February 25th, 2014
I wish we were all born as we were supposed to be she says, drawing fractals on the table with a dry erase marker. Earlier Javi and Brandy exchanged rapid-fire insults at a speed I coudn't record, although I tried very hard to, because I believe their banter is proof of their eloquence and I plan to use this against them when they tell me they "can't write a paper". The room settles down and they search through the book for answers to their essay quiz. I am reading poetry I will introduce to them in a few weeks. Suddenly, a line I can't contain: Guys, the word Alaska means "where the sea breaks its back". I say. I don't get it, but it sounds real and deep. Yackayra says. I teach them to ask questions that will unlock. I want to tell them all that I am grateful for all my mistakes, in spite of the pain, and so I am glad I was not born a finished product. But I don't say these things because maybe if her father had been born a finished product he would have stayed. Maybe mine would have too. Connecticut is a word that means "beside the long tidal river". Beside the long tidal river we sit and learn and let the tides move us. We live on the tides of hope, and as they come in and out we make our hearts learn the rhythm. We ask questions and live there, in the asking, on the bank by the river. What you don't know can't save you, and we, we are in the business of redemption.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
February 24th, 2014
By the time I got to school I felt very shaky and my bronchial tubes felt solidified, as if lined by cement. I haven't seen you in two weeks I said squarely to them tell me what's happened in yours lives. Are any of you married? Bankrupt? Jasmin admitted to menopause and we all laughed. When Javi came in I showed him the note that explained how he had insisted on throwing paper balls all over room. He smiled and said, well, I was playing basketball and the sub took the trash away and said "throw it on the floor", so I did. Then the sub said "You are ignorant" and I said "well, duh. you dont think i know that?" and he is so sincere that I choke on the cement in my bronchial tubes. What are some "good things" you'd like to share? You are back Leanna says shyly, and I think, was it me, was it really me who yesterday said that I hated education and teaching and would be happy never to see my students again? A thousand Javi's couldn't rival the ignorance of my complaint. Life begins again between hubris and humility and here, in this world, I can only keep one. Teaching is no big deal, I want to yell into the national debate, it's only a thousand dawns a day. it's only the re-creation of everything within the blink of every students' eye as second by second our lungs work and our minds spark and we share what it is to be maimed and still living.
By the time I got to school I felt very shaky and my bronchial tubes felt solidified, as if lined by cement. I haven't seen you in two weeks I said squarely to them tell me what's happened in yours lives. Are any of you married? Bankrupt? Jasmin admitted to menopause and we all laughed. When Javi came in I showed him the note that explained how he had insisted on throwing paper balls all over room. He smiled and said, well, I was playing basketball and the sub took the trash away and said "throw it on the floor", so I did. Then the sub said "You are ignorant" and I said "well, duh. you dont think i know that?" and he is so sincere that I choke on the cement in my bronchial tubes. What are some "good things" you'd like to share? You are back Leanna says shyly, and I think, was it me, was it really me who yesterday said that I hated education and teaching and would be happy never to see my students again? A thousand Javi's couldn't rival the ignorance of my complaint. Life begins again between hubris and humility and here, in this world, I can only keep one. Teaching is no big deal, I want to yell into the national debate, it's only a thousand dawns a day. it's only the re-creation of everything within the blink of every students' eye as second by second our lungs work and our minds spark and we share what it is to be maimed and still living.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
February 23rd, 2014
Genna came in quietly after the weekend at home and Davia and I stopped talking to listen
to the mood of her steps. She didn't answer when we first said hello, and then on the second
hello she said it back, flatly. As she came up the stairs she avoided eye contact and went
straight to her room. We both stood up and waited in the doorway of my room. So, is
everything ok? I finally said. She came out and stood to face us both and then said simply
she died and fell into Davia's arms. We listened to her sobs and when she pulled back she
told us how it happened and what it was like. We sat next to each other on the floor of my
bedroom, Davia sat on the bed, and we talked about death and everything it gives and takes
away. Were you there? I asked. Yes. She started breathing heavily and then, suddenly, she
opened her eyes wide, and then she was gone. Tears streamed down Davia's face as she
listened and she said What is better than having your baby and your baby's baby by your
side when you go? We laughed at the beauty and depth of Davia's empathy and talked about
what comes next and how it seems, eventually, that the other side is more welcoming than
this one, as it slowly, over a lifetime, becomes populated by everyone you love.
Genna came in quietly after the weekend at home and Davia and I stopped talking to listen
to the mood of her steps. She didn't answer when we first said hello, and then on the second
hello she said it back, flatly. As she came up the stairs she avoided eye contact and went
straight to her room. We both stood up and waited in the doorway of my room. So, is
everything ok? I finally said. She came out and stood to face us both and then said simply
she died and fell into Davia's arms. We listened to her sobs and when she pulled back she
told us how it happened and what it was like. We sat next to each other on the floor of my
bedroom, Davia sat on the bed, and we talked about death and everything it gives and takes
away. Were you there? I asked. Yes. She started breathing heavily and then, suddenly, she
opened her eyes wide, and then she was gone. Tears streamed down Davia's face as she
listened and she said What is better than having your baby and your baby's baby by your
side when you go? We laughed at the beauty and depth of Davia's empathy and talked about
what comes next and how it seems, eventually, that the other side is more welcoming than
this one, as it slowly, over a lifetime, becomes populated by everyone you love.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
February 21st, 2014
The single tear that dropped two nights ago moved so slowly down your cheek
that you were able to catch it with one finger and hold it against the light coming
through your window. This marvel of water and refraction stopped you for a
moment and you gazed at it, the mascara mixing with the salt, and the whole
thing still and held together by surface tension on the tip of your finger which you
rose to the light through the window. This is like something, but you're not sure
what. These are all notes and sketches anyway, these last three years and this one
too. No metaphor need be perfected yet, and later, when you really write, you will
come back to these years and this one and these cuttings and mine for the things
you saw. Today you have collected certain memories: the deep breathing of the yoga
you practiced, and how it felt very real at moments, and very farcical at others, the
waxy rind of cheese, a documentary on Rachmaninoff in which he speaks in ways
about composing that you feel, at moments, about living, sediment at the bottom
of a wine glass, and an entire harvest of snow that rises as vapor past your window.
