I blame my mother. There's a lot I can forgive her for. After all, I am
now an adult, older than she was when I was growing up with younger
children. I get it. I get that one's time isn't one's own. I get that no
matter how much you do for your family, you still feel selfish. I get
that you have to do things that take time away from them if you are to
maintain even a shred of sanity. And I know that no matter what you do
as a parent, you will be the cause of therapy later in life. If they are
lucky enough to get it and realize how helpful it can be. Ironic that I
say that considering I'm the recovering daughter of a therapist and I
haven't had all that many great experiences "talking it out." Give me a
sand tray or smear of thick oil paint any day. Give me an intuitive tarot reading
or a Rob Brezny horoscope. That's more my style.
But no matter how many charts I have done or things I have "read"
(my handwriting, my eyes, my knees, my past lives), nothing will cure my
anger at the lost keys. Seriously the bane of my privileged existence.
Do you realize that my mother lost her keys every single day? Sometimes
more than once. She did all sorts of things to keep this from happening,
including the infamous "jailer's key ring" a giant brass circle big and
heavy enough to keep them from disappearing out of sight. Did this keep
her from misplacing them? Of course not. Did it keep her from raising
her voice in a high pitched, high stressed whine of panic when she was
supposed to be out of the house already? Not a bit.
One time, I kid you not, she lost her keys in the garbage can! I
mean, for the love of god, how the hell does that happen? And while I
became adept at looking in between the purple velvet couch cushions, and
digging into the many pockets of my mom's overstuffed purse, there are
some places I just never considered.
So now I'm an ostensible grown up. I do a fine job of keeping track
of my keys. My partner on the other hand. Oh my god. It's not that she
loses them every day, but she misplaces them often enough that I find
myself filled with rage and resentment. There's a lot I'm willing to do,
but looking for keys is not one of them. Even when I get the blame for
putting them "somewhere" in a moment of cleaning frenzy.
I'm am righteously indignant in these moments - knowing that my
family history colors my perceptions, expecting her to respect what she
knows about my mother and my past, and get over the fact that I need to
neaten up the mess once in a while. You can, then, only imagine my
embarrassment when we got into a big fight the other day, a fight so
annoying I found myself whispering horrific expletives only
for me to discover that I had misplaced her keys in my purse.
Hey, at least it wasn't the garbage can. That's where I draw the line.
Friday, March 8, 2013
The Daily Write: The invisible (March 7, 2013)
The notion that she was "hiding behind her fat" was simply ludicrous. It
implied that she could hide. Hiding, she knew from hard experience on a
daily basis, was never an option. The opposite of hiding was being on
display. Not being seen, that's something categorically different, but
being watched, measured, compared to, "thank god I don't look like
that"ed.
She got used to it at an early age. The three bean diet salad that stunk of warm and pungent vinegar which caused the other little girls to scream and laugh as they scurried to another table and left her alone without anything decent to eat. The kids and their parents and teens in the mall who all turned around, as if on cue, to stare at her and her friends as they came from the scorching dry heat into the cold stares of the indoor shopping entertainment complex.
When she walked by groups of guys in school her butt seemed to move too much. She tried her hardest to keep it still, but nothing could stop them from guffawing and saying in too loud voices, "Shake it, don't break it, Strauss!"
As a young woman recently out, she went to a dyke bar with her mom. Naturally she was approached by a handsome woman who wanted to get "her sister's" phone number. And then there was Lisa with the big bleached hair, fuck me pink pumps and tight jeans that looked like they'd been poured on. As soon as she left to freshen up, the men swarmed her. "Can I have your friend's number?" "What does she like?" "Is she single?"
In that sense, she supposed she was invisible, a foil, a friend, an offset to the extreme beauty of her thin family and friends.
The truth was, she had always wondered what it would be like to be fucked hard by a man, but this simply wasn't an option. When she was younger she was too scared. The men that found her were skanky, crumbling, rugged and rotten. The guy in his 30s with shrapnel sticking out of his skin, metal shavings barely held in by the top epidural layer. The man who had already been convicted of rape, inviting her in to stay the night and hide from her mother. The twerp who taunted her by pulling her hair and ripping her shirt, only to kick her by the tree and run away screaming with laughter about how ugly she was.
