This is my new dog.
Her name is Annie but Zane just calls her Empty Nest.
She's a schnauzer-poodle mix and really friendly, so maybe she will help Marvin, who's sort of a jerk to strangers, relax around new people and other dogs. So far he is very content to completely ignore her. He'll lie down near me and Annie comes to lie near him. He sits and waits by the door for the walk, and she sits and waits by him for whatever he's doing next.
My college kids are trickling back into the house (whoopee!) with all of their strange new lingo they’ve adopted in only 5 months. Our freezer, which has sat nearly empty since the holidays, is now full of ice cream and frozen snacky things from Trader Joe's. There are weird, non-dairy creamers and kombucha in the fridge, and spicy candies and chips everywhere. Who knew generations so easily delineate according to snack foods?
My tennis girls had their last practice this week and I didn't get choked up about it until I was on my way home. I really enjoy hanging out with them, showing them all the great things about being on a team, and I'll miss them for our 8 weeks of summer break. But high school girls generally have no knowledge of your personhood apart from how it directly relates to them in this exact moment. They are perhaps more selfish than infants, only because they have the brains to understand you are a separate human, and yet it rarely occurs to them.
One month ago I was missing my adult kids so badly and called my mom to say, WHAT THE HECK DID YOU DO ABOUT THIS!? We talked a little and remembered those times, but the horrible part of the question was that thirty years ago, when she was empty nesting herself, it never once occurred to me that my parents might feel an emotion. (Maybe it did. Maybe I wasn't as heartless as all that. But it wasn't memorable enough to remember now.)
Each afternoon spent with the 21 tennis girls and my wonderful co-coach Robert (Shoot! I just realized we didn't take a photo with him!) was the best part of everyday I've had this spring. The job is so mentally all-encompassing that by the time practice is over and they are all spread to the wind, I can't even remember what I did all morning.
There are usually one or two teammates who forgot part of their gear, one or two who need to leave early because of a dentist or dermatologist appointment, and always one girl having a really bad day and might cry before practice is over. I'll need to keep an eye on her, and maybe that one, too, slouched over on a bench because she probably hasn't had any water all day. I like to let them choose who to pair with for drills, but that results in a lot of chatting and not much drilling. When I pair them with someone they don't know very well, I get a lot of deep sighs and head tilting, "Who? Ugg. Why can't I… Alright."
One week I even paired them all up with smelly boys. Talk about nerve-wracking! We had a big, mixed doubles tournament with the boys' team which turned out to be incredibly rewarding precisely because it was different and scary.
I've been writing a few little mini-essays and have even sent one to a few literary magazines to be published. We'll see what happens. Here's a fictional scene I wrote from the prompt, "There's gonna be a fight!"
"You promised you wouldn't go there!" She knows her voice is whiny but she's too tired to figure out how to adjust it. Besides, it is true. He promised he wouldn't go to his friend's house before coming to pick her up from work. But he's obviously been there because he reeks.
"Aw. I'm good. I'm good."
He always acts like he's straight when she knows he's fucking high. How can he possibly think she can't tell? Still, she's glad to see him, glad to not take the bus back to her house. But not glad that her parents will probably already be home since he was half an hour late to pick her up. They'll ask them if they want to eat something. Always so intense about making them eat something! "I ate at work." She'll say and it won't be enough. Oh, man. She has got to move out of that house!
They walk inside and mysteriously no one else is home, at least not downstairs, and he opens the fridge, "Wanna go get food? I forgot I'm starving!"
"Evan. Are you kidding me right now? You're so obviously high. Why d'you think you're so hungry?" This is it. She's got to break up with this guy. Got to! Rightnow. Rightnow.
At work Dan, the manager --his name is actually Dan. How tragic-- called her into the office that feels like a room in a warehouse where they torture war criminals, except it's smaller and filled with metal shelves of restaurant supplies. Cans of premade chili, scratchy, brown rolls of paper towels, a huge box of pre-wrapped plastic forks with little salt and pepper packets. He told her if she's late one more time he'll have to let her go. Like, actually fire her. And this time she believed him. What an idiot. She's the best shift manager there. The only one who knows how to close right, and the one who's been there the longest. Almost two years she's been working there. It's so ridiculous how he says "let you go" like he's on a TV show and they're in a law firm or something. Dan is a certifiable dummy. Dummy Dan.
It's Evan's fault she's been late anyway because he is unreliable picking her up. But it's her fault, too. Yeah. It's my fault, too, she thinks. And that's exactly why I gotta break up with him! He's dragging me down. Rightnow!
She turns around after hanging her bag in the hall closet of the house she grew up in. She's never lived anywhere else. What would that be like, anyway, to live anywhere else? And there's her man, smiling a goofy smile and wrapping her up in his arms.
"You are tired. Go sit down and I'll get you something to drink. Whatd'ya want? Iced tea? Yerba Mate?" He kisses her head and then her face.
Her throat starts to close up a little bit, and then more. This often happens when she cries and then no words will come out. She's always understood the feeling as not wanting to cry in front of people, holding back embarrassing sobs. But now, just now, she's realizing it's because there's something she needs to say and cannot because her own body is silencing her. The words are stuck at the top of her chest where they have been for months. Years. She can't say anything. Her neck feels so tight around her voice and she just wants that feeling to go away.
Besides that, he's being sweet now, hugging her like this. She's overreacting like her parents always say she does. Everything will be alright.
Thanks so much for reading! It’s so nice.
If you want to read something really incredible, here’s my favorite read of the year so far:
Love and ice cream,
Nonni