On humility

I tried to make five loaves of tomato-basil sourdough. Instead I made ten. The recipe that I quintupled was for two loaves. I ran out of good flour and went to the okay flour. Other than that, I followed the recipe. Except I didn’t have paprika, so used cayenne instead. Oh and some experimental precut fridge proofing. Other than that, though, to a tee. They all turned out fine. I’ve been getting pretty good at bread. It’s simple: follow the recipe. Like really follow it. With a scale and everything. Exact measurements. Put aside the notion that you are talented and have an innate skill for bread, because you don’t, not at first. Humble yourself and submit to the instructions of the recipe-maker. And — this part’s important — read the whole thing first, so you don’t end up with more dough than your oven can handle and ten loaves of too-spicy bread.

When the final loaves were cooling on the stove, Seth and I went to play basketball. We’ve been getting pretty good at it. Or so we thought. And we tricked some strangers into thinking so too, because they invited us to play three-on-three. They needed a sixth. Seth and I swapped in. That’s how we learned that we’re still terrible. We had transported into a new universe with creatures that were more basketball than human. Their hands, feet, torsos were all an extension of the ball at play. They were each in five places at once. They were flying through the air and made of the earth. They were sturdy as mountains and fluid as rivers. They scored nine times before our team scored once. 

Humiliated, we fled to New York. Do you ever feel like you are good at being alive, then go to New York City and realize you’re wrong? It used to be like that with me. The city that’s somehow too hot and too cold at the same time, with urine everywhere but nowhere to pee, with too much of everything except the thing you need. But I’m better now. I’m getting pretty good at enjoying New York. The trick is to spend time in Jersey instead, for the view. We learned that Frank Sinatra sang “it’s up to you, New York” when he was sitting in Hoboken eating a roast beef sandwich and giving up on life. But then he decided to go and be Frank Sinatra. Don’t you wish you could do that? 

But we didn’t spend all our New York time in Jersey. We ran ten miles to Coney Island, where everything was closed except one hot dog place with milkshakes. We drank the milkshake first so we could end lunch on a warm stomach. It was cold anyway. Fifty degrees and windy. We shivered as we watched seagulls play keep-away with each other. One would find a piece of trash in the water, grab it, and the others would clamor over his treasure; he would scare them off and hoard this trash, picking at it as if each peck might transform into something delicious. Then he would leave it alone, pretending he didn’t care, letting another seagull become the new God of Plastic, for just a moment before he took it back.

We also went to four art galleries. One was closed, one was empty, one was a gift shop, one was fine (so we didn’t go inside). The empty one was more like a synagogue. A large open room leading to a grassy area with a bench. A single bench in the entire place that was making a statement about benches. When we left, we walked by the greeter, who said “Good evening, everyone.” It was just me and Seth. The place must be filled with his feelings and visions. I thought I was pretty good at being creative, but I’m nothing compared to this sole greeter in an empty gallery saying hello to the hundreds of people who aren’t there. 

James Brown’s bassist is still alive and can sing and play like he dreams it; we saw him with our eyes. We met a baby who was unimpressed with silly faces. There was a kid singing “God is good, god is great” while riding an e-scooter. There are people who are so self-assured it makes me feel empty inside. Couldn’t I be that way? Not that way, My Way. 

And there were hundreds of people playing basketball. Mostly kids in playgrounds. Seth and I told each other we could totally take them, but we stayed humbly on the sidelines. I kept thinking about how, when we played basketball with the gods, I almost scored once. It bounced off the rim. It went slow as syrup through the air, and one of the gods shouted: “Short.” Not me. The ball. The shot was too short. But it almost went in. It would have if I’d put a little more chutzpah into it. And I dream of it. I imagine it going in. I imagine these giants looking at each other with their hands daintily over their mouths, like a scandalized operagoer in Anna Karenina, discussing the latest gossip, saying, “Oh, my!” That didn’t happen. But it almost did, and my dream keeps me going. 

Every so often I feel my head blow up like a balloon with happiness, and every so often I feel the humility of a piece of plastic. To a Brooklyn seagull, plastic is worth fighting over. James Brown’s bassist is still talented but seems to recognize that it’s time to step back; when it was riff time, he kept quiet and let his bandmates shine. Humility is the thread connecting all this. Because we’re all just individual people pushing through a sidewalk crowded with other individual people with their own weird hobbies and dreams and downfalls. I want to be as talented as James Brown’s bassist fifty years ago and I want to know when to step back and let the bread baker pick up the paprika. I want to be humble. The humblest. All I can do is try. 