No, she recollected, she wasn't invisible. She was a target. And, like the best of her species, she learned to adapt to the reality. If she was going to be noticed for how little she fit into the mold, objectified really, in a reverse of the overtly sexualized response to attractive women, then she would learn to love the outrageous in herself. She would punish the viewers with their petty responses and guttural excuses for instinct. She would be the biggest goddamned woman they ever encountered, in every way. She would make them suffer for wanting her, hiding inside themselves for fear of their lust being discovered. She would turn into a lesbian and make all the men dream of her all the time. She would be in their faces and on their minds.
She was not about to hide. Not that it was a choice.
She got used to it at an early age. The three bean diet salad that stunk of warm and pungent vinegar which caused the other little girls to scream and laugh as they scurried to another table and left her alone without anything decent to eat. The kids and their parents and teens in the mall who all turned around, as if on cue, to stare at her and her friends as they came from the scorching dry heat into the cold stares of the indoor shopping entertainment complex.
When she walked by groups of guys in school her butt seemed to move too much. She tried her hardest to keep it still, but nothing could stop them from guffawing and saying in too loud voices, "Shake it, don't break it, Strauss!"
As a young woman recently out, she went to a dyke bar with her mom. Naturally she was approached by a handsome woman who wanted to get "her sister's" phone number. And then there was Lisa with the big bleached hair, fuck me pink pumps and tight jeans that looked like they'd been poured on. As soon as she left to freshen up, the men swarmed her. "Can I have your friend's number?" "What does she like?" "Is she single?"
In that sense, she supposed she was invisible, a foil, a friend, an offset to the extreme beauty of her thin family and friends.
The truth was, she had always wondered what it would be like to be fucked hard by a man, but this simply wasn't an option. When she was younger she was too scared. The men that found her were skanky, crumbling, rugged and rotten. The guy in his 30s with shrapnel sticking out of his skin, metal shavings barely held in by the top epidural layer. The man who had already been convicted of rape, inviting her in to stay the night and hide from her mother. The twerp who taunted her by pulling her hair and ripping her shirt, only to kick her by the tree and run away screaming with laughter about how ugly she was.
No, she recollected, she wasn't invisible. She was a target. And, like the best of her species, she learned to adapt to the reality. If she was going to be noticed for how little she fit into the mold, objectified really, in a reverse of the overtly sexualized response to attractive women, then she would learn to love the outrageous in herself. She would punish the viewers with their petty responses and guttural excuses for instinct. She would be the biggest goddamned woman they ever encountered, in every way. She would make them suffer for wanting her, hiding inside themselves for fear of their lust being discovered. She would turn into a lesbian and make all the men dream of her all the time. She would be in their faces and on their minds.
She was not about to hide. Not that it was a choice.
The Daily Write: A noise outside the window (March 5, 2013)
It's a fine line, the sound of a fist pounding on glass so hard it
shakes, and the sound of the fist going through the window. And harder
to discern the difference when your heart is beating so heavy and hard
that noises outside the body are muffled. The sound of fear comes from
the inside - between the ears, in the chest, and rattling from the
throat out the mouth. The sound of fear tries to be muffled and quiet
but it rarely succeeds.
When I was 14 my mom's ex boyfriend found us. We had been hiding from him for years. Mom met him sometimes to give him a ride, or bring him something to eat. Or that's what I imagined in those long hours when she was no where to be found, when she should have been home feeding us dinner, or picking me up from the YWCA. I was always waiting, always worried.
Before he found us, I lived in the fear that he would figure out where we lived. He called often enough. I felt like the phone was a menace. No answering machines back then. No special ring tones. No way to tell if it was him or someone important. I was tortured when I didn't answer and damned when I did. Even through the wire I could smell his boozy breath. Especially when he said nothing. Just heard my voice, waited, breathing until I had to plea with him to speak, end my misery.
