The Wheels on the Bike Go ‘Round and ‘Round

November 5, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

I flipped through the glossy pages of a fashion magazine and there, alongside an article on how to dress for a summer party, I spotted a glossy ad featuring a slim model posed gracefully alongside her Schwinn. I thought about the pants in my closet that no longer fit, and turned to my boyfriend, Andrew.

“I want a bicycle,” I said as I tossed the magazine back onto the growing stack on our coffee table.

This idea had been building, spurred by a desire to find an exercise that required more enthusiasm than ability. I’d gone through hiking, tennis, and yoga, trying to find something I could do and still get out of bed the next day.

Andrew agreed this was a fine idea, then asked me, “Do you remember your first bicycle?”

I have trouble remembering where I put down my coffee cup each morning, but I had an image in my mind of that first bicycle.

“It had a white vinyl banana-shaped seat with peace symbols, rainbow streamers on the handlebars, and one of those plastic wicker baskets with huge artificial sunflowers on the front.”

“Peace symbols? Sunflowers?” Andrew looked skeptical until I reminded him that my childhood took place in the 1960s. I assured him I would not add any flowered accessories to my new bicycle, and we went that next weekend to the Bike Mart.

In the bicycle shop, I sucked in my stomach as I wandered through crowds of whip-thin men dressed in spandex shorts. There were rows and rows of bikes in racks spaced around the store and organized into sections–mountain bikes, cruisers, hybrid bikes, tandem bikes, and even some that included an electric motor, handy I supposed for people who weren’t trying to fit into the pants in their closets.

I followed Andrew as he went over to look at the sturdy grey and black mountain bikes. I tried not to look at the price tags too closely. Surely they had the decimal in the wrong place. I rolled one of the mountain bikes off the rack and felt a sense of accomplishment when I sat on it without tipping over.

“Can I help you?” A young salesgirl, blond and tanned in her Bike Mart polo, walked up as I struggled to put the bike back on the rack.

“Yes,” I replied, “I’d like to buy a bicycle, and I guess I need a little help to pick one out.”

The salesgirl nodded, blond ponytail bobbing. With one hand she took the bike from me and slipped it back into the rack.

“Where will you be riding?” she asked.

I should answer, “Oh, just around my living room, and on soft, padded surfaces,” but I had an image in my mind of shaded forest paths. I told her, “Mostly paved roads, but I’d like to go off-road now and then.” This caused the salesgirl to pause for a moment, her forehead wrinkled as though she were working out a calculus equation. I wondered if she would recommend one of those adult tricycles, or maybe psychiatric counseling.

We looked through the inventory and settled on a turquoise and white mountain bike with an aluminum frame. Lighter than the other bikes, it would be less likely to damage me when it fell over, and the color matched my shoes.

I imagined myself cycling through the neighborhood on my new bike, maybe ringing a little bell attached to the handlebars. I purchased a gel padded seat, a bag for the handlebars in a somber shade of black with no flowers, and a helmet.

The helmet made my head look gigantic as though my brain had expanded. It did not, however, make me appear more intelligent. After our first outing, I added a pair of bike shorts with a soft insert supposed to help ease any soreness from riding. They seemed to hold up well, and I considered wearing them at work, where I have to sit typing at a computer for long periods.

After a leisurely five-mile ride on our local bike path, Andrew and I discussed where we should go next. He suggested the White Rock Lake Bike Trail, and I looked forward to the adventure as I packed snacks and extra water for the eighteen-mile trek.

For most of the ride, I kept Andrew in sight as he pedaled in front of me. We passed small children and grandmothers pushing strollers and I gave them all a cheery wave as we rolled down the first nine miles, but on the return loop, my strength failed. Somewhere around mile sixteen, I realized that the difference between an eighteen-mile bike ride and a five-mile bike ride was not thirteen miles. It was, instead, the distance from here to hell and back.

The bike shorts, while appreciated, had limits. When we stopped at a shady underpass, I plopped down in the dirt and tried to catch my breath while Andrew poured lukewarm water over my head and neck.
“Can you go on? Do I need to get the car?” Andrew asked. “I’ve broken my sweetie!” he said.

I shook my head as I lay there in the dirt while scores of curious onlookers passed by, among them the small children and grandmothers I had floated past earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I replied, “I thought we were getting close to the end.”
“We are, just another mile. Remember, we have Gatorade in the cooler back at the car.”

“Gatorade!” No drink had sounded so intoxicating since my college days.
My heart rate slowed to a normal pace as a family with two toddlers pedaled past us. When an elderly man cycled by on a recumbent bike, I decided I would not be shown up by an octogenarian, and we got back up to continue the ride.

For the rest of that mile, I tried to ignore the white-hot rock that my nice cushioned bicycle seat had transformed into. I stood up to pedal to give my sitting parts relief, but my legs protested the extra work. My ass, not to be outdone, reminded me that, bicycle shorts or not, I would probably sleep facing down for the next few nights.

