On the day I moved to Lowell, I had my boyfriend and four friends helping to get the couch and the bed and all my 30 or so boxes into the new place. A friendly neighbor came by and offered to lend a hand. I introduced myself, and he to me, and he helped bring a few things in—my little flat screen TV and DVD player, a couple of night stands, and he even helped maneuver the couch into my living room. His buddy came by and helped too. It was all very nice, and the move was easy with so much help.

On my way home every evening I pass by at least a dozen cop cars cruising the city streets at rush hour. I am in a town abused by crime, whose streets are caked in the spoils of people and animals alike, and whose houses are too close together in the little alley I live down.

The guys who helped us were black. All of my friends, and myself, were white. Later, my boyfriend, Nick, said to me, “Did you see the bracelet on that guy's ankle?” I had not, in fact, seen the bracelet.

“Hopefully he was just bored,” I said. The next day at work I told some coworkers about my move-in, and Mark said, “He was scoping the place out.” And Olivia said, “He was so good at getting the couch in because he's used to getting them out.” And we laughed a little, because although it was stereotypical and a little cruel, it might also have been true; I mean, why was he on house-arrest? Was it because of drugs or break-ins or rape? I like to hope he got a little rough in a bar and accidentally broke something; or else someone busted him for something he just didn't do. But these are my naive hopes, and my way of seeing the best in people.

The doughy lady across the street has at least two adorable little toddlers—a boy and a girl. Those kids both have shit-eating grins whenever I see them, so much so, in fact, that the first time I thought, Oh, they're so cute and friendly! And then I immediately thought, Oh shit, did they do something to my car? Is that why they're smiling so much?

There's an alarm in my house. At the lease signing, the landlord told me that I might want to get renter's insurance to cover my stuff, in case anything happens. “The most expensive thing I own is my laptop,” I told him. “I'm not too worried.” My hope is that the neighbors got to see the very little that I have, and now know that none of it is worth much. Although I want to disprove the concerns of middle-class coworkers about my new city, my defenses remain; My things are worth nothing to me. If I lose them, so be it. I refuse to live in fear.

​A friend sent me a Meme the other day with a list of cities to avoid when visiting Massachusetts. “Hey!” I said, “I've lived in three of those cities—Lawrence, Holyoke, and now Lowell. And I turned out just fine.”   

The Underground Bakery & Cafe is a delightfully eery place with black tablecloths and part of the original stone wall—massive stone blocks—showing against one wall. The Cafe is located at the back of an antique shop, through a heavy, thick door that can be locked from the antique store side. This was my first statement as my boyfriend and I walked from the store into the cafe, and the lady at the counter said, “Oh don't worry, there's a way out right there and there—there are at least three ways out of this room. If we ever get robbed, I'll know how to get out.”

Nancy Neenan is a friendly entrepreneur with silvering hair and electric-purple framed glasses. She runs the shop by herself, moving from the antique store to the cafe as needed; in one she sells American Dolls and painted ceramic plates and a 1920's toy train, and in the other she sells cakes, Whoopie pies, and coffee. She says that there is a labor shortage in the area, meaning that anyone who wants to work can pretty much choose their wage, whether it's $16, $20, or $30.00 an hour; especially when it comes to line cooks and chefs; so until business is booming, she'll be on her own.

The bakery has only been open since Memorial Day, and she wants to do reservation dinners someday, but she doesn't want to be “just another restaurant” in North Conway, New Hampshire so she started a bakery first and plans to expand later. She's trying to figure out how to get people into her shop who will buy more than just a cup of coffee and hang out for hours; this is one reason that she doesn't offer Wifi.

She's been thinking about shipping pastries to people who want to buy them. If she ships them far (like to California), dry ice will keep them good for a few days; but barring that, “If I froze the items first, and brought them to the post office before they closed, they could get (to Dover or Portsmouth) the next day.” We pondered the likelihood of a person purchasing baked goods online, and then paying for shipping as well.

“Wicked Cupcakes in Boston sells cupcakes for $6 apiece,” she says, “So I'm trying to think outside the box.” Nancy believes that some people will pay for convenience. She is thinking about city people; “Imagine you want to make some brownies...some people don't have a car, and can't get to the grocery store. You have to lug around the flour and sugar to make it.” So why not have them shipped directly home?