You've heard this one before, how I was babysitting for the journalist. She had three sons who lived with her in a yellow house. There were 15 steps leading from the street, to the porch. Outside it was cheerful, inside a horror show - dishes piled on every surface in the kitchen and covered with mold. Garbage overflowing. She was a single mother. Her boys were voracious and unkempt. I did the dishes. It took me hours.
And then the phone rang. He had found our house. I panicked. Worried myself sick. Couldn't leave. The mother for whom I was babysitting had caught her big break and was off interviewing Mike Wallace. Clean and wait. Wait and clean. The boys went to bed and I sat, paced, fretted.
The night he put his fist through the window I thought he had broken down our front door. I told the operator that he was trying to kill my mom. I had been convinced for years that's what it would come to, so it wasn't a stretch to imagine he was on his way through the house, searching for the scurrying sound of us. We were trapped, in the attic. Me and my brothers and mom, helpless.
The sound of fear obscures everything.
When I was 14 my mom's ex boyfriend found us. We had been hiding from him for years. Mom met him sometimes to give him a ride, or bring him something to eat. Or that's what I imagined in those long hours when she was no where to be found, when she should have been home feeding us dinner, or picking me up from the YWCA. I was always waiting, always worried.
Before he found us, I lived in the fear that he would figure out where we lived. He called often enough. I felt like the phone was a menace. No answering machines back then. No special ring tones. No way to tell if it was him or someone important. I was tortured when I didn't answer and damned when I did. Even through the wire I could smell his boozy breath. Especially when he said nothing. Just heard my voice, waited, breathing until I had to plea with him to speak, end my misery.
You've heard this one before, how I was babysitting for the journalist. She had three sons who lived with her in a yellow house. There were 15 steps leading from the street, to the porch. Outside it was cheerful, inside a horror show - dishes piled on every surface in the kitchen and covered with mold. Garbage overflowing. She was a single mother. Her boys were voracious and unkempt. I did the dishes. It took me hours.
And then the phone rang. He had found our house. I panicked. Worried myself sick. Couldn't leave. The mother for whom I was babysitting had caught her big break and was off interviewing Mike Wallace. Clean and wait. Wait and clean. The boys went to bed and I sat, paced, fretted.
The night he put his fist through the window I thought he had broken down our front door. I told the operator that he was trying to kill my mom. I had been convinced for years that's what it would come to, so it wasn't a stretch to imagine he was on his way through the house, searching for the scurrying sound of us. We were trapped, in the attic. Me and my brothers and mom, helpless.
The sound of fear obscures everything.
The Daily Write: It fell through (March 1, 2013)
"Well, I certainly hope so," Flo said, smacking her gum as if she were
born to her name. She stood over me, plate with pie in hand, ready to
put it down, but floating it, instead, in mid-air and mid-conversation.
"I know, I know, it made no sense." I was dejected and looking forward to diving head first into that voluminous, if over-sweet whipped cream. I had always preferred cream pies, less work and no surprise pungency from strange under ripe fruits.
"What on earth were you thinking, Julie?" Somehow she was able to balance the pie plate while simultaneously fluffing her pink bouffant with the other.
"Put the pie down already Flo, Geezus Aitch. I'm hungry."
She looked at me with amusement, rolled her eyes and lowered her lean body into the booth while sliding the plate and its fluffy sugar delightfulness across the table. We both picked up forks absentmindedly and dug in, visions of Francis presumably dancing before both our eyes.
I sighed, then turned my fork over to lick off the chocolate pudding stuck to the tines. "I guess I just thought maybe I was going to be the one to turn him."
We both laughed. Guffawed. Spit actually.
"Uh, Flo honey? You think you might want to finish your shift?" Frank was harmless, much as he tried to act like the boss. He and Flo had been having an illicit affair for so long no one even thought to gossip about it anymore. And since her husband was incapacitated, no one cared either.
"Give it a rest, Frankie," she laughed, and slowly pulled herself up.
"Eat your pie sugar. Might as well drown those sorrows while the pastry is fresh."