-Denise

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PS: Publication alert! I hope you enjoy reading the short story Centralia in the Sky, published in Gulf Coast Journal.

Read Centralia in the Sky

I discovered a chip in my tooth. In a back molar. A jaggedness with my tongue, like something was stuck, but nothing was, I hadn’t eaten. I looked in a mirror. A tiny hole. 

I’ve never had a cavity, but the internet told me that’s what this was. Continued googling showed me I’ve been wrecking my teeth for years by eating two apples every morning. Two apples a day may keep the doctor away, but not the dentist — they flood your teeth with sugary pulp that digs in and decays. If one cavity had broken through a molar, how many other cavities lied in wait? Was my mouth a decaying mass of decrepitude? I hadn’t been to a dentist in a year; I saw my death before me. 

I scheduled an appointment with my new dentist. I asked for a general appointment, but they said there weren’t any for three months. I told them I had an emergency cavity that needed to be filled. They booked me for the next day. 

I walked in and declared: I have a cavity that needs to be filled, and also, how many other cavities do I have? Please help. 

The dentist said: Who told you to fill a cavity?

They didn’t find a cavity. They did, however, give me a general cleaning, temporarily lose my x-rays, and break my glasses. (A glasses screw magically jumped out of the dental hygienist’s hands when she removed them from my face: we found the screw, duct-taped it back in, and I fixed it later). But it’s just a chipped tooth. Presumably from nighttime teeth-grinding. This is the healthiest mouth I’ve ever seen, they said, but you’re too stressed. Wear a mouth guard. Use an electric toothbrush. And do you floss under that permanent retainer? No? Well, you should. 

So I went home happy and got a foster dog, something new to worry over. Agora. We had her for seventeen days. Long enough to get frustrated with her and question my self-worth as a dog parent, long enough to wonder whether life was worth living when you had to devote yourself to an endless black hole of energy six times a day, knowing that however much energy you gave her was never enough —  long enough to get over all that and love her again.

She ate a giant hole in my bedroom blanket. I’ve had this blanket for twelve and a half years. It was getting ratty; I’ve been wondering if I should replace it. I kept telling Seth we should and he kept saying no, it’s a good blanket. A quilt with all kinds of patterns I can’t remember. And the dog ate it. She ate one big hole and one smaller hole. Ripped it up and spit it out and let the leavings on the floor. And I realized how much I loved this blanket, this ratty thing I’d been complaining about; now that it was ruined, it was mine. 

The moment we found an adoptive family, she transformed from a devil into an angel. Now that our time was limited, I loved how her nose had that pink spot underneath the white, and how her ears flopped softly forward when she walked. She learned how to walk! And be house trained and other things. I didn’t worry about the blanket. We discovered a schedule that worked for all of us. We turned her from a dog to a dog and now she’s gone. 

So I’m thinking about all ways we love things more when we think they’re temporary. Like how the nice thing about all the times I thought I would die is how much I was in love with living afterwards. And how for a long time, I only got into relationships when I thought it wouldn’t work out. Each time, the relationship would start great because I thought it would soon end. Then it would keep on going. And going. And it would eventually still end. Most things do. Except once. 

I’ve been told to wear a nightguard before, by an evil dentist who warned of falling teeth. I tried it, hated it, and found myself waking in the middle of the night with my teeth wide apart, non-grinding. I thought I had discovered the secret to end teeth-grinding: believe in yourself. I was wrong. I’m wearing that mouthguard at night again and I bought an electric toothbrush. I also bought retainer floss-threaders, although I have yet to open the bag. After a years-long relationship with apples, I’ve cut them out, replaced them with cucumbers.

And I’ve fallen deeply in love with my teeth. How beautiful are teeth? How nice and smooth and necessary. How they become a record of your life, more unique than fingerprints. How each one matters in its own way. I thought I would lose them all, but they’re still here.

-Denise

PS: I have a new short story published in Epiphany Magazine. It’s a story that means a lot to me. It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to write about the death of my college boyfriend. It’s also very short. It’s called “Where He Went.”

PPS: Goodbye to this nugget (the dog, not the Seth).