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Kinky Boots

At nearly thirty-four, I’m inching into a neoprene harness behind a sex shop’s three-quarter changing room wall.

I glance to my left, expecting to see this failed experiment reflected in a cracked, distorted mirror. But instead, I look out onto the shop floor and make disturbingly prolonged eye contact with a man holding up a black shirt that features a “1” outlined in dripping yellow.

With one arm tucked awkwardly beneath two straps, I duck out of view and commence muttering to myself.

How the fuck does this thing work?

Is there a front?

This is so disempowering.

Moments later, the overly attentive clerk sidles up to the wall, and peers over.

“Is that the right size for you?”

Crouched Gollum-like in the corner whilst fumbling with the clasps, I know my stricken expression will belie any hints of knowledgeable enthusiasm I can possibly muster.

“OH, YEP. EVERYTHING’S FINE. HAHAHA. YEP. JUST FINE.”

Unfazed, he pivots left—walking over to the discount shirt section where two twenty-somethings banter back and forth about their options.

“Oooh, we can really slut this up in time for Pride. And look, there’s even an otter on it for you!”

“Wait, you think I’m an otter?”

“Of course you’re a fucking otter. Jesus, Todd.”

With arms twisted in opposite directions and my neck arched like an arabesque origami crane, I feel like Pinocchio’s uncoordinated gay brother, Parker—and consider re-shelving the entire getup. But as I unwind myself, I lean into the fearful discomfort burbling in my mind, and push past it—reaching for the potential I know lies just beyond.

I slide the dressing room’s daisy duke jean short drape to one side, and notice the chatty twink rolling his eyes at Todd, who’s holding up a shirt that reads “Bad Puppy.”

“Goddammit, Todd! It’s like you’re not even trying.”

Opposite them, in a mirror-lined alcove, two forty-something Microsofties debate the flogging merits of elk leather over cowhide.

“I dunno, Jason. You know how welted my skin can get,” she says, running her hand along the flogger’s coarse underside, her French tips glinting brilliantly beneath the track lighting.

Jason nods his agreement, and adjusts his wide-rimmed glasses.

I skirt around them, trip over a cock ring display, and knock into a wall, causing upright dildos on the shelves above to jiggle like dashboard bobble heads. For a moment, I watch them sway, thinking about how lively this place would be during an earthquake.

At the counter, an older man scans my items like they’re produce, and slides them into a generic paper bag.

“Do you need any lube?”

That definitely beats a shopper savings readout. 

“Nope, I’m good.”

As the card processes, I think back to my first solo sex shop foray—working up the courage to cross the threshold after passing by the storefront twice. But the moment I walked in, the friendly staffer wholly disarmed me with his kindness and tact, so much so that I gutted up enough confidence to flirt with him, but promptly tripped and fell into a lube display—bottles sliding across the floor and into the door. I didn’t get his number.

After the card reader beeps, the man pushes the bag over to me.

“Thanks for coming in.”

I wait to see if there’s a punchline, but he turns to help the Microsofties, who’ve decided to go with the elk leather. So I gather my bag and inch past Todd, who’s migrated over to mesh tops—the same display I careened into when I scurried in, a pair of assless chaps swatting me across the face as the clerks welcomed me.

Back in the car, I cram the bag into the floorboard as paranoia-fueled story-lines mentally unfold frame by frame: whilst feeling empowered and driving along, I neglect to see a dog crossing the road; I swerve to avoid it, and crash into a sidewalk bollard; in slow motion, I half-consciously watch as the merchandise hurtles out through the shattered windshield; and, as I fully come to, I hear bystanders whispering conspiratorially to one another, “Claudia, is that what I think it is?”

When I get home, I try everything again without the pressure of prying eyes, and feel totally free—sexy, desirable, and completely unencumbered by societal expectations.

There’s power in exploring such desires—in reveling in the delicious ambiguity of budding selfhood and self-reflection, of finding a new, albeit distantly familiar, rhythm to life. Especially when it’s for you, and no one else.

***

Glass crunches underfoot as I teeter off the backhoe’s caked tracks and firmly plant my sneakers onto the cottage’s shattered, listing porch.

Several months before, during an afternoon walk with JoJo, I’d stumbled upon the abandoned cottage. Sited on a manicured stretch of Craftsman bungalows and 1940s cottages, it sat far back on a deep, overgrown corner lot. As I often do with dilapidated structures, I dreamed of what I’d do to it if it were mine—making use of the front yard for raised vegetable beds and beehives, slowly transforming the modest house from an eyesore into a home. But in subsequent weeks, I’d been noticing a surge of activity around it: the boards covering the windows had been removed, the lawn was mowed—subtle hints of impending change. And then the backhoe arrived.

I angle myself through the collapsed doorway and let adrenaline fuel my tour —acknowledging at every turn that this was once someone’s home, treating it with respect. There’s something sacred about mapping one final experience onto a place that’s soon to be wiped from the earth.

Just inside the kitchen, I step over a small mailbox sign reading “Anderson” and peer into open cupboards where purple glass tumblers stand aligned—soldiers soon to face an unwieldy adversary. Beneath the sink, a bright red kettle sits alongside a small computer monitor, its cord neatly wrapped nearby.

Condemned homes replete with personal items have such a haunting quality; it’s as though life inside is still unfolding. I snap a few photos, and then scamper out.

Late the next evening, as JoJo and I crest the hill, the cottage is gone. There’s no pile of splintered wood—only a broken picket fence gate propped along the massive hole, the air perfumed by a shattered evergreen laying across the upended lot. We dogleg into the alley, past a gaggle of neighbors clucking about “what’s coming,”  and sidestep a swath of pavement sprinkled with purple glass and computer bits.

Every ruin, every life, can be an homage to decadent waste.

***

My phone pulses from a push notification; more bad news about the state of our country—more chaos sown, more lives thrown into limbo. Everything feels substantially heavier.

The weight of it makes my privileged skin feel unbearable—that if I wait a second longer, I’ll rip it off. I flick the power button on my battered iPod Shuffle as the elevator door opens. Moments later, I’m running.

As I gasp for breath between sprints, I try and think about the last time I ran this hard. I was a block away from Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, racing away from an encroaching truth.

Turning a corner, I bound to the left to avoid colliding with an oblivious, scooter-riding child.

Through my ear buds, Dolores O’Riordan croons the haunting lyrics to “Zombie.”