"I know, I know, it made no sense." I was dejected and looking forward to diving head first into that voluminous, if over-sweet whipped cream. I had always preferred cream pies, less work and no surprise pungency from strange under ripe fruits.
"What on earth were you thinking, Julie?" Somehow she was able to balance the pie plate while simultaneously fluffing her pink bouffant with the other.
"Put the pie down already Flo, Geezus Aitch. I'm hungry."
She looked at me with amusement, rolled her eyes and lowered her lean body into the booth while sliding the plate and its fluffy sugar delightfulness across the table. We both picked up forks absentmindedly and dug in, visions of Francis presumably dancing before both our eyes.
I sighed, then turned my fork over to lick off the chocolate pudding stuck to the tines. "I guess I just thought maybe I was going to be the one to turn him."
We both laughed. Guffawed. Spit actually.
"Uh, Flo honey? You think you might want to finish your shift?" Frank was harmless, much as he tried to act like the boss. He and Flo had been having an illicit affair for so long no one even thought to gossip about it anymore. And since her husband was incapacitated, no one cared either.
"Give it a rest, Frankie," she laughed, and slowly pulled herself up.
"Eat your pie sugar. Might as well drown those sorrows while the pastry is fresh."
The Daily Write: Photo #4 (February 28, 2013)
The couple lived in a very clean, lovely and sparse but not empty house
on the edge of Amazon Park.They were contemporaries of my grandfather,
and perhaps like him, also professors. As a 9-year-old, I thought of
them the way I thought of him - old. Old and neat. Old and contained.
Old and kind.
They seemed sort of perfect to me. For one thing, each week when I went with my mom to clean their house, it was spotless. It smelled good too. Not like our place with its gaggle of barefoot children, sticky kid-sized wooden tables and avocado pits growing sprouts in murky water in Ball jars on the windowsill over the kitchen sink. No, their house smelled like it never got dirty and never was out of order. There weren't bands of children, or random hippie parents going in and out of the front door with its broken wooden framed screen door hanging loosely on one hinge. There weren't smudged honey-imbued fingerprints on the front windows. You wouldn't find remnants of dry Koolaid powder in the bathroom where one child had convinced another that it tasted good, even though she knew that the tiny packet was so sour it would make her intended target spit into the toilet.
Theirs was a house of calm and order. It was quiet, reserved and so beautiful to the girl that she wanted to stay there forever, lovingly wiping down the already clean walls of the shower with scrubbing bubbles and a soft cloth. Polishing an already perfectly clean window just for the fun of watching the Windex streaks dry on the warm days of summer. She liked the way they folded their newspapers after breakfast every morning and put them into a neat wicker bin next to the chair in the living room. And she liked the orange rubber mats on the dining room table which sat near the daisy motif ceramic napkin holder and matching salt and pepper shakers in the middle.
She liked to listen to her mom hum as she vacuumed the wall-to-wall carpet in the living room and bedrooms, and she loved to feel like a grown up as she gently folded the dish towels the way her mom showed her.
The only other people she knew who went by Mr. and Mrs. were at her school back in California. They were kind, but couldn't help her with her ache. She wanted to be with her mom during the year and wasn't, and every day seemed like torture waiting for summer. It was the best when she and her mom left her three brothers at the daycare house where they lived and went to clean the immaculate house. Humming and folding and wiping and dusting. No dirt, no mess, no noise. Just them, together.
They seemed sort of perfect to me. For one thing, each week when I went with my mom to clean their house, it was spotless. It smelled good too. Not like our place with its gaggle of barefoot children, sticky kid-sized wooden tables and avocado pits growing sprouts in murky water in Ball jars on the windowsill over the kitchen sink. No, their house smelled like it never got dirty and never was out of order. There weren't bands of children, or random hippie parents going in and out of the front door with its broken wooden framed screen door hanging loosely on one hinge. There weren't smudged honey-imbued fingerprints on the front windows. You wouldn't find remnants of dry Koolaid powder in the bathroom where one child had convinced another that it tasted good, even though she knew that the tiny packet was so sour it would make her intended target spit into the toilet.
