humor

Ode to menthol

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

In the season
of sickness,
of a rattling
in the chest
that lingers
and lingers
and lingers
I seek
your healing power
O my elixir

none other will do
as well as you

your name
is not always recorded
on cryptic inscriptions

but I know
it’s you

nothing else
has that
distinctive
burn

Alas, you have become
such an elusive elixir

I search high and low
(on the shelves)
just to find
you’ve vanished

leaving no trace

it befits you,
vaporous thing
that you are

I cannot entertain
the notion
of orange
or honey
—fie!

These cannot
open passages
like you.

I wonder
what on Earth
I shall do

but wait…

memory stirs
like ghosts
like tendrils
like vapors, yes…

my own father
pouring your
precious substance
into a little silver tray
and plugging in
the vaporizer

there I was
suffering child
surrounded
by a steamy cloud
tinged with your
cool fragrance

sputtering
sizzling
on through the
long, long night

(you’re no cure-all
for childhood asthma, btw
but I’m not dealing
with that
anymore)

and speaking
of clouds…

back there
in the shroud
of Time
where sits
my father
and
my mother
puffing
puffing
puffing
on Salem cigarettes
there, the
telltale green carton
indicates your presence

I can still smell you
on the foil
of those packs
and in the
smoke ribbons
curling in the air
(aside: salem means
peaceful
complete
safe
perfect)

—what a cool operator
you are,
alternately healing
and stealing
breath

but then…

far back
so far back
I find you
at your purest,
perhaps

sick child
that I was
struggling
to breathe
(yeah, it’s a theme)

my grandfather
going to
his medicine cabinet
for a little
cobalt-blue tub
my grandmother
unscrewing the
aqua lid
and with one finger
slathering a good dollop
under my nose

(which now
no one is
ever
ever
ever
supposed to do
although clearly
I am alive)

and it is this memory
these moments
that are salve to my soul.
balm to my spirit

and so I come
to find you
like a miracle
in my own
medicine cabinet

whereupon I slather
my own self
up good

relishing your
mint-oil fire

your vapors
like a blanket
of love
enveloping me

breathing
breathing
Yea, with
a little
more ease

until this
lingering
lingering
rattle

evaporates
at last…

O, my elixir.



Fun facts: Vick’s VapoRub was invented in 1894 in the North Carolina county next to where I live now. It was originally called Vick’s Magic Croup Salve. From the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: “The salve in the blue jar is made of menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly.” The creator invented it to cure his son of severe croup…which it did. Spanish flu killed the inventor in 1919 but, paradoxically, that pandemic drastically increased demand for his product. Oh…and guess who worked at the inventor’s drugstore as a teenager? O. Henry.

My ode, however is to menthol, not just Vick’s, seeing as I had to include my parents’ Salem menthols in the mix. I was an asthmatic child, my first attack occurring at age three months. As I grew, I often begged to stay with my grandparents when I was sick; they slathered me with this old remedy, hence my great affinity for VapoRub. Accordingly, my grandparents are ever-present in the healing power of that clean menthol burn…nowadays I am not troubled with asthma but when I feel a cold coming on, or, as in the present moment, trying to shake the rattling cough after a cold, Vick’s DayQuil with VapoCool is my go-to. It works, to which widely empty shelves attest. I finally had some delivered by Instacart (had to show ID, of course) so I can continue burning the rattle out of my chest…it’s the best thing I know of, outside of a certain homemade “recipe” made by one of my old-time church members from the country…not exactly sure what was in THAT jar, but it would’ve surely burned this stuff out long before now… that, however, is another story for another day.

Here’s to the healing power of menthol.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to Kim Johnson,
whose series on Epsom salts convinced me that I really, really should write about menthol
(which, yes, can occasionally be dangerous, so use with care)

Toadally true story

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

While working outside around the house, I paid no attention to the little brown rock in the driveway.

Until it hopped.

On closer inspection: Not a rock. A tiny, rust-colored toad, pretending to be a rock.

Reminded me, for just a fraction, of story characters who magically transform themselves into creatures or objects to avoid detection from enemies…

I leaned in while trying to maintain a respectful, non-threatening distance.

“You’re doing a magnificent job of it,” I told the toad.

Of what? its tiny taciturn face seemed to ask.

“Of pretending to be a rock,” I said.

It sighed (I think).

What gave me away?

“Well, rocks don’t hop.”

Its expression: pure disdain.

“Toads don’t talk, either,” it said, as it turned and hopped away across the hot pavement.

