If I was Wonder Woman

If Wonder Woman existed, she'd be loved and lusted after. She'd be surrounded by friends, some of them regular folk, some of them heroes like her. She'd have fans that hollered her name and put her poster on their walls. Her powers, her confidence, her beauty, men would want her. They'd be drawn to her certainty, her fierceness, her willingness to stand her ground and do what, in another age, only men were supposed to do.

But if Wonder Woman wasn't a hero, but rather just a regular woman, would those men want her? Or would her confidence scare them off? Would her fierceness, her certainty, drive them away? I think it would.

Super Woman could ask a man to dance and he'd fall onto the floor in his haste to accept. If she was a random pretty face in a random ballroom, he'd dance graciously and then turn a blind eye the remainder of the evening. Wonder Woman could ask a man out in a café and he'd give her his number and call her before she even reached her car. If she was just a woman intrigued, he'd politely take her number and never call. Worse than that, he might text a few times and then fade away. Wonder Woman could spy a man jogging down the street, chase him down and call him "striking" and "handsome" and he'd rush into a dinner invitation. If she was just a stranger, she'd creep him out. He'd bob his head, give thanks and jog into his departure.

I can remember when I was in my mid teens and attending homeschool dances. I got so tired of sitting in chairs, watching the slow songs come and go with a sick weight in my stomach. Guys asked girls to dance, sometimes with words, sometimes with just a proffered hand. I just sat and watched and wished and ached.

And then I'd had enough.

I started asking men to dance. (Okay, they were boys) I'd ask ten in one evening and they'd almost all say yes. We'd dance, chat and then return to our seats. This soon rippled out to affect the rest of my life. If I spied an attractive man in a café, I asked him out. If I saw an attractive man jogging, I chased him down. If my family and I were out to lunch and our server was hot, I flirted and suggested dinner. I was confident. I was sure of myself.

But I wasn't Wonder Woman.

Most of the time, they accepted my number, my dinner invitation, my hand to dance with. There'd be no calls though, no texts, no emails, no further effort following my initial one. Part of me wants to crawl back to my chair and just wait there like everybody else. People keep telling me that love is supposed to find YOU. If you stop searching for it, it'll enter your life all by itself. Friends tell me that I'm going about it all wrong, looking too hard, too intensely, holding my ground too firmly, but WHAT am I supposed to DO? I want to be in love again. I want to sleep curled around somebody whose breathing is better than music. I want to play footsy under the table and be scared of our shared future. I want to be attracted to somebody's subtleties, his wrists and the way his fingers curl into my hair, the way they might one day cradle a baby's head. I want to buy him presents. I want to plan our dates half the time and have that be enough for me, but not too much for him. I want to stop worrying that I'll fall in love before leaving the country, thus cancelling my travels. I want to stop worrying that I'll fall in love overseas and thus barring my coming home.

Am I supposed to be able to find this sitting in a chair, in the corner, waiting for someone to ask me to dance? Would Wonder Woman sit in a chair?

Do I have to be a superhero in order to wield the power of confidence? 

Song lyric prompt

Mumford and Sons

And you rip it from my hands

And you swear it's all gone

And you rip out all I had

Just to say that you've won

Well, now you've won

But I gave you all

I gave you all

I gave you all

I'm sitting on a Greyhound bus and I'm crying as I look out the window. I keep the brim of my white baseball cap pulled low, shadowing my glistening eyes and streaked cheeks. Research may state that tears are a healthy release of tension, but that knowledge doesn't stop me from adopting the Vulcan approach instead.

I press one of my hands against the window, which is cool to the touch due to the rain slashing at its exterior. Pink ear-buds snake into my ears and the lyrics coming from them are of heartbreak and a shredded pride. I am smiling, but it's cracked at the edges. There is a well of sadness in me, there are even flickers of failure, but there's a blanket of relief thrown over both of these, which keeps me from drowning in it.

The bus has a hundred seats. Almost all of them are occupied by people and yet I feel as if I am in a bubble. Curling towards the window, away from the empty seat next to me, away from the aisle beyond it, I feel the most alone I have in two months.

And it was bliss.