Her mint chocolate-chip cupcakes were delicious, and had part of an Andes Mint stuck in the top. I can imagine Nancy selling cakes and pies during the biggest holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter. Maybe even from afar.

Nancy's favorite season is fall, because it offers the best weather and the best customers. Although she's very busy running both shops, Nancy has so many ideas and wants to do so many things, that she goes home at night with the intention of working on another angle of her shop, only to be so exhausted from working all day, that it's hard to focus; as it is for most of us.

My friend doesn't understand the concept behind the book Warm Bodies, written by Isaac Marion. "Oh. It's another Zombie book," She says, although she has not read it. But it isn't.

It's an idea book, sure: a zombie falls in love with a human. But it's about more than that. It's about a world already suffering, a world of chaos where zombies have neither thoughts nor memories, and humans cage themselves together and both sides kill.

It's about moving from a horrific state of non-feeling and apathy, into a world of living. On analysis, it's a story about a people who forced themselves into becoming beings of the undead by not caring about each other.


But that still isn't this story. This story is about hope. Is Zombie-world the end? Is a zombie really thoughtless and incapable of life or death? Is a corporate president just as thoughtless?

What makes Warm Bodies different from all the other zombie books that I have read (and shows that I have seen) is that it begins in darkness and moves into a place more than stale survival. (In the Forest of Hands and Teeth is a popular YA book turned trilogy documenting the devastating life of a main character as she and friends run from zombies trying to find a place untouched by the undead. It is a good story, but morbidly depressing.) Marion could have made this book funny, a joke about the idea of zombies like the Jane Austen zombie books seem to be, but he didn't. The writing is elegant, specific, complicated. The story contains love and contemplation, contemplation the thing that keeps us guessing, the love situation seemingly impossible between the living and the undead.

Although the background facts are there--few humans have survived, zombies are crawling everywhere, the world is an isolated island--one zombie at least, and maybe others, still thinks in words, and wonders what other zombies think about. He misses his old life, and wishes he could remember his name. The zombies have their own apathetic community (much like many of our cities) and are not necessarily mere mindless drones.

R--the main zombie--thinks that they feed on human brains for a reason, that becoming a zombie has made them emotionless and with no memories or words, but eating brains gives them some emotions and memories. They hunger for that which they cannot remember, that which they miss. Humanity. This is a story not about killing off everyone else so the chosen few may survive (think The Road and The Walking Dead), but about people coming together to help one another live. It's a story not about life after death, but instead, rising from apathy. 

If I overthink it too much, I can talk myself out of writing. Whenever I fall out of it, I forget the reasons I started writing in the first place, and I have to put to pen my reasons all over again, although they rarely change.
I write to share passion and kindness and tragedy. I write because it is my skill, my drive, the thing I am best at and most educated in and it makes me feel connected to something. My fingers on the keys directly express my feelings and thoughts to readers and to myself.

I came back to New England out of duty to my mother, who is recovering from illness, and secondarily to my young sisters and my father's new family. Before this, I was settled in a ranch-style house in Colorado, familiar with the bars and library and rec center and writers and dancers and my life was a list of things that I loved to do.

Everything was different when I moved here. No bars within walking distance. Blues dancing only two nights a week and fusion once a month, until I started my own dance night. I have a writer friend and a small writing workshop.

Plenty of libraries to choose from, but many are closed on Fridays. I have family close by--just a drive away. I am reminded by some of them of my uselessness in this life, throwing away my skills to waitress and pen words. Killing me with their good intentions.

I write to remind myself that I am not allowed to feel this way. I am not starving, yet. I now have a large three-bedroom apartment. I am close to my sisters. Index cards line the windowsills around my desk with reminders and rules: "Your writing is worth something. Keep doing it"; "Read lit mags you want to submit to"; and "write one blog post a month." Hopeful, demanding, and organized. As an adult, writing takes patience and deadlines.

​Writing reminds me of why I make certain choices. It helps me see what lies behind peoples' motivations and desires, and to understand why they hurt me or their own. I want to write about everything, and see everything, and be everything. In writing I can do that. I can study, learn, rehash, and create. I often feel like a destroyer, a woman scorned, Kali of chaos, or Morrigan of war. It's always been that way: Rather than seek out connection, I listen for discord, trying to find opposition wherever I can, so I can tramp it down and bend it into something I better like. Contrary, my former step mother calls it. Defiant, I say.