Radiance

 

I was walking out of the math building on campus, heading to teach a class, when I saw a very fashionable guy sitting on a bench. The sun was beaming down on him. His sunglasses, vintage leather trench coat, and worn bell bottoms made him a standout. I gave him a big smile, and he said to me, “I love your radiance.”

I was flattered and had to come up with a quick reply because I was caught in a stream of people on the move. I said, “I love… you.”

I was immediately embarrassed to have blurted this out to a stranger. I probably should have said, I love your radiance too. Greatness recognizes greatness. It’s only the second week of the semester, so I’m still looking good at school. My hair is curled, and I’m wearing cute outfits I plan in the morning while I do my rowing machine and watch psychic Tyler Henry TV shows.

It’s delightful to be back on campus, and in Northern California, we are having the best winter of my entire time living here. (In case it matters, I do live above the fogline.) January was all sunshine and 60-degree days. Today, February 6, the heart of shit-winter, it is sunny and 72 degrees. I went on a seven mile walk-run, and am basking under these sun beams on my couch right now.

The greater Sacramento area was due this glorious weather. The last five winters have felt we were on the receiving end of Zeus’ golden shower. Not a light sprinkle, rain fell from the sky like a damn waterfall for months.

The last few Februarys, I was in the depths of seasonal depression, but I haven’t had to contend with that this year. I know I’m in a seriously good mood because I walk the hills of my neighborhood staring at the trees, flowers, birds and clouds in awe. When I notice the radiance of the tall green pine trees against a sky-blue backdrop, I know I’m not depressed. It’s just one of those things that I know about myself, like the “ON AIR” light flipping on at a radio station.

If I won the lottery, I don’t think I would change one thing about my life. I’d just pay for a lawn service, a cleaning person, and I’d doordash all our meals from Mendocino Farms. That's it.

I could work on my social life, but I wouldn’t put too much pressure on that because I’m noticing the green on blue. I’d keep that in mind if the radiance ever starts to fade.

I read this little Instagram article about a Japanese man who rents himself out as a “do nothing” friend. He makes a decent living, and in most of the accompanying pictures he’s just sitting next to a client while they both stare at their phones.

I thought about how I could start a business like that. I’d be the madam, and I’d rent out my siblings for phone calls. Each one offers a different specialty.

My older brother only likes to talk about big topics; religion, politics, health. He doesn’t want to discuss people unless they’re the author of a book. My older sister is the opposite: she only wants to talk about people, and the juicier the gossip, the better. Tell her about the coworker with camel toe or bad breath, and she’ll tell you about the person she works with who won’t shut up about their divorce and blows up the bathroom. My little sister can only talk for five-minute stretches. She will hang up on you the second she pulls into whatever parking lot she’s in for her kids’ activities. My younger brother is the Tony Robbins of the group. Come at him with life goals and he’ll be incredibly encouraging, but he’s very into waking up at 4:30 am to be successful and thinks of new-age manifestation and vision boards as lazy wishful thinking.

As the madam, I wouldn’t be expected to take calls, but if I did, my interests would be weird dreams (the sleeping kind), psychics, ghost stories, and Real Housewives.

I have a lot of weird dreams, and I love to share them with my kids. The other morning, I burst into Kiki’s room, and said, “I dreamed there were six-foot corn on the cobs leaning against the wall! Isn’t that amazing?”

Sometimes it makes them smile. Every morning I ask if they had any dreams, and they usually say no. But the other day I walked in my daughter’s room and she said, “I had a dream you were a lesbian.”

I laughed, and sighed, “I really should give men one more shot. I’ll be coming at it with the best version of myself.” 

If she weren’t fourteen, I would have added, They drive me crazy, but that d*** is pretty important. I also like how they can move furniture.

Like I said earlier, I’m having a weather-induced upswing and can’t think of how I’d really improve my life right now. So I’m not in a rush to find a furniture-moving man. I guess I’m in a lesbian relationship with myself.

I’m doing all right, I’ve got all these do-nothing friends that I don't even have to pay for. My older sister has a shopping addiction, and has challenged herself to not shop for the month of February. I decided I'd join her. My last hurrah was at Marshall’s with my daughter. We got Starbucks first and took our time wandering through every department. I can’t really afford a shopping addiction, so by the time we get to the registers, we have to choose our favorite items and abandon the rest of the cart.

As we passed the suitcases, I saw a toddler sitting in the front of a cart. His mom was chatting with someone. He looked right at me, and an enormous smile spread across his face. He started waving. I looked around and confirmed, yes, it was me this beautiful child had decided to say hello to. I smiled back and waved.

This made him freeze. His eyes got huge, and he hid his face in the crook of his elbow. Kiki and I moved into the yoga mat and water bottle section, and when I turned back, there he was again, laughing, smiling, and waving at me. I thought maybe I was crazy and there was someone behind me, but no. It was just me. Once again, I smiled and waved. Once again, he reacted like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

I found Kiki and said, “Girl, I think there’s a very happy and friendly spirit that's hanging around me. You should see this little kid over here…”

She was holding up two phone cases, one light blue and one was a gray-blue. She ignored me completely and asked, “Which phone case should I get?”

