Essays // Writing Archives - Page 5 of 10

One anniversary tradition worth following

August 20, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

Justin and I celebrated our first anniversary yesterday! We went to the pool, napped, got a fancy dinner, and went to a movie (Spike Lee’s “BlackKklansman” is great!). The night before, I surprised Justin with an anniversary gift. We promised not to do gifts like this, but I couldn’t help myself. I generally think marriage is kind of dumb, but anniversaries are great! Traditionally, the first anniversary gift is paper. So I got him this print.

It symbolizes comedian Bill Hicks’ bit “It’s Just a Ride,” which was a reading at our ceremony. We both love this bit and try to live by its ethos of fearlessness. But that’s hard. Because I am afraid. All the time. I‘m so scared and find more to be scared of every day. I‘m scared of you. Of me. Of loss, of regret, of giving of myself. Of the world and the universe and all their black holes. I want to hold on to Justin (so brave in who he is and how he pushes me and how he sees the world) with my hands up (hands up!) until my ride’s up.

I think I’m also subconsciously getting new art for our apartment so his bachelor-era Rocky posters can go, ahem, somewhere/anywhere else. 😉

We also ate the top of our wedding cake, which we’ve kept in the freezer for the past year. It was so gross. The worst part of our day. Which, all things considered, means we had a pretty great one.

To many more. <3

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly colored, and it’s very loud, and it’s fun for a while.

Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, “Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, “Hey, don’t worry; don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.”

And we … kill those people. “Shut him up! I’ve got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.” It’s just a ride.

But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love.

The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride.

Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”

Three things I tell anyone who asks about being a full-time freelance writer

June 19, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey 2 Comments

It’s been one year since leaving my full-time job as a copywriter at an agency to work as a freelance writer M-F/24/7.

The gig life isn’t for everyone. It requires a lot of speed, adaptability, and discipline. Oh, and contacts. I’m so grateful for the network of contacts and connections I’ve made at full-time jobs before now; they’ve supplied me with the majority of my assignments this past year.

As the freelance/ remote work life becomes more and more feasible, especially for those of us in creative or tech-driven fields, I get a lot of questions from friends and colleagues about how it’s been going. Do I like it? How do I find jobs? Would I recommend it?

Here are three things I tell all of them.

It’s the best work-life-balance move I’ve ever made.

I used to worry about work and, more specifically, money all the time. It was a constant stressor. That’s common, but I think it was exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis. I graduated from college that year, and though I got a job in my field immediately following my big cap and gown moment, it was a really nerve-wracking time. I watched so many friends struggle to find work in what they had studied (and were now trying to pay tens of thousands of dollars for). I watched my industry (journalism) crumble as job opportunity dried up. The stress made me sacrifice everything for work, including my health, my time, everything.

Because of all of that insecurity, in which the reality of drowning seemed mere days away, I’ve always tried to have multiple streams of income. While I was a journalist, I worked second and third jobs to pay off my student loans and, let’s be honest, simply pay my rent.

I think I’ve mentally needed those multiple streams of income, even after moving into marketing, paying off my student loans, and finally starting making contributions to my savings account. Freelance has given me a chance to relax. Ironically, not having a full time traditional job has made me less concerned about my future of having one.

Worry doll be worryin’. Justin got me Guatemalan worry dolls as a gift during our first Christmas together years ago. He was all, “Um, yeah, you worry all the time and it makes me worry about you. Are you ok? Merry Christmas?”

I feel like I now have more peace of mind in knowing that if the economy fails or if the job market I’ve chosen faces an unforeseeable blow (ie. if changing net neutrality rules limit the need for web content, thus drying up a lot of my freelance assignments), I’ve got the education and experience to be valuable to all kinds of employers.

That’s not just because of freelance; part of it’s related to age and adding notches of experience to my work belt. But as a freelance writer, I gain a comprehensive skill set. I’m able to write for an entire range of industries, work with companies of all sizes, and learn myriad project management and CMS tools instead of simply the ones my current employer operates with. I’m learning industry-standard work across every industry.

I feel really confident in my ability to land on my feet in the future. Because I have to land on my feet everyday as a freelancer.

It’s not always easy. Some days I have to work 16 hours, especially if assignments overlap. And on days like that, I have to really stay on top of myself to stay mentally focused on each task—because each job requires and deserves my best work, no matter what.

