The most important realizations never seem to stick; they have to be relearned, reiterated, constantly. Today I know; tomorrow I have forgotten. There is even a pleasure in this.
Postcards From a Composition Class
“Adrianne wtf seriously where have you been?” Guys! Guys I’ve been in a photo composition class! Well okay. That was just today. But you know how I like to do: I haven’t written in ages so I ply you with eye sweets at first. Happy Easter.
So here are some random things and people I shot today, after someone said “here’s what the rule of thirds means: go out and have fun for two hours.” I don’t know what his definition of fun is, but mine involves trespassing, climbing garbage piles, slithering under entranceways, and making strange demands of people I’ve just met.
Do any of them follow the rule of thirds? I’ll be honest, I’m still not entirely clear. But it’s funny how you can still find photos you like to take, even on a grey day at noon in North Minneapolis, even when you don’t know how to shoot that, even when you’re not inspired, at all. Best lesson all day.
You’ll Never Find Them Here
The next day all I remembered was thinking I’ll never find them here!
I awoke assuming it was probably just a remnant from some dream, and stumbled blearily to the jewelry box. Empty. I wandered around the apartment like a headless ghost searching for its heart.
“I can’t find all of my rings!” I mourned to Janaka. “I may have . . . hidden them from myself.”
“Did you try the bathroom shelves? The living room table? Did you look under the couches?” He looked askance at a slumbering Michael Dracula. “Maybe the kitties got to them.”
Everywhere. The pockets of all the clothing I’d brought. Purses, drawers, ziplock bags for make-up and shampoo. I crawled on the floors and slid my hands into cushions of dust beneath side tables. In the days that followed, I looked underneath every object I picked up, examined every possession as if it were something new: a clue, a code, a breadcrumb to another breadcrumb, a trail. I thought, “if I just see the right thing in the right light, I’ll know.”
Forks jumbled sideways and upside down in the silverware organizer. That painting, slightly askew on the wall. The uplifted corner of the rug. Don’t change anything! I’m trying to remember something.
The clarity of the few seconds preceding my ring set-down have been relived to the point of fiction. Okay, I think. I am pulling each one off my fingers — each ring associated with a different place, a different person, a different memory, each ring a thing I would twist around its finger during times of duress, boredom, the replacement for my “uh”s in speech. This is for high school and the slow, enchanted retail job with the snowy windows. This is for Portland, a mailed birthday present opened in an attic room. This is the stone that symbolically cracked in half. Yes. I am in my pajama pants, wool socks, a long sweatshirt. I take each ring off its finger. I stand there, clinking the rings around in one hand like fated dice, looking deviously around — what room, what room was I in? I’ll never find them here!
“Were . . . you sleepwalking?” Janaka asked. “In your memory, is it dark in the house?”
I closed my eyes and tried to think. “I don’t know,” I said.
It’s been two weeks. Where the rings once were I still twist, shift, clack. I barely even notice their absence any more; this is the new habit, a lot like the old habit. Most days now I forget to look, forget to examine everything, forget that something once so integral to my history is missing. My hands are empty totem poles. The jewelry box contains two barrettes.
Glamor In The Basement
The dressing room we’d been shown to for the Christmas show was a combination of all the worst attributes of the most dismal dressing rooms I’d ever seen. It may not even be fair to include it such a roundup since it was, technically, not a room at all but a hallway: part of an emergency exit in the basement between a dance club and the elevator up to our bar. A single florescent strip was stuck to the ceiling some thirty feet up, flickering off a filthy grey cement floor and tall cinderblock walls, and this distant shimmering gave the walls an illusion of movement, as if you were being shut in, buried alive.
It was cold, there were no tables or mirrors or rods upon which to hang clothing: just the sticky floor, with its dustbunnies and ambiguous grime. Every now and then the door to the gay bar would suddenly open, bringing thunderous bass and orange/blue disco lights and Gaga and some inquisitive face peering through — we would all yelp as it shouted “so what’s this door lead to anyway?”