“But, you see it’s not me
It’s not my family
In your head, in your head
They are fighting

With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head in your head they are crying
In your head
In your head…”

 

I run faster, sidestep a dead raven rotting on the sidewalk, and wind along a row of character-rich single-story cottages being prepped for demolition—to be replaced by the charmless, squared facades being overbuilt by the block-full. We’re stripping away so much for the sake of the here and now; we’ll regret it.

Every single day it feels as though this nation is dying; here and there we disappear—generations lost to violence, a layer of our collective history ripped away. And when we reach back for who and what went missing, we can only grasp at random photos, a few yellowed pages packed away in library stacks, hum a string of lyrics to remind ourselves that we were once here together.

Bowie’s “Heroes” queues up.

“…I will be King
And you, you will be Queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be heroes just for one day
We can be us just for one day
…
And the shame, was on the other side
Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we could be heroes just for one day…”

I hurtle downhill—my legs expanding outward, arms catching the breeze: willing me to take flight.

***

A block ahead, Pride thumps through the streets. Amid the glittered, sweaty revelry, signs of solidarity are raised aloft, clutched by rainbow-painted fists.

Screams inch into the back of my throat; I let the music pulse through me—my body easing into the thrumming crowd: a community of fellow “others.” Living loudly is the best revenge to take against a force that’d see everyone white-washed and straightened out.

An hour later, I take a side street and head downhill—but not before I look back and scan the crowd: a kaleidescope of blending color; the world as it should be.

Sun streaks across my shades as the sidewalk grade steepens. I give in to gravity, and lean into the decline; before I know it, I’m running again.

Air rushes by as my slip-ons clack against the pavement: the intervals widening, my body feeling lighter.

Reminding me of the thrill of piloting a life that embraces unknowns, hardship, and intense longing—using it to catalyze changes for a better future, a time when we all can fly.

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Reclamation

Crabs skittered beneath rocks flecked with serpentine seaweed strands—nature’s gelatinous boas sopping ashore from parties in the deep. A bloated seagull bobbed their head beneath a small tide pool’s rippling surface; the repetitious machinations, a dance.

Out of the corner of my eye, a Labradoodle’s sand-dusted, curly coat blurred by as he raced full-tilt across the sandbars, his green leash soaked and trailing—his owner walking quickly behind, nodding my direction. JoJo’s ears pricked at the lowly, plaintive gull calls as the wind buffeted her tiny face, her jellybean eyes watering, dampening her cheeks.

There, at the edge of the beach, I felt an internal tug—willing me further, into the great blue horizon pocked with cream sails unfurling in the breeze. The salty air curled in my lungs as I gulped it in—willing it to fill and cleanse my mind, making all the possibilities brim and spill over into my consciousness, borne to fruition.

Certain moments crystallize in our singular perceptions of time. And this was one such instance. There I stood, hours away from Seattle, cradling JoJo: a tired, hairy, heaped mass dripping over my arms. An unlikely duo, we’d forged a necessary bond during a tumultuous time, uncertain if we’d make it. But as my feet sunk into the saturated sand, I could feel us turning a corner. Like the shells around us, we’d been battered and bleached and weathered through various trials—through rough and smooth currents blunting jagged, exposed edges: creating something new, albeit unevenly polished. We’d emerged from the deep; we could breathe.

***

I’ve been divorced for nearly a year and a half. And almost every day, I fret that I’ll become that person who can talk only about their divorce, who can’t just reference it and move on. But, slowly, I’ve recognized that, like so many other forms of loss, divorce isn’t something you can just ignore; every now and again, I have to acknowledge how it’s shaped who I am today.

When I was a kid, I often played Duck Hunt until the Nintendo overheated—the screen still, leaving the duck profiles mid-blast: fluttering feathers and pained expressions frozen in time. Only when the immersive experience was interrupted by real-life variables would I snap out of my trance-like state, pull the piping-hot cartridge out of the machine, blow on it, and shove it back in—all the while knowing the blue screen of death would win, the illusion shattered by the ultimate Game Over. But often it forced me to redirect my energies into something else—another hobby, or self-reflection.

Marital cracks are like those Duck Hunt moments: they bring reality into sharp relief, make you realize the game that you’ve been playing has been convincing, but is still a mirage whose artifice is crumbling. It forces you to decide what to do, who you want to be—and, most pointedly, if you’re satisfied with the person you are when you’re with the other.

I wasn’t. And I’m so much better for having faced that crushing fact.

***

Ricotta-beetroot filling bubbled out of the thin ravioli shell, and oozed down into the spinach encircling it—a wilted, fallen crown. My cider began to hit, lulling my mind into that ethereal haze reserved for tipsy musings that I hoped I wouldn’t let escape my subconscious and rupture through my purple, beet-stained lips.

An hour earlier, I lay sprawled across my bed, nodding in and out of shallow naps as my skin tanned from an afternoon spent outside. For the past week, I’d been forcing myself to do more things after work—pushing myself out of my daily routine and taking advantage of living in a city bursting with life.

Having grown up in a small town, I’d always relished moments in movies where characters would take trains, taxis, or buses to enjoy a night in the city—glamming themselves up in finery and disappearing into the heaping, thrumming mass of people milling through the cityscape. So, I did exactly that: threw on an outfit that made me feel confident and sexy, grabbed my wallet and phone, and jumped on a bus hurtling downtown before descending into the light rail station and watching the passengers cycle between the cars: the crowd growing comfortingly queerer the closer we got to the Capitol Hill stop.

Right as I crested the staircase, the breeze billowed under my shirt, carrying with it music from a nearby shop. I wove through the blocks and streets where I used to live, marveling at how quickly the neighborhood had changed in a little over a year: buildings gone, sidewalks painted, alleys reeking of urine and rotting garbage tidied, sanitized—the grit and personality ground down in a microcosmic illustration of the latest phase of gentrification.

I walked into the restaurant I’d been wanting to eat at for years, and immediately slammed into a line of couples putting their names on a wait-list, their facial expressions morphing from hope to utter dejection.

“How long of a wait is it for one?” I asked.

“Oh, just you? I can seat you at the bar.”

I smiled. Never let anyone tell you there aren’t perks to being single.

She seated me next to another patron, and placed a towering glass of water with an orange wedge on the bar in front of me. A few minutes later, the waiter leaned over, his voice slightly louder than the surrounding conversations.