It’s worth it. Every. Time. With Justin working nights as a stand-up comedian, freelance work allows me to be flexible with when I work during the day (unless, of course, I have a meeting or deadline in the day). I can travel with him as he commutes to out-of-state gigs, using my phone’s hotspot in the car. It’s freed up time to work on my creative writing, too, which is enough to have made this all worth it. Not having to commute to an office saves me at least two hours a day. That’s two hours I now put into personal writing projects.

I feel more in control of myself than ever before. I feel in charge of my destiny, not beholden to a job market or one person at the top of the work food chain. I’m technically not working for myself. I’m not my own boss. But I am my own director. I choose what I do or don’t take on and have to live with those choices. I decide how much to take on. I determine how successful or unsuccessful I am. And all of that makes me work harder. Better. More creatively. Freelance is freedom for people who crave independence.

And I’m not so terrified of work anymore. Which, go figure, makes me even better at it.

Get organized now.

Clean your workspace. Set up a file system. Buy a better, faster computer. Whatever you need to do to make the workflow happen like a well-oiled machine, do it. And do it before you book your first job.

Start documents for the following items and save them to your bookmark bar now:

A to do list with items and breaks broken down by the hour. Make it a Google doc so you can access and update it anywhere. My to do list is my bff. The night before a work day, I track everything I have to do tomorrow—and I’m really specific about the tasks. Specificity makes it easier to get myself motivated to get into it (bird by bird, baby girl), and the smallness of each task simultaneously makes me see the bigger picture so I can be realistic about how much time a project will need committed to it. I also schedule blocks of time just for writing. It’s hard to get in the flow that writing requires if I am bouncing in between emails, interview, or meetings. I block out three to four hours a day to do nothing but write. All the administrative tasks have to take place around that. Make the time, respect the time. Namaste.
A tax doc. Record all payments that have taxes taken out and those that don’t. I save 35% of each check that doesn’t have taxes taken out and put it into savings. While you’re at it, hire an accountant now. I also track my expenses and invoice numbers/links on this spreadsheet as their own pages.
A running list of assignments and hours. Google Cal is my dream man. Get yours organized now and consider signing up for time-saving apps like Calendly if you schedule a lot of meetings. I also keep a spreadsheet of all the assignments I’ve taken on in the calendar year and all the deadlines I have coming up. In each row I track contact information for the job, tax info, check numbers or direct deposit account dates, deadlines, dates I turned the assignment in, links to the final document and associated interview transcripts, and even the subject line of the email conversation with the employer so that it’s easy to search in my Gmail inbox. I keep the link to this spreadsheet at the top of my to do list doc so it’s easy to reference on my phone, too.

Be honest about whether you’re ready for this.

I tried freelancing full time about five years ago, when I left the journalism field. It didn’t work. Not because I wasn’t willing to work hard; it didn’t work because I wasn’t ready for it yet. I needed to beef up my skill set with a traditional employer. I needed to make more contacts. I needed more experience. I needed to get better at writing and managing my time. I needed to confirm that writing was my dream career.

You’re risking a lot of financial stability when you go freelance, and if you’re not ready for it yet, you’re going to be hurting fast. I started down this full-time path only a year ago, and that was after almost five years of working the freelance hustle and building up my own business on the side of my full time job. I also waited until I had paid off my student loans and had enough saved to pay off our wedding. I know it’s easier to live this way, too, because Justin and I don’t have children. I can work a 16-hour day guilt free because I don’t have anyone’s little heart dependent on my attention.

Freelancing, working remotely, living that gig life can also be a little lonely. If you’re an extrovert who gets creative and professional energy off being around other talented people, this might not be for you. I’m an introvert with extrovert tendencies, so I find myself eagerly awaiting human contact via video conference calls. But only occasionally. For the most part, I write better when I’m alone.

I know how privileged and lucky I am to get to live this lifestyle. It’s involved a lot of good timing (landing the right jobs before this, making the right contacts, building genuine connections with people) and universe-given talent (shout-out to whatever muse makes my writing bones dance whenever I come-a-knockin’ on ’em). But I’ve also worked really, really hard at a long game to get here. You can as well, even if it’s not a gig life. I hope you find the work situation that is best for you—so you’re not just working, you’re living too.

