I Went For Coffee and Took A Turn Into “The Twilight Zone”
Narrator: There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.
— The Twilight Zone, 1959, Season One
My narrator: Meet Roxanne, a divorced mother of five who sometimes forgets to eat, or chooses to save a simple breakfast bar for her children rather than “waste” it on herself. It’s an ordinary day for Roxanne, who had left home for her only true indulgence — getting her morning coffee. She didn’t know that when she returned into her neighborhood, she would cross into . . . The Twilight Zone.
Over the weekend we had some icy snow in my part of the world. I was out running errands (in other words: getting coffee). On the way home I was wondering whether I could get my children to shovel the sidewalks for me, doubted that they would before going to visit their father and worried about whether doing it myself would throw my back out again. My Aching Back A neighbor offered to pay my daughter to do hers. I wished that daughter or any of the children would do ours also, without back talk, threats or rewards — and before they had to go. It probably wouldn’t happen. I got my coffee, and while there I picked up my daughter’s favorite breakfast sandwich as a treat, plus I wanted her to get something warm in her belly before going out to shovel the neighbor’s walkway. As is often the case, I didn’t get a sandwich for myself, saving a couple of bucks, not wanting to spend the money on — me. As I turned into my neighborhood, I had my daily thoughts of “I really hate this neighborhood, I don’t like living here.” Followed by, “I wonder if I can figure out a way to move again but keep the kids in the same schools.” And rounding out the trilogy, “Don’t be ridiculous, there’s no reason to move except that you don’t like it here and that’s just not a good enough reason.”
Given all these thoughts rushing through my head it was rather amazing that I happened to spot a woman on the side of the road. She had plastic grocery store bags spread in front of her in the snow, was shaking and clenching her hands and seemed to be trying to figure out a way to pick them up again. Clearly she was struggling to carry her groceries home in the snow.
I stopped, backed up, asked if she wanted a ride. She only gave pause for a moment and eyed me to make sure I didn’t look like a crazy. (Sometimes I can appear quite normal . . . but I digress). It was bitter cold outside. She accepted the ride, put her bags in the back seat and sat up front next to me, thanking me. She explained that she rushed out so quickly to get some things from the store that she had forgotten her gloves. It wasn’t that the bags were heavy, she said, it was that her hands were frozen and she couldn’t hold them anymore. “My hands hurt so bad,” she said.
It didn’t really matter to me why she was in her predicament, I just wanted to get her home. It was too damn cold and icy to walk, especially with groceries, no cart and no gloves. She went on to explain that her brother couldn’t shovel the car out because of his eye. His eye. Huh. I pondered this. Why would his eye keep him from shoveling . . . maybe he’d had surgery? I drifted off to my own little world, thoughts racing for first place in my head.
Then my passenger said, “I’m Roxanne.”
Skid marks on the brain. Thoughts stopped on a dime.
“Get OUT!!!” I responded, perhaps a little too energetically, reminiscent of Elaine from Seinfeld.
“What?” she responded, looking concerned. It was an unfortunate choice of words for my exclamation — I mean, saying “Get Out!” to a passenger in my car! Smooth, Roxanne.
“MY name is Roxanne,” I quickly explained.
“Really?’
“Yes. Really. Wow, that’s wild.” It’s a fairly uncommon name. It was surreal.
Roxanne said that I could drop her at a nearby intersection but I told her, no, I would take her all the way home. During the ride I discovered that we had gone to the same high school, and though I had assumed she was older than me, it turned out but she was too young for me even to have known her from school. She appeared worn beyond her years. I didn’t recall ever having seen her in the neighborhood or around town. It was odd.
So what of my surprise passenger, Roxanne? A woman who shared my name, who was walking alone in the snow-covered street, who failed to think of her own needs while rushing to meet the needs of others. The consequences of her neglect of self was finding herself standing in the snow with frozen fingers, groceries at her feet and blocks from home. For whatever reason– her family was not there to help her and she had to accept a ride from a stranger.
It gave me pause.
I’m that Roxanne, too, coming home with a sandwich for a child so that she could shovel another family’s walk but bringing no food for myself.
