Shelf Life

[The following is an essay about dreams titled, Shelf Life, that I wrote for a class I'm taking this semester.]

I’ve gone catatonic in front of the pulsing cursor on my computer screen, and there is nothing left to do but go to the grocery store. It’s raining, thunder and lightning, and the only umbrella in the closet is broken. I don’t want to grocery shop any more than I want to stand in the storm, pointing my faulty umbrella to the heavens. The budget is tight so I make a list, as I always do: Bread, milk, sugar, romaine, rigatoni, spaghetti sauce.

In addition to being a writer of lists I spend many days writing other things like stories, essays and poetry. The quality is inconsistent and my publications spotty. Still, the aspiration of a book with my name on the cover has long hovered out of reach. I sense it pulling away further as I drive out of the neighborhood with my list of needs, a dream disconnection.

The rain is torrential, immersive. At a red light my foot brakes while my mind reels. At almost thirty-nine I have lived for this hovering author ship to come in with more intensity than I care to admit. Acceptances are few and rejection is the norm, yet finally I had finished a novel that took years to write. My writer colleagues gave the green light for submission.

Green light. Hydroplane down watery Clinton Street, turn into the parking lot. “Just get it over with and get home,” I think. Sliding automatic doors open into a world that is all fluorescence and all for sale. The groceries glow. The greeter, a cheerful woman in a decades old hairstyle says, “Hi! Thanks for shopping today!” This, along with music piped in directly from the seventies, convinces me I’ve stepped into a grocery themed time warp. I grow suspicious of the looming produce.

“Your novel is like an uncut gem,” emailed the agent. “I would be willing to look at it again, but it would have to be quite different. It will take great skill on your part to make it sparkle enough for the current market.”

While I am well acquainted with rejection and have learned to anticipate it, somehow I had dared to hope for more. The sting of humiliation prompted a slow crawl into my bed with the covers pulled up in a kind of cottony cocoon. My family hovered and then left me to sleep.

“You must rewrite it and send it back to her,” my published friends told me. “Your foot is in the door.”

But I am in the grocery store, listening to melancholy love songs from the decade of my birth. I am tired of caring about budgets and separating want from need. The cart pulls me up and down the aisles and I contemplate Kalamata olives and marinated mushrooms. Not being able to afford either, I buy both. The jars are decadent, vague little victories and I feel a little more awake.

I am almost thirty-nine years old, for Pete’s sake grow up. I do have other identities: Wife, mother, friend, substitute teacher. Child of God. The wait for this Ultimate Validation has muted my other selves in anticipation of some illuminating Authorial Context.

I stand in the health and beauty section deciding between Loreal, “because I’m worth it,” and Suave, “at a price that works for my life.” Dan Fogelberg croons over the public address system, triggers emotional eating binges all over the store. Why didn’t I get my teaching certificate like everyone told me to? And when did I start expecting success?

“Your novel is an uncut gem. It will take great skill on your part to make it sparkle enough for the current market.” My skills feel exhausted already, and I lose my balance in thoughts of whether this is worth it or if I even want to write anymore. Quitting might cost less. I do not want to put failure on the list, but I am on a budget.

Romaine, rigatoni, spaghetti sauce. I pick up bell peppers one after another in search of imperfections and toss the winners in my basket. An elderly couple is bent together beside me and absorbed in apple inspections, as if this is the last thing they might ever do. I study them and wonder if finding one’s place in the world is being, most completely, wherever you are.

An acquaintance waves from the end of an aisle and I am confronted with small talk. “Kids are so expensive, aren’t they?” she says, and “What are your children doing outside of school this year?” Her questions are harmless, an easy making of conversation, but my hair bristles because I don’t want to talk about the saxophone or soccer or gymnastics. I don’t want to consider the prospect that what my children do might be more important than the people they are. “They are enjoying life,” I say, and she looks puzzled.

I stand in the check-out line surrounded by catatonic stares from starlets on magazine covers. At five I dreamed of being a bagger at the A&P because the idea of items fitting inside a crispy paper bag appealed to my desire for structure. I wonder how many other dreams I outgrew, and if that is what is happening now. Out of habit I consider writing about this, and maybe I will.

The doors slide open. I push my cart into the downpour and consider the lifespan of a raindrop, then wonder if I am dreaming: They tumble from the sky like sparkling gems and people hurry in between them, shielding themselves with umbrellas and protecting their carts full of need, but I stand motionless, to watch this beautiful storm.