Volunteer Explorer

“You buckled up?” Officer Mike Zimcosky asks me as he switches on the lights and siren. We just got a call for an assist with a Signal 5: traffic emergency, in pursuit. “Yes,” I say as a small bolt of electricity zaps through my stomach. My right hand instinctively crosses over to verify that my seatbelt is, indeed, engaged. I press back into the seat as Zimcosky pulls a tight U-turn and floors it down Brown Street. It is 12:39 on a Friday afternoon. I’ve been riding with Officer Zimcosky as a C.O. — a civilian observer — since 6:30 a.m. We’re in a dark blue Ford Explorer that has definitely seen better days. The transmission slips when Zimcosky accelerates, and every little bump in the road makes the shotgun that is secured vertically between the front seats jostle and squeak. Zimcosky has been back on patrol for about six months now. He left the plain-clothes narcotics division after 23 years to return to a uniform and a regular day shift. “I loved it,” he says. “But there ...

In my teens and early 20s, I spent a lot of time onstage. From school choir, class plays and drama club, I transitioned into community theater productions for a few years, then had a brief career delivering singing telegrams – which is a hybrid of exotic dancing and camp theater, so it totally counts. After I got married, I still enjoyed a few theater roles and karaoke for a while, but sometime in my early 30s, I developed crippling stage fright. It was right around the same time I began an extramarital affair, so the Freudian analysis is an easy one, though only in retrospect. I literally lost my voice when I stopped speaking the truth. Poetic rhapsodies aside, the point is that I haven’t been onstage in a long time. And I thought maybe that was okay, maybe that part of my life was simply relegated to the past. But over the past year or so, I have found myself missing music more and more. Stacy really fueled my ache to sing again by calling me songbird and appearing in a...

After she helped me attach the rainbow flag to the corner railing of my balcony, Stacy said, “Now everyone’s going to think you’re gay.” I was so surprised to hear her say that. It’s not that I’m surprised about the rainbow flag being associated with the gay community – of course I’m not. I had spent Saturday morning volunteering at the Equality March check-in site in Highland Square and the bulk of the afternoon at Pride Fest. I’d worn a rainbow-striped hat, sports bra and tank top all day while hanging out with lesbians and drag queens. Stacy and I had held hands and kissed frequently at the event. How much gayer could I get? What surprised me was that Stacy could still default to such cautions about public opinion. She makes no bones about her own identification. At the volunteer training a couple weeks ago, we were given name tags that had a place for one’s name and then, “My preferred pronouns are…” When she filled out her name tag at the training – and again...

I stood on the balcony and leaned my head back as far as I could. It had been a volatile, rainy day, and a deck of clouds moved rapidly across the nearly midnight sky. The urgent sound of late-August crickets strung its way through the thick, humid air. When I looked straight up, the quick traversing of the clouds made me keenly aware that the planet beneath me was moving. Thick white puffs turned quickly into shreds of vapor along the inky universe beyond, which became apparent in the occasional glimmer of a faraway light – perhaps a star, perhaps an airplane. The longer I stared upward, the less I felt rooted to my balcony. I fancied myself on the deck of a ship riding through an ocean of foamy stars. When I turned my gaze earthward to rest my neck, the street seemed cartoonishly small. The cardboard apartment house across the way looked lit from within as if by AA-size batteries. Pedestrians on the sidewalk were clay-mation figures from an early episode of Mr. Rogers...

Karma would not stop jumping on me. Her bright, blue eyes implored me as her tongue flickered toward my face and her long skinny legs reached for my shoulders. “She’s a new dog,” Donna Webb said, trying to get Karma to stay down and behave. I was passing her studio and noticed the door propped open, a rather rare occurrence, so I seized the moment and walked in. I was sweaty from my walk in the humid heat, but the un-airconditioned studio was just slightly cooler than the street. A box fan atop an old school desk moved warm air through the dusty room filled with colorful ceramics. As Donna and I chatted, Karma eventually turned her interest to a plastic bottle that needed a good chewing. I introduced myself to Donna, referencing the magazine I work for and our intern who had recently interviewed her for the upcoming arts issue. She spoke freely about her latest project, “Strange Particles,” which seemed to be everywhere in the studio: layered in boxes on the now-empty ...

I’ve been feeling a lot of loss lately. Maybe because my dad passed in July nine years ago, this month brings the fragility of existence to the forefront of my mind. The husband of one of my mom’s very close friends just died. They met and married after he returned wounded from Vietnam, then remained passionately in love for 40-some years, raising three kids into being parents in their own right. The funeral was awash in laughter through tears. My good friend lost her dad unexpectedly in February, and that loss has since shadowed both my relationship with her and my work life. I’ve also continued mourning the end of my 21-year marriage, with an official divorce decree in May. Two decades of sharing a home and a life do not disappear with a court order. And memories pop up at the most unexpected times, making the process of moving forward long, labyrinthine and laborious. My latest loss is Stacy. Don’t worry: She continues to get healthier and stronger, and her latest ...