I think about the hostel waiting for me in another city, about the bed behind a door that locks, about a toilet that flushes and a shower that isn't timed. It doesn't matter that I'll be sharing the space with other travelers. It doesn't matter to me that the room, the bathroom and the kitchen will all be communal. All that I am heading toward must be better than what I am leaving behind. It has to be or the hope that I've been clinging to these past two months will let me down. I can't be let down again, not after having already failed myself.

I came here imbued with such hope. I can still remember going camping with my folks in our green Volkswagen bus back in Oregon. My mother had been reading aloud a letter from an Australian friend, when all of a sudden, she let out a cry! She threw her hands in the air, got out of the bus and hugged me.

"She wants you to come stay with her in Australia!" My mom yelled, a grin leaping onto her face. "She wants you to come live with them in the woods, nanny their three year old while they build their new house. They'll take you all over the country, to the markets; she even wants to introduce you to men!"

That moment of realization was still so clear to me, that exhilaration. The months following that life-altering letter were like lightening, there and gone again. My dream was coming true. Not only was I traveling, a dream bound in my bones, but I'd be going the one place I'd always secreted wanted to go. More than that, I'd be paid to be there. What more could I want?

Gently, I thumped my fist against the glass. It was my only acknowledgement of an anger I wouldn't permit myself to feel. It was always better to experience shame than anger, as the first was easier to conceal and keep from becoming a public spectacle. I had always despised public spectacles.

Yesterday, for the first time in my 23 years, I had been angry enough to punch something. Looking now at the ring on my finger, which sports a Shakespearean quote, I can recall how it had bit into my skin on impact with the ground. I'd used the excuse of an upset stomach to escape from the house and the family I'd been staying with. I went out to the restroom, which consisted of nothing more than a tent. Inside, there was a crate and a hole in the ground below it. I had knelt down outside the hut, drove my knuckles into the soil and then cursed colorfully. From the physical violence to the verbal one, that was entirely unlike me. I had buried these instantly, used the tent and gone back inside to the family I was 24 hours away from leaving forever.

And you rip it from my hands

And you swear it's all gone

And you rip out all I had

Just to say that you've won

Well, now you've won

I feel like I've lost a battle, as if I threw down my spear and sank to my knees in surrender. I feel like a coward because I can't stop looking back on my being in Alaska, when I worked on a train beneath a boss that barked at me like a sergeant at her marines. She would get up in my face and scream. She'd been shorter than me, but her unreasonable and immovable cruelty still towered over me. I'd wanted to stand up to her, but I'd been afraid she'd strike me. In the end, as it always was, I'd played the noble note. I'd found a way out, shook her hand, grinned as if I'd been the one to win and then walked out.

I'd lost this one. I'd lasted three months, endured the child that screamed and hit me and sent my glasses flying. I'd tried to hold that little girl close and tell her I was sorry she couldn’t see her parents, the very same parents who had given their child to a nanny for eight hours a day, every day. She wouldn't let me hold her thought, wouldn't let me touch her, crying "don't look at me!" if I looked right at her. The only time I ever held her was when she found a spider in her room. She called my name, "Nicole! Nicole! SPIDER!" I'd run in, swung her into my arms and then into the other room. I plopped her onto my bed, which sat in the middle of the privacy-lacking kitchen. She immediately began shoving at me, slapping, hitting, sobbing for me to LET GO. Staring at her, I'd tried to understand what I was doing wrong.

"Why can't you trust me?" I wanted to ask. "Why can't we get past this? I've been here for two months, two months! I've played marbles with you, read the same dinosaur book to you over and over again, pushed you on the swing and sung London Bridge is Falling down a million times. I wanted us to be friends." I didn't say anything though. She was three. She wouldn't understand my questions, just as she couldn't understand why she'd been yanked out of daycare to spend eight hours every day trapped with a stranger. Knowing this, I wish there was somebody I could ask, but there was no one. I spent every night asking questions of the stars over their shed, but stars aren't known for their wisdom.

So I gave up. Those were the words that kept ringing through my mind, not that I was heading into the city for a different adventure, not that I'd done my best or that they were just as at fault. I had given up. I hadn't been patient enough to deal with a lonely child. I hadn't been understanding enough of parenting methods far tougher than those I'd been raised with. I hadn't been enduring enough to sleep in a bed in the kitchen, to use internet that failed every time it rained, to only being able to read when the solar panels had seen plenty of sun, to only using a shower for five minutes, to using a toilet spiders made their houses in and centipedes slept under, to living with two adults who let their child cry herself to sleep and showed so little interest in me, that I felt as much an intruder as their daughter already treated me. I hadn't been ENOUGH. They'd won.

