to see. There was a service, and then we all went to the graveyard, and along the way, the hearse had engine trouble.
Which meant we all arrived at the graveyard first, and for a damn long time stood out in the March wind, looking into a deep crater, already ringed with lilies.
I got bored. Above me gray clouds raced across the sky. I tapped the toe of my party shoe right at the rim of the grave hole.
“Stop that, Lauren,” my mother said.
But I couldn’t stop. I kept tapping and tapping, and it wasn’t because I was having a seizure. “Stop that now!” she hissed, but I didn’t want to. In my mind, or maybe it was in the sky, I heard a cardinal singing, “One tap more, oh, one tap more,” and there was a whole crowd of people, and I have always been a bit of a show-off, and I was her daughter, yes, but I was more than that too, and so I did it. I buckled my knees, let my limbs loose in the way I had learned,and I collapsed down into the deep hole, the empty grave, where the coffin had yet to be lowered.
I fell for centuries, and as I went down, I opened my mouth, and the cardinal flew out, and was free.
“Oh, my God!” I heard people screaming. I opened my eyes at the bottom of the grave. I searched the crowd for my mother’s face. I could not find it, though, in the blur of heads and hands bending down to help me.
So many people have helped me on my way, I want to thank them here. Thanks to the nuns, my physical therapists, especially Rosie and Jane, I couldn’t have done it without you; thanks to my father for his wise rabbinical story, and to Dr. Patterson for his diagnostic skills; thanks especially to Leonard Kriegel, essayist par excellence, whose story
Falling into Life
, from which I have so generously borrowed, helped me to find my own true tale; thanks to my good friend Elizabeth, who is critiquing me as I write this book, and to the librarians at Brandeis, who have provided me with so much material, to Lisa Schiffman, Audrey Schulman, Rob Brown, and Meaghan Rady, for listening, and to my editor, Kate Medina, for the contract and the money.
So many hands, so much help, most of it, really, not my mother’s.
Thanks to my mother, for having me, for giving me the special kind of grit I later learned to use.
I opened my eyes at the bottom of the grave and there were so many hands extended, I didn’t know which one to take. I was unbruised, unharmed, and I knew how to helpmyself. So I stood, and brushed the dirt off, and made myself toeholds in the dank earth.
And I climbed up, and up, and, forgive me my imagery, but I emerged, headfirst, and then bellied my way over the ledge of the motherland, and as I did, squiggling up, my torso pressed flat against the walls of wet earth, I felt a strange, tender pain in my chest, what I didn’t know then—the beginning of breasts.
The End
Not quite.
This is a work of nonfiction. Everything in it is supposed to be true. In some instances names of people and places have been changed to protect their privacy, but the essential story should at least aim for accuracy, so the establishment says. Therefore, I confess. To the establishment. I didn’t really fall into the grave. I was just using a metaphor to try to explain my mental state. The
real
truth is I went to the funeral, the hearse had engine trouble, the coffin was late, I looked into the grave, and I thought about falling in. I imagined myself falling in. I knew I could do it. It was eight feet under but, dammit, I knew I could do it. Didn’t divers leap from cliffs forty feet into the air? Didn’t they enter the crystal water without so much as a smack? Doesn’t the body bend and ripple in all sorts of ways we would never believe it could? I closed my eyes. And in my mind I let myself low. And a cardinal came out of my mouth. And when I hit, the soil was soft, and all the sisters came back to greet me, and offered me holy hands, and when I stood, I saw I was back in Kansas, my land of lemon
Which meant we all arrived at the graveyard first, and for a damn long time stood out in the March wind, looking into a deep crater, already ringed with lilies.
I got bored. Above me gray clouds raced across the sky. I tapped the toe of my party shoe right at the rim of the grave hole.
“Stop that, Lauren,” my mother said.
But I couldn’t stop. I kept tapping and tapping, and it wasn’t because I was having a seizure. “Stop that now!” she hissed, but I didn’t want to. In my mind, or maybe it was in the sky, I heard a cardinal singing, “One tap more, oh, one tap more,” and there was a whole crowd of people, and I have always been a bit of a show-off, and I was her daughter, yes, but I was more than that too, and so I did it. I buckled my knees, let my limbs loose in the way I had learned,and I collapsed down into the deep hole, the empty grave, where the coffin had yet to be lowered.
I fell for centuries, and as I went down, I opened my mouth, and the cardinal flew out, and was free.
“Oh, my God!” I heard people screaming. I opened my eyes at the bottom of the grave. I searched the crowd for my mother’s face. I could not find it, though, in the blur of heads and hands bending down to help me.
So many people have helped me on my way, I want to thank them here. Thanks to the nuns, my physical therapists, especially Rosie and Jane, I couldn’t have done it without you; thanks to my father for his wise rabbinical story, and to Dr. Patterson for his diagnostic skills; thanks especially to Leonard Kriegel, essayist par excellence, whose story
Falling into Life
, from which I have so generously borrowed, helped me to find my own true tale; thanks to my good friend Elizabeth, who is critiquing me as I write this book, and to the librarians at Brandeis, who have provided me with so much material, to Lisa Schiffman, Audrey Schulman, Rob Brown, and Meaghan Rady, for listening, and to my editor, Kate Medina, for the contract and the money.
So many hands, so much help, most of it, really, not my mother’s.
Thanks to my mother, for having me, for giving me the special kind of grit I later learned to use.
I opened my eyes at the bottom of the grave and there were so many hands extended, I didn’t know which one to take. I was unbruised, unharmed, and I knew how to helpmyself. So I stood, and brushed the dirt off, and made myself toeholds in the dank earth.
And I climbed up, and up, and, forgive me my imagery, but I emerged, headfirst, and then bellied my way over the ledge of the motherland, and as I did, squiggling up, my torso pressed flat against the walls of wet earth, I felt a strange, tender pain in my chest, what I didn’t know then—the beginning of breasts.
The End
Not quite.
This is a work of nonfiction. Everything in it is supposed to be true. In some instances names of people and places have been changed to protect their privacy, but the essential story should at least aim for accuracy, so the establishment says. Therefore, I confess. To the establishment. I didn’t really fall into the grave. I was just using a metaphor to try to explain my mental state. The
real
truth is I went to the funeral, the hearse had engine trouble, the coffin was late, I looked into the grave, and I thought about falling in. I imagined myself falling in. I knew I could do it. It was eight feet under but, dammit, I knew I could do it. Didn’t divers leap from cliffs forty feet into the air? Didn’t they enter the crystal water without so much as a smack? Doesn’t the body bend and ripple in all sorts of ways we would never believe it could? I closed my eyes. And in my mind I let myself low. And a cardinal came out of my mouth. And when I hit, the soil was soft, and all the sisters came back to greet me, and offered me holy hands, and when I stood, I saw I was back in Kansas, my land of lemon
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