A Spark That Started a Fire

It happened as everyone said it would, stop looking, and it will find you. And so I did. For August, and September, the fallness of October, a birthday in November and the frostiness of December. In January came the promise of a new year, to start, anew. The twenty eight days of February gave in to the first and ides of March. When on a perfectly normal feeling Friday the 13, as the weather dipped to a chilly 70, necessitating a hot pink pashmina, I headed to my favorite watering hole. Dark and musky, with a stench of whiskey and popcorn, I go there, because, it's my favorite. There's many places in Los Angeles, you can be treated as a nobody, but not everywhere smells of whiskey and popcorn, so I allow the bartenders to be cranky and rude, and I go, as a regular.

I drank and I drank more, and I ate popcorn, and took swigs of booze. I met new friends, and caught up with old friends. When a group of fraternity boys from college walked in to the dark and muskiness. I'd had a boyfriend in college so most were people I'd known from afar, and so we all talked and drank some more. One from the group stuck out, and not because I had any interest in anyone of the opposite sex at that time in my life, but because it all didn't add up. I'm used to bar falsities, but this was different. He said he jumped out of helicopters in to fires, but has never been so terrified as he was on the newest ride at Magic Mountain. He said he lives in Northern California, and had gone to college there, but knew all these guys. So I told him my share of lies. I was a lady of leisure who excelled at space exploration and on the world ballet stage. He assured me he wasn't lying, but through our banter I stopped caring. Lies and wit aside, there was something different here. Perhaps he wasn't from here. Perhaps he was telling me the truth. He liked country music and pick-up trucks, camping and fishing and baseball, and a yellow lab he called Max. He was a firefighter and he did live in Northern California. He did know all these people because he had grown up down here. He'd grown up one neighborhood block from the home I was born and raised. I wanted much of what he was saying to be a lie, because the truth would mean everyone was right, I'd find when I'd stopped looking.

I have seven different types, and until I'd met him, none of them were firefighters. But I saw in him a trait that worked. A knowing that a tomorrow is not promised, and today will be as awesome as humanely possible. I'd always believed that, but I hadn't dated someone who created a partnership of that sentiment. And for that, we worked.

For our first date I asked if he wanted to grab a quick dinner. Fast food perhaps.
He took me to Malibu to eat on the water.

I wanted to grab some drinks.
He took me to an Irish pub, held my hand, wouldn't let me sit all night as we danced, the only ones on the dance floor, to a live band.

I wanted to see him.
He invited me over to meet his mom.

There was this swiftness to life happening all around us. LIke putting your hand outside the window as you drive rapidly down the highway. It was gushing, rushing, ever swiftly.

He would go home and the demands of the job and the long distance romance eventually asked for it's toll. In many ways the space and freedom was nice for us both, and having "a person" at the end of a long day suited him and I. I was hands off on what I needed from him, except this one thing. Men have convinced themselves when they are ready to move on, it's a legitimate way out to fall off the face the earth. Such that when my mom entered the realm of dating several years ago, and I gave her the same advice, she later found that the man had been in the hospital after a plane crash. She no longer takes my dating advice, and I asked him, due the serious nature of a job that promises no tomorrows, if he ever grew tired of what we had, to be kind, and let me know. So I wouldn't worry.

Of course that wasn't enough. Two days would go by, I wouldn't hear from him, and I would get answers. I had the internet. I had google and bing, and the la times, and an interactive smokey the bear fire map of every major incident in the country. Long about the time he'd call, I'd have it all figured out. A fire in south dakota, a natural disaster in charlotte, I'd known everything in every corner of mainland United States and penned where I believed he was and what he was doing. So essentially our conversations sounded much like this:

"Oh my goodness I was so worried. How is that fire in the South Dakota?"

"Rebecca, I was playing poker with my friends."

"Oh. Are you telling me you weren't in South Dakota?"

"Yes, that's what I'm telling you. Please stop with the smokey map."

"Poker huh? Because that wasn't on the map."

Ours was not perfect. And in the spirit of keeping the good feelings I'd always had for him, I asked that we talk less.

We keep in touch, and I'd love for a day when he'd love me as much as he loves being a firefighter. But there were a few things I learned. You know, aside from you can't keep tabs on your man through a smokey the bear interactive map when he's playing poker with his buddies instead of calling you back. I learned 9 out of 10 fires are at man's hand, 1 out of 10, by lightening. I learned about defensible space, and water sources, and hot shots and fire science 101. And I learned that firefighters take the risk, make everything second to the job, because they really really love what they do. They are capable, and they love it, and for that, we should feel safe.