The single tear that dropped two nights ago moved so slowly down your cheek
that you were able to catch it with one finger and hold it against the light coming
through your window. This marvel of water and refraction stopped you for a
moment and you gazed at it, the mascara mixing with the salt, and the whole
thing still and held together by surface tension on the tip of your finger which you
rose to the light through the window. This is like something, but you're not sure
what. These are all notes and sketches anyway, these last three years and this one
too. No metaphor need be perfected yet, and later, when you really write, you will
come back to these years and this one and these cuttings and mine for the things
you saw. Today you have collected certain memories: the deep breathing of the yoga
you practiced, and how it felt very real at moments, and very farcical at others, the
waxy rind of cheese, a documentary on Rachmaninoff in which he speaks in ways
about composing that you feel, at moments, about living, sediment at the bottom
of a wine glass, and an entire harvest of snow that rises as vapor past your window.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
February 20th, 2014
Slowly, like a drawbridge declining, this day will take back its meaning. Let us clarify: we do not mean we wish the memory to be dead, only that it is. This is a lesson I have had a hard time learning: that something is doesn't make it right. That something ceases to be doesn't mean it shouldn't have been. Do you know what it's like to lose something to irreversibility? No, not a breakup, dammit, a death. No, that is not a kind of death. It is nothing of the sort. You will know when you know, and there is only one door through which you may approach this truth. This is the last of it, the death tremors, I said today, and the only lie is that today has been empty. The death tremors visited me last night. There is a loaf of bread, a knife, some cheese, blackberries, and wine on my bedroom floor,
because despite, or because of, the pain of this illness, I wanted a glass of red wine. Let it be a symbol and a metaphor both, and a reminder of why we are where we are. You have very little of my mind now, and those parts in which you used to live I have learned to be very honorable with. This is just how it must be because I know too much of doorways and their irrevocable translation. There is more than splinters and warped wood, there is the leaning on the only sureness you know and staring into a new life: an unmooring under a sky of endless dark and invisible, distant stars.
February 19th, 2014
And now I see as one whose wet new eyes are just tightening in focus, that I hunger
for things for which I do not yet have an appetite. I utter words I don't know in a low
tone within myself as mist over a field of snow. Inside me the emptiness is just now
beginning to form itself into an outline for which I know no shape to fill. I am weak
and ravenous and full and very, very, strong. I am indestructible. I have become destroyer
of worlds, and only now, looking through piles of time to the first moment when destruction
was in our reach, have I become human. I hope I meet another of my kind. It is lonely
walking this earth with the weight of fallibility and disorder. It wears out my shoes and
all the cobblers have gone away for lunch forever and ever more. All we wanted to be are
structurelss clouds that break open over the hill and I, we even, all fall down as the water
rushes. If I must be the wandering human or the rushing water, I will choose neither
and ask to be the cracking earth that waits for both the human and the water, because the
only guarantee is that both will come, and in abundance. I have not been here very long
and my skin still burns in the sun, my lungs in the air, my eyes in the light.
Slowly, like a drawbridge declining, this day will take back its meaning. Let us clarify: we do not mean we wish the memory to be dead, only that it is. This is a lesson I have had a hard time learning: that something is doesn't make it right. That something ceases to be doesn't mean it shouldn't have been. Do you know what it's like to lose something to irreversibility? No, not a breakup, dammit, a death. No, that is not a kind of death. It is nothing of the sort. You will know when you know, and there is only one door through which you may approach this truth. This is the last of it, the death tremors, I said today, and the only lie is that today has been empty. The death tremors visited me last night. There is a loaf of bread, a knife, some cheese, blackberries, and wine on my bedroom floor,
because despite, or because of, the pain of this illness, I wanted a glass of red wine. Let it be a symbol and a metaphor both, and a reminder of why we are where we are. You have very little of my mind now, and those parts in which you used to live I have learned to be very honorable with. This is just how it must be because I know too much of doorways and their irrevocable translation. There is more than splinters and warped wood, there is the leaning on the only sureness you know and staring into a new life: an unmooring under a sky of endless dark and invisible, distant stars.
February 19th, 2014
And now I see as one whose wet new eyes are just tightening in focus, that I hunger
for things for which I do not yet have an appetite. I utter words I don't know in a low
tone within myself as mist over a field of snow. Inside me the emptiness is just now
beginning to form itself into an outline for which I know no shape to fill. I am weak
and ravenous and full and very, very, strong. I am indestructible. I have become destroyer
of worlds, and only now, looking through piles of time to the first moment when destruction
was in our reach, have I become human. I hope I meet another of my kind. It is lonely
walking this earth with the weight of fallibility and disorder. It wears out my shoes and
all the cobblers have gone away for lunch forever and ever more. All we wanted to be are
structurelss clouds that break open over the hill and I, we even, all fall down as the water
rushes. If I must be the wandering human or the rushing water, I will choose neither
and ask to be the cracking earth that waits for both the human and the water, because the
only guarantee is that both will come, and in abundance. I have not been here very long
and my skin still burns in the sun, my lungs in the air, my eyes in the light.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
February 18th, 2014
And in the summer the family was always driving back from the beach after dark, your father
singing in his bold and tuneless voice to the oldies station. Twenty years later you would tell this
to a man on the street just before midnight after he had followed you out of a bar and grabbed
your arm. Let me be your friend he kept saying, relentless like waves. You struggled away from his hands and finally said no! I don't want a friend it is late I have no more room in my life for the
voices of men. My father sang to all the songs were played in the bar tonight, and all I want is solitude and you fell, crying into this stranger’s arms, resistant and angry, and he held you, and
even touched your hair in an effort to close an invisible wound, honey honey he said, and you
hated him even more for it. This man was between the age of a lover and a father and as you
walked away your steps quickened to a run and he stood looking after you like a confused animal. Tonight you are mending your lungs by lying very still in bed and there is a dizziness that comes
with the stillness and you look out the window and trick yourself into thinking the reflection of
the ceiling light is the full moon until, yes, the ceiling light is not on, and yes, it is the full moon,
and how naked, how small, how unbegun you feel, lying very still in the view of the moon.
