what did you say, nick lachey?

I was a singer once.

I'm not sure if it was malpractice or lack of practice that makes me feel like this dream belongs in the past tense but I will tell you what--I was going to be famous. I was going to end up leaving high school early due to my teenage popstardom or at the very least, come back a few years later post-graduation and roam the halls as if I was never an IB nerd, as if I was fighting the battle for all those who felt like the target audience for P!nk's songs so we could raise our glass for being wrong in all the right ways.

I was in so many choirs in high school. Church choir, school choir, a year-long musical I auditioned for that we wrote from scratch and the Charlotte Youth Oratorio. I was never selected to be in the "best" choir at school--I was told my voice didn't blend. (Who knows if this was a true statement or a way to let me down gently?) All I know, for as many seemingly-failures I encountered with singing, I was given just as many opportunities in which my voice and I excelled.

I went to a music and worship conference in Montreat, North Carolina every year from middle school until my junior year of high school. I started the conference (or week long camp) in my hot pink shorts, t-shirt and jellies from The Limited Too on a top bunk in the back room of an old house and ended it in a pair of wedge heels from Rack Room and a black halter dress from The Limited. Every Tuesday of the music conference was a special night--the Talent Show. It started as a surreal experience for a middle school girl--sitting in the huge Anderson Auditorium, in which pews seemed to stretch for days--and watching as a select few of the best singers and musicians I'd ever heard performed on a full stage in the dark room and hints of mica glinted off the stone walls in the spotlights with stars of the show.

There was a host, the first few years--a man in a chicken suit, who I'm sure was a famous youth group leader or pastor selected for the honor of leading worship sessions at the summer conferences. Or, was it the teacher of our Rock seminar, the class in which we sat in a room of 200 and watched music videos, pop-up video style, looking for signs of a higher power in the music we listen to each and every day? All I remember was that it was a huge ordeal--or at least, it seemed to be one to me. And at that moment, as goosebumps creeped up my arms and hope welled in my heart I decided that I, Ashley Payne, was going to be in that talent show. (AKA in my mind, I was not only going to be in that talent show, but I was going to be the act everyone talked about... the star of the show.)

My journey to that stage was rough. I am going to choose to believe that I was an extraordinary singer, when in all honestly, there's a high probability that I was just as good of a soprano as the girl next door but with a whole heck of a lot of determination. I will preface this--I sang solos in church quite often. In services, at banquets, all of the above. I also was a lead role in Charlotte's City at Peace the Musical and sang a few solos as my character dealt with the stereotypes, implications, and prejudices faced by one in an interracial relationship. Someone from high school I knew of (but wasn't quite friends with) ended up seeing the musical and approached me the next week in school to tell me (and the entire class we were in front of) that "Did you know she could sing?" and "I was like, boy that white girl can sing and then I looked at the program and realized she was you!" So, while I might haven been held captive by a false pretense of being a good singer, but this was not completely fabricated in my imagination.

The first year I auditioned for that Tuesday Night Talent Show, it was in a small room in the inn. A fellow youth grouper/choir member/piano player played the piano for me as I performed a solo I'd sung earlier that year at a wedding and at church. There was a summer breeze floating through the window and I remember looking out at the mountains after I sang, feeling like id accomplished something a big as them. But to the Montreat Music & Worship Conference Talent Show, I was just another soprano singing just another song. When it came time to post the list, I was not on it.

In true Dramatic Ashley-fashion, I took complete one-eighty for the next year. The auditions were in a small auditorium, but this time with a stage. I dressed the part as a misguided-Cinderella-like orphan and brought my own props (a broom) and swept the floor as I sang the Anastasia movie classic about hoping to find a family and a reason to life down the road I was traveling to the big city where I'd eventually discover I was a princess and not an orphan at all. Once again, I didn't make the list.

