I headed into Brookline in the morning for my semi-annual skin checkup. These appointments at the Boston-area dermatologist's office always caused me a little anxiety because my mother died of skin cancer, and I am very fair. I spent my childhood all the way through my college summers in various shades of red--sunburn, that is--at a sleepaway camp in Maine, a beach club in my hometown, and another I worked at as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. My nose peeled constantly. I'm surprised I don't have a completely bare bone for a proboscis right now.
Without going into detail about my condition--a matter of my privacy--let's just say that I've had countless spots treated since I started getting checked the year after my mother passed on. They've been sprayed, sliced away, biopsied, and even removed surgically in a hospital. The fact is: I cannot leave an appointment without something having been done to me. It's been this way for as long as I can remember.
So when I got out of there a few days ago following only a handful of sprayings, I was downright elated. Since I had missed my previous appointment, it had been a full year.
Sometimes I get a happy feeling.
To celebrate, I drove over to Harvard Square and treated myself to my favorite dark chocolate drink at L.A. Burdick. I took a picture of it with my iPhone and posted the result on Facebook. It was the first time I had done such a thing; I needed the chocolate servers to coach me. But I felt satisfied with the small achievement and confident I could do it again without assistance.
Sometimes I get a proud feeling.
Back in the car, bopping out to Flo Rida's infectious "Good Feeling," I missed the exit for 128N that I have taken a billion times. Argh. I turned myself around and next missed the exit to REI, my favorite store! How odd. What was wrong with me?
Sometimes I get an unbalanced feeling.
My annual dividend for purchases made the previous year had just arrived in the mail. I was psyched to spend it on new clothes for the unseasonable heat. First I collected a number of shirts and shorts to try on. Then I made my way over to the cap display in the rear of the store. The need to protect my face from the harsh rays of the sun was foremost on my mind.
I was determined to find a cute cap for the beach. I've never really been a cap person, but I suspect that's going to change. While rummaging through the store's stock, I found a tan topper with an interesting detail--a double-string brown leather cord holding a rectangular metal piece. I tried on the cap and asked a salesman walking by what he thought. He gave it a thumbs up.
At that moment, a man appeared around the corner with a smelly, dirty dog in tow. I'd never seen anyone in this store with a service dog, so the encounter took me slightly by surprise. "Ask her what she thinks of the cap," the man said to me, gesturing toward his dog. A strange request, but I played along. "What do you think of this cap?" I asked the golden retriever a bit foolishly. She approached, nuzzled my leg and the edge of my shorts and wagged her tail. "She likes it!" the man exclaimed. "I'm so glad you approve," I told the dog.
As I turned toward the display to look for caps I might have missed, the man walked passed me and rounded the corner out of sight. I thought he had moved along. Yet when I came around that side, I found him touching the clothes in my cart. He lifted a pair of dark green shorts I had partially draped over my open purse, thus exposing its contents. I was stunned. Was this man about to steal from me? If not, he was at least handling the clothes I had just picked out and planned to try on. Either way, it didn't look good.
Sometimes I get an uncomfortable feeling.
"That's my stuff," I said to him in the nicest tone of voice I could muster under the circumstances. But I was feeling tense. "Oh," he responded. He seemed to be not a bit surprised, embarrassed, or apologetic. Since no one else was near us in this far section of the store at the time, it seemed inconceivable that he couldn't guess the cart was mine. "Where did you get it?" he asked about my clothing collection. "Um, the women's department," I replied, matter of factly. I resisted the temptation to use sarcasm as the situation already felt a little disturbing. Surely, I did not care to anger the man. "I have six older sisters," he added by way of explaining his interest in this woman's clothing.
Then he walked off. It took several minutes of looking for a salesperson before I could relay the incident and express my discomfort. He apologized, and later a second employee who had been informed by the first did as well. I thanked them for their concern.
Driving home, however, I felt nearly violated. Ever since two thefts occurred on my property on my private road a couple of years before, I have been highly attuned to recognizing the feeling. Nevertheless, I tried to shake it off with compassion. The salesmen told me that the man with the service dog comes into the store regularly and engages customers in conversation. But they did not know of him ever touching other people's possible purchases. That appeared to be a first. Hearing this, my heart sunk as I imagined that this man, who perhaps suffers from mental illness, frequents the store for company and to stave off loneliness.
Sometimes I get a conflicted feeling.I picked my sons up at school at the appointed time. We were at the beach within an hour. At last I could relax. The late afternoon was lovely by the ocean. The sun was hot, but my face was shielded by my new tan cap. Fantastic. Hours passed, and we decided to stay for dinner. Charlie had a fit in the sand near the roadway because the pizza arrived with no pepperoni on top. He hadn't made it clear he wanted pepperoni, so his tantrum was not justified. But it's not as if I had never seen this behavior before! I was just grateful the unattractive display did not occur directly in front of the large group of beachgoers from town whom I know.
So there I was innocently eating my pizza with artichokes (Chris's choice) when a voice cried out a short distance away: "Christopher is trapped in the sand!"
Sometimes I get a scared feeling.
I ran over to a large hole. There my older son and a second-grade friend stood buried up to the top of their legs. Chris couldn't move his lower limbs, and he wanted out! That was certain. Yet part of him clearly enjoyed the attention: He was laughing. A bunch of boys and girls standing around the hole were also laughing.
Only two people could dig the sand away from the boys' legs because the group had only two shovels--the same two shovels used to make the hole. Christopher's friend was released first. I made one attempt to free my son, but I wasn't strong enough. He weighed eight-five pounds, and his legs were pinned. Having hurt my back a little over a year earlier, I was worried about getting reinjured. So I approached the group of local adults enjoying dinner and cocktails and zeroed in on the largest man. I recruited him to help free Christopher. With one big heave-ho, my recruit popped out my boy.
Sometimes I get a relieved feeling.
Chris emerged in a mixed state--alternately giddy from excitement and mad about being buried. What happened is this: He and four or five boys and girls jumped in the hole dug by two other boys. Using my son and his friend as ladders, the other kids climbed out. Then a bunch of girls older than Chris but still in elementary school started kicking sand into the hole until the boys's legs were buried.
As Christopher's mother, I found the experience a bit jarring. Was it all in good fun? Or was it bullying? As I watched one of the girls snicker during the rescue, I tend to think it was closer to the latter.
Sometimes I get a protective feeling.
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