Interview with my wife FF

Today, Monday, the 10th of June, my wife FF sits at her desk wearing nothing but a striped denim tunic and a straight legged splint on her right leg. Her hair is clean, but disheveled from a rough-night's sleep. She is looking slightly weary in the eyes, but her skin is clear and sun-kissed from all the early summer sun Portland has been getting the last few weeks.  

FF - Felicity, Oh Felicity, how is your spirit holding up with this whole bang-up knee thing?

FF - It's been wavering. Most of the day I feel relatively normal. I'm not in too much pain and I'm relatively content and interested in doing things like elbow yoga, drinking fermented tea, cat petting, toddler tossing and tree washing. But then there is the other bit of the day, usually in the early evening, when my leg feels like it's filled with sharp stones and I'm sinking under water. I can't focus and I'm exhausted from lack of sleep. It's a dark and dull feeling, like part of my brain was kidnapped. 

FF - Well that's understandable. Not only did a surgeon cut open your leg and rearrange your bones, but you're an active person who usually has seventeen plates spinning in the air at all times. The slower paced lifestyle and numbing pain in your knee have got to be challenging. 

FF - Challenging yes. But also an invitation for me to experience the slowness more fully. I'm doing my best to stay positive and treat this whole injury as an education. Every step I take with crutches requires a vastly different choreography and mental state than I'm used to. I'm seeing it as a dance. I have to be present in each step, shuffle and roll so I don't  bang up my already banged-up body. I'm also becoming more curious about what it means to be slow. And in this slowness, I've been doing more watching. I watch people move at the grocery store and on the street. Most people are in a hurry. Few people make eye contact. Lots of people are on their phones. 

FF - Do you feel like you rushed around like that before you broke your knee? 

FF - Absolutely. A good portion of the time. And it seems like such an innocent thing, walking around, rushing about, buying groceries, waiting in line for stamps at the post office. Doing this all in fog of iphone screens and absentmindedness. But then you fall down or run into something. And you realize how dangerous all that rushing and zoning out was. 

Interview with my wife FF

It is a pleasant Monday afternoon in early spring. The sun shines through yellow curtained windows in FF's studio, and if you bend your ear to the left you can hear a helicopter flying above Portland.  FF is sitting on wobbly office chair covered in Swedish fabric. She is finishing up a late lunch - leftovers from several nights ago - soba noodles with tofu and vegetables. She has a bit of grease on her chin and her hair is pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. She is wearing a baggy pair of skinny jeans, green t-shirt and an old man sweater. Her socks are off-white and stained with floor.

FF - It's spring. 

FF - Yes. I know. The flowers are blooming, trees are budding, knees are unveiling. It's a wild time of year. 

FF - But your knees are swathed in denim. 

FF - They are. It's cold in here. I need to keep my knees warm otherwise they'll dry out. Like dried figs. 

FF - Understood. 

FF - What have you been doing today?

FF - Lots of "work work" mixed with occasional glances out of the window, and one or two high fives for you. 

FF - Your high fives are mighty and powerful. Where did you pick that up?

FF - Somewhere in Prague. A long time ago. There was a man playing a shiny horn on the street and as I walked by, he held out his hand for a high five. I gave him a high five and then he insisted I give him another. Then another. "Not strong enough" he said. And so I spent 10 to 15 more minutes high fiving this strange guy with a horn until I finally got it down. I became a pro. He told me so. 

FF - Did you leave the guy a dollar? 

FF - I think I left him one hundred Korunas (about 5 dollars these days) despite the fact that I was living on carrots and mayonnaise. 

FF interviews FF

It's been months since my last interview with my wife Felicity. We rarely see each other these days, and when we do it's usually for a quick chat about household dust, hangnails and leftover cashew cheese. Soon I'm going to demand she spend more time with me. 

Here she is, sitting in bed under a three blankets, while a small heater blows hot air into the chilly bedroom. Her feet are usually cold this time of year along with the tip of her nose. She's got the last hint of a fever blister on the bottom of her left lip. Her face looks rather waxy from the argan oil she uses to keep her skin from cracking. 

FF - Hello dear wife. How are you feeling? 

FF - Eager, exhausted, elated, elbowed. And you?

FF - The same I suppose, but a little more elbowed than exhausted. And definitely less eager than elated. 

FF - Did you ever find the blue ball you were looking for?

FF - The plastic one the cats like to play with?

FF - Yes that one. 

FF - I did. It was in the sock drawer, all the way on the bottom, hidden beneath the unpaired socks I've been keeping around for years. 

FF - Why are you keeping unpaired socks?

FF - I assume one day they'll show up. Where could they possibly go anyway? They've got to be around here somewhere. 

FF - Socks are supposed to go missing. It's their job. They go missing to keep us from settling into complacency, to keep us curious about their whereabouts, to keep us looking for them in places we'd never look otherwise. 

FF - Your probably right. I went looking for my unpaired socks in Tunisia several years ago. I was convinced they were in a town called Tabarka. The red ones anyway. 

FF - And did you find them? 

FF - No. Not them, but I found another red sock that belonged to a young prince. I put it on my foot and felt its silk gently tug my toe... Then, after sitting around for too long, drinking mint tea with the (much smaller) lone sock on my foot, I decided I didn't want to wear socks anymore.

FF - At all?

FF - At all. For a while anyway. I left Tunisia and went back to NYC and I didn't wear socks for a few years. 

FF - What about on the subway in January?

FF - No socks. 

FF - What about at the community center gym in Williamsburg? On the treadmill?

FF - Sockless. 

FF - What about when you biked on a mountainbike from NY to Vermont?

FF - Yes. That was when I started wearing socks again. It's much too hard to spin pedals sans socks.