Megan Stielstra's Blog

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a friend. She and her family are going through something pretty rough right now, and she thanked me for blogging about Caleb and making her laugh, seeing as she's not getting much of the laughter these days.

I've been walking around with her words in my head.

Of course what I want to do is rush into a phone booth, put on my superhero suit and save her, and while I'm at it, save the world, but it's all just too fucking big.

And maybe it's the little things that mean more, anyhow.

SO. A little thing:

Dear T,

If I were there, here’s what we’d do: I’d pick you up in my jeep—I don’t really have a jeep, but since we’re in my imagination we get to have cool stuff. Like, let’s say I’ve already lost the baby weight (HA!) and am wearing Marc Jacobs and super-cool aviator sunglasses (usually I don’t wear sunglasses, ‘cause I sunburn easily, and one time in college I got a sunburn AROUND my sunglasses so there were these white raccoon circles around my eyes for three months and it really sucked so now I’m scared to wear them and instead I just squint) and you’ve got on a black vinyl catsuit (think Trinity) (unless you’d rather wear something else, in which case just email me and I’ll change it, ‘kay?) and also one of those Marilyn Monroe scarves around your head so your hair doesn’t get mussed in the wind ‘cause the top is down on my jeep and we’re going super-fast. So fast I left Caleb at home ‘cause even in my imagination it’s irresponsible to drive that fast with an infant (BABY ON BOARD! says the sign suction-cupped to the back window of my Honda—‘cause really I have a Honda—who DOESN’T have a Honda in Chicago? When I leave my house there’s like twenty cars exactly like mine parked on the street, and I say, “Dude, where’s my car?” and then I laugh at myself HAHAHAHA I’m SO WITTY!—because drivers in Chicago have a lot of road rage, yes, they do, and I don’t want any of them fucking around when Caleb’s in the car. So I hung the sign. Because that will, like, make them drive nice, right? Am I so gullible you can’t even handle me?), fast like Action Movie Chase Scene fast, and we both have our hands hanging out the zipped-down windows, our palms flat and pushing against the wind, and in my other hand I have an extra-large caffeinated frappucino with bourbon, which I guess means I don’t have any hands on the wheel then, right? If I’m pushing the air and drinking my frosty beverage?—So okay then, it’s a magic jeep, and I can drive it with my mind, or maybe the jeep can talk, like KITT and I can just tell it what to do, thus keeping my hands free for my caffeinated bourbon (I REALLY WANT SOME CAFFEINE AND I REALLY WANT SOME MAKERS MARK BUT CALEB DOESN’T NEED EITHER OF THOSE THINGS SO I AM PATIENT CAN YOU SEE HOW PATIENT I AM) and the wind beneath my fingers.

Anyhow, T, we’re driving these precarious winding trails through the mountains, past ginormous valleys and snow-capped peaks, and pretty soon we’re running parallel to a train (because in my imagination trains are on windy tracks through the mountains, FYI). At this point, you’re thinking we’re going to hijack it, right? We’ll get the jeep right up close and then we’ll jump aboard with some Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon move, and we’ll save whoever’s being held against their will or steal back the medicine that somebody else stole from some dying villagers. That’s what you’re thinking, right? WRONG! What we’re going to do is lay on the gas to go even faster. GO FASTER, I’ll tell the jeep. GO FASTER THAN THIS TRAIN! Our tires will be screeching, squealing, burning into the asphalt; your scarf will come loose and whip away; my coffee will taste SO AWESOMELY GOOD and soon we’ll be well ahead of that train, far enough that we can pull over, run to the side of the tracks and wait.

We’ll wait for it.

We’ll feel it coming first, the ground trembling beneath our shoes (GREAT shoes, of course, I’m thinking Louboutins but of course you can have whatever you like). Then we’ll hear it—the whistle, wheels churning on the tracks—and finally, there it is: the huge front engine, car after car behind it for miles curling around the winding tracks. It’s coming closer, faster, getting louder, louder, LOUDER, WE CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING OVER THE IMMENSITY OF SOUND and we’re so close to the tracks, our toes a few feet from the hammered metal, and when it passes us—that’s when we do it.

We scream.

We open our mouths and scream holy hell as that train pounds past—car after car and we scream and scream ‘cause there’s so much inside that needs to get out: anger and longing and no sleep and time moving too fast and sorrow and fear. We scream so long, so loud, it’s like our throats are bleeding, rubbed raw on the inside, and by the time the last car passes it’s all been drained, like we’re sponges squeezed dry. We sit on the ground, exhausted with the energy it takes to let go, and lay backwards in the grass. The sun is shining on our faces, and the backs of our closed eyelids glow red. There’s a breeze, and the grass is soft, and I move my arms and legs to make snow angels even though there’s no snow, and it feels nice to be so gloriously empty, so open for new things to fill us up, like spring and laughing and entire futures and amazing memories and past experiences and all the things we’ve been lucky enough to do and the knowledge that we still have, at the very least, this one day to live and remember and roll in the grass and drink good coffee and imagine.

After a long time, we get up. We go back to the jeep—except it’s not a jeep anymore, it’s something more practical (but still edgy. Like maybe an Element? Or a Rav 4? I TOTALLY don’t know cars) ‘cause Caleb’s in the backseat, strapped into his carseat and laughing in his sleep. We change into comfy clothes (‘cause couture and catsuits are, sadly, not for R&R) and drive down the mountain, still with our arms out the window but now the wind pushes the backs of our hands instead of our palms. After a half hour or so, we pass a little café with outdoor seating, and we order wine and watch the sun set over those snowcapped peaks, color exploding across the sky: yellow to red to midnight blue. I tell you then how sorry I am for what you’re going through, and that my thoughts are with you and your family. I tell you it SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS and nothing is fair and that SUCKS. I say words like strength and hope even when I know that lots of people have probably been trying to say the right thing to you, and there just isn’t anything right—so I stop talking and just hand you Caleb. He sits in your lap, his little fists wrapped around your thumbs, and the three of us watch the stars come out—stars for REAL, not like in the city where you can only see one or two but THOUSANDS, MILLIONS and it’s just. so. beautiful.