Theirs was a house of calm and order. It was quiet, reserved and so beautiful to the girl that she wanted to stay there forever, lovingly wiping down the already clean walls of the shower with scrubbing bubbles and a soft cloth. Polishing an already perfectly clean window just for the fun of watching the Windex streaks dry on the warm days of summer. She liked the way they folded their newspapers after breakfast every morning and put them into a neat wicker bin next to the chair in the living room. And she liked the orange rubber mats on the dining room table which sat near the daisy motif ceramic napkin holder and matching salt and pepper shakers in the middle.
She liked to listen to her mom hum as she vacuumed the wall-to-wall carpet in the living room and bedrooms, and she loved to feel like a grown up as she gently folded the dish towels the way her mom showed her.
The only other people she knew who went by Mr. and Mrs. were at her school back in California. They were kind, but couldn't help her with her ache. She wanted to be with her mom during the year and wasn't, and every day seemed like torture waiting for summer. It was the best when she and her mom left her three brothers at the daycare house where they lived and went to clean the immaculate house. Humming and folding and wiping and dusting. No dirt, no mess, no noise. Just them, together.
The Daily Write: A makeshift bed (February 24, 2013)
The best house I ever saw was unfinished, a spindly structure
constructed of scrap materials: wood, metal, old window panes, glass.
There was probably nothing safe about it and I guess, in retrospect, it
can't have been legal either. But this was the 70s. The shell of a house
was way back in the woods, down a rocky dirt track, not far from my
mom's friend's teepee.
I've always been the jealous type, wanting to live in houses that were not mine, not possible, not a part of my destiny, except in my dreams, where structures grow exponentially, huge spindles and rickety hanging walkways, dangling bridges and rooms built on top of rooms only accessible by ladders, or tiny, twisting one person paths made from weathered ocean wood and frayed rope.
I love the delicacy of these structures. They are magic like fairy dust, like a pretend childhood lived among trees and animals. They are the tree houses of your imagination, the great big warehouses lined with high catwalks, and the castles of a hippie who no one has ever seen in person. She lives on the edge of the blueberry bogs, beneath giant evergreens and near overgrown bushes of salal. There are wet ferns and slugs, mustard plants and magic mushrooms on her land.
Way in the back, behind tiny unlikely little cabins with heavily sweatered salt-of-the-earth college students is The Octagon, jutting up so it looks to be hanging from the branches of the trees that circle the structure like old women. Dark wood and glass, some of it colorful, mosaics hidden under the fallen needles of the old ladies' baskets, you will find a small door. And, once entered, the world will expand like a shimmering cathedral of wooden beams, platforms, half stairs and open to the sky windows in the shape of the structure itself.
No one will be in The Octagon when you venture inside, and the tiny solar candles will make it seem to glow internally. So much so, that you will never want to leave. And even years later, when no one you know remembers the woman, her land, the bogs or the structure, you will feast on the memory of its impossible rustic beauty.
I've always been the jealous type, wanting to live in houses that were not mine, not possible, not a part of my destiny, except in my dreams, where structures grow exponentially, huge spindles and rickety hanging walkways, dangling bridges and rooms built on top of rooms only accessible by ladders, or tiny, twisting one person paths made from weathered ocean wood and frayed rope.
I love the delicacy of these structures. They are magic like fairy dust, like a pretend childhood lived among trees and animals. They are the tree houses of your imagination, the great big warehouses lined with high catwalks, and the castles of a hippie who no one has ever seen in person. She lives on the edge of the blueberry bogs, beneath giant evergreens and near overgrown bushes of salal. There are wet ferns and slugs, mustard plants and magic mushrooms on her land.
Way in the back, behind tiny unlikely little cabins with heavily sweatered salt-of-the-earth college students is The Octagon, jutting up so it looks to be hanging from the branches of the trees that circle the structure like old women. Dark wood and glass, some of it colorful, mosaics hidden under the fallen needles of the old ladies' baskets, you will find a small door. And, once entered, the world will expand like a shimmering cathedral of wooden beams, platforms, half stairs and open to the sky windows in the shape of the structure itself.
