Can it be saved?

The other day I was hunting for something to tie up a set of headphones, to tidy it away so it wouldn't come out of my bag in a snarl that I would then have to untangle, cursing my clumsy fingers, impatient, on my way to do something else. Anything would do, an elastic band off a bunch of cheap grocery flowers, a twist tie, even a piece of string. Does anyone save string anymore?

I don't save string,but I save a lot of other things, against the day when I might need them. For a while I saved the original boxes and packaging for a whole host of things - a coffee maker, griddle, the iron, a telephone that I don't even use anymore. These boxes took up space in my closets, in the laundry room and out in the storage shed. When I moved, I didn't use most of them, so they went to the trash, four years late.

I saved gift bags and bits of ribbon and carefully smoothed out sheets of crinkled tissue paper. I couldn't throw out Christmas cards or birthday cards for a while. I saved leftovers, styrofoam clam shells and packages of crackers from restaurants, anything wrapped in plastic from airline food. Some things I fished out of my purse weeks later, crumpled and disintegrated or spilled everywhere.

I save the mail. The paper piles up, notices of plays I won't see, donations I won't make, hikes I won't take. Months later, all the dates have passed and I can recycle guilt-free.

I save change in the piggy bank. The last time I emptied it, I carefully separated the quarters for laundry and put all the pennies, nickels, and dimes back in the bank, for what exactly?

I save odd socks, skirts that are too big, jeans that are too small, and old bras that have lost their elasticity but not their comfort. I save a set of classical CDs because my father's hands touched them, a note from my sister with her new address, a heart-shaped rock from an enemy I respect, a talisman carved from antler from a student I disappointed, and a cotton string bracelet made by the chubby hands of a child I loved.

In the end I doubled and redoubled the headphone cord and tied it gingerly into a loose knot. No elastic band, twist tie or string. No need.

Can It Be Saved?

This was a ten minute write on the prompt: Can it be saved? Write about something ruined by water. After the group write I continued it on my own.


I don't know why but I was set on walking to the reading. I knew I was going to be late if I did, but it seemed important. I wanted to clear my mind, feel the swift movement of my body along the concrete sidewalk. My journal in my backpack, I set out. Not five minutes later I felt the first drop. I walked faster, hoping to outrun it. Within seconds it was a downpour, soaking me completely from head to toe. I was too concerned with my appearance to remember my journal, getting quickly soaked under the thin fabric of my bag.

Arriving at the reading, door creaking and banging disruptively as a man clad in orange stood at the podium releasing words in a breathy voice. Everyone glanced back at me with judgement in their eyes as I mouthed an apology.

It was only when they introduced me and I pulled out the wet journal did I realize that I had never had the foresight to invest in no-smear pens and that every word had become an abstract watercolor painting. I stood, dripping on the stage, the bright lights in my eyes and my rippled, dripping puddle of a journal before me, wondering what I would say.

"Tonight," I began, figuring it best to stay present, "I live, a creature of light and rain, moon and muck, sugar and stalactites in the dim clotted mossy walls of the cave of my life."

The crowd was still. I took a breath.

"I stand here, enlightened, humbled, knee deep in an ache for the nameless. With a hope for the hopeless, holding in my hand coupons for a store that is not yet built. Today I cut my hair and the remnants of myself on the kitchen linoleum lay curled, arrested, frozen in hieroglyphics that I could not read. I swept it up and held it in my open palms, a tenderness rushing through me as if awaiting the release of a child.

'I am a lawn chair, I am a cherry tree, I am a reckless thought escaping your mouth in song. A wish, a leaf upon the water, a weightlessness, a cringe.

'I am a scent that is so pungent that your first reaction is to inhale deeply but I am only the reek of piss behind the dumpster.

'I am the blanket that your mother knitted in your favorite colors, spread upon the worn fabric of that thrift store couch.

'I am a moment that you notice only for its mundane serenity- the cat on the couch, the click of the mouse under the warm palm of your husband's hand, the dark breeze outside stirring branches, the silence, the garlic on your fingers, the sudden captured aliveness of this, your life, throbbing and awake, its beginning and end held in perfect balance on opposite sides of Now."

Polite applause, and I made my way back to my damp folding chair. Not a bad improv, I thought. I hoped there was a snack table somewhere.