Said too much

Every whisper
Of every waking hour I'm
Choosing my confessions

I think I thought I saw you try.
Oh no, I've said too much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The witness tree roots knit
the shale, snaking and drinking
all but rock, the dirt dense, layered,
emeralds clotted in the mud.

The grave digger's
axe cleaves
stem, root; finds
the fault, fills the
shovel and lifts, heaves the
fill to the side.

He will put her here; back her up
so she never sees, the turned earth. His fingers
pressing into her shoulders,
her gaze on the
lark, his voice slow,
stepping her back, like
a skittish mare into a stall.

He will not aim, will not attend.

He circles her waist, takes his left hand
and strokes her hair back, pulls his palm along her
skull until his index finger rests behind her
ear lobe and he replaces it with the muzzle,
no hesitation allowed.

She does not fall back
as expected, but rather her
legs collapse, as if this were
the moment she could stand
no more.

The grave digger lifts his
shovel and fills the dirt until all
that remains is the mistaken impression
of the earth rising and falling with her breathing
in the waning
moonlight.

Later, he would believe he heard her breathe
and the leaves of the witness tree would
turn over, ready for rain.

Shallow

At the northeast end of the orchard,
near a large brush pile waiting to be burned
she dug the hole, not only because the soil was
less rocky but also because the harvested field
was perfumed with fallen Fuji apples.
Two nights, in the moonlight,
forming blisters no one would see,
the pick axe clawing at tree roots.

Tonight the moon was waning, as she crossed
the threshold into a dusting of late autumn snow.
Fifty one years of first snows and she was stilled by it yet.
The air chilled her teeth, her throat, her nostrils,
deliciously racing down to her lungs. She walked
toward the northeast, the weight of the pistol in her
coat pocket thumping into her thigh. She approached the
hole roundabout so she would not have to look into it and
slowly backed up until the heel of her boot met the rim.

Reaching into her pocket, she gripped the pistol and positioned it
behind her right ear, the muzzle pocketed behind her ear lobe.
She did not want to see it, did not want to be the one to pull the trigger.
But she could not allow anyone else the job.

She thought the impact would cause her to tumble into the hole.
She thumbed the hammer back but it didn't catch and fell on the cartridge
and in that instant, she did not see her life spinning out before her,
her childhood, her loves, her children. No bright light, no choir of angels
or howl of heathens.
Instead she worried if she had needed a larger caliber for this final task.

Her legs crumpled and she went straight down
as if this was the very second in her fifty first year of life
that her skeleton collapsed under the weight of her own flesh. Into the
grave she went, in the freshly dug edge as if she were laying down to nap.

She'd made the hole shallow, hoping that when it was
filled, the rain would still reach her, and come spring
she might blossom.

Whistling

If an experience last 24 hours and 23.5 are interesting, happy ~ ~ ~
- then it is silly to waste time on the last 30 minutes that are not the equal of the rest.

This is my latest favorite song - do you like Martin Sexton?


I wish I were better at whistling.

Shedding

There are moments in life when you know you need to release things, clean out the closets, empty out the basement, brush the bats from your head. This moment comes for me most often in August. Because in August, Mother Nature has exceeded all sense: trees genuflect under the burden of leaves, flowers crowd one another into suffocation, roads blister and bubble under the relentless assault of the sun, and I can only survive by being less.

So the pink chiffon mini-dress worn to my oldest brother’s high school graduation goes, and the stack of New Yorker magazines from 1994 go into recycling, and old bottles of moisturizer and nail polish and tax returns from 1987 are tossed into the trash and restraint starts to slip. Until the thing I most want to cast off, is, well, everything.

This is the season of cutting back the overgrowth, of seeing what needs to be removed from the garden, of tearing down the deck and building a boat to sail away on. This is the season to realize the other woman actually is the best woman for him. And I am not. This is the season of withdrawal, retreat, release. Dig out the documents you thought would define you in your death and realize that at that point, you’ve either done the job or not.

This is the season to tear up my crappy off-white carpet and finally learn to put down wood floors. This is the season to put the antique sewing machine on Craigslist. This is the season to put the decrepit rhododendron in the ground in the woods and wish it the best.

Every morning now, I see the red fox who has raced the woods behind my house. This year, the fox is narrow, the red is redolent with silver and he walks where he would not normally, exposing himself to the civilized world. My most cherished vision of this same fox comes in winter, in the pre-dawn, slipping auburn through the white snow like a flame. And I want to keep the fox in winter.

So I don’t really want to cast off everything. Not everything. Not my antique vanity. Not my son or daughter or dog. Not my favorite sleep shirt or the smell of a distant fire or the sensation of a wonderful kiss or the remembrance of being cradled.

But it is August. So I want to release styling my hair, and smiling at bigots just to be polite, or dumbing down my intelligence to appear cute, or appearing interested in anything superficial. It is as if my flesh were peeled off, so the tendon and sinew and muscle stands, sentry yet vulnerable.

So the best thing to do is scrape away the barnacle, the rust; toss the debris. But like the fox, I don’t want to close the door but rather walk the rim of the crest, narrow and silver highlighting my hair, and know that I am still the fox. And if the August drought lets up, I’ll make it to the winter snow.

Curl

You don’t know
the curl of my sleep -
of my unrelenting vigilance -

For my children and the truth,

For the scent where your hair
nests behind your ear,
For every moment your
fingers find mine,

And for the way you look
at my heart, you find the chambers;
A seashell sculpted
by fine Bermuda sands;

The coral shaded velvet sides sheltering
gossamer chambers, where even now,
I am waiting.

Misleading

For days the air has been heavy with the promise of rain storms; the air thick and dense, flashes splitting the sky, rumbles of thunder from the horizon. Twenty minutes ago, the wind blew through the trees out front, all the leaves surrendering, turning over. And I thought, "Ah, now it will rain." But it didn't. That is how misleading the wind can be.

I want to show it to him

The moon is swollen
Draped in erasers.
I pull her across my life
Creating a new tableau
Of deep soft blue.

My inner gypsy
Sees the moon tonight,
Beaming on the hollows of
His skin, breathing.
Silver, silken, butter
Warming. I see
the pool of flesh,
wanting.