But I gave you all

I gave you all

I gave you all

But I had done my best. I had given my everything, more than I'd given that boss of mine in the Land of the Midnight Sun, more than I'd given anything that had tried to break me. I had given my all and that that had to be enough. It didn't mean I'd won, but it had to be enough.

The window glistens with rain as we leave the city behind and head towards another. The hat is still pulled low over my face, but the brims not hiding tears anymore. It's hiding my grin.

I had given my all and that was enough.

It Began with Shampoo

So how did you two meet? (Prompt) (The latest prompt for Stunt Writing was to write, for 25 minutes, about your first meeting with someone. It could be anyone in your life. I chose Mimi)

When I first walked into Camp Firwood for homeschooled youth, I brought with me the same thoughts I brought every new place I visited. I had expectations of awkward meetings with new people, awkward silences, not knowing where to go, how to introduce myself, how to connect and bond. I brought all of that imbedded in the chip on my shoulder, even though my perpetual poker face rendered that chip invisible.

Things went wrong almost immediately.

A bottle of shampoo had burst inside my bag, covering all of my belongings in slimy goo. I spent an hour in the bathroom, trying to clean it out. That's when I met her for the first time. Looking back, I have no idea what we first said. I was in front of the mirror, my duffle bag in the sink on my right, all of my clothes on my left. I was rinsing it out and concealing my unhappiness at the same time. My face had been drawn into frustrated lines before her arrival, but now it was a careful blank. Of course, I was little more than 13 at the time. I might be remembering wrongly how perfected my mask was at that point in time. I only recall that the effort to keep it in place was there.

I won't call her by her real name here, so I'll just refer to her by her old nickname Mimi. Mimi and I became inseparable instantly, something that had only happened to me two others times. The camp lasted less than a week, but she and I were never more than four steps apart. We slept in the same cabin and discussed how great a prank it would be to block the entrance to another cabin with duct tape so they couldn't get out in the morning. She spoke of it as if she'd actually do it, whereas I was only joking and pointed out, all too logically, how impossible it would be to use duct tape without waking everyone up within a mile radius. (Yes, I would have used that word even at that age. I was known for my eloquence)

Mimi was two years younger than me and had a black cast on her leg, which went up past her knee. It never slowed her down. I was the more outdoorsy of the two of us, wearing a cowboy hat everywhere I went, but she had a wild child in her too. We went kayaking every day, though always in separate boats. We both liked to control our own speed and after all, races were impossible if you were both in the same craft. We spent whole afternoons kayaking around the island next to Firwood, getting so excited about the harsh waves and then thrilling at the gentle lull on the way back. It got to the point that when we guided the boats into the water, her cast making a scuffing noise in the sand, we could just glance at the waves and KNOW what they'd be like when we hit them.

There was a man, a counselor, whom we both followed after like puppies. His nickname was Coyote. He was an adult, married, had kids, but I didn't care. I was thirteen and a bit enamored. He called me Scout, gave me a spoon he'd carved and burnt into shape himself which smelled of scorched cedar and on my last day, he got me up to watch the sunrise over the water. Mimi had attended Firwood for years before me, had been his "Scout" before I had, though she hadn't owned the nickname. If there was any jealousy though, I never saw it. She also never showed any inclination towards the poker face I sported, so I doubted there was any jealousy at all.

Jealousy wouldn't come until years later, when we were late in our teens and love sliced us apart.

When Mimi and I weren't kayaking, we were going on Coon Walks with Coyote. This meant that a counselor would lead a single file line of campers out into the woods. There weren't any hiking trails out there, no paths at all. We could only stay together by listening to the person ahead and behind. If you listened to the commentary during one of our Coon Walks, this is what you'd hear:

"ROCK!" The leader, Coyote would call from the front.

"ROCK!" The next person in line would repeat, who then passed the message on down the row. In response, each person would step around the rock they couldn't see.

"STOP!" Coyote would eventually yell.

"STOP!" The second in line would intone. We would all then stop smoothly, like a squad of marines.