I almost said to the other Roxanne, “How could you leave home without gloves? You’ve got to take care of yourself. You’re no good to anybody if you get sick or frostbite.” But what stopped me, other than that being creepy coming from a stranger, is that other people have been saying that to me lately. My therapeutic goals are largely based upon meeting my basic self-care needs without guilt.
“Roxanne, have you been eating and sleeping? You can’t take care of your family if you don’t take care yourself.” I’ve heard often. Too often.
Did the universe send me that other Roxanne to remind me that I need to help myself? I mean, I know that when I get sick, the whole system fails. I know this, yet I still need reminders that protecting myself from the elements, eating, sleeping and yes even doing something just for my sheer enjoyment of it is as important as, well — anything. Somehow, that reminder got in my car that day, and her name was Roxanne.
I dropped Roxanne off feeling good about having helped her, since it was so very cold outside, but I knew that both of us need to take care of ourselves. I need to take care of me.
Maybe picking up a reflection of myself — what I could become, what I have been . . . was meant to be that day.
My Narrator: Roxanne, a functioning, yet melancholy divorced mother who often puts her basic needs well behind those in her care, stops in the snow to assist an eerily familiar woman in distress, a woman who perhaps shares more than just her name in . . . The Twilight Zone.
Just Me With . . . an over-active imagination?
P.S. I told my therapist about it. She queried whether the woman was real.
I’m not even going there.
See the Sequel: The Twilight Zone — Again? Seriously?
Surveillance With My Mother — the “Look-Out”
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: at some point in our lives, we find ourselves in the bushes in some sort of surveillance situation. I know, with all the electronic information gathering capabilities we don’t have to drive by a boyfriend’s house anymore, we can check his Facebook wall and see what he’s up to and who he’s up under. Still, sometimes a girl needs more.
My divorce was nasty. At one point there was a War of the Roses situation. If you don’t know the reference, it was a movie where there was a wealthy couple going through a contentious divorce. The children were grown and gone and the couple was arguing over, among other things, the substantial, valuable marital home that had been painstakingly restored by the wife while the husband concentrated on his career, which flourished. During the separation the husband, upon advice of his counsel, moved back into the family home while his wife was still living there. Comedy, drama, wreckage and bloodshed ensued. Needless to say, it is a dark, black comedy.
Well, without going into all the sad details of my situation, though we’d been separated for a couple of years, my husband’s attorney advised him to move back into the house, without my invitation or permission. Unlike War of the Roses, though, we weren’t wealthy, and our kids were young and living right there — so to me, this was unforgivable. The fact was, however, the home was marital property and we were still married. Absent physical abuse I could do nothing except file civil motions to get him out, which would take weeks.
In the meantime, I suspected my husband was still keeping his apartment and his moving in with us was harassment, not a necessity, a fact that may become important in the upcoming hearings. Any evidence I could get of this might prove helpful, especially since he had stated in legal filings that he still lived “at home.” Perjury, anyone?
Well, during our War of the Roses, or as I sometimes called it, the “Home Invasion” — ooh I guess now I could call it “Occupy Wisteria Lane” or something . . . but I digress . . . I had already noted that he never showered at our house and only brought one small suitcase. His other stuff must be somewhere, he must be showering somewhere. Also, he usually drove a company car to work and left his car at his apartment. However, during the home invasion he never left his car at the house during the day (probably afraid that something would happen to it) so I suspected he was leaving the car at his apartment. I needed to document this. I could do this myself, I thought. Call it frugal, call it broke, but I wasn’t going to pay a private investigator or my lawyer for simple evidence gathering.
The Plan:
Get pictures of his car at his apartment complex. Simple.
What I Needed:
I needed to visit his apartment complex while he was at work — and I needed a partner– a lookout, if you will, to assist me.
Enter: My seventy something mother. She was willing, yet justifiably skittish.
We drove together under cover of darkness — wait, no we didn’t, it was a beautiful bright Spring day. The apartment complex wasn’t gated so I could just drive in. It was a swanky place, there were always landscapers working, keeping the grounds perfectly manicured. This was a complex primarily occupied by single professionals or child-free professional couples. It had a pool, a gym, a sauna, a recreation room . . . grrrr . . . . but I digress.
