Bleed for Me

I am a serial blood giver. I have been for about six years.

The first time I gave blood was sort of by accident. OK, maybe that's not exactly right, maybe "by accident" makes me seem more naive than I was. "Out of necessity" would be closer to the truth.

Sitting in my Intro to Eastern Religions class, I overheard a guy in the row behind me blabbing about how he'd been paid to give blood. Now, this seemed totally nonsensical; my high school had held blood drives, and the biggest news out of the auditorium was always how people were passing out and/or puking. Surely I would have heard if the blood bank had started paying people for their donations. But he sounded so convincing! He even gave me directions, albeit inadvertently. I just had to go, bleed a little bit and they would hand me a check. I could even go back in a week and do it all over again!

Oh, and did I mention that I was a little strapped for cash? Never mind why -- the details are sordid but boring -- but I was relieved/thrilled/elated to discover a quick source of cash. Who knew there was, in fact, money running through my veins?

I found the donation center and stormed through the door (in my own way of course). There were about seven other college students in the waiting room, clipboards in their laps, social security cards and licenses at the ready. I approached the counter where a bored-looking receptionist was working on a sudoku puzzle. She asked if I was there for a whole blood or platelet donation. I answered and she pointed in the direction of a surly man in a paper lab coat. I immediately knew that I'd answered incorrectly, but I didn't know how I could take it back at that point.

He took my vitals and stuck my finger. Then he asked me all sorts of personal questions about my sex life: Had I ever had sexual contact with a man who had received money for sex after 1974? -or- Had I ever had sexual contact with a man who had used needles to take drugs? After 1974? It was very invasive, and I was a little put off. "I don't know" was not a possible answer, so I said no to all the naughty bits, hoping maybe there'd be a cash prize for being virtuous.

The needle stick was quick and mostly painless; it had probably helped that I'd been looking out at my comrades in the lobby, but I barely felt it. That and my fascination over my fast-moving blood really outshone any physical sensations. I just stared at it shoot through that empty tube, bloating the bag like a big breath of fresh air, like a direct lifeline from my arm to a bag and into someone else's arm...eventually. I thought of that Frida Kahlo painting. And wine.

After what felt like about 90 seconds, I was knocked out of my trance by the surly phlebotomist telling me to stop squeezing. He wrapped me up and directed me to the cantina, which made me think of the Mexican War of Independence. (Don't ask. I didn't voice this thought, but I did chuckle to myself.)

"Eat until you feel strong enough to be on your feet. Thanks for your donation."

Now I knew I'd said something wrong. Hippie boy had totally gotten his story wrong! Obviously, he'd been donating some other bodily fluid and saying "blood" was just a cover-up. Plus, Mr. Fake Nurse had been totally rude: he sounded just like some frat boy on the morning after. And let me tell you, their refrigerators are never stocked with more than Coors Light and Vlasic pickles...so I've heard.

So I was back to where I'd been when I'd arrived, minus one pint of my gorgeous, powerful, life-giving Type A blood. I looked down at the package of Grandma's Cookies I was picking at, ambivalent about my donation. I was the only gringa in the cantina and no one was watching me. I may not be compensated monetarily, but this cornucopia of pre-packaged junk food could really come in handy later when I can't buy groceries, I realized. Slowly, slyly, I slid handfuls of Grandma's Cookies, Rold Gold pretzels and mini cans of apple and orange juice into my purse, along with a couple sleeves of peanuts and raisins, to keep it healthy.

I walked out feeling vindicated; not only had I screwed over those who would dare screw me over, but I'd also done a good deed. I couldn't deny that. Plus, I had dinner in my purse.

I felt fine the rest of the afternoon and shrugged off the warning to not drink alcohol for the next 24 hours, which really helped my agoraphobia after my roommates dragged me to another friend's house party. No, I kid! I went willingly. I think I actually made some friends. See, I like to contain myself when I'm drinking, but that night the mere alcohol fumes were enough to promote every stranger there to my best friend.

After that I started donating blood as often as I could (which was not once a week as the hippie boy had led me to believe), trying to correspond epic social events with my donation rotation. I never made a dime, but I got tons of free swag: besides the obvious slices of pizza and baggies of junk food, I was showered with free T-shirts, pens and sticky notepads, minor league baseball tickets, cheap plastic sunglasses, bookmarks, and vouchers for free everything from sandwiches and ice cream to movie rentals and bowling games. I think maybe even a free shoe shine? I don't remember; I own no leather shoes.