Of course, I thought the world was coming to an end. How was I supposed to jump start my career as a pop princess without even making it on the list for some church camp talent show? Really? And each year, I'd watch the show with tears in my eyes and the hope that one day, I too would make it. I would join the Piano Man (cute guy a few years older than me that was in the talent show every year playing the piano and singing--his first appearance was with an Elton John song) and I would stand on that stage. I would be a star for one night. I would make that list.

Somewhere along the way, the same night I auditioned for the talent show (and on a year I didn't make it), I also auditioned for the Chamber Choir, a choir of only 15 singers from the entire session of hundred and hundreds. That year, I had a sinus infection, an ear infection, and bronchitis but somehow and someway I made that Chamber Choir. One day in rehearsal, the director was getting on people for falling flat and I came up and apologized after practice, thinking it was my mistake. He told me no, oh no, it wasn't you--you are one of the best singers in this group.

After the failure I thought I was for not making the Tuesday Night Talent Show cut, that choir director reaffirmed my dreams. I used that experience to fuel my audition for the next year, in which two of my friends and I rewrote a Celine Dion hit. One of my friends played the violin, the other the piano and I prepared to make it.

Who knows why it happened that year? I'm sure it had something to do with the multiple talents involved (my friends on the violin and piano) and a higher power teaching me that you can't always accomplish everything on your own. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that we changed all the "I's" in the song to "He's" and made it religious.... for church music camp... but all I know is that finally, finally, we made the list. We auditioned in a room I'd been in many times before, for Rock sessions, for mixers, for Chamber Choir. And I was finally able to perform on that stage in a LBD and heels, a completely different person than the little girl who'd gone to sleep-away camp in all hot pink and jellies.

I never went back to that music camp. I'd climbed that mountain, was ready for another. Though when we would go back in later years on youth group retreats, I'd slip away and find myself sitting back in a pew in that auditorium, the sun slanting through the huge windows, making that stage, my stage, seem slightly more demure.

My life as a singer didn't stop there? My family got way of my musical ambitions. This is how I became famous.

My uncle worked for Arista Records. One spring break, the spring of my sophomore year of high school, he made me famous.

We spent each Easter at my grandmother and grandfather's house in West Point, Virginia. There's even a progression of family photos in the backyard year-by-year to prove it and serve as evident of all those awkward stages. That year, my uncle was headed to a charity basketball game the day after Easter in which 98 Degrees was going to take on the girl group Dream (they were both big back then!) with the help of some Z103 radio DJs. He told me they might not have an anthem singer and I told him I could do it and then I auditioned for the entire family--immediate, extended, and second-cousin-twice-removed. I'm not sure if I was actually good, but I do know that he was so surprised that I actually auditioned that he pulled some strings and before you knew it, I was the anthem singer for the charity basketball game between 98 Degrees and Dream (when they were both popular).

I practiced and practiced backstage in the locker room of a high school in Fairfax, VA, right outside of D.C. The radio station let us in early, passing the line of kids that were camping out for their chance to get in.

I practiced and practiced, my voice echoing against metal lockers, catching glances of myself in faded mirrors and looking at e face of a star, until Dream came in and I was kicked out of their locker room.

I was wearing a Carolina blue shirt from the Gap that day with one word written across the chest in glitter cursive writing: famous. And I performed the national anthem in front of a packed auditorium and most importantly, 98 Degrees and Dream.

At halftime, someone from the radio station came over and brought my sister and I to half-court to meet 98 Degrees. We shook their hands, one by one, and there are only two things I remember about being famous: 1. Their hands were incredibly soft and 2. Nick Lachey turned to me and told me that I had a beautiful voice.

That day, little girls were asking for my autograph. And perhaps the confidence that situation gave me lent itself to my audition for that silly Tuesday Night Talent Show. And even if Nick Lachey was lying and even though my family pulled some strings and even though I haven't kept my voice in the best shape, I did it. I was famous. I was a singer. Everyone can be a whole heck of a lot of things.

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson broke up (for the first time) a few month after I sang. My best friend's little sister started telling people it was because he'd met me.

the wheels on the bus go...

It happened on a school bus.