“You’re not together, I know that,” he said, looking from my neighbor to me.

It wasn’t so much a question as it was a pronouncement, and both the older man and I acknowledged the momentary awkwardness, laughing it away as we both retreated to the nonjudgemental, comforting glow of our respective phones until my ravioli slid onto the bar.

When I left, the air was cooling slightly, and I doglegged a few blocks over to an ice cream shop I’d been to once before. A line snaked out the storefront for half a block, and I inched into it behind a couple of trustafarians bedecked in expensive, trendily-tattered clothes: her crop top exposing a lower back tattoo of a unicorn, his side-sitting hat’s tag poking out from beneath the intentionally weathered rim reading, “Hipster Hats.”

As they groped one another, I rolled my eyes closed, imagining they probably worked for Amazon and couldn’t care less that the neighborhood where they were all but dry humping was where many LGBTQIA people still couldn’t overcome socially-conditioned fears of reprisals for showing a modicum of public affection—even in the gayborhood. A few feet away, a woman in a jumpsuit let her Shiba Inu puppy piss on tufts of ornamental grass before walking into a new, glimmering apartment building across the street. Ahead of me, the couple stepped up into the shop, a passing comment from one of them ending with, “…the Amazon mac and cheese bar.”

With my ice cream in hand, I began demolishing the top scoop as I retraced old walking routes, and waited to lick the dribbling cone until I was in front of a new gay bar, the outside patio blasting with music and conversations. I looked up above it all, and smiled at my old apartment’s window.

A few minutes later, I passed by a softball game in the park, and angled toward a familiar empty bench overlooking a reflecting pool.  Late in 2017, when I first waded back into the dating waters, I sat on the same bench with a Tinder date as we finished our ice cream cones. Our conversation and laughter had been unceasing since we’d met up for coffee six hours earlier, and I remember thinking, Finally. It’s happened again. Days passed with back-and-forths, plans set to meet up. Then, nothing; silence ensued—but still I reached, hopeful: casting a line back into that still pond. A week later I learned why, and was reminded that we all have demons that sometimes drag us below the surface.

I stared up at the darkening blue sky cross-stitched with chemtrails, and tipped the last crumbling cone bits into my mouth.

***

The heat from the day hung heavy in the apartment, and I teetered a bit as I opened the windows, the cider still saturating my thoughts. JoJo circled my legs, and pawed at my feet. After a quick jaunt outside, I put her to bed and, in the process, tripped over a photograph I’d framed earlier—letting it lean against the foot of my bed, opposite of where I’d hang it.

I rifled through my toolbox, grabbed a screwdriver, and positioned the frame at eye level, so that I’d see it first thing every morning, and remember the confident person I was when I took it: reliving the rush of adrenaline as I tiptoed through the mouldering, abandoned Alabama farmhouse, snapping the photo right as I bolted for the front door—my foot crashing through sections of the rotting floor—as the landowner’s heavy footsteps grew louder as he ventured into the ruin where I was trespassing.

After splashing water on my face, I stretched across my empty bed and lay watching the evening streetlights dance across the ceiling.

Wondering about the characters I’ll encounter in this next chapter—who they’ll be to me.

Dreaming of an endless series of future adventures yet to be entertained through this life reclaimed.

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Expulsion from the Gardens

JoJo batted my leg; I didn’t have to glance at the clock to know it was pushing 8pm, her bedtime, and we still needed to go on one last walk.

But I felt the convulsing swell of tears bubbling up, taking me down, contouring me into a ball on my ottoman as I sobbed into clenched fists. This was it: the final expulsion of guilt, of anger—of the life I thought I was going to have.

Startled by the sudden, breathless tears, JoJo smacked my leg again, and nosed her way into my face. I rubbed her ears and looked around the small apartment illuminated by lamplight—pouring over green blobs, their delicate, arabesque tendrils frozen in a perpetual quest for the sun.

I thought I’d moved on; that’s what surprised me the most. But as I reflected on the past two years, I recognized I’d been spending so much time surviving, making do. Regardless of whatever form the tether took, I constantly found myself laden with the life I began in this state—suffocated by post-divorce debt and scraping by in a place that was supposed to be ours rather than mine, my social life atrophying with every declined invitation.

But this night, I felt free.

***

Hours before, I’d spent my last moments in Gay Gardens—thanking the little cottage for reminding me that I had the strength, confidence, and audacity to take those first terrifying steps toward building my new life.

I walked through every room, thinking back to the conversations, arguments—the dreams borne out of necessity and a deep wanting, all of which still require constant cultivation. And then I paused in the entryway—the door opened wide—and smiled back at how much the view had changed. Intermixed with exhaustion-fueled sadness was a growing sense of pride. We’d both emerged a little better than when we’d started.

In the weeks prior, I’d been informed that Gay Gardens wouldn’t be destroyed after all—at least not imminently. My efforts over the previous two years had not only resuscitated the cottage, but an interest by the landlord in managing the property responsibly. Once I handed over the keys, a month-long series of intense structural repairs would begin.

I hope you become something great. 

Outside, I made one final circuit around the yard—lingering in the flower beds replete with irises and hyacinths; collecting branches that’d blown down, bundling them up, and tossing them into the woods; and ripping out a few resurgent briers, knowing I’d likely carry a few barbs back with me. I dusted off my hands and gazed back at the house, watching as petals from the flowering plum skittered across the worn brick patio.

Goodbye, you weird, beautiful place. 

Walking up the wobbly staircase, I stretched out my arms and ran my hands along the large tree trunks growing through the railing, remembering how ivy-choked they’d been when I first descended into this overgrown jungle.

Breathe easy.

As my hand reached the end of the railing, I dug my nails in and then exhaled, propelling myself forward. I adjusted my rearview mirror, put the car into reverse, and promptly plowed into the anchored mailbox.

Befuddled by my absentmindedness, I eased forward, listening to the scrapes and pops—watching the mailbox shift back into place.

Fitting.

With the car idling, I dusted off the deep dent in the trunk—flecks of bright turquoise ground in: a subtle reminder of how every little thing shapes another, leaving glorious imprints.

***

Perched parrot-like on my reading chair, JoJo snorted, annoyed.

“Alright,” I huffed back.

Her ears pricked up, tail wagging wildly.

“Let’s see what’s out there.”

