Some Things I Know About Myself

I was born in a blizzard.
One of my grandfathers was a soldier, separated from his wife of five days for four years to fight a war he believed in. He wrote her letters that were opened by men who outranked him to make sure his words didn’t give away too many details about his location.
My other grandfather’s phone number was listed in the phone book under the machine shop he worked for with the words “after hours” written next to it. He was stern and serious, and when he smiled at you, that meant you’d impressed him, and that was a lot.
I was born in a blizzard.
One of my grandmothers was a teacher. And one day, she took home a poor boy she felt sorry for, and gave him a coat. While my grandfather was away at war, she collected records. Stan Getz, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra. She would play them softly and wait.
My other grandmother raised seven children. She gave birth to one of them at home, alone, because my grandfather couldn’t make it to their three-bedroom farmhouse in time. She was a die-hard Democrat, and she was suspicious of most people. Sometimes she’d make her children brake branches of off the trees outside their house so she could hit them. She was probably more scared than her children were.
I was born in a blizzard.
My father was the king of puns. He probably didn’t think he was good at much. He could draw pretty well, and he could knock a can off a post with his gun. But he was the best at stringing words together in peculiar ways that made other clever people laugh.
My mother used to wear potato sacks for dresses. She used to get hit with branches from trees. When she went to college, she was running across a parking lot in the dark and tripped over a wire and knocked her teeth out. She married a man who wasn’t good at much, except making her smile – on the days when he could bring himself out the dark long enough to make funny words collide.
I was born in a blizzard.
My sister didn’t used to worry so much. She used to watch Saturday cartoons with me and Wil in caves we built out of chairs and blankets in the room we shared. She used to smoke cigarettes, and I thought that was cool.
My brother has always been my hero. He’s the only person I’ve ever known who did exactly what he wanted to. And to a person who is overcome with regret and fear, that is something to admire. He doesn’t look back and he doesn’t plan ahead. When we were teenagers, he used to make us pineapple upside-down cakes at 2 in the morning. And when he hugs you, you can tell that he means it.
And I was born in a blizzard.
It was February of 1978, and no one was supposed to be on the road. I guess my parents were excited; maybe they were worried. I wonder if they didn’t want me to come just then, if I was an inconvenience. Most of the time, I think I still am – and not just to them.
My wife was born a year and a half later in a city 70 miles away. When she was in elementary school, one of the boys in her class said she talked like a frog. When she broke her arm on the playground, a janitor named Sweeney carried her into the school she used to beg her mom not to take her to. She’s brilliant and sarcastic and judgmental and jealous. And one day, she’s going to change the world. I believe that.
Her birthday shares October with Halloween, one of my mother’s favorite holidays. They sat at the same table with me this morning for breakfast. Neither had much to say to the other, and I couldn’t think of anything clever.
I was born in a blizzard.And I want to die. In a blizzard. After I’ve said all my goodbyes with all the right words. I wonder constantly about how soon that will happen. And I wonder how long I’m obligated to be here.
All the little good parts of us are disappearing.