Hi, writers,
It was such a privilege for me to hear your pieces tonight. Thank you so much for sharing your talent. You have enriched my life. When I grow up, I'm going to be a writer, too. I admire you all so much.
Dawn and Lynn, I do hope that you will post your pieces. I'm really looking forward to reading both of them.
Warmly,
Kathie
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Not Quite Layla by Becky R.
It was 1966, a regular day at school on the Air Force Base in Seoul Korea. I had stopped by the base Teen Center on the way home from school. Open to middle school and high school students, it was the gathering spot for base kids. The intent was to keep us out of trouble. We shot pool, ate greasy French fries, listened to loud rock and roll, and watched mating rituals of the older kids. We even made feeble attempts of our own. In the Teen Center bathroom I hid in a stall to put on my bra before I walked home for dinner. At the start of the school year Mom came to me privately to proclaim that I needed to start wearing one. She handed me a stretchy slightly quilted contraption called a Training Bra. What, exactly does this train breasts to do? She gave me a disgusted look, turned and left the room. “Just wear it,” she told me over her retreating shoulder. In my bathroom mirror my buds of breasts looked like barely noticeable mounds of fat. A bra just seemed to call unwarranted attention to them. Last summer I had noticed that the boys of our neighborhood gang seemed to treat me differently. At our almost nightly street soccer games, they didn’t block me quite as hard as I was used to. When I caught an elbow to the chest, I’d get an averted-eye apology. I hadn’t made the connection. I still wasn't convinced there was one.
So every morning I walked to school dutifully wearing my training bra. As soon as I got there, I went into the bathroom, took it off, and stuffed it in the bottom of my locker under my gym clothes. My secret was significantly secured since the day, a few weeks before, that I had caught my younger sister sneaking a bra into her purse before she left for school. She was a year and a half younger than me, and flat as a pancake. But she recognized the social status of wearing a bra. So at the same time that I snuck to school and took mine off, she snuck to school and put hers on. That pretty much summed up the differences in our personalities.
Like any other regular day, I got home changed out of my school clothes, and stacked my record player with 45’s of Beatles, Kinks, and The Who. I laid on my bed, and stared at the walls of my half of the room I shared with my younger sister. My walls were covered with Beatles bubble gum cards. They were taped individually with scotch tape in a way that placed pictures with George Harrison in them closest to the head of my bed. Paul was too cute; silly really. John thought he was too smart. He was just conceited. And Ringo was, well, Ringo. George was The Quiet One, not classically good looking, but wise and compassionate. We are kindred spirits. He is eleven years older than me: no problem. Lots of couples have large age differences, and I am mature for my age. He lived on another continent: no problem. He toured a lot, and we moved a lot. It was only a matter of time before we would bump into each other. He was a famous musician, and I was, well, not. No problem. He just hadn’t met me yet. When we meet, he will recognize me as the love of his life, and we’ll tour happily together for the rest of our lives.
That night after dinner, our family watched the evening news. “It was reported today that Beatles member George Harrison married model Patti Boyd in a private ceremony.” What? This can’t be right! I barely kept my composure to get back to my bedroom. News from the U.S. travels slowly to Korea. The T.V. shows are weeks behind. The news must be wrong. I pulled out my transistor radio and listened for confirmation. When it came, I sobbed into my pillow for hours. How could he do this? She doesn’t love him like I do. She just wants his fame and fortune. She’s a hussy. If he’d only waited another year, or two, he’d have met me, somehow.
The next morning my walls had blank 2” X 3” rectangles, missing chips of paint at the tops. My trash can was full of finely torn bits of cardboard. I moped through school and soccer games for weeks. I didn’t even bother to take off my training bra when I got to school. My heart broke, not only for the loss of the love of my life, but for the loss of a fantasy world that was more comforting to me than true life. It wasn’t the only fantasy life I would have. Before I outgrew adolescence I would be a sidekick of Davy Crockett’s, a renowned mountain scout, Pippy Longstocking’s best friend, and have at least one other fantasy boyfriend. But I wasn’t a total idiot. Davy Crockett had been dead for one hundred years. Pippy Longstocking was a fictional character. I was born at least one hundred years after there was a need for mountain scouts, and I was fully aware that my fantasy boyfriend was a way to “try on” having a boyfriend without the risk of actually having one. I may not have been a total idiot, but I was close: Somehow I had convinced myself that marriage to George Harrison was potentially real. I’m still humiliated about it.
Recently I saw that Patti Boyd wrote a book about her life with George Harrison and Eric Clapton. She’s still trying to cash in on his fame, I see. I knew she was a hussy. If only George had med me first.
So every morning I walked to school dutifully wearing my training bra. As soon as I got there, I went into the bathroom, took it off, and stuffed it in the bottom of my locker under my gym clothes. My secret was significantly secured since the day, a few weeks before, that I had caught my younger sister sneaking a bra into her purse before she left for school. She was a year and a half younger than me, and flat as a pancake. But she recognized the social status of wearing a bra. So at the same time that I snuck to school and took mine off, she snuck to school and put hers on. That pretty much summed up the differences in our personalities.
Like any other regular day, I got home changed out of my school clothes, and stacked my record player with 45’s of Beatles, Kinks, and The Who. I laid on my bed, and stared at the walls of my half of the room I shared with my younger sister. My walls were covered with Beatles bubble gum cards. They were taped individually with scotch tape in a way that placed pictures with George Harrison in them closest to the head of my bed. Paul was too cute; silly really. John thought he was too smart. He was just conceited. And Ringo was, well, Ringo. George was The Quiet One, not classically good looking, but wise and compassionate. We are kindred spirits. He is eleven years older than me: no problem. Lots of couples have large age differences, and I am mature for my age. He lived on another continent: no problem. He toured a lot, and we moved a lot. It was only a matter of time before we would bump into each other. He was a famous musician, and I was, well, not. No problem. He just hadn’t met me yet. When we meet, he will recognize me as the love of his life, and we’ll tour happily together for the rest of our lives.
That night after dinner, our family watched the evening news. “It was reported today that Beatles member George Harrison married model Patti Boyd in a private ceremony.” What? This can’t be right! I barely kept my composure to get back to my bedroom. News from the U.S. travels slowly to Korea. The T.V. shows are weeks behind. The news must be wrong. I pulled out my transistor radio and listened for confirmation. When it came, I sobbed into my pillow for hours. How could he do this? She doesn’t love him like I do. She just wants his fame and fortune. She’s a hussy. If he’d only waited another year, or two, he’d have met me, somehow.
The next morning my walls had blank 2” X 3” rectangles, missing chips of paint at the tops. My trash can was full of finely torn bits of cardboard. I moped through school and soccer games for weeks. I didn’t even bother to take off my training bra when I got to school. My heart broke, not only for the loss of the love of my life, but for the loss of a fantasy world that was more comforting to me than true life. It wasn’t the only fantasy life I would have. Before I outgrew adolescence I would be a sidekick of Davy Crockett’s, a renowned mountain scout, Pippy Longstocking’s best friend, and have at least one other fantasy boyfriend. But I wasn’t a total idiot. Davy Crockett had been dead for one hundred years. Pippy Longstocking was a fictional character. I was born at least one hundred years after there was a need for mountain scouts, and I was fully aware that my fantasy boyfriend was a way to “try on” having a boyfriend without the risk of actually having one. I may not have been a total idiot, but I was close: Somehow I had convinced myself that marriage to George Harrison was potentially real. I’m still humiliated about it.
Recently I saw that Patti Boyd wrote a book about her life with George Harrison and Eric Clapton. She’s still trying to cash in on his fame, I see. I knew she was a hussy. If only George had med me first.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Buttonhole
I'm learning this all over again: knitting.
My mother taught me, at ten? eleven?, the over-the-left-hand carry of the yarn for which I've been forever grateful: economy and grace of movement.
To make a wound in your knitting you need to know the yo (the yarn over). The reason for such a wound might well be the buttonhole. A place, a possibility for something else to appear later.
And so: I learned the yo again after forty years just today, making this sweater. Bring the yarn between the needles. Pass it behind. Knit = one new stitch. And a space ready for something else to come.
If only, if only writing and speaking what I meant were so simple.
Dawn
My mother taught me, at ten? eleven?, the over-the-left-hand carry of the yarn for which I've been forever grateful: economy and grace of movement.
To make a wound in your knitting you need to know the yo (the yarn over). The reason for such a wound might well be the buttonhole. A place, a possibility for something else to appear later.
And so: I learned the yo again after forty years just today, making this sweater. Bring the yarn between the needles. Pass it behind. Knit = one new stitch. And a space ready for something else to come.
If only, if only writing and speaking what I meant were so simple.
Dawn
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
When I’m Dead and Gone
Becky R.
Come on in. The front door is rarely locked. Luna and Merlin are all bark. You will have lifelong friends if you pet Merlin for about an hour, and throw a toy for Luna for twice that long. Yes, the mantel in the entry is gorgeous. It is Birds Eye maple, shipped from the east coast to Honey Grove Texas in the middle 1800’s. It surrounded one of four large fireplaces in the plantation home my grandparents lived in before they built the brick home next to it, where they lived as long as I knew them.
Art will be in his command center, busying himself with god-knows-what on the computer. He will say he is doing okay, but don’t you believe it. Stop by often to get him outside.
You’re going upstairs? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Oh well, go ahead. Might as well get it over with. What is it about bathroom drawers that attract snoopers so? Yes, that’s make-up: foundation, a few lip glosses that are basically the same color, even a palette of eye shadows – neutral colors, of course. I can admit it now. I fell for the delusions of younger looking skin, concealing wrinkles, and brightening ageing eyelids – all to no avail. For one thing, applying all that stuff takes time; morning time that I would rather spend looking out a window, or sleeping. It also requires skills I never learned. One eyelid always ended up with a fat, crooked glob of eyeliner. Overcorrecting on the other eye left a barely discernable fine line. Then they both got washed off. Even my minimalist routine of foundation and mascara made me feel garish and self-conscious. I imagined people hiding their stunned reactions.
Bored? Look around the bedroom bookcase. Oh yeah, I forgot about that carved little box. I think I got it at a street fair in Santa Barbara the summer I graduated high school. My first road trip without a parent, it spawned a lifelong habit. Solo road trips cured my craving for that feeling of flight – like an explorer from ancient eras. Santa Barbara was still a small lazy beach city then.
You found the gifts of jewelry I was given: a broad silver band bracelette, a birthday gift from my best girlfriend; the gold chain necklace – one of the first gifts Art gave me. That narrow silver ring with little diamonds is Mom’s wedding ring. She gave it to me long before I got married, when she could no longer slide it over her knuckles. My knuckles got too big, too, many years ago.