Why I have a crush on Ryan Gosling

I think I figured it out - he's a dead ringer for my first love. A man who was incapable of deceit, of cruelty. Those are not always strengths, but they were magic at sixteen. It's true. It's the shape of the apple of his cheek and the cut of his jaw, it's the line of his lip and the way his hair falls into his eyes. It is also his long, sinewy frame and the passion with which he moves through the role that he plays - but that is not necessarily Ryan Gosling - that is a character in a film, some other aberration of the man. Still, I enjoy looking on his face the same way I enjoy the first snowfall and the last brilliant leaf at the top of an old oak.

Anonymous Comments

I don't usually publish anonymous comments. I believe if you have something to say, you should be willing to put your name to it. Like John Hancock rather than a frightened women hiding behind her skirt.

I made an exception on a recent posting for two reasons: I found the comment very valid and it was not even the contributor's comment as it was a quote.

So if you do wish to quote on my blog, please feel free to submit the quote. I do ask that you attach some sort of identity. A personal conviction without a willingness to attest to it, is no conviction at all.

Alaska Sightseeing Plane Crash Kills Five

That was one of today's headlines. Sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time, take just a slightly greater risk than the average bear, sometimes it gets you killed. Sometimes it doesn't. This might have been an experience of a lifetime, and right up until the crash, it probably was.

The Road I didn't take

Many of you know that I had been planning to vacation in Alaska.
And even though I'm not taking that trip right now, I did find this article in the New York times that describes what some of that trip may have been like. And I know that some day, I will go there.

Beach Solo

Here is the gunmetal gray ocean, the taffy tinted sand, the brace of cold water numbing the ankles, the relentless sun and no forgiveness.

Here are the middle-aged body surfing men and their adolescent sons tethered to a boogie board.

And all along the beach, tiny children stare at the surf with fear, stepping back, shaking off mother's hand and saying, "No, no." Statues of staid two-year-olds lining miles of shore.

What do they see? What early intelligence do we lose that we ultimately succumb to the seduction of the sea -- that we allow the undertow to spin our bodies, coursing the tumult til spit atop the crest, salted, seasoned, breathless, quaking and jubilant, we desire nothing more than to dive back in.

Maybe we were mermaids and mermen. Maybe the children hold hidden unarticulated memory that we have lost.

As Deanna Bogart says

You can't decide to fall in love.
You can't make yourself fall in love.
You can't choose to fall in love.
You can't stop yourself from falling.

On One Foot

I can't help it - I like Sasha Cohen -
I don't mind that she's fragile
or that she falls down -
and I like the Russian Woman
with the name I don't know how to write and
the Japanese skater
who I call the dragon but is no dragon at all.

It is so difficult to be satisfied.

Why is the sky blue?

My first published, long writing is titled, Rayleigh Scattering. The main character is Margaret (Maggie) Rayleigh. As I was finishing the novella, I was flipping through the dictionary searching for a word when I happened upon the term "Rayleigh Scattering", a phenomenon which accounts for the colors of the sky and the predominance of blue. The description also describes the transformation that the protagonist experiences and much of the imagery of the novella focuses on how things appear in a given light.


So why is the sky blue? When one looks at the sky, rather than seeing the black of space, one sees light from Rayleigh scattering off the air. Rayleigh scattering is proportional to the inverse fourth power of wavelength, which means that the shorter wavelength of blue light will scatter more than the longer wavelengths of green and red light. This gives the sky a blue appearance. Conversely, when one looks towards the sun at sunset, one sees the colors that were not scattered away -- the longer wavelength, red light.

So this post is for Maggie, of the short wavelength and the immense scatter.

Neena

Blazing willow,
Worm hole path beading
Through sunlit bark
The sun in winter
and the moon at noon.
Extraordinary, blonde, paint
brush and ink.
Original.
Master piece.

Maybe it is better. . .

Michael said he wanted to give me a ring for Christmas. "What do you mean?" I offered nonchalance, turning away, rinsing a dish in the sink.

"It doesn't have to be a ring ring," he said. "It doesn't have to mean anything."

"Well, so long as it doesn't mean anything," I said.

I was 29 that Christmas. I wanted it to mean something. The ring is a thin gold band with a garnet no larger than the head of a nail held between two heart shapes. The garnet flashes like a turned maple leaf in autumn.

Michael gave it to me on Christmas Eve in 1985. He'd be shocked to know I wear it most every day now. So thin and unobtrusive and reminding me that maybe it is better to ask that things mean something, that it matters. It all matters.

Match Girl

The old social mixer of the 50's is now Internet dating and Internet dating means Match.com. And I imagine the social mixer of the 50's was fraught with the same type of disappointments that one experiences on Match today: no or too little attention from the partners you would wish to communicate with and too much attention from those you would prefer not to communicate with!

As for me, in the course of a three day trial, there were many too many emails and winks. And some of them are disturbing like when they come from someone who has chosen the name "alcapone" and lives in North Dakota, many thousands of miles away from me (which is a good thing).

And then there is the slippery reality of Match. Such as if you sign on, just to update your profile and sign right back off, you can search your "name" and it will show that you are "Online Now" for an entire hour even if you are only there three minutes. I suppose clients would enjoy it as it makes one seem more available, more engaged. But the truth is you are not there and given that they are trying to make "matches", it has the potential to create conflict rather than harmony between mutual match people. Besides, it's false advertising.

And then there is just the general uncomfortable feeling one gets walking through the grocery store and the same man keeps passing you and smiling at you as if he knew something you don't know, which he does. He has perhaps read your profile on Match and either doesn't post his own or doesn't fit any criteria you have searched so you would not have seen him there or he's married and just searches Match for jollies. Then, the last prospect is the one fraught with danger: he is a rapist, ax-murderer who searches Match to identify single women and the area they live in and then he stalks the local grocery store and follows them out to their car at night!

So it is a wonder any woman posts a photo on Match and it is some sort of ironic mystery to me as to why I have. Unless it is because, maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there like me, just hoping to meet a sane, mature, loving, unattached person to share the daily joys and disappointments that life offers.

