Supermoon and the Stanley Cup

Since May 9, 2013, "normal life" has been in an extended holding pattern. That was the day that I unexpectedly lost my full-time job and embarked on an exhausting scramble for temporary solvency and long-term employment security. These two goals overlap in the slightest of ways: the former designed to supplement unemployment insurance benefits and keep my household afloat, the latter a strategic, big-picture mission intended to provide career and bottom-line satisfaction for the next five years or so. The tension between these two immediately necessary concerns has resulted in late nights temping at a digital advertising agency in downtown Chicago, while slotting in phone and face to face interviews wherever possible. I have in the past likened my daily life to that of a plate spinning act on 1970s oddity fest, The Gong Show, but now the analogy has never seemed more appropriate.

The plates that I've had to let drop over the last six weeks include some serious sacred cows: the more-effective-than-antidepressants exercise routine, the bandwidth to visit my Cousin Carla and her latest arrival, my new nephew Bradley and the treasured romantic partnership, currently molting between first year infatuation and the steady, cohabiting rhythm of daily routine. Under different circumstances, today would also be a day of hitting "refresh" every five minutes on nytimes.com, awaiting a series of key decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States that relate to marriage equality, affirmative action and the college admissions process and more. Instead, I am staring at my Gmail inbox and waiting for the phone to ring, having completed the final interviewing stage with two very different, yet equally exciting companies. The fact that both of these outfits gave me a Friday deadline for determining a soul-crushing return to square one, versus a buoyant restoration of dignity, has done little to stop me from staring at the kettle. 

As I stumbled in the door last Friday afternoon, bleary-eyed and exhausted after four consecutive days of branding and advertising in front of committees with the power to render me professionally relevant again, I promised myself a break. Two days of relative normalcy where I would sleep, immerse myself in the Chicago Blackhawks' Stanley Cup run and see what all the supermoon fuss was about. The edge-of-seat freneticism would surely return Monday morning (yep).

Wikipedia describes the supermoon phenomenon as "the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the lunar disk as seen from Earth." I think this makes a great metaphor for the professional crossroads at which I sit. Will the specter of possibility, looming large above my head, sit with fleeting promise before retreating unmemorably back into its regular position? Or will I be able to capture and hold that energy, bigger and brighter than I was before?

The Stanley Cup Series offers another accessible parallel for present circumstances. For it was Summer 2010 when I last cheered the black and red on their way to an eventual championship - the last year I faced a fork in the career road. Inside a foundering marriage, underpaid and underwhelmed in a full-time position afield of my stated goals, I channeled hope into the Hawks' improbable ascent. If a team that had been so terrible for most of my life could reach this ascent, surely anything was possible.

The last time the supermoon was visible was May 2012. So here we all are again: the bright, beautiful celestial body reminding humans of their innate smallness, the upstart sports team attempting to prove that their first trophy of the decade was no fluke, and me, the struggling writer desperate for additional career path vindication. The moon left its aesthetic imprint on those who ventured outdoors, not to be seen again until late 2014. The Hawks return to Beantown for Game 6 after dominating the Bruins at home last Saturday, momentum decidedly on their side. And me? Well, even I have learned never to count myself out. 

Fight or Flight: Near Death Does Not Become Her

I consider myself a fairly street smart woman. I was born and raised within Chicago city limits, moving across several different neighborhoods. I wear this as a badge of pride and honor and have been known to get mighty huffy with suburbanites who claim to be “from Chicago,” while oftentimes living in privileged unreality an hour or more from the city’s boundaries (you know who you are).

To choose urban life is to tacitly agree to occasional disturbances and harassments. It’s a trade off for the sort of cultural instant gratification that only life in a major city can offer. Do you want sushi at 4am? We have an app for that. Storefront or big budget theater experience? Take your pick. Want to engage in outdoor exercise and an automobile-free existence while enjoying a plethora of transit options? Move to the burgh.

