Four Snaps Monday

1. The Destroyer

I am not a violent person, and I’m not really interested in women’s fighting, but something about boxing speaks to me. I started boxing more than 25 years ago mainly because I really wanted to know what it was like to hit someone. I still don’t know, if the opportunity arose, that I could do it. But it feels good to imagine.

The first gym I went to in Philadelphia I was the only female and the only white person, but no one ever made fun of me, although the trainer there, an old guy named Bobby, did laugh at the size of my wrists. Look at that! He circled his thumb and first finger around it with room to spare. He could have crushed my wrist like a used paper cup. The first day I went there, before he taped my hands, before I jumped rope or did any sit-ups, he gave me a name: The Destroyer.

Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee.

That quote has kind of lost it’s meaning from overuse, but if you really think about it, it’s a good motto to live by.

2. Ants

My dad used to get ants really bad in his house during the summer, large “moving-black-circle on the counter” bad. They’d file in under the door, tip-toe over to the kitchen counter, rope up to the cabinets and then use their walkie-talkies to send in the next million. Not single file, these ants. They were a hundred across, sometimes more, all marching in unison, streaming in, organized and meaning business. My Dad didn’t get it. He left the sink filled with dishes, an open jar of honey on the table, just the rind of a watermelon on a dish. “What is going ON?!” he’d moan and drop his head back and then he’d  walk out, it was too much. Once he made signs on pieces of cut-up index cards with arrows pointing out the door. He taped them around the floorboards and somehow, I don’t know if it was the sudden cold weather or magic, it worked. The signs stayed up along the floorboards for months afterwards, until they slipped off to the dusty floor, the yellowed tape curling at the edges.

3. Sweet

This morning my horoscope said that I lack a sense of right and wrong. This is true. I lack a sense of right and wrong. This does not mean I commit crimes, galloping away shooting my gun in the air. It just means I am open to including two sides of a story at once. I still judge. I judge instantly and with meanness. But it comes from fear, not superiority. It comes from the need to protect myself. I want you to know that. The important thing is that there are two sides to every story, and I am open to them both.  In the end I am always swayed by love.

Recently I sat next to a guy on the plane who smelled like cigarettes and feet and looked like a prisoner or a famous person in that I don’t give a shit way. He reached under his seat to get some things from under his chair. He bent at the waist as though he needed to both see what he was doing and block my view from what he was getting into. I had the thought 9/11, bomb, body-parts flying through the sky. Then I took a breath. I asked him if he needed some light and turned on the high-beam from my phone. He said thanks and I could see he was unzipping his bag, which was packed in a perfectly ordered way like puzzle pieces, clothes compact and rolled, socks lined across the bottom. He pulled out a bag of candy that was also packed neatly in a ziplock: a tin of mints, a bag of wrapped candies that had been opened, a candy bar, all cared-for treasures. It was such a vulnerable moment, the spotlight on hands, on the zipper, touching things, prying them open. He suddenly seemed not like a potential terrorist but like a polite 10 year-old. When he sat up his face was red. Maybe he was nervous about flying, or where he was headed, or maybe he just needed something sweet. He didn’t look at me but handed me a wrapped candy and turned back to his seat. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

4. Us

I don’t have full tinnitus but just the kind where it feels like I am in Siberia, snowed-in in my little cabin, and somewhere a few miles away under the sound of utter silence is a sort of morse-code swirling signal sound. Like someone out there is trying to send me a message, to tell me something important I need to know. Like someone out there is looking for me.

The moon was full a few nights ago and I think about how it is the same full moon to every living being who sees it. I like thinking that somewhere out there are other people looking at it shine, being grateful for the slant of light it casts in their living room in the otherwise pitch black morning. I can put my hand through it, this beam, and I wonder can someone else? Are they doing it right this moment? Does it shine on their pillow or do they look up at it from rubble and feel soothed for a second?

I remember my boyfriend from high school and I made a promise to look at the big dipper at night and think of each other. It was strange how nice it was. Not strange that it was nice but the way it was nice, like a special thing you had alone but still shared with someone. I wonder if people away at war do things like that with their loved ones far away, or make promises to look at the moon. I hope so.

I just thought of something else. I remembered the way someone would tap their glass during lunch at school and there was a strange feeling that either we were in trouble or it was someone’s birthday. I also remember that when a teacher came to sit with us at lunch, we had to stand up until they pulled their chair out and sat down. If they walked to our table and pulled out a seat, we would rise. It sounds austere, but there is something about that I liked, some unspoken communication and respect for each other going on, like when you are driving and an ambulance approaches and you and all the other drivers pull to the side. I like that. Reminders that we are connected to a group. Reminders that we are not alone. Reminders that there is no them, there is only us.