Oh, the lavaliere necklace that I stole back from my niece. It is an heirloom given to my grandmother by her mother, to my mother by her mother, and then to me. It passed down to each of us on our eleventh birthdays. Mom explained that it went to second daughters. In my case, it would go to my sister’s daughter. When the designated birthday approached, I dutifully prepared a letter relating the story, had the necklace cleaned, and grudgingly sent it to my niece. The designated niece was a brat. I knew she would not care the least bit about its history, much less take responsibility for continuing the tradition. Her older sister was much more worthy, but ineligible due to circumstances of birth. After my niece’s birthday, Mom confessed that the true story of the necklace was that it should go to the middle child, thereby making the worthy niece the rightful heir. She said she had told me “the second daughter” version when I was eleven because she thought I might think there was something wrong with being a middle child that warranted some special compensation. Crap!
My sister discovered the necklace on a pile of junk in a drawer in her daughter’s room while packing to move after divorcing her husband. My sister took it, and told me about it. Her ex-husband bought the votes of their children to live with him, and they had already moved out. She told me she wouldn’t tell her daughter she had it. Six years later my sister was dead. Her now grown children told me to take anything I wanted from her house. The necklace and a few favorite photos were all I took. I told them I took the photos. I didn’t tell them I took the necklace. Now what will happen to it? I better send my mother a sign.
That broken child’s ring with a painted metal goat on it had a complementary charm bracelette with a lamb, a duckling, a chicken, and a pony on it. I kept the ring because I found it odd that someone would design a ring with a billy goat on it, and because I found it touching that when I was a child, someone in my family thought of me when they saw it, and bought it for me.
Busted. A tiny butterfly carved of faux ivory with an equally tiny spoon at the end. A remnant of my college days, where I learned the value of having a close friend with an uncut source. The only narcotic I liked – a lot. Better move on.
Don’t open those! My journals. God, my grandmother was barely buried when my mother told me she’d found her journals and started reading them. It took me years to be able to write freely in my journals again. I always meant to put a note on their covers, “Do not open until at least ten years after my death.” The absence of that note appears to be a default invitation, “Read me now”. If you read them now, you will likely learn things that you did not know. If you read them now, you risk being disappointed, hurt, or offended by what you don’t know. If you read them now, the differences between the person you knew and the person you read will seem huge. You miss the person you knew. That is the person you want to spend time with again. If you wait, one day you can spend time with the person you miss. If you wait, you will think everything in my journals sounds just like me.
Becky R.
Come on in. The front door is rarely locked. Luna and Merlin are all bark. You will have lifelong friends if you pet Merlin for about an hour, and throw a toy for Luna for twice that long. Yes, the mantel in the entry is gorgeous. It is Birds Eye maple, shipped from the east coast to Honey Grove Texas in the middle 1800’s. It surrounded one of four large fireplaces in the plantation home my grandparents lived in before they built the brick home next to it, where they lived as long as I knew them.
Art will be in his command center, busying himself with god-knows-what on the computer. He will say he is doing okay, but don’t you believe it. Stop by often to get him outside.
You’re going upstairs? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Oh well, go ahead. Might as well get it over with. What is it about bathroom drawers that attract snoopers so? Yes, that’s make-up: foundation, a few lip glosses that are basically the same color, even a palette of eye shadows – neutral colors, of course. I can admit it now. I fell for the delusions of younger looking skin, concealing wrinkles, and brightening ageing eyelids – all to no avail. For one thing, applying all that stuff takes time; morning time that I would rather spend looking out a window, or sleeping. It also requires skills I never learned. One eyelid always ended up with a fat, crooked glob of eyeliner. Overcorrecting on the other eye left a barely discernable fine line. Then they both got washed off. Even my minimalist routine of foundation and mascara made me feel garish and self-conscious. I imagined people hiding their stunned reactions.
Bored? Look around the bedroom bookcase. Oh yeah, I forgot about that carved little box. I think I got it at a street fair in Santa Barbara the summer I graduated high school. My first road trip without a parent, it spawned a lifelong habit. Solo road trips cured my craving for that feeling of flight – like an explorer from ancient eras. Santa Barbara was still a small lazy beach city then.
You found the gifts of jewelry I was given: a broad silver band bracelette, a birthday gift from my best girlfriend; the gold chain necklace – one of the first gifts Art gave me. That narrow silver ring with little diamonds is Mom’s wedding ring. She gave it to me long before I got married, when she could no longer slide it over her knuckles. My knuckles got too big, too, many years ago.
Oh, the lavaliere necklace that I stole back from my niece. It is an heirloom given to my grandmother by her mother, to my mother by her mother, and then to me. It passed down to each of us on our eleventh birthdays. Mom explained that it went to second daughters. In my case, it would go to my sister’s daughter. When the designated birthday approached, I dutifully prepared a letter relating the story, had the necklace cleaned, and grudgingly sent it to my niece. The designated niece was a brat. I knew she would not care the least bit about its history, much less take responsibility for continuing the tradition. Her older sister was much more worthy, but ineligible due to circumstances of birth. After my niece’s birthday, Mom confessed that the true story of the necklace was that it should go to the middle child, thereby making the worthy niece the rightful heir. She said she had told me “the second daughter” version when I was eleven because she thought I might think there was something wrong with being a middle child that warranted some special compensation. Crap!
My sister discovered the necklace on a pile of junk in a drawer in her daughter’s room while packing to move after divorcing her husband. My sister took it, and told me about it. Her ex-husband bought the votes of their children to live with him, and they had already moved out. She told me she wouldn’t tell her daughter she had it. Six years later my sister was dead. Her now grown children told me to take anything I wanted from her house. The necklace and a few favorite photos were all I took. I told them I took the photos. I didn’t tell them I took the necklace. Now what will happen to it? I better send my mother a sign.
That broken child’s ring with a painted metal goat on it had a complementary charm bracelette with a lamb, a duckling, a chicken, and a pony on it. I kept the ring because I found it odd that someone would design a ring with a billy goat on it, and because I found it touching that when I was a child, someone in my family thought of me when they saw it, and bought it for me.
Busted. A tiny butterfly carved of faux ivory with an equally tiny spoon at the end. A remnant of my college days, where I learned the value of having a close friend with an uncut source. The only narcotic I liked – a lot. Better move on.
Don’t open those! My journals. God, my grandmother was barely buried when my mother told me she’d found her journals and started reading them. It took me years to be able to write freely in my journals again. I always meant to put a note on their covers, “Do not open until at least ten years after my death.” The absence of that note appears to be a default invitation, “Read me now”. If you read them now, you will likely learn things that you did not know. If you read them now, you risk being disappointed, hurt, or offended by what you don’t know. If you read them now, the differences between the person you knew and the person you read will seem huge. You miss the person you knew. That is the person you want to spend time with again. If you wait, one day you can spend time with the person you miss. If you wait, you will think everything in my journals sounds just like me.
I’d Like to Start a New Conversation
Becky R.
Everyday it’s the same. A quarter cup of this. A half a teaspoon of that. Who’s husband will eat anything put in front of him. Who likes to add red pepper flakes to spice things up. Ten minutes have gone by talking about recipes for chicken “parmeeseean”. Yesterday it was broccoli soup. How many ways can there be?
“I used the office copy machine to run-off copies of my recipe for everybody!” announces one of the chefs. I can’t not take one. My smile feels like a lie detector needle.
Jeeze Louise! What leap led to reciting the names of everyone seen at church last week? Then come the accompanying entire family trees. I try to imagine the mnemonic that could work for such memory tasks. Wait, aren’t these the same people that were at church the week before last? First husbands of second cousins are critiqued. Fingers tic off the names of the children, in birth order, of each set of parents at the church. Psychoanalysis ensues of the boyfriends and girlfriends of each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Predictions of which relationships will last and which will fail are made for each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Each day this is the longest thirty minutes of my life.
At my recent performance review, the Principal sang praises to my expertise as a teacher, my relationships with students, my positive interactions with parents, my creativity and vision. My records are always up to date. My team of classroom aides is motivated and well organized.
“But you’re not seen as a team player by the other teachers here. They perceive you as being too aloof. You need to make an effort to connect with them. You need to take your lunches in the faculty lunchroom instead of at the student tables outside.”
I almost laughed. She wasn’t joking. Here I sit in a room the size of a kitchenette. Twelve women are talking at the same time. One other woman is silent, like me. I look directly at her. She returns a furtive glance. Is she afraid of getting caught? All appetite for lunch is long gone. Why don’t the men teachers have to be in here being team players?
Bunions? That must be awful. I’m so glad you persevered through the idiot shoe sales clerks at Dillard’s, Penney’s, Macy’s, Redwing, Nordstrom’s and Payless until you found shoes that fit. A tube of Crimson Coral lipstick passes from mouth to mouth at the table behind me. Yes, that is your color! The clock battery must be dead.
Holy mother of …. Not another story of someone’s darling grandbaby.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Five minutes of taking turns describing the blouses that were almost worn today? I think I know how to get detainees at Guantanamo to talk. Please, please, please can we start a new conversation? I force my mouth shut a split second too late:
“A group of my students came up with a great project for Disability Awareness month. They are putting together a proposal to take to the school board. They want disability issues included as formal components of the social studies core curriculum in middle schools and high schools. I am extremely impressed with them.”
Silent gaping goldfish mouths surround me for several seconds. The fog horn bell signals the end of break.
“Get a life!” I hear them think.
Becky R.
Everyday it’s the same. A quarter cup of this. A half a teaspoon of that. Who’s husband will eat anything put in front of him. Who likes to add red pepper flakes to spice things up. Ten minutes have gone by talking about recipes for chicken “parmeeseean”. Yesterday it was broccoli soup. How many ways can there be?
“I used the office copy machine to run-off copies of my recipe for everybody!” announces one of the chefs. I can’t not take one. My smile feels like a lie detector needle.
Jeeze Louise! What leap led to reciting the names of everyone seen at church last week? Then come the accompanying entire family trees. I try to imagine the mnemonic that could work for such memory tasks. Wait, aren’t these the same people that were at church the week before last? First husbands of second cousins are critiqued. Fingers tic off the names of the children, in birth order, of each set of parents at the church. Psychoanalysis ensues of the boyfriends and girlfriends of each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Predictions of which relationships will last and which will fail are made for each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Each day this is the longest thirty minutes of my life.
At my recent performance review, the Principal sang praises to my expertise as a teacher, my relationships with students, my positive interactions with parents, my creativity and vision. My records are always up to date. My team of classroom aides is motivated and well organized.
“But you’re not seen as a team player by the other teachers here. They perceive you as being too aloof. You need to make an effort to connect with them. You need to take your lunches in the faculty lunchroom instead of at the student tables outside.”