Todays word was once again prophetic:
fraught \FRAWT\ adjective
*1 : full of or accompanied by something specified -- used with with
2 : causing or characterized by emotional distress or tension : uneasy

Example Sentence:
Cordelia found internet dating to be fraught with dangers, yet she reluctantly and hopefully posted her profile there.

The Grocery Store will get you every time

It's not seeing a wedding limo in front of a church or the big events that pinches your throat and makes it hard to swallow. It's the small domestic moment, like making the bed, taking the sheets out of the dryer, and doing the grocery shopping that will undo you, without warning. One minute your putting the grapes in your cart, and the next you are blindly walking past tins of soup and tomato sauce, the store's background music of "Never gonna fall in love again" haunting every step. And they have the audacity to follow up the torture with Carole King singing "It's too late..." and although I race up the detergent aisle and grab the Wisk, hoping to get out before it gets any worse. But the final assault is at the register line, where they hit you in the gut with Anna Nalick's "Breathe," and she's singing
"these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to"

So you just leave the cart and get out.

You Liar! You Judas!

What if Judas is the wronged one? I recently read this:

"According to Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, Judas was actually a more exalted hero than Jesus. He unselfishly volunteered to perform the all-important villain's role in the resurrection saga, knowing he'd be reviled forever. It was a dirty job that only a supremely egoless saint could have done. Jesus suffered, true, but enjoyed glory and adoration as a result."

So maybe the ones who betray us do so because betrayal is what is needed? Realizing in that instant that what has been changed can never be unchanged and that life will never be the same. Maybe it's necessary. Maybe.

So on this independence day, I think I'll liberate myself, embrace the betrayal and just recognize that theirs is the ultimate sacrifice - not mine.

Timely

As a developing wordsmith, I receive in my email several words a day. Often I am struck by the timeliness of their arrival. This is one of those times.


carom \KAIR-uhm\, noun:

1. A rebound following a collision; a glancing off.
2. A shot in billiards in which the cue ball successively strikes two other balls on the table.
3. To strike and rebound; to glance.
4. To make a carom.
5. To make (an object) bounce off something; to cause to carom.

"The anger caroms around in our psyches like jagged stones."
-- Randall Robinson, Defending the Spirit

Forgive Trespasses

During my early catechism training, I blindly mouthed the words "forgive us our daily trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" without comprehension. It was a memorized prayer. And I had not considered the seriousness of this offense: trespassing.

tres·pass(trsps, -ps)
1. To commit an offense or a sin; transgress or err.
2. Law To commit an unlawful injury to the person, property, or rights of another, with actual or implied force or violence, especially to enter onto another's land wrongfully.
3. To infringe on the privacy, time, or attention of another: "I must . . . not trespass too far on the patience of a good-natured critic" Henry Fielding.

And this is perhaps the phrase concerning trespassing that I find most interesting right now:
trespass quare clausum fregit - the defendant unlawfully enters the land of the plaintiff

Especially if you consider that one's heart is the a part of one's land.
Going where one is not invited or wanted
- Taking another's purse or wallet
- Taking another's car against their will
- Taking. Taking more than what is offered

Lately Shawn Colvin's song is in my head: Get Out of this House




So don't enter this land wrongfully, with actual or implied force -
"I spent eleven long years in a hot house zone
I spent twentynine more trying to get home
Well I never got home but I did what I did
And I got myself this house and you can't come in"

This is my house, my heart. Trespassing is not allowed. Only the invited are welcome.
"I've had all I can stand and I can't stand no more."

Saturday with my Mother

I went to see her on Saturday
A clear gentle July day.
Sometimes you get lost in this old cemetery,
all the hills and curving narrow roads.
There are two paths to come to her
one wraps tight between a stone wall and a large drop off into soft earth
beside the pavement.It is the most direct but
the most difficult to navigate.

The other takes you away from her first, past the largest
oldest markers, winged angels and holy saints with hands folded in prayer
large mausoleums and flowers and flags
punctuate the places where someone remembered
the people who breathed and you
think you've really gone too far til you discover
a split in the trees and a road gone to dirt
and if you slip your car through that shadow
you find the pavement on the other side
and my mother's yard
flat from a distance like an empty landscape
running out to the trees
but for the flowers and teddy bears and balloons.

My mother's plot is nearby the babies.
And I never have arrived to find the spot neglected,
except by me.

Seven Stages

Shock
Denial
Anger
What the hell comes after anger?
Because I surely am not guilty
and remorse . . .

I'm sure acceptance is what everyone waits for
but for me, it's some other stage
Some other landscape than acceptance.
Because this is unacceptable.

Wholeness in aloneness
Complete. Round.

No missing pieces.
No bruises fading.
No thundering heart.
No echo of vile voice
knelling through the night.

A solitary landscape
unpacked and unlimited
where the moon and sun
occupy the same sky
without complaint.

Perfect Mistake

If I started as a mistake,
and some thin circumstance
like a bead of liquid from tip to
tongue held on and sustained
me - - -
then it is reasonable it is
all a series of beautiful mistakes
mounting like the arches
of a rainbow, the
blood and bruises coloring the night
with morning
glories
is absolute
perfection

Be Water

From here you can almost
see it all, the breadth
of blue water, turquoise to
jade, azure to navy to
midnight.

Dive into it, the water
slipping like silk
Fall into it, through it,
seeking the dark, the quiet,
the absence of sense.

The water in you and the
water without all one.
Be water. Be liquid -
flesh thin as
gauze, bone supple as
a blade of grass. The
water flowing in and out.

Be water. At the deep,
be still, dark, blind.

At the surface, break, sparkle,
blind with reflection.

Changling

it is full and
opaque
opulence
wispy
ghosty

a wild white orb
changling in
our nights

never constant
so how come
we rely on it so heavily.

Out of the Blue

You hear them before you see them. Then they roar over you, the sound of the jet engines voiding all other sound. Yesterday the Blue Angels split the sky over the Severn River. I stood with the crowd, witnessing the mastery of man and machine, the precision, the beauty of the FA18s.

