“It is cold,” I say–it’s 39 degrees on a Friday night in March, New England wind slicing down our roots-rising-through-it broken brick-lined sidewalk. “Go get warm!” I cheer goodbye as we walk toward our respective apartments.

I’m at the top of my stoop, feverishly roasting at the core yet earlobes pierced frozen from jogging, untying my keys from each sneaker’s shoelace when Mildred walks out the door from which she’d just entered and says “Wheeee-w, that cold!”

And then, “Hunny, I need you to help me pick up my motha.”

(When I jog I rarely make hard stops, fast turns, swivel steps; I like to keep things low-impact. Mildred’s comment is like this sudden high hurdle with little room to avert it.)

I turn and there she is walking while waving me down to join her, saying again because I haven’t responded, “I need your help. I need you to help me pick up my motha.”

“From where?” I ask, imagining her mother sitting low with hunched shoulders in the passenger seat of their car, parked, maybe, along our street. There aren’t many urban places you can get low enough in (physically, anyway). Right?

“I need you to help me get her up, I’m gunna make her some fried chicken dinner. You know that place down Tremont?”

I say, “Darryl’s Bar and Grill?” because I read on HiddenBoston that they took over the Stork Club and they have fried chicken and waffles on their brunch menu and this is the first and idiotic thing to come to mind.

“No, that place beside the convenience store,” says Mildred, or something to that effect–I’m half listening because now I’m walking, with her, toward who knows what, and weighing my options.

“So where exactly are we going here?” I ask as the brownstones end and the huge apartment building at the end of our block rises without much beauty.

“Right here,” says Mildred as she opens the side door to the building and I ask “Where exactly is your mother?” with an emphasis that wouldn’t be lost on others but is purposefully lost on Mildred because she needs my help.

And she says, “She’s up here” as we climb the echoey, spotless staircase and Maydays of This is where an old lady is used as a ruse to bait you and then you’re going to get knifed and your shit will get stolen siren off inside my head which is still in this post-run hot/cold condition of elastic, gauzy curiosity-bursting endorphins.

We get to the third floor and enter a hallway of apartment doors–Mildred opens the first apartment door to our left. I let her walk in ahead of me, I want to be able to turn at that doorway if anything seems the least bit scary or suspicious.

But it doesn’t, the living room–the first room we enter–is empty save for yarny old lady things–a crushy cranberry pillow, a worn wide-thread purple throw–and a flowered couch, a small TV. And in the adjacent kitchen, the shocks-you-with-its-specificity aromatics of fried chicken, buttermilk and browning oil, reach my nose and it all feels OK.

I follow Mildred into what I see is her mother’s bedroom and there, in a hospital bed, laid out horizontal is the woman we’ve come to lift–eyes sunken, frame emaciated, flesh-stretched hands and crooked elbows dangled somewhat spidery around her face. She’s the oldest living human I have ever seen.

Mildred says, “This is my motha, Mary. She is 100 years old.”

Mary blinks, otherwise unmoving and I say, “Wow.”

I ask, “And what’s your name?” to which Mildred says, “Mildred, and I’m 67 years old. I don’t look it though, do I?” and she smiles as she takes her mother’s arms and hands and places them, gently, at her sides so they’re resting, at ease, outstretched.

I’m standing on one side of the bed, Mildred at the other, and she moves to grasp this thin mat beneath Mary’s body. I mimic her motions. “Okay, now, we pull,” Mildred says, and we’re slowly, with all our might pulling that mat along with Mary’s body toward the head of the bed, her weight so heavy despite her frailness. Inches, inches–ten, maybe fifteen seconds and we’ve moved her just about to the edge of the top of the bed.

“I do this every day,” Mildred says, “every day I do this,” as she rubs her arms for emphasis and then presses a button that triggers the head of the bed to slowly raise, and–viola, Mary is sitting as up as a bag of bones can sit. “I need you to help me lift my motha up.” Okay. So this is what Mildred meant.

“Alright, awesome, well–Mildred, Mary, nice to meet you, I should be going,” I say smiling, turning to leave. Mildred asks, “What’s your name?” and I tell her and she says it twice, aloud, and then, “Thank you, thank you for your help.”

