The love that follows us around

Tiny stories of love in the cracks of every day life

I’m lying on a table, ass cheeks out, face down, waiting for the doctor. The nurse asks, “How are you doing?” and I blurt, without being able to stop myself, “Not good.”

Of course, then I have to keep going. Do I mean “not good” medically? No, I don’t. Medically, I’m hanging in there. I mean, you don’t wind up ass cheeks out on the table because you’re doing GREAT medically, but I’m fine.

“The richest man in the world stole our social security numbers the other night,” I babble. “And, like, so much more.”

She hasn’t heard of this, but the blurting is contagious, and suddenly, she spills out, “I’ve told my mom to stop speaking Spanish…Our papers are in order but… just in case.”

The doctor takes forever to get there, but the nurse and I stop counting the minutes. We fall into a strangely intimate conversation about racism and fear and food rotting in the fields because the people who pick it are too scared to come to work. She says she doesn’t normally talk about this at work, she thinks the doctor voted for him. It’s maybe the most profound conversation I’ve ever had with a stranger while simultaneously hoping there wasn’t toilet paper sticking out between my cheeks. When the doctor arrives, I remember what she said about being afraid of him and quickly change the subject. We both pretend to laugh at the doctor’s jokes. The hole in the space time continum snaps shut, and we pretend like nothing happened. The doctor gives me a shot in my ass, and as I leave, the nurse and I make eye contact. “I hope you have a good day,” we almost whisper to one another.

Afterwards, I go to the grocery store. Everyone is so normal. I want to scream, but I’m quiet. I buy a gallon of milk, and go home. I burst into tears in my husband’s arms. Then he shows me our new fridge, joyous to present the four different types of ice it makes.

The next day, at the vet, I sit in the waiting room, chattering with the other women who wait nervously with me. We all have old dogs, dogs we have loved for years, that we hope to love for years to come. Dogs with soft, white faces who lie at our feet. I see my vet and almost cry. My dog has cancer, but we’re there for her teeth. All is well. The vet feels like a doctor to me too, as she reassures me that I’m doing the best I can. She holds my dog like the baby I know she is, and I tell her that I don’t know if I believe in God, with a big g, but I do think animals represent what god means. They remind us that love is unconditional. “This means,” I laugh, “that you are a god whisperer.” She hugs me close. When my dog comes out after her nail trim, she has a bandana around her neck with a note. “Puddin, we are rooting for you.”

As I wait to check out, another dog comes in, tail wagging gleefully. “She ate chocolate”, the owner explains. Everyone in the waiting room tries to ease his fear with a story of the time our dog ate chocolate and lived to tell the tale. The owner’s hat says “Altadena”. The nurse asks if he lives in Glendale, and he says “For now”. As he walks out, he tells us all he lost his house in Altadena, in the fires. “Life feels like one crisis after another these days,” he confesses. I hold his dog’s warm face in my hands and command her to be okay, with all the love in my heart.

I cry the whole way home. I think about the heaviness of the world, how it feels sometimes like a thick wet blanket on my shoulders. But I cry harder remembering the vet’s arms around mine. Thinking of the tiny moments of love that burst through and make the light shine again, that connect us all, that hold the world up. What a gift to be able to see those beautiful things. The most powerful among us seem only able to see rage, fear, winning, losing, taking. Have they ever really felt the morning sun? Have they ever heard a song so beautiful it shimmers on the skin? Have they ever sunk their fingers into soft fur and felt a dog lean back into their hands? Do they even know what in life is worth fighting for?

That night, I go to trivia. My friends and I have been doing this trivia game almost weekly for over a year. It’s my friend’s birthday, and I realize that we celebrated her birthday at this bar last year too. We’ve celebrated the entire table’s birthdays, a whole year of meeting at the same bar, every week, for the ritual of love. Some might say it’s for winning, but I know it’s for love. We burst into laughter writing an acrostic poem about the quizmaster for Valentine’s day. We walk each other back to our cars at night and hug goodbye like we do every week. Love.

All love. It is all love. We are all love. Even when the world is dark. Even when we’re lying on the table, ass cheeks out.

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My friend Adam and I wrote a video about how America is a Casino for the Superbowl.

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