Now, my experiences with school buses in life were never all that grand. My first few years, I spend two hours riding to school and two hours riding back. I read each and every day and never really had a problem with it until my younger sister started school as well. For some reason, I was going through a strange phase of separation anxiety that year. I remember my father driving behind the school bus the entire way to school—at some point, my sister and I got off because one of us had to use the restroom—and he drove us the rest of the way that day.

Being a “bus rider” meant those car trips to school were extra special (even if they were self-induced with separation anxiety). Because they were so rare, they were often accompanied by trips to Krispy Kreme and my dad and I would sit outside until the Hot Now sign came on and he could have a hot glazed doughnut and I could have mine with chocolate and sprinkles. Sometime around the third grade, I met a fifth grader (but fellow bookworm) on the bus. We bonded over our literary selections, quickly stopped reading and started writing our very own bestselling chapter book in a three-inch spiral bound notebook that we’d pass back and forth and I wish I could find to this day.

Our bus stopped at two different schools. And one day at the beginning of third grade, I noticed him.

Ryan. Hice.

I’m fairly certain this is the root of my four-letter name theory. That in general, the cutest, most All-American guys have four-letter names. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but think of all the four-letter guys you know. Even Ryan Hice’s cute younger brother was named Hugh.

My first crush was on a school bus. I’d watch for him every single day, turn a deep shade of red when he walked on and off the bus. I sat up front with my writer friend because he and the other sixth graders sat up front as well. (That’s right, a sixth grader! Go third grade me!) He had blue eyes and that middle part mushroom-lookin’ haircut that was so popular back then and he was nice. Even though I only listened to his conversations and never spoke a word to him, I was certain he was nice. And above all else, the girl my chapters of that teal-spiral-bound-notebook-book was totally in sixth grade too and dating a guy just like him.

It was a Friday—I’d invited my friend Theresa over to spend the night and she was riding home on the bus with me. We were sitting right behind him (my favorite seat on the bus), giggling about how cute he was when he turned around and spoke to me.

“Hey, uh…” (I overheard one of his friends tell him my name) “…Ashley?”

Theresa and I hid behind the back of his seat for a second in disbelief before I gathered the courage to peek up and nod.

“Will you go out with me?”

EYES WIDE SCREAMING INSIDE CAN’T CONTAIN OURSELVES THIS IS RYAN HICE THE SIXTH GRADER TALKING TO ME AND MY FRIEND

And then the spell was broken… A nice sixth grader, who didn’t really want to be playing truth or dare interrupted before I could embarrass myself.

“Leave her alone, Ryan.” She turned to me. “It’s just a dare.”

You’d think I was mortified. But I wasn’t. He’d talked to me, you see. The sixth grader. Ryan. Hice. And when everyone was signing yearbooks at the end of the year I made sure to pass mine to that seat in front of me. And even though he only wrote his name… I drew a little heart around it that I pretended was there all along.

ode to AAA

The first time I had a flat tire was the summer after my junior year of college. I'd had my 2005 Mazda Tribute only a number of weeks and was driving back to Charlotte with my friend, A. It blew, right in the middle of the interstate, and I pulled over at the closest exit, struggling to keep hold of the steering wheel. We bought snacks from the vending machine while waiting for AAA.

A few month later, I was driving up Airport Road to Harris Teeter, the nice one by the interstate where I purchased champagne at midnight to celebrate my 21st birthday. I felt a sudden grinding in my car... a noise, a feeling, something was wrong... I pulled over at a gas station, probably the sketchiest one in Chapel Hill. Filled the tank while waiting. Drove on my donut until the next day.

I've been to random tire stores on the side of the road, AAA recommended, of course. I've purchased two complete sets of tires since I've gotten the car. And while it still see,s new to me, I forget that it's 2011 and I didn't just get my car yesterday. I remember the day, a few months after driving my new car to my first apartment, when my family surprised me by putting my GO ZAGS plate on my car. I kept that plate in Washington, thankful simply for the ability knowing that plate was already taken by someone in The Evergreen State and had a new one made in Alabama, Home Sweet Home. Though those plates may have been superfluous, after moving to Oklahoma, I realized what it was like to not have your plates memorized.