Happy Grease-iversary! Let’s talk about Betty “With Relish” Rizzo

June 16, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

I used to roll my eyes at all those people, guys mostly, who would get internet-upset about reboots of their favorite childhood movies. “Ghostbusters” is my best example, I guess. There was such online outrage that the movie was 1) being remade and 2) being remade with women as the central characters.

Oh, geeze, come on. Really? How can this totally made up story that isn’t even yours be that precious to you? Get over yourself.

For my part of the Ghostbusters version 2016 debate, I was mostly annoyed that the threesome of America’s funniest comedic actors (Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy) and Leslie Jones couldn’t get their own 100% original script (yeah, you see what I did there… I love LJ’s original work but she is #forsure not the acting level of those other three and you know it). Really? We gotta piggy back off this old movie in an attempt to make a feminist statement? Just give them their own original funny story. That’s more feminist.

The point is, regardless of my own stupid outrage, I was quick to dismiss any arguments that a movie shouldn’t be remade simply because the original serves as pop cultural linchpin of one generation’s childhood. Those arguments seemed outrageously selfish to me.

My opinion on that has changed.

The movies we watch and grow to love when we are children are sacred. I don’t mean that hyperbolically. I think the stories of our favorite childhood movies really do act as modern day religious myth, created to deepen our understanding of the world and tune our moral barometer by way of an incredible story. Storytelling one of humanity’s greatest evolutionary tools.

If you think of the Bible as one long story, it’s easy to see why our little baby brains might hook into movie stories and make them precious. (Here’s a thought: maybe if the Bible story got a modern day reboot, a lot more people would be interested in it. Despite my earlier frustration about an orig script, I’d be down for Jesus being a woman this time.)

To fuck with that could understandably make one annoyed enough to write about it on one’s blog. OK, angry internet guys, I guess I get it. That doesn’t excuse any thinly veiled misogyny on your end, but I can concede that it really does suck to have a beloved childhood story altered.

Here’s why: Somebody fucked with Grease.

Sure, the movie Grease was someone else fucking with the stage version of Grease, but I think we can all agree that’s 100% acceptable because Grease the movie, which came out in theaters 40 years ago today, June 16, 1978, is one of the greatest movies of all time.

It must have volunteered as tribute or something in 2016, when it became subject of an unthinkable live version that still hurts my heart. I’m so tied to the original movie that I will never enjoy a remake. Any remake. Especially not one starring the absolutely gorgeous, 21st century knockout Vanessa Hudgens as Betty Rizzo.

The whole point of Rizzo, what helped make her feistiness, her tough girl exterior, her jealous antics, so believable, was that she was sort of homely compared to the other girls (except maybe Jan, but Jan’s charm was that she didn’t give a shit about that kind of stuff). Rizzo could believably be a sneaky snake because she was so clearly jealous of the beautiful new girl Sandy. It’s just hard to believe someone who looks like Vanessa Hudgens could be jealous of anyone’s romantic life in her dumpy hometown high school.

But that’s not VH’s fault. I realize viewer standards are higher than ever. We expect superior stock actresses, excellently most bigly beautiful female specimens to play any make-believe female role, even ones where the character could use a long neck or freckled face or messy mouth or doughy build to really sell her role. At least that’s true for teen movies with a singalong element. It’s acceptable to cast a homely chick or make a hot chick turn herself homely for her art if a script has, say, Oscar potential.

As a kid, I watched Grease, apropos, religiously. I love that movie so much. And almost everyone who has ever watched it feels the exact same way. It’s the only movie I can quote all the way through, thanks to watching it 12 hours straight whenever I stayed home sick from school. What’s the appeal? It’s so bright, colorful, retro, well shot, well acted. The songs are fun, the dialogue’s funny, and the love stories are swoon-worthy for a girl of a certain age. The story moves fast; there’s no fat on that perfectly cooked steak and pink milkshake meal.

More specifically, Kenickie Murdoch was scratching me right where my growing interest in bad boys itched… and tickled… Yaknowwhatimean?

I loved the Pink Ladies, too! Every single one of them. I never got that into Sandy, though. Def too pure to be pink and thus too pure to be of interest to me. Or at least that’s what I say now. Back then, I think I recognized she was way out of my league and I would have a life story much more similar to the ladies in pink. Which, cool, I liked their outfits and personalities better anyway. Like Rizzo, I was totally jealous of girls like Sandy. I think I can love Rizzo so much now because I can finally admit what I understand about her. I know what aspects of her character resonate so deeply with mine and it’s not scary like it probably was as a kid.

