salience

Friday afternoon I was staring off into space, thinking. Thinking about my life and the extent of my grandma's impact upon it. After a few minutes I realized I was looking at the picture of her and grandpa on my desk, taken many decades ago, when they were both clean and dressed up for some formal. It's a picture that had originally been damaged, but el papa had it reconstructed. What was eerie was that I wasn't just looking at my grandma in this picture, but both at her and at my reflection in the picture frame glass. It looked a little something like this:



Even though I feel as though the world should stop, at least for a few seconds please, I'm glad it hasn't. It's nice to have a routine to shake me out of this depression. Classes are in full swing: I'm taking intro to music (a cool group of people who all have backgrounds in music actually); management and operations; marketing; corporate finance; and a modernismo spanish class taught by a really cool Argentinian. I've arranged my classes so that I have 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and only intro to music the rest of the week. It was tough at first, a throw back to high school, having class from 9 until 3 straight. But I'm anticipating getting a research assistant job with the organizational behavior studies department so I will have a means of paying for off campus housing this summer. I got the college works painting internship, I've signed on the dotted line and everything. It's stressful already, pricing different options on getting a car up here, all 1,110 miles away from Alpharetta (Georgia). But I want the challenge of running (and being successful in) my own business. Band stuff is insane as well: concert band, woodwind ensemble, bc symphony, and conducting classes with Dave.

My life is very full, but satisfying.
It's a good place to be.
And I'm taking it a day at a time with great people.

And so I said to her, just be careful. Grandma is el papa's mom, the only link remaining between him and death. Tread lightly. And she said:

I'm treading so lightly, I would be floating if it weren't for gravity. Everything seems muted here, as if someone pressed a pillow to my ears. I don't want grandma to die.

And I don't know what to say.

It's like tears suffocate my words and all I can do is nod.
Knowing my baby sister is mourning before death chokes me.
She is hurting.
And I am not there to hold her.

It's not me.
I know I can handle it.
Even while on the phone with la mama tonight.
I've already cried.

No, it's things like this that break my heart:

Monday January 26th, 2004 7:42pm
From: Carmen
To: Maria

Um, in case dad hasn't told you yet, Grandma is dying. Get a suitcase packed, and a black dress. I expect we'll be going to San Antonio soon.

Carmen

I went to pick up my mail today because I was expecting books from Logan (which are wonderful, thank you) when I noticed I had not one, but two boxes. One from Amazon.com (Logan) and one from Ocean Park, WA. There are only two people I know from WA at BC, neither or whom would be sending me a box at school.

And then it hit me.
He, my idol.
Mr. Chuck himself, he lives in WA.
Palahniuk: the literary genius.

Some of you may remember the letter I wrote Palahniuk back in November...

I raced back to the dorm, burst into the common room and threw down my things.

With my girls by my side, I tore open the box, and sure enough, he had not only written me back, but sent me a package!! What was in it?? Where do I start?!

On top was a typed letter, then dollar store goodies he is famous for randomly buying, an autographed copy of Fugitives and Refugees, his latest release--which I just bought before coming back to BC, a manuscript of Guts, the excerpt from his upcoming book he read on his Diary tour (yeah, the one that made people pass out, the only book tour with a body count), a rubber duckie, Paper Street Soap (Fight Club reference, Palahniuk fan collectable), and a necklace he made for me, complete with "To Maria Suarez," as well as "From Chucky P," both spelled out in letter beads.

Don't worry, I've uploaded pictures of it all. :)

What did the letter say??
Read it for yourself:

Dear Maria,

I never really know what to write back to people. Most times, I'd like to forget anyone ever reads my work. So instead of writing, I've made you a necklace. I know... creepy. But it gets boring, just putting together words. This is more like putting together rocks. Like Denny in Choke. Plus the colors and shapes. It's a good change from boring black-and-white words.

Yes, I really DID make this for you.

The beads really are rocks. The big, yellow one is honey amber my brother, Matt, sent me from South Africa. The sparkling ones are goldstone, and the faceted ones are citrines. Other beads are malachite, garnets, carnelians, and silver. The brass bells, I found at the University of Oregon, where the last three people fainted while I read the story "Guts." That makes the total for the whole book tour: 39 faintings.

Wow, the ordeal you put yourself through. Relax. Diary will be around forever-ish, and a paperback next year. For now, here's something you won't see for a while. Here's a copy of Guts the short story/chapter from the 2005 book: Haunted. In February it will come out in Playboy, but here's an early look if you promise NOT to share it. Please.

For now, wear the rock necklace, and it will bring you good luck. And Merry Christmas.

I'll shut up now,
Chuck Palahniuk

(and written in red and black marker over his typed words:)

Your power squirrel is enclosed!! Yes, I made this for you!! Merry Christmas!! You're a finance major...? ...you should write at least on the side...

I can't even contain my euphoria of having my favorite author acknowledging my writing.

And yes, I'm wearing his necklace.
Chucky P's creation for me.

