New Light In Four Parts

I.

Jesse and I are watching an episode of “The Sopranos.” It’s a scene where Christopher, Tony Soprano’s young cousin and hopeful mobster, is in an elevator with a high profile editor. The editor is wearing a silky, black, spaghetti-strapped dress that hugs her in all the right places, and billows to the floor. She’s slipped her heels off and raised them over her head; they rest on the wall and she holds them like an apple she’s just picked from a tree.

Christopher takes a step towards her. It’s a saunter, really. He puts a hand on her hip. “I like those Manolo Blahniks,” he tells her, and his voice is steady, calm, totally in control. It’s the sexiest pre-kiss moment I’ve ever witnessed.

I look over at Jesse. He’s checking his Twitter feed for news on what the water’s been up to in the Great Lakes, and also Notre Dame football. I take stock of myself. I’m wearing a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt with a dinosaur on it that says, “I’m here for the applause.”

I kick Jesse lightly in the side with my foot. He looks up, first at me, then at the TV, then back at me again.

“I think I need some Manolo Blahniks,” I tell him.

Jesse frowns. He is confused, I think, and also probably worried that I will actually purchase Manolo Blahniks.

More than a mobster, Christopher wants to be a writer, and this editor he’s in the elevator with has the power to make him one. She is perhaps, just as deadly as Christopher, though maybe not as violent. Her kills leave no blood spilled, no limbs severed, there is very little evidence on the body of a dream’s death.

As hot as I think this scene is, I’m worried about Christopher. I don’t trust this woman and I don’t think Christopher has the capabilities to get over this heartbreak. Not the one from the inevitable break-up with this woman, rather, from learning he’s no writer.

I look again at Jesse, and then at the twinkle lights outside strung on our deck. For a moment I admire their sparkle from the wind’s push. “The lights are nice,” I whisper while I scooch closer to him. He puts an arm around me and looks out the window. “They are,” he agrees. “Some new light for the season,” he adds, and we both turn towards the show.

I wonder if Jesse is as worried about Christopher as I am.

II.

We are in New York City, Hadley, Harper, Jesse, and I, and we’ve walked what feels like the entire island, twice. We ate chocolates at Jacques Torres’ shop, made our way to the top of the Empire State Building and through FAO Schwartz. We’ve been to the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Greenwich Village, and leisurely made our way over an old subway line turned parkway with running water to wade through. It’s been a wonderful trip, but right now, all of us are exhausted and hungry.

Jesse pulls out his phone and finds an Irish pub a short walk away that we all enthusiastically exclaim, “YES!” to. Once there, we sit at a high table and do our best not to salivate on the menu.

Nearby, a group of men and women stand at the bar. They’re young and hip and beautiful. I pull a piece of my hair behind my ear that always falls in my face. My hair is fully matted to my head, it is thin and thinning, and I imagine I look like Gollum, and yet I still have a strand that falls right in front of my face unless I put a barrette in it, something that I think is childish. Nevertheless, I pull it back so I can stare wistfully at the young, urban, professionals.  

Several of them have Notre Dame logos on their shirts and I kick Jesse under the table to let him know that his Alma Mater is here, but my flip flop gets stuck in part of my chair and what I mean to be a nice kick is more like a kick one might use to execute a field goal.

“OW!” Jesse yells, and leans forward to rub his shin.

“Sorry,” I say, “but Notre Dame is here.”

“All of Notre Dame?” Hadley asks with the same look her father is giving me. Incredulous, both of them.

I roll my eyes.

They both turn toward the group, and turn back. “Must be an alumni thing,” Jesse says. Hadley flips over her menu, picks up a pen from the pouch I’ve put between she and Harper, and begins to sketch the University’s logo. I wonder if that’s where she’ll go, or if she’ll go to Calvin, or if she’ll tread new ground.

I pull the hair that’s slipped again behind my ear and I think in 10 years, where Hadley will attend college will not be a mystery. She will already have graduated; commenced into official adulthood.