I eventually found a legit way to make money, in case you were wondering (you probably weren't, am I right?), but I got hooked on giving blood. Some of it was materialistic (see above list of swag) and narcissistic (I puffed up whenever I caught someone checking out my bandaged arm), but one day I was broadsided by just how important my blood could be.

I was sitting in the chair, with a needle in my arm, blood flowing out of me, when I started to get lightheaded. I frantically tried to keep it together, wondering if I'd eaten lunch, wondering if I would pass out and start drooling before they could revive me. Fortunately, the kind lady taking my blood turned around just in time to see my skin turning translucent, and she propped my feet up.

In my hazy state, I started meditating on blood, on the way in was pouring up my legs like the Nile flowing "backwards," bringing me back to life. My blood, giving life to me and others. How awesome is that?! Almost passing out is just another yawn-inducing side effect of giving blood, but I couldn't think of it the same way after that. I started taking fewer cookies, fewer vouchers, repenting a little for having been such a mooch before. I stopped taking my blood for granted, dammit.

Which is why I'm pretty bummed now. My last three attempts at the blood bank have proved fruitless. My iron has been sufficient, my blood pressure and pulse freakishly low (read: pristine), but I have not been able to give blood. I mean, I just can't. The needle goes in, but no blood comes out. So they remove the needle partially, dig around a little bit with the tip as I grimace at the wall, and jab a little deeper. But still nothing. I figured the third time would be a charm, but my last attempt was no better than the others.

I asked my phlebotomist why this complete lack of bleeding would happen. "Sometimes the blood just wants to stay with the host," she said sagely. I looked down at my icy fingers. The color of my nails was inching its way to purple, and I began to doubt the presence of any blood in my body.

I hopped off the chair and made my way toward the door, but a tech stopped me and wheeled me to the cantina. I felt like a fraud sitting there, with my bogus bandage crisscrossed around my elbow, sipping on apple juice. Health advocates always advise "listen to your body," but I tend to hear my body and promptly tell her she's wrong. I don't like giving my body a break, and she'd struck back by hoarding my blood.

I sheepishly accepted the free movie voucher and T-shirt. And on my way home I took a detour to the theater to rest my bones.

A Fond Farewell

Songs for Waking Up

Sometime around the end of grade school I started to get angry. And it was good.

My new state of mind was the product of a few things, including, but not limited to, an Ani Difranco record my brother slipped me, saying, "I thought you might like it." Who knows if that was before or after I stopped wearing a bra to school in protest of dress code regulations; the songs might have influenced me, or my emerging rebelliousness might have directed my brother.

I listened to that album over and over, soaking in the sound of angry fists clenched against a patronizing pat on the back. It felt like waking up. Suddenly the world seemed bigger and my problems much smaller. I felt like fighting, like I had a reason to. So what that I was a feminist who'd never really experienced sexism, except maybe in an Ani D song, and I felt like the solution was talking about it.

Complex issues boiled down to black and white: World peace was possible; we just all had to be nice to each other; once I got to high school, I would be happier than I was in grade school. I don't remember thinking that I wanted to be anything in particular when I grew up, but I had a fool's sense that I could do anything -- and everything -- that I had on my ever-expanding list of ambitions.

Skip to now. Skip to college graduation. Skip to any moment when the realization that I am in the world and not just observing it has paralyzed me. Because now that it's my turn to make something happen, I find my hands are tied by fear. That's what it boils down to now. I may as well be afraid of my own shadow. There are so many things broken in the world, so many people suffering, so many people fighting their neighbors. What could I possibly do that would make a dent in the centuries of disparity and decay? (And secretly I wonder: What would I have to give up to make it possible?)

So I find solace in trying to control my life. I am the same, everyday. It's not an obsession; it's a way of life. I am unhappy and unfulfilled, but I am afraid to give it up because then what would I have?

There's no sense in placing blame or tracking my steady descent to here; I've been doing that pretty consistently for the past year and a half. But I have hope that I'm not alone, that everyone reaches this spot at some point, when he or she assumes going nowhere = stability = success.