Okay…so this story may not be toadally true…

The toad. Less than one inch long. Stone-faced, isn’t it. Can’t decide if I’d call it Rusty or Rocky. Or perhaps just Fowler, as it appears to be a Fowler’s toad, with poisonous warts…fun fact: apparently ALL toads are poisonous. Not highly toxic to humans through touch, only if ingested (gulp). Think of those I caught as a child and brought home in my metal Peanuts lunchbox amongst the crusts of my PB&J (toadally true. Honest). Would make for fun fiction writing with students when they study animal defense mechanisms: The Revenge of the Toads…

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge
and, of course, to the toad

Blanketgeist

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

One recent morning, dark and dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary, after binge-watching vintage noir films (as if one needs more psychological drama on top of taking one’s husband for another ER visit due to his sky-high blood pressure and pains in his still-healing heart, rising pandemic numbers and escalating real-life horrors televised nonstop on the news, hurricane-spawned thunderstorms, demon-possessed Internet connectivity, and Election Year), I’d had enough couch-cocooned passivity. I tossed my safe warm blanket aside. I got up, showered, dressed, fixed my hair and makeup even if I wasn’t going to see another person but my husband and son, who’d taken his dad to pick up new prescriptions. I would face the day and whatever it held, head-on.

Having pulled myself together, feeling quite in command for the first time in a while, strolling back through the living room, picking up random bits of fluff from Dennis the dachshund’s destruction of yet another furred squeaky toy (why do we keep buying these), I noted one of my guys sitting on the couch.

Huh. Could’ve sworn they’d already gone to the pharmacy... barely glancing, bent on my fluff-retrieval mission, I said, “Hey, didn’t know you were—”

Whoever it was, sitting there on the couch, wasn’t.

There were no feet on the rug.

No legs, either.

It was the blanket. Sitting on the couch, right where I tossed it.

Now, this is when it either really pays, or really, really, really doesn’t pay to be a reader/writer/film noir binge-watcher.

Because, voilà! A STORY.

And because, Heaven help me, I know too many, truth is stranger than fiction, brains can’t always process what eyes are seeing, I overdosed on ghost stories and tabloids like National Enquirer and Weekly World News as a youngster, watched too many Twilight Zone marathons as an adult, it’s my fault I’m this wired from excessive cups of coffee, that my mind short-circuits with what and why and how, as in: How could the blanket land exactly like that and look so like a person? Albeit a kind of smallish one? Unless… unless it happens to be covering something heretofore invisible… and how long might it have been sitting here without my knowing?

But it’s only the blanket, right?

I check the driveway. Yeah, my guys are gone. No one’s here. Just me and Dennis, who saw me cleaning up his toy-wreckage and promptly took off for the bedroom to hide under the bed.

I eye this blanket. I walk around it.

All those times I told students to think what if? comes back to haunt me… What if the blanket has taken on a life of its own, after I cocooned myself in it for so long? What if my melancholy has taken form, substance, become a Thing, made manifest by the blanket? What if I’m just, like, finally losing it (would that be so terrible)?

—POP—

I almost come entirely out of my hide to leave it lying beside me as yet another separate Thing. I was beside myself …

It’s just the house popping, does it all the time, you’d think I’d be used to it by now (why is it SO LOUD, it sounds deliberate … what if someone is living in the attic? has been living there for ages and I haven’t known? … don’t be ridiculous, the floor up there is incomplete, no one has fallen through the ceiling… yet…).

Well.

The blanket isn’t moving.

It’s just sitting. Rather benignly.

I decide to take a few photos (proof, you know. In case of… whatever).

That’s what I said I was ready to face, right? The day and whatever it held? Head-on?

Be careful what you wish for…

So silly. Absurd. Over it.

Time to reveal what is and isn’t real. I reach for the edge of the blanket and

—is that faint chuckling I hear?

Happy place

/ Fran Haley / 30 Comments

Sitting in the surgical room, waiting for a minor outpatient procedure, I try to redirect my sense of dread by listening to the nurses chatting:

“The knees, they’re the most unforgiving body part.”

“How about the uterus? The uterus is a vindictive organ. You mess with it and it’s going to fight back.”

Immediately I am looking all over the room for something to write with: The uterus is a vindictive organ –! That’s got to be one of the best lines I’ve heard in my entire life. Profound and very possibly inarguable . . . .

But pens apparently aren’t needed in the surgical room, as I can’t see one anywhere, and even if I did, I can’t get to it, I’m hooked to an IV, and besides, here comes a nurse, still talking: “The liver, now, it has a great sense of humor, but the uterus has absolutely none. —How ya doin’?”

She’s addressing me. “Oh!” I say, still etching the dialogue into my brain in a desperate attempt to preserve it. “I’m, um, good.”

—What does she mean, the liver has a great sense of humor? Because it’s able to regenerate? Or is there some other reason? What can that possibly be?

“So, you know you’ll get propofol, right, and this will all be over in a jif,” she says cheerily, busying herself with the tubes and such.

—Propofol. Isn’t that what killed Michael Jackson?

I am just about to ask when the anesthesiologist comes in and says, “All right, let’s do this.”

I want to say, Hang on a second, I really need to know about the liver’s sense of humor, when the anesthesiologist says in a low, silken voice:

“Do you have a happy place?”

I so know what THIS is. Get me talking about something happy so I’ll go under peacefully. A completely obvious ploy.