I almost laughed. She wasn’t joking. Here I sit in a room the size of a kitchenette. Twelve women are talking at the same time. One other woman is silent, like me. I look directly at her. She returns a furtive glance. Is she afraid of getting caught? All appetite for lunch is long gone. Why don’t the men teachers have to be in here being team players?
Bunions? That must be awful. I’m so glad you persevered through the idiot shoe sales clerks at Dillard’s, Penney’s, Macy’s, Redwing, Nordstrom’s and Payless until you found shoes that fit. A tube of Crimson Coral lipstick passes from mouth to mouth at the table behind me. Yes, that is your color! The clock battery must be dead.
Holy mother of …. Not another story of someone’s darling grandbaby.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Five minutes of taking turns describing the blouses that were almost worn today? I think I know how to get detainees at Guantanamo to talk. Please, please, please can we start a new conversation? I force my mouth shut a split second too late:
“A group of my students came up with a great project for Disability Awareness month. They are putting together a proposal to take to the school board. They want disability issues included as formal components of the social studies core curriculum in middle schools and high schools. I am extremely impressed with them.”
Silent gaping goldfish mouths surround me for several seconds. The fog horn bell signals the end of break.
“Get a life!” I hear them think.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
hi writers,
On our kitchen table stand an antique glass bottle. A drug company out of Baltimore, bromo seltzer, in raised letters gives the wide mouth blu glass an imtimate quality. The bottle stands the height of a mouse on its hind legs. Inside the bottle the stem brings water to the flowers and the four-star blossoms have opened and the first scent of lilac moves throughout the kitchen. When i let out a long exhale and then bring the power of lilac to my nostrils i am reminded of memories that are sweet. I am reminded how the things that are beautiful can be so temporary, a recognitioin that beauty is fleeting but like a river always arriving. I saw the seasons first dragonfly. He landed on a cemet drive way and I am reminded that soaring season is only a couple of weeks away. Amy moves about in a new pair of wedges. I have seen turquoise on her chest, i have never seen the same deep glow of blue and green on her feet. We move to madonna and I'm don't care how life is suppose to look.
i have had a scare. A fear large enough to envoke thoughts I have never considered before; the viewing my own funeral, becoming pissed mostly at all the things I wanted to do but my time was cut short. And without going into detail, after four months of wondering if this is what the end of the road is like, because I have been shown the inevitable, what death might look like, I have taken a step closer to understanding the mind and body that tires of the fight because the fight never goes away and well, you just grow tired and letting go seems like the best solution. I have shared a walk with the very old, I am closer to understanding the minds who have little time to think of all thing sweet because the pain doesn't go away like it used to. I know what a full life that has come to its end feels like. I think the old and sick would settle for a long hug and be given permission to let go as to be granted another year of struggle.
As it turns out, my condition isn't terminal. As it turns out, what i have experienced is a mock trial-run of facing the inevitable, death. Who am i when when I am faced with the possiblity of not being strong enough to endure? I lean over and embrace another hit of fresh lilac. Amy has been this kind of promise to me, this kind of sweetness. She has been blooming yet worried, neither too extreme in worry or too glossed in denial. She has shown me that love doesn't always need to know the answers. She has shown me that love is larger than fear. She has given me the space to be a jerk because i don't feel well. Would I be as patient? I don't think I know how.
With the recent rains, and with life sprouting from the land, I have turned a corner. I am being reintroduced to what energy feels like. The water has soaked into earth and a fire of all things has ignited. From the depths of uncertainty rises a phoenix. A gem-fired flame of gratitude. A renewal to what I remember, sweetness of beauty is fleeting yet always is alway arriving, beauty, once again, striving to make a difference...
i will miss you all this Thursday. My thoughts will drift throughout your conversation. I will be the dragonfly you are not able to see yet like the scent of lilac on currents, you will sense the flutter of my wings.
love,
ken
On our kitchen table stand an antique glass bottle. A drug company out of Baltimore, bromo seltzer, in raised letters gives the wide mouth blu glass an imtimate quality. The bottle stands the height of a mouse on its hind legs. Inside the bottle the stem brings water to the flowers and the four-star blossoms have opened and the first scent of lilac moves throughout the kitchen. When i let out a long exhale and then bring the power of lilac to my nostrils i am reminded of memories that are sweet. I am reminded how the things that are beautiful can be so temporary, a recognitioin that beauty is fleeting but like a river always arriving. I saw the seasons first dragonfly. He landed on a cemet drive way and I am reminded that soaring season is only a couple of weeks away. Amy moves about in a new pair of wedges. I have seen turquoise on her chest, i have never seen the same deep glow of blue and green on her feet. We move to madonna and I'm don't care how life is suppose to look.
i have had a scare. A fear large enough to envoke thoughts I have never considered before; the viewing my own funeral, becoming pissed mostly at all the things I wanted to do but my time was cut short. And without going into detail, after four months of wondering if this is what the end of the road is like, because I have been shown the inevitable, what death might look like, I have taken a step closer to understanding the mind and body that tires of the fight because the fight never goes away and well, you just grow tired and letting go seems like the best solution. I have shared a walk with the very old, I am closer to understanding the minds who have little time to think of all thing sweet because the pain doesn't go away like it used to. I know what a full life that has come to its end feels like. I think the old and sick would settle for a long hug and be given permission to let go as to be granted another year of struggle.
As it turns out, my condition isn't terminal. As it turns out, what i have experienced is a mock trial-run of facing the inevitable, death. Who am i when when I am faced with the possiblity of not being strong enough to endure? I lean over and embrace another hit of fresh lilac. Amy has been this kind of promise to me, this kind of sweetness. She has been blooming yet worried, neither too extreme in worry or too glossed in denial. She has shown me that love doesn't always need to know the answers. She has shown me that love is larger than fear. She has given me the space to be a jerk because i don't feel well. Would I be as patient? I don't think I know how.
With the recent rains, and with life sprouting from the land, I have turned a corner. I am being reintroduced to what energy feels like. The water has soaked into earth and a fire of all things has ignited. From the depths of uncertainty rises a phoenix. A gem-fired flame of gratitude. A renewal to what I remember, sweetness of beauty is fleeting yet always is alway arriving, beauty, once again, striving to make a difference...
i will miss you all this Thursday. My thoughts will drift throughout your conversation. I will be the dragonfly you are not able to see yet like the scent of lilac on currents, you will sense the flutter of my wings.
love,
ken
Monday, April 20, 2009
About that Worm
Or maybe it's a virus. Hard to say.
My husband spent all evening Friday and all day Saturday trying to kill it. It wouldn't be killed. By Sunday he had to admit that some fiend on the other side of the disease was smarter (or at least more devious) than he was. Thank god--for the more devious part.
Now, right now: my laptop is being wiped clean of its infirmaties and much of its memory. Not unlike what the psychiatrist probably hoped for when he ordered that electroshock therapy for my mother back in '59.
Clear. Hit it. Erase.
There, now: no more depression. No more disturbance. Adjustment.
Well. That didn't work.
But computers aren't brains, however often certain professionals insist on the analogy. Brains are connected to souls somehow, I think. And her soul refused to let go of its memory of infection.
Dawn Marano
My husband spent all evening Friday and all day Saturday trying to kill it. It wouldn't be killed. By Sunday he had to admit that some fiend on the other side of the disease was smarter (or at least more devious) than he was. Thank god--for the more devious part.
Now, right now: my laptop is being wiped clean of its infirmaties and much of its memory. Not unlike what the psychiatrist probably hoped for when he ordered that electroshock therapy for my mother back in '59.
Clear. Hit it. Erase.
There, now: no more depression. No more disturbance. Adjustment.
Well. That didn't work.
But computers aren't brains, however often certain professionals insist on the analogy. Brains are connected to souls somehow, I think. And her soul refused to let go of its memory of infection.
Dawn Marano
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Last week's prompt. I promised Ken.
It's neither polished nor close to developed/finished, but it IS short. I promised I'd post something...
“So, I totally forgot I was going out tonight,” grins my doppelganger’s bespectacled brother. He’s addressing a friend of mine—Jason. I overheard. I’m very good at overhearing. Some might call me an active overhearer of things, and I would tell them there’s a real word for that—eavesdropper.
“What?”
My doppelganger’s brother is standing close to Jason. They’re friends and the music is loud.
“I forgot I was going out tonight.”
Whether or not they’re both a little intoxicated, they look it. Each holding a bottle of local brew—something with a dog or a busty blonde on the label probably—leaning toward each other as though their foreheads are unusually heavy and conversing in a quiet yell. This living room might be a bit small for the full D.J. Spin set up. I have to stand close to overhear.
“I put my jacket on to take the garbage out. Forgot my shirt!”
My doppelganger’s brother laughs, shakes his head—he’s so whimsically laidback and absent-minded. His zip-up hoodie is opened a fourth revealing a hairyish pale and skinny chest. When I saw him earlier in the evening it seemed European. Do Europeans do things like that?
Jason cocks his head, “Again?”
“What?”
“You’ve done that before.”
“Oh.”
Hell, we all need conversation starters.
*
This is a work of nonfiction. Everything in it is true. On a more interesting/contradictory note, I have lied a little, but you’ll spot that a mile away—you will. For instance, if I say something to the effect of “… at this party blah, blah cocktail weenies...” that’s probably true, but if I follow that with “… somethin’ somethin’ tiger!” you can see that that’s a lie from a mile’s distance. Sometimes it will be harder though. For instance, “without knowing me, standing outside this garage venue, Christina insinuated that I’m dashing.” That could be a tough call. Who’s this Christina? And who says “dashing?” And who says I’m not embellishing just to increase your estimation of my dashing qualities? You’d be right to raise your eyebrows—to be dubious—so what I’ll do is I’ll signal you. Anything not recognizably untrue from a substantial distance will be followed by a plus sign: +.
When you see + what I really want you to see is my head cocked, lips pursed, brow furrowed, and potentially dashing face shaking slightly from side to side as if to say “no,” but in a good-natured manner—as if your jokester dad just told “one of his fibs,” as your mom puts it, and she’s there behind him letting you know it’s fictitious. Do you have parents like that?
Without knowing me, standing outside this garage venue, Christina did insinuate I had a certain dash to me. More directly, she assured me that some Francisco guy is “quite dashing,” after it had been decided that I look like Francisco. So… transitive properties, right? I didn’t announce that I’d have to destroy Francisco, but I made note of him on my internal Doppelganger Watch List.
Francisco doppelganger: Dashing. Possibly Latin.
Status: Not destroyed.
It turns out I have many doppelgangers—regularly being reported to me. Only in the last five to six years have they surfaced. Here’s the up-to-date watch list:
Logan doppelganger
Brother doppelganger
Ian Andersen of Jethro Tull doppelganger
Band doppelganger
Internet doppelganger
LacyJ doppelganger
Youtube doppelganger
Francisco doppelganger
I have to destroy my doppelgangers +. They’re bad luck—sometimes omens of the worst of luck. Check it out on Wikipedia if you don’t believe me. If you run into your doppelganger, you die thereafter. If I destroy them, that makes me the bad omen—wag the dog... or dog eat dog... some dog-related cliché.