Walking through the apartment building’s deserted lobby, we emerged into the chilly night as two actors in this ever-unfolding sideshow.

Wandering down dark avenues, venturing toward shapeless lights. Marveling at the vacant spaces in between, glutted with potential.

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The Husk

My sweaty footprints trailed along the laminate wood floor—a runway to the living room. With the narrow awning windows slightly ajar, the cool evening air filtered in, pricking the hairs on the back of my neck as my feet sunk into the slightly damp, freshly shampooed carpet. I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows—past a handmade sign scrawled onto the back of an Under Construction placard leaning against the alley wall that read, “Please don’t shit here.”

Along the horizon, a brilliantly blue swath beneath a darkening cloud bank highlighted the city skyline, and as I pressed my face against the window glass, I could just make out the Space Needle. I imagined the view was comparable from the deck I’d constructed almost a year prior as I settled into Gay Gardens—my enthusiasm for what was to come in the little cottage fueling all sorts of home improvement projects, helping distract me from the reminders of how I’d ended up its lone steward.

I soaked in the view and demolished a walnut-Nutella roll and then a homemade fruit bar from the farmers market, the berries fresh and bursting with flavor. I dragged over the only chair in the apartment and unfurled into it, extending my legs out into the potted plant forest at my feet.

Dusting remnant crumbs off my jeans, I started unpacking the fourth carload of belongings I’d brought over, marveling at the bags’ random contents: a cheese grater, a music box,  an assortment of shower products. Slowly, methodically, I began piecing together where things would go—envisioning the space gradually filling with furniture and plants.

Aside from the apartment’s patent emptiness, a few other things to which I’d grown accustomed were noticeably absent:  the caustically frigid air, the musky smell of mold. Even without the heater on, the temperature hovered around 75 degrees—with the east-facing windows soaking in all the morning sun. My eyes weren’t agitated by allergies, and the semi-constant tinnitus from my cold-accosted Eustachian tubes was nearly gone; here, I wouldn’t have to wear ear muffs inside.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I stripped off my coat, tossing it into an empty corner. Light shifted behind me as clouds stampeded across the sky—my shadow dancing along the cream walls, a harbinger of this new chapter of movement and change. A storm began rolling in, its flurries fluttering down and melding with Seattle’s signature mist.

The thought of returning to Gay Gardens for another frigid, sleepless night made me shiver.

Moments later, slushy snow whipped tempest-like outside the immobile panes—the shrieking wind barely audible, the air inside heavy and warm, like a worn sweater.

I turned and faced my new nest.

This is where my life continues.

Gay Gardens was no longer my home; my time there was over.

***

With large expanses of its walls and floors liberated of art and rugs, Gay Gardens had become markedly colder than it’d been weeks before. Even the dankness that’d hit me like a ton of bricks when I’d initially toured the house had returned—like something in the fridge had just begun to rot.

From the last remaining area rug, JoJo eyed me suspiciously as she’d been doing all morning while I swooped in and out, ferrying off furniture and artwork. She splayed across the coarse, colorful fibers: laying claim to her protected island the way a child does with sofa cushions floating in a sea of imaginary lava.

Snow slowly clung to the budding trees out front as I muscled my entire memory foam top—complete with bedding—into my car like a bloated burrito, the sheet corners dragging along the dampened stairway. The sky began morphing into a dense, white mass. I raced back down, skittered into the bathroom, and began knocking everything out of the medicine cabinet and pulling baskets from under the sink. A few minutes later, nothing but the plunger remained.

I threw open the 70s-era fridge and loaded condensation-kissed dishes glutted with leftovers; foreseeing an exhausting final push for the evening, I’d have little effort to pull anything remotely nutritive together for dinner.

Before I knew it, the car was full again, and I was off. I had exactly an hour to unload everything before returning for my most precious cargo, and to convey two albatross-like pieces of furniture into their new owners’ waiting hands.

***

With 20 minutes to spare, I pulled back up to the house. Descending the stairs, I could feel exhaustion and fatigue slowly hugging my bones, cajoling me to stop.

Back inside, I listened to the heater rattle away as I flitted into the empty rooms, ensuring I’d snagged everything I needed for the next few days. The couple I’d be meeting to pick up the mid-century sofa and chair were running behind, which gave me a few moments to catch my breath.

I moved JoJo’s crate into the living room, tossing in a couple of her favorite toys. Knowing something was up, she scampered inside and disappeared beneath the layers of blankets.

I pulled the chair and sofa closer to the door, and wiped them down one last time. In moving the chair days before, I’d exposed a long-dead spider’s larder: drained gnat corpses littering the chipped, white-painted floor beneath; husks of their former selves, they’d provided nourishment and life to their now absent consumer.

Apart from the pair, nearly 30 beautiful furniture pieces, along with hundreds of pieces of Fiestaware and vintage tchotchkes, had waltzed out the door over the preceding month—their vacancies at first startling, then enlivening.

We really don’t need things to cultivate happiness.

Standing atop one of the only functional heating vents, I could feel the circulation in my feet picking up; after multiple trips of kicking my shoes on and off, my socks were hopelessly waterlogged. But there was something incredibly calming about standing there as the heat writhed around my toes, my back leaning into my leather love seat—knowing that in the span of an hour, JoJo and I would be somewhere else. Warm.

Minutes later, the couple arrived and carted away the furniture. And then I hurriedly gathered up JoJo, feeling as if we weren’t so much leaving as we were escaping—as if I were Sally Field, starring in Not Without My Doghter.

With JoJo crated and prepped, I did one last circuit through the house.

As I cut across the darkened living room, I left my hand outstretched, at the height where it’d have undulated along the sofa back—memories of its cold, stitched leather conjuring it back into being; my hand reaching for something that’d never return, like a ghost haunting a past life.

Wind howled outside, buffeting the clapboard. Warped by time and neglect, window sashes rocked in their tracks. In the tiny bathroom, I pressed my hand against the lone window’s painted sash—framing bubbled, frosted glass—remembering how relieved I was to apply the final coat of Pale Starlet. I could feel the air intruding through the splintered cracks, curling around it—reclaiming it. Willing me away.

I took a breath, stepped back, and let it go, watching the sash loll back and forth.

From the bathroom doorway, I could hear JoJo rustle impatiently. I floated back down the hallway, gathered her up, and turned back—the sashes’ thuds a slow, measured applause reverberating into the husk of Gay Gardens as I pulled the front door closed and whispered goodbye.