So a couple of days ago, if you had asked me, I never would have said I would want to intern in Boston this summer. It doesn't appeal to me for many reasons: being away from family, being away from friends, living costs, etc. And then I heard about an internship, where if accepted, interns run their own business. Build it from nothing, market services, hire employees, teach employees, pay employees, et al. The program tells you what your service will be, provides you with the money (the intern isn't allowed to invest any of her own money), the contacts for supplies, workers' insurance, mentors who've been successful in the program previously, et al. But I would have to stay in Boston, and I would need a car. The program is called College Works Painting. Price Waterhouse Coopers recruits directly from program alumni. In other words, it is realistic to be contracted with PWC prior to the start of senior year.

My first interview with the recruiter went well. The young woman was impressed with my resume and asked me for a second interview with the chief financial investor for the MA division, a millionaire, 2003 BU graduate, 23 years old. So I put together a folder of my resume, the program application and my questions I had of the program, standard, and interviewed. Not only did it go well, but Jason Brown considers me engaging as well as promising, and wants me to skip the third interview entirely and go straight to the final round.

This is good news, right? Flattering, yes. Good? I'm not so sure.

You see, not only do I need a car, but this job would start next month. The training of all new managers (read: interns) starts early so kids can have as much time as they need for planning and coming up with marketing strategies. Painting houses is a very simple task, but that is not the point. It is only the vehicle for real world experience. I need a car because there is no office. Managers are constantly on the move: recruiting new work and overseeing current projects, all the while reporting to the program directors.

The program is something out of a dream: no office, desk job. But a stack of cash I am to manipulate.

As much as I want to be able to say this internship belongs to me, my first instinct, there is a lot of up front cost I am going to have to swallow. I will not be able to live on campus during the summer and will have to sublet an apartment with parking. I will have to pay the outrageous gas prices and deal with Boston traffic.

Can I figure out all of the logistics and go into this "4th" interview saying, hire me because I can do this?

1. It's been a long while folks, I know. And I have been writing, yes. But it is all very dark--I have this habit of only writing when I need to bleed. Writing writing. I pick up a pen and slash my wrist and let my blood spill words on a blank page. Ranting, containing, feeling.

2. I bought the new Ani D. disc today. Yeah, her new work, solo business. There are very few people who affect me the way she does. For some reason, her music, expression, art rips out my heart one second only to feed it back to me the next. Causing me pain and then walking me back to understanding by streets I hadn't considered before, indeed if I even knew they were there to begin with.

3. It's a new semester, another beginning. It's surreal to me--I'm waiting for an end. I can't not jump whenever one of my phones rings. I am ever waiting for the news, clutching a mental list of what I will need for five day mourning, if she should leave us. When she leaves us. And I feel, but I am nothing but delayed reactions. I hear you, trust me. Just give me time to catch the echo, I'll meet you at the end of the fog.

Apathetic is accurate. I want to be many things to many people, but I can't move past this glass wall. Before I can enrich anyone else effectively, I have to move past myself. I am progressing, but I haven't yet grasped what I'm reaching for.

And who am I to say I can do all this?
What makes me think I deserve these dreams?
Why can't I be satisfied with mediocre and safe?
Why do I want to move space instead of just merely occupy it?
Where did this insatiable need for only exceptional come in?

So many emotions.
But I'm holding random consonants.
I'm bankrupt when it comes to this scrabble communication.
Nouns and tears are all I am right now.
Maybe tomorrow I can find the vowels I need.
Maybe then I can explain it all to myself.

Her most recent expiration date is the end of this month.
We are now in the fifth and final stage of Leukemia, you see.

And I'm in a weird place. I’m okay with the fact that these may be my last memories of a woman who has had such an impact on my life. These final moments with the only woman people say I look like in my family. She will die here. In this would-be-cheery, sea foam green room, now in a nursing home just down the street from my uncle. After 49 days in Southeast Baptist her Medicare ran out and she had to leave. They could and would do no more.

Now she is here.

She shares these four walls with some older woman, who’s asleep most of the time. We don’t ask what she has. The lesions on her face scare us to silence. I’m the only one of our group of seven (my brother and sisters, my uncle’s kids with his second wife and I) who is comfortable sitting next to her. Every now and again she’ll ask me to tell her about school or what I think of my cousin Teresa getting married at 22. It’s nice to know I can make her laugh when she’s clearly feeling so much pain. The worst thing is to see el papa’s eyes when he looks at her. It’s like Palahniuk says in one of his books, the only thing in her skin is bones. She is deflated, her nails long and yellow. Her skin is flaky, snake-like. How they shed a complete layer of skin all at once. Except she hasn’t shed it yet--it’s still only dehydrated, attached and rough.

Her eyes though, they're the same as they've always been.
When she smiles at me, looking almost through me, I know.
This will be what I remember most clearly.
These will be the eyes that haunt me.
Especially when we leave her for Georgia tomorrow.
My reflection will never match what she sees.
And there isn't enough time.