Although I've lived in the Annapolis area for eighteen years, this is the first time I have stood along the river with the crowds and witnessed the Blue Angels demonstration performed every year during commissioning week for the Naval Academy. Like many, I neglected to take advantage of my close proximity of this remarkable event.

How often do we overlook what we assume will always be available to us? How often do we have the chance to alter our focus so that our eyes are drawn to the sky and what is at our feet is unknown?

Lucy's Belt

Around her waist, Lucy
loves her loves, wears
her belt of love, pulls it
close across her hips
every empty night.

Last night, Lucy walked
out Rockaway pier, where
the old man casts
his illegal net.

She followed the wood
til her toes hugged
the plank's edge
and studied the moon
sunk mid-deep in the bay
and wondered if
the belt would
float or sink.

Premonition

'Twas a year ago and the moon was bright
(Oh, I remember so well, so well);
I walked with my love in a sea of light,
And the voice of my sweet was a silver bell.
And sudden the moon grew strangely dull,
And sudden my love had taken wing;
I looked on the face of a grinning skull,
I strained to my heart a ghastly thing.

'Twas bit fantasy, for my love lay still
In my arms, with her tender eyes aglow,
And she wondered why my lips were chill,
Why I was silent and kissed her so,
A year has gone and the moon is bright,
A gibbous moon, like a ghost of woe'
I sit by a new-made grave tonight,
And my heart is broken--it's strange, you know.

~ Robert Service

Widdershins

It started yesterday;
World gone widdershins
And the further it went
the less I felt.

I can't feel anything now.
Except maybe a mild
curiosity
to see how far it will go.

Lilith

The Authorized Artifacts of Lilith

Exhibit I:
A tattoo of Jehovah’s name
over her razor sharp left
clavicle.

What they said about me was inadequate.
Someone had to get there first. I was put here first.
See my footstep here? Two wells joined by a high arch.
It is sold for the privilege to light on this spot,
dirty your sole, slip it back into your
sock, your shoe, your sandal;
the sand biting, insidious as pollen on the back
of a wing. Til you wake, middle of the night,
dig your teeth into your husband’s
shoulder, your lips grinning and the knowing,
the knowing in your head burning, hot, hot.

Exhibit II:
Two missing ribs discovered
in a high bird’s nest in the Andes,
solid as titanium.

His name came to me like a pulse knocking
on the door of my hips, my hips rocking,
untamed, knowing. What they said about me was in
adequate. My bones would not burn and though
heat kissed every femur and tibia and my hair
fumed with oil, my eyes hard as stones, my flesh
crisp as dried camel tongue, they could not burn me.
Shivering, they huddled him with Eve and punished
men to shiver always, to burn and never cool.
It is not enough.

Exhibit III:
Thrush fetuses nested in
blossoming dogwoods
every spring.

Eve bore him sons. Though my child is lost. Still born.
Eve bore him. Eve succumbed.
The knowledge pouring through her like mercury
lighting her inside. Inside me, Adam had lit, curled
night and day, earth, water, and fire. What they
said about me, fire. Yelling fire. The cry – to
burn. Fire. Blue cooling to burnish yellow, nostril flare,
horse running, red rising to snap the air. Cain. Abel.
Inadequate. The wife over the hill, my daughter.
Not Abraham, but I. More than the stars
my children’s bones.

Exhibit IV:
Scrolls sleeping
in the Gondwana
sands.

They found my likeness in the lost city,
narrow burning rock passage,Bedouin women
turn my image to the wall; the wall will crumble.
What they say about me
is inadequate. A bit of fire burning in the brain is
my foothold, my talisman, my privilege.
To sit like a smoldering ember between your ears, your hips, wetting with spit and blood, icing to heat, ruining civilizations,
one beautiful sole with sand on the heel
after another.

Which Superhero are You?

Your results:
You are Supergirl
Lean, muscular and feminine.
Honest and a defender of the innocent.


Supergirl 85%
Wonder Woman 80%
Spider Man 75%
The Flash 75%
Superman 70%
Green Latern 65%
Robin 62%
Batman 60%
Hulk 55%
Catwoman 50%
Iron Man 45%

Walking on Alligators

Relationships, especially new relationships, or even long time relationships when you are known very well, are a lot like walking on alligators - so is writing.

A new relationships is like building a step ladder. The side rails encounter and put on the first few steps, solid. No worries. Then it seems they start taking turns adding steps, setting nails. sometimes a bit of wood has some rot left in it and just as you put your full weight on it, it gives. But you only slip one rung and it is not fatal.

Then each person is mounting a rung, a rung, a rung. Then one puts their hand against the tree, the house, the wall and pushes off. The ladder in the free air and all you can do is run.

Some people know.
They don't run.

The world is visible for them.They see beyond the physical troubles, the distances, the missing rungs on the ladder.

I am someone who is afraid of certain things. Having borne them and mourned already. Yet, I know, I was authentic and alive and real.
So here is a rung, screwed to the sticking point, fast, solid.

It is one rung.

But it is steady. And sometimes the view is the scariest thing, looming, a thunderhead, a bear upwind. It will come for you sooner or later. You could run. But you choose it. You turn into it and roar and wave branches over your head, and the bear runs away.

The bear. You fool the bear but the ladder and the water are waiting.

But sometimes the rung falls over water - those waves, churned, white capped, fingers curling, dark, dark. You just let it go. Let it go. It's not death.

It's life.

Mere Mortals

So it is difficult to reveal oneself and difficult to know when we meet someone if we have met them. I've been reading "I am not Jackson Pollock" and it is clear that the people in the story don't know Jackson but even more so that Jackson doesn't know Jackson. So no matter how genuine he attempts to be, the challenge is insurmountable.

A friend wrote to me today, "I think I have been misjudging you slightly on something which may not be true at all...." Well, the misjudge, misstep, misalignment, is one of the banes of man's existence. All we have are our sense and our perceptions and our own histories which are never exactly what someone else has experienced. So people layer meaning onto what they can see and touch but that is no measure for accuracy.

Neena Birch is a wonderful artist and yesterday at an art show in DC, she told me that as she studied this technique or some particular aspect of the art process, that she moved away from herself; "Such that sometimes you lose who you are. You get lost." She's right, of course. Having been lost repeatedly in so many years, the excitement is when you find yourself (as no doubt she does continually)!