I don’t want to be put under, I don’t want to talk about my happy place, I want to know about the liver’s sense of humor before I wear myself out wondering about it.

But the moment’s upon me and suddenly this question about my happy place makes me want to cry.

See, I think my happy place is a little like Heaven, and if I start talking about it—will I wake up?

—No need to fight. Just embrace it, says my own voice in my own head. At least, I think it’s my own voice.

So I say, “Yes, I have one.”

“Tell me about it,” says the silken voice, as warm as a blanket.

I sigh. “My grandparents’ home.”

“Where’s that?” asks the liver-humor nurse.

“In Beaufort County, out in the country. Some people say at the end of the world.”

“Why were you happy there?” coos the anesthesiologist.

“Well, because they were there. My grandparents. I always wanted to be with them.”

And they always wanted me, I think, but I don’t say it aloud. I can see them, faintly, as I speak. Standing out in the yard, watching for my arrival. One or the other or both, every time they knew I was coming. Watching, waiting.

“What was it like there?”

I’m not sure who asked this.

I can see it as I speak, as if through a window in my mind. The blue sky, the trees. Grandma’s azaleas, the camellia bush, the orchard, Granddaddy’s garden, the old hen house. I am not sleepy, yet. Maybe I can fight this, a bit . . .

“I grew up in the city and in the summers I’d go stay with my grandparents. I loved the country. It was a little paradise . . .”

It was love personified, love-infused, love written in the veins of every leaf, in every blade of grass, in the black earth itself that gave back so abundantly of what was given,  love echoing in every birdsong, in the vibration of every cicada, love painted on the iridescent bodies of dragonflies in a place more alive than any other I have ever known.

“Time to wake up, now,” says a gentle voice in my ear.

—Grandma? Is it morning, already?

I’m so sleepy, still.

“Here you go. It’s all over, and everything is fine. You did great.”

It’s the liver-humor nurse.

I’m dressed, wheeled out to the car, buckled in beside my husband who’s driving, and well on my way home before I realize:

I STILL don’t know why the liver has a great sense of humor.

Thinking fast

/ Fran Haley / Leave a comment

Fish

Image: 甘 泉 CC BY

A carnival came to town when my older son was three. The highlight of this event, you might surmise, was our elephant ride. If you ever plan to ride a real, albeit relatively small elephant, here are some tips: Be prepared to rock precariously from side to side. Hold on with your knees. Wear jeans, because elephants have unexpected long black hairs that stick straight up to pierce your legs. I felt quite exotic, but, alas, it was not the pachyderm that made the boy’s day.  He was completely captivated by the silver goldfish he won all by himself, playing ring toss.

On the way home, envisioning an inadvertent water bomb disaster involving the plastic baggie and the sidewalk, my husband said, “Son, let me carry the fish for you.”

Our boy, who was walking an inch  or so taller, puffed his little chest out. “I won’t drop it!”

“So, what are you going to name your fish?” I asked, trying not to hover.

“Flipper!” Oh, the power of television syndication. The boy held the bag up to his face, beaming. “Hey, Flipper!”

Transferring Flipper from the bag to a large jar was tantamount to a birth: “Be careful! Don’t let him fall!” Our boy watched with big eyes, nearly holding his breath, as I poured his prized possession into a new living space.

We placed the jar on the living room mantel. I explained: “Fish are not supposed to be carried around. They need a safe place. Flipper will be fine here and you can look at him all you want to.”

The boy seemed content with this arrangement. “All right.”

For the next day or two, he could be found in the living room at random moments, staring up at his fish. I listened from the hallway: “Hey, Flipper! Are you hungry? Do you like swimming in your jar? This is your new home!”

Then: “I love you, Flipper.”

Flipper was the first thing he looked for in the mornings and after his naps. He was taking a long nap later in the week when his dad and I had to leave for a dinner meeting. I prepped the babysitter: “He will want to check on Flipper when he wakes up. The boy loves that fish.”

The babysitter chuckled. “That’s so cute!”

The dinner meeting ran longer than expected. Knowing our son would be in bed for the night, my husband and I entered the house quietly. The babysitter met us at the door, wringing her hands:

“Let me just tell you that as soon as you left, I went to see that fish. He didn’t look so great. I tapped on the jar to see if he would move, but no. A floater. Totally dead. I thought ‘What am I going to do? I gotta get him out of here before the boy notices!’ So I flushed him. I figured I’d think of something to say later. Then your son woke up. He said he needed to use the bathroom so I took him. Just as he was finishing the last few drops, he points at the toilet and goes: ‘Is that Flipper in there?’ Heaven help me! I didn’t know the fish hadn’t gone down! I had to think fast. I said, ‘Wow, look at that! You just peed a fish!'”

Exactly what we told the boy about the absence of Flipper and his jar on the mantel is lost in time; all we remember now is the ingenious save – of the moment, if not of the poor fish.

Reflect: When has thinking fast served you well? When have you switched gears in the middle of something to rescue the moment?