No one will be in The Octagon when you venture inside, and the tiny solar candles will make it seem to glow internally. So much so, that you will never want to leave. And even years later, when no one you know remembers the woman, her land, the bogs or the structure, you will feast on the memory of its impossible rustic beauty.
The Daily Write: Photo #3 (February 22, 2013)
I dragged my children excitedly up the escalator from the BART platform
to the Muni level, and then up the next escalator to the street, trying
not to touch the rubber moving hand railings that seemed ripe with germs
and trying not to fall and drag down one of my kids with me.
I didn't usually leave the house so early and willingly on a Saturday morning, full of purpose and enthusiasm. But then, it wasn't every day I was going to get to watch them experience 3D chalk art for the first time and I just couldn't wait.
When I'm excited like that, it's contagious. My kids were in good and giddy moods like me and we merrily walked hand-in-hand down the crowded weekend sidewalk past the Hyatt with its cavernous futuristic interior, past the street vendors with their appealing wares, across the newer Muni tracks, across the street that was once covered with a dingy freeway off ramp and into the bustle of the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building. We had to search around a little after that, walking past temptations - fresh peach tarts, piles of cherries, baguettes, cheeses and dainty Hog Island oysters. We had to weave in and out of the crowd, avoiding the tall people who were gazing at distant points and walking into us, high-tailing it around children focused on their treats or not losing hold of dad's hand. And dogs, naturally. Plus the ever-so-modern hydraulic strollers with 360 degree spinning baby buckets.
Finally I saw a ladder in front of a big chalk image - Golden Gate Bridge, the pyramid building, the park, and Cliff House along with many other iconic San Francisco landmarks. I tried to maintain my excitement but I'll admit to being a bit disappointed. First of all, it wasn't like the chalk art in books you see where the monster looks like it is coming off the sidewalk and grabbing towards you, or the woman is about to fall into the Grand Canyon. It was too much of a pictorial and not enough of an experience. And then, you really had to be at just the right angle to have the illusion of the experience; whereas in picture books, you have to work hard, very hard, to see anything but the illusion.
And there was just the one. I had been misled by the event flyer, assuming there would be many chalk drawings to enjoy, and it was only after we had been there for a while as I tried to hide my feelings from my kids, that I realized this was all a dot com marketing ploy.
Still, we had a good day.
I didn't usually leave the house so early and willingly on a Saturday morning, full of purpose and enthusiasm. But then, it wasn't every day I was going to get to watch them experience 3D chalk art for the first time and I just couldn't wait.
When I'm excited like that, it's contagious. My kids were in good and giddy moods like me and we merrily walked hand-in-hand down the crowded weekend sidewalk past the Hyatt with its cavernous futuristic interior, past the street vendors with their appealing wares, across the newer Muni tracks, across the street that was once covered with a dingy freeway off ramp and into the bustle of the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building. We had to search around a little after that, walking past temptations - fresh peach tarts, piles of cherries, baguettes, cheeses and dainty Hog Island oysters. We had to weave in and out of the crowd, avoiding the tall people who were gazing at distant points and walking into us, high-tailing it around children focused on their treats or not losing hold of dad's hand. And dogs, naturally. Plus the ever-so-modern hydraulic strollers with 360 degree spinning baby buckets.
Finally I saw a ladder in front of a big chalk image - Golden Gate Bridge, the pyramid building, the park, and Cliff House along with many other iconic San Francisco landmarks. I tried to maintain my excitement but I'll admit to being a bit disappointed. First of all, it wasn't like the chalk art in books you see where the monster looks like it is coming off the sidewalk and grabbing towards you, or the woman is about to fall into the Grand Canyon. It was too much of a pictorial and not enough of an experience. And then, you really had to be at just the right angle to have the illusion of the experience; whereas in picture books, you have to work hard, very hard, to see anything but the illusion.
And there was just the one. I had been misled by the event flyer, assuming there would be many chalk drawings to enjoy, and it was only after we had been there for a while as I tried to hide my feelings from my kids, that I realized this was all a dot com marketing ploy.
Still, we had a good day.