I have a destructive habit of clinging too tightly to things that aren't working for fear of losing control. Once, a few years ago, I had a defiant sense of adventure, but it was stolen from me or I dropped it somewhere along the way, and I've had a hard time recovering it.

Lately, though, miraculously, I feel like I'm waking up again. I've opened up a trapdoor in my heart, swept out the dust and let the sun filter through. I start each day at the beginning, greeting it with open arms, awaiting whatever comes my way. And the world is spilling wisdom at my feet, telling me that everything I want is just outside my comfort zone, that I should be content with what I have but never with who I am, that I should do what scares me... And so I intend to. I miss being a righteous babe, and there's no reason I can't be again.

Like Ani says, "I've got better things to do than survive."

Good morning.

Scattered Leaves

At the end of the summer I moved back home to my childhood house, the one with the wrap-around porch at the end of the street. In my favorite memories I am running circles around the house, chasing rabbits back into their holes as the sun sets through the golden filters of turning leaves. My memories are silent movies on repeat; I'm the only actor on the set, and the dialogue is unwritten.

I returned home to find that my memories had proven imperfect, and in place of white-washed wooden boards, the porch floor was scuffed and sagging. I kicked leaves through the posts and settled into my mother's favorite rocking chair. I folded my hands in my lap and tried to become as small as possible, thinking that if I succeeded I might just evaporate and how delicious would it be to evaporate and be swallowed by the wind?

Neglect had descended on the house in a blanket of dust so thick I could hardly find the way to my bedroom. I did, though. Kneeling on my bed I wondered what I would see out my back window and if the little boy in the backyard across the railroad tracks still wore pants cinched up above his stomach. I hazarded a glance. There was no funny little boy, no big yellow dog, just a gray looking woman raking leaves. The leaves were piled up in mounds of uniform height and circumference and looked like piles of dirt. I fell asleep thinking about groundhogs drinking coffee.

When I woke up, before I remembered where I was, I looked out the window. The piles of leaves had been strewn about by the wind. I thought of the coconut icing on German chocolate cake.

I made coffee for three and drank it all myself, practicing evaporation on the front porch. In the afternoon I returned to the window in my bedroom. She was there again, looking as faded and blurred around the edges as she had the day before. Piles of leaves kept her company in the descending light, nearly as many as before. But already the wind was lifting leaves up and away, swirling and scattering the work of the small lady.

I slept into the afternoon of the next day, and as predictably as rigged presidential elections, my vigilant neighbor was raking up leaves into their piles as she had for the two days before and, I began to assume, for every day since they had been falling. Into their neat piles everyday, all day, until they were stirred by the wind. In her persistence she seemed never to tire, although her appearance was one of pure exhaustion.

I wondered: In the winter would she pile up the snow too? And in the spring when life returned, what would she do then?

My Sister Takes the Pictures, I Tell the Stories

Recent American autumnal adventures.

Picture Me

We had lucked out with the weather again, as usual. The leaves were at the peak of their autumn ecstasy and the cool, dry air felt invigorating in the sun, not chilly -- although a jacket did feel nice. This was my first time tagging along with my mom and sister since they'd started the tradition a few years ago. I'd always been jealous of their winery trips on Mom's conference break Fridays, so I was pretty pleased that things were working out.

I hadn't been to Augusta for quite some time, but I had two very clear memories of being there: one was from another fall afternoon when my mom had taken me, my siblings and our cousin Darren on a little jaunt to the idyllic hill town. All I really remember from that day was going to my mother's cousin's house and her not being there. But we got out and looked around Jane's front yard, which felt more like the edge of a cliff in No Man's Land Forest. I have an image -- probably because a photo exists of it -- of Andy and Darren dressed in Adidas casual wear, getting far too close to the edge, the expansive river valley spread out in the background. I remember being afraid they would fall off the top of the hill and hurt themselves. Then we'd gone by the tiny post office to see if maybe she was there. Jane's out delivering mail, they'd told us.

My other memory also involves Jane. The Mudd side of my family had converged on Augusta for the wedding reception of her oldest daughter. My dad didn't come. I imagine he was opposed to the party because of its being held at a winery, he himself being a staunch nondrinker. So when I saw Mom, our driver, drink her one fuzzy navel (a complete rarity reserved for weddings mostly), I began worrying that we were going to crash on those hilly, windy country roads. I was a nervous, conflicted child.

