Target. Dizzy. (Not new - but been a while).
I grab a cold red Gatorade and ask politely if I can drink it while shopping. The cameras are everywhere lately, and I’m in no position to be jumped by a security guard these days.
In the fresh grocery aisle, the dizzy gets more dizzy,
my muscles buckle, so I ask a goatee in a red vest:
Is there a place I can sit please? It’s not contagious, I just feel dizzy and need to rest-
He tells me to leave my cart and walks me with an urgency that truly makes me feel loved, but oh I take my cart because these groceries are handpicked and perfect:
Cantaloupe - a whole one, and a container pre-chopped - full fat cottage cheese, bananas, organic apples, bagels, Philadelphia whipped cream cheese - heaven - oat milk creamer, chopped romaine, canned cannellini beans, garbanzos, peas & corn.
He seats me on a window sill close to the floor, where I proceed to put on my sunglasses and cry, because I am scared and shaking.
I sit scared, shaking, texting my doctor, and thinking about who to call:
Not my mom, she’ll freak out but say she isn’t freaking out
Not my aunt, I actually can’t bear to hear the sadness in her voice
Not my brother, it’s too late on east coast, and he’d get morose, panicky, or both
Not the friend I called when I threw up on Sunday, he’s done his duty
Not my cousins, one will be like ‘Oh Shoot’, the other will be like: what?
Not the friend I flirted with in a coffee shop yesterday, it will kill the vibe
I insist on my own kind of dignity in my experience of disability.
I call my best friend in Seattle and she doesn’t pick up
My doctor texts back she’s on vacation but will make time
I call my therapist, it goes to voicemail
I make two short videos that make me laugh and do not post
I compose a text to my neighbor asking her to come get me, but don’t send
I sit
and sit
the Tostitos look really tasty from here
so does that Snickers bar
I think about calling my ex, picture him coming, the awkward goodbye:
Over my dead fucking body does he get to have me need him again.
I think about calling my dad. Laugh, darkly.
I think about calling the Dom I’m kind of annoyed with. Opt not.
I post in a Discord of cancelled people who I love. No one responds.
I continue to sit in Target on the floor beside my perfect cart of food in aviator sunglasses, my long hair tied in a knot with itself (no scrunchie), wearing the jeans that used to be massive and are now tight, which I dislike, but we’ve got to pick our battles, hey, and I’m starting to do yoga every day in the month of June, and if my body needs to change sizes on its path to surviving and healing so be it, so be it.
A brown dog sniffs my shoe.
The shoe is still splattered with vomit from Sunday, when I puked on the street on Pico, after leaving an acting class with a scented candle and closed windows.
I call my friend in Florida. She does not pick up.
I remember a poem I wrote about sitting on the floor in Ralph’s 5 years ago, it’s in my not-yet-published poetry book, the one called THERE IS NO BETTER
Because if you ask me ‘are you better?’ …you get the idea.
I remember how devastated I was to be so young on the grocery store floor, 90 year olds zipping past.
Today I’m less devastated.
Today, I’m pissed, and frankly: I’m fucking bored.
The Tostitos 50 feet away look super yummy.
I wanna know if there’s a tangy lime flavor to go with my olive hummus (yum, right?)
I stand back up, wobbly, and tour the chips aisle. Select Tostitos and Lime Ruffles.
Grab that dope snickers.
Ask the lady supervising self-check-out if she can please check me out.
(I’ve grown into a polite sick girl. At least, I try. It’s taken a lot of skill to learn to communicate with composure when experiencing intense and scary symptoms.)
She says yes. I’m worried I might not be able to hand her each item.
But when I look at my cart I want to take a photo, marvel at this overt display of intuitive eating, this fuck you to the orthorexic “clean eating” that ruled my first 3 years of recovery, this cart that still feels so fresh and healthy and wholesome to me
My eyes tear up and I notice that I am standing and my bones feel solid inside
That some how despite the shaking my ribs hold my center, my lungs, my heart
Humerus and carpal bones lift item after item onto the belt and it seems like a miracle
My voice is solid as I say “Hold on, let me run and get a yogurt”
Oh the HEALTHY. AUDACITY. to RUN. and GET. A. YOGURT.
But I do. The Oui brand. Two real dairy, one coconut milk, all strawberry.
The fluorescent lights are not cruel, for once. I am fine.
I pay. I push my cart to the door, thinking I’ll get an Uber home.
When I lift my bags it is strenuous. But I can carry them.
I walk home shaking.
This will not define me. This will not define me. I am unstoppable. This is unstoppable me.