"SOUND OFF!" Coyote would command, causing us to each call out a number in turn, confirming that everyone was present, that the number we called out at the beginning was the same number we finished with.

Mimi and I thrilled in these nighttime adventures. Sometimes, we even got to lead. I remember a particular time when I was just behind Coyote and all of a sudden, he was gone. He was there, calling out "rocks" and "stops" and "sound off's" and then-nothing. I slapped the leaders cap on my head without hesitation and was unbelievably glad, although secretly, that Mimi was right behind me. I immediately did a sound off and realized we had everybody except the man who was supposed to be leading. We continued onwards, both because I didn't know the way back at that point and also because I didn't want the adventure to end. I liked the leaders cap. I'd like it more in the years to come.

It wasn't seconds after we were moving again, when I heard a coyote howl that was unmistakably the man named coyote rather than the creature. I stopped us, did a count again and realized that he'd now stolen somebody. He was testing me! No, he was testing us. With Mimi and me, almost up until the very end, we were always a "we."

Coyote stole half the group before he returned to the head of our line and led us back. Stumbling back into the light of camp, my untouched flashlight in my pocket, Mimi's totally dead one in her backpack, we grinned like fools, as if we'd actually gotten high on the dark air.

In the night, it was Coon Walks. In the afternoons, we hit the waves. In the mornings, Mimi and I would play four-square. We called her the Cherry Bomb Queen for her incredible moves, though I don't recall ever getting a nickname myself from the game.

I will always find it uncanny that while I cannot remember what she first said to me on that first day of camp, I can remember what we did on the last night. We were lying on our stomachs in the top bunks in our cabin. I had a journal in my hand that was sparkly green/blue. Everyone else was asleep. We passed this journal back and forth; she wrote about her relationship with her grandma, I wrote about slipping down the side of a hill and how Coyote pulled me back up.

I still have this journal in my room. I don't cry over it anymore. I still miss her, but its' just an ache now. If I close my eyes, I can still see her cast, her cherry bombs, her foolish grin mirroring mine. I can still feel her hand on my shoulder as we stumble through the dark to the tune of a coyote's howl.

It doesn't matter where we ended.

We began with a bag full of shampoo. 

Thinking in Circles

It has recently become clear to me that I think in circles.

Let me start with a small example before I move onto the major topic that's taking up noisy residence in my brain.

Last week, I was at the Origins Café with my parents. I spied a very attractive gentleman sitting at a nearby table. He was in a suit, with a laptop and a bagel. He had short hair, a short beard and looked to be mid-twenties. Seeing a hot man in Origins was not unusual.  My pointing him out to them and all of us sighing was just as normal. If this was one of those normal days, I'd just smile, enjoy my latte with honey and go home. But this was action week of my stunt, so I couldn't have that.

So I asked him out via a note after chatting him up. (And no, my parents weren't watching. They'd gone on errands so I could have "space") Go ahead, congratulate me if you will for taking the initiative, but it isn't all that impressive. I got fed up with waiting for men to ask me out a VERY long time ago. I've done the asking for years, the leaving my number, the asking to dance, etc. The nitty-gritty of it is that this guy and I chatted, I gave him my number, he texted me and-well, let me stop there for a moment. No spoilers.

I want to tell you my thought process starting from when I saw him until the moment I walked out after leaving my number.

That guy is hot. I wish I could spend some time with him.                                        

Okay, my parents have left so I can talk to him.

I'm sitting next to him! Wahoo! Let's start a conversation. How do I do that? I should leave him a note…but how will he remember who I am? I know! I'll ask him how to spell a really long word. (I did not realize how difficult this was. I know how to spell most any word. The only one I could think of was "superfluous," and I was pretty sure I could spell that. So I came up with one that the barista working Origins had asked us last week, Entrepreneurial)

Okay, he had to look it up and now he's used it to start a conversation! Yeah! The men don’t' usually do that on their own!

You know, he's kind of talky. He's good looking though, one of the most good-looking I've asked out really.

He hasn't asked me anything. I'm kind of bored-no. I can't be bored. I put effort into this!

This has turned awkward. Maybe I shouldn't have come over here. Maybe he isn't as good looking as I thought. You know, I'm hoping to go to Oz. I shouldn't be pursuing a guy.

I wish I wasn't here. 