Plus, the Pink Ladies are, to me, the crown jewel of fictional female friend groups. There are so many that have been part of a basic white Millennial girl’s life: The Pink Ladies, The Spice Girls, Destiny’s Child, TLC, Sisters/ Wearers of Traveling Pants, the crew from Now And Then, and, of course, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha.

I guess men have groups of male characters they like too. Some of Justin’s favorite movies have this sort of multi-character friend dynamic: The Sandlot, Stand By Me, original Ghostbusters. His childhood movie watching showed him lone wolf characters he loves, too. They’re all, not surprisingly, men. Take Rocky, his absolute favorite fictional character, and a story of one man’s battle to overcome circumstance, class prejudice, and everything else a poor kid from Philly’s gotta face. It’s so lone wolf the movie title is just his first name!

I don’t think there was a real Rocky equivalent for girls in my childhood. At least not that I remember. There wasn’t one single, strong female character that I used as a surrogate to imagine my own battles and strengths. Instead, my desire for that was broken down across these fictional female friend groups: each woman or girl representing a different part of myself that I could tap into when her power was needed. No one woman was all the things. Not until Beyonce became Just Beyonce, not Beyonce of Destiny’s Child.

I think that’s OK. I love that Millennial women are uniquely able to see other women’s strengths as something they can lean into, not something they need to be jealous of or develop in themselves to be adequately “female.” I think things are harder for modern men in that respect. Be Rocky strong. Be big man. Be lone wolf. Argh argh argh.

But, like always, there’s no real “winner” here. Women get penalized for having this community-oriented group mentality too. Teamwork has become expected of us. Studies show women who ask for raises are treated more negatively than men who do the same. Fighting for ourselves is still something we have to Rydell-High-cartwheel around in the workplace thanks to long standing sexism in our cultural-professional spheres. We tiptoe around our successes or workloads all the time.

Facebook powerhouse Sheryl Sandberg hates telling women this advice but knows she needs to if they’re ever going to get what they deserve: Women have to be more vocal about their achievements in the workplace if they want to get raises, BUT they need to be careful to frame those achievements in terms of the collective benefit of the organization, lest someone higher up think they’re asking for too much.

Or being, well, a selfish bitch.

Speaking of, this brings me back to Rizzo, baby’s first feminist.

Rizzo was bitchy, sure, but it was a cover, something we learn throughout the movie. Her solo reveals her dynamic sense of right and wrong, one that proves to the audience that, hey, maybe you’ve misunderstood the bad girl a little bit. She’s a loyal friend and eventually warms up to Sandy. She lets Kenicke off the fatherhood hook because she is smart enough to know deep down he’s not ready for that and she’s better off figuring this out alone. Lone shark. And by the end of the movie, lone shark redeemed.

She’s the only character in that whole movie given real depth. Rizzo can float in and out of being one of four parts Pink Lady and being just Rizzo. Whenever you see the other Pink Ladies not in the group or not with another Pink Lady–basically whenever you see them in a scene alone–their desperation or insecurity is palpable. Examples: Marty trying to get down on the old man at prom, Frenchy crying over her career calling angels for advice.

Rizzo though? When Rizzo’s away from the group, she’s taking control of her sexuality. She’s making things happen. She’s standing up to someone who hurt her (Danny), albeit it at the expense of another woman, but this was the ’50s after all. She’s taking the blows alone and still standing.

“Bite the weenie, Riz.”

“With relish.”

Rizzo is the most equivalent to Danny in the T-Birds because she’s the one most likely to have the confidence and love to strike out on her own.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve had enough time to lock down the superpowers of all the other Pink Ladies (Frenchy’s empathy, Jan’s sense of humor, Marty’s seductiveness), that as an adult woman, I lean into Rizzo the most, this evolving badass feisty woman unafraid to wear tight clothes and throw a finger to the haters and take another man to prom if the one she wanted to go with is dumb enough to go without her.

I still want Frenchy’s smoke blowing skills and easter egg colored hair. But Rizzo’s spirit is the one that I want.

Learning the art of restraint

June 8, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

It’s midday. I’m in Indiana at my mother-in-law Rosie’s house. Justin and I have come to spend a few days with her and, since we’re here and all, use her garage.