I drove closer to his apartment, and . . . I saw his car!
Jackpot.
I pulled over and parked a safe distance away and started taking pictures, but I couldn’t get a good enough picture of his car which also showed the apartment building. I’d have to get out.
My mother and I sunk down in our seats while I thought. I also pretended to talk on my phone. An excellent cover, by the way. We didn’t look so out-of-place sitting in the car if I was on the phone. Back to the problem. I had concerns: What if the car was there because he’s actually home and not at work? What if he pops “home” during the day. I mean I didn’t know his schedule anymore — he was my estranged husband for goodness sake even though we were kind of living together. But, I reasoned, I was there, might as well go for it. I reminded myself that this man, after leaving me — and leaving me a mess, simply moved back “home” as a legal maneuver. Yeah, I was going to do this.
“Okay, Mom, I’m going to get out. I’m going to walk over, take some pictures and then get in the car.”
“You’re going to get in? ”
“Yes.”
“Why not?” I thought. “I still have a car key, it’s marital property — just like the house. If he can move in our house, I can get in our car! There might be something helpful and I can take more pictures without calling attention to myself.” In hindsight, it really didn’t matter if I had been seen by him or anyone else. I wasn’t trespassing and I was getting in my own car. And even if my husband saw me? Whatever. I was in public. What was he going to do? Plus, I could take a picture of him at his place. Still, I’d rather not have been seen.
Back to the plan. I instructed my mom, “I need you to be my lookout. Look around when I’m gone, if you see him come out of the apartment or see his company car driving in, call my cell.” I cued up my number so she’d be ready. I was fully prepared to run and dive behind some of the perfectly manicured shrubbery– if necessary.
Clearly I had seen too many of the various Law and Orders, CSI, NCIS, The Fugitive and all the Bourne movies.
I walked — all casual like — down the path. I took some beautiful pictures of his (I mean “our”) car in front of his very cool apartment complex, showing his apartment door in the background. I think I even got pictures of his bicycle on his apartment balcony. The date and time would show up on the pictures, and I had a witness — also known as my mom.
The next part of my plan was to get in the car — there could be something with his actual address on it, plus I needed pictures of the empty back of the car, showing he was not keeping his worldly possessions there.
My car key was already in my hand and ready.
I got in — all casual like.
Meanwhile . . . my mom was freaking out. She called my oldest sister, who called her grown children. The word was out: Grandmom was on a surveillance and evidence gathering assignment.
The responses were all over the place.
Granddaughter Number One, the conservative one, apparently said to my sister: “I don’t think Grandmom should be doing this. This can’t be good for her. Too much stress.”
Granddaughter Number Two, the less conservative one, was all over it: “I think it’s cool. It gives Grandmom something to do. She needs that. I think it’s good for her. I wish I could help.”
My Mom (the Grandmom): “I want to go home now. Can we go home now?”
We didn’t tell my Dad. Guys don’t need to know everything.
Meanwhile, I was in — the car, that is. I quickly got what I needed: pictures of a car which was free of personal belongings, a utility bill in his name showing he was still paying the electric bill to his apartment, and a bank statement, which showed that he had money, and that he was giving some money to his ex? girlfriend. I didn’t take a thing, leaving with nothing but the photographs in my camera. I emerged from his (I mean “our“ ) car — all casual like — and strolled back into my (I mean “our” other) car. I drove off slowly, trying desperately not to call attention to myself at this hip apartment complex. I was determined to blend — in my beat up old minivan, with a nervous and mumbling old lady at my side.
Whatever, mission accomplished. I had the goods.
And in the process, I had turned out my own mother — she was now a common look-out for her daughter’s questionable –but perfectly legal –evidence gathering activity.
Just Me With . . . a camera and a plan — all casual like — and a mom.
If you’ve never seen it, you should check out War of the Roses. It’s a disturbingly enjoyable movie.
Gavin, the Attorney: “There are two dilemmas . . . that rattle the human skull. How do you hold onto someone who won’t stay? And how do you get rid of someone who won’t go?”
War of the Roses
I’ve experienced both — with the same guy.
Just Me With . . . 