When I exit, the street looks everyday as ever. I’ve lived on this block for three years and—despite what’s been easy, befriending people my age within my building—this is the closest I’ve come to really meeting one of my neighbors.

*

Last night—3 days later—I’m at home, filing my taxes on the couch. My roommate Mike comes in, then our other roommate Katherine does too.

We’re catching up over beer and wine—Kath tells us about a man who had a seizure in front of her over the weekend, how unexpected and shocking that was to witness. It reminds me, “Oh, right. I’ve got a story for you guys.”

And the minute I drop “help my motha up” Mike’s eyes alight—he asks, “That building at the end of the block?”

And I’m saying “Yes!” in disbelief and he says, “Yeah! I’ve helped lift her maybe, 5 or 6 times now?” and I cannot believe it and Kath can’t believe it.

He goes on to tell us that Mildred has told him that the South End used to be full of jazz and nightclubs, and this I know, but it’s incomprehensible for me to fathom how Mildred and Mary must see the neighborhood now. I’m guessing they used to know a lot of their neighbors, well. That asking for help from us must not seem so unusual.

This story is more than mine–it’s also Mike’s. How awesomely bewildering. How nice to know that however dismissive and cynical this city’s influence, whatever the terror of walking into a stranger’s apartment, however haltingly, we’re still moved to assist–to be nurturing, neighborly.

*

32 degrees and your most resilient self is unresponsive. Burrowed into down of brain tissue, she’s stringing your thoughts into lethargy donuts and all she wants to do today is eat them.

She won’t get up. Doesn’t have to use the bathroom, won’t get dressed.

You tempt her into the shower and only because it’s warmer than in bed. You say “lather,” she says “later,” to “shampoo” she says “I don’t want to” and you step out of the tub half awake with hair that feels more cold than wet.

Then here’s what happens: you ignore her. You carry on without her, you get dressed. You pack your purse.

You’re out the door and she says nothing, donuts piled high. The mile to wherever lies ahead. And the only thing that’s clear is that you need to make a mental meal to send her scraping at your skull, to induce her digging beneath your roots to get out.

*

You stop at the end of your street. Snowbanks up to your chest. You shape some snow until it’s round and pile a ball of middle and bulk of head atop it.

A rock and… here, a wood chip for eyes. Now your snowman needs arms.

Every snowman you’ve ever seen with arms has had them pointing outward–raised up as if outraged, or open wide at shoulder length and HELP!, absurdly stuck.

You find two sticks and wedge them–at an angle–into your snowman’s sides: pointing downward at 7 o’clock to the left, 5 o’clock to the right.

And what strikes you is despite its lack of smile or nose, it looks ready, albeit resigned. Like it’s asking, “Well, what now?”

The question falls deaf on your fetal-positioned most resilient self, whereupon it implodes mid-synapse referral into questions-gone-unanswered smoke. Your nostrils tingle as you breathe it out and you walk, one foot firmly in front of the other in the snow.

[1/31/11: draft, to come back to later]

*

More to come, but here are a couple photo albums for now:

on the porch, condensation dripping
from your G&T while bats fly blindly swooping down
and around the house in twilight

and you have to dig through the trash
to find the retainer you threw away—that merciless,
aligning bridge defining how hard

you sink your teeth and you have to believe
that it matters, the slush shoveling in sewers, waiting
for your name to surface

and you have to keep at it like a luxury, like a lavender soap
in an outside shower—hummingbirds go by; feeder
just beyond your stall. weathered and thin
the distance from it and everything happens now.

Rodney’s Bookstore in Central Square is (sadly) closing, so I biked up there and took to the stacks, combing shelf by shelf. Already discounted books are now half off, so 3-buck gems abound.

This book is one of them. Gordon MacKenzie is enlightened. He wants you to pick your head off your desk and wake up and walk to a window. And realize that some of the walls behind you are surmountable. That when you find your ladder you can either climb over or climb down and out. It’s up to you. Which is the beauty of his purpose: it’s up to you to change your life.