We got to the last one hundred yards of the route and the trail turned downhill toward the park where our car was waiting. I leaned forward into the warm wind and let the bike gather speed as I coasted. The spokes lulled me with a pleasant hum, and the sharp tar smell of hot summer roads rose from the path below. I drifted along to the sounds of children playing near the soccer fields and the tinkle of a bell from the ice cream vendor.

As the wheels on my bike spun around, I imagined rainbow streamers flying out from the handlebars, and a white plastic wicker basket with large, bright sunflowers on the front. Andrew waited at the car with an ice cold Gatorade as I rolled up, and I gratefully accepted his offering, ready for the ride to be over, ready for it to last forever.

Ten Things You Don’t Know About Me

September 16, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

And Maybe Never Wondered About, but Oh Well…

Altered Photo — Self Portrait by Terrye Turpin

I was tagged in this craze by the very talented Kay Bolden, so I’m assuming there’s at least one person out there interested in learning a little more about me. So here are ten things that will tell you a bit. Most of the photographs, for better or worse, were taken by me.

There are books in almost every room of my home.

Bedside table and bookcase filled with books on writing.

The dining room is also my crafting room. The bookcase here is filled with cookbooks and craft books. That’s Dolly lurking beside the ironing board.

Archer guards the nonfiction books and my Hot Wheels collection.

I keep the children’s books in the dining room for when my grandson visits. I wrote a story about that duck.

2. I am the youngest of seven children, but because they were all much older than me, I grew up like an only child. My mother was 42 when I was born on her birthday. Three of my sisters and one brother have passed away, as have my mother and father.

My Dad Lloyd Hamilton and my older brother Ronnie

3. I’ve never lived further than 40 miles from McKinney, Texas — the place I was born.

4. I love shopping at antique, junk, and thrift stores.

5. My fiance and I own more than 30 IKEA badgers. (We love IKEA)

Sometimes we dress the badgers in holiday apparel.

6. My favorite authors are Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Robert McCammon, and David Sedaris.

If I’m in a dark mood my writing takes a twisted turn to horror.

I love David Sedaris, and you can probably see his influence in my humorous essays. I go to hear him perform his work every time he’s in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and I have all his books, four of them are signed by him.

7. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry (I thought I wanted to go to medical school). When I was 45 I went back to school to earn a graduate degree. It took me five years working full time and going to classes part time to earn my Masters degree in Taxation. I worked my way through graduate school delivering pizzas part time in addition to my 40 hour a week full time job.

8. I bought a bicycle when I was 52, and started riding again after almost 30 years.

I’m just posing here, I do ride with a helmet.

9. I got divorced after 25 years of marriage. When I started dating again I signed up for OK Cupid and gave online dating a try.

I only met one person and had one date through OK Cupid.

Me and Andrew hiking in Glen Rose, Texas at Dinosaur Valley State Park

10. I’m getting married in October to that one date I met six years ago on OK Cupid.

Badgers in Bluebonnets in Ennis, Texas — This photo by Andrew Shaw

I’ll keep the thread going by tagging a few folks here, if you’ve already been tagged you can blissfully ignore this one, but I hope you’ll play. And if I haven’t tagged you please join in with your list of ten things and tag me, I’d love to read them.

KD Murray S Lynn Knight ~ 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 Karen Booth Nupoor Raj Sam H Arnold Paul S Markle kurt gasbarra James Finn Terijo Teresa Colón J. Brandon Lowry Louise Foerster K.C. Knouse R. Nash Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle

What Will Answer When You Call My Name

July 21, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

My son, Andy, told me about the stray cat when I stopped over at his house for a visit. The cat, a scrawny orange and white tabby, wandered over to him at the park near his home.

“I shared my snack with it,” he said.

The cat, hungry enough to eat a granola bar, held still and purred while he petted her. She either had a taste for sweetened oats or she hadn’t eaten real cat food in a while. He told me he would have taken her home if he could have figured out a way to get her into his car.

We always had pets. A hamster, cats, dogs, a gecko, fish — every branch of the animal kingdom was represented. The last of them, our cat Miss Tiggy and the dog Greta, died not too long before my marriage came to its own timely end. When I moved out Andy came with me to share an apartment. Now he lived in a house with his fiancé. I stayed in the apartment, alone for the first time in twenty-five years.

When Andy mentioned going back to the park to look for the cat, the appropriate response at this point from me would have been “What about your allergies?” or “Are you sure you’re ready to own a pet?”

But Andy had a house in need of a pet, and there was a cat in need of a home.

“I wonder if she’s still there?” I asked as I gathered up my car keys.

We piled into my Honda SUV and drove the four blocks to Finch Park. The pecan and oak trees in the park loomed tall and shady over the playground when I played there as a child, and years later they stood over my own boys. The donated land was a gift from Fannie and Henry A. Finch and the park carries their name. Fannie was one of the first women in Texas to be elected to a school board, not an easy feat in 1917. In fact, since women weren’t allowed to vote until 1920, she wouldn’t have been able to cast a ballet for herself.

We found the kitty hiding out in the bushes that ringed one side of the grounds. She strolled out to greet us as we stepped out of the car, waving her tail like a flag signaling surrender. We hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of moving the cat from the park, into my car, and down the street to Andy’s house. We surveyed the supplies on hand.