I had another flat today, a nail in my year old tires, my car protected by the gates to the concrete jungle where dreams in Norman are made of... the ZagMobile slowing sinking to the right and to the back as air escaped my tire. I've called AAA for myself a number of times, for friends, almost just a many (Hello there, Marco Pollo!). And I was able to wait in the office while AAA made it's way to my assistance. 

Thanks, Dad, for giving AAA cards (valued customer cards) to your two Southern daughters... life wouldn't be quite as easy without them.

princess parking

I have the luck now--I'm unstoppable in parking lots. I used to have to park in the very far corner, walk a mile. I never was close to the cart return or able to squeeze into a parallel parking spot.

The notion of princess parking began when I was a nanny for two two-year-old twins on the better side of the railroad tracks on Spokane's South Hill. I'm not even sure if it is even possible to explain this nanny situation I found myself in... think 'The Nanny Diaries' but not in New York's upper east side, definitely lacking in Chris Evans and with the constant presence of the mother looking over your shoulder or listening to you on a baby monitor from the next room.

The twins themselves were adorable, E and W, with blond hair and blue eyes. E, the girl, with ringlets resembling Shirley Temple that I could envision turning into enviable waves as she aged and W, whose temperament served as an early indicator of his future role as a heartbreaker. Their real names a conundrum alone--think of three traditional, three-syllable names for both boys and girls, take one syllable from each to make two unique, yet familiar sounding names, and there you have it, E and W's curse by moniker.

The mother's Hawaiian heritage lenses itself to many peanut butter and pineapple jelly sandwiches while the twins took their afternoon nap--I'd eat mine with salt and vinegar chips while watching Around the Horn. And if you though the kids's names were enigmatic enough, then think through this--my employer had nannies around the clock and she didn't even work. We accompanied her to the grocery store, to KinderMusik, Costco, Target... everywhere. I'd push the cart and hold on to the kids leashes (animal backpacks, but still), load the cart as needed, unload it into the car.

The strangest thing about these trips was the fact that no matter when, no matter where, the mother always ended up in a first row spot. It was like the stores expected her and the kids--treated them like royalty. A parking lot could be packed, but somehow she'd always end up with the best spot--princess parking. It was the parking lot's way of speaking to her... Aloha!

It's been two and a half years since I'd seen E and W. I used to teach E to say things like "I'm a princess!" and "I'm a diva!" She'd smile, her big gap-toothed grin, and wave her hands in the air as she repeated the phrases. We even sat in the living room for a Gonzaga NCAA Tournament game and they cheered with me--"Goooo Zags!" And though I had to take the trash out every day (including the diaper genies), do the laundry and wonder exactly what was heard over the baby monitors... I enjoyed being a part of the family for a year. If only Chris Evans had lived next door... we could have parked in the princess spot together.

runaway railroad

There was a train that cut right through Spokane, a train that rattled my windows at night and became ambiance in the 100 plus degree heat without air-conditioning and the hope to catch a breeze to ease me to sleep.

It could be heard anywhere in the city but was loudest by the... let's call it... Jazz at the Junction, one of the two places I bartended full time the summer after graduating college.

If I knew now what I knew then about Spokane, about what the strength of the train signal meant about where I was in town--there's no chance I would've been working in Hillyard. (To see what I mean about Hillyard, click here)

I find it quite interesting, really... I had absolutely no idea that my drive up East Illinois each day led me into a much less safer part of town. The road overlooked much of the city and had some of the most scenic views in Spokane, other than the Falls and the Centennial Trail--then you passed the railroad tracks and reached a fork in the road.