The last time I saw him, I was alone with his fellow firefighter. He said to me, "Is it true that girls like firefighters?"

I couldn't help but be amused. If this man was in LA, he would be consumed with attention. 6'5. Firefighter. Outdoorsy. Blonde. Tan. Humble. Sweet natured. And not a clue how hot he was.

"You know what, I don't know," I said.

"And why is that?"

"Because I like my guy for 17 reasons that I can think of just off the top of my head, and not one of them, actually has to do with what he does for a living."

At times I even forget. Until times like now. When tomorrow is a promise for him. And a promise for me. A day we don't need to search for, but if given, we'll let happen. In much of the way when I stopped fretting it, he happened to me. Something very good, if not for forever, was possible.

More Blonde Conversations Overheard

My friends: So what's your plan?

Me: Oh now that I lost my job?

My friends: Yes.

Me: Oh sure. I totally have a solid plan.

My friends: And?

Me: Wait til the money runs out, then hit the pole.

My friends: That's a terrible idea.

Me: No it's not. I even thought of my stripper name.

My friends: And that is?

Me: Rebecca Simone.

My friends: That's a great stripper name. Isn't that your real name?

Me: Yep.

My friends: (Crickets)

Me: So totally meant to be, right?

My friends: (Crickets)

Conversations Overheard

Me: Those guys just invited me to party on their boat.

My friends: Rebecca, they were totally creepy - and not judging, but not at all cute.

Me: Shit, I really need to wear my glasses.

My friends: Do you even know what we look like?

Me: I have a vague idea. More or less. Ok, no. But when you have a boat you want me to party on, that will become an issue.

Alyssa Milano Gets Married

In a city of grown up child stars, a literal graveyard of broken little dreams and big time drug habits, where one can go left, and another go right, Alyssa Milano has been my role model, because she's stayed down. Grounded. Looking never left nor right. And it's difficult to not like her. Although brunette (a fault I too have had to overcome), she's smart and perky, a fantastical writer, a healthy independent woman, who you don't see forever in the press for a string of high profile relationships, but instead for what she wants to be known for: being an actress, and being a baseball fan.

Her MLB blog is one of my favorites because she's forever humble in her access, a grown-up child who hasn't lost the luster for her hometown team. Who sees baseball, not as a game, but as a storytelling experience. Who saw the necessity for cute dodger outfits, and created bedazzled jerseys, mini-skirts, and velour jackets which show team pride. A stylish, independent, grounded woman, with a love for sports, and my own team. How she wouldn't be my role model is more a question.

I've experienced the meeting and greeting, first date to second, year one to two, to three and four, fights and reconciliations, more fights and reconciliation, growing together, and growing up in the human experience. I've listened to what works and what doesn't, and tried to craft the ways in which I respond to relationships out of a learned way. I've watched movies and television shows, reality and scripted, 4 sessions of couples therapy, one visit with a life couch, a row and a half of self help books on a bookshelf, regular calls to my mom and my best friends and a sister who is all together tired of my questions. What I learned from the books and the coaches, a random woman at Starbucks, and $135 dollars give or take state sales tax is this, and this alone: when you ask people their opinion, they will give you one. They will define your reality by theirs, take some offense in you not listening, but almost always do so from a place of trying to help. A place of love.

I ask a lot of questions. My mother shakes her head angrily at the day she ever thought I wouldn't speak. It's been years of asking questions, and wanting answers, but the more I see, and the more I know, the more I ask, and the more I question, the less I know for sure.

I know for sure when I was 17 I wanted no part of boys at all.
I know when I was 20 I thought I couldn't live without them.
I know by 25 I was so hurt I couldn't live with them.
I know I've seen movies that describe relationships as "finding your other half."
I know I've seen more movies that say more of the same.

If relationships are about finding your other half, then being single must be about being empty.
Right?
A baseless void-fused experience of chaos and loneliness - until you can find someone that will love you.

Yikes.

None of that sounds quite right. Which is why I like Alyssa Milano.

Someone grounded, who I admire, who's stayed single well in to their 30s. Who has pursued their passions and lived fabulously. Who's interests lie in her desire, and who's partner came as a result of all that.
"A lovely gift," she describes it.

I like Alyssa Milano most for being a Dodger fan. But during the off season I like her for seeing relationships as I have asked and answered and see them now, as being nothing more than a lovely gift, to an otherwise beautiful life.

A Rubber Ducky Race

Parallel to the water and circus themed boardwalk, east of the body builders and fortune tellers, south of the tanned bodies, and still west of surrounding LA, lays the Venice canals. A small community of cute homes, separated by narrow waterways. I've cut through them, up and over the bridges, to get to the beach, and on a date once I walked hand in hand down one, but generally I don't give a whole lot of thought to them in a city where there's something always shinier grabbing your eye.