Creation of something brand new is altered the minute outside influence falls upon it. But I know she hasn't lost herself in any fashion in which she has not also discovered some other aspect of herself, because her work is strong, solid. And the portent of it cannot be missed. Something is happening, something strong, shapely, meaningful, and yet, utterly without the artist and from within. This is what art is, how life is made, how we express what we can, being mere mortals.

This in life is also how we sometimes misjudge, although I am sure my friend meant misunderstand, one another. Because we see it all through our life's spectacles, tinted or now we have altered from the prescription. Things don't fit, the frame does not hold; until we widen the lens and allow for a bigger picture.

Foucault enters the den

Over ten years of "teaching" creative writing, my primary goal has been to seek opportunities in the students' works. But here Foucault says the same thing with the passion and dimension that it deserves. In my dream world, every writing teacher would accept this as the method by which wonderful writing is cultivated.


"I dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring
an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch
the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze
and scatter it. It would multiply not judgments but signs of existence; it
would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent
them sometimes -- all the better.

"Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I'd like a
criticism of scintillating leaps of imagination. It would not be sovereign or
dressed in red. It would bear the lightning of possible storms."

-Michel Foucault, "The Masked Philosopher," interview in *Le Monde,*
1980

What have I been missing?

A confluence of events, a synchronicity of circumstances and here I am. Strange goings-on. Disruptions, unanswered questions, a true tumult. Surely change is afoot, apace, making a mad dash at my head. But even at this point, life still has so much potential that most of it is little trouble unless you are on the table (surgical that is). So I found this headline
Thousands Attempt to Break Snow Angel Record
BISMARCK, N.D. (Feb. 17)

And I was intrigued – there was a previous snow angel record? Under what recording label? But no, they were referring to actual snow angels – something I got a chance to do in the white sands desert, in actual snow which is rare there and may have been the beginning of the very odd things that continue to occur. Here is my favorite part of the article:
“there was Pauline Jaeger - who on her 99th birthday, was making her very first angel.”

Pauline was 99 and had never made a snow angel? How is this possible? What have you never done – the things that are available to you right now – wallpapering or dancing or knitting or ice skating or walking through your house with your eyes closed or truly trusting someone? Pauline was 99. Surely there is time to try the things you never tried, especially the ones you may have never considered before like bowling or bridge or archery. I think I may look into archery for the summer, or fencing, or maybe learning Italian.

Snow angels – sort of sad that Pauline didn’t get to experience all those years in between. What have I been missing?

Why I am Not a Poet

I shall not trespass in the dark
so much. The dark is full
of wonder and landmines,
private gardens, raindrops and Mozart.
The dark holds no names, forgives
transgressions, exalts dreams.
The scratchy dark wool of sleepless
night rubs its beard on my
exposed shoulder.
I shall not trespass in the dark.

Maybe I will appear more
often in the fading
evening light, haunt the corners,
say words, and name names.

What We Don't Want to Know

Sometimes we don't want
to know what we want to know.
Shivering in our bones,
the splinters piercing,
blood weeping from our flesh.

We know and we do not know.
And in the dark, the whispers
grow loud, sinister and
insistent.

Mumbling, we shelter
the incoherent moment,
fuzzy memory, hinging
on the eight ball.

Don't Blink

Don't Blink

The writer’ pen? The sculptor’s hands? The painter’s brush? The dancer’s breath? Here’s the truth – you can’t cultivate true art.

You can’t take crap and make magic. It doesn’t work that way.

What? That’s not what I said in class? You’re damn right I didn’t say it in class. Because in every class there is the artist who doesn’t recognize himself.

The truth is this – the artist is the one who is usually the most discouraged, the most convinced that he’s just kidding himself. He thinks of himself as a poser; she thinks of herself as a phony. They are not artificial. They are real. They are easy to spot. First, they are usually quieter than the other students. When they read, their voices are softer, smaller. They are unwrapping their babies for us. They are that invested in their work. Language is liquid for them, a symphony of horns, cellos, and bass drums. Every word has been examined, judged and found worthy. Their works stink of truth. We will shade our eyes and the remnant of the piece lingers with us years later like a first kiss.

And the other reason to not tell students that yes, you either have it within you or your don’t is this – some students who I encourage to “develop their craft” are artists who are not quite hatched yet. They lack courage – the courage to be honest in what they want to say – the courage to stand alone – the courage to let the work go out into the world unaccompanied.

Can you teach the craft of writing? Yes. You can teach dialogue, characterization, point of view, theme, voice, plot….

Can you make an artist of any student? No. Only students can make themselves artists.

And speaking personally, I wouldn’t recommend it for mere mortals. But for those among us who would be gods, be gods. Create worlds, sculpt, dance, sing, paint, write. Stare at the sun. Don’t blink.

Confirmation

As 2006 ended, I received two emails from writing students. One from George, whom I have had the pleasure of plumbing the depths of the writing craft for more than a decade and one from Rob, who only recently attended a class I was teaching at Anne Arundel Community College.

I love teaching writing courses. Although "teaching" is a wholly inaccurate term. I don't believe you can teach someone to write; the artists discovers writing and is already an artist long before I come on the scene. But working with other artists has always helped my work. I suppose what amazed me though about these two recent emails is that periodically I hear from "students" and discover that I have been privileged to have had a positive impact on their lives.

George had organized an "appreciation" class for me during our December session. Unfortunately I was beset by a physical problem that prevented my participation. Following up on that, George wrote me an email:

I'm not sure that your pain at our last meeting allowed you to take in what I said to you -- something like "...you are one of the five people who have had a major positive impact on my life. If you hadn't turned me on to writing, I would have gone bananas long ago."
Apart from that, I wish the world were filled with people like you.
Which is why I end all my e-mails to you with
"Love, George."

I don't think George would mind my revealing that he has been living for eight decades and I would never have imagined that I would find myself in such rare company as one of only five people. And once more I realize that perhaps none of us know how important we are or have been in others' lives.

Around the same time, I received an email from Rob.