For what's it's worth, Jazz had the best security of any place I've ever worked. We were a family--an odd one at that--but a family. From the Swedish mail order bride to the Roller Derby chef, from the stand-up comedian owner to a pregnant cocktail waitress. Don't forget the head of security--the biggest teddy bear you'll ever meet who followed creepers around or kicked them out with just one word. Like many of the places I've been or things I've done, I can't tell you how thankful I was for this family that summer, true fun friends to work with even if we were from all walks of life and working at a music/comedy/dancing joint tailored towards those around 40 to 55 years young.

I heard that train after a long night working, as we sat at the bar with our shifters. Through all three rooms of my one bedroom apartment, though it never woke me like the neighbor's new kitten that would crawl through my windows and hop onto my bed at night. I heard it when I moved into cute little house on Augusta and we spent the entire endless summer playing games in the yard and following the Centennial Trail down to happy hour at Shenanigan's. And I heard it the week I spent packing all of my things into 22 boxes that I shipped across the country deciding which path to take, which next step to choose.

There was a train that cut right through Tuscaloosa, a train that interrupted my drive to work and set me behind every morning that I would take pictures of with my brand new Blackberry and send to my friend P. The tracks that divided the university from the rest of the city, the tracks a tornado fell right beside a year after I'd left.

And there's a train that cuts through Norman, a train that occasionally interrupts me on the way to work with much less faulty lines than that train in Tuscaloosa. No more stopped cars in the middle of the railroad crossing or lights flashing and no caution arms down, cars inching closer and closer to see if the can screech across before anything comes, if anything is ever to come. The train here in Norman is one that you can hear at the Mont, where I came for my interview and brought my family on their first trip to town; a train that runs directly beside new high rise apartments being built by campus. It's headlights blind me when it rushes by the gym in the early hours of the morning and I count cars to make the time on the treadmill go faster. I can hear it through closed windows if I sit back in silence or occasionally during the top of an inning at softball, the second half of a soccer game, or the final minutes in the fourth quarter of an Oklahoma football game, but only every once in a while. These trains, a lullaby now as opposed to an alarm clock, hurrying across the plains.

the tale of the chicken farmer

I’m counting the minutes until the man next to me closes his tab. He’s in his fifties, with an orange fake bake glow and referred to the female bartender as ‘Sexy’ instead of her given name. He asks her to add her phone number into his phone, it’s been charging behind the bar and has some battery life now. She’s firm about it, her non-answer. And I admire her—I was never that direct when I was bartending.

An orange hand taps me for comedic effect—I’ve missed a joke. I smile and nod and hope his plane is leaving soon, please, Delta, make some announcement about his flight to Baltimore because his clothes are tinged with smoke and apparently he knows the founder of Yuengling. Richard Yuengling, he says, though he goes by Dick. Dick Yuengling, he repeats, a couple of times, just in case I or the male bartender with smiling eyes and a scruffy beard didn’t hear him.

He’s nice enough, and observant. He asked me if I bartended. I told him yes, for a couple of years and he praised his observation. Is it that easy to tell? I suppose I have an ease around bars in general, the conversation, the location, the computer systems but I wasn’t like ‘Sexy’. I would turn red and giggle, even if Baltimore tried to get me to put my phone number in his charging cell.

When he leaves, I find myself happy but quickly irritated by the man that takes his place. And that’s when I make a new friend, a guy about my age who sits to my right and comments on the infomercial during the commercial break from SportsCenter at the Sports Scene Bar and Grill in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The Shakeweight. The men’s commercial.

“Have you seen those?” he asks, to me. Me only.

“Oh, yes,” I say, “Did you get one for Christmas?”

And with that, he looks a little confused, says something or the other but in the next couple of seconds, Josh, the young male bartender returns in front of us. I’m disappointed, thinking I’d made a funny joke but comfortable in the silence of being misunderstood.

The bartender notices the commercial. The trio of us laugh.

My new friend turns to the bartender. “Did you get one for Christmas?” he asks.

Josh laughs, we all laugh. And I relish in the fact that he did get it, he did get my joke and I’m even happier about that than I am about a funny comment. My new friend points to me. “She asked me that, too.”

