introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- wet forgetting on purpose - twenty first of january, 2002 "i moved here from buffalo...but that's nothing...the trico plant moved to mexico...left my uncle standing out in the cold...said here's your last paycheck...have fun growin' old."~ani difranco some things are just too ironic to set in for several days, i suppose. i mean, was i not last week just saying how i need to find something else? how i didn't want to wake up and be fifty something and have nothing to show for my life but some stock options, my 401K, and enough life insurance stored away that my kids would be plotting my demise to pay their mortgages? i think it was something like that.... he came down my row. it was strange because...well, i was reforming mentalities. i was reorganizing mental defenses to be able to make it through one. more. night. there. i was. i swear i was. so i was there, packing the shorts that some of you tredier folks'll be donning this summer (when war is trendy with its straps and buckles and government issues in the form of shorts and skirts and messenger bags in some stores and old world war 2 pulp paintings screen printed on teeshirts with glitter for lips in other stores...well, i just have to wonder at the state of the union)...but what was i saying? oh, yes, i was packing lots of thirty eight dollar shorts into cartons and pushing them off on their way. i was wondering about the "special project" they had told us about and, knowing i was in the right area, if i was supposed to do anything about it yet. and i suppose i noticed that four thirty had passed. i suppose i was looking for the new supervisor to start walking around after his meeting. i couldn't help but look for him because i could feel change on the air since he came to my department. i was sure things were going to get so much better. stan didn't know my name. i know he didn't. he looked at the clip board in his hand and told me to finish what i was doing there. he told me to finish my pick and log out and come with him. "do i need to sign out?" "that won't be necessary...well...i guess...go ahead." he waited complacently for me to put my little scanner holster in its box in the rather religous manner and i, curious and solemn and nervous, signed out of the packing area. and i know things like this are supposed to stick with you like where you were when the challenger blew up or when we started dropping bombs on iraq...but...i don't even know what time it was. now the place where i've been working is a massive box. its like. well, its like a giant shoe box that someone's mom gave them for the baby mice and we're all scurrying in there. or maybe its more like an ant farm. its just. huge. and i was only familiar with a few areas (you can only take the free tour so many times) and i followed him obediently like my puppy did when she was a baby, not knowing where i was. i was caught off balance, running everything through my head. i mean. it wouldn't be the first time i'd gotten some sort of talk to improve my game but really, i had been keeping to myself. it wouldn't be the first time i'd get some office talk with some supervisor but it was the first time they hadn't caught me one day before my period. i took a deep strong breath and prepared to stand my ground. i wasn't gonna break for them today. i was wearing the appropriate undergarments. what could i have done this time? and so my head churned and i followed him for a stretch that felt like a mile, with huge cage-like structors piled high above my head, i was trapped. i followed him the long way around to human resources, passing familiar faces and feeling my own face redden. did they know something i didn't? only. when he had come down my row, i asked him. i asked him if i was in trouble and he'd said no. but i never trust any of them. they keep you comfortable til the door is closed behind you and the curtains are drawn. they were sitting behind the thick desks that rested on the american eagle blue carpet. it was all cream and soft light. i nearly tripped into the only chair on my side of the desk fortification. and if my head was swimming before, it was vertigo and drowning at this point. he was all angle and she was all colour commentator, supplementing his hand-talk with one word sound bytes of "recession" and "severence" and "layoffs" and checking her clip board and pushing the box of tissues across the desk. they said they hated to do it and i believe them because they are human. but she pushed the new box of kleenex across the table before any of it even set into my skull. and i pushed it back, at first. "i'm not crying for you. not today," i thought. but they were handing me a check and talking about how they were going to pay me til midnight. and it was sinking in like a submarine, the water churning above it...they were paying me but collecting my ID badge and discount card. i parted with them without a goodbye, handing them over numbly. when they asked me how i was getting home and i told them that i rode with toby, he scanned the clipboard list blankly and said he'd just call toby next. i stood up and another woman escorted me to the locker that toby and i shared. i turned the 23-01-31 combination on the padlock quietly, hearing every click echo off of the other lockers and the concrete floor. the powdery blue of her AE hooded sweatshirt while she watched reflected off of my skin and every surface. i fumbled around, trying to hold hand lotion, two coats, a bag of cough drops, my scarf, my water bottle and some pens that we kept there. i dropped some things and she stooped to help me. i followed her to the lobby and she wished me luck and i shook my head in bitter disbelief but thanked her just the same. it was twenty minutes before toby followed the same path. i'd been sitting next to wes for a few minutes before and it all came rushing over me...lapping at me like waves on shore when the tide comes in...that the faces with which i'd grown familiar were to be strangers once again...that the nicknames that we knew them all by in confidence...that they were to be gutwrenching with memory from that point on. i don't remember if i hugged him then or if we waited til we got to the parking lot...but i needed that because...well, i don't know if he knows it exactly...but he's become strength to me. i've been strong in weaknesses and weak in strengths but having his arms wrapped around me as hot tears streaked my cold cheeks....it kept me in this plane of existence...it kept me standing up. and now forever yawns in front of us, drawing us near. "so on monday? i just don't come back?" "right." and so its monday now and we've got our eighty hours of pay apiece and await the next checks. i've got papers to sort through and more government offices to contact. i've got the empty ache for a 40% discount when i pass the store in the mall that will eventually subside. and i've got rent and bills to pay. and i've got my morals to put back into order. i don't know what the next days will hold for us but i'm trying not to worry. some moments, though, it just engulfs me like a lukewarm bath and i soak in the shallow deepness of the emotions raining over me like a summer storm. some moments, i know whirlpools of disappointment, depression, and shortcoming. some instants, i know only puddles of fear and worry and wonder. there is one constant, i realized last night, as we watched the snow fall heavily and flood the ground with white under the street light. there is one constant undercurrent that i know i can depend on and thats us and our talents and our smiles. we've got so much to which we can look forward. maybe...just maybe...all we needed to do was cut the ties to our anchors because, even for all of the washes of worry, i feel like...i might just be bouyant. even for all of this, i get the feeling we can float. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
||||||
|
||||||