“I have a recyclable grocery sack, a zippered cooler, and a laundry basket.” I said.

The cat did not particularly like being stuffed in the back of an SUV and having a laundry basket turned over on top of her. We made the drive back to the house listening to the cat wailing harmony to Lucinda Williams on the CD player.

I stopped in the driveway and Andy hopped out to open the front door. Once the way inside was clear we cautiously lifted the hatch on my SUV. The term “catapult” does not adequately describe the velocity that an angry cat can achieve when she launches herself from the driver’s seat of a car and out the back, past the astonished humans who stood in her way.

We lured her within grabbing distance with a can of tuna and I scooped her up to carry her into the house. At this point the cat noticed that we were approaching an open door into who knows what, and she decided to attach herself to me like a large, furry cockle burr. I don’t know who was howling louder, me or the cat, but we made it safely inside.

I searched the bathroom medicine cabinet for first aid supplies while Andy treated the cat to the rest of the tuna.

“What will you name the cat?” I called as I poured antiseptic down my arm.

“How about Killer?” Andy replied.

I was in favor of Lucy, short for Lucifer. I contemplated the angry red scratches on my arm and considered the possibility that I might perish from some cat borne illness.

Andy replied, “Don’t worry Mom, if you die we’ll name the cat after you.”

I thought about Miss Fannie Finch and the park named for her, and decided that if worse came to worse I could accept a scrawny cat as a namesake. After all, it’s nice to be remembered.

Give me Rockets Like Flowers

July 9, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ 4 Comments

Fireworks at the Ball Park 2016 — The view from 2016 when we were on the other side of the stadium.

I am not especially patriotic, but I love a good fireworks display. I’m not sure how I came to this attraction to all things bright and sparkly. It isn’t nostalgia. The only fireworks I remember in my childhood involved a car trip with my parents down a deserted country road. We stopped outside the city limits and my dad unloaded a paper sack of bottle rockets that we carried past a herd of curious cattle to the edge of a pond on some stranger’s land. It wasn’t exactly the type of memory I’m anxious to recreate.

The other day was July 4^th, the day we Americans celebrate our independence by setting off grass fires and frightening the neighborhood dogs. My fiancé Andrew and I set aside this date every year for our annual disagreement about fireworks. He prefers to ignore them and hide inside in the air conditioning (I think he must have been a Labrador retriever in a past life) while I insist that the holiday won’t be complete unless I watch something explode.

“I could always stick a sparkler up my butt and run around,” Andrew said.

“Not spectacular enough,” I said, after considering his offer.

This year we compromised with an outing on July 3^rd to the ballpark near our home to watch the Frisco RoughRiders play baseball. The schedule stated there would be fireworks following the game. We arrived at the stadium after the first inning and settled into our seats behind first base. I counted off the innings and willed the sun to set while we ducked at the occasional foul ball flying overhead. The ice in my soda melted and my thighs stuck to the plastic seat. The air filled with what was either the aroma of grilled hot dogs or my fellow spectators roasting in the summer heat. Around the 7^th inning we rallied enough to stand and sing along with “God Bless America.”

As soon as the game ended I noticed a stream of people heading down from the stands.

“Should we follow them?” I asked.

The loudspeaker cut in, announcing that the fireworks would soon start. “They’ll be visible behind the first base section of the stands, fans will have a good view from the field,” the announcer said.

“That’s right over us,” Andrew pointed out. “I don’t think we’ll be able to see from here.” We leaned back in our seats, trying to judge the line of sight.

“We should move,” I agreed.

We hopped over rows of plastic folding seats and fought like salmon headed upstream against the crowd tromping down the aisles. The announcer warned “The fireworks will start in one minute” just as we reached the top of the stadium. I hummed the theme from Mission Impossible as we dodged a stadium attendant.

“Go! Go!” I urged Andrew as we weaved past shuttered food stands and splashed through puddles alongside the Lazy River pool. The first boom sounded as we fled through a gate and into the street beside the ballpark. I stood on the curb and leaned out into traffic so I could watch the pyrotechnics bursting in flashes of brilliant red, white, and blue. Their splendor was slightly blocked by the leaves on the tree I stood under. The display ended while I was still deciding on the best place to stand. It was like someone offered me a cookie and then broke it in half and gave me the smaller bit.

The following evening, the proper Independence Day, we celebrated with an after dark bike ride through our neighborhood. We ride at night because I will only put on bicycle shorts when there is no danger of anyone seeing me. The subdivision across from our home features roads with challenging hills. I usually complain and grumble as I downshift and pedal along. This night, as I struggled up the fourth or fifth incline, I heard the distinctive boom that meant somewhere people were celebrating.

“Can you see any fireworks at the top?” I called as Andrew cycled past me.

When we got to the peak we could hear a barrage of blasts from every direction. But we couldn’t see any fireworks. It was as though we had arrived at a free fire zone in the midst of an invisible military occupation.

We biked on through the subdivision. I struggled along hopefully at every rise in elevation while Andrew shot past me. At last we arrived at the outside edge of the subdivision, and Andrew coasted up to the stop sign at the intersection with the main road. An older man and his barefoot son stood in their front yard, watching the horizon.

