Last week my brand new vacuum cleaner stopped working. It was the second time I had used it. Let me reword this so you get the full impact of my statement: I had used the vacuum cleaner one other time before it stopped working.
I am minimizing the issue. The vacuum did not stop working. The vacuum broke. Homer (from The Iliad, not from The Simpsons) might say, "the vacuum received no small injury."
This is the third vacuum cleaner I have owned since moving into this apartment three years ago. The carpet in my apartment is a vacuum murderer. Shoddily installed (and cheap to begin with), it frays into long, thick fibers which become instantly tangled in the rotating mechanism of the vacuum, revving the motor to impossibly high temperatures, and burning it out in a matter a seconds. Despite my care to avoid the areas of the carpet where this fraying occurs, one moment of distraction or forgetfulness is all it takes.
Now, the challenge: relate this saga to life. This is what a writer does.
Am I the vacuum cleaner, going about my life, doing my job, fulfilling my destiny, caught off guard by something trivial, and sidelined indefinitely? Do I appear to be strong and sturdy, but am really weak and easily dismantled?
Or am I the ragged and frayed carpet, inferior in quality and bitter about it, raging in ways almost undetectable, yet potent enough to bring down anyone who tries to improve me, anyone whose life is more complete, anyone who risks getting too close? Do I seem to be the kind who allows, even invites others to walk all over me, but in reality I lure them into my vengeance?
Maybe I am neither. Maybe I am simply the woman vacuuming a crappy carpet with a crappy vacuum cleaner, and I really need to watch where I'm going.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Smells Like Color blindness
What does memory smell like?
Does childhood smell like a goldfish in a dank and filmy bowl of water on the kitchen counter?
Does it smell like comet and macaroni and cheese on my mother's skin?
Does it smell like urine and vomit and beer on the living room sofa?
Does it smell like salt water and spaghetti and the sweat of hard play?
I love describing smells. I love creating metaphors from nothing, allowing odor to take on a different sense, like sight or sound, giving it a color or timbre. These are things I understand.
Smell does not make sense to me. I ask my children questions like, "Do you always smell? Can you not smell if you don't want to, the same way you can close your eyes to not see or plug your ears to not hear?" I ask, "What color is the smell of rain?" They cannot tell me the answers. They do not know. They do not understand smell either, even though it is something they possess.
Having no sense of smell used to be confusing to me. I was angry at my mother, thinking she had forgotten to teach me something that she had taught my brothers and sisters. She taught us to read, to write our names, to say our prayers, to brush our teeth. And to the others she secretly taught the way to smell.
My friends at school would push a tiny glass bottle of pale yellow perfume under my nose and say, "Smell this!"
I would sniff, experiencing nothing, and wait for the cue.
"You don't think that stinks?"
TO which I would reply, "Oh, yeah, it's terrible. Definitely not my favorite."
Or "It's heavenly, isn't it!"
And I would say, "Mmm. That's nice."
Soon I started saying, "No, really, I don't care for the smell of perfume." Or, "I must have allergies because I can't smell it."
I was in high school before I realized that I really, truly did not smell anything. I accepted it. I embraced it. Now I boast of it.
I do not smell the litter box as soon as I walk into the apartment. I do not smell my son's generous application of cologne. I did not smell the diapers of three babies. I do not smell the neighbor's cigar smoke lingering in the hallway. I do not smell the odor of death and decay in my in-laws' house. I do not smell the pungent, unwashed laundry on my daughter's floor. I do not smell the unidentifiable food rotting in the refrigerator. And I would not trade this ignorant bliss for a thousand turkey dinners or pine Christmases.
Does childhood smell like a goldfish in a dank and filmy bowl of water on the kitchen counter?
Does it smell like comet and macaroni and cheese on my mother's skin?
Does it smell like urine and vomit and beer on the living room sofa?
Does it smell like salt water and spaghetti and the sweat of hard play?
I love describing smells. I love creating metaphors from nothing, allowing odor to take on a different sense, like sight or sound, giving it a color or timbre. These are things I understand.
Smell does not make sense to me. I ask my children questions like, "Do you always smell? Can you not smell if you don't want to, the same way you can close your eyes to not see or plug your ears to not hear?" I ask, "What color is the smell of rain?" They cannot tell me the answers. They do not know. They do not understand smell either, even though it is something they possess.
Having no sense of smell used to be confusing to me. I was angry at my mother, thinking she had forgotten to teach me something that she had taught my brothers and sisters. She taught us to read, to write our names, to say our prayers, to brush our teeth. And to the others she secretly taught the way to smell.
My friends at school would push a tiny glass bottle of pale yellow perfume under my nose and say, "Smell this!"
I would sniff, experiencing nothing, and wait for the cue.
"You don't think that stinks?"
TO which I would reply, "Oh, yeah, it's terrible. Definitely not my favorite."
Or "It's heavenly, isn't it!"
And I would say, "Mmm. That's nice."
Soon I started saying, "No, really, I don't care for the smell of perfume." Or, "I must have allergies because I can't smell it."
I was in high school before I realized that I really, truly did not smell anything. I accepted it. I embraced it. Now I boast of it.
I do not smell the litter box as soon as I walk into the apartment. I do not smell my son's generous application of cologne. I did not smell the diapers of three babies. I do not smell the neighbor's cigar smoke lingering in the hallway. I do not smell the odor of death and decay in my in-laws' house. I do not smell the pungent, unwashed laundry on my daughter's floor. I do not smell the unidentifiable food rotting in the refrigerator. And I would not trade this ignorant bliss for a thousand turkey dinners or pine Christmases.
Tuesday evening.
This night is set aside for me to write. I wait at the mall where I get free wifi while my son attends his CAP meeting. And I write. I write thousands of words. Tomes. I have finished three novels in the past year. These are all lies. I am practicing to write fiction by telling lies. I have eleven Tuesdays left before my son leaves for Basic Training, and then my Tuesday nights are gone.
So, in the spirit of true procrastination, I blog. Let's say I use the blog to fire my creative juices. I may very well write a thousand words. They may be nothing more than blog-worthy. But somewhere amid the drivel I may find a golden crumb, maybe a metaphor or an allegory. Maybe I will happen upon an inspiring character name.
Or maybe I will reply to the annoy blip which tells me someone wants to chat with me.
This night is set aside for me to write. I wait at the mall where I get free wifi while my son attends his CAP meeting. And I write. I write thousands of words. Tomes. I have finished three novels in the past year. These are all lies. I am practicing to write fiction by telling lies. I have eleven Tuesdays left before my son leaves for Basic Training, and then my Tuesday nights are gone.
So, in the spirit of true procrastination, I blog. Let's say I use the blog to fire my creative juices. I may very well write a thousand words. They may be nothing more than blog-worthy. But somewhere amid the drivel I may find a golden crumb, maybe a metaphor or an allegory. Maybe I will happen upon an inspiring character name.
Or maybe I will reply to the annoy blip which tells me someone wants to chat with me.
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