______________________________________________________
A new world has opened itself to you. There are swinging doors everywhere. This is not an awakening, you are already awake. In fact you can't sleep, in spite of the bronchitis, in spite of the codeine; there are too many trembling violin strings that you must hear, too many angles of the room to consider. It occurs to you when you look in the mirror that your face is swollen with words you haven't said yet and that your eyes are swollen with things you haven't seen yet and the thinness of your skin, its translucent pale, only confirms all of this as you can see ideas you haven't thought yet swimming below your surface. It's like a burning just beneath my skin you said to the PA today at the walk-in clinic. There is a softness to the edges of things, and while this is not wholly unpleasant, I don't feel quite right either. She nods loudly but she doesn't understand. She writes you out of work for the remainder of the week anyway and after some deliberation, you accept. When you walked to the college yesterday you passed an electric crosswalk sign knocked over into a snow bank. The orange hand was lit, and you wanted to hold it with an unmatched tenderness. What is next? You whisper to the heating coils in your room which are whispering back to you in a language you don't know. You think there is something constant about the sound though. It is an old language, like wind.
And in the summer the family was always driving back from the beach after dark, your father
singing in his bold and tuneless voice to the oldies station. Twenty years later you would tell this
to a man on the street just before midnight after he had followed you out of a bar and grabbed
your arm. Let me be your friend he kept saying, relentless like waves. You struggled away from his hands and finally said no! I don't want a friend it is late I have no more room in my life for the
voices of men. My father sang to all the songs were played in the bar tonight, and all I want is solitude and you fell, crying into this stranger’s arms, resistant and angry, and he held you, and
even touched your hair in an effort to close an invisible wound, honey honey he said, and you
hated him even more for it. This man was between the age of a lover and a father and as you
walked away your steps quickened to a run and he stood looking after you like a confused animal. Tonight you are mending your lungs by lying very still in bed and there is a dizziness that comes
with the stillness and you look out the window and trick yourself into thinking the reflection of
the ceiling light is the full moon until, yes, the ceiling light is not on, and yes, it is the full moon,
and how naked, how small, how unbegun you feel, lying very still in the view of the moon.
______________________________________________________
A new world has opened itself to you. There are swinging doors everywhere. This is not an awakening, you are already awake. In fact you can't sleep, in spite of the bronchitis, in spite of the codeine; there are too many trembling violin strings that you must hear, too many angles of the room to consider. It occurs to you when you look in the mirror that your face is swollen with words you haven't said yet and that your eyes are swollen with things you haven't seen yet and the thinness of your skin, its translucent pale, only confirms all of this as you can see ideas you haven't thought yet swimming below your surface. It's like a burning just beneath my skin you said to the PA today at the walk-in clinic. There is a softness to the edges of things, and while this is not wholly unpleasant, I don't feel quite right either. She nods loudly but she doesn't understand. She writes you out of work for the remainder of the week anyway and after some deliberation, you accept. When you walked to the college yesterday you passed an electric crosswalk sign knocked over into a snow bank. The orange hand was lit, and you wanted to hold it with an unmatched tenderness. What is next? You whisper to the heating coils in your room which are whispering back to you in a language you don't know. You think there is something constant about the sound though. It is an old language, like wind.
Monday, February 17, 2014
February 17th, 2014
The world began early; I am alive again. I walked to the college through much snow and ice and it was everything you would imagine of re-creation - and who wouldn't want this, a clean day and new roads through snow? There were paths forged in ice and it was as if You were saying "you see, others have walked this way. You are not alone" and so I rejoiced in the slide of boot print I stepped into and the drops if melting snow falling on me from the highway overpass. I said again, loudly in my head, "who wouldn't want this!" And nearly skipped at the glory of it all. I was one minute late for class and rushed in breathless and laughing and the students, gathered and waiting, smiled with forgiveness. I spoke with passion about semicolons and punctuation, how a simple mark on a page can carry the intonation we lose in the written word. There were furrowed brows and note-taking, and once again I felt overwhelmed by the position. How humbling to be listened to. How profound to have your words written down in a student's notebook. It was a small bird trembling in my hand, the responsibility of this, and also it was the weight of an entire building resting on my back as I strained to keep it from crushing us all. I closed the class with a poem and after, my student from Chile, gave me the names of two Chilean poets. How life gives back! How endless and weighty the jewels that adorn my soul!
The world began early; I am alive again. I walked to the college through much snow and ice and it was everything you would imagine of re-creation - and who wouldn't want this, a clean day and new roads through snow? There were paths forged in ice and it was as if You were saying "you see, others have walked this way. You are not alone" and so I rejoiced in the slide of boot print I stepped into and the drops if melting snow falling on me from the highway overpass. I said again, loudly in my head, "who wouldn't want this!" And nearly skipped at the glory of it all. I was one minute late for class and rushed in breathless and laughing and the students, gathered and waiting, smiled with forgiveness. I spoke with passion about semicolons and punctuation, how a simple mark on a page can carry the intonation we lose in the written word. There were furrowed brows and note-taking, and once again I felt overwhelmed by the position. How humbling to be listened to. How profound to have your words written down in a student's notebook. It was a small bird trembling in my hand, the responsibility of this, and also it was the weight of an entire building resting on my back as I strained to keep it from crushing us all. I closed the class with a poem and after, my student from Chile, gave me the names of two Chilean poets. How life gives back! How endless and weighty the jewels that adorn my soul!
February 16th, 2014
Stravinsky's Petrushka is almost too playful, so I switched to The Rite of Spring and this
is the Stravinsky I want. This day was a gift among days. It was a long winter sigh against
snow and under a veiled sky. It was a stone kept in your pocket to remind you of a river
you walked along once. And that's something, the idea of walking along a river, didn't you
think of that earlier today and tuck it away for later? But now you can't quite remember
the thought and anyway, you're not sure where it fits into everything. On Tuesday the world
begins again, but it is not the world you've carefully been knitting around you, it is a loud
and tearing world, a world with spikes on the walls and many pierced hearts dripping from
these spikes and when you walk down the halls of the school they pulse and you cannot fix
them. You don't even want to anymore. You want to be left alone to heal and change in your
cocoon. There must be another way. The icicles keep falling from the roof like teeth from a
great jaw and I am in my room listening to music that irons my brain into one sheet, until,
like Jung, I conceive of myself as a hovering over the landscape, as a pulse and beat in the
things around me. There are many ways to be alive, but only a few ways to stay alive.