The Daily Write: We gathered around it (February 11, 2013)
We gathered around it
The way you do with grief
Looking in at the death, but not getting too close
Afraid it would touch us again
Afraid it would consume us with fear
Some deaths you can accept eventually
Part of the natural order of things
Even though Time, that bitch
Is ever looming
Making everything more immediate than it should be
Other deaths hit you in the gut
Shocking and inescapable
A dark blotch on a green and black screen
Where once luminosity beat, syncopated and fast
Now nothing
We peered at it
But did not poke
Inside the death only in our dreams
And the daily calls to a psychic friend of a friend
Anything to make it through that dark time
We prayed for the other one to live
Without a formal approach
Or eve an agreed upon deity
Any port in a storm
Isn't that what they say?
I shouldn't have cried so much at the beginning
When they were both alive inside me
It was a simple, shocking grief
Unexpected and unrelated to what would come later
Real loss
We gathered together
Trying to make sense of her absence
Praying to an unknown god or goddess
Let her sister live
When she was born
I alone said goodbye
A warm stone on my chest
My living baby in my arms
Tears too physically painful to release
We gathered around it
Death, then life
Prayed and held back against the terror of more
Loss
The way you do with grief
Looking in at the death, but not getting too close
Afraid it would touch us again
Afraid it would consume us with fear
Some deaths you can accept eventually
Part of the natural order of things
Even though Time, that bitch
Is ever looming
Making everything more immediate than it should be
Other deaths hit you in the gut
Shocking and inescapable
A dark blotch on a green and black screen
Where once luminosity beat, syncopated and fast
Now nothing
We peered at it
But did not poke
Inside the death only in our dreams
And the daily calls to a psychic friend of a friend
Anything to make it through that dark time
We prayed for the other one to live
Without a formal approach
Or eve an agreed upon deity
Any port in a storm
Isn't that what they say?
I shouldn't have cried so much at the beginning
When they were both alive inside me
It was a simple, shocking grief
Unexpected and unrelated to what would come later
Real loss
We gathered together
Trying to make sense of her absence
Praying to an unknown god or goddess
Let her sister live
When she was born
I alone said goodbye
A warm stone on my chest
My living baby in my arms
Tears too physically painful to release
We gathered around it
Death, then life
Prayed and held back against the terror of more
Loss
The Daily Write: Photo #1 (February 8, 2013)
Wanda wondered
Why
When the wicked wind blew
Did she feel so empty
Devoid
Alone
Jascha yearned
Alone
Yellow yarrow bent
A strong cup of tea
Not
Much
Help
Belinda, a beguiler
Bubbly
She shimmered and shined
Like
Champagne
Alison alone
Always
Under unctuous and unforgiving underbrush
She Hid
Hoped
Hated
Reggie regaled
Tall tales told to a tempo
Blue blew blowzy
Said he
Significantly
But it was Boris
Who really took the cake
He lit lightly and languished
One minute floating
The
Next
Sunk
Why
When the wicked wind blew
Did she feel so empty
Devoid
Alone
Jascha yearned
Alone
Yellow yarrow bent
A strong cup of tea
Not
Much
Help
Belinda, a beguiler
Bubbly
She shimmered and shined
Like
Champagne
Alison alone
Always
Under unctuous and unforgiving underbrush
She Hid
Hoped
Hated
Reggie regaled
Tall tales told to a tempo
Blue blew blowzy
Said he
Significantly
But it was Boris
Who really took the cake
He lit lightly and languished
One minute floating
The
Next
Sunk
The Daily Write: Tell us about the special chair (February 15, 2013)
Burnt orange paint, the kind you might use on the house, or perhaps a
painting. Hard to say. Wooden. No cushions, rolled arms. But
comfortable. Or maybe that's just because I thought of it like
patchouli, uniquely my mom.
I rocked next to her sometimes. When my little twin baby brothers were born, I prided myself in holding one in each arm, rocking and singing like the big sister mama I felt myself to be.