Of course to enjoy the benefits necessarily means accepting the disadvantages. When I was in kindergarten, our home was burglarized (though this episode did give birth to a triumph of positive rationalizing, when my mother offered that perhaps our father merely took the giant-80s era, top-loading VCR with him to work). In high school, my younger sister was followed home from a CTA train ride by a nasty creeper who was not expecting to come in contact with a protective 140-pound beast by the name of Max. The largest, dumbest, sweetest Golden Retriever changed temperament on a dime if his girls were threatened. Signs and property get vandalized, wailing sirens might wake you in the wee hours and crazies are all about. Thankfully most of them are simply eccentric rather than dangerous, a population that deserves more empathy than fear. That’s city life. And I love it.

But I could have used Max’s snarling gate keeping when I encountered a situation last Friday night for which I possess no paradigm. After reunion drinks with a girlfriend I hadn’t seen for over three years, I happily climbed into a taxi and headed home. The archetype of cab driver malfeasance is the subject of much discussion as well as general acceptance. I have regularly been subjected to erratic driving skills, overly chatty professionals, the directionally impaired, what have you. But this time, several minutes into my ride, I became aware that this driver had no intention of taking me home – perhaps not ever.

I admit that I was distracted and slightly intoxicated, but as I said, I know my way around. Thus it didn’t take long to become aware that the driver’s route was circuitous at best. Initially I suspected that I was merely the target of a cabbie trying to make a few extra bucks, but upon voicing my concern with our path, I was greeted with a snarl. The driver pulled over and as I sat perplexed, he turned around to lunge at me. That’s when I knew it was time to exit the vehicle.

I took off running down a major Chicago thoroughfare and momentarily looked over my shoulder to see the driver continuing to give foot chase. He overtook me and grabbed my right shoulder as I started to scream: “Somebody please help me! Call the police!” It was quite honestly the first time I felt a genuine threat on my life from another human. Fortunately, as it was a busy street just before midnight, a man emerged from a liquor store and seeing my distress, shouted the driver away. Panting, I recounted the horror of the last couple minutes (it seemed that long but probably wasn’t) and my Good Samaritan said he would wait with me until the police arrived. He had actually witnessed the shoulder grab and may have been required to give a statement. Upon reflection, I can’t say for certain that the call to the police was ever placed.

And that became important to me as well as another passerby who stopped to learn the cause of the fuss. As the three of us were chatting and I was still taking deep breaths, the cabbie elected to make one last go of stuffing me back into his vehicle. After turning around, he screeched the taxi to a halt at the intersection where we stood and got out of the car again. At that point, the Good Samaritan placed his body between my attacker and I…..then he pulled a huge knife seemingly out of thin air, slashing the assailant’s front tire while uttering a hideous racial slur.

(Fade to black as Becky’s mind snaps).

I squealed, “Why did you do that?”  The Good Samaritan (who no longer appeared so benign) retorted with a sneering, “Why do you care? Just run.”

And I did. Over a mile all the way back to my apartment. I raced with tears of shock, shame and fear in my eyes, as fast as I could, angling for the small nook of safety that my living space represented in that moment. I ran without thought until I finally shut and locked the doors behind me. Then I broke completely. My partner unreachable at the time, I called two married friends who happened to be awake and willing to talk me through delirious, incoherent downloading. For mystifying reasons, it was imperative that someone more together than I confirm that I had done right with my flight, rather than waiting for police who might never have come. Because after all, I am a Midwestern woman raised on Protestant values. The appearance of wrongdoing is every bit as traumatic as an actual faux pas.

The husband, a trained military assassin and Jiu Jitsu black belt, assured me that I had no reason to believe anyone on that scene had my personal safety in mind. Obeying the automatic response of my body had been sound.

As I said, I had no paradigm accessible that could help me process what had happened. Violent predators I understand, but bloodthirsty “heroes” with their own racial axes to grind are less familiar territory. There was no clear picture anymore of the victims and villains. I needed assertive ideas of right and wrong like I needed oxygen.

The cabbie was a maniac and needed to be locked away, but does that make a hate crime the warranted response?  Was my rescuer just out looking for an excuse to fight? Was I blameless for fleeing the scene? The two men may well have killed each other after I turned and ran. Did that make me complicit in whatever followed? In this instance, ignorance is not bliss. It’s psychological torture.

