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.
Friday, March 8, 2013
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.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
The Destruction
In my dream I hear the unmistakable sound of
fighter jets. Outside Diane's small shack of a one room house and down
her few rickety wooden stairs I watch, both fearful and excited, as one
then another emerges from the horizon over the city, flying low enough
to graze the ground.
The pilots are singular and robotic. On a mission, focused. They fly toward the ocean with such strange ferocity, I know something unimaginable and terrible is occurring.
Another sound, smaller but just as unsettling. A boater, civilian probably, blasts past us headed in the same direction.
Then the people start coming, yelling and panicked. No one will stop to tell us what's wrong. I think of turning on the TV, but imagining an alien invasion, I don't hold much faith in them telling me anything. Besides, there is no time, judging by the frantic exodus before us.
Finally someone yells, "There's a 100 foot wall of water coming. Nothing can stop it, we're all dead!" Nonetheless, he runs for safety.
Diane and I run up the stairs into the house to pack a few essentials. With less than 55 minutes until it hits, we are stuck trying to figure out what to pack.
"Take plastic bags, water bottles, food and a book!"
We search the shelf for the right book, the last one we may ever read, the one we may read over and over endlessly if we survive.
The pilots are singular and robotic. On a mission, focused. They fly toward the ocean with such strange ferocity, I know something unimaginable and terrible is occurring.
Another sound, smaller but just as unsettling. A boater, civilian probably, blasts past us headed in the same direction.
Then the people start coming, yelling and panicked. No one will stop to tell us what's wrong. I think of turning on the TV, but imagining an alien invasion, I don't hold much faith in them telling me anything. Besides, there is no time, judging by the frantic exodus before us.
Finally someone yells, "There's a 100 foot wall of water coming. Nothing can stop it, we're all dead!" Nonetheless, he runs for safety.
Diane and I run up the stairs into the house to pack a few essentials. With less than 55 minutes until it hits, we are stuck trying to figure out what to pack.
"Take plastic bags, water bottles, food and a book!"
We search the shelf for the right book, the last one we may ever read, the one we may read over and over endlessly if we survive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)