We talk about the crazy things we’ve seen on ESPN during my layover. The Air Force mascot, a live falcon, didn’t fly into the stadium for a bowl game as intended. An ESPN anchor interviewed someone from the Air Force staff for an extended period of time, asking not only about the lost falcon and it’s rescue, but of the threat to humans of the falcon being loose, the danger to the falcon from owls and other animals, how the falcon gets to and from games, and even how the falcon can fly coach on airplanes when the airlines won’t even let people bring a full tube of toothpaste on board.

He’s confused first, thinking I’m talking about the Falcons. So we discuss our relative sports teams, then distinguish falcon vs. Falcons. We talk jobs and where we’re from. He works in the poultry business, in Douglas, Georgia. He and his father spearhead a company that vaccinates the chickens. I ask why his father isn’t joining him on his skiing trip—he’s headed to Colorado to ski Breckenridge, but his father was in a very bad accident. I see his face fall, I feel for him. He’s not just a traveler anymore, he’s a lonely traveler and I feel like there’s an empty seat next to him, wherever he will go on his vacation. Someone calls him, or he calls someone, but he’s still attentive to me while the phone rings or as he waits for a voicemail. He returns to the same topic of conversation when he puts the phone down, asks a follow-up question, reminds me what we were talking about.

I title him Chicken Farmer in my mind. He’s wearing a baseball cap, khaki, with the Ralph Lauren Polo logo—a little horse in navy blue. The khaki cap matches his pullover; he’s wearing respectable jeans. He’s fair, but not pale and has blue/green eyes that glint a little, because he’s focused on me. He has a goatee, a small one, but I’m not as offended by his facial hair as I normal am. And he leans in to me in conversation, talks confidently but not loudly and is southern but not glaringly rural in tone. I like him. A lot. He is the perfect example of laid-back, talkative and a conversation starter, but quiet enough in conversation to make me sat back and breathe—a rare feat.

“Do you like that lager?” Chicken Farmer asks, pointing to my Yuengling. (Little did I know my beer choice would be such a topic of conversation in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.)

I nod, smile. Tell him it’s my favorite, that I can’t get it where I’m from and I’m trying to stock up now. I explain that the beer where I live is watered down—domestics are all 3.2% alcohol. He asks if they cost the same. I nod and smile. Exactly! Can you believe it? He offers to buy me a beer, but by that time I’m about to burst. I’ve had to use the restroom for at least 45 minutes. I say he doesn’t have to do that, but will he watch my stuff for me for a second? He is happy to, conversationally tells me of course, just put my bag in my chair and slide my chair in. And I like this about him too—that he’s instructing me, but it doesn’t seem like it. That he’s taken the lead and I don’t feel overwhelmed with this loss of independence, this loss of dominance.

I go as quickly as I can, rush back. We sit and continue to talk, he offers the beer a few more times but I’ve had three Yuenglings at noon on a Tuesday and can’t handle anymore. We finish at the same time, leave at the same time and I search my bag for my card. I ask his name, hand it over and tell him to give me a call if he’s ever in Oklahoma. He’s Tim. Tim Davis. I’m stopped by the manager on the way out—“You can’t leave!” he jokes—and Tim and I part ways right in front of the Sports Scene. Safe travels. Safe flight.

L and a few more than four

There are few things that have been consistent in the places I've lived. Yes, amazing people are everywhere--this is one truth that will always be self evident. Yet there are things I count no matter where I go to give myself an idea of what I'm dealing with.

I like numbers, their specificity, their exactness, their honest nature. That's why the four-letter name theory runs true in all my stories with male characters--the most normal, attractive, All-American guys tend to have four letter names. That's why when I ask for a French fry, I mean one. That's why when I ask for three pieces of paper, I don't need any more or any less. And that's why it's so easy to judge places with numbers--how many movie theaters? How many malls? How many Starbucks? Please let there be a shopping center for me to count. And while these numbers change, there are places with consistency, places that make me feel at home no matter where in the world I may be.

I used to spend a lot of time writing in Starbucks. I attribute this to my numbers and cities, but also to creative writing and L.