Migraine Season

This is the kind of winter that migraine sufferers dread. Take last week for example. Here in Chicago the temperature touched 61 degrees on Tuesday, the warmth punctuated by springlike showers. By Thursday morning, the mercury stopped climbing at 10 degrees with brutal winds and icy road conditions.

Remember when the El Nino weather pattern was the subject of much news coverage back in 1997 and 1998? Well as a native Chicagoan, I never saw what the fuss was about. It's El Nino here all year-round. Many times we cycle the four seasons all in the same Windy City day. As a child and young adult, the varying climate was either a fun adventure or a wardrobe challenge, but as I enter my mid-30s, in peak mental condition, but somewhat hobbled physically, the volatile elements have a similar effect on my temperament.

Back in November of 2012, on Election Day to be precise, I fractured my coccyx and sacrum in a bad judgment call involving L'il Red, a yellow light and an SUV. As an avid gym goer and infamous pain intolerant, the long recovery of this injury, aggravated by the bipolar nature of a Chicago winter, has left me rather short on patience - with myself and others. Midsummer last year I was also diagnosed with a debilitating cluster migraine condition that has been stubbornly difficult to regulate. The worst fate for a control freak is the body's capricious tendency to dive into a tailspin of throbbing pain and nausea that can endure for days. In the worst moments of these episodes, I cannot talk or write. The ability to communicate, an attribute I value so highly, drowns in suicidal levels of painful inertia. To look at my scientific, solutions-oriented partner in the eyes and see a helplessness I can't comfort may be the cruelest turn of all.

As I sit here typing these words, it's a manageable 32 degrees outside but freezing rain has been dropping in sheets since the middle of the night. I know this because I awoke with a dull pressure ache in my sinuses when the downpour began. My physician, the eminently patient and kind Dr. Gong, has theorized that the parts of my brain which trigger a migraine don't seem to know how or when to shut themselves off. This could explain why the headaches can last for days and are immune to all the usual remedies. My brain just ignores what's good for it. Wouldn't be the first time.

Throughout two years of recovery and convalescence, which began in early 2011 when I said goodbye to my ex-husband and our broken marriage, I was warned about the mind-body continuum. While I was in survival mode, on constant high alert, the ability to function without food, sleep or emotional balance was a phenomenon to be taken for granted. It was only paradoxically as I began to relax and morph into the new, less self-defeating person I am on the inside that the body started to give way: a battle with cervical cancer, the cluster migraines, alopecia, insomnia. If my psyche is in large degree healed, why can't my body get with the program? It seems it feels the need to follow the arc of this typical Chicago winter: up, down, all-around and completely outside my jurisdiction.  

Vaudeville and Ramen Noodles

I have legitimate stressors. For the past two months, my hair has been falling out and I've been suffering intermittent migraines with attacks of vomiting that seem impervious to mitigation. My symptoms defy logic, appearing at random times of day, regardless of whether I have eaten, slept, exercised, consumed alcohol or feel anxious. I have an appointment with a fancy downtown neurologist next month and in the interim, I ingest three daily medications that lower my heart rate and blood pressure, making exercise and other strenuous activities a challenge, especially in record-setting Chicago heat.

For the third time in 15 months, the ceiling in my third floor walk-up, studio apartment is literally crashing in. The irony is that after months of drought, two days of heavy rains were more than the roof of a century-old building could bear and so once again, I brought out the thirsty towels and called the superintendent. Only this time he uttered the words "structurally unsound" and I may be looking for a new abode less than halfway into my current lease.

I miss parts of my family. The 1-2 punch of divorce and cancer in 2011 and confrontation with historical coping mechanisms that no longer proved effective, led us to a late-year estrangement that was initially necessary but now feels like a pointless, lonely standoff from which I no longer recognize how to disengage. It takes two to tango but only one to hold out an olive branch.

Most likely due to some combination of all of the above, I'm lately plagued with garish, confusing nightmares that represent different stages and elements of my past that converge, overpowering a variety of sleep aids, to rouse me from slumber in cold sweats.