See how my thinking goes in circles? I started out being excited, then got him and through no fault of his own, (he actually put in more effort than most) I decided I wished I hadn't acted. The fact that we then went on a date together and it went TERRIBLY doesn't change anything. That's a "superfluous" detail.

I am doing these mental circles about Australia. This is how my thinking has gone in the past six months:

I miss my friends. I wish I could go back one day, but no, I want to settle down.

I've been home over a year and can't find a husband. I wish I could go back to Oz, but no. I haven't tried hard enough!

(My parents, after hearing my mention how much my Ozzie's are in contact with me, ask about my going back)

I want that so much, it aches. I don't listen to Mumford and Sons, because that reminds me of being there. I want to settle down, but it hasn't worked.

Maybe I should do some research on plane ticket prices and visas.

Wow, it'd be really expensive.

(Parents are really supportive of the notion that the money is possible)

I work at a coffee shop. Maybe I could work at a coffee shop. I'll contact my friend who knows people who at work at Ozzie coffee places.

Oh my god! They tentatively offered me job on arrival! I can't believe it! I think its' time to tell my friends I'm trying to come back…wait, what if they're not excited as I am? Oh well. They've been awesome so far.

I might be misremembering. What if I've colored them to be more awesome than they were? What if I get there and I feel I don't belong? That I've been gone too long? What if I come home and that permanently colors my friendships with them?

Which is better, not going and always missing them, wondering how it'd have been if I went…or go and risk it not being as great as I'm hoping? Maybe it's better not to take the risk.

What if I fall in love there? If he wants to stay there, I'll be apart from my family. If I stay there, my family would come, but they'd have to sell SO much of their things. Would I want to put that pressure on them?

Maybe I should just go back to searching for a husband.

How long have I been doing this, taking things I want and then twisting them around until I rethink my wanting them at all? I know I go into dates thinking like this. I go into friendships like this, I know I go into jobs like this and apparently, I somewhat do this for travel as well. Mental circles, also known as over-thinking and what-if's, they warp my views of things and detract from my happiness. This ties right into my expecting the worst of things instead of the best of things, ALL the time. (And yes, that was a sort of, kind of attempt at a literary joke) Thinking about Oz, I decided I need somebody with an outside view of this, but who knows me. So, of course, I went to my mom.

I asked her questions about my having fun there, how I sounded, what I enjoyed, what SHE saw vs. what I've said since my return. She says what I was happy, did have fun and that my friends have done nothing but support the notion they like me since I've been gone. "Go," She said. "We regret the things we don't do, not the things we do."

I think that until I learn a way to sidestep my what if's, I'll need to make use of outside viewpoints. Thanks mom. 

Being Seen as Vulnerable

Being Seen

Recently, my mom told me about an article she read about suppressing emotions. In our society, expressing ourselves by crying, yelling, even intense displays of affection or dancing in a circle because we're overjoyed are all viewed as inappropriate. Tears make you a wimp or a weak. Children should be shielded from PDA. Yelling matches should be kept behind closed doors. Happy dances of joy make you a weirdo.

According to my mother, the article went onto describe Spock from Star Trek. As a Vulcan, he is trained to suppress all emotions so that logic can prevail, even dominate. Research suggests, however, that without emotion, logic is inhibited, almost impossible. Spock would likely stay in his quarters and be unable to choose which pair of shoes to wear with his uniform, let alone provide the captain with invaluable advice.

Between Spock and what I saw in the Ted Talk, a thought occurred to me. Society perceives vulnerability as a weakness. Apparently, there's this idea that those who DO show emotion, who LET themselves be seen as vulnerable, are happier.

I cannot fathom being seen as vulnerable, let alone letting that happen VOLUNTARILY.

Let me explain.

If I am out with a friend and I ate too much at lunch, therefore I feel a stomachache setting in, I will call home. I will request my mom to come up with a lie, a reason she needs me to come home.

If I have a cold, I don't want to be seen by ANYONE. I don't want to go to coffee, go shopping, go down the block or go to work. I despise blowing my nose in front of other people. I want to hide my face if my eyes are burning, so people won't see. During something as simple as cold, I want to hide in my room and wait until it's over. (With perhaps the exception of my mother and father, who is the only one I allow to see me like this)

If I get hurt, (drop something on my foot, slip and hit the ground, gash my hand, hit my head, something causes me pain) my first desire-no, my first reflex is to say 'I'M FINE! I'm GOOD! There's no problem here!" I don't want to be seen in pain, any pain.