I think back to the first day of class, a humid Carolina afternoon, my junior year of college. I'd just trekked across campus from my Exercise Science class to join the English majors in Greenlaw and it was raining--I can still hear the squeaking of shoe soles on the first floor. I'm pretty sure we were all anxious to be there--it was Intermediate Fiction, we'd been selected for the class--and everyone looked around sizing up their competition, wondering who in the world our professor would be.

If I could compare him to anything, I would compare that professor, L, to a whirlwind. All of a sudden he was in the room and even though he was late by conventional clock measure, his demeanor insisted that he'd been waiting for us rather than the other way around. He sat in on a table front of us, curled one leg over the other, breathed us in.

You know, he told us, artists feel more than other people. I'm sure you know, since you are here. You must be careful, because since you feel more than other people, you are more likely to kill yourself.

What L was saying was completely true. True, talented artists feel more and feel differently that the average population. Their ability to describe such leads to success with the talent yet often leaves them feeling misunderstood or too attached, emotional. And when those feeling go unexpressed or are expressed too fully... you get, well, Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young or the end of Train's Meet Virginia.

L singlehandedly had one of the biggest impacts on my college life. I remember leaving that day thinking he was simultaneously crazy and genius. I floated through the first few weeks of that class, meeting outside each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon because artists' creative spirit can't be trapped by walls and almost felt misplaced. I was early to class, intentionally meticulous with my comments and opinions, and secretly dreading my first story's workshop after that way L responded to one student's story, a student that never came back to class again.

That Thursday, I sat in my normal spot. Two benches away from L, left hand side, directly across the circle. Only one or two other students were there early. He turned to Alana, a girl I remember as simply beautiful, a great writer whose story we'd already read, a girl who already earned his respect by making it through her first workshop.

"Who's Ashley?" he asked.

I spoke up then, felt no need to be meticulous. I was ready for my workshop, no matter which direction it decided to take. And L's question only insisted that it was going to uphill or downhill and very quickly.

I'm fairly certain this incident is one of the best examples in my life of my ambiguous nature. I am a lot of things, and many of these things don't normally pair together. I am one of the strangest people I know and might be one of the weirdest people you ever meet. Yes, I have a good head on my shoulders, but I was that EXSS girl in the creative writing classes! I won't stop talking most of the time, but I keep many things inside like an introvert. And I am that girl in Intermediate Fiction who was quiet and unsure, didn't (and doesn't) really look at all artsy, a face without a name attached until that workshop day.

I don't think it was that day, but a few months later L described writing as sitting at a restaurant or coffee shop and watching a couple from across the room, giving them a story, making it interesting. What are they doing, why are there they? Don't just describe them, but give them their layers, give them their purpose, attribute to them their conflict.

After I left Chapel Hill, I spent a lot of time in the places I count, in the numbers. Starbucks is the same everywhere you go, so I can pretend I'm anywhere and everywhere and let the people around me tell the story. I can watch the guy in the center of the store, with tattoo sleeves and a face like the boy next door come in each day on his lunch break. I can write about him, about the tattoos, about the way he wears only jeans and a grey t-shirt when it's only 20 degrees outside. Barnes and Noble is the same, though most places only have one. I can post up in an armchair and escape the world or create a world of my own. And though I'm inside, and though I feel more than most, I'm not so sure that I ever feel trapped by the walls in the places on my list. I feel at home.

backpedaling my pace

It sticks with me, even today--the image of an attractive male, college-aged, and his mom walking through SouthPark Mall. Her, with a cane, moving slower than molasses and him, patiently letting her lean on his left arm. He wasn't distracted by the brisk pace of his fellow Charlotteans, looked unperplexed and completely relaxed as everyone else around him continued about their last-minute shopping full of worry, hustle and bustle and holiday cheer. Did I know him from somewhere? Or did I just want to know him and learn from his patience?

