I get up and decide that my usual trek into London isn't worth a skirt and a pair of heels. I decide that spending my entire day locked into conference calls is so soul-stripping that people don't get to dictate tights and a skirt. Work can be done no matter what the attire, so in a tiny act of rebellion I dress the way I would want to should I be stuck in meetings all day. I wear jeans and a sleeveless summer top. Blue Sketcher sneakers and striped pink socks. A yellow wristband from David and Goliath and that says 'Chicks Rule!'. And my badge, hanging on a new cord also from David and Goliath that says: 'Doesn't Play Well With Others'. I put on my makeup and spritz myself with Demeter's 'Rain' perfume.

I join the commuting rat race. I get to the train station and get handed a goodie bag from some conservative Christian organization. The brochures and the bag all get binned but the chewy granola bar they offer makes its way into my bag and I wonder if it will taste of righteousness. People are already lined up on the train platform like the zombies we have become, black dress shoes and black high heels stepping on the yellow line. I make my way down the platform dressed in my business casuals. My suitcase over my shoulder has a pin stuck on it confirming my support for the League Against Cruel Sports and I'm just waiting for the day that someone calls me on it. My projector dangles from my bumpy injured right hand and I head for the one patch on the platform that is drenched in sunlight.

And I stand in it. I raise my face to it and close my eyes, letting the sun mask my eyes in blinding red and a swirling blue 3D meringue pie where the sun should be. I shrug my cloak around me and wonder if I look like a bat, like a desperate, like someone who hasn't seen the sun for years. I take off my coat and feel my bare arms instantly react to the chilled air, but I just raise my face and close my eyes. I don't care that others might be watching, I don't care that I look nuts. I just want this moment in the sun, and if I could, I would twirl around and around and around with my arms out until I was dizzy and laughing.

No matter how often I think about it, I can't understand this life I am leading. Pieces of me fall away with every train ride I take and yet other parts of me have been shored up by stable brick and decent mortar when I wasn't looking. If I stand still on the platform I can hear my future beat in my inner ear like a hummingbird.

I talked to Jeff yesterday-the board of Dream Job wants a demonstration of Rocket Riding Gerbil in the Spring, during a date which Jeff is away. He tells me that I must set up and hold the demonstration as it's important that they get to know the name 'Helen Adelaide'. He says I need to push myself in front of them and get them to know my name as I will go far.

And I am just a girl who was raised in military housing. I am a girl who had no money in college. I am a girl that comes from humble origins and still has humble pursuits. I am a girl that once lived in a flat where I would have to reach around the corner to turn the light on in rooms, to give the roaches a moment to run away. I'm a girl whose eyes got too big for her dreams and so met with the business end of mortality.

The thought of taking our rocket in front of people whose lives so wildly outstrip mine fills me with terror.

Jeff tells me I will go far in this company, which is ironic since I don't really want to go anywhere at all. Three years ago this would've been my brass ring and now it's my nightmare. I don't want to be upper management, I want to sink my feet into dark grass and feel the sunlight on my collarbone. I don't want to make decisions about the business of the company, I want to make decisions about what to make for dinner and where to walk my dog. I don't want to demonstrate the future of Dream Job to the board, I want to teach a room of 5 year-olds how to make sock puppets.

But I am here, and this is what my life is. My life is about dancing in the quiet space of my heart. My life is about redefining what my family will be in my future. My life is about taking a moment to have the deep stresses to figure out that I like to do such small and calm little things that I could never have believed it. I can spend time watching a spider build a web. I can sit there on the couch with a cat on my lap and just pet her until she molds herself around the length and curve of my knees. I can sit still and not do anything but just listen to the sounds of my spinning thoughts.

The blind psychic I went to so many years ago still rings about my head. She told me so many things which have, either by influence of my visit to her or something creepy that should be documented, come true. But she told me something that I dismissed years ago since it wasn't cohesive to my own views.

She told me that everyone has people around them. These people can be called whatever you want, ghosts, guides, people. Most people call them guardian angels. The concept of guardian angels hovering around me was too Hallmark-meets-Michael-Landon for me to bear-I don't subscribe to the idea of angels although I can confess that it's a comforting idea that someone's looking out for you, guiding you straight and worrying about you when you go astray. She told me that I had the most people around me that she had ever seen-five men and a woman were all behind me, watching out for me and caring about me. That I would never see these people but that, if I were quiet, TV and radio off, I could hear them. That they would be with me for life and maybe someday I would meet them on the other side.