Although I left her every year to go back to my dad's, the chair, like her smell, symbolically kept me grounded. If there were an icon for my early life, that might be one I'd use. A simple orange rocking chair, from the late 60s, in the color of the time. You'd see another icon for an avocado pit propped up over murky water in a Ball jar, toothpicks keeping it from falling in. I remember the pits, the water, the slime, and the roots, but never do I remember any one of them being planted. Still, it felt so wholesome.
We had sprouts growing on wet dishtowels too. And of course, the ubiquitous peanut butter and honey sandwiches on over thick wheat bread. I really hated the way the honey crystallized the bread until it was almost see through, crunchy and cloying.
We had a slide in the living room of that house, the one with the pits and sprouts and kid-sized wooden tables with awful sandwiches. The slide, like the tables and chairs, was homemade. Nothing fancy, not even painted. But so much fun to go down in the middle of the day. Or at night.
The chair. The slide. The small wooden table and chairs. The pits. The sprouts. The sickeningly sweet sandwiches. The spicy sweet smell of my mom.
Tenuous, the way all good stories are. Because yes, of course there was a villain. Long dark hair, blood shot eyes, a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 or fortified wine. He was dark, big, good looking and mean. My mom said he was an artist and that if I knew him when he wasn't drunk, I'd see. He beat her every night. Or that's what I thought anyway. All those awful noises coming from the bedroom, from behind a locked door. I pleaded with her to come out, to be safe, but she would instead take too long to reply and then tell me everything was okay. Torture.
And yes, the chair. That beautiful icon of my childhood. We left once. Mom packed us into her van, four kids sleeping on the floor in back amidst a pile of pillows and unzipped sleeping bags. And pee from the twins, who still wet their beds at night. We did this often, escaped out the back door, went to a neighbor's house and waited for my mom to pick us up. Then we piled in, drove off into the hot night with crickets and stars, and parked until the morning came. I felt safe then.
You can guess the rest. The chair. Nothing but wooden shards of orange all over the living room. Obliterated.
I rocked next to her sometimes. When my little twin baby brothers were born, I prided myself in holding one in each arm, rocking and singing like the big sister mama I felt myself to be.
Although I left her every year to go back to my dad's, the chair, like her smell, symbolically kept me grounded. If there were an icon for my early life, that might be one I'd use. A simple orange rocking chair, from the late 60s, in the color of the time. You'd see another icon for an avocado pit propped up over murky water in a Ball jar, toothpicks keeping it from falling in. I remember the pits, the water, the slime, and the roots, but never do I remember any one of them being planted. Still, it felt so wholesome.
We had sprouts growing on wet dishtowels too. And of course, the ubiquitous peanut butter and honey sandwiches on over thick wheat bread. I really hated the way the honey crystallized the bread until it was almost see through, crunchy and cloying.
We had a slide in the living room of that house, the one with the pits and sprouts and kid-sized wooden tables with awful sandwiches. The slide, like the tables and chairs, was homemade. Nothing fancy, not even painted. But so much fun to go down in the middle of the day. Or at night.
The chair. The slide. The small wooden table and chairs. The pits. The sprouts. The sickeningly sweet sandwiches. The spicy sweet smell of my mom.
Tenuous, the way all good stories are. Because yes, of course there was a villain. Long dark hair, blood shot eyes, a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 or fortified wine. He was dark, big, good looking and mean. My mom said he was an artist and that if I knew him when he wasn't drunk, I'd see. He beat her every night. Or that's what I thought anyway. All those awful noises coming from the bedroom, from behind a locked door. I pleaded with her to come out, to be safe, but she would instead take too long to reply and then tell me everything was okay. Torture.
And yes, the chair. That beautiful icon of my childhood. We left once. Mom packed us into her van, four kids sleeping on the floor in back amidst a pile of pillows and unzipped sleeping bags. And pee from the twins, who still wet their beds at night. We did this often, escaped out the back door, went to a neighbor's house and waited for my mom to pick us up. Then we piled in, drove off into the hot night with crickets and stars, and parked until the morning came. I felt safe then.
You can guess the rest. The chair. Nothing but wooden shards of orange all over the living room. Obliterated.
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