Stravinsky's Petrushka is almost too playful, so I switched to The Rite of Spring and this
is the Stravinsky I want. This day was a gift among days. It was a long winter sigh against
snow and under a veiled sky. It was a stone kept in your pocket to remind you of a river
you walked along once. And that's something, the idea of walking along a river, didn't you
think of that earlier today and tuck it away for later? But now you can't quite remember
the thought and anyway, you're not sure where it fits into everything. On Tuesday the world
begins again, but it is not the world you've carefully been knitting around you, it is a loud
and tearing world, a world with spikes on the walls and many pierced hearts dripping from
these spikes and when you walk down the halls of the school they pulse and you cannot fix
them. You don't even want to anymore. You want to be left alone to heal and change in your
cocoon. There must be another way. The icicles keep falling from the roof like teeth from a
great jaw and I am in my room listening to music that irons my brain into one sheet, until,
like Jung, I conceive of myself as a hovering over the landscape, as a pulse and beat in the
things around me. There are many ways to be alive, but only a few ways to stay alive.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
February 15th, 2014
This has been a night like no other because I stayed inside. Very early,
as the sun was setting, I, having found myself unable to get out of bed
for the duration of the day, decided to at least learn something, so I set
about the work of learning the history of Gestalt psychology. This was
good until my eyes grew tired so I looked up a video and listened to a man
who looks very much like a man at my church whom I trust, speak on his
theory and practice. This immediately put me to sleep, not because it was
boring, but because it was so soothing, the sound of the sureness in his voice.
I dreamed of falling asleep in places I was not supposed to and sleepwalking
the streets around my house. Eventually I rose, took a bath, and cleaned my
room. I composed many sentences I would like to send in a letter to Alain, and
I will, but when? When will I find the voice I need to recount the horrors and
glories that have been my life over the last two years? I have only the strength
to offer one flower, but it is a whole garden blooming over that I must present.
February 14th, 2014
Everything hurts, but surprisingly, given the day, it's not emotional. I'm certainly not the most comfortable I've been emotionally - saw someone tonight whom I have acted so strangely around
that I could find no words and so pretended not to know him. I walked into West Hartford today to get guitar strings. The walk was a long negotiation with the ice on the sidewalks. And, even though my body ached from this flu, even though there was an emptiness next to me that I didn't know how to articulate, I kept smiling because the sun was so bright and the puddles were so deep and the music in my ears was so pleasing. As I walked onto main street I was reminded of the man I met once in the starbucks one street over. Excuse me he said, I have worked in the entertainment industry for my whole life, and though I am retired now, I have the eye for it still. Your face is stunning. Your face is the face of movie stars. What bone structure. You must do something with your face. So I did. I blushed furiously and clutched my coffee. I also took his words and placed them over the raw parts of my heart, the places where I had written "ugly" or "unacceptable" or "rejected" with a penknife. At the liquor store the handsome wine expert said you look good as a brunette, shyly, after looking at my I.D. in which I'm a blonde, and I felt those places pulse, and I realized how much healing had come.
This has been a night like no other because I stayed inside. Very early,
as the sun was setting, I, having found myself unable to get out of bed
for the duration of the day, decided to at least learn something, so I set
about the work of learning the history of Gestalt psychology. This was
good until my eyes grew tired so I looked up a video and listened to a man
who looks very much like a man at my church whom I trust, speak on his
theory and practice. This immediately put me to sleep, not because it was
boring, but because it was so soothing, the sound of the sureness in his voice.
I dreamed of falling asleep in places I was not supposed to and sleepwalking
the streets around my house. Eventually I rose, took a bath, and cleaned my
room. I composed many sentences I would like to send in a letter to Alain, and
I will, but when? When will I find the voice I need to recount the horrors and
glories that have been my life over the last two years? I have only the strength
to offer one flower, but it is a whole garden blooming over that I must present.
February 14th, 2014
Everything hurts, but surprisingly, given the day, it's not emotional. I'm certainly not the most comfortable I've been emotionally - saw someone tonight whom I have acted so strangely around
that I could find no words and so pretended not to know him. I walked into West Hartford today to get guitar strings. The walk was a long negotiation with the ice on the sidewalks. And, even though my body ached from this flu, even though there was an emptiness next to me that I didn't know how to articulate, I kept smiling because the sun was so bright and the puddles were so deep and the music in my ears was so pleasing. As I walked onto main street I was reminded of the man I met once in the starbucks one street over. Excuse me he said, I have worked in the entertainment industry for my whole life, and though I am retired now, I have the eye for it still. Your face is stunning. Your face is the face of movie stars. What bone structure. You must do something with your face. So I did. I blushed furiously and clutched my coffee. I also took his words and placed them over the raw parts of my heart, the places where I had written "ugly" or "unacceptable" or "rejected" with a penknife. At the liquor store the handsome wine expert said you look good as a brunette, shyly, after looking at my I.D. in which I'm a blonde, and I felt those places pulse, and I realized how much healing had come.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
February 12th, 2014
There are writers, real writers, real writers everywhere out there. These real writers pay real bills and eat real bread and do real things. There must be a way to go about becoming a real writer. But, you wouldn't want to really try because then you might really fail and plus you would draw lots of real criticism. It was so lonely on top of that mountain, Daddy, trying to secretly scatter your ashes to the wind through the fog. Why weren't you there? I had to bring Joshua. You promised you would. Do you remember? You promised, and what did you do then? Where did you go? You know, Daythea who lived with you in the place you went to, Daythea whom we laughed at, her mother died right after you. Think of that. This thing you did, to die, did you consider the cost of the funeral? When you came to, right before you died, you thought you were in Kentucky about to go to Walmart. I think perhaps that, THAT, is the thing that hurts the most. I only know you were my father because of the drinking and the irrepressible voice inside me that pushes on towards justice and completion. Also that my feelings are easily hurt and I am always wanting to belong and then getting bored with the belonging. You are why I left him and I guess I can thank you, though it's hard to see that even now after all this time. There is still sawdust everywhere and I can't see the purpose for all the cutting. Yet.