“Look there.” Andrew pointed toward the east. A sound like far off thunder rolled toward us and I saw a burst of red and gold light up the sky miles away.

“I think that’s Arlington, it’s been going on almost an hour,” our neighbor told us.

We had a good view, although from our remote vantage point the fireworks resembled glittery dandelions gone to seed. As the booms faded Andrew turned to me. “If we listen carefully we might hear the people cheering.”

“Maybe,” I replied. I envied that distant crowd. I imagined the fireworks bursting in the air and showering their magic light on those below. I hoped they clapped. I hoped they cheered. I hoped they sang.

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home
God bless America, my home sweet home

Irving Berlin

Don’t Tread on Me

June 18, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

I’ve never liked escalators. I look at an escalator and I see big metal teeth waiting to grind up my feet. I have a problem with the last section, the one that goes under the metal strip at the end. I imagine myself being sucked down under like a cartoon character, getting smaller and flatter until I disappear under the edge with a quiet pop.

Elevators aren’t much better. Nothing good ever happens in an elevator in the movies. If the cable doesn’t break and all the characters plummet to their death, they’ll get stuck inside the car with the bad guy. Or, just when you think everyone is going to escape, the doors will make that little “ping” noise and open up to the serial killer standing there with an ax.

I used to think I was safe on a treadmill. It doesn’t go anywhere, and I always manage to hit the “Stop” button, mostly when I don’t intend to. Recently I discovered how accurate the phrase “ass over elbows” can be, and I can now answer “Yes!” to the question “Have you ever fallen off a treadmill?” Nothing broken, except my dignity, but how much of that can you really have while you’re wearing sweat pants?

I was moving along at a brisk pace when I decided to take off my jacket. I could have easily turned off the treadmill, but I was in the middle of a nice series of laps and didn’t want to lose my place. I like to imagine myself huffing along in the lead in a 5k run while being chased by bears. In that situation I would hardly stop to take off a jacket, unless I planned on using it to distract the bears. So, without looking I tossed my top behind me, toward my gear stacked on the floor.

My friend, trudging along on the next treadmill, cried out, “Oh! You knocked over your tea!”

Born and raised a Southerner, I take my iced tea seriously, even if it is in a flimsy foam cup sitting on the floor of a gym. So I immediately turned around on the treadmill to see the damage, and the machine rewarded me by trying to shoot me off the end like I was the target in a skeet shooting competition.

I fell back onto the treadmill. Luckily I landed on the part of my body that was the object of the treadmill exercise in the first place. The treadmill was still running, any other time I would have hit the safety switch by accident and had to start my program all over. The treadmill seemed thrilled to have me back. I swear the belt sped up, and this time I shot off and performed a half somersault, something I haven’t done voluntarily since third grade.

I landed in a cold puddle of foam bits, tea, and ice, not quite so refreshing when applied to the bottom half of my body. I finished my work out on the stationary bicycle, figuring that if I fell off I would at least be closer to the floor.

I’ve heard people say, “It’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey”, and I’m okay with that, as long as I don’t have to get there by escalator, elevator, or treadmill.

The Changing Room

May 26, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

The scar on my breast is a dark reddish brown, fading slowly at the edges. It is curved, like a parenthesis. There is a slight indentation, a flat spot under the blemish that shows when I stand in profile. The scar is hidden, even by my most revealing bathing suit. Most of the time I don’t even think about it, except when I’m undressed.

My usual routine when I can’t fall asleep consists of surfing the internet for cat memes and funny videos. The other night I sat up, bolstered on both sides by the collection of pillows my boyfriend and I have on our bed, and picked up my phone. The dark bedroom was lit by the tiny bluish glow from the screen, and I turned the volume down low so that Andrew wouldn’t hear and come in to remind me I had to get up early for work the next day.

I found a comedy sketch on YouTube that started with a woman entering a gym. Her dark hair piled on top of her head, she carries a gym bag over her arm as she walks up to the smiling young woman in a green polo shirt at the front desk. As she signs in an alarm sounds and the uniformed staffer stands up and congratulates the woman. The visitor has just turned forty, and the attendant leads her back to a special area that she is now entitled to enter. It is a changing room filled with naked women. They sprawl on benches and strut around the space without as much as a towel to hide behind. One of the women appears to be shaving her pubic hair. Another lifts her breasts and towels off underneath them. When the birthday girl protests that she’s not that comfortable with nudity, her clothes magically disappear and she’s left standing there, naked. She does, however, still have the gym bag over her arm. The other women gather around to welcome her to “not giving a shit at the gym.”

I have never been comfortable in locker rooms. I don’t like undressing in front of anyone unless they’re going to have sex with me or give me a medical exam. A changing room filled with other people has always necessitated contortions worthy of a gymnast or a Chinese acrobat. I can both remove and replace my bra without taking off my t-shirt. If I’m at the lake I can completely undress and put on a one piece bathing suit while wrapped in a beach towel. It’s not the scrutiny of strangers that bothers me, it’s being seen naked by someone I might encounter later at the grocery store.