I need to paint 20 frames for an upcoming gallery show and the thought of me, Jackie “Oh, Did I Make That Mess?” Mantey, painting anything in our small apartment’s even smaller dining room nearly gives Justin a panic attack. (Poor guy had just recovered from some hives, which started not long after I decided to hand wash the dishes, a process that involves me swirling around and brilliantly reconfiguring whatever gooey gunk is decorating them. Then giving myself a huge pat on the back.)

So here I am, an Indiana artist for the day. I stand in my temporary studio, its regular vehicular tenants parked in the driveway to soak in some sun. I’m wearing ratty clothes, my hair high in a messy bun. Before I start painting, I take a minute to look around the subdivision. It’s a weekday, but children are playing outside. Summer vacation is in full swing. In fact, it just started, and so the cut grass still smells good and the hot blacktop still feels electrifying, even under tender bare feet. Popsicle brain freeze, sunburns, scraped knees, skulls shattered by the diving board, et al. The whole grab bag of other playing-outside maladies haven’t ruined anyone’s fun just yet.

I wave with my paint brush at a Sidewalk Boy rolling past on his scooter. They’re so cute when they’re pre-pubescent.

With that, I set about painting all of these frames a color called Hawaiian Luau Pink. I used to avoid my penchant for pink. It’s so feminine and totally not as cool as black, which I also like but not as much as I love pink. Choosing pink for these frames signals an acceptance of the part of myself that embraces traditional girlishness. It’s not the “girlishness” that bugs me. It’s the “traditional.” My experience is that people who like things done “traditionally” usually suck giant Hawaiian Luau Pink balls.

Rosie comes out to help me at one point and we have a great time. Listening to music, talking, painting, enjoying the breeze. Art-making offers a physical experience for creativity that writing just can’t. When you’re writing, your fingers and mind are working a mile a minute, but that’s about it. I like using my body to express something. Holding the frames tilted until my arms shake, just so I can get the right stroke angle for the paint brush. Pushing needle through a piece of paper until my pointer and middle fingers are calloused. Yes. More. Please.

One coat in and the color is is looking pretty dynamite. The rough wooden surface of the frames is taking the paint exactly like I expected, like I hoped it would. It’s seeping into every curve and splinter, acting as a highlighter, letting the old barn wood, which all the frames are made out of, tell its own story—just a little more fabulously than it would “traditionally.”

But I decide the paint’s soaking in pretty deeply as a base. A second coat is in order. The physicality and repetitiveness of going over one coat of paint with a second is even more therapeutic than the first go-round. Dip. Slow. Paint. Twist. Dip. Slow. Paint. Twist. As I finish dressing frames 18, 19, 20 in their second coat, I keep eyeing frames 1 through 10, which are nearly dry. Can I do a third coat? Should I? I really want to. Painting is so fun. I’m not tired yet. I’m not bored. This is giving me peace. I want to do another round.

An argument about whether or not to do this—because they really look pretty perfect with just two coats—swirls around inside me, like Sidewalk Boys circling their skateboards around the floor of an empty pool. My brow is furrowed when Rosie joins me in inspecting the frames. She confirms my suspicions: One more coat and the messy roughness of the frames would be overtaken, lost in the Luau, swimming in too many layers of pink. The story of the frames, of the work inside them and the wood than comprises them, would be drowned out.

I take a deep breath and agree. Put the paintbrush down. Watch the neighbor kids play.

A lunch date

June 5, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

There’s nothing quite as satisfying not having to spend an hour conducting polite small talk to catch up with an old friend. It’s the best: To just jump into the good stuff, like no time has passed. I felt like that yesterday when I traveled up to Evanston to see my friend Colleen and her husband, JD, who were visiting Chicago from their Ohio home.

I met Colleen my freshman year of college. My attraction to her was immediate. I was pulled like a magnet to her creamy red hair and her rebel with a cause attitude. She was the first girl I ever saw effortlessly live this balance of I-don’t-give-any-fucks and I-give-the-right-kinds-of-fucks.

On her dorm room wall, she hung a list of things she believed about herself and about life. It bullet-pointed her trust in feminism and a belief in the power of the American vote (she was a Political Science major, of course). I had never seen an 18-year-old care about these things, and the earnestness of it tapped directly into the earnestness of my own self. I didn’t know you could make lists like that! I want to make lists like that!

