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
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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!
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