Last year, I hesitated when one of my coworker friends invited me to come with her to a Korean spa. My friend is in her thirties, two decades younger than I am. She’s blonde, single, and a frequent shopper at Groupon, where she found a great deal on the spa visits.

“Isn’t there a lot of walking around naked at a Korean spa?” I asked her. It’s one thing to picture people without their clothes when you’re nervous about giving a presentation, but it’s another thing entirely to know exactly what they look like without their underwear. After my friend assured me that the mineral baths were the only area where nudity was required, I went with her, but I arrived later and undressed by myself in a different part of the locker room. I put on the baggy pink shirt and shorts assigned to me by the spa, and wore my bathing suit underneath.

When I told my son Robert about my visit, he encouraged me to go back and try out the mineral baths. “The nude part is no big deal, Mom” he said. Robert makes his living as a plumber, a job requiring both physical skill and tolerance for messy situations. My son is very comfortable with his body. One Christmas he arrived at a gathering of friends and family and announced “I have a new piercing!” I often wish I had his confidence, and that he had my tact.

I considered his suggestion, and I went back to the spa by myself. I decided I would take advantage of every area, including the mineral baths in the women’s locker area. I checked in with the twenty-something year old blonde girl at the counter, and paused before answering “No” when she asked if I would be consuming alcohol. She strapped the electronic device that looked like a watch on my wrist. It stored my credit card information, and I would use it to both open my assigned locker, and pay for any food or drink I might want purchase. It didn’t cover much of my body, but it did eliminate the need for pockets.

After I took off my shoes and socks, I stowed them away in the first locker area and then made my way barefoot down the white tiled hallway toward the changing room. I stopped to pick up the uniform I would wear after the bath. The friendly girl at the counter handed me a folded pair of pink shorts and a faded pink t-shirt and said “Have a good visit!” Because I was still fully dressed, except for my feet, I smiled back at her and said thanks.

After checking to make sure no one there was even remotely familiar, I undressed and stowed my belongings in my locker. Had I spotted my favorite barista from Starbucks the whole deal would have been off, but I bravely set off for the shower area. I discovered that walking naked through a crowded changing room required a degree of relaxed composure I didn’t possess. I couldn’t walk through the place with my eyes closed, but I didn’t want to be seen staring at someone’s nipples either. Direct eye contact is uncomfortable for me. Even if I am fully dressed I tend to look away nervously as if I’ve just stuffed a handful of collection plate money in my purse. I gave up staring at my feet after I almost walked into a column, and finally found that the area between the collarbone and the bottom of a person’s ear lobe is a nice, neutral area. I could avoid both running into obstacles and giving the impression that I wanted to have a conversation.

The glass walls around the mineral bath area were fogged with condensation and as I walked closer, I was greeted with warm, moist air that smelled like chlorine and salt. The first spa had just two women, an elderly Asian grandmother and a middle aged Asian woman who could have been her daughter. Their eyes were closed in blissful relaxation. I lowered myself into the hot whirlpool, and found that if scooted down on the seat around the edge of the bath, the churning water safely concealed most of my body. If I closed my eyes I could imagine myself alone, and not sharing a bath with naked strangers.

I haven’t been back to the spa since my lumpectomy. The mass in my breast was familiar to me. It was there, in the upper right quadrant of my right breast, a small, hard lump that had been felt, scanned, and needle biopsied in the three years since I first discovered it. But when I went in for my annual well woman checkup, my gynecologist, a young woman with freckles and shiny black hair in a ponytail, paused during the breast exam.

“Was this lump there last year?” She gently tapped her fingers over my breast as I lay on the examining table. I raised my head a little bit to look at her instead of focusing on the many pictures of babies plastered on the walls. Her usual smile was replaced by a slight scowl. We had discussed this same lump last year. I even had a follow up ultrasound, but I felt as though I had conspired to hide this growth from her, maybe tucked away under my shoulder or behind my ear, one of the few places on my body not exposed during the annual exam.

“Yes.” I replied, “But maybe it’s bigger?” At this my doctor nodded her head and sent me off to a mammogram.

“You need an ultrasound.” The female technician, dressed in scrubs patterned with small hearts, frowned at me after the mammogram. Her eyes squinted at the images pinned up on the lightbox. She pushed her glasses up and pointed to the black and white pictures on the lightbox. “You have dense breasts” she said, shaking her head and blowing out a little puff of air. This was not news to me, although her tune was new, I’d heard the same refrain throughout my adult, yearly mammogram life.

I took my dense, uncooperative breasts for an ultrasound, which led to a referral to a specialist, a breast surgeon. My familiar lump had grown from the size of a small pea to slightly larger than a marble in the space of a year. The radiologist, a young man with dark hair and serious, black framed glasses, told me the growth did not look like cancer, but I would need a biopsy to be sure. The diagnosis read “Intermediate suspicion of malignancy”, which I took to mean I should make the appointment with the surgeon soon.

The next month I had the first surgery and a biopsy of the tumor. The week after that I met with my surgeon, a slim woman with a slight southern accent and soft, sure hands. Her walls were decorated with reassuring accolades and degrees. I sat on the examining table at her office and listened while she looked over the incision on my breast and discussed the lab results. The paper on the table crinkled as I shifted position.