John Mayer’s song “New Light” starts to play. “I’m the boy in your other phone. Lighting up in your drawer at home, all alone.”

“Who has two phones?” Hadley asks.

“When is John Mayer ever the boy all alone?” I reply.

“I think John Mayer is a boy who is happy being sad,” Harper says, putting the finishing touches on a picture of a city skyline—the skyscrapers are cupcakes.

Our food arrives. Harper pushes the pens she’s sprawled out of the way to make room for a fried chicken sandwich that’s held together by a sword toothpick.

Hadley has one, too, and they both promptly pull them out of their sandwiches and look at each other.

“On guard!” Harper commands.

Jesse and I respond not by telling them to cut it out, but by moving their drinks out of the way. Our reflexes have changed, I suppose. I think also, that we are both hungry and tired, and in need of adult conversation. Maybe a toothpick sword fight between our girls will give Jesse and I a chance to flirt over the fish tacos we are sharing. Maybe I can utter to him how lost I’ve been feeling lately. Maybe we can reminisce about our time at Notre Dame. “Was I lost there?” I might ask him. “I didn’t feel lost there,” I might say. Maybe he could remind me something about myself.

Just as I begin to talk, Hadley grabs Harper’s toothpick, sticks it between her fingers, turning her fist into a claw.

“GIVE ME BACK MY SWORD, HADLEY!” Harper yells, and most of the bar turns and looks at the four of us.

John Mayer finishes his song asking, “What do I do with all this love that’s running through my veins for you?”

III.

At the Michigan-Notre Dame women’s basketball game, it is Muffet McGraw’s high heels I am most concerned with. Basketball is a sport I actually understand, so I like watching it but that the head coach of the ND team wears these colorful, sometimes patterned, always coordinated perfectly with her outfit and never black high heels to coach a basketball game is a sign of confidence.  I want that confidence. At 44, I should have that confidence.

Notre Dame trails Michigan for the first two quarters and I watch Muffet on the sidelines. She yells, she crosses her arms, she paces, she never fidgets. If she is uncertain nobody would know it, and I wonder if true confidence comes in the trying—in the effort—and not in the outcome. You have to love a thing so much that no matter the result, no matter how it might break your heart, you do it anyway.

At half-time, Notre Dame is still losing, but not by much, and I watch Muffet follow her team into the tunnel toward the locker rooms. Her clip is short, fast, determined. I wonder what she’s going to tell her players, as she disappears into the dark.

The Drill Team performs a routine and I lean my elbows on my knees to watch. I watch the dancers like everyone else watches the basketball players. I study their kicks to see if the dancers’ toes are pointed, their backs straight, that no dancer is pushing on the shoulders of another during a kick line.

“Do you miss it?” Jesse asks.

I nod, once.

“I miss knowing I was good at something,” I tell him.

I miss the precision and certainty of the routine; that I could gain confidence in the memorization and mastering of the steps, both forgetting and finding myself in the dance. I miss the focus and determination I had. I miss the joy of giving everything I had, leaving it all on the floor, walking away, and starting over the next week with no doubt I could do it all over again.

I watch the dancers leave the court and I realize how afraid and exhausted I’ve been lately. I’m afraid to try. I’m exhausted from holding onto all my fear. I want to believe in myself again, but I’m not sure how to begin.

IV.

January arrives. Dark and sparkly days. The glint from the ice and the snow and the stars taunt the world, and I wonder why I’m moved by their seemingly small sparkles. I’m not sure what could possibly grow from this point, but this is where I will begin again. I will wake before the rest of my family and sit at the table Jesse built for me. I will open my notebook and pick up my pen. The wind outside will make the tree trunks creak, the house will make its noises of shifting and settling while I write, entering the dark alone—confused, but also exhilarated—searching for what shines, reaching for it, and believing I can do something with this new light.