 They walked in front of the water fountain, one pillar of the mall left standing from my youth, where I used to go to make my wishes of becoming famous--where copper dreams reflected in cool water under a skylight, where my father would often wait for us girls while we stopped in the umpteenth store for the umpteenth time. The young male, the stronghold of his mother's shopping trip, laughed at something she said, leaned down to continue the conversation, closer to her height. I wondered how long they'd walked the halls at this pace, how many stores they gone in, how many bags he would be carrying by the end of the trip. Everyone always says you can tell how a man will treat you by the way he treats his mother.

 Had he grown up here? Like me? In a city that seemed so vanilla until I left; a city that with each visit back sparkled with innovation. The mall changed with the city--Hecht's replaced with Macy's, the addition of Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, a long line of stores only few could afford to visit, and valet parking instead of a drop off lane. They renovated the fountain; fresh, smooth granite modernizing it's edge. The concept of vanilla melted away as I called more and more places home. Even grocery stores couldn't compare--and the more I returned the more I realized the things I'd been searching for were things I'd chosen to ignore. The suits of young twenty-somethings with jobs uptown were realized into reality instead of fantasies from Wall Street; professionals speaking in slight southern drawl only after a few drinks. Was he one of them? The young gentleman with his mother? Today in tailored jeans and a t-shirt for comfort in place of consistency?

I am also with family, yet our search for New Years shoes and quick, loud chatter suddenly feels too abrupt. He's only halfway past the fountain and we're late for dinner reservations. Their walk is a glass of good red wine and warm Brie on the couch in the winter and we're the first sip of a dirty martini, a bite of bitterness from vermouth. And the tile is slick by the fountain, a little girl tightrope walking the edge, splashing a little, her world bright with the indefinite nature of seedlings of dreams. The cane won't catch the water, but even if it does, a mother is resting on a foundation of her son.

silk on sidewalks

When I wear these shoes, I am caught between the frigid air of fall in the Pacific Northwest and an idealized version of Spokane, as experienced on the club level of the Doubletree downtown with the notion of drinks in Spencer's Steakhouse and Chops--the kind of restaurant with personalized martini glasses that dotes on the importance of crumb scrapers.

If I could only live in this moment... standing there in these silk, animal print, peep-toe pumps and my gauchos, a Free People cowl neck sweater, my hair past the highlighting phase of my senior year of high school that turned me practically blond, slightly auburn and getting long. Filled with hope and anticipation of a life in an eastern Washington city that same way that I'd once dreamed of walking the sidewalks of Times Square, bits of mica glittering like the sparkle of my prayers for fame. Vacationing with my mother, shopping at the Nordstrom and taking a picture with a live English bulldog named Spike, a donor's personal Gonzaga mascot that I'm pretty sure lasted no longer than a season more in attendance at McCarthey Athletic Center.

These shoes have walked the halls of that Doubletree, sat at the bar of Spencer's Steakhouse and Chops, seen their share of evenings at the Top of the Hill on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. They've seen the AMC Theaters at River Park Square on a Sunday morning for a five dollar feature and clicked along the halls of Northtown Mall while shopping the eternal sales of Express. They've led me from my Costco catered grad school graduation party and across the stage to receive my masters, up the front steps of Bryant-Denny stadium and even today, from Oklahoma Memorial Stadium to lunch on campus corner.

The silk is splitting at the balls of my feet, a tiny fray from hitting the mica infused asphalt or concrete one too many times with my determined steps or occasional loss of footing. The wedge needs to be reheeled, the hidden stiletto scraping steel on concrete. The print is timeless, cheetah yet classic and the silk bow that masked today's extreme need for a pedicure adds a balance of flirty femininity to a shoe that could belong to Blair Waldorf today or match Sam & Libby flats from back in the day. And yet I am reminded of the day I first tried this five year old pair of pumps on, unwrapping them from the tissue paper and slipping them on in the frigid fall of the Pacific Northwest, walking a few blocks back to the hotel with mom, silver Nordstrom bag swinging in my right hand and a dream that will last forever of the story these shoes can tell.