“You have a phyllodes tumor” she explained. She went on to say that it wasn’t malignant, but that sometimes these tumors can come back, and develop into malignancies. “They are nasty” she said. I imagined a face on my tumor, like the Grinch from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Nasty. I could choose to have her go back and remove the rest of the tumor, and the margins of tissue around it, or I could wait and monitor it with screenings. I imagined myself crossing off the days on the calendar until my insurance would cover the next ultrasound. I knew that I would feel the need to constantly check my breast, fingers measuring the skin over the lump, comparing and wondering if it had grown. If this urge overtook me in the grocery store check-out line it might be disturbing to the cashiers, so I chose the second surgery.

The scar, like the memory of the surgery that created it, fades more each day. Like the other bumps, stretch marks, and wrinkles, it is just a punctuation mark on my body, the grammar to my life story. If I were naked, the scar might require an explanation. I’m not embarrassed by it, but by the assumptions that might come from its presence. It is a purple heart from a battle that I did not have to fight.

I pull the covers up to my chin and slip down in my bed. The sheets smell pleasantly of floral fabric softener and they feel softly worn against my skin. I queue up the video again on my phone, and watch as the woman enters the gym. Once more the alarm sounds and the smiling attendant takes the lucky lady back to the changing room. The light from my phone screen lights up my face in the dark as I watch the naked women greet the newcomer. They all seem happy and relaxed, like friends I believe I would like to meet for coffee. I hear their laughter echo against the metal cabinets, as though from a distance. I think that maybe I am getting closer to where they are, in that kind and accepting place where everyone is welcome, as long as they are at least forty. As I turn off my phone for the night I take comfort in the thought that somewhere there is a room, a place for women, where no explanations or apologies are needed, and no one there gives a shit.

Originally published in The Same.

You Don’t Have to Step on My Feet

April 2, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

As part of a pledge to try new things, I signed up for a night of dance lessons, and for good measure I talked my friend Kristy into accompanying me. Kristy was in her early 30’s, and still young enough to be excused for a lapse in judgement, but I was old enough to know better. The lesson was supposed to last three hours, from 8:00 pm until 11:00 pm, and I thought it a good value for the ten dollar admission charge. I filled in the online registration form and pictured myself back in junior high school, lined up in a gymnasium while I listened to a scratchy record player broadcasting the hokey pokey.

The night of the class Kristy and I were greeted at the door by a woman wearing a floor length, strapless black dress and high heels. This did not look like an outfit you would wear to dance the hokey pokey. Her hair was piled on top of her head in the sort of style that I could never manage without using buckets of gel and pins that insert directly into my scalp.

She held out a perfectly manicured hand as she introduced herself, “I’ll be your instructor tonight, you can call me Miss Cindy.”

I glanced past her at the dance floor. The dim lights reflected off the polished surface, and there were full length mirrors along three of the walls, the better to magnify your embarrassment. Miss Cindy took our money for the class, and told us to fill out name badges. I looked over the lesson plan for the evening. It turned out we had enrolled in a ballroom dancing class, and I regretted my clothing choice of comfortable blue jeans and flat soled loafers.

As I peeled off the paper backing and stuck the name tag to my t-shirt, Miss Cindy pointed out that I had my name tag on the wrong side, and she told me to move it over to my right shoulder. She mentioned she had an etiquette book we could look at if we wanted. I glanced at Karen. She quickly switched her name tag to the correct shoulder. I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t even manage to attach a sticky paper name tag without violating some rule of proper conduct, how would I ever navigate a dance floor?

We headed over to a safe spot at a table pushed against the far wall and near the exit. The bright red exit sign would be a handy landmark in case there was a disaster like a fire or someone asking me to dance. Several couples twirled along effortlessly on the floor, smiling as they watched their reflections.

I pointed out the happy couples to Kristy. “Do you think smiling is a requirement in ballroom dancing?” I asked.

“You better practice a pleasant expression,” she replied.

Miss Cindy had the women line up on one side of the room, as though we were preparing for a firing squad. She matched each of us up to an unattached man. My partner was an older gentlemen with a military haircut and sharply pressed pants. He must have wandered into the dance class by mistake, and thought he would be leading boot camp exercises. Our first conflict came when he informed me that dancing the waltz involved more than just stepping in place. You are expected to move around the dance floor, without forging through the other dancers like a snow plow. Apparently I am not a good follower. I tend to lose focus and wander off on my own.

The lesson ended and Miss Cindy ordered us back to the main ballroom. I was glad to leave my drill instructor behind. I haven’t heard the words “No, no, no” so many times since I was the one saying them to my son, who was trying to eat a cricket at the time.

I found my familiar seat against the wall and beneath the exit sign. Just as Kristy joined me, Miss Cindy announced that she wanted to show us something new, and told the group that we would learn the “Merengue.” This sounded suspiciously to me like “Meringue”, a complicated pie thingy that I have never been able to make. I looked wistfully at the exit sign.