Some highlights: “Same thing happens in the world of people. Many of us choose security over freedom to such an extreme that we confine ourselves and profoundly limit our experience of life. … Maximum safety, minimum existence.”

“Desperate, I turned to fantasy and conjured a make-believe department that would be ideal to me: a creative-friendly oasis where it would be possible to thumb one’s nose at empire building, ass covering, and all those other deterrents to fashioning vigorous concepts and fresh products.”

“Masks have real social value in that they allow you privacy and space in an often brutal world. But there is a price you pay for wearing a mask. Masks cause little deaths–little soul deaths. When you wear a mask, nobody (not even you) gets to find out who you really are. When you wear a mask, nobody (not even you) gets to find out what you really need. And when you wear a mask, nobody (not even you) gets to find out what you really have to offer.”

AND

“Holistic organization: form follows function (i.e. organization follows function) eg: Editorial and design are recognized as two elements of the same continuum and so remain integrated in a single ecology rather than hunkering down in separate departments. This results in an organic dynamism and the enhancement of collaboration.”

In brief: a life vest. Highly recommended.

a dark, growling green advances and here comes the rain, sheet after sheet in hard, clean lines, erasing every last sundried spot.

and the neighbor’s beagle whines. and another’s deck chair flips. and sirens resound in the eery quiet of piled, pillowed weather. mass of cloud inches closer like a bottom feeder, teething and its thorny tongue licks past.

months of nothing but slate on powder and finally, a mayfair of color. that hot, stormy scent of rain-pummeled pavement, a distant break of gleaming sun so bright it blinds as it mirrors. spring in all its unforgiving beauty and violence, inciting what’s obvious—that change is upon us—and you damn better bring your umbrella.

Outside our living room windows the blossoms of trees are blooming so white and fully they resemble snow. Puffs, suspended in the late day lack of wind. Incongruous and courting.

We have this pigeon—he just landed, out on the fire escape. Enormous size for a city bird. Windows open, nothing but a thin screen between us he is cooing there solo just like he has been since the snow actually stopped.

Pivoting now, slowly along the iron railing, bobbing that electric violet neck—what is it, Pigeon? The ladies? Are you wondering where they are?

Or is it more complicated than that? Have you been in the South End long enough that you’ve seen so many French Bulldogs and Boston Terriers and West Highland Whites that you’re jealous of all those dogs? Getting walked, getting fed, name tagged and pampered, paraded around the neighborhood.

Or are you not out there pursuing because you feel unhappy, because no one ever mentions the size of your dirty heart? Is that why you visit me on these slow nights when I’m drinking vodka cocktails, homestyle, too-strong, an erasure of life in a cubicle farm. Cube 7W346B as in bushwhacked. Where every day the walls close in with e-book and iPad and Kindle and digital and let’s keep you on contract while we dance this shhh, hushed death beneath false fluorescents, publishing’s prom court crowned and waving. Waving while the lights go down.

We’re all drawn to different things—so what’s the message, Pigeon? Is discouragement something you can sense?

In your voice there’s the sound of wanting. Of not even needing to be heard. Of just calmly aching aloud, and for what. Damn the Universe.

How much any one of us want. What we need. How hard we’ve worked. Who’s noticed, and what’s the difference. If it matters. And how much.

But look at those wings—the true difference between us. One step and poof, your parachute. No matter how soiled or battered or clipped—you can get above this, and quickly. Above it and away.

And you’re gone, nightfall setting in. Apartment quiet, cars go by.

Thinking, it’s not so bad. It could be worse. It could be so much worse—it’s all relative, it’s all perspective. It’s all in a matter of time.

And other broad and vague affirmations to wake up with in the morning, breathing in the shower: Today. It will be different. It will be better. It has to be.

*

Note: Amanda no longer works for this company.

still steeped in sleep.
channel crossing out of Fort Point
and walking to work with you.
narrow strait below
gleaming like a wormhole

and diving in, back to bed—
back to dreaming into your shoulder

where planes don’t land,
aloft in sky a wide blue ribbon
cloudbread buffet.
bottomless Sonoma County sunsets
never touching

down. arrival, on repeat.
berth of bounty worlds away

from dark salt slush, thawing sharp
as a paper cut—

no semblance of winter
up here, on wings (the distance
your presence provides from
colder things)—

water mirrored in the window
seat, awash like points of light—
hands absolute as a parachute
and this, the morning, the walking
with you—the closest thing to flight.