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Beautiful Splinters

Outside, rain beat the last leafy hangers-on from their branches as rivulets cascaded down the clapboard, its longstanding paint bubbling out—lesions awaiting a lance. Overly-saturated potted plants brimmed with water as the unceasing rain fell down, down, down—quietly lingering in every one of the yard’s myriad depressions, slicking the pavers pocking the weed-cluttered, soggy grass.

Lamplight glowed dully, illuminating the living room, the air heavy with the smell of buttered, peppered eggs bubbling in the dented cast iron skillet. Laughter filled the house as my sister and I recounted past family foibles. And then, as we quietly watched JoJo bat around her toys, a nature-inspired metronome broke the silence.

Drip

Drop

Drip

Drop

Spanning a badly patched seam, a strand of rainwater dribbled down the sunporch wall, over a painting, and pooled onto the chipped, white floor. After wiping down the painting and shuffling it aside, I piled towels along the floor, and situated a bowl beneath the small bubble slowly expanding along the ceiling.

A few months ago, when I recognized that I couldn’t stay here, I realized why it was that I sequestered myself in this cracked, rotting shell in the first place—chose to stick with it for another year.

I needed to heal, rebuild, and transform myself. And Gay Gardens was my cocoon.

But as I watched the dripping slow, and the water pool in the shallow bowl, I recognized Gay Gardens had done her job; I chuckled quietly, and dabbed the water rings on the floor.

Over the past year and a half, this little cottage and I forged an imperfect, symbiotic relationship—and this marked the beginning of its graceful end.

***

Weeks later, my head was nearly inside the oven, my eyebrows level with the wiry heating element. JoJo puttered up and gave me intense side-eye until I retreated from my Sylvia Plath-inspired attempt at staying warm. I sighed, watching my breath cloud dissipate.

Hours before, at my behest, the handyman pounded on the hallway’s walls.

“Jesus, you’re right. This isn’t even lathe and plaster. It’s fiberboard. I’ve never seen it…at least not in a house anyone is still living in. I mean, wow. I bet you get cold.”

From beneath my hoodie and coat, I exhaled deeply in his direction, following the rapidly cooling cloud with a vacant stare until he continued with his line of questioning. Soon thereafter, he left, citing that he’d be unable to fix the heating system.

Roughly an hour before he arrived, an antique dealer perused furniture and haphazardly sorted collections of keepsakes earmarked for sale, cherry-picking pieces for his shop.

Once a curated refuge, Gay Gardens has quickly become a staging ground. The structure remains, rotting quietly, nobly. But the home I created has been reduced to piles of once cherished items, each sporting a fluorescent price tag—an intended passport to others’ waiting hands.

After he left and I drew up his list, I scanned a tabletop cluttered with planters. They’d been so vital when I moved here; I needed to plant things—watch them grow. Scouring deserted thrift store shelves, the warped cabinets of a hoarder’s house, I’d seek out chipped and worn, dust-covered planters and revive them. Filled them with soil and the hopeful starts of a new plant. I yearned to see the planters’ glazes glow in the sun, the tiny greens nested inside them slowly pushing upward, filling out their translucent tendrils, the ends dripping with nascent buds.

But now their vegetative charges would grow without me—under someone else’s dutiful gaze.

***

The night before my heating system failed, I sat on the sunporch floor, my hands shaking—hovering over the small, identically sized boxes labeled “Mementos” as JoJo dragged her bed closer to the spectacle.

Quite suddenly, I was awash with anxiety. Because I knew what was inside the boxes. They didn’t contain newborn velociraptors or pictures of Ron Pearlman dressed as Vincent from the eighties television series Beauty & the Beast. The menacing “it” they held was more biting, more terrifying: paper.

As I opened the first box, JoJo gently rested her paw on my hand. She stared intently, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as they always do. I nuzzled my head against hers and took a deep breath.

“Thanks, baby girl.”

And then I started ripping. Cards, Post-its, little musings and love letters I’d squirreled away were reduced to bits, quickly filling a garbage bag. Then two.

Hours later, I looked from the emptied boxes to my palms, cross-stitched with paper cuts—the last, necessary wounds to heal.

I have to make room for less in my life.

***

Condensation pooled along the weathered mullions, occasionally overflowing, collecting along the warped sills. The heat finally kicked on, and my sinuses flared in response. Beyond the clouded panes, a humungous neon star glowed atop the steel mill downslope, casting its white light up into the backyard.

As the wind moved through the trees, rocking them side-to-side, the diffused light fell upon the garden’s withered remains. The entrance door hung open—warped and water-bloated; the veneer cleaving from the hardy core. Soon, the walls will come down; they’ll be transformed into ad hoc displays featuring all the bits and bobs to be paraded out for the subsequent yard sales.

Between passing cloud banks, sunlight glanced across the turquoise kitchen wall, amplifying the brilliant greens and cool blues. I stood and stared—through the wall, into the not so distant future, where everything around me has been reduced to splinters that once framed a brilliant life chapter.

Photo description: A view from the living room into the hallway, which is painted bright turquoise.

We’re all fragments striving to piece together a life that, at least from the outside, appears fortified, secure; but the inside is sometimes empty, a looming vastness into which the echoes of dreams reverberate and quietly die.

And in this future ruin, I pieced myself back together—filled that emptiness with something meaningful. I didn’t cure an insidious disease or eliminate poverty. But I made this particular place better. And, in so doing, proved to myself that I could, once again, make it on my own—that though I may be fractured, my edges roughened by experience, I’ve embodied the beauty of this self-reflective process, and know that my subdued resilience helped me survive, and molded me into the person I’ve wanted to be.

And that’s something.

What lies beyond Gay Gardens is unknown—a cloudy picture at best. But within that mental frame and fog, I imagine about 400 square feet with my bed floating out from the wall, surrounded by the plants I’m able to bring along. There, JoJo putters from one sun spot to the next, stretches, yawns, and dozes off. A few other pieces of furniture are scattered around the studio apartment, their valuable surface space cluttered with greenery.

And I’ll be there, assessing my new beginning and willing goodness into it, as I frequently did as I hovered over my planters—the smell of damp potting soil filling the air, the blips of green poking out toward the rising sun.

And I will recognize that I, too, will keep bending toward the light.