... then there will be more about doppelgangers most likely... ryan
Cake Wrecks for Kathie
Sometimes, most times actually, it's good to just laugh. I came across a blog that does this very thing for me: Cakewrecks. Kathie asked me to post a link here, so I'm doing it. I'll miss you all next week. Have fun writing, and I hope to hear from you on this blog!
About that Drawer
Dear J.,
The first thing you should know is that I grew up in a home without a junk drawer. Then I got therapy. Lots of therapy. It cost me a few thousand dollars (well spent, I add) to realize that a little disorder in a life is a good thing, an indicator of relative mental health. Honestly, if you have to make to-do lists that say things like "chop carrots," "roll up hair," "buy one-cent stamps (postage going up)," something is, well, off. I found such a list composed by my mother after her death in that special place on the end table by her special place on the love seat and it made me hyperventilate. I used to make lists like that until I got the therapy. You would not have liked me then. (I'm still friends with the roommate I took in in 1980--I met her after the divorce when I had to find a way to afford the mortgage and keep the house, the only asset I'd ever had.) Anyway, just a few days ago, she reminded me about the day she offered to mow the lawns in the front and the back yards and I told her, Okay, but you have to cut them on the diagonal both directions like they do mowing the baseball fields because you get that really neat crosshatched look. Or something to that effect. And she says now that she knew right then I needed therapy but was too polite to say so.
The junk drawer is located to the right of the built-in gas stove in the kitchen. Please notice that the cooktop is made of black glass. This means that it shows every speck of dust when the sun sets and every single spatter of cooking oil after I use the wok. Notice that it is pristine. Here is what that takes: a sinkful of clean suds. Dawn dishwashing liquid is best, it takes the grease away, so they say; a clean dish rag; three wipedowns with the dish rag and the Dawn suds; two papertowels to dry the surface and notice the cooking oil (the smears are obvious) that you've missed; fifteen more papertowels dosed with Windex to eliminate the smears. Another friend once watched me clean the cooktop and that's when she says she knew I needed a little more therapy.
The junk drawer you are now beholding, that is to say, is one of the supreme achievements of my therapist, I'm positive of this.
You can throw out those weird vials that look like test tubes; they came with the occassional long-stemmed rose from the car dealership along with the flower preservative packets. I never liked roses, especially roses from the auto repair department. I mean, I may be a woman with an ailing Toyota, but I'm not stupid and I'm not that desperate. PUL-LEASE.
The rubberbands. Good lord, what do you do with twenty-five years of those? Return them to the Newspaper Agency? I couldn't throw them out. Every time I tried, all I could imagine was some poor seagull at the landfill with one of those rubberbands garroting it and a nestfull of starving little baby seagulls waiting for mom to come home to disgorge some quarter-pounder with cheese morsels.
I have no idea anymore what those keys belong to, but everyone knows you can't just toss old keys in the trash. My mother (the listmaker) had a fully developed scenario involving trashpickers at the dump who could match cast off keys with the addresses in your junk mail in that same bag of garbage even if the mail was coated with coffee grounds and then let themselves into your life somehow.
The coupons. I know. They are all out of date. I know. I could never remember to take the coupons with me to the grocery store. But you'll appreciate how carefully I cut them out, no? Right along all those dash-lines with the little scissors showing the way?
That one thing way in the back. I don't know what that is. Some doohickey that fell off something that, if I threw it out, my husband (god rest his soul) would finally ask me about. Did you happen to see the doohickey that goes on this thingamajig? and I'd have to admit that I deep-sixed it and I'd get that look that said something like, You have to be joking. Any engineer would know that THAT was important. How would you feel if some editor threw out your best paragraph in the entire essay? Well, I've had that happen and it, and I, survived. Just so you know.
Oh, that's where those reading glasses ended up!
The Wrigley's Spearmint gum sticks that have dried to the consistency of nail files. Nostalgia. I used to love that gum when I was a kid. One piece, though, and you can feel the sugar attacking your dentifrice. (I can still recite the paragraph on the back of the Crest toothpaste tube, in case anyone asks. I memorized it the year I stopped chewing Wrigley's Spearmint gum, around age ten: "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentrifice when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.")
Miscellaneous--batteries, maybe dead (like me!), appliance light bulbs for defunked appliances, screws, seed packets from five years ago, used birthday cake candles, promotional magnets for the refrigerator, leftover currency from Canada and Mexico--sorry, you're on your own.
Don't forget to prune and water the bonsai. The instructions are in the manila envelope marked, PRODUCT WARRANTIES AND INSTRUCTIONS.
Love,
Aunt Dawn
The first thing you should know is that I grew up in a home without a junk drawer. Then I got therapy. Lots of therapy. It cost me a few thousand dollars (well spent, I add) to realize that a little disorder in a life is a good thing, an indicator of relative mental health. Honestly, if you have to make to-do lists that say things like "chop carrots," "roll up hair," "buy one-cent stamps (postage going up)," something is, well, off. I found such a list composed by my mother after her death in that special place on the end table by her special place on the love seat and it made me hyperventilate. I used to make lists like that until I got the therapy. You would not have liked me then. (I'm still friends with the roommate I took in in 1980--I met her after the divorce when I had to find a way to afford the mortgage and keep the house, the only asset I'd ever had.) Anyway, just a few days ago, she reminded me about the day she offered to mow the lawns in the front and the back yards and I told her, Okay, but you have to cut them on the diagonal both directions like they do mowing the baseball fields because you get that really neat crosshatched look. Or something to that effect. And she says now that she knew right then I needed therapy but was too polite to say so.
The junk drawer is located to the right of the built-in gas stove in the kitchen. Please notice that the cooktop is made of black glass. This means that it shows every speck of dust when the sun sets and every single spatter of cooking oil after I use the wok. Notice that it is pristine. Here is what that takes: a sinkful of clean suds. Dawn dishwashing liquid is best, it takes the grease away, so they say; a clean dish rag; three wipedowns with the dish rag and the Dawn suds; two papertowels to dry the surface and notice the cooking oil (the smears are obvious) that you've missed; fifteen more papertowels dosed with Windex to eliminate the smears. Another friend once watched me clean the cooktop and that's when she says she knew I needed a little more therapy.
The junk drawer you are now beholding, that is to say, is one of the supreme achievements of my therapist, I'm positive of this.
You can throw out those weird vials that look like test tubes; they came with the occassional long-stemmed rose from the car dealership along with the flower preservative packets. I never liked roses, especially roses from the auto repair department. I mean, I may be a woman with an ailing Toyota, but I'm not stupid and I'm not that desperate. PUL-LEASE.
The rubberbands. Good lord, what do you do with twenty-five years of those? Return them to the Newspaper Agency? I couldn't throw them out. Every time I tried, all I could imagine was some poor seagull at the landfill with one of those rubberbands garroting it and a nestfull of starving little baby seagulls waiting for mom to come home to disgorge some quarter-pounder with cheese morsels.
I have no idea anymore what those keys belong to, but everyone knows you can't just toss old keys in the trash. My mother (the listmaker) had a fully developed scenario involving trashpickers at the dump who could match cast off keys with the addresses in your junk mail in that same bag of garbage even if the mail was coated with coffee grounds and then let themselves into your life somehow.
The coupons. I know. They are all out of date. I know. I could never remember to take the coupons with me to the grocery store. But you'll appreciate how carefully I cut them out, no? Right along all those dash-lines with the little scissors showing the way?
That one thing way in the back. I don't know what that is. Some doohickey that fell off something that, if I threw it out, my husband (god rest his soul) would finally ask me about. Did you happen to see the doohickey that goes on this thingamajig? and I'd have to admit that I deep-sixed it and I'd get that look that said something like, You have to be joking. Any engineer would know that THAT was important. How would you feel if some editor threw out your best paragraph in the entire essay? Well, I've had that happen and it, and I, survived. Just so you know.
Oh, that's where those reading glasses ended up!
The Wrigley's Spearmint gum sticks that have dried to the consistency of nail files. Nostalgia. I used to love that gum when I was a kid. One piece, though, and you can feel the sugar attacking your dentifrice. (I can still recite the paragraph on the back of the Crest toothpaste tube, in case anyone asks. I memorized it the year I stopped chewing Wrigley's Spearmint gum, around age ten: "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentrifice when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.")
Miscellaneous--batteries, maybe dead (like me!), appliance light bulbs for defunked appliances, screws, seed packets from five years ago, used birthday cake candles, promotional magnets for the refrigerator, leftover currency from Canada and Mexico--sorry, you're on your own.
Don't forget to prune and water the bonsai. The instructions are in the manila envelope marked, PRODUCT WARRANTIES AND INSTRUCTIONS.
Love,
Aunt Dawn
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Author's Note
This is a work of nonfiction. Everything in it is true and nothing has been omitted. A few exceptions and clarifications are, however, necessary because I'm worried about what I mean by the words true and nothing.
It is true, for example, that I worked at McDonald's in 1977 after being fired as an Ice Angel on The Donny and Marie tv show. It was a nadir in my professional life as an entertainer, which I faithfully portrayed in the book, but the nadir was not without a few perqs such as the free quarter-pounder cheeseburgers. In fact, McDonald's is where I finally started to get in touch with the real me; that is to say, the real big me. In addition to my duties as the fry station operator during the lunch rush --a part I never leave out since people immediately understand the lunacy of the term fry station operator, as if managing hot fat and cardboard sleeves is somehow equivalent to flying a space shuttle --my duties also included local marketing, i.e., throwing the kiddie birthday parties. I suppose my employer thought that my background in the performing arts would be an asset for the S.T.A.R. position, an acronym for Store something something Representative. As the S.T.A.R. I discovered that I didn't have the stomach for watching children eat, and since parenthood clearly requires providing food regularly to offspring and seeing that it is consumed and cleaning up afterward, I was able to access and acknowledge the not-maternal-material me.
For artistic reasons I've also chosen to meld my experiences as a waitress at Dee's Restaurant into the McDonald's experience. The dramatic tension of the story was simply better if it seemed that I was plucked from a chilly ice rink to be an Ice Angel on a weekly variety show taped in Orem, Utah, when in fact I was holding down the six-to-midnight shift at Dee's after teaching ice skating during the day. The only thing this adjustment to reality caused me to sacrifice was a description of the apparatus I used every night before closing the restaurant to refill the ketchup bottles. Basically, you dump the contents of all the partially empty bottles into a vat and then extrude what's in the vat into the empty bottles and recap them so that it appears to the customers who arrive at six a.m. and want ketcup on their hash browns that new bottles have been supplied just for them. The bottles were never sanitized, I assure you, and I also assure you that I've never been able to use bottled ketchup in a restaurant ever since. At least McDonald's offered those hygenically sound individual-serving packets.
