think I might actually be a Jenna. I squashed that urge 14 years ago, but it's been floating around in the back of my consciousness ever since.

Would it be weird to start calling myself by a new name at the age of 32? Could my friends ever add that final vowel with any real level of comfort? Or would they forever be saying "Jenn" and then tacking a hasty "a"' on the end so it sounds like "Jenn...a"? In my professional and online worlds, I introduce myself as Jennifer. But when people actually call me Jennifer, it feels a bit foreign. In essence, I guess I could end up with four names: Jenn to most of my existing friends and family members; Jennie to a select few; Jennifer to business contacts; and Jenna to anyone I meet from here on out.

I'm not ready to make any changes just yet. Names get into our being. They're part of the story we tell to ourselves and about ourselves. I don't know if I can cast aside Jenn or Jennifer for Jenna. Plus, my husband is the only person who calls me Jenna. Do I want to offer up that name to just anyone, or keep it as a sort of sweet secret between us?

What do you call yourself?

What We Call Ourselves (Part 1)

image by wonderferret

It's the first or second week of freshman year. My new friends and I are at a college-sponsored freshman mixer, complete with dancing. Magic fills the air. It could be from the twinkly white fairy lights strung around the stone patio. More likely it's from the cosmic longing for love that can only be generated by amassing a group of lonely and slightly scared 18-year-olds. It feels like anything could happen here under the dark night sky.

We've been meeting new people for days now. I'm tired of introducing myself, mostly because nobody remembers my name. "Hi, I'm Jenn," I've said several dozen times. And always, always, they -- the boys especially -- forget. They remember everyone else but me. Allyson? No problem. Melissa? Check. Erin? Gotcha. Sara? Howdy. ...And you are?

Fed up with feeling invisible, I decide that the problem must be my name. I'm not a wallflower. In fact, sometimes I cringe at my own outspoken nature. I know I'm not the hottest girl in the dorm, but I'm pretty sure I'm not hideously ugly. (If I were, maybe people would remember my name. As in: You know, Jenn, the lady troll.) I realize that I'm fairly normal looking; a bit plain, I suppose. This, coupled with my all-too-common name, makes me forgettable.

Being named Jennifer is a curse that links me to thousands upon thousands of American girls born between 1970 and 1984, which turned out to be the extended high season for baby Jennifers. (The name spent 14 years at the very top of the charts.) If only I had a more interesting name, I reason, maybe then the boys will remember me.

So on the night of the mixer, I make a spur of the moment decision. I figure I need a new "hook;" a new "handle," as it were. Something that keeps me close enough to my roots that I remember my new name, but something with just enough zing to make me stand out in the beige sea of Jens and Jennifers. (Incidentally, I go by Jenn with two n's, but nobody asks you to spell it in conversation.) The round-the-circle introductions get to me and I blurt out, "Hi, my name's Jenna."

And my friend immediately blurts back: "It is?!?"

I don't remember what I said next, but I never introduce myself as Jenna to anyone ever again.

Fourteen years later, there is only one boy who calls me Jenna. My husband didn't go to college with me, but he always knows who I am.