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Eden, Slipping

On the darkest nights, when the wind is howling through the tousled trees and leaves are rustling off their dripping branches—and the beams in the attic are groaning, popping from the barometric pressure and moisture—I feel as though this small cottage is a battered dinghy bobbing in a raging tempest. But somehow, its warped, wooden framing and patched, plastered seams always bolster it just enough—holding it firm, silently enduring the onslaught in the dark.

And then, hours later, as morning light diffuses through the seemingly impenetrable, gray cloud banks, I watch the once forceful rain drip lazily from scuffed eaves and rusted, leaking rain spouts.

Image description: a small cottage in the middle of a cleared terrace, with a stone path leading to it.

This, our home, has delivered us, its cargo, to another day.

***

As a kid, my overblown conception of a personal Eden featured a sprawling, multi-room Gothic mansion set in an open, browned field with trees lining its overgrown edges. Never did I imagine a small, dank cottage to supplant that fantasy.

When I think about the beauty of this place—what it has endured—I’m awestruck. Somehow, amid multiple housing booms and a changing skyline, it remained tucked away, sheltered behind behemoth rhododendrons and partially veiled with ivy. Coupled with pervasive rot, its decades-long neglect should’ve doomed it to become a mouldering, collapsed heap on the low, bramble-packed terrace.

And yet it remained upright long enough for a half-broken man and his faithful sidekick to move in and make it the best home they’ve ever had. But now, our time here is inching to an end.

I continue to water my plants, weed my flower beds—knowing that, as the tides swell and slowly pull this refuge from my grasp, I’ll be left unmoored in uncertain waters, reaching for a lifesaver. And honestly, I don’t know what it’ll look like.

My internal refrain has often been, As soon as you’re priced out of this home, that’s it. Back East you go. Mostly because the painful prospect of moving again is blunted by the comforting thought of returning to a place where I first made a home. But with no savings—and no ability to save—and no job prospects way over there, settling into a joyless, cookie-cutter studio miles away from the places I enjoy is my only recourse: debilitatingly sad, but pragmatic.

Seattle is lovely. It’s liberal. It’s scenic. There’s great thrifting. And it’s only a few hours away from Justin Trudeau. But I moved here coupled, with a fiscal buffer; together, it all worked—until we didn’t. Through a combination of begging my landlord and reducing every single expense I possibly could, I managed to pull this place—and myself—together over the past year. Always, though, the specter of another year loomed menacingly, with its associated cost-of-living spikes. But for a time, I was able to occupy my thoughts with surviving, rather than thinking about my imminent displacement as I’d done every moment since I’d taken over the lease. After all, I had another year, full of potential—something would come of my attempts to change my situation.

But here I am, slipping along the downward slope of my current leasing cycle, knowing that begging will do nothing now; even the slightest rental increase will make this place unreachable. The bubble continues to expand in Seattle, and there’s no cathartic burst in sight. With an entire paycheck consumed by rent, and the other pulled apart to satiate the utility, car loan, and credit card gods, I usually have between $5 and $15 left at the end of the month—and that’s if everything else stays consistent, which it never does. Unless you’re in corporate, being single in Seattle means you scrape by—you survive; you don’t live.

Seattle is no longer the grunge scene-inspiring, gritty city of the Cobain years. It’s now a polished playground for the rich—where upwardly mobile Millennials with six-figure salaries wave goodbye to longtime tenants and homeowners—most of whom are people of color who have to watch their neighborhoods be shattered by multi-million dollar box houses with Black Lives Matter signs posted out front, or re-zoned for massive micro-studio complexes.

I was silly to think I’d be an exception—that I, a relative newcomer, and of all the people displaced by Seattle’s boom, would somehow hold steadfast in my battered rental cottage against the raging tides of gentrification.

I fantasized about Gay Gardens being the place where I’d make it as a writer—no one famous, but earning just enough to stay put, save up, and buy this little place as ravenous Microsofties and Amazonians gobbled up everything around me. And then I’d slowly will my other dreams into reality.

I wouldn’t have to think about selling off most of my things just so I could afford to be displaced. I wouldn’t have to imagine the carefully crafted outdoor spaces I’ve built out of nothing being plucked apart by yard salers—bird houses and garden baubles and outdoor furniture snapped up like carrion for crows. I wouldn’t have to eventually hand over my keys and walk up the front stairs to a laden car, looking back over my shoulder at my Eden: the future site of million-dollar mansions. And I wouldn’t have to acknowledge that this place will soon be gone—face the imminence of a backhoe plowing headlong into the living room, its bucketed arm pivoting to level the tiny bedroom where I curled up my first night alone in five years and sank into the inky darkness of the forested hollow around me.

***

JoJo and I complete our around-the-house circuit, and as we reach the front patio, she stares up with her watery eyes, pleading for more time.

“Alright, we’ll go around again.”

Leaves cascade down from the gusting wind, their brittle edges reminding me that I won’t experience another fall here—staring out from the sun porch’s wavy-glassed windows while cradling a cup of hot coffee.

I’ll be somewhere else—probably in a large apartment complex in Tukwila with paper-thin walls listening to my neighbors squabble. But, with hope, in the depressing box that awaits me, I’ll be able to save enough money to pay off my credit card—racked with car repairs and heating bills rather than fanciful vacations and pedicures—and save enough money to move back to the East coast, or someplace I can actually live.

The wind nips my back as I run my hands along the weathered wood pallet garden wall. I clutch it hard, my knuckles turning white.

I wanted to build so much more here.

Back inside, as I warm her towels in the dryer, JoJo claws her way up into my lap. Her head, heavy with sleep, thuds quietly into my chest as she blows a snot-laden sigh into my orange cardigan.

I rest my chin on her tiny head, exhale deeply, and murmur through tear-clouded eyes, “Wherever you are is home.”

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Yes, We Can

It’s hard to describe the conflicting emotions I felt today.

Albeit a day filled with immense hope and indescribable optimism, there was an undercurrent of something else – of mourning. And as I marched down Seattle’s glutted streets with over 130,000 other peaceful protesters – staring up at rooftops to see firefighters, window-washers, and apartment residents waving on and screaming in solidarity – I recognized that this is a strange new nation. We are fractured. And no matter how hard anyone tries to pick up the pieces and painstakingly rejoin them, they will never fit back together again.