“What if we left early?” I asked Kristy.

“No! I paid ten dollars for this class, I’m not missing any of it,” she answered.

My next dance partner’s cologne arrived thirty seconds before he did. It wasn’t bad once my nose became numb. He held me so close during the dance that I felt he at least owed me a cigarette afterwards. The steps to the Merengue were complicated and Miss Cindy had to break the lesson down into sections. We went back to the beginning and repeated each section once we learned the next one. This resulted in a never ending dance circle of hell. My partner was more intent on getting my phone number than he was in learning the steps to the dance, and I wound up twirling off into the other dancers as I tried to both count and distract him with idle conversation. Maybe he thought my phone number started with “1, 2, 3…”

Finally Miss Cindy paused to take a breath, and I took that opportunity to escape. I raced across the floor to gather up Kristy, who was dancing with a man who had more in common with her grandmother. He had a weak grip, and she was able to detach herself quickly. Once we were safely outside I mentioned that maybe next time we should try something less exciting, perhaps skydiving.

Just Where We Belong

March 11, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

Drive in — Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I hesitated when I saw the invitation in my email because I am not a fan of scary movies. I tolerate them because they are one of Andrew’s favorite genres. When he watches Alien Death Camp Holiday or Haunted Mental Institution Massacre, I sit beside him on the couch and mutter comments.

“Did they go in the basement? Is that a hatchet?” I’ll say, my voice muffled by the blanket covering my face.

I clicked on the link in the email and signed up for two free passes for a screening of Strangers: Prey at Night. The summary I read said the film is a sequel to the first movie, Strangers. There were enough survivors for part two, this one to take place in an abandoned mobile home park, where the victims were threatened with murderous psychopaths instead of tornadoes.

I was sure Andrew would enjoy the movie, and I was willing to go along because the screening was to take place at our local drive in theater. I have fond memories of going to the drive in with my parents in the 1960s. There was a playground at the front, and I swung from monkey bars and climbed to the top of the rocket shaped slide to look up to the giant characters on the screen. When I was older, I went to the drive in on dates, but those times I stayed in the car.
We arrived early the night of the screening. I handed over my pass to the cashier in the little booth at the entrance and he told us, “Just follow the drive around to the back. It’s the last screen.”

“That one?” I asked, pointing to our left.

“There’ll be someone there to help you park,” he replied.

We swung around past the concession stand and drove to the last screen where Andrew spotted a young man dressed in fluorescent yellow, waving cars over into compact rows on the gravel lot. We settled in where he directed us.

After a trip to the concession stand for popcorn and a soft drink, we walked back in the dark to our parked car. I glanced over to the screen next to ours where a large group of people arranged themselves in chairs in front of the screen.

“What are those people doing over there?” I asked as I pointed to two men wearing suits, which seemed strange attire for an evening at the drive in.

“I don’t know,” Andrew replied, “but I think the movie is about to start.”

Andrew tuned in the car radio to the channel that would broadcast sound for our movie, and we watched the screen light up with previews for coming attractions. The first preview was a Claymation Cartoon.

“This is an odd preview for a horror movie,” I said. I swiveled around in the car seat and peered over at the lot next to ours. The screen there had a static display that said “Strangers.”

“I think we are at the wrong screen.”

Andrew turned to look behind us. “Oh well, at least we get to watch a free movie.”

I pulled up the drive in website on my phone as the next preview, an animated cartoon featuring a talking baby, started.

“The movies tonight are Death Wish, Black Panther, and…” I paused. “Peter Rabbit.”

Andrew does not appreciate children’s movies like I do. As a parent, I learned to be grateful for any entertainment that will encourage small children to sit still for an hour and a half. I looked around at the rows of cars that surrounded us. There were no lights marking the exit, and the only illumination came from the movie playing in front of us. A chorus of singing animals appeared on the screen. Andrew does not care for musicals either.

“Do you want to leave?” I asked.

“I don’t see how we can get out,” Andrew replied. After some discussion about the all-terrain capabilities of our Honda SUV, we decided to stay.

“At least it won’t last long,” Andrew said. This philosophy could apply equally to root canals, but I agreed and then complained about the size of the screen.

“Just pretend we are sitting on our couch at home, watching the movie on your phone, from across the room.”
The plot of the movie developed as we expected. There was action and romance between a female character named “Bea” and the handsome nephew of Farmer McGregor.

“I think this is based on true events,” I remarked, as a hedgehog wearing an apron ambled through the McGregor’s garden.

I flipped up my armrest and leaned over the center console so I could take Andrew’s hand and he grabbed the popcorn box just as it was about to spill onto the floorboards. What strange circumstances brought us here, to a place neither one imagined they would ever go, but both somehow certain that this is where they belong.

Peter Rabbit

The Queens of Summer Camp

July 27, 2014July 29, 2017 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

There were two groups of people in the small town I grew up in, those who went to church and those who didn’t. The church goers were overwhelmingly either Southern Baptist or Methodist. There were some Catholics over on the east side of town, but they mostly kept to themselves except for their annual Christmas tamale sale. I joined the Southern Baptist delegation at the Lake Lavon Baptist Encampment the summer after sixth grade. I remember gathering around a camp fire on one of the first evenings in camp, listening to a chorus of pre-teen girls singing hymns. I found myself walking forward when the counselor encouraged any who were lost to come and be found. After the twelfth or thirteenth verse of “Kumbya, My Lord”, I doubt if even Carl Sagan could have resisted the call of that sweet fellowship.