There are writers, real writers, real writers everywhere out there. These real writers pay real bills and eat real bread and do real things. There must be a way to go about becoming a real writer. But, you wouldn't want to really try because then you might really fail and plus you would draw lots of real criticism. It was so lonely on top of that mountain, Daddy, trying to secretly scatter your ashes to the wind through the fog. Why weren't you there? I had to bring Joshua. You promised you would. Do you remember? You promised, and what did you do then? Where did you go? You know, Daythea who lived with you in the place you went to, Daythea whom we laughed at, her mother died right after you. Think of that. This thing you did, to die, did you consider the cost of the funeral? When you came to, right before you died, you thought you were in Kentucky about to go to Walmart. I think perhaps that, THAT, is the thing that hurts the most. I only know you were my father because of the drinking and the irrepressible voice inside me that pushes on towards justice and completion. Also that my feelings are easily hurt and I am always wanting to belong and then getting bored with the belonging. You are why I left him and I guess I can thank you, though it's hard to see that even now after all this time. There is still sawdust everywhere and I can't see the purpose for all the cutting. Yet.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
February 11th, 2014
I keep falling behind days for no reason that is very good and now I am sick and I have
slept all day and I see a book of postmodern poetry on the floor and I am afraid I may be
up all night at it, at that chipping block, chiseling to make sense and shape of something
I don't even believe in but how could i not of course this is confessional but hardly also is
it confessional. it's everything that's come before it, eh, too, yeah? No. and yes. It is the
sweepings of dirt and hay in dusty corner in the sunny ally through buildings made of material
I don't understand but recognize like the locks in eyes sometimes that I've stopped trying
to translate or pick because I feel the edges of what it means and I am not ready for it. Let
me get back on my motorcycle and ride through a monolithic graveyard to a wallflowers
song at sunset across the country. And then the graves turn out to be lot's wife. All of them.
But she was a blessing, my student says, she is a pillar for us. She is salt to preserve truth.
fine. But if you keep looking back, all your gardens will be planted in reverse and when you
go to reap what you sow you will find all the potatoes on top of the soil, bitten through by all
the things that bite. I want the things that belong in dirt to stay there for a season. I ripen too.
I keep falling behind days for no reason that is very good and now I am sick and I have
slept all day and I see a book of postmodern poetry on the floor and I am afraid I may be
up all night at it, at that chipping block, chiseling to make sense and shape of something
I don't even believe in but how could i not of course this is confessional but hardly also is
it confessional. it's everything that's come before it, eh, too, yeah? No. and yes. It is the
sweepings of dirt and hay in dusty corner in the sunny ally through buildings made of material
I don't understand but recognize like the locks in eyes sometimes that I've stopped trying
to translate or pick because I feel the edges of what it means and I am not ready for it. Let
me get back on my motorcycle and ride through a monolithic graveyard to a wallflowers
song at sunset across the country. And then the graves turn out to be lot's wife. All of them.
But she was a blessing, my student says, she is a pillar for us. She is salt to preserve truth.
fine. But if you keep looking back, all your gardens will be planted in reverse and when you
go to reap what you sow you will find all the potatoes on top of the soil, bitten through by all
the things that bite. I want the things that belong in dirt to stay there for a season. I ripen too.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
February 9th, 2014
Sunday morning: Brett and I read to each other and discuss writing and what it means to examine and pursue truth, and how this pursuit is an exercise that can open things up in the mind. Later that night, my body tight, I took a hip and heart opening yoga class. Later that night I prepared for school. Later that night I cried at all this open space in my life where things before had been. Earlier we met a boy at CVS whose name began with a P. It was a name we had never seen before. Is it a family name? Brett asked. No. My dad saw it in a play once. We both tell him unique names bode well and when he lifts his head, his eyes smile. Behind him on the wall hangs a bear for valentines day that says on its belly "I love you this much". Its arms are designed to be, and stay, open wide. What does a watch dog say? Leanne, tell the joke! What does a watch dog say? And then I would bark. That's not the punch line, but I am three in yellow pajamas and I am pretending to be a dog and polishing the floor with my worn pajama-bottom knees. The other game: Leanne, how much do I love you? arms open wide like my mind now, like my hips and heart now, like the yawning grave, thiiiiiiiis much, he says, his mouth open, his arms open and his voice getting lost somewhere in his throat. This ends in a hug. I wriggle in my yellow pajamas. There wasn't always an emptiness, and there isn't now. Open, not empty.
February 8th, 2014
She said, well do it. Stop being a baby. So, I did. I wrote them a letter and I returned
their book. I thought it would be much harder than it was. When I took the cap off the
pen I braced myself for a violent response, for tears, for convulsions of the body. But
nothing happened except that my pen touched paper and I said hello. I told them I loved
them and that the love hadn't changed even though everything else had. I thanked them
for their kindness when I knew them and I told them how the Bible they gave me had
become one of my dearest possessions. I told them about teaching at the college and
speaking at conferences. I told them that I still pray for him, even when it's hard. I told
them I trusted I would heal even though it seemed to be taking a long time. When this
was done, I felt twenty pounds lighter, but also very sick, and, after two loads of laundry,
grocery shopping and buying new sheets, sitting on the kitchen floor with friends who
drank in preparation of going out, I put myself to bed with music that would soothe. I
woke to a memory of him at the beach, and felt again a sadness beyond measure. That
this was true doesn't surprise me. Some victories are many years in coming.
February 7th, 2014
At the end of the world the Olympics were held in Russia and the streets were full
of color and drink and many many dead dogs and the flesh beaten off of the LGBT
activists. Putin’s porcelain head was perfect and sculpted as usual, his expression a
haircut with every hair in place, and his lovers wore costumes that made them look
like everyone else except the one lover who held the torch for a time. The police men
stood on bleachers and sang Daft Punk in English moving their mouths over the vowels
in Russian. The Americans wore sweaters made of very thick yarn with things sewn
onto them. Many elementary school teachers from the 80‘s sighed in envy at the sight. It
was the night before an uneventful day and also the night before everything turned.