This farce of an election has cracked something inside us all, and we have a duty to acknowledge it, name it, and rail against that which threatens the safety and security of this great nation, and the world. We owe it to ourselves and the citizens around the world who raised their voices in solidarity with us today.

My hope is that this mantle of justice is taken up and shouldered by us all, and that we don’t chalk up today as some kumbaya moment. This “moment” must keep going far beyond today – in rhetoric and action; in everyday practice, we must always push forward. We must remember our humanity, and the power we wield when we band together.

I haven’t felt this good in a long time.

Today, I’m thankful for my fellow marchers across the nation and globe, especially my awe-inspiring mother and sister who trekked to DC; they’re the two strongest women and role models I’ve ever known.

For the knitter at the bus stop who gifted me a beautiful pink scarf.

For the new friend who pulled up at the glutted bus stop and gave three of us a ride.

For the friends I bumped into and texted with throughout the march.

For every single child I saw filled with hope, and screaming at the top of their lungs for change.

For the seniors walking arm-in-arm, holding signs aloft reading, “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.”

For signs calling out all the -isms, and the importance of understanding and recognizing intersectionality.

For the blind marcher wearing a sandwich board reading, “I will not follow along blindly.”

For the great-grandmother who confided to me, “I like all the pink. But I don’t know about the pussy hats yet.”

For the eagle that flew overhead just as the sun beamed down.

Yes, we have much work to do to fix this country. But after days like today, I’m more certain than ever that, yes, we can.

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Doh-si-DOE-si-Dough

After I throw an assortment of event envelopes, overstuffed folders, wire racks, and a styrofoam head into the backseat, I motion to my guest, letting her know the passenger seat is clear.

She opens the door cautiously, her Louboutin stilettos hovering over the floor mat for about five seconds, quivering as if she’s about to step onto a sheet of ice. My car reeks of cardboard, but her heavy perfume still manages to overpower it. I imagine the fragrance name being something like “Wealth Drops” – squeezed from the eyes of locally-sourced poor people for your pleasure.

Before I get in, I do a quick stretch-deodorant check; thankfully, my Old Spice is still holding up.

“Alrighty, off to lunch!” I chirp over-enthusiastically. Given that my colleague and I just got tasked with interviewing this prospective candidate for our boss over lunch, I muster everything I can to keep from entertaining my first thought, which is to bash my head into the steering wheel.

Her expensively manicured hands buckle the seatbelt over her Chanel blazer; she sits painfully upright, so much so that I quickly check to ensure I didn’t knock the headrest at a right angle. But when I look, I’m blinded by the diamond-encrusted Prada glasses, tipped down to her nose as she surveys the immediate area.

“So, this cafe isn’t walkable, then?” she curtly coughs.

“Nope. And you don’t really want to walk around this area. Even if you’re just running to Subway.”

I opt to leave out describing the pedestrian walkways around our building as “stabby.” After all, I’m trying to keep it classy.

Maneuvering through traffic, I try to keep the already awkward conversation moving while avoiding adding vehicular manslaughter to our lunch menu.

“So, what specifically about the position struck you – drew you in?”

I don’t really pay attention to her response, letting the canned question fall into an abyss-like chasm in my mind the minute it falls from my mouth. By the time she finishes, and I follow up with the expected, “Well, that’s great!” we pull into the parking lot.

While she and my coworker get out and grab a spot in line, I circle and search for a parking place. But after I park, I rummage through the pile of crap I threw onto the backseat to ensure the manila folder with my recently printed resumes and talking points for in-process interviews weren’t bent or mangled. Interviewing possible bosses while searching for a different job myself always makes for an interesting experience – and affords me the ability to hone my question-and-answer delivery.

***

Over lunch, the candidate picks at her spinach salad, coating the top with salt and selectively eating only the bacon from atop the leafy mound. The chunks of feta sprinkled among the bacon clash with the large pearls perfectly overlaying her blouse.

Rattling off a few more canned questions, I listen dutifully to her rehearsed answers and nod at the appropriate times, interjecting an occasional “Mhmm” or “Ah, I see.” Whether it’s because I’m full, or the day has gotten to me, I start to drift off. It seems I can’t escape the exhaustion that comes with interviewing – from either side of the table.

In my daze, I recall my most recent in-person interview, and fantasize about the possibility of leaving, of starting anew in a position where the “DOE” salary in the job announcement translates into something meaningful – either something close to what I’m currently making, or even a little more. Like most cities, Seattle’s liberal culture and attractive amenities come at an absurdly high cost of living – something that doesn’t exactly mesh with a nonprofit salary. What’s more crushingly painful is the fact that I’ve never made as much as I’m currently making, and am terrified that I’m trapped – that I’ll never escape, and be forced to spend my professional years in a gray cube.

The clang of our interviewee’s fork falling onto the floor snaps me back to the dull present. I mutter an, “Oh, I see…” in response to her latest name-dropping line, and glance at my phone.

“OH, we should probably get going!” I boom excitedly. I’m so ready for this misery to be over.

When we return, I rattle off an email to the hiring committee with my feedback, none of which is positive – the title of the email reading: No Hire.

After I hit Send, I hope that a prospective employer isn’t doing exactly the same thing to me.

***

Nearly a month later, I’m wrapping up the phone conversation with my soon-to-be new boss.

I hang up, and scream so loudly that Joanna freezes in place, and even sinks a little into the floor.

It’s happened.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll submit my notice. All the work-related nightmares of wrapping up one job and starting another will surely follow, but for now, I plan to cherish the excitement that comes from changing directions – to charting a new, needed path.

This year hasn’t been easy, but hopefully this is a turning point.

***

The HR lead facilitating my exit interview has hung her head no fewer than three times and moaned lowly, “ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

I nod, assuring her that every anecdote I’ve relayed, every painfully problematic Office Space-like bit of commentary is absolutely true.

She scribbles down everything down on her pre-printed questionnaire. With every statement, I feel a little lighter. When we finish, I return to my cubicle, exhale, and start pulling out pushpins, amassing papers into a large recycling pile.

I’d hoped this job would be the one; alas, it’s been everything but.

***

Today is my first day at my new job. Like a Kindergartner, I’m terrified, exhilarated, and sleep-deprived.

When I step out the door, I begin writing another chapter.

I hope it’s worth a read.

I hope I make a difference.

I hope I feel proud again.

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To Grow or Wilt

It’s around 6:00. It must be. Joanna’s signature high-pitched whine punctuates the dark bedroom as she rustles up through her crate blankets to greet another day.