I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for your obvious passion for the art of writing. To me, it comes out when your entire blog is taken as a whole. Your challenge to each of us to simply “write it down”, all of it, without over analyzing before hand is always on my mind and I am trying to do that everyday. And I want to say thank you for all that you gave me in the class. “All” is the big word here because there is no doubt in my mind that I will be discovering what the “all” is for some time to come!
The seed you planted has grown into a small bush through our group, which continues to meet, and is valued by each of us.

The class that Rob attended developed a writer's group when the class ended and that group has continued to support and push one another to more effective works. I hadn't really considered how exposed I am in my blog because most of the time I assume that no one reads it beyond my daughter and Susan and occasionally another writer (like George or Rob). But it would not change what I write, no matter who was going to read it.

More than imagination, more than perfect grammer, more than an extended vocabulary, a writer must possess courage. Nothing is more powerful, evocative, and beautiful than the truth. I am not the first to say so or think so. Was it Eleanor Roosevelt who said "The thing you fear you cannot do is the thing you must do." (Please write me if you have the accurate quote.)

I am working on a piece of writing right now and have written most of it, save for one bit, the part I cannot write. So I know that that is what I must write. My writing friends bolster my courage to do so and watching the leap that every class has been willing to take with me strengthens my resolve to keep moving into deeper crevices, even when the walls seem insurmountable.

Thank you: Susan, Jon, Wendy, Joe, Rob, D, Heather, Steve, Vicki, George, Vivian, John, and others but first and foremost, Anna Kirby Ward.

Channeling Sheryl Crow

Try to love me, if you can. Are you strong enough to be my man? My man.

I know a lot of people who say they have given up on relationships. I won't be one of them though. And I'm not at all certain I believe the ones who say they've given up: they can't trust, they can't open themselves up, they are too set in their ways. But I do realize that I present certain challenges (as does everyone). But one of the most daunting for any man is when he encounters a strong woman, no matter how attractive it may seem in the abstract, the reality will send most men seeking quieter waters. And who can blame them. So before things get too far, I usually raise the Sheryl Crow question. I'll let you know if I get any takers.

PS For the back story on the photo and the t-shirt, click here

Truth or Consequences

Sometimes when you adjust the view, the landscape, the whole world can change. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Phrases Like "Plumb Fond"

And even though it's August
She's thinking of Jan. 2005
and how it's just like a
farmer-boy hustler hitting on
an east coast lady to use
the phrase "plumb fond"
and go on and on about
her eyes.

And it's right about this
time he drops his shoulder
in the "aw shucks ma'am"
manner that Alice
decides she'd really
like to rip his heart out and
- bear his children
and crawl naked over that
hairy back -
all at the same time.

A rose by any other name . . .

Mary Lorraine -- [noun]: A poltergeist sent back in time to change the course of history forever 'How" will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Make No Sound

Here is the sound of
the trolley leaving in the snow,
and the weep of the empty cupboard.
Here is the room of sparse furniture,
thin carpets,
the upright keyboard with
dusty keys and snow
flakes drifting on the balustrades,
chipped paint and faded wallpaper,
solid brass work on the doors.


The world is so small:
A closet, a space behind the stair.
Live where the mice live.
Move only in the dark.
Make no sound.
Wear no face. Flat
mouth, eyes at 500 yards.

And so this is Christmas. I hope you had fun . . .

I love Christmas – it’s not that I’m particularly Christian except by the definition to be a “tian” is o ascribe or have allegiance somehow – as in Italian = from Italy and vegetarians eat only vegetables. So if I think the story of Jesus life as it is told to us is something to emulate; Would that be what it is to be a Christian regardless of his lineage – then I would be a Christian – and a Buddhist and a Darwinian and a Mostian (after Moses) and a follower of Ruth and Mary of Magdelena, and of Angelina Jolie and Bono and all people who look into the eyes of any human being, ANY, and sees themselves, sees G-d, sees the potential for humankind to be everything it is capable of being.

But that is not what I love about Christmas. My children have been with me every Christmas eve and morning since the days they were born. And since then, every December 24th and December 25th has been precious; full of laughter and hugs and a chance to surprise my children and give them things that aids their dreams. For Dylan this year it is a music journal to write his compositions and a good digital camera for Sara to take on her trip to Europe when she graduates from college and does the trip with knowledge she had not known she could possess to places she did not know she would travel.

Here is our tree – bought last minute on Dec. 23rd – Dyl’s piano and guitar and soccer ornaments and Sara’s childhood touched hearts and blind reindeer and Love the Irish ornaments and my own monkeys and wine corks, angels and blown glass. The children decorated it Dec. 24th in the afternoon while I was still showering and dressing for the evening. They did the final touches, made the decisions. They knew I needed help, had spread my efforts too thin, run behind, This is what they made.

But the moment on Christmas day when they leave is one I always steel myself against- make ready – I cannot not be ready for that – today it comes at 1:15 PM. My son leaves with his father, they slip outside into the rain, the chill air coming in through the door. Sara loads her car with her presents and comes back inside for a hug to hold her the rest of the day. Here is her beautiful face, her scarf and her whimsical sense just before she leaves.
Then she gets in her car, turns on her windshield wipers and drives off to her father’s house. This Marley’s chain that I have made, link by link, divorce by divorce. It’s mine. So as they drive away, I notice that by the cars left outside my sextet of townhouses, that I am the only one home, and with no one that I will be visiting. I only allow a moments sadness because I am the lucky one. I had a miraculous night of Christmas Eve, full and a warm, loving morning. Just as I am standing at the window watching the tail lights disappear in the misty gray rain, the phone rings – my brother Michael has phoned as he drives with his wife, Debra, to visit her family. He asks if I am okay, tells me he will phone me in the evening.

I also talk to my brother David and niece, Jennifer, and wife, Susan and they remind me how loved I am, how I am at home with them. It is clear how we care for one another, always have.

My brothers and I knew we had to care for one another. Now we want to care for one another.

Michael does phone on his ride home – he and Debra, making sure that I am okay, not sad, not too lonely. And I am not. Not at all because he has called, and because of my conversation with David and Susan and because later I know I will hear again from Sara.