It was the last sip of milk before the carton went bad, but still, the discerning pallet
knew. I wheeled out my red wagon and bought many gallons of water, many rounds
of ammunition, and that dress I always wanted to wear. It is white. One should be
wearing white at the end of the world -- white against the orange sky, white against
the splitting earth, white as the stars fall, white as the water runs red.
February 6th, 2014
Remember when I cut all my hair off and looked like a little boy? Well, I'm
glad it's growing back. That is my good thing for the day. The students let
out a collective sigh like they had been holding a secret this length of time,
that no, they did not like my self-imposed hair cut, and that no they did not
support the acting out of my grief. If only they knew all the other ways I've
acted it out. Miss, please don't shave your head with scissors ever again. It
is a long day because I am hungover and since this is no longer a weekly
occurrence, I don't have the ready ability to deal with it. I pace and wring
my hands anxiously. I am too hot and all of my clothes are too confining.
When the day is over I rush home to hide in my room from a world I am
not always warm to, and on the porch is a package for me from Illinois. It
is from Margot. Inside is a beautiful and stately hanging crystal that I am
told later is Bavarian and quite old. That it came today is remarkable and
magic. It will catch the light even when I am too sad to look.
Sunday morning: Brett and I read to each other and discuss writing and what it means to examine and pursue truth, and how this pursuit is an exercise that can open things up in the mind. Later that night, my body tight, I took a hip and heart opening yoga class. Later that night I prepared for school. Later that night I cried at all this open space in my life where things before had been. Earlier we met a boy at CVS whose name began with a P. It was a name we had never seen before. Is it a family name? Brett asked. No. My dad saw it in a play once. We both tell him unique names bode well and when he lifts his head, his eyes smile. Behind him on the wall hangs a bear for valentines day that says on its belly "I love you this much". Its arms are designed to be, and stay, open wide. What does a watch dog say? Leanne, tell the joke! What does a watch dog say? And then I would bark. That's not the punch line, but I am three in yellow pajamas and I am pretending to be a dog and polishing the floor with my worn pajama-bottom knees. The other game: Leanne, how much do I love you? arms open wide like my mind now, like my hips and heart now, like the yawning grave, thiiiiiiiis much, he says, his mouth open, his arms open and his voice getting lost somewhere in his throat. This ends in a hug. I wriggle in my yellow pajamas. There wasn't always an emptiness, and there isn't now. Open, not empty.
February 8th, 2014
She said, well do it. Stop being a baby. So, I did. I wrote them a letter and I returned
their book. I thought it would be much harder than it was. When I took the cap off the
pen I braced myself for a violent response, for tears, for convulsions of the body. But
nothing happened except that my pen touched paper and I said hello. I told them I loved
them and that the love hadn't changed even though everything else had. I thanked them
for their kindness when I knew them and I told them how the Bible they gave me had
become one of my dearest possessions. I told them about teaching at the college and
speaking at conferences. I told them that I still pray for him, even when it's hard. I told
them I trusted I would heal even though it seemed to be taking a long time. When this
was done, I felt twenty pounds lighter, but also very sick, and, after two loads of laundry,
grocery shopping and buying new sheets, sitting on the kitchen floor with friends who
drank in preparation of going out, I put myself to bed with music that would soothe. I
woke to a memory of him at the beach, and felt again a sadness beyond measure. That
this was true doesn't surprise me. Some victories are many years in coming.
February 7th, 2014
At the end of the world the Olympics were held in Russia and the streets were full
of color and drink and many many dead dogs and the flesh beaten off of the LGBT
activists. Putin’s porcelain head was perfect and sculpted as usual, his expression a
haircut with every hair in place, and his lovers wore costumes that made them look
like everyone else except the one lover who held the torch for a time. The police men
stood on bleachers and sang Daft Punk in English moving their mouths over the vowels
in Russian. The Americans wore sweaters made of very thick yarn with things sewn
onto them. Many elementary school teachers from the 80‘s sighed in envy at the sight. It
was the night before an uneventful day and also the night before everything turned.
It was the last sip of milk before the carton went bad, but still, the discerning pallet
knew. I wheeled out my red wagon and bought many gallons of water, many rounds
of ammunition, and that dress I always wanted to wear. It is white. One should be
wearing white at the end of the world -- white against the orange sky, white against
the splitting earth, white as the stars fall, white as the water runs red.
February 6th, 2014
Remember when I cut all my hair off and looked like a little boy? Well, I'm
glad it's growing back. That is my good thing for the day. The students let
out a collective sigh like they had been holding a secret this length of time,
that no, they did not like my self-imposed hair cut, and that no they did not
support the acting out of my grief. If only they knew all the other ways I've
acted it out. Miss, please don't shave your head with scissors ever again. It
is a long day because I am hungover and since this is no longer a weekly
occurrence, I don't have the ready ability to deal with it. I pace and wring
my hands anxiously. I am too hot and all of my clothes are too confining.
When the day is over I rush home to hide in my room from a world I am
not always warm to, and on the porch is a package for me from Illinois. It
is from Margot. Inside is a beautiful and stately hanging crystal that I am
told later is Bavarian and quite old. That it came today is remarkable and
magic. It will catch the light even when I am too sad to look.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
February 5th, 2014
On the 37th day I learned to listen and through the snowblower to the scraping of shovel against asphalt I heard things and marked them Billy was born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent, and still lives there just about making a living I want love to stick a knife into me and twist it all around If you're in the housework mood just come by my apartment here's some water It is hard not to narrate this is New England The amateur does things for love, and belief, not for the mortgage. There is a a snowball fight in the park tonight and also it is 1969 in Liverpool but only because Georgia's mother always told me I looked like it was 1969 in Liverpool so I did that kind of makeup this morning in the bathroom and now my eyelashes are sticking together and the skin around my eyes feels heavy and it is also 2014 in Hartford and there is a snowball fight in the park tonight. I don't do things I don't want to do. I don't do it as drugs and alcohol I didn't want to go to contemporary art galleries and watch people take cocaine. At night and I can't sleep at night. Ease. And there's hope. I ain't ashamed to say. We believe in the thrust. (American car commercial) I never bother waiting for ideas. That would be a waste of time. Ideas aren't anything to do with it. You just got to try and carry on. not Chatham cool to walk down the road holding a painting above your head. There are lessons everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YtqJrWQyw0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iErNRBTPbEc&feature=kp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0BhmaoPNqA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiLzLtnipFM
February 4th, 2014
Happiness looks like a lot of different things. For instance, today it looked like a field
of fresh snow. At lunch I walked to get coffee and the man at Dunkin Donuts said you
are a teacher? yes. Of what, English? Yes. I need help. Will you help me? I said yes.