I thought it was utter rubbish all those years ago. I thought: six people hanging around me? Six people watching out for me and loving me? Do they watch me pee, too? Do they cluck their tongues when I add too much garlic to my pasta? And I paid $20 for this?

And now I am faced with some things at work that make my knees knock and daily job stress that's not on par with anything I have ever known. I face fertility treatment in the Spring. I have watched my family pare away like slices falling from an apple core. I have characters for a story bursting inside my brain.

But I am also a lot quieter these days, and as such I have begun to change. I don't get angry. I don't get impatient. I don't throw things. I may not know what it is that I want from life but I am slowly learning what I don't want.

And so it is that maybe it's my six people telling me to raise my face to the sun. Maybe my people tell me to not think about the demo, to ignore the dichotomy of who people think I am at work versus how inadequate I feel inside. Perhaps my people tell me to close my eyes and hold my arms out and spin around the platform, to try to capture back little droplets of lost happiness that drained out of the sink of my life.

And, because my life is so short and my hopes are so great, I listen. I raise my face to the sun and I close my eyes and I hold my arms out and do a quiet spin, dizzying up my brain with warm fragments of my life. I like to think there were seven of us spinning around out there, trying to put our lives on hold for just one moment.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:58 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 1445 words, total size 7 kb.

1 Interesting post. I was about 31 when I made my big change at work. I don't have to work the insane hours, and I get to do something that I truly enjoy. After 10 years I still look forward to going to work. Just out of curiosity, did the psychic say who they were and why they're looking out for you?

Posted by: Easy at March 23, 2005 01:10 PM (dH3dd)

2 'whose lives so wildly outstrip mine' In whose eyes, exactly? Surely not mine. And reading you of late, I'm feeling quite hopeful that soon enough it won't seem so in your own reflection, either. Life is what we make of it, darlin'.

Posted by: Jennifer at March 23, 2005 01:56 PM (jl9h0)

3 Jesus girl. You get me every time.

Posted by: amy t. at March 23, 2005 03:42 PM (zPssd)

4 Their lives may well outstrip yours in terms of social heirarchy but there's one thing to remember ... they still put their trousers on one leg at a time... well ... maybe the lords have people who do it for them .. and I promise you this - you have better legs ;-)

Posted by: Rob at March 23, 2005 04:03 PM (kXZI6)

5 You could have at least read ONE of the brochures from the goodie bag...after all, they did give you a granola bar And how do you know it was a CONSERVATIVE Christian group? It might have been one of those dreaded LIBERAL Christian groups...I hate those guys (I don't really hate 'em)

Posted by: Solomon at March 23, 2005 04:38 PM (k1sTy)

6 That was a beautiful post. I am glad you are listening to the people behind you. They usually do scream with just a whisper.

Posted by: Kirsten at March 23, 2005 06:08 PM (uT4r1)

7 I echo Jennifer (as per usual) in that those lives do NOT outstrip yours. But this? THIS: My life is about dancing in the quiet space of my heart That, darling is poetic. I love it.

Posted by: Margi at March 23, 2005 06:08 PM (lWAiX)

8 Jeezus girl, kid you not, tears to my eyes with this post. I want you to email me with the name of the novel you write. I am awed with this post. You are so much more than you think.

Posted by: P Mann at March 23, 2005 07:01 PM (f+6vj)

9 Helen, taking the last three postings into account, I kid you not, I expect a novel soon. You have a very tangible talent for writing. You may have transitioned from 30 to 31 but you've left no talent behind. Most of the people around you would have envied you if you had spread you arms and twirled. I eny you for writing about it. Thanks.

Posted by: P Mann at March 23, 2005 07:17 PM (f+6vj)

10 The thought of taking our rocket in front of people whose lives so wildly outstrip mine fills me with terror. Bollocks to the titled, girl. You'll do great. Just don't let all the Lords and vons intimidate you. LIfe's tricky: If you want the time to teach 5 year-olds the art of sock puppetry, you usually have to sacrifice the money. If you want the money to avoid the roach-ridden efficiency apartments, you usually have to sacrifice the time. It's difficult to have both at once. I hate that.

Posted by: ilyka at March 23, 2005 07:20 PM (Kj7iE)

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