In the car with Jessica

So I’m in the car with Jessica, taking her and her bike back to Penny’s house where she is staying.  It’s September 30th, and it seems as though a perfect storm of life’s events has brought us to this point.  A couple of years ago, I met Jessica at the short-lived Uptown branch of Prospero’s Bookstore; now she’s employed by our LLC as the receptionist at Suite 100 and we’ve become genuine friends.

We talk about complicated and difficult circumstances in which people find themselves.  We’re being a bit philosophical as we navigate around the rush hour traffic from Westport to Roeland Park.  Jessica thinks that we make choices which define and dictate everything we encounter.  She speculates that we can make choices which get us through and out of every dilemma.  I ponder that.  I’m not sure.

After I drop Jessica at the house, I go to the building which has been the most recent home of the VALA Gallery and Community over on Johnson Drive.  I think about the convergence of choice and chance.  Penny Thieme, founder and director of the VALA, chose to move across the street to the larger space but chance caused the loss of a string of scheduled, paying events.  The city of Mission started a major construction project which stripped the facility of parking, easy access, the quiet needed for most of its functions, and the desirability of its location.  Now it’s closing at that location but Penny is looking for a space in another, nearby city which seems receptive to her vision.

I started my Wednesday Writers’ Workshop at the VALA with Penny’s encouragement.  I taught three cycles and have raised money to begin a youth project, the location of which is momentarily uncertain.  But I’m working with several folks to start the project as part of another program which already serves youth.  Did the chance which now forces the VALA to find a different home drive me to the juncture at which we conceived of an even more impacting configuration for the Wednesday Writers’ Workshop?

I’m walking around the upper floor of the mammoth building where VALA has been, remembering long conversations with Chester, mostly about his daughter — his daughter who is my shared daughter, Tshandra; beloved daughter born to another woman but still mine — and Kim, her sister, who is also dear to me.  During the newest days of VALA’s existence in this building, Chester had just begun, in earnest, his quest to reforge his relationship with Tshandra and Kim.  I would stand watching him work on his art, listening to his hopes for their reunion, quiet while he talked, sharing his hope.

It’s dusty upstairs and my breathing begins to labor.  I’m moving among the boxes, looking for any number of things that I’ve brought to the Gallery over the years, wondering if they are still here, whether I should reclaim them.  I don’t see a little step and sprawl head-first in the dirt.  Of course I’m wearing dry-clean only black dress pants.  Chance?

I go get dinner for Penny and Tom Messerole, one of the VALA’s most faithful supporters.  He’s tirelessly helping her pack the place into a POD and will be there to unpack at the new location when it is secured.  Tom holds forth about the NSA while Penny flits back and forth, doing one small task after another, fretting about what should be packed and what might still be retrieved by one or the other of the VALA artists.

Penny loans me a bookcase and Tom carries it to my car.  I drive Penny home, where she’ll get her own car and go back to the Gallery.  A few minutes later, I’m teasing the cute young pharmacist at CVS who chides me for letting my heart medicine run out; and then I am in my own driveway.  I knock on the neighbors’ door, to ask for help getting the shelf out of the vehicle.  George tells me, Sure, let me get Scott and put some shoes on, and I go back to the car, lift the back hatch, and am suddenly struck by a dizzy spell.  I fall backwards.  My head smacks the asphalt, followed by my hip and the hand that I broke last year.

Scott, George, and Debbie and Jimmy from across the street come barreling over and haul my skinny little body up from the ground.  I swipe at my now filthy slacks and give thanks and smiles all around.  I’m pretty sure nothing is broken.

An hour later, one of my fingers has swollen and the back of my head feels like it’s been pummeled with the proverbial blunt instrument.  I post a whiny question about trauma treatment on Facebook and get a flood of advice about ice, the length of time to place it, and what signs should send me to the ER.  Tshandra sends several messages with love and cautionary instructions.  I wonder:  Chance? Chance gave me the opportunity to have another moment of connection with a woman who lived in my home a couple of lightyears ago, and with whom I have always felt a kinship?  I certainly did not choose to fall.

In the middle of the night I awaken with chills and tremors.  At first I think it’s something to do with the two falls. Then I recall that my doctor’s nurse gave me a flu shot yesterday, for the first time since 1979 when I badly reacted to one.  My doctor has recommended that I get the shot this year.  He says that the newest shots don’t pose a risk for me, because they don’t have a live virus.  I took his advice.  But at 3:00 a.m. shivering under my thin summer quilt, I am not so sure, and I wonder if I made the right choice.

I think back, to riding in the car with Jessica.  I think about making choices which bring you out of difficult situations and into places and spaces where you want to be.  I fall asleep wondering what choices I will encounter in the morning, and whether I am ready to embrace a course of action that will take me all the way to joy.

 

Tshandra White, whom I keep in my heart, along with the son born to me and my other shared children.

Tshandra White, whom I keep in my heart, along with the son born to me and my other shared children.

2 thoughts on “In the car with Jessica

  1. Cindy Cieplik

    Oh my! quite the day! Hope your head, hip and hand are okay….sometimes when dealing with the ‘choice’ issue you have to back-up a ways. We don’t choose to have bad stuff happen…but there is something to think about the energy going on when they do happen, and our focus, and our priorities. You appear to squeeze in a lot of activity in a compressed period of time. Does that resonate at all? Just a distant observation coming from a caring space, and I may be completely off-base. Wouldn’t be the first time. Ha!
    Love and light rushing to you…..

    Reply

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