Shockingly, this even applies to happiness. If I'm out with somebody and having a ridiculously good time, I'm going to temper it, rein it in. What if I pressure them to have a better time than they're actually having? What if they see my joy and are made uncomfortable by it? What if I scare them off? Its' best I keep my keep my "fun" at a medium until I know how their "good time" compares to my" ridiculously good time."

In all of these situations, I am vulnerable and it downright terrifies me. The moment I feel outside my comfort zone, I want to escape. This doesn't even have to mean leaving the situation physically. It all too often means I slap a mask on, a "no, I'm not sick/no, I'm not in pain/no, I'm not nervous/no, I'm not overwhelmingly happy" mask.

So as I said, I cannot fathom LETTING myself be seen as vulnerable. I know that isn't healthy and that research is showing the tempering or burying of emotions is known to affect happy emotions too. This hasn't stopped me before.

I guess for now, I'll go to Spock's quarters and join him in the decision making process of shoes and uniforms. 

You are a-changing.

I was at work yesterday in the airport. I was on bar (which means making coffee) and it was pretty quiet. Nobody coming. Nobody going. No beans a-grinding.

Then this lady comes in. She's blond, pretty, almost model-type looks and she's upset. She's so choked up, she can barely speak. She's looking through her purse for her wallet so she can pay for her two shots of espresso and her hands are shaking. She finally locates it, pays the cashier and comes around to my side.

When I hand her the drink, all I want in the world is to hug her. I don't know if she'd return it. I don't know if she wants it or if she views embraces the same way I do, as infinitely awkward. I don't reach out, however, and not just because there's a counter between us. There's a barrier inside me too. It keeps me from reaching out and even when I wish to be held, it keeps me from asking.

If you'd walked up to me a year ago and started crying, I'd have been running away so fast, you'd have whiplash. Of courses, I wouldn't be RUNNING. I'm a woman of elegant departures. I find polite reasons to vanish, smooth excuses. Tears are a weakness. I don't like this view. I tell other people it isn't true. I lie to myself that it isn't what I believe, but my crying and others crying is weakness. Now weakness can be beautiful, unveiling a weakness can be an investing of trust. If my mother cried near me, I'd ache for her, but I'd also feel incredibly grateful that she trusted me enough to share that part of her with me. In me, however, tears always feel like letting something through a mask that shouldn't be let through.

If I'd been in this job last year and she'd walked up to me, I'd have said nothing. I'd have just done my job and gone on with life. If I was where I wanted to be in life, I'd have had the ability to go over and hug her or at least offer her that option. As it was, I compromised.

"Here's that double shot of espresso," I pass it to her. "And whatever is going on, I am so, so sorry."

I know this doesn't seem like much to other people, that it pretty was barely a blip on her radar right then, but to me, it was a soaring difference.

Nicole, you are a-changing.

Train Station Peanuts

This was something that happened a week ago at the 99th Transit Center. I was coming home from work the night before I started staying at the hotel with HOST. (Due to the incredible winter weather that shut down most of Portland) It was cold. It was bitingly cold. And apparently that threw some sort of switch in my brain. (Perhaps that was sort of prophetic of things to come?) 

____________

The wind was fierce and the snow had the habit of sneaking inside my coat, but it was the cold that waged the worst battle. My hands dug deep into my pockets, my chin dipped low into the fuzziness of my grey scarf, I tried to shield myself from the most brutal of Mother Nature's beating. The train station was crowded despite the late evening hour and yet it still somehow managed to feel deserted. We were all of us islands, withdrawing as deeply as we could within our layers and ourselves. Why waste warm air on words? Why chill your fingers for the sake of a handshake? Better to conserve body heat at the expense of interaction.

When I made out with a guy for the first time at sixteen, seven minutes felt like hours. It was a planned event of course, as all momentous occasions were for me. When I went swimming off the coast of an Australian island, I wanted those seven minutes to stretch as far as my breaststroke could make them.

Standing at that train stop that evening, however, seven minutes felt like a pool fit for drowning in. If there'd been a wall not covered in a fine sheeting of ice, I'd have banged my head against it. If there'd been a shelter available that didn’t sport a row of icicles overhead that more resembled magical daggers, I'd be elbowing others clear enough for a spot.