Every summer after that my best friend, Ann, and I traveled by church van the fifteen or twenty miles or so to the Lake Lavon camp, where, if we were lucky, we were assigned a dorm with air conditioning. By the end of the week the sleeping quarters would smell of a mixture of wet bathing suits, hair spray, and mildew, but we didn’t mind, as this was our week of freedom. We spent the days attending mission classes and crafts sessions, and each afternoon we were allowed one hour of swimming in the camp pool, where I was a weak swimmer but a champion dog paddler.

It was this lack of swimming skill, combined with an overwhelming fear of being singled out for attention that ultimately made me doubt my salvation. After my march down to the fireside that summer I thought my Christian duty was done, but one of the camp counselors informed me that, in order to seal the deal I would have to be baptized.

Oh, I thought regretfully, if only we were Methodists, those Christians who made their profession by merely becoming slightly dampened. But no, I had gone and hooked up with the Southern Baptists, those believers in full immersion. I might as well invest in a snorkel and wet suit, in order to establish my place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“Do you think I could be saved without being baptized?” I asked Ann.

“I think so”, she replied, “but you should probably go ahead and do it just to be sure.”

“What if I choke on the water when the preacher dips me under?” I wasn’t so much afraid of drowning, but that I might start coughing and embarrass myself. I’d seen those awful white robes they made you wear, and I imagined water dripping down my face while the preacher called for others to come down and be saved. My luck no one else would be moved and we would have to float there through eight or nine choruses of “Just as I Am.”

Eventually I was able to forget about my lack of baptism, except once a quarter, when the Baptists would extend the Sunday morning worship to include communion. I would agonize on whether I should accept the tiny, flat cracker they passed around, but since it was so close to lunch time I would give in, washing down the inadequate snack with a swallow of unsweetened grape juice that represented the blood of Christ. Even though we were symbolically consuming his flesh, I felt that surely Jesus would have approved a larger portion.

To prove myself a loyal church member I devoted myself to bible study and Sunday School attendance. Our church hosted a twelve week session on the disciples, and each week they gave out a prize, a small charm with the image of each of the twelve apostles. I was home with strep throat the week they gave out James, and despite trying to convince my mother that a 102 degree fever was no big deal, I missed collecting the entire set.

Along with Ann, I joined Acteens, the young girls’ mission study group. We met once a week to learn about missions, and this program included an opportunity to advance to “Queen of Mission Studies”, or some such other title that I can’t remember. Besides earning a nifty scepter and tiara; any young lady who reached the title of “Queen” would be invited to a special missionary tea at summer camp, and, most importantly, the Queens would be allowed an extra hour of swimming at midnight on the last day of camp.

Ann and I threw ourselves into this competition that was not meant to be a competition. We cooked special recipes from foreign lands and walked the three miles to church carrying a large cooler filled with curried rice the week we were studying India. We organized and put on a splendid Christmas pageant, refusing to allow the boy’s mission study group – the Royal Ambassadors, to participate. They spent too much time playing basketball, in our opinion, to be of any help. We progressed through the steps, I can’t remember now what they were, but something like maid, handmaiden, duchess, princess, and finally – Queen. There was a ceremony that surely was more embarrassing than any baptism would have been, except there was no water and I got to wear a long dress and makeup, and put my hair up under the crown.

We made it to Queen status just in time, as that summer would be our final trip to the Lake Lavon Baptist encampment. When our special day arrived at last, Ann and I dressed in our long gowns and put on our tiaras, and walked across the campgrounds to the place where the missionary tea was to be held. Unfortunately for us it was unusually hot that summer, and the meeting room was not air conditioned. I sat there and drank lukewarm Kool Aid while the sweat dripped off my face and the long dress stuck to the back of my legs. I don’t remember much more of the event, except feeling a great disappointment that the missionaries did not share stories of life threatening danger. They were stationed in Canada as school teachers, and the greatest threat they faced was a shortage of chalk.

When the midnight swimming hour arrived Ann and I dressed in our damp swim suits, gathered up our towels, and made our way with the other lucky girls to the swimming pool. We carried flashlights that looked like fireflies twinkling across grass. When we got there my summer friends jumped into the dark blue water, and I stood there on the edge, watching their heads bob up and down, drops sparkling on their brows like jewels.

“Come on in, jump!” Ann encouraged, and I curled my toes under the rough cement ledge and pushed off, jumping off into the deep end of the pool. Down, down I went until my toes barely scraped the slick tile on the bottom, and then I kicked my legs and shot up toward the surface, bursting up and spreading my hands out above into the cool night air. I looked up and saw the face of the Man in the Moon, soft and bright as God’s love, shining down on us, the Queens of Summer Camp.

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And Maybe Never Wondered About, but Oh Well…

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