Because I didn't want to be sued for defamation, I've also eliminated certain details about Donny and about Marie and about their immediate family. What I did know, anyway, was minimal. I was part of the scenery, frankly; I and the other Ice Angels were like flats on a set. Only I was not exactly flat, being a little too fat even when hired, according to the standards set by the ABC network, which, through an intermediary informed me that the camera adds another ten pounds, like a tax or something for being famous or the backdrop for the truly famous--a so-called fact of entertainment life that about killed Marie, as far as I could tell, who looked great on camera and almost emaciated up close. And I remember feeling really sorry for her that one week when she was on The Master Cleanse, eating nothing but drinking from a plastic jug containing that concoction of lemon juice and molasses and paprika and some other stuff you can look up on Google if you're interested in convincing your body that the end of the world is upon it.
Here's what you can trust me on: the camera does add ten pounds; The Master Cleanse is devastating for your tooth enamel; quarter-pounders with cheese are the perfect antidote for an episode of depression, and unless you're eating at McDonald's bring your own ketchup.
Dawn Marano
It is true, for example, that I worked at McDonald's in 1977 after being fired as an Ice Angel on The Donny and Marie tv show. It was a nadir in my professional life as an entertainer, which I faithfully portrayed in the book, but the nadir was not without a few perqs such as the free quarter-pounder cheeseburgers. In fact, McDonald's is where I finally started to get in touch with the real me; that is to say, the real big me. In addition to my duties as the fry station operator during the lunch rush --a part I never leave out since people immediately understand the lunacy of the term fry station operator, as if managing hot fat and cardboard sleeves is somehow equivalent to flying a space shuttle --my duties also included local marketing, i.e., throwing the kiddie birthday parties. I suppose my employer thought that my background in the performing arts would be an asset for the S.T.A.R. position, an acronym for Store something something Representative. As the S.T.A.R. I discovered that I didn't have the stomach for watching children eat, and since parenthood clearly requires providing food regularly to offspring and seeing that it is consumed and cleaning up afterward, I was able to access and acknowledge the not-maternal-material me.
For artistic reasons I've also chosen to meld my experiences as a waitress at Dee's Restaurant into the McDonald's experience. The dramatic tension of the story was simply better if it seemed that I was plucked from a chilly ice rink to be an Ice Angel on a weekly variety show taped in Orem, Utah, when in fact I was holding down the six-to-midnight shift at Dee's after teaching ice skating during the day. The only thing this adjustment to reality caused me to sacrifice was a description of the apparatus I used every night before closing the restaurant to refill the ketchup bottles. Basically, you dump the contents of all the partially empty bottles into a vat and then extrude what's in the vat into the empty bottles and recap them so that it appears to the customers who arrive at six a.m. and want ketcup on their hash browns that new bottles have been supplied just for them. The bottles were never sanitized, I assure you, and I also assure you that I've never been able to use bottled ketchup in a restaurant ever since. At least McDonald's offered those hygenically sound individual-serving packets.
Because I didn't want to be sued for defamation, I've also eliminated certain details about Donny and about Marie and about their immediate family. What I did know, anyway, was minimal. I was part of the scenery, frankly; I and the other Ice Angels were like flats on a set. Only I was not exactly flat, being a little too fat even when hired, according to the standards set by the ABC network, which, through an intermediary informed me that the camera adds another ten pounds, like a tax or something for being famous or the backdrop for the truly famous--a so-called fact of entertainment life that about killed Marie, as far as I could tell, who looked great on camera and almost emaciated up close. And I remember feeling really sorry for her that one week when she was on The Master Cleanse, eating nothing but drinking from a plastic jug containing that concoction of lemon juice and molasses and paprika and some other stuff you can look up on Google if you're interested in convincing your body that the end of the world is upon it.
Here's what you can trust me on: the camera does add ten pounds; The Master Cleanse is devastating for your tooth enamel; quarter-pounders with cheese are the perfect antidote for an episode of depression, and unless you're eating at McDonald's bring your own ketchup.
Dawn Marano
Friday, April 3, 2009
Bereavement
It was a nice funeral. Everyone said so. Mother would have been pleased with the nice things said about her. Different from my brother’s funeral twenty-six years previously where no one knew what to say. Intentional death carries its own taboo.
The living room feels strange without the noise and glare of the television. A sorrowful little dog with its head on its paws lies next to the fireplace. On the mantel are framed photos of my parents together, a wedding photo with her dressed in black, her only good dress, an anniversary photo sixty-two years later. My sister sits on the crocheted afghan on the sofa, her stubby arms folded across her enormous breasts. Her tennis shoes hide beneath large angry ankles. Her belly strains against the black cotton dress she bought at Goodwill for the funeral.
Next to the ticking grandfather clock is my brother, still dressed in his Sunday suit, arms folded tightly across his chest, fingers clutching his armpits. We-love-you-grandma pictures sketched by great grandchildren are taped to the frig. Inexpensive artwork on the wall above the mantel reflects my mother’s love of the ocean near her childhood home. A rented hospital bed, its mattress encased in plastic, sits folded in the bedroom, waiting to be returned. The kitchen calendar marked with birthday parties she won’t be attending hangs above the phone. A younger brother stands outside with my father, inspecting the pine trees that need to be trimmed.
“Remember that dog we had in Wisconsin? What was his name?” I ask.
“Frosty,” the acknowledged animal lover, my sister, answers. She could easily name every dog, cat, chicken, guinea pig, hamster, fish, toad, parakeet, rat, and snake we ever owned.
“There was a dog we had in Germany. I was too young to remember it,” I say.
“Harry,” my brother Jim says, still staring at the floor. Medicated into monosyllabism, he rarely speaks. Though his long-term memory is better than the rest of ours, he rarely displays it. Conversation holds no interest for him. That’s just the way schizophrenics are, we were told.
“Whatever happened to Harry?” my sister Janet looks at Jim. Teased at school and scolded at home for failing grades, she always found solace in her many pets.
“Run over by a car.” His eyes have a faraway look. We all sit comfortably silent as we dedicate a moment of silence for Harry, the dog I can’t remember.
“Remember the summer that dad built us that tall swing set? We had a lot of fun on it, didn’t we?” I asked. Jim nodded. Janet smiled. “I was so surprised when I came home from kindergarten one day to find two dead deer hanging from it.”
“I remember that,” Janet said flatly. Jim says nothing. Another silence as we remember the deer, heads hanging down, blood dripping into rusty buckets.
Mother had brought us together but she was not here to help me after thirty-five years of avoiding contact, just as she had not been there to protect me from them during our childhood.
“I liked to swim in the lake.” Janet looked at Jim. “Remember how we ran and jumped off the end of the pier?” He nods. I wince, remembering the interminable half-mile walk to the lake with the sun-softened tar burning my tiny bare feet as I tried to catch up.
“We sure swam a lot, didn’t we?” I look at my siblings. I’ve tried to remember something that my adult mind cann’t quite grasp as real. Maybe I made it up. “Do you remember a dead body floating in the lake?” I ask tentatively. I can still see the bloated stomach, fish-belly white, rising high above the water, the partially submerged face bobbing in and out of the water, unseeing eyes wide open.
“Yes,” my brother said. “I remember it,” his eyes meeting mine.
“Yes,” my sister said. “I remember it, too.”
“We never told anyone,” Janet says. The briefest of smiles passes between us. Mother would have been pleased.
by Kathie
The living room feels strange without the noise and glare of the television. A sorrowful little dog with its head on its paws lies next to the fireplace. On the mantel are framed photos of my parents together, a wedding photo with her dressed in black, her only good dress, an anniversary photo sixty-two years later. My sister sits on the crocheted afghan on the sofa, her stubby arms folded across her enormous breasts. Her tennis shoes hide beneath large angry ankles. Her belly strains against the black cotton dress she bought at Goodwill for the funeral.
Next to the ticking grandfather clock is my brother, still dressed in his Sunday suit, arms folded tightly across his chest, fingers clutching his armpits. We-love-you-grandma pictures sketched by great grandchildren are taped to the frig. Inexpensive artwork on the wall above the mantel reflects my mother’s love of the ocean near her childhood home. A rented hospital bed, its mattress encased in plastic, sits folded in the bedroom, waiting to be returned. The kitchen calendar marked with birthday parties she won’t be attending hangs above the phone. A younger brother stands outside with my father, inspecting the pine trees that need to be trimmed.
“Remember that dog we had in Wisconsin? What was his name?” I ask.
“Frosty,” the acknowledged animal lover, my sister, answers. She could easily name every dog, cat, chicken, guinea pig, hamster, fish, toad, parakeet, rat, and snake we ever owned.
“There was a dog we had in Germany. I was too young to remember it,” I say.
“Harry,” my brother Jim says, still staring at the floor. Medicated into monosyllabism, he rarely speaks. Though his long-term memory is better than the rest of ours, he rarely displays it. Conversation holds no interest for him. That’s just the way schizophrenics are, we were told.
“Whatever happened to Harry?” my sister Janet looks at Jim. Teased at school and scolded at home for failing grades, she always found solace in her many pets.
“Run over by a car.” His eyes have a faraway look. We all sit comfortably silent as we dedicate a moment of silence for Harry, the dog I can’t remember.
“Remember the summer that dad built us that tall swing set? We had a lot of fun on it, didn’t we?” I asked. Jim nodded. Janet smiled. “I was so surprised when I came home from kindergarten one day to find two dead deer hanging from it.”
“I remember that,” Janet said flatly. Jim says nothing. Another silence as we remember the deer, heads hanging down, blood dripping into rusty buckets.
Mother had brought us together but she was not here to help me after thirty-five years of avoiding contact, just as she had not been there to protect me from them during our childhood.
“I liked to swim in the lake.” Janet looked at Jim. “Remember how we ran and jumped off the end of the pier?” He nods. I wince, remembering the interminable half-mile walk to the lake with the sun-softened tar burning my tiny bare feet as I tried to catch up.
“We sure swam a lot, didn’t we?” I look at my siblings. I’ve tried to remember something that my adult mind cann’t quite grasp as real. Maybe I made it up. “Do you remember a dead body floating in the lake?” I ask tentatively. I can still see the bloated stomach, fish-belly white, rising high above the water, the partially submerged face bobbing in and out of the water, unseeing eyes wide open.
“Yes,” my brother said. “I remember it,” his eyes meeting mine.
“Yes,” my sister said. “I remember it, too.”