Despite a couple murderously cruel essays (“Big Game Hunters” and “Fat Like Him”) this collection is exceptionally smart and touching.

From “Fat Lady Nuding”: “…I remove every extraneous article of clothing and all accessories and submit myself to the doctor’s scale, to the mechanical contraption that has been given the power to determine the quality of the relationship I have with my body.” Brilliant.

Meanwhile, Pam Houston’s writing (“Out of Habit, I Start Apologizing”) is just downright beautiful, along with Stephen Kuusisto’s “Fatland” as he writes about “a time in [his] life when for complicated reasons [he] became quite fat,” compounded by his blindness and how that influences his body image.

We also see things from a thoughtful doctor’s perspective (Atul Gawande’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Eating”) and a harsh psychiatrist’s view (Irvin Yalom’s “Fat Lady”), both enriching, both complicating matters as practitioners looking from the outside, in.

One of the back jacket’s descriptions does this text a disservice: “…these writers make a compelling case for why we should make room for a bigger behind.” That’s not the message.

Instead, the focus is more about what it’s like to have a bigger frame in this thin obsessed society. And what’s shared is mostly heavy, not lighthearted.

Instinctively, I know it’s true: there is a direct correlation between marrow-deep frustration and a long distance run. Rage can fuel a tank.

At my angriest, I’d be out there with a determined, unbreakable focus that rivaled GORE-TEX in its water and wind resistance. Another hill, another footbridge and I’d level it, bulldoze by—fervid, impassioned additions of mileage. Snot rockets firing like stray bullets into innocently arching sidewalks, or defenseless brake-lit traffic, or into my own whipping knot of ponytail.

This was pure, pulsing frustration, deep-rooted down to the core. Motivator of up-and-go psychotic jogging proportions. I called myself a runner but I was running for all the wrong reasons. An exercise in releasing rage in the guise of health and fitness.

(And you’re probably wondering, What. What made you so angry? It was any number of things. The wanting to be taken out to dinner and receiving a 2 am phone call instead. Three years on the college soccer team mostly relegated to the bench. That professor who so sensitively advised “You need to break out of the conditional tense, all these sentences driven by an ‘I would’ and ‘I could’”—a resonating sign of how I wanted to be living, or more like, clearly, how I wasn’t.)

Now, things are different. Amazing what happiness does. I start the weekend with John and the New York Times and a fresh zest of lemon in a midday Tom Collins. I’ve reclaimed the confidence to write. My frustrations are quick to fade and anger, once so all-consuming, is something to squash instead of carry for miles. In the wide, gentle band of afternoon I’m out there striding in the New Year air, gripping joy like a water bottle.

Only, here’s the thing, and instinctively, I know it’s true: contentment is not conducive to long distance running. Comfort can soothe the loins.

So I’ve been covering distance enough to look good in the dark. Signing up for 5Ks that offer free beer and chowder afterward. I’ve been Photoshopping saturation into my face as evidence of effort in every post-race photo I’ve taken.

All of this leading up to the past couple weeks and why they’ve been such a challenge. God love her, Ashley convinced me to sign up for a half marathon on the Cape. February 28th. A dead of winter 13.1-miler.

Last night we ran 6.5 miles, steady, talking as we went. Sometimes the roads were black-iced and difficult to traverse. The wind by the water was nothing more complicated than cold. The streetlights in harsh relief in the snow, like stakes in the heart of the earth if you were to let your mind wander to a darker place.

I honestly wasn’t looking forward to this jog. But as we were stomping over the snow near MIT I couldn’t help but think, How healthy. And how inspiring to have this kind of friend, someone who helps you forget what a struggle this is.

It’s a lesson that I don’t have to be batshit angry to go the distance. I’m learning to run for better reasons. For something closer to fitness of body and mind, and spirit.