Her music collection was the stuff of kids I’d only seen in the indie movies, and she had a beta fish. Like, before everyone had a beta fish. Before beta fish even knew they were beta fish. But there he was, captured potential swimming blue and bright right above her desk.

We quickly became friends that fall semester. Partying, studying, talking. She introduced me to Fiona Apple’s full albums and my now favorite band, The Distillers, gifts of which I think I can only adequately repay by giving her my first born.

One breezy afternoon that first college fall, we decided to go to the piercing shop in town for a nose piercing (for her) and a Monroe piercing (for me). My Monroe didn’t last very long. I took it out for a job interview at a pizza shop. I didn’t get the job, and lip hole closed up almost immediately. But before that happened, it led me to Carrie, my other best friend from college.

Carrie says she first saw me late one night while we both waited for the bus outside the dorm where Colleen and I lived. Carrie was also a resident there but on the first floor; Colleen and I lived on the second and, with so much stimulation sparking those first exciting few months, going to another floor might as well have been going to Mars.

At that bus stop as the full moon watched, it was her turn to be pulled to me like a magnet, my Monroe stud a pin in her heart’s map. She even called me Marilyn until she learned my real name. She loves to tell me she had an instant friend crush on me, just like I did her when I finally met her. Just like I did with Colleen.

Sophomore year, when I got my first byline in the school newspaper (a recap of a visiting speaker event), Carrie clipped out the entire 1,000-word story and hung it on her tiny dorm mini-fridge like a proud parent. It stayed there, taking up all that magnetic real estate, all year long.

That gesture. That support. It meant everything to me as I learned to trust myself, in writing and in life.

Nearly 14 years have passed since that fall. I’m sure our lists of things we believe now would be unrecognizable to those tender, ruby-faced selves, furious as bees trapped between window and screen.

We have life partners and careers and real pets now instead of beta fish watching overhead. But every time I smile and my Monroe dot scar sets like a dimple, I think of that fall these women and all they taught me.

I think about how I’ll forever love them with an 18-year-old’s earnestness.

Notes from a Chicago Saturday morning

May 27, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

I take the long route to the bus stop to stretch my legs and simply be outside. The brick house on the corner has its windows open, jazz puncturing the screen. The helicopter seeds dance in the early morning breeze. The music sounds how waking up before 9 a.m. makes me feel. Adult, aware, kinda sad, mostly hopeful, prone to chaos.

Apartment for rent. They’ve bumped the price down from $1,400 to $1,100 a month and put up a black and white computer drawing of the floor plan. They call it a “loft” but it’s just your garden variety studio garden apartment with one cool window. And two exits. All apartments here are supposed to have two of those. Just in case. Chicago is also adult, aware, kinda sad, mostly hopeful, prone to chaos.

I wait for the bus to pick me up, determined not to check my phone again to see how long my wait will be. It was six minutes, like, five minutes ago. I stand with my bookbag at my feet, craning my neck down the street like a child waiting for a beloved parent to pick her up from school.

The Chicago public transportation system is my favorite thing about this city, occasional pee smell, long waits, and deranged passenger aside. I sold my car as soon as I got to this city. In a place like nowhere-but-everywhere-at-once, a place like Chicago, independence takes new forms foreign to me before now.

I go to the back of the bus, where the seats are elevated and I can watch everyone inside and everything that passes by. In grade school, the cool kids, which meant the older kids, always got first dibs on the seats in the back. You could share secrets and candy and/or/sometimes kisses better back there. I used to ride home from elementary school with high schoolers. I was always in the front but would try little ploys to reveal my maturity to them, with a subtlety that belied my desperation to be like them.

In third grade I became proficient at writing in cursive, which seemed so elegant and adulty to me. So adulty, in fact, I would sit on the edge of my bouncing, hot plastic seat and write in my notebook little stories using cursive’s curly cues. The story I was writing didn’t matter. What mattered was that the older kids who got off the bus before me, with their perfume trail and confident stomps, would take note of my writing and think, “Oh she knows cursive! That means she must be of a certain age! Shall I invite her to the back of the bus tomorrow to tell her all my magical secrets?”

Imagine feeling like you can’t wait to grow up. Try to remember how far away where you are now once seemed.

The library smells like books and coffee. The air tastes like poster tape and the back of a stamp. It just opened and is yet to fill with the heavy exhaust of exhausted humans. Libraries are the last real place you can be indoors as long as you want and use the restroom one/two/five times without someone asking you to leave or pay for something. Well, except maybe now Starbucks.

