You hear words like, “Oops! Almost forgot my probe.”

You notice that there are 3 giant alphabet letters stuck to the cabinet that the sonogram machine is on and they are “V”, “A” and “G”.

You see your uterus on a giant display screen on the wall while getting a sonogram and think, “That would make an awesome screensaver.”

You are told that the doctor probably won’t need to examine you again so you start to put your clothes on, walk over to the “soiled gowns” basket to throw yours in and find yourself totally nude except for your knee-high argyle socks in front of your doctor who does, in fact, decide he wants to see you once more before you leave. AND THEN HE LEAVES THE DOOR OPEN WHEN YOU BACK AWAY TO HIDE BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

This is everyone, right?

The story is probably best told from my mom. She says I was in elementary school and we lived in a house at the top of a hill. Normally, she would stand in the kitchen and look out the porch to see us girls walking home with our friends. Thinking on that now it was just her way of watching out for us. A typical day would find my sisters and me surrounded by a group of friends. The laughing, teasing, talking, yelling, running, chasing just comes with the territory of being a kid. It’s actually a day that I forget until she reminds me by telling the story again.

If I think back hard enough to the things that shape me I can, like anyone, pinpoint where things really hit me hard enough to make an impression. Except that day when my mom watched me walk home in a crowd of people doing that thing that I do which is laugh (loudly) and aim for the target of being the center of attention. Somehow that trait seems to go well with the oversharing I lean towards. The oversharing that I’m trying hard to stop doing as I know not everyone who reads this tiny little piece of the blogosphere is doing so with any kind of good intention. It’s why I’m now password-protecting some posts.

But that’s a story for another time.

Trying to see it from my mom’s point of view I can imagine she was probably getting food ready for dinner and maybe spending some time reading during the day. As a kid I had no idea what my mother would be doing during the day so this is all imagined on my part. She watched me from the sliding glass door on the kitchen porch and followed my bubbly buoyancy all the way up the hill and then finally turned to see me at the door. While I imagined what she did all sorts of fun things during the day while we were away at school it’s only fair to say that she also imagined what we did at school while we were away from her.

Most of my elementary years were spent at Catholic school with nuns who had me convinced that the Lord could see and hear me at every moment. Once, my friend Henrietta, said the word “damn” when we were at recess and I stepped back from her should the Lord decide to strike her down right then and there. I was afraid of using any bad words.

That right there explains why I like using them so much now.

By the time we moved out to the suburbs from living in Chicago I had tried out a few bad words myself and was pleasantly surprised at both the reaction it got from other kids as well as still being able to breathe in and out because surely the Lord had been too busy with car thieves or kitten stranglers to worry about me doing a little cussing. On that day while I was out at recess I tried out the F word to disastrous results: a teacher overheard me.

The teacher wrote me up and it is a fact that anytime you hear about a teacher writing someone up it was never a good thing. She gave me a pink slip and I took the carbon copy home and was instructed to give it to my parents, have it signed, and return it back to school the next day where I was certain there would be flogging or some such public humiliation.

As soon as I walked in the front door of our house I burst into tears and sobbed so hard I did that choking/breathing in thing where I sucked in my breath and wasn’t able to talk. My mom never tells me where the story goes from there but she only tells it to explain something about me to myself that apparently still needs explaining after all this time: when something goes wrong and there is pain and hurt and shame I will put on a show. There will be smiles and laughter and all manner of covering it up so that no one ever has to know what is really going on.

I’m really going to have to stop doing that.

During the Christmas holiday I housesat for my younger sister while she enjoyed some lovely East Coast weather with her boyfriend and son. With some spare time on my hands I decided to venture over to Whole Foods, a grocery store we don’t have in my area but that I hear much about from those who do. She sent me a text message asking how everything was going.

Me:

So far everything’s fine. I popped my Whole Foods cherry today. Garlic naan, raw cashew butter, pulled pork, Mediterranean yoghurt, CHEESE OMG THE CHEESE.

Her:

Did you know they have cheese mongers? Is that what they are? Mongers? MONGERS. 

Me:

Yes, and I met them. They showed me the cheeses. I bought the cheeses. Now I’m going to be a poop monger.

44 Thoughts I Had Today

The air feels lighter. Is the air lighter?

Who will I talk to first on the day that Barack Obama became the president?

I’m going to cry today. A lot.

Where are my tissues that I used to keep in my purse?

What’s my dad doing today?

Oh, crap. I just missed a sappy phone call from my oldest sister.

She’ll call back and weep into my ear and I’ll wish I could hug her.

Where’s my calendar? I hope it’s under all these papers on my desk.

Do I really have my gynecologist appointment today? On the day of the inauguration for crying out loud?

I will be getting my girly parts checked out at the exact moment he’s sworn in.

That was a terrible thought, Kelly!

No. That was pretty funny. I’m going to write that down for later.

I need some paper.

Now that I’m writing things down I can’t see through these tears.

We’re not yet the melting pot that we, as Americans, keep calling ourselves.

I’ve talked about race with perfect strangers today.

Melting pot came up twice.

We’re not really a melting pot, though.

We are, really, more like a salad.

Lots of separate pieces that don’t mix to change the substance.

Staying our separate selves, our separate shapes, our separate tastes.

Even though together? A salad is pretty good.

A melting pot changes the chemical compound to create a more savory flavor.

Wonder what Barack Obama tastes like?

Simple words today made me weep. Words like:

“the 44th President of the United States”

“repairing the things in need of repair”

“take out your pencils. begin.”

“God will not leave us alone”

“Let all those who do justice and love mercy say ‘amen’”

Amen.

I looked at faces of my students today and I smiled at them all.

My cheeks hurt now.

It’s a good hurt.

History. History. History.

My granddaddy was so light he “passed”.

Hell. I pass.

Never in my lifetime did I think to see this day.

I’m ashamed of my pessimism.

Today I will change that.

Today is now my Everyday.

Let’s melt, America.

Let’s meet.

Satisfied.

President Obama

What a lovely ring to it.