Okay, those were all lies. I wouldn't have banged my head against a wall or elbowed other people, because I was not the type of woman to make a scene. That premeditated make out session at sweet sixteen had been at home, on my couch, during a movie of people getting lost in space. That dive down under had been a rare abandonment of caution, as I had heard jellyfish called blue bottles were known to be seen in the water. I was not a woman of public displays, of scenes. This did not mean I did not seek adventure. It only meant that those adventures were planned and pursued alone, as company added variables and variables meant spontaneity and I could not suffer spontaneity. I could, however, suffer the cold.

An ETA of seven minutes was posted everywhere, on the digital schedule posted overhead, on the high tech phones of the people who loved their gadgets, on the watches of the people that didn't. As seconds passed, feet stomped the ground to stay warm, hats were continuously yanked down over ears and cell phones and watches alike were peeked at too often.

And what was I doing? What I always did and that was doing everything I could to be my own island. I kept my eyes averted, kept my body turned aside from the direction of others, made certain to only check the overhead timetables when others weren't. All of these efforts made so that others wouldn't engage me in a conversation, because conversation meant automatic awkwardness when I had to navigate its conclusion.

But that evening, after an eight hour shift serving coffee at an international airport, I wasn't being a very attentive island. My body was twisted towards the street and the oncoming wind, because getting slapped in the face with ice sharp as shards of a shattered windshield was better than being drawn into a conversational entrapment.

"Hey," A female voice said suddenly and because it was human reflex to do so, I turned towards the source. "Would you like some chocolate covered peanuts?"

"Sure. Thank you." I held out a hand gloved in neon aqua. I popped back the chocolate and the burst of sweetness must have made my marbles explode like firecrackers, because not only did I not move away, but I also made no attempt to fill the quiet my acceptance of candy had caused.

"They say the rails are freezing over," The woman with salty hair offered the peanuts to another man standing with us who was older than she. "By tomorrow morning, there won't be any trains running at all."

"I'm here from the coast," The man shook his head at the chocolate in the yellow bag. "I was supposed to take a bus back, but none of those are going anywhere either. I'm lucky I've got family here in Portland."

They're talking, having a conversation, a random, in the middle of nowhere, for no reason chit chat. Uh oh. How did I end up standing here? I should be over by the pillar with the maps posted on all four of its sides.

"I'll bet the weather out on the coast is worse than it is here, being closer to the water and all. You should probably count yourself lucky you got stuck here, bus or no bus." Holy crap, now I was participating!

"At least a bus would be warmer than standing here waiting for a train." That was another guy; somebody wearing four puffy coats and three rolling suitcases at his feet. I tried to imagine him linking them together and pulling them through the airport. Considering the flowers all over two of them and the peace signs adorning the third, I waged a good guess that not all the luggage was his.

"Well hell," I smiled despite there being no pressure to do so, despite the public lighting being too weak to illuminate it. "A doghouse on Christmas morning would be warmer and that's without the dog."

They laughed, even though I used a dry voice and the wind was so harsh at our backs, it tried to steal my humor. They laughed little laughs into their collars, their scarves, the top buttons of their fleece lined coats. I smiled inside, though tentatively, still waiting for the awkwardness to set in and drive me towards the escape route I always kept at the ready.

And indeed, silence snuck in at the tail end of our laughter and my insides tightened, then eased. Maybe it was the cold roaring in our ears such that it wasn't a complete quiet. Maybe it the unceasing battle Mother Nature was waging on the rails and us, but in that moment, the four of us were an island unto ourselves. I didn't know why they were standing with me and frankly, I was at an utter loss as to why I was standing with them. My voluntarily remaining in a circle that wasn't talking was as likely as my telling a handsome customer at work that if he didn't go out with me, he'd be getting a hot medium roast coffee in the face.

I stayed rooted to my spot until my train finally came. As it pulled into the station and I gathered together my bag and sadly empty coffee cup, I bid them goodbye with a wave and a thank you. We didn't know each others names and we didn't know where each other was going. We'd wasted warm air on words, but performed no handshakes. Climbing the stairs into the train car, I wondered what had made tonight's silence safe enough to house me.

Maybe it had just been the peanuts.