Although I love her radiance, I don’t think I can rent her out as a “do nothing” friend just yet.

Picking Up the Check

 

Last night, Geoffrey and I went to dinner at a steakhouse to celebrate Christmas and New Years. We split a ribeye and ordered two side dishes that each contained a stick of butter. When we asked for the check, the waiter came back and said, “Your bill has been taken care of.”

I looked at him like he was speaking gibberish, and asked him to repeat. He had a smile, and said, “Someone paid your check.”

G and I looked at each other in disbelief, and we had to triple check that we heard the waiter correct. I said, "That's never happened… I feel like I should give you a hug!” 

Then the waiter opened his arms and I gave him a hug. G and I called my parents after we got in the car to tell them about this crazy event. My mom said, “Maybe they thought you were famous.”

But my dad chimed in, “Then they’d definitely make her pay.”

My mom has an investigative eye, she’s read every Sue Grafton book, and concluded I have a secret admirer. She told me to go on my dating app, maybe someone recognized me and sent me a message. I explained to her I haven’t been on the app in two weeks because it is dreadfully boring, but she convinced me, and when I went on it was exactly the same as when I left. 

The two people I’m messaging are likely con artists because we have yet to meet up in person even though I’ve brought it up multiple times. There was a third person, but I had to stop messaging him because the lack of direction was highly suspicious. I asked him some questions, and he wrote back, “Walk outside and look at the sky, that is something to write about.”

All I said was, “You’re a bot, right? Just a head’s up, this message is coming across as neurodivergent and not poetic. I have no idea WTF you are talking about. You lack focus.”

He wrote back, “I am just a tech CEO trying to raise my kids.”

I replied, “Sure you are.”

G and I went out to the special dinner because the week before I took his sister to Florida and she really got the royal treatment living an only child life. We went snorkeling, parasailing and to an alligator rescue. G was supposed to go, but the morning we flew out, he started barfing and his dad picked him up. So G had a staycation with his father, and he was perfectly happy to miss out on the plane ride.

I don’t like flying, it is very stressful. You can’t sit with your kids anymore, unless you want to pay an additional $150 a ticket for each leg of the trip, it would add up to a first class ticket price. The airline upcharges you for everything, where pretty soon, they’ll charge you for a seat belt and the emergency oxygen mask. Then there is all the anxiety of hoping there aren’t delays where you need to talk to a ticket counter person who has the personality of a jail warden.

Even though I festered in the stress of airplane travel, everything went smoothly. On the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Houston, I sat next to a woman who was going to Vegas with her husband and two kids in their early twenties. They were scattered around the plane because that's how you fly these days. She was chatty, and after I got her bio she pulled a Cuban sandwich out of her bag and started to eat. She said thanks for talking to her during takeoff because it gives her anxiety. I put in my headphones and started a show on my phone, but then she kept talking.

She was seriously stressed out by one of her children. As she took bites from her delicious looking sandwich, and swept crumbs from her chest, she explained that her daughter just graduated college, was going to med school in the fall and her boyfriend is the son of a construction empire, rich as fuck and on track to tack over the company. Then she explained how her son was in and out of rehab, changing his major again, and continues to choose a girlfriend that rips his heart from his chest and jumps up and down on it.

I felt bad for the son, who was sitting behind Kiki, and could have been overhearing his mom’s oversharing. All I said to try and console her was that lots of people fuck up in their early twenties. Sometimes a flip will just switch when they realize they want to have a family. 

She was trying to find some kind of understanding as to why her two kids turned out so different. She said, “Always have your kids’ friends hang out at your house.”

That was what she boiled it down to. Her daughter and her friends hung out at her house, but the son would go hang out at his friends’ house. I wish I would have told her she was doing a good job. The fact that she was putting her kid in rehab, and concerned, was worth a big pat on the back. Having a mother that can worry herself sick is actually really helpful for a young adult going through some major fuck ups.

I could have told her that my mom lighting a candle, praying for her kids, could really throw one of us into a rock bottom, but those rock bottoms turn out to be as fortuitous as winning the lottery. In retrospect, I realize I didn’t say much to the woman. She talked and talked, just getting everything off her mind.

Like a rock bottom, the best part of traveling is the joy I feel when I get back home. It is like opening a Christmas gift full of glistening jewelry. Since being home, I washed the walls, and did a major thinning out of stuff. G and I changed light bulbs and we spackled in the hole in the wall from the front door handle. This is actually my son’s idea of vacation. He loves being with his pets and keeping up the house. I raised my kids the same but they are wildly different. I think about the lady on the plane, the advice she offered so carefully. Some value is invisible until you live with it for a while, like a bill you never see, already taken care of.