What else do you say? When I move to another country I trust there will be ever so many
people ready to give me lessons in the language and if there are not I will guess at the
language in ways that are often not appropriate and it will be humbling. I walked back
in the middle of the road and this was its own pleasure. And then there were parent teacher conferences and that was also its own pleasure. In between everything was more coffee.
I realized three days ago I was talking to myself, and today I realized I was writing for myself.
That is growth. And here we are at gardening again. I am learning the smell of dirt and the
pride of earth in the creases of my hands. When I walked back to the school two girls in love
let me in the locked door and before it opened it I saw my smile lines reflected in the glass
catch the sun. They shone and the white in my hair was like silver and this is too much I said,
too much finery for me. Give me a burlap sack and a string and I'll make a gown.
On the 37th day I learned to listen and through the snowblower to the scraping of shovel against asphalt I heard things and marked them Billy was born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent, and still lives there just about making a living I want love to stick a knife into me and twist it all around If you're in the housework mood just come by my apartment here's some water It is hard not to narrate this is New England The amateur does things for love, and belief, not for the mortgage. There is a a snowball fight in the park tonight and also it is 1969 in Liverpool but only because Georgia's mother always told me I looked like it was 1969 in Liverpool so I did that kind of makeup this morning in the bathroom and now my eyelashes are sticking together and the skin around my eyes feels heavy and it is also 2014 in Hartford and there is a snowball fight in the park tonight. I don't do things I don't want to do. I don't do it as drugs and alcohol I didn't want to go to contemporary art galleries and watch people take cocaine. At night and I can't sleep at night. Ease. And there's hope. I ain't ashamed to say. We believe in the thrust. (American car commercial) I never bother waiting for ideas. That would be a waste of time. Ideas aren't anything to do with it. You just got to try and carry on. not Chatham cool to walk down the road holding a painting above your head. There are lessons everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YtqJrWQyw0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iErNRBTPbEc&feature=kp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0BhmaoPNqA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiLzLtnipFM
February 4th, 2014
Happiness looks like a lot of different things. For instance, today it looked like a field
of fresh snow. At lunch I walked to get coffee and the man at Dunkin Donuts said you
are a teacher? yes. Of what, English? Yes. I need help. Will you help me? I said yes.
What else do you say? When I move to another country I trust there will be ever so many
people ready to give me lessons in the language and if there are not I will guess at the
language in ways that are often not appropriate and it will be humbling. I walked back
in the middle of the road and this was its own pleasure. And then there were parent teacher conferences and that was also its own pleasure. In between everything was more coffee.
I realized three days ago I was talking to myself, and today I realized I was writing for myself.
That is growth. And here we are at gardening again. I am learning the smell of dirt and the
pride of earth in the creases of my hands. When I walked back to the school two girls in love
let me in the locked door and before it opened it I saw my smile lines reflected in the glass
catch the sun. They shone and the white in my hair was like silver and this is too much I said,
too much finery for me. Give me a burlap sack and a string and I'll make a gown.
Monday, February 3, 2014
February 3rd, 2014
It is thrilling to wear patterned tights with leather, and over the tights but under the boots, knitted wool knee socks that have kept you warm this winter. The subtle sexuality of your calf rising from the boot, like the curve of your hip rippling the dress you wear, is satisfying to your five-year-old self who knew, just knew, this is what it meant to be a woman, but terrifying to your sterile and cloistered 29-year-old-almost-thirty self who wants nothing to do with the sex you carry. Oh that is a lie. It is the thing you're best at, and you have lost a great deal by avoiding it. Lost and gained. Lost and gained. Like your body, like the tide, like the moon, and how close you are to these cycles. And doesn't that make you grit your teeth and want to cut off all your hair? But you did. You already did. There are no more frontiers, no more bold acts of nunnery. You will meet a man soon. He will have a jaw line you like to look at against the light when he isn't looking, and that you especially like the look of in the pictures in which he is kissing your unreasonable lips. It's the lower lip I love someone once said to you, to which you thought, but didn't say, bullshit. You and every man knows the top one is the one you imagine when you imagine me on my knees. The time you've spent on your knees recently has redefined intimacy. Something has been put back. You blush again, when eyes turn your way.
It is thrilling to wear patterned tights with leather, and over the tights but under the boots, knitted wool knee socks that have kept you warm this winter. The subtle sexuality of your calf rising from the boot, like the curve of your hip rippling the dress you wear, is satisfying to your five-year-old self who knew, just knew, this is what it meant to be a woman, but terrifying to your sterile and cloistered 29-year-old-almost-thirty self who wants nothing to do with the sex you carry. Oh that is a lie. It is the thing you're best at, and you have lost a great deal by avoiding it. Lost and gained. Lost and gained. Like your body, like the tide, like the moon, and how close you are to these cycles. And doesn't that make you grit your teeth and want to cut off all your hair? But you did. You already did. There are no more frontiers, no more bold acts of nunnery. You will meet a man soon. He will have a jaw line you like to look at against the light when he isn't looking, and that you especially like the look of in the pictures in which he is kissing your unreasonable lips. It's the lower lip I love someone once said to you, to which you thought, but didn't say, bullshit. You and every man knows the top one is the one you imagine when you imagine me on my knees. The time you've spent on your knees recently has redefined intimacy. Something has been put back. You blush again, when eyes turn your way.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
February 2, 2014
You are not like other gods, are you, she says, looking at her reflection in the bathtub faucet. You do not require blood and sex sacrifices. I would like to dress in sackcloth and cut off all my hair and you are sending me fur coats in purple tissue paper. I am trying to ruin my reputation and you are clothing me in white even as I throw myself down the stairs naked with the milkman or paper boy or leather smith. This is not what I thought it would be, she says, smoothing the face mask down her neck. You are the kind of love that gets into every pore and even between the teeth. You are in the blue space between the fireflies outside my window when the air smelled like fairy dust and rhododendron. My father always had epoxy on his hands. His cuticles were white with it, and when he had a beard it held the smell of his nicorette gum and coffee. There was a red flannel shirt I think, but even if I imagined it, there was an orange shirt and many thick construction pencils scattered. Tell my father I miss him and I'm trying to understand. And would you, would you tell him about the letter? Tell him I'm sorry I did not make the time. Tell him every metaphor I use to teach writing is about carpentry. Tell him how the shadows shook my bed last night, but how you were there, and how you would not let them take me. Tell him your arms held his arms when he held me. Tell him I meant what I said at the side of his hospital bed.