As I walk to the bookshelf of holds, where tomes peer toward the entrance like kids waiting for a beloved parent to pick them up, I pass a little boy who is sitting at the public computer. I catch him staring at me and I smile. He is dressed in red gym shorts and a black tee loose around his belly that’s the shape of childhood, a malleable shape of something arrived too early waiting for its moment to stretch out and settle in.

He reminds me of my husband, what my husband may have looked like as a boy, and I recall a quote from a documentary we watched together once. “Adults are just children who survived.” Maurice Sendak said that, I think.

I pass the boy again as I leave and wonder if he’s pulled up the news site he’s looking at in hopes someone like me, maybe me specifically, the cool old woman in the halter top who smiled at him, will notice… Will notice and will think, “That gentleman must be older than I thought, what with his well-curated morning news perusal?! Perhaps I shall invite him to the back of the bus and teach him cursive.”

I take the 80 bus three neighborhoods east and get out one mile from my next destination. I start to walk.

A man passes me and says, “Beautiful girl on a beautiful day,” and I don’t hate it, despite the “Everybody Dance Now” blaring from the phone in his pocket. That’s not a euphemism.

Another man passes me talking on his phone. “Is it diaper time?” he says to the person on the other end. I pretend he’s not talking about a kid and giggle.

Women in sundresses.

Dogs with dopey grins.

Breezes with a lick of lakeshore’s chill.

Sweat softening every place where my skin melts into fabric.

Summer has officially begun.

I was reading recently about lobsters fighting for dominance and how, when one loses very badly, his brain basically dissolves, unable to cope with what has happened to him and adjust to the new state of things. I think of this passage as I watch a woman wearing a trashbag push a shopping cart down the sidewalk. The neighborhood I currently live in has a man like this who’s always hanging around a particular intersection, usually screaming indecipherable things. Justin and I call him Yelling Guy and we and the other neighbors generally let him go about his business of scaring people who haven’t been there before and walking harmlessly up and down the street. I wonder what monster melted their brains, who or what hurt them.

The first fews months of college, which marked my first extended stay away from a place I spent 18 years of my life, I kept seeing people I thought I knew walking around campus. On the quad, in the dorm, right outside class. “Oh it’s so-and-so! What are they doing here?”

My mind connected these strangers’ facial similarities to people I’d seen all year long, every year until now. It was like seeing ghosts.

I used to live in this neighborhood where the 80 bus has deposited me. I see some of the same people: the woman who lives in the brownstone walk-up doing her daily walk, a family herding its toddler sheep to temple, the cashiers at Walgreen’s. I keep an eye out for the weiner dog in the weiner dog-sized Cubs hat, a staple of these sidewalks.

And there! Right as I’m about to head to the bus back home, through the windows surrounding the bar stool where I’m finishing up lunch, I see him. The neighborhood weiner dog who wears the Cubs hat. A fan favorite. A happy boy. A good boy. Tongue out, saying hi with a waddle-wobble strut that teeter-totters his little body left to right like a puppy pendulum: Same. Old. Same. Old. Different. Older.

My time spent watching the hatted weiner dog and sitting in the good feelings of my good fortune of having spotted him in this neighborhood overrun by regulars and tourists alike, I remember I packed some shoes to take to the cobbler up the street.

I hand over my heels and sign my name on the receipt. It’s the only time I write in cursive anymore.

Planes, trains, automobiles, and ants

May 14, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

I spent today awkwardly trying to get back into my Chicago groove after spending the last seven days in four states. The multiple trips sent me across, through, and over the midwest in planes, trains, and automobiles.

So much movement and non-stop perpetual motion is mostly, usually exciting, but it can be jarring sometimes too. After I’ve landed back home, it takes me a beat to readjust to a normal pace and scene.

Plus, when visiting family and seeing friends, which this past week of travel included, it takes even more effort to get back to normal. The feelings of emotional warmth and change have to settle into their new shape, but it’s as if I’ve pushed bread dough into a pan and expected it to rise immediately. There’s a process of expansion that the new form taking shape refuses to rush, regardless of how much I want it to. I’m adept at adapting, but I forget that sometimes that takes a minute.

Things are different now, just as they always have been.

Time changes everything. But time always takes its, well, time.