My gifts are my children, my brothers, my sister, my family. And even my dog, Sally. Who must go outside and makes me get up and fed her and she climbs onto my lap and demands that I play and can not fall into any type of pity party. She makes me about life, here now. She eats and sleeps and plays and does not judge and displays her feelings honestly. If one owns/raises pets, one learns how to get through every single day.


So here we were. I am the luckiest of the lucky.

Heights

It is easy to make the mistake of

Scrambling up a trail or a staircase,

Seeing the promise of what is ahead,

Only to realize once you reach the

Summit, that the road back to where

You were is either impossible

Or is riddled with pain.

You Know Dylan, Right?

You are the black sneakers and Persagel.
You are the shaggy wool of the yak
And the smell of the new cut grass.
You are a winter storm coming
And the chipmunk running for cover.

However, you are not the brass
Elephant candle holder
Or the rolled carpet or
The Degas posed figurine.

It is possible you are the telescope at
The window,
Maybe even the lone falcon
Perched on a high branch
But you are not even close to
Being sunlight reflected on the windshield.

And a quick look in the
Aluminum toaster will show
That you are neither the
Tarragon growing on the deck
Nor the bike with the flat tires
In the basement.

You might enjoy knowing that
I am the sound of an LP falling
Onto a turntable.
I also happen to be the dance
In the leaves of the lilac,
And the smell of bread rising and
The flat tire on the bike in the basement.

I am the curved knick on the
Cherry tabletop and the sound of
The dog lapping his water.

but I am not winter coming
And the lone falcon. You are still
Winter coming and the lone falcon.
You will always be winter coming
And the lone falcon,
Not to mention the pine needles
crunched under the hunter’s boot
And somehow the barometer.

Rain Dancing

Sympatico

These were the things she could not say to him: That leaving him was like snipping the stitches from a yet unhealed wound. That snowy Sunday afternoons were cold and hollow. That she might not be able to maintain a one-dimensional relationship; not with all her dimensions constantly firing. She was sick of people telling her how strong she was, how smart, how capable, how pretty. Surely, if she were as smart, pretty, strong, capable as they said, she would not spend this long, lazy, snowy afternoon all alone. But she did. Finding the dressing for her Christmas tree, unpacking an overnight bag, suffocating any hope she may have felt in her heart, holding it securely under water, her fingers tightening on its blushing throat.

So was it by her own design - oh yes. She wasted men. Thought too much, wanted too much, talked too much about everything but her needs. Her need. It knotted up in her chest, squatted in the hollow of her neck threatening to scream out, but never could. It was pitiful to her - disrespectful. So she was quiet. She called no one.

And she thought how her children loved her - how there were adventures and fun times ahead for her, how lucky she was in her health and abilities, her comfortable home, even in her stubbornness, her resolve with the bricks in place and mounting higher.

Her phone rings - let it ring - one - two - three - her hand on it the whole time. "Hello," as if she'd just walked into the room to snatch it up while she had been otherwise engaged. The fraud. Jayne? Yes. Hi "Jayne, this is John with MCI." She doesn't even hang up on John, with MCI. Takes a moment to tell him, "No thanks, good luck on your next call."

This was her downfall - her weakness, men. Or rather the romance of men. Of love. It wasn't the individual men, per se. It was the promise of love, of caring, of safety. It was as mythical as the unicorn, pure shimmering hope with a solitary horn. A dream. She chased it, captured it, was disappointed by it and left it standing in a pasture with downcast head. Then, she asked for sympathy.

Finding Oneself in Story

“Was he the only one who had known about the dark places? The dirty dark places where you were so alone and wretchedly voiceless? Maybe she didn't know all that he had, but she knew enough. Certainly she knew he had been haunted, and would never look into a mirror -- any reflective surface, if he could help it -- after the sun went down. And she had loved him in spite of all that.” Stephen King, Lisey’s Story

This is what powerful writing can do, reveal ourselves to ourselves. If you have never read Stephen King you are missing out on an amazing experience. Ezra Pound said that as one is reading the book should be like a "bolt of light" in his hand. King's work is a "bolt of light." Frequently it is a light that illuminates something in myself that would also have driven me from looking into mirrors, but I am grateful in the end.

Apocryphal

Larry steps right into her apocryphal embrace,
steeped in lattice and widow’s peaks and
all things necrophilia.

Larry steps into handmade tablecloths and
and Steiff Rose silver and the mystifying scent of honey
dust in on the back of her neck.

Here is the tuck of her chin, the slope
of her shoulder and the anvil at the base
of her throat, full of silverfish.

Larry steps in, with the miner’s helmet and
pick and cannot unearth her secret places
and the words she never said.

shhhhh . . . .

in my head, all i hear are dialogues - they never shut up. when i think of shooting them to silence them, i realize the consequences.

Ah Coffee reading makes more poetry

It is a heady experience being a featured reader. Many of my friends came and bolstered my confidence and the hosts and creators of The Poet Experience were welcoming, and their poetry was awesome. Amy's compositions are so lyrical and her voice so amazing that she should sing all the time, even words like "Where's the pumpkin? I feel like a jack-o-lantern." And Sylvia had an image of a horse in her poem that lingers with me still and Don (I think that was his name) painted beautiful southwest landscapes and some one else read about her 31 year old self (sorry I forgot your name). Susan Moger's prose and poetry were so moving that my sister cried.

Last night I woke at 3:42 AM, my mind awash with details from the night. As it turns out, my friend Susan also awoke about 4 AM and wrote a poem in her head that just blows me away. Here is her poem and it speaks to the reading more than anything I could possibly write.

I want to be a poet for Halloween
With golden hair like perfect parentheses
Wearing a transparent-sleeved blouse like a metaphor for hidden meaning;
In shoes as beautiful as the words "heart" "belt" "dock" "coat"
I want to be a poet for Halloween
Glamourous in the old way -- magical, spell-binding--
Turning words and hearts inside out

I want to be a poem of Mary's for Halloween
With turns of phrase that hook the heart,
Water images that melt sugary surfaces of perception
I want to be a poem of Mary's for Halloween
At a party with other poems, in a ribbon-tied book, made just for us.