In a new Independence Day tradition, children and adults both, line up for the "Rubber Ducky" Race. Children in life jackets, and everyone at one time drops their plastic yellow rubber ducky in the water, and then it's up to the canal, and the wind, and the movement of the universe to carry it forward to the finish line. There can be only one winner in a race. But I've always seen pictures, and seen participation in something so innocent, beautiful, child-like, simple - as reward enough.

My friend Lisa says I'm the "most resilient person she knows." On the day she was to be married, she rewarded my hardworking bridesmaid duties (of drinking a lot and flirting with her groomsmen) with a small, beautiful trinket. A sterling silver mirror, engraved with the three words which sees in me, gets from me. Resilient was listed first.

"I'm tired of being resilient," I once said after a long bout of unemployment and miscellaneous other troubles.

"I know you are, baby."

It didn't make anything any better, but the acknowledgement, the concept that overcoming adversity that started at childhood with alcoholism and domestic violence, may now come easier, but it's all together exhausting.

For reasons I'll never understand, I got laid off from my job Thursday. I wasn't happy in it, but the grief that comes from that sort of loss, most compare to some of the worst pain you experience. I cried and I cried, until that very same friend, with the engraved mirror called me. We had a similar conversation, to perhaps ones we've had in past, where she reaffirmed my ability to overcome this, to be resilient, to gain strength. To be ok.

I was sad. And I was angry. Hurt. Out of control. And confused.
I thought of the rubber duckies.
I thought of the rubber duckies and their painted on faces, and little plastic bodies, being dropped by children in life jackets in to shallow unpredictable waters, and being carried away by life.
I was blocking part of a driveway, and in a red zone, and I couldn't sit there and cry anymore if for no other reason than my eyelashes were stuck together and a meter maid hovered in my rear view mirror.
I capsulised my pain, and my sense of failure, my fear and anxiety, and I imagined it as a rubber duck, floating away.
And asked only that God take care of getting me to the end of the canal.

First Love

At twenty, and knowing just about as much as I know about men and relationships and dating, as um, I know now, I met a boy to whom I fancied. We slow danced at a sorority party and drank God knows what was being handed out, and he asked me for my phone number on a lawn chair by the pool. I gave him my home phone because I hadn’t yet joined the mobile phone age, we smooched in my then new Chevrolet, and I convinced him there was nothing strange about wanting to take it slow. He asked to see me the night after next, and I was encouraged at his excitement to see me again so soon after our first meet.

I can remember the birthdays and anniversaries of everyone in my life, and what I wore at my 13th birthday party and my 6th grade graduation, and just about every face of anyone I’ve ever met. But for some unknown reason, my memory of my first date on the first date I’d ever been on, is spotty. I remember being at a super market. I remember him forgetting his wallet. I remember me paying and him being embarrassed. I remember falling, as I do. I remember spilling something, as I do. And I remember having a chai latte at the Coffee Bean. I wasn’t yet 21, so coffee was just about as grown up as it came on a grown up date.

I told him how joining a sorority was the last thing I’d ever thought I’d do and how I’d been a year round swimmer my entire life. I told him of my parents and their strife, and my need to leave home at 18 years old. I told him as much information about me as I could because I liked this boy. He told me about the job he had when he turned 16 and how that turned in to the job he has now. He told me about his dog, his parents, vacations he’d been on, where he’d gone to high school, and he told me of his love for baseball.

As the first date, of my very first date, I knew no rules, other than the “make yourself look good” rule. From what you say, to how to say it, to how you clear your throat, and purse your lips and how that sweater looks with those bluejeans. I knew when he talked of baseball, I could not say, I wouldn’t say, I’d never seen a game in my life. I smiled, and I nodded my head, and giggled appropriately, as we do. I said uh huh a lot, and I got information out of him, recording it, as if I was interviewing a suspect in a crime I’d work on cracking later.

Tell me more about this baseball.

He told me about little league, and playing in high school, about the team he plays with now, about how many games he goes to, and every park he’d been at. He then said the words that would change my life,

“I would never date a girl who didn’t like baseball.”

Interesting.

We smooched again, and I returned home, to my apartment, to my life, to ponder this man who seemed through all natural and obvious human ways to have a little crush on me. But how to get around this little baseball hurdle.

Some have found it to be an ability to not commit to anything in particular. My religious teacher says I have a natural curiosity in general. A positive trait he says. My university awarded me with a liberal studies degree after taking a good share of most classes they offer and I’m fairly certain there is just about nothing I would assert does not interest me. I don’t know who’s right. I just know I’m curious about life. It’s an interesting place I rarely understand. And if it means winning the heart of the first boy that’s piked my interest, my boy curiosity, I’d learn baseball.