Before my mind even registers the ungodly hour, my body, zombie-like, starts shaking off the night’s shallow slumber as I propel one leg off the bed followed by the duvet-snagged other – and then stoop down to the small blue crate nestled against an Eastlake vanity.

Predictably, Joanna feigns sleepiness in a halfhearted attempt to cajole me to scoop her up so that she, the exhausted one, can be rubbed and doted upon for approximately two minutes before she’s harnessed to visit her favorite garbage-dotted bushes along the sidewalk.

The front door’s loud thwack and my jingling keys do little to rouse Toby who, judging from snores and grunts, is still covered in his towel fort atop the living room’s sagging Victorian hexagonal chair.

Outside, typical characters are performing their morning scenes – the jogger clop clop clopping along the pavement; the flyer stapler bash bash bashing one more concert announcement into an already thickly layered telephone pole; the neighborhood druggies hack hack hacking up partial lungs while lighting up in alcoves where the faint morning light still hasn’t penetrated. Mini trash tornados circle and die in the street, and the sky threatens a morning shower. Joanna sniffs castoff food wrappers and smashed jalapenos outlining where the late-night hot dog vendor set up to entice drunken revelers to convalesce with compressed, meaty bliss.

Back inside, filtered light warms the apartment ever so slightly, and the dogs settle down with their post-breakfast treats while I indulge in a few cups of hot cocoa – my recent, somewhat successful attempt at limiting my coffee intake. The expected chocolatey skim forms on top, which once stirred vigorously, settles into the thickened mixture swirling around in the jadeite mug. I sip and gulp, and then rub my favorite geranium’s rough leaves – letting their peppery fragrance kick me in the nostrils.

It’s one of those mornings framed for reflection.

We’ve packed a lot into the last three years: we moved across the country; I started a new career; we moved out of our first CA perch, our tiny Koreatown studio, for our WeHo digs; we adopted Toby, then Pearl; Andy got another job; we got married; Pearl passed away; Andy got a promotion; we moved to Seattle; I finished my manuscript, and got a new job; we adopted Joanna; Joanna broke her leg; we decided to stay strong and lean in.

And now, in a few months, we’ll be moving again – but this time, only a stone’s throw to a larger place where we can let ourselves root in Seattle’s ever damp soil and save up for a house. We’re re-learning to focus on the good bits that sustain us – whether it’s overfilling our apartment with greenery, or enjoying the fact that Toby and Joanna have finally bonded.

A greenery-filled house is a happier house

They've bonded!

And acknowledging that life is a string of unscripted, unknown experiences, from which we can either choose to grow or wilt.

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Leaning In

Life is weird. If being an autonomous agent in this world teaches you anything, it’s that. You can plan and scheme and outline your entire future – or even just your morning – and everything can change without pomp or circumstance, without some clouds parting or an internal voice telling you “This is your moment.”

Things change. People change. We get older and more tired. But something that few of us leave behind fully is a taste for life, for the sweet, sometimes unexpected bits sprinkled into our daily existence like toppings over ice cream. And right as you’re squaring your jaw, drawing a hard line, you break into that bizarre, alien sweetness – an experience that, again, throws you off balance just enough to make you pivot and change course.

This past year has been full of heartache and changes. We’ve said gut-wrenching goodbyes, moved from a desert to FernGully, had plenty of hiccups, and started all over again.

As freeing as moving here and there can be, I’ve found myself waiting for that inevitable push elsewhere, using a bad day or passerby’s glare to fuel some choking ember into an inferno – raging and demanding change, being that ostensible evidence that I belong somewhere else.

Not long after we rooted in Seattle, we both started having misgivings. Perhaps we succumbed to Seattle’s permeating dampness, its seemingly impenetrable gray skies; or maybe we just needed something in the world around us to reflect our internal dialogue. So, yet again, we vowed that perpetual motion was the only way out of this overwhelming, emotionally draining welter. And where better to funnel our efforts than toward the place where we first met, where we first made a home together – on the other side of the country.

Returning to a place you consider home almost seems a given these days. Or maybe it’s just a product of getting older, realigning priorities – all of those revelatory moments you witness onscreen and never imagine actually taking hold in your own consciousness, made audible by your two lips and shaky vocal chords. And for a while, we began to pave our road back to Raleigh, imagine house-hunting around our old haunts, remembering all of the goodness we shared with family – genetic and chosen. But, as I’ve said, life happens.

***

A few minutes into my 90-day review, I know everything is about to change. My director is leaving the organization, and I know with the utmost certainty that it’s only a matter of weeks before the other member of our dwindling department raises anchor and sets sail too. I swallow. I smile. I say all the things a professional would – interjecting humor where necessary, blunting cynicism with sarcasm.

And so the shift begins. A week after she leaves, my other teammate departs, as I’d suspected he would. So, it’s down to me.

This is it. There’s no point investing my time or energy here. 

But the departmental chaos reveals a chance to propel up the ladder a few rungs faster than I’d imagined. Coupled with a few other wrenches that’ve been thrown our way, we have a lot to consider, more than a few decisions to make.

***

It’s easy to run away; it’s harder to stay, absorb, learn, grow as much as you can, and have confidence that, no matter what, you’re doing something because you want to – not because you have to, or because it’s what’s expected at this point in life.

So, we’re leaning in. We’re staying in Seattle – for now.

We’re acknowledging that where we are today is incredibly different from where we were in May, when we first set foot in the Pacific Northwest. And that’s a good thing. And we owe it to ourselves to keep making it as good as possible, to let the ink dry on this latest map we’ve scribbled down before wetting the quill again and drafting a new one.

For me, the scariest character in all of our conversations has been that familiar specter – the great and powerful Unknown, which gobbles up fear and optimism, dreams and nightmares. And we never know if what we entrust to it will ever manifest down the line in some guise – vindicating or damning us.

But at some point we have to look beyond the paths we see ahead of us and take stock of what encompasses them – limitless beauty and opportunity and, yes, that terrifying, ghoulish Unknown bathing in a soup of ambiguity.

Left, right, back, or none of the above?

You can yoke yourself to the trite saying “There’s a time and place for everything and everyone” – that when you hit some arbitrary number of years on this earth, you must fall in line.

Or, you can acknowledge that there’re lots of places, and time enough to do some exploring.