Public Appearance! Ah Coffee with Rocky Jones and Cliff Lynn

At 6:30 PM this Friday, I've been invited to be the featured reader at an event called The Poet Experience. This is held at Ah Coffee 1015 Bay Ridge Av, Annapolis, MD 21403

If you've never caught Rocky and Cliff's performances, they bring a whole new element to the poetry reading environment. With unconvential forms and Rocky's drums, they define a new expression in creative spoken word.

As for my work, expect poetry, a few very short stories, and a glimpse at my pillow book. These are not your mother's poems. There will be confusion. There will be questions. All answers will be provided in san skrit.

The reading includes open mic time so bring your own verses along and take a turn at the mic.

Last night I was chased by a big brown bear

Last night, I dreamed I was in a large wood, with cabins and trails and wolves who howl as you press your head to the pillow. In the morning, I took my long walk to see the sun fall through the lattice of the tree leaves. I reached the farthest rim of the park, the last cottage and a woman who was just packing her final suitcases into her Subaru outback.
“G’morning,” I breathed and smiled at her.
“Best be careful.” She said and nodded toward the outhouse in the woods just beyond the road. “Think the bears are hungry.”
A clapboard of planks housing a latrine under the arch of pines shook. The wooden door swayed a bit. She opened her car door. “But I needed the bathroom,” I say. It’s so ungracious, so human, such a thing in the woods to realize.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like to help. But I’ll miss my flight.” She opened the driver’s door and put her right foot in. “You better get on.”
And the outhouse door bounced open and the broad back of a large brown bear backed out. I didn’t wait for the bear to turn around.
Her car backed up the road over pavement. It was solid ground and uphill. Downhill there was brush, limbs, maybe rabbits, deer, and camouflage. Brush and other bear-like distractions and below was the camp meeting house, a glass walled A-frame.

I raced downhill with all the agility and speed I held when I was twelve. My legs were agile and strong, my feet were solid and sturdy and my speed was miraculous. So I reached the meeting house and turned to see the bear standing twenty feet away, the light coming from the house confusing him, messing with his vision. He was smelling me out. He was tall, brown and shaggy and sniffing the air.

I opened the door and the click was like a shotgun to him. He lowered and lumbered straight for the meeting house, an A-frame structure with only two rooms, a large meeting room and a small office. All the walls were glass except the door to the office, the bottom third, a solid panel, would hide me.

I raced inside and the camp dog raced out, barking and spinning, the black and brown spots on his white back spinning as he circled and yipped, his teeth bared and his ears on alert. The dog ran into the great room and I knew how to live. I knew what would happen. The bear was at the front door. I pulled the office door nearly shut, lay on the floor, pulled up close to the door and breathed the mushroom mildew scent of the floor, the metal smell of my own breath, and heard the dog growl, and bark, his claws ticking on the wood floor, faster than flamingo dancers. The bear’s heavy mud-cased step and sweep of the arm through the air terrified.

I raised my head. Saw the bear catch the dog, heard the cry, and put down my head and prayed that it would be enough, that it would satisfy the bear.

You’re Bringing Out the Elvis in Me.

Country music is not my first choice but once in a while a woman needs/wants/ thrives on the verses of Shania and Faith Hill. And as for me, I have to say when I ponder what it might like to be to have a partner where our blood beats with the same passion and build a universe we can call our religion, I think of Faith Hill and that guy she’s married.

But then I wonder. She wrote this song What’s In It For Me? And I should listen to this song more often. Instead I plummet into the stream of Breathe and It will Be Me. Isn’t that the way that’s love supposed to be? Maybe. But I can breathe and I know how precious the feeling is of the hearts and breathes in tandem. My babies sleeping on my chest, my own chest pressed against yours. . . same beat, bellies warming. So how do you find love after all?

This is the dichotomy of country music. I was reared in the role of the family enabler. Guilty as charged but, of course, not guilty. At this point you wouldn’t think I would confuse it with other things but maybe things swirl so it’s not all this or that; it so rarely is black or white. My needs are in the mix too. I know it. I can help you. Whoever decided that that concept is right anyway? How come an enabler can enable while people can really only help themselves and you can't help someone who doesn't want help?

I can do anything to which I set my mind. So here is my mind set: whether country music sets your world on fire or not (and it is not my first touch on the juke box), I want what I imagine Faith Hill has and I can find it, nurture it, curl it into my arms every night even if I find it like a piece of coal. If the conditions are right, we’ll have gems.

But just as often, I hear Cheryl Wheeler sing Almost and there is no doubt that I’ve been found out. I counter it with Faith Hill’s You’re Bringing out the Elvis in Me. It’s a good disguise.

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. "

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. "
Rumi

Making books and making poems and making poems in unexpected places, on unexpected surfaces: there is beauty there and I love to do it. So I'm making books and posting poems. I may slip them into restaurant menus or people's mailboxes, leave them on car windows, paste them onto rocks and set them by the shore, write them on the bottoms of people's shoes as they watch a movie, post it note them to the backs of passersby, put them inside books at Borders and Mad Annas. You might go to the bathroom and pull on the toilet paper and find a poem rolling out. Maybe I'll make them up as coasters and put them at City Dock Cafe and 49 West. Maybe I'll leave them between the lace and silk in the stacks of Victoria Secret panties.

Imagine There's An Image: Sunlight and Wind

Imagine There's An Image: Sunlight and Wind
Please visit my friend, Steve. His photographs are remarkable, authentic, and have performed as a muse to many poems and stories.

Pain is a catalyst. . . .

Emotional pain, physical pain. A heaviness in the heart or a thump on the head. I have endured physical pain as most people of my age have; appendicitis, falls from trees and roof-tops, menses, migraines, birth, wrist surgeries, cuts and stitches, broken bones, sinus pain, stubbed toe pain, bit my own tongue pain. It is surmountable. We can get through our own pain, eventually it subsides.

Emotional pain is more difficult. The scars run like rivers in us, small tributaries that feed into others, they bleed into good intentions and adventures we never take, they create assumptions that blind us to truth. Emotional pain, well rendered, brings insight and strength, courage even. Details? Okay

“She