Twenty-five years ago today, I met a man. It was his birthday. We were both wearing white: he a lab coat, I a tuxedo jacket. Our paths merged and remained fixed for a long time. We made promises and plans. We talked and traveled, built a home and a circle of friends. The path seemed endless, winding toward a storybook ending of happiness forever. Then I strayed. For no good reason other than I could, for the only reason that mattered: I needed something else. He didn’t see. Or if he saw, he didn’t say. My respect for him eroded every minute he failed to catch me and call me out. I hated him for not knowing or showing, hated myself for hating him. Hated the mess I made but couldn’t see a way out of it. The guilt and shame of it took over. My entire life became the lie, and the lie became my identity. Then I decided to stop. The affair, not the lying. The lying still held everything together. Then one day I wondered if the building I worked in was tall enough to end...

What does it mean to love another person? What does it mean to love someone who is sick? Can you really love everything about that person? Even their illness? I have been fairly effortlessly healthy all my life. Genetics, nutrition, lifestyle – these all contributed to a fully functioning body that rarely lets me down. Appendicitis last fall was a gut-punch that sidelined me for a couple of weeks. My cure was exercise, as it so often is. I walked the halls a mere two hours after the surgery, bent over and clinging to my IV cart. I ran a mile or so at the park 10 days after surgery. Getting up and moving around were the panacea my mother taught me long ago. Be it flu, a cold, arthritis or depression, your ailment can be ameliorated with exercise. That was her mantra. She read “The Bell Jar” at my urging when I was in high school – probably because she desperately wanted some tiny glimpse into my sullen teenaged psyche. Her response to the lead character’s suicide attem...

I spent the first 26 years of my life with my father’s last name. Then I spent 23 years with my husband’s last name. I will now spend the rest of my life with a name of my own choosing. My maternal great-grandmother chose her own name. She was born October 18, 1894 and her parents called her Dutch until she graduated from high school. They couldn’t seem to settle on a name, so they simply let her choose her own legal name when she became an adult. She chose Mary for the woman who sewed her graduation dress and Adelaide for a family friend. Best was her last name because that was her father’s last name. I only met Nanny — as we called Mary Adelaide in my family — once when I was 3 or 4 years old. I clearly remember climbing the wooden stairs on the outside of the two-story house in Punxsutawney that belonged to my grandmother’s sister where Nanny lived out her final years. She sat in an oversize easy chair leaning on a cane. She wore enormous black men’s shoes. When my brother...

It started out as such a fun night. Stacy and I parked behind Tear-EZ around 7:00 and had one drink in the bar. Then we walked up Main Street to the Civic Theater. It’s probably not even half a mile, but any distance feels like an accomplishment with Stacy. Her stamina for physical activity is seriously low after a year and a half of chemo, steroids, radiation and wasting away on the couch. Some days, though, she seems quite energetic. This was one of those days. The walk was pleasant though slow, and we arrived just in time to miss the crowds but still get good seats. We were seeing Susan Westenhoefer, a lesbian comedienne that Stacy had seen before. They had the audience seated on the stage, making the already interesting venue seem intimate and cozy. Though we arrived mere minutes before the general-admission show started, an usher took us right up to a pair of seats in the center of the second row. So many times, it seems, when I’m with Stacy we get rock-star treatment: gr...

I’ve had a lot of time away from the office these past couple of weeks. The holidays falling on Mondays made for long weekends, and I capitalized on that as much as possible. I find that my attitude at work is, shall we say, less eager of late. My new editor and I are getting along very well. We discuss strategies for future stories, and she asks my opinion on treatments and angles. We’ve read and edited each other’s work by now, as well, so we understand each other’s skill level much better. As great as that is, I am acutely aware of the precarious nature of print publication in terms of economic viability. I realize that I cannot depend on that job for long-term security. So I don’t. The freelance work is really ramping up. If the flow continues as it has, I could make the transition to full-time freelancing — which would support at least considering letting the office job go. That will be a difficult decision, but I need to leave some mental space for it. After all, l...

2017 has been a year of new: new apartment, new relationships, new attitude. It was also a year of firsts: first dates, first bus trips, first experiences alone, first attempts at independence. 2018 promises to be just as exciting and terrifying in its own way. After jumping feet first into the deep end of the unknown, I have surfaced and learned to swim. I practice honesty and self-care, I don’t deny myself pleasure, and I’m beginning to believe that I really do deserve ice cream, sex and happiness. This year feels like another clean slate. Turning the page on the calendar brings an opportunity to start fresh and embrace change. I don’t make new year’s resolutions, but I believe in the power of accountability. The future tense always implies a promise: I will. It’s a pledge to fulfill the promise of one’s words. This year, I will be my best self, living my best life. I will be honest with myself and others; I will be kind to myself and others; I will see the beauty and jo...