By the next day I’d found myself to internet explorer and the teams listed as National league and American league. That took a day, and embarrassingly the use of flash cards, to master. I took to stadiums, and schedules, stats, notable players and rules of play. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. I’d never met something I liked more, and I’m not talking about the boy. When we’d get together, I’d be picking apart my baked potato at Black Angus and drop gems like, “did you see ____’s sac fly to right that drove in ____ and won them the game?” “How about _____’s homer. He’s now 15th behind ____ in the American League this season for homeruns.”

He was in love. And so was I, with baseball.

He took me to games, and we stayed home and watched them on the couch, and we went to post season and world series games, and once when I stumbled upon Puerto Rico I took a bus for 2 hours to get to the stadium the then Expos played half their home games the last year the Expos existed as a team. We visited stadiums across the country, and I photographed myself in front of them. But it was Dodger Stadium which I loved most of all.

I fell in love with baseball, and then I fell in love with the Dodgers. Not to say I haven’t been seen with a rally monkey draped around my shoulders or a Yankees hat and a pretzel in the Bronx or a Cubs hat and an old style in Chi town. I’ve been known to be a cheater. I get around.

Three years later we were to part. Ours was a spring to summer relationship, with no chance for a post season. An important one that made me ready for every relationship I’ve had since. As part of the breakup I dropped the bombshell, I hadn’t seen a game before him, I didn’t know a thing about baseball before we met.

He acted externally deceived, angry even, as if I'd lied to him, but I always got the sense he knew how deep my love for him ran that I’d immerse myself to those levels to share in his passion. But in me, being me, it became mine too.

One of the last arguments we had we were separating kitchen appliances. I currently have mustard and cat food in my refrigerator, and live as a bachelor never cooking, so I knew having pans and spatulas and blenders was of little importance as leaving on good terms. I said, “please have it all.” We continued to argue.

“All I want is baseball,” I said.

“Ok”

It was only fitting our first date and last argument would carry the same melodies, the same undertones, the same harmony. We were significant for one another. For in him I found first love.

Golden Sunshine

In the second grade I got Daisy. I’d never had a Daisy before, and just thinking about Daisy recently I sent my mom on an immediate mission to find a 7 year old Rebecca photographed with a puppy of a Daisy because I believe quite certainly there could be nothing cuter than a gawky 7 year old me with that little slice of golden earthly perfection.

Daisy was a slice of delicious childhood. She was puppy in the ways all people, even the most hardened among us, adore puppies. She loved play, as if it was her job, and she loved us like nothing else mattered. When we got a cat, she stepped aside, and let the cat be the boss, as any good dog would. When my parents would fight, she’d hide with us and be our protector. She was a good couch pillow, and it was only after walking her wearing roller skates that I learned even the best laid plans go array. Daisy was a golden retriever. Where her retriever skills failed (you want me to fetch what?), she was certainly golden.

That golden girl got old and we refused to let her go. Even when arthritis and seizures took over, we fought it, requiring the doctor to fix her woes, as if he was more of a magician. But maybe he was part magician. And her, other part, magic.

As a social person intent of making as many friends as earthly possible, requiring to meet and speak to every person in any particular bar I step foot, it’s oddly peculiar that my closest confidants have been my pets.

The day I got laid off from my last job I came home and laid my body on my chaise, my head on the couch edge and wept to myself. Sophie came up alongside that small part where my hip curves in to my torso and sat herself down. She looked up at me once, in the eyes, and then nothing else needed to be said. She’d told me we’d get through this. Years before that when all my friends had gone home after a late ending party to their significant others, I came home, with more energy than I could direct in any particular direction. And so I danced. I picked up Sophie and we danced to whatever Top 40 nonsense was playing. Eventually she tired of fighting and eased in to the notion, she’d just have to withstand my love. It's been 10 years of breaking her down slowly with my love. When I got in to college, she was next to me opening up my mail. When my LSAT scores said I’d get a scholarship to law school, there she was. She’s lived in every apartment with me since I was 20 years old, met every boy I’ve ever dated, and some day I hope her to meet someone I date worthy of being called a man. She prefers football, but she doesn’t mind me staying in on a Friday night with Vin Scully calling the night’s Dodger game.

Pets tell the story of your life.

It’s difficult to see turning 30 in a few months and not see my pet as a storyteller of my early adult life. She’s like this vault of knowledge. A keeper of my tales. And through magic I will keep her to be my trusty book for life, my best companion.