Anyway, what most people remember about that reception -- the people I talk to anyway -- was how disappointing the meal was. I can still picture my plate -- its 12" diameter a cruel joke -- with two little medallions of pork tenderloin, five green beans and one small, red new potato...before I'd eaten anything. Everyone at the table fought over the sugar cookies wrapped up in gift bags on the table, our tummies rumbling.

But I do have a fond vision of that night, one that I've based most of my stylistic aspirations on. Clear as a photograph, I can see Jane sitting at a round table, being pointed out to the room by someone's speech. She's dressed all in black, in a wrap dress with long sleeves, and her hands are cupped in her lap, one under the other. She is gently nodding in agreement, smiling demurely and blinking slowly. Her wavy hair is braided and cascades down one shoulder. She looks like she knows an amusing secret that she knows she can't laugh about.

So many times I've drawn upon this memory of Jane for inspiration, for guidance. I've attempted her steely magnetism like it's my job.

Jane has always been a relative on my mom's side who has fascinated me. There are musicians, Irish immigrants and a homeopathic doctor. Then there's Jane. She lived in California for a long time with her air traffic controller husband, working for the postal service. At some point they came back to Missouri, got divorced but stayed best friends. She's been delivering mail for years, and about five years ago she and her ex-husband bought a farm that backs up to the Katy trail.

This isn't an exact history, but you get the idea.

On that unreasonably gorgeous day, we had returned to the scene of the meagerly-portioned wedding feast, and after sating ourselves on wine and sandwiches, I mentioned this image of Jane to my mom and sister: the braid, the black dress, the detached yet elegant smile.

She was wearing pink. And she had her hair down. It was so long and pretty, they told me.

Then I remembered an actual picture of Jane as they'd described her. She was bubbly and childlike, an arm up high around someone, the shoulder of her dress bunching up to her ear.

I couldn't believe it. All this time I've been relying on a false memory, a "memory" that I can't attribute to any other person or event. I should have been upset -- unsettled at the very least -- but mostly I was amused. Because I can't for the life of me think of where I got this image of Jane, I know I must have created it myself, for myself. I blame it on a hunger to create, on a mind so full of people to whom I aspire, that it synthesized the best parts into one.

After all, who we become is completely up to us.

The Joy Is in the Dirt

On my way home I passed Art's produce stand. A sign by the road advertised russet potatoes for such and such a pound. I have no need for russet potatoes right now. My mother has a big plastic bag of them from Idaho languishing in the bottom of our pantry. Besides, right then my mind was crowded with the plethora of squash I have eaten and will eat in the future; there was a fresh carnival squash in my backseat at that precise moment, a variety that bears a suspicious resemblance to its sweet dumpling cousin...

Like I said, russet potatoes were not on my radar. Goat cheese and asparagus, yes. Goat cheese and asparagus together on homemade dough, baked and eaten like a pizza, definitely. In fact, that's dinner tomorrow night. But when I registered those two simple words -- russet, potatoes -- a nearly imperceptible rush of memories captivated me for the rest of the drive home.

When I think of potatoes, I mean, really think about them, my mind first registers their undeniable, glorious smell of dirt. I don't know many scents that can top the aroma of damp earth, a delight intensified by its rich color, one as tied to life as the color green. Beyond that I would probably think of a russet potato's manatee-like skin and the way it peels away like tissue paper when you bake it, but my potato meditation this afternoon didn't make it past that deep, dark, earthen musk.

Simply because of that sign by the road, a sign I only half-looked-at anyway, my collective unconscious cracked open and I started thinking about dirt under my nails and rocky soil passing for farmland. I thought about the wind, about the chill. I pictured perseverance and resourcefulness in the forms of the people who came before me, those Irish strangers I can only imagine. I constructed a vision of myself as a potato farmer, dirty from the shins down in faded jeans and a worn-out t-shirt, devising 40 different ways to prepare potatoes, half of them involving cabbage.

I remembered an Ireland I have never seen. I remembered fires and music and the unending night of winter. I remembered eating potatoes I had helped harvest. I remembered being poor.

Someday I'll get there. Someday I'll go home. Until then, the joy is in the dirt.