“We never told anyone,” Janet says. The briefest of smiles passes between us. Mother would have been pleased.
by Kathie
This aint no way to run a desert! Water falls, life drinks and will store what h2o it can for the approaching dry season. In a few weeks, I will trek to another world. With this bountiful deposit the ground will crawl with living things. What magic awaits my wandering ways? Color as broad as the specturm will break through the cracks of dark rocks. Rocks as far as the eye can see will become a palette for green stems strecthing into blue. These lava fields will roll, wave after wave and I will see an ancient ocean that has crystillized before me. A world frozen in time. I will find my thoughts drifting with what nature is-SURPRISE!!
My mind will meander from memories to the now, I will get lost in the world of the desert flower, be washed with humility at the stars that rotate above my head. I will be reminded that frienship is a power all its own. I will take reverence in laughters unique ability to transform a mind and expand the heart...
Somewhere in between a sky fading into a quiet dusk, somewhere between a hush over these lost and lonely lands I will be renewed with the reasons why man is indeed in charge of his own domain, why man is capable of wonder and glorious things.
In gratitude I bow,
nek amezor
My mind will meander from memories to the now, I will get lost in the world of the desert flower, be washed with humility at the stars that rotate above my head. I will be reminded that frienship is a power all its own. I will take reverence in laughters unique ability to transform a mind and expand the heart...
Somewhere in between a sky fading into a quiet dusk, somewhere between a hush over these lost and lonely lands I will be renewed with the reasons why man is indeed in charge of his own domain, why man is capable of wonder and glorious things.
In gratitude I bow,
nek amezor
THANK YOU FOR THE FEEDBACK
I so appreciate all the helpful feedback that I got in class last night. Thanks to everyone. A friend asked me to describe this class. I told her it was my therapy group. (And I mean that in a good way.) There's nothing quite like being validated. Thank you so much.
I deleted the victim sentence in Cruelty. Because of your terrific feedback I added the phrase "I played my part" since that's more accurate today. --Kathie
I deleted the victim sentence in Cruelty. Because of your terrific feedback I added the phrase "I played my part" since that's more accurate today. --Kathie
A Bad Week for Writing
Last night, Gaylord said this was a bad week for writing. So I guess it's going around, and Ken, this is maybe why there are so few new voices here on the blog. Then Richard said that sometimes in writing we just have to START. Thank you, Richard for reminding me of the thing I so often tell my students. If we don't at least start, we are sure to produce nothing. And Nicole, yes we can always burn it (unless it's a blog post, in which case we can delete it--but even then it isn't really gone, I know because I once deleted an entire blog site but then realized within two minutes that I didn't want to lose some of those words forever; this wasn't like the journal I kept during middle school that only caused me pain and embarrassment to reread and which finally I did burn: unwanted memory turned to ash. I found my discarded blog posts scattered about in google; I told them I was sorry and asked them to take me back, they did. Writing is very forgiving that way).
This past week, the writing has not been flowing out of me, so I stopped. Now it's all backed up in there. I need some figs as Gaylord suggested. And this is why I'm posting now. This is my first fig. Like Ken, I keep showing up here hoping to hear more of you during the week. Your words excite me. There IS so much good writing here and it IS intimidating, but it's also inspiring. So won't you come out and play? Please?
Tiffany
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Earth to writers, come in please.
I keep showing up hoping to see new words. I keep wondering why so many have yet to share a thought or some writing... The voices in my head have been going off: what do I have to say, or, geeze, there is good writing here and it indimidates me and I'm thinking that some of you may have similiar thoughts. Then I think that half if not more of us don't know how to get into the blog to post a message but then I think that anyone can make a post on the comment prompt line at the end of each persons writings. So, after I am done with all my thinking, I still end up back at my beggining: Where is everybody? Can somebody play me some Pink Floyd: 'is there anybody...OUT THERE!?'
Where are all the men, Bob, Bill, Ryan,Richard, Gaylord?
cheers,
ken
Where are all the men, Bob, Bill, Ryan,Richard, Gaylord?
cheers,
ken
Friday, March 27, 2009
Howdy,
A snowmobile races towards sunset while three desperate icicles hang in crooked desperation on the tiny porch railing thats a looking point for eleven thousand foot peaks out our lodge window. 48 inches of new powder in 48 hours,arguably the greatest snow on earth here in the land of salt and lake. Amy and myself are pretending, like we get to, once a year, to be rich. There isnt much pretending to be rich. I can really be myself when I'm rich. Like a ugly rock star who takes his picks from the beautiful groupies, I can act like my wallet is switched with diamonds and no one knows its full of Washingtons instead of Franklins. It the same kind of game I use to play when sitting in first class: I'm a bad-ass and you have no idea why i'm as goofy and carefree as I am and sitting next to your day-planner and tie and I know you wonder about my story. The thing about perception is you practice a particular way of being long enough and you become.
My mind remains full of promise from last night's group. I like hanging with writers. Writers are like music: voices instead of notes on sheet music. You share your thoughts and i am,
song..
nek amezor
A snowmobile races towards sunset while three desperate icicles hang in crooked desperation on the tiny porch railing thats a looking point for eleven thousand foot peaks out our lodge window. 48 inches of new powder in 48 hours,arguably the greatest snow on earth here in the land of salt and lake. Amy and myself are pretending, like we get to, once a year, to be rich. There isnt much pretending to be rich. I can really be myself when I'm rich. Like a ugly rock star who takes his picks from the beautiful groupies, I can act like my wallet is switched with diamonds and no one knows its full of Washingtons instead of Franklins. It the same kind of game I use to play when sitting in first class: I'm a bad-ass and you have no idea why i'm as goofy and carefree as I am and sitting next to your day-planner and tie and I know you wonder about my story. The thing about perception is you practice a particular way of being long enough and you become.
My mind remains full of promise from last night's group. I like hanging with writers. Writers are like music: voices instead of notes on sheet music. You share your thoughts and i am,
song..
nek amezor
E=MC What?
From Becky
Here's something we can all relate to from NPR
E=MC What?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102388795&ft=1&f=1060
All Things Considered, March 26, 2009 · I've never had much luck with epiphanies, which is why I'll always remember standing in the middle of the Museum of Natural History in New York and seeing the universe open up wide in front of me.
Through a serendipitous and fortuitous series of events, I was getting a guided tour of the Einstein exhibit by an Italian nuclear physicist. She pointed casually at the exhibits, using them only as starting points, but using her own words to explain Einstein's insights about time and space and gravity. There was the din of hundreds of people chattering and scuffling around me -- a flow of humanity and energy that exhibited its own demonstration of chaos theory and random systems.
I don't now how many times I've read about the theory of relativity or had someone explain it to me. Every time it was explained to me, I understood it ? kind of. I would always nod. "I get it. I get it. Kind of?"
And I was doing about the same thing as she explained.
And then it happened.
I can't tell you what she said.
Maybe it was because she really, and I mean, really, really understood what she was talking about. But there was some trigger in her words. Suddenly, the floor fell out from beneath my feet. Something in my head expanded. I was, for an instant, adrift and free in the universe. And out there, I saw that nothing was like I thought it was. All the rules I used to walk across the street and brush my teeth and eat vegetables were only approximations of what was true. What was true was something else entirely. Everything else entirely. It wasn't anything like I thought it was. I caught my breath. My eyes dilated. My skin bristled.
OMIGOD! I said out loud.
And just that fast, the door to the universe shut.
I was back in a noisy exhibit at a museum, surrounded by hundreds of humans.
But she saw what had happened to me.
"Did you get it?" she asked.
I nodded. "But now it's gone," I said.
"That's the way it is," she said. "You just keep coming at it from different angles, and after a while you spend more time there."
Einstein said the math was easy after he saw what the universe was like. For him, maybe. And my Italian physicist. But all I got was the feeling -- which I've never gotten again.
But I carry that memory of what it's really like, if only my head and heart were big enough to spend more time there.
One more thing, though.
When I look back on that day, seeing the universe as it is may not be the most amazing thing that happened .
What is truly amazing is that I saw the universe because of someone's words.
Words can do that.
They can change your world.
There's an epiphany I can use.
Just words, they say. Hah. Just words.
Bill Harley is a storyteller, songwriter and author who lives in Seekonk, Mass. His latest recording of songs for families is Yes to Running.
Here's something we can all relate to from NPR
E=MC What?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102388795&ft=1&f=1060
All Things Considered, March 26, 2009 · I've never had much luck with epiphanies, which is why I'll always remember standing in the middle of the Museum of Natural History in New York and seeing the universe open up wide in front of me.
Through a serendipitous and fortuitous series of events, I was getting a guided tour of the Einstein exhibit by an Italian nuclear physicist. She pointed casually at the exhibits, using them only as starting points, but using her own words to explain Einstein's insights about time and space and gravity. There was the din of hundreds of people chattering and scuffling around me -- a flow of humanity and energy that exhibited its own demonstration of chaos theory and random systems.
I don't now how many times I've read about the theory of relativity or had someone explain it to me. Every time it was explained to me, I understood it ? kind of. I would always nod. "I get it. I get it. Kind of?"
And I was doing about the same thing as she explained.
And then it happened.
I can't tell you what she said.
Maybe it was because she really, and I mean, really, really understood what she was talking about. But there was some trigger in her words. Suddenly, the floor fell out from beneath my feet. Something in my head expanded. I was, for an instant, adrift and free in the universe. And out there, I saw that nothing was like I thought it was. All the rules I used to walk across the street and brush my teeth and eat vegetables were only approximations of what was true. What was true was something else entirely. Everything else entirely. It wasn't anything like I thought it was. I caught my breath. My eyes dilated. My skin bristled.
OMIGOD! I said out loud.
And just that fast, the door to the universe shut.
I was back in a noisy exhibit at a museum, surrounded by hundreds of humans.
But she saw what had happened to me.
"Did you get it?" she asked.
I nodded. "But now it's gone," I said.
"That's the way it is," she said. "You just keep coming at it from different angles, and after a while you spend more time there."
Einstein said the math was easy after he saw what the universe was like. For him, maybe. And my Italian physicist. But all I got was the feeling -- which I've never gotten again.
But I carry that memory of what it's really like, if only my head and heart were big enough to spend more time there.
One more thing, though.
When I look back on that day, seeing the universe as it is may not be the most amazing thing that happened .
What is truly amazing is that I saw the universe because of someone's words.
Words can do that.
They can change your world.
There's an epiphany I can use.
Just words, they say. Hah. Just words.
Bill Harley is a storyteller, songwriter and author who lives in Seekonk, Mass. His latest recording of songs for families is Yes to Running.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Something Left Behind
Dear Karen,
About those cockroaches.
Do you know you have cockroaches?
I've been living in your basement now for a few months, and honestly, before now, I only knew they existed in theory. But as you and your husband have been preparing for Armageddon--stocking up on staples like grains and flour and such--well you should know that the cockroaches are busy depleting those provisions.