However stubbornly and defiantly, in the midst of so much uncertainty and turmoil, and where in the past, I would have succumbed to inertia and depression, I am energized and upbeat. Why? In a word: love. It's all vaudeville and ramen noodles in my world, all dancing, comedy and ease.

Scenes from a City Run

Act I: The First Half Mile

Toddler Boy: (Holding onto his mother's hand as he drunk-walks wistfully in front a public park like only the young can do.) "Mommy, why is she running?

Patient, Smiling Mother: "For exercise."

Boy: "But why?"

Mother: "Because adults don't move as much as kids do."

Jogger continues along chosen path, grinning outwardly at the sweet, insightful exchange.

Act II: Mile 2

Jogger: "Hey baby!"

Old Friend Unexpectedly Encountered: (Look of recognition slowly overtaking his face.) "Hey! What are you doing?"

Jogger: (Not breaking stride, competing with the clock and herself.) "I live over here. I'm working on my fitness boo!"

Jogger continues, marveling at the small-world feel of her city. She's didn't even know he was her neighbor.

Act III: Conclusion of Mile 2

Two middle-aged gentleman walk side-by -side in front of a rehabilitation center as the jogger attempts to pass.

First Man: (Muttering) "Yeah..run that ass off. Damn!"

Second Man: (Sardonically) "Oh, one of those types."

Jogger: (Rolls eyes virtually into the back of her head while sucking in a deep, calming breath. She should be used to this after 20 years.)

Boys will be pervy boys at any age it seems.

Act IV: Mile 3

Another Toddler Boy: (Trips over his own feet exiting storefront while harried mother pushes him gently from behind. Points.) "Where is her doggie?

Mother: (Exasperated and laden with packages.) "What?"

Boy: "Her doggie. Big people always run with doggies."

Jogger did not feel like getting dressed to go for a run this morning, but is glad she did. She carries these little snippets of conversation, these tiny slices of life in an urban climate with her everywhere. They take up residence in her soul.

Spring Awakening

When I became aware that I walking down the street holding his hand with a naked wrist and no concept of time, and I didn't even care to look for a bank clock, I knew I was changing.

When a white blonde-headed little moppet about the age of 7 stuck her head from the side window of her parents' minivan to yell "Ew!" with authority as we kissed and embraced on a heavily-trafficked street, and my first thought was not shame or self-consciousness, but laughter, I was certain I was altered.

As we walked into a local haberdashery and I donned a white hat, circa 1930, that might look well at home on the head of Chicago's seductive murderess Velma Kelly, and I vamped it up for my companion as he complimented me, instead of changing the subject and turning red, it seemed very clear that a metamorphosis had taken place, a silent sea change.

It didn't occur to me to overthink the reasons I hadn't been invited to the family Easter dinner, to wonder for the millionth time why I have to be such a damned square peg trying to contort myself into a round hole. I was too busy sitting peacefully on a park bench, watching a waterless fountain and the children climbing in and out of its troughs, my head resting comfortably on his shoulder.

I never believed a dark chocolate bunny in a faux wire cage could break my heart with its message of simple understanding and devotion. I never imagined I could love something edible that much and not for a second wish to consume it.

I couldn't anticipate that the random non-sequiturs for which I am famous, the kind of clumsiness that would make a circus clown enviousness of technique, the way I open wine bottles with my teeth when the cork gets stuck - instead of demanding forgiveness for these quirks, he would thank me for having them.

I failed to imagine that lying between strength and heat personified, bookended by a tiny gray and white cat with a pink nose, would be the most heavenly, restful sensation imaginable; that I would prefer to lie there wordlessly, sensing for the first time that creating sound to fill the space would only subtract, not add.

The only mystery that needed solving that day is why the old, cavernous bookstore to which he guided me, knowing I would delight in the endless rows of musty volumes, didn't carry more of Margaret Atwood's work.

Under no circumstances did I believe I could feel better, stronger, more confident, even sexy and powerful, simply knowing he is out there in the same city loving me.

And it seems utterly impossible that the solicitous guardian of my well-being, the one who tends to me when I am sick, who provides for my stomach, mind and soul while inspiring me everyday with his own work and passions, could be the very same man my heart wants.