For my act, I would be performing to “Blue Christmas,” as sung by the troupe leader. I would play it as a weeping protester to Minnesota governor candidate Tom Emmer’s concession, dragging along a bottle of wine and my gigantic protest sign that read “RE-RECOUNT” on both sides. I sobbed through the audience and clambered gracelessly onto the carpeted stage, mascara running all over my face, crystal tears adhered to my cheeks; I made out with his framed image. O Emmer! Who will save marriage now?
The eye make-up was my favorite part. I was the first act after intermission, so I’d rush down the elevator about three acts before and peer on my knees into the mirror someone had leaned underneath the florescent strip, painting long dripping lines onto my face with black liquid eyeliner and carefully plucking each crystal from its adhesive sheet with laced fingers. I wore two sets of false eyelashes, glittering white and blue shadow, and a few minutes before I was slated to head back upstairs I’d slip off my boots and put on the heels — that’s a lesson I learned a while ago. Save foot discomfort for last (no matter how cute they are).
The first night the act went over well, and I squirmed my way back through the audience and whooosh, down the elevator. The doors opened to a man in a big red suit pulling curlers out of someone’s hair.
“You still going to be one of my girls?” Santa asked.
“Oh! Oh right, yes. Let me just throw some clothes on. How much time do we have?”
“Five minutes, max. We’re the next act.”
“Yikes, okay! I’m on it.”
I pulled off fishnets and lace gloves, slipped on opaque tights, found my slip, a gold shimmering skirt, a black dress shirt. One minute! Thank you one!
“Hey, is it all right if my eyes are still weepy for your piece?” I called down the dark hallway. “Or . . . does all of this need to come off?”
“What? What?” Santa came bumbling toward me. “Oh, that. No that needs to come off. Hurry up now we’re almost on.”
I looked around in panic. “I have cold cream but nothing to wipe it off with. Do you have a tissue?”
“What? No, no. Just use panties or something.”
I was slathering the cold cream all over, and my cheeks had become a grey blue paste. “I didn’t bring any spares. You don’t have a towel or anything? A t-shirt?”
“No, no. Here,” he grabbed a white satin glove out of someone’s trunk. “Just use this.”
I stared at him in disbelief through goopy eyes. “John. How many enemies do you want me to make tonight?”
“C’mon it’ll be fine! We have to go!”
“I’m not ruining someone’s glove.”
He turned down the hallway and shouted “ten seconds, ladies! Let’s go!” Then he reached down and pulled off his sock, handing it to me. “Here.”
There were two seconds of hesitation. I’d taken the worn sock from him, was holding it in my hand. I stared at myself in the mirror: nightmarishly frosted in grey and blue, shimmering and undead in that buzz of florescent light. We have to go, we’re on in 10. I rubbed his sock all over my face, dug it into my eyes, slathered on more cold cream and smeared it off over and over until all the evidence was gone and I was back: a nice looking girl.
Upstairs, Santa patted his lap.
Life Lesson #7
Thanksgivings! We’d sleep on the floor of your family’s Connecticut farm house on pieces of foam, heaps of blankets. We’d wake up to the little border collie snuggled in between your legs. In my memory it is also snowing outside, falling on the trees and melting into the pond and dusting the little butter-colored baby chickens. In my memory it is everything wonderful I ever saw with you, curated into one weekend. Pickled okra, stuffing, cranberries, “these mashed potatoes are so creamy!” We’d eat all day on Thursday, fall asleep on the couch to Home For the Holidays Thursday night, sleep late on Friday and eat pie leftovers for breakfast and lunch. Your mom, fixing something. Your sisters, a dance party in the kitchen. I would knit something, you would read articles on your laptop and any time you laughed I would say “what?”
It’s well over a year later. I love someone else. I am beginning to accept that I may always miss this in November.