They only come out at night.
I'd heard this was true, in theory, well in a literary sense, because one of my mother's favorite books was Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel. Archy is the cockroach who types free verse poetry late at night on the boss's typewriter, but of course, since he's a bug, he can't shift and capitalize words and his punctuation is a little funky, too.
At any rate, they do come out at night. Confirmed. They do not type free verse poetry. Also confirmed.
They scuttle. In the dark.
I know I'm only a renter. I know that in my desperate financial circumstances I should be grateful to have a roof--well two roofs, technically, since I'm in the basement--over my head. But please. They scare me.
Your several children, god bless them, they annoy me, but they don't scare me. They scuttle, too, visiting me rather frequently in my basement room uninvited to try on my shoes and report on their daily activities and such. But they do so with the lights on. And sometimes they are charming. Not often. But sometimes.
The cockroaches, though, not so much, I'm afraid. And again, there is the issue of them freeloading on your foodstuffs. What if the End of the World came, well, right now? Have you checked those boxes of granola lately? Not a pretty sight.
All right. I'll admit it. I've been into the boxes of granola recently. I have this slight, well, eating disorder myself. I get hungry, especially around two when I can't sleep. When the disasters that led to this reduced circumstance march into consciousness and demand to be fed--with guilt and remorse and what not. But they, the thoughts, seem seem to respond quite well to Quaker Oats Honey Granola, as luck would have it. I've been known to consume an entire box. Dry. In one sitting or lounging. (I am trustworthy, I hasten to add; I always replace what my conscience steals, so, no harm no foul, right?)
But foul is, I'm sorry to say, these...creatures. It must be a primal atavistic response of some kind. I hate them. I hardly hate anything, except myself at the moment.
So I'm doing us both a favor. I'm killing a few of them. I can't stand it, killing. I mean, we're all working on survival skills down here. But.
Ewwww.
REally.
So maybe I'll come back as one of them, a nameless part of a reviled mass, scuttling and feeding, or maybe as an inspired cockroach like Archy. Either way, I deserve my fate: shortlived fame or perpetual infamy. In the meantime, I'm leaving my murder victims, i.e., five cockroaches, conspicuously displayed in the hallway in hopes that you will do what is right. Evict me or evict them. Your call, but I pay my rent on time.
Thank you,
Dawn
About those cockroaches.
Do you know you have cockroaches?
I've been living in your basement now for a few months, and honestly, before now, I only knew they existed in theory. But as you and your husband have been preparing for Armageddon--stocking up on staples like grains and flour and such--well you should know that the cockroaches are busy depleting those provisions.
They only come out at night.
I'd heard this was true, in theory, well in a literary sense, because one of my mother's favorite books was Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel. Archy is the cockroach who types free verse poetry late at night on the boss's typewriter, but of course, since he's a bug, he can't shift and capitalize words and his punctuation is a little funky, too.
At any rate, they do come out at night. Confirmed. They do not type free verse poetry. Also confirmed.
They scuttle. In the dark.
I know I'm only a renter. I know that in my desperate financial circumstances I should be grateful to have a roof--well two roofs, technically, since I'm in the basement--over my head. But please. They scare me.
Your several children, god bless them, they annoy me, but they don't scare me. They scuttle, too, visiting me rather frequently in my basement room uninvited to try on my shoes and report on their daily activities and such. But they do so with the lights on. And sometimes they are charming. Not often. But sometimes.
The cockroaches, though, not so much, I'm afraid. And again, there is the issue of them freeloading on your foodstuffs. What if the End of the World came, well, right now? Have you checked those boxes of granola lately? Not a pretty sight.
All right. I'll admit it. I've been into the boxes of granola recently. I have this slight, well, eating disorder myself. I get hungry, especially around two when I can't sleep. When the disasters that led to this reduced circumstance march into consciousness and demand to be fed--with guilt and remorse and what not. But they, the thoughts, seem seem to respond quite well to Quaker Oats Honey Granola, as luck would have it. I've been known to consume an entire box. Dry. In one sitting or lounging. (I am trustworthy, I hasten to add; I always replace what my conscience steals, so, no harm no foul, right?)
But foul is, I'm sorry to say, these...creatures. It must be a primal atavistic response of some kind. I hate them. I hardly hate anything, except myself at the moment.
So I'm doing us both a favor. I'm killing a few of them. I can't stand it, killing. I mean, we're all working on survival skills down here. But.
Ewwww.
REally.
So maybe I'll come back as one of them, a nameless part of a reviled mass, scuttling and feeding, or maybe as an inspired cockroach like Archy. Either way, I deserve my fate: shortlived fame or perpetual infamy. In the meantime, I'm leaving my murder victims, i.e., five cockroaches, conspicuously displayed in the hallway in hopes that you will do what is right. Evict me or evict them. Your call, but I pay my rent on time.
Thank you,
Dawn
Way to be brave, Tiffany! As a woman who feels exactly the same way about having children, it was deja-vu of conversations with my mother. I think it will get easier for you as time goes on. At some point she can blame it on your being "too old" to have children. So you've got that to look forward to :-)
Here's my response the prompt for this week. Like Tiffany, I welcome comments, "first takes", etc.
Becky
Father & Daughter Prompt
“Do you want a frosty mug for your beer?” Sometimes he does. Most times he opts for his proprietary technique of wrapping a paper napkin around the beer bottle, sealing it with a lick of his tongue. He swears it keeps beer colder than any other method. I pour mine into a frosty mug.
“Cashews or pistachios?”
“Oooh, pistachios sound good!”
We carry our nutrients to the porch swing on the brick patio we built together in the backyard. The patio & swing are strategically shaded by the 100-year old pecan tree. Locusts buzz in humid heat, cooled by the usual southwest breeze. Our tree and its neighbors use that breeze to speak their welcome to us. We settle into the swing, and veerry slowly move forward and back.
We both wear shorts and short sleeved shirts. We’re both barefooted. We both rock the heel of one foot to keep the swing in motion. His other foot is crossed over his thigh. Mine is propped on the seat next to my thigh, my knee folded at my chest. We look at the sky, the house, the blooming flower gardens that Mom meticulously cultivates. Silent reverie. Disturbed within moments by the not unusual thunder of a souped-up pick-up truck barreling down 14th street in front of our house.
He comments on the crumbling bricks of the patio.
“All that work we did. It’s only been 30 years, and it’s already crumbling. I guess we didn’t do a very good job, did we?” The number of years changes each time we sit here, but the sarcasm doesn’t. “Man! That was some back breaking work. It was almost as bad as working fields in the summer in Bownfield Texas. But not quite. I really couldn’t have done it without you, lovey.”
Doesn’t he know that I considered it a gift from him? I hungered for that time spent with just him, laboring, making mistakes and working through them, laughing, and tiring together. The first glimpse that we had reached a point of mutual respect: father and daughter; but not parent and child. It dawns on me that he’s telling me it was the same for him.
I think of all the questions I would like to ask. All the lost time I would like to make up for. I wonder what he’s most proud of. He’d probably give the typical response of “family” – his wife and children. At one time his grandchildren would have been included, but no more. I’d like to be able to exclude “family” as a response to that question. Would it be something he did in the wars? Something else in his career? Something specific he did as a parent – like telling my brother that he would support his going to Canada to avoid being drafted into the Viet Nam war? I wonder what his saddest moments were: When he had to stop flying? My brother’s death on a motorcycle? My sister’s back-stabbing divorce, and the following estrangement of his grandchildren? The deaths of his own parents? But right now, the answers to these questions are mere curiosities. They are much too serious at this moment. At this moment I imagine that we turn to each other and say simultaneously, “Do you know how proud I am of you?”
“Can I get you another beer?” I ask.
Here's my response the prompt for this week. Like Tiffany, I welcome comments, "first takes", etc.
Becky
Father & Daughter Prompt
“Do you want a frosty mug for your beer?” Sometimes he does. Most times he opts for his proprietary technique of wrapping a paper napkin around the beer bottle, sealing it with a lick of his tongue. He swears it keeps beer colder than any other method. I pour mine into a frosty mug.
“Cashews or pistachios?”
“Oooh, pistachios sound good!”
We carry our nutrients to the porch swing on the brick patio we built together in the backyard. The patio & swing are strategically shaded by the 100-year old pecan tree. Locusts buzz in humid heat, cooled by the usual southwest breeze. Our tree and its neighbors use that breeze to speak their welcome to us. We settle into the swing, and veerry slowly move forward and back.
We both wear shorts and short sleeved shirts. We’re both barefooted. We both rock the heel of one foot to keep the swing in motion. His other foot is crossed over his thigh. Mine is propped on the seat next to my thigh, my knee folded at my chest. We look at the sky, the house, the blooming flower gardens that Mom meticulously cultivates. Silent reverie. Disturbed within moments by the not unusual thunder of a souped-up pick-up truck barreling down 14th street in front of our house.
He comments on the crumbling bricks of the patio.
“All that work we did. It’s only been 30 years, and it’s already crumbling. I guess we didn’t do a very good job, did we?” The number of years changes each time we sit here, but the sarcasm doesn’t. “Man! That was some back breaking work. It was almost as bad as working fields in the summer in Bownfield Texas. But not quite. I really couldn’t have done it without you, lovey.”
Doesn’t he know that I considered it a gift from him? I hungered for that time spent with just him, laboring, making mistakes and working through them, laughing, and tiring together. The first glimpse that we had reached a point of mutual respect: father and daughter; but not parent and child. It dawns on me that he’s telling me it was the same for him.
I think of all the questions I would like to ask. All the lost time I would like to make up for. I wonder what he’s most proud of. He’d probably give the typical response of “family” – his wife and children. At one time his grandchildren would have been included, but no more. I’d like to be able to exclude “family” as a response to that question. Would it be something he did in the wars? Something else in his career? Something specific he did as a parent – like telling my brother that he would support his going to Canada to avoid being drafted into the Viet Nam war? I wonder what his saddest moments were: When he had to stop flying? My brother’s death on a motorcycle? My sister’s back-stabbing divorce, and the following estrangement of his grandchildren? The deaths of his own parents? But right now, the answers to these questions are mere curiosities. They are much too serious at this moment. At this moment I imagine that we turn to each other and say simultaneously, “Do you know how proud I am of you?”
“Can I get you another beer?” I ask.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Difficult Questions
This is my response to this week's prompt. I have a couple other sketches that deal with Mother/ Child things. I'm thinking of putting them together and stealing Paul Simon's song title "Mother and Child Reunion". Thoughts, ideas, rotten tomatoes? Bring it all.