After trips like these I need a brain Discombobulation Area, like the one at the airport where you try to put your shoes back on ASAP and wrangle what’s left of your dignity (quickly! quickly!) after a security pat down and wipe off the sweat congealing on your brow from being chewed up and spit out the sticky mouth of TSA.

(Clearly I love flying!)

Despite all this, I love moving around. My favorite thing about traveling is that it gives me perspective. Literally of this beautiful country, but metaphorically too. The security check line may be long, but life is short. Physical journeys, being an outsider looking in, is the antidote when everything feels small and uber-significant.

Because when everything feels small and uber-significant, it’s usually because I feel small and insignificant. Traveling reminds me how grandiose my options are, reminds me my life is big because it is also small, reminds me not to sweat it. In fact, there’s no need to sweat anything except getting to my ride on time.

And visiting friends, family, old stomping grounds? Traveling to them and dropping by for a while reminds me to be completely present in them. To feel all of it. To remember. To pay attention, because this moment * right now * is what I’ll look back on soon. I want to make it count.

Today after my evening run (or, more accurately, jog-walk… travel = treats!), I stretched in the park across from our apartment. As I laid on my back to stretch these American thighs, I turned my head to the side. Eye level was an ant diligently collecting nectar from a dandelion as if it was the most important thing in the world. He climbed all over this supposed weed, through its golden landscape, over its hilly petals.

It made me remember something my dad told me this weekend while I was home. My parents have peonies growing in the space right outside their front door. The peonies are a wonderfully visual choice once their bulbous, bombastic blooms open, but to get there, they need the help of tiny ants like this one in my Chicago park.

“There will be ants on those peony buds,” Dad said. “Go look.”

Sure enough. There were ants crawling all over their green cocooned buds.

“Ants help pull open their shells,” he said.

Sure enough. Google confirmed. The flower releases small amounts of nectar to recruit the intrepid insects into doing some of their work for them.

Would I have missed this seemingly insignificant observation had I not been paying attention? Probably. I’ve missed more while I’m physically at places than I ever have when I’m gone, longing and paying attention.

Listening to stories from my dad. Taking time to do nothing but feel how my cat’s purr sends ripples through my fingers. Holding my niece in a hug that leaves an 8-year-old-child-sized imprint on my heart.

If that’s what travel does for me, gives to me now… The post-travel come down, the emotional discombobulation is worth it. Every time.

Like Vonnegut wrote, “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”

Love sounds like a box fan

May 11, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

As a kid, when a soft spring gently moved aside for its showy sibling summer, like a cloud rolling on to its next destination, we’d pull up the box fans from the basement.

They’d be dusty with skin and sweat from the year before, as well as whatever accumulated on them while they sat on ice for the winter. These reserve soldiers were a sign that summer, finally!, was here. Let the fun begin.

Each bedroom would be curated to hold their rickety form, crunched into a carpet, battled over for the best position of glorious, magical air flow toward one of two kids’ beds. This worked best, meaning a resolution was most peacefully acquired, in the girls’ room when my sister and I got bunk beds and the box fan could spend its season in the sun sitting on the thigh-high vanity we shared. Direct hits for both sleepers.

The sound of a box fan. That constant whir. That restless hum. It’s a lullaby.

Recently, Justin and I got a hyper quiet, new-fangled fancy fan. FIVE TIMES THE AIR FLOW. QUIET QUIET QUIET!

But tonight, for some reason, I turned it off and found myself pulling out our own dusty box fan and clunked it to our bedroom. It’s not so much the old-school style breeze I was searching for. It was the sound.

I have a distinct memory of one childhood summer night, sticky with sweat and anticipation. I couldn’t sleep. The next day was our show day at the county fair. The box fan kept me company as I lay wide awake, as restless as that hum, dreaming of the next day.

Maybe that’s why I pulled it out tonight instead of any other. Tomorrow I go home to Ohio.

Hear live lit and music at Duly Noted on Tuesday!

March 26, 2018August 21, 2020 Jackie Mantey Leave a comment

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 27

On Tour Brewing Co.

1725 W Hubbard

I’m performing a live lit piece tomorrow at Duly Noted! Come listen to music and storytelling (including my tale of a prank call gone wrong… or deliciously right, depending on how you look at it). The event is freeeeee but we’re taking donations for the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago. Bonus: You can bring your own food or get dinner delivered. All the deets are here. See you soon!