You are not like other gods, are you, she says, looking at her reflection in the bathtub faucet. You do not require blood and sex sacrifices. I would like to dress in sackcloth and cut off all my hair and you are sending me fur coats in purple tissue paper. I am trying to ruin my reputation and you are clothing me in white even as I throw myself down the stairs naked with the milkman or paper boy or leather smith. This is not what I thought it would be, she says, smoothing the face mask down her neck. You are the kind of love that gets into every pore and even between the teeth. You are in the blue space between the fireflies outside my window when the air smelled like fairy dust and rhododendron. My father always had epoxy on his hands. His cuticles were white with it, and when he had a beard it held the smell of his nicorette gum and coffee. There was a red flannel shirt I think, but even if I imagined it, there was an orange shirt and many thick construction pencils scattered. Tell my father I miss him and I'm trying to understand. And would you, would you tell him about the letter? Tell him I'm sorry I did not make the time. Tell him every metaphor I use to teach writing is about carpentry. Tell him how the shadows shook my bed last night, but how you were there, and how you would not let them take me. Tell him your arms held his arms when he held me. Tell him I meant what I said at the side of his hospital bed.
February 1st, 2014
It was a dream about grief, I think. My mother was her age now and I was my age now and in the dream she had another child. I loved this baby more than I loved myself and when we were at the beach, my mother, this baby, and I, I saw a beached dolphin brought back to life and set free in the water. The men who carried the dolphin were waist deep and the dolphin, released, dove and swam away. Look! I called to my mother. As the dolphin disappeared, the baby was face down in the surf. I screamed and her tiny body turned blue and then black and I couldn't remember infant CPR. Shaking, I cried for my mother who revived her long enough for her color to return, but the breath never reached the bottoms of her lungs. I don't remember getting home and I never stopped crying. And then there was a party. How could all these people gather when I could not breathe? My mother was sad but she continued to live. I did not. I stayed in my room with my 11 year-old self and talked about death. We sat with our backs against the door and would not let our friends in. There was a closet and the light wouldn't turn on, and that was important too. Everyone was me in the dream except the dolphin, which is my life, the one I could have, if I choose it. I am still sitting with my back against the bedroom door, but I am trying to find the voice to say "just a minute. I'll be out in just a minute".
It was a dream about grief, I think. My mother was her age now and I was my age now and in the dream she had another child. I loved this baby more than I loved myself and when we were at the beach, my mother, this baby, and I, I saw a beached dolphin brought back to life and set free in the water. The men who carried the dolphin were waist deep and the dolphin, released, dove and swam away. Look! I called to my mother. As the dolphin disappeared, the baby was face down in the surf. I screamed and her tiny body turned blue and then black and I couldn't remember infant CPR. Shaking, I cried for my mother who revived her long enough for her color to return, but the breath never reached the bottoms of her lungs. I don't remember getting home and I never stopped crying. And then there was a party. How could all these people gather when I could not breathe? My mother was sad but she continued to live. I did not. I stayed in my room with my 11 year-old self and talked about death. We sat with our backs against the door and would not let our friends in. There was a closet and the light wouldn't turn on, and that was important too. Everyone was me in the dream except the dolphin, which is my life, the one I could have, if I choose it. I am still sitting with my back against the bedroom door, but I am trying to find the voice to say "just a minute. I'll be out in just a minute".
January 31st, 2014
And, as with any good friendship, there is a silence between us to move within and
when he stops to text his girl, I am comfortable enough to fall asleep. I wake to his eyes
on my eyelids and a smile or two before he leaves to talk to her on the phone. I sleepily
tell him a story as he puts on his coat and hugs me and walks down the stairs, locking the
door behind him, and I brush my teeth and my contacts are glued to my eyes, and I squint
and blink as the toothpaste foam splashes on the mirror. It is Friday. I wiggle in my bed,
feeling the sheets against my skin and I think about the kind of woman I want to be. And
I am getting bored thinking and talking to myself about myself, but I am more bored
by everyone else. I am glad to be alone then, in this night, moving around in all the space
I've carefully kept from my center to the edge of my bed. I am in no state to be entertaining
other people's centers or selves. This bed has room for only pillows and my inching hair
that will soon ink out like a siren's. There are few things better than tending to a garden
and I can barely keep a house plant alive. I use my teapot to water it, but only enough to keep
it between life and death, and I know this at least: that is not the kind of woman I want to be.
And, as with any good friendship, there is a silence between us to move within and
when he stops to text his girl, I am comfortable enough to fall asleep. I wake to his eyes
on my eyelids and a smile or two before he leaves to talk to her on the phone. I sleepily
tell him a story as he puts on his coat and hugs me and walks down the stairs, locking the
door behind him, and I brush my teeth and my contacts are glued to my eyes, and I squint
and blink as the toothpaste foam splashes on the mirror. It is Friday. I wiggle in my bed,
feeling the sheets against my skin and I think about the kind of woman I want to be. And
I am getting bored thinking and talking to myself about myself, but I am more bored
by everyone else. I am glad to be alone then, in this night, moving around in all the space
I've carefully kept from my center to the edge of my bed. I am in no state to be entertaining
other people's centers or selves. This bed has room for only pillows and my inching hair
that will soon ink out like a siren's. There are few things better than tending to a garden
and I can barely keep a house plant alive. I use my teapot to water it, but only enough to keep
it between life and death, and I know this at least: that is not the kind of woman I want to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)