See you all on Thursday,
Tiffany
Someone asked my mother about her children. She told what each of us in turn was doing: the oldest, a doctor; busy with a new practice and five young children. Her second son, an architect; he heads up a branch of the company office, has three children, and his wife just started a charter school. Her oldest daughter, a teacher works in education running a private tutoring center; she is married to a professional cyclist—like Lance Armstrong, yes; no, he hasn’t raced the Tour de France.
“Oh. What about the younger children?”
Well, Jeff is married and has two kids—a boy and a girl; he just moved back to the city and works as an office manager for a prominent local company. Jenny is in
“Sure. Well, so, your daughters? They don’t have children yet?”
No.
“Why not?”
Well…I…they…they just don’t. We haven’t really talked about it.
We haven’t talked about a lot of things. My mom started to cry. She should know this. Why don’t we have children? Is it because of her? Was she a bad mother? She didn’t mean to be. It wasn’t easy having seven children so young. She knows she asked a lot of us. Never in her wildest dreams did she think her requests would turn on her in this way; if she had known, maybe she would have tried to do things differently. But how, she’s not sure. Money was tight. There was always so much to do. So much laundry. Not enough food, or time. Not enough of her to go around. Is this why?
Do you really want to know? Are you sure? You may not like the answer: I just don’t have it—the desire, the need, the craving. Babies don’t interest me. Motherhood doesn’t hold for me an inkling of curiosity. It’s not you. It’s just the way I am. Some people feel a strong maternal pull and know they will never be a complete person without that. I don’t. It’s that simple. I’m fine with just me. But more importantly, who is this woman who thinks she has a right to ask you such a personal question? I don’t like that she did this to you, Mom. Next time, lie. Tell her I’ve been trying for years, but I’m hopelessly infertile.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Can't sleep
I wanted to thank you all for your overwhelming support. I'll be spending the rest of my life figuring out why it is so hard to hear praise.
I woke up at 3:00 am with my mind swirling around all the things the group said that I can remember (many beautiful phrases went in one ear and out the other), oceanic currents, islands, intersticial spaces, Kipling, Virginia Woolf, the dark side, how to describe what the fever bird sounds like, all the people I want to write about and what exactly my stance is. Places, themes, smells, artworks, ruins, how to organize all this. It's exhilarating and daunting. And memoir itself raises touchy questions about how to handle discussing people who are still alive, or who are well known in some circles, family uglinesses or one's own uglinesses.
I mentioned Terry Tempest Williams' 'Refuge' as one model in my mind, as is Sandra Steingraber's 'Living Downstream,' both rich braided narratives, but the fictional model that keeps echoing in my mind is Marilynne Robinson's 'Housekeeping' which I think is one of the most perfect and beautiful books ever written. There are ideas about loneliness, loss, grief, memory, liminality and place in that book that have shaped me profoundly.
As the prompt goes, "It all runs together. . ."
Now, of course, though my mind feels alive and rich with possibility, work today will be a battle against fatigue and gravity.
Emily
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Now It's 10:30 p.m.
Truth: I usually retire at, oh, nine. Well, usually is different these days. Yes, when I teach, I'm up for three hours after. That's what being an introvert with a limited extrovert fuse is about.
But also:
A dear friend who lives mere blocks away--her husband is in the arms of Hospice tonight and leaving with the help of some morphine derivative and ice chips, and I sleep these days with the cell phone by my ear. In case. In case I get a call and need to throw on clothes and drive five minutes because: I'm called and I'm near.
This makes me sound more important than I am. I'm sorry. I sleep with the cell phone by my side because:
I'm a hesitant, failing Buddhist-wanna-be. I hope, someday, the bad karma I've (maybe) collected (maybe) will mean that someone (like me, failing, wanna-be?) will see through my PRACTICED RESILIENCE and SELF RELIANCE and show up when I need her/him most.
Cripes-- that's about me again. Back to the mat.
BUT: If it happens to be you who gets that call about me, about dying or ministering to the dying, bring a casserole and a poem and let me weep on your soft shoulder.
G'night all,
Dawn
But also:
A dear friend who lives mere blocks away--her husband is in the arms of Hospice tonight and leaving with the help of some morphine derivative and ice chips, and I sleep these days with the cell phone by my ear. In case. In case I get a call and need to throw on clothes and drive five minutes because: I'm called and I'm near.
This makes me sound more important than I am. I'm sorry. I sleep with the cell phone by my side because:
I'm a hesitant, failing Buddhist-wanna-be. I hope, someday, the bad karma I've (maybe) collected (maybe) will mean that someone (like me, failing, wanna-be?) will see through my PRACTICED RESILIENCE and SELF RELIANCE and show up when I need her/him most.
Cripes-- that's about me again. Back to the mat.
BUT: If it happens to be you who gets that call about me, about dying or ministering to the dying, bring a casserole and a poem and let me weep on your soft shoulder.
G'night all,
Dawn
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A test and A testament
I won't try to write an epistle, well, not tonight, but this is my test blog entry and given that I only know "twitter" in the word "twitterpated"--(and often feel that is false (I'm a cynic :))) this is an accomplishment for me.
I look forward to working and knowing you each more.
Nicole
I look forward to working and knowing you each more.
Nicole
It All Runs Together
I can never quite remember that day.
I flew to Washington, D.C. I was nineteen and he was thirty-nine and I still had the ring on my finger. I don't remember the flight. But I took the typewriter--that WWII steel grey Royal model that mom had given me, hoping I'd become the writer she hadn't--and I packed the set of Fiesta dishes, including the radioactive red ones, and all my clothes. Type, eat, dress. I had that much in the way of priorities. My mother must have driven me to the airport. I'd bet she didn't speak on the way. I don't remember the ride.
I took a taxi to his condo on C Street. I let myself in. Surprise! And since he wasn't expecting me, his voice sounded funny from upstairs but he flung me on the bed (or maybe not, maybe I just sagged) and there was sex and then he left. He made love the way a bee makes love to a flower. I'm sorry to say it wasn't very big. Not at all.
He left for work. He was a sportscaster at WTOP news. How he dressed for work usually: jeans and a NikNik shirt. (We had matching NikNik shirts; you'd have to have lived through the '70s to understand). When he went on air, he had a tie and dress shirt and blazer on. Only on top, though. From the waist down, under the broadcast desk, he was himself.
I cried all day. Or not. Maybe that was all night. All day I remember getting busy. Busy seemed good. I mowed the little lawn in back. I vacuumed. I changed the sheets. I found someone else's contraceptive packaging in the wastebasket. I found her barrette under the bed.
I also brought the article from The Washington Post. It was from that gossip column, "The Ear" and it was about us. I'd have to go really digging in the wayback of closets to find it now. Shortly after the article appeared we had lunch with an ex-astronaut's ex-wife at a fancy D.C. restaurant. She asked what we'd argue about when we got married. Everybody found something to fight over eventually. Best be prepared. I remember thinking she was awfully negative. Not much else. Maybe I had the Salade Nicoise. Something I couldn't pronounce: likely.
I watched him on the 11 o'clock news. One o'clock. Three o'clock. Five. He didn't come back. I started going through boxes of clothes he'd put aside for the Good Will. I didn't know the man in those boxes. All those perfectly good clothes. Maybe they didn't look right to him anymore above or below the broadcast desk. Maybe I didn't realize that I wouldn't be wearing the clothes I'd brought with me when I was thirty-nine. Mostly it was polyester back then.
At six a.m. I made reservations to fly back home. I don't think my mother answered. I think my father did. I can't be sure. Someone knew what flight I'd be on with the typewriter and the dishes and the clothes. And, oh, I stole a robe of his. Didn't I?
Also on the way out the door I think I put a pair of shoes I didn't like anymore on top of the Good Will boxes. But I accidentally left behind a Panama hat that I did like.
Somewhere between D.C. and AZ I must have begun thinking about what to do next. Where to go next.
When I heard my mother say at the airport, Well, are you ever going to let another man do that to you ever again? I was sure I'd have to go somewhere else. That's how I got to Utah a week later.
Dawn Marano
I flew to Washington, D.C. I was nineteen and he was thirty-nine and I still had the ring on my finger. I don't remember the flight. But I took the typewriter--that WWII steel grey Royal model that mom had given me, hoping I'd become the writer she hadn't--and I packed the set of Fiesta dishes, including the radioactive red ones, and all my clothes. Type, eat, dress. I had that much in the way of priorities. My mother must have driven me to the airport. I'd bet she didn't speak on the way. I don't remember the ride.
I took a taxi to his condo on C Street. I let myself in. Surprise! And since he wasn't expecting me, his voice sounded funny from upstairs but he flung me on the bed (or maybe not, maybe I just sagged) and there was sex and then he left. He made love the way a bee makes love to a flower. I'm sorry to say it wasn't very big. Not at all.
He left for work. He was a sportscaster at WTOP news. How he dressed for work usually: jeans and a NikNik shirt. (We had matching NikNik shirts; you'd have to have lived through the '70s to understand). When he went on air, he had a tie and dress shirt and blazer on. Only on top, though. From the waist down, under the broadcast desk, he was himself.
I cried all day. Or not. Maybe that was all night. All day I remember getting busy. Busy seemed good. I mowed the little lawn in back. I vacuumed. I changed the sheets. I found someone else's contraceptive packaging in the wastebasket. I found her barrette under the bed.
I also brought the article from The Washington Post. It was from that gossip column, "The Ear" and it was about us. I'd have to go really digging in the wayback of closets to find it now. Shortly after the article appeared we had lunch with an ex-astronaut's ex-wife at a fancy D.C. restaurant. She asked what we'd argue about when we got married. Everybody found something to fight over eventually. Best be prepared. I remember thinking she was awfully negative. Not much else. Maybe I had the Salade Nicoise. Something I couldn't pronounce: likely.
I watched him on the 11 o'clock news. One o'clock. Three o'clock. Five. He didn't come back. I started going through boxes of clothes he'd put aside for the Good Will. I didn't know the man in those boxes. All those perfectly good clothes. Maybe they didn't look right to him anymore above or below the broadcast desk. Maybe I didn't realize that I wouldn't be wearing the clothes I'd brought with me when I was thirty-nine. Mostly it was polyester back then.
At six a.m. I made reservations to fly back home. I don't think my mother answered. I think my father did. I can't be sure. Someone knew what flight I'd be on with the typewriter and the dishes and the clothes. And, oh, I stole a robe of his. Didn't I?
Also on the way out the door I think I put a pair of shoes I didn't like anymore on top of the Good Will boxes. But I accidentally left behind a Panama hat that I did like.
Somewhere between D.C. and AZ I must have begun thinking about what to do next. Where to go next.
When I heard my mother say at the airport, Well, are you ever going to let another man do that to you ever again? I was sure I'd have to go somewhere else. That's how I got to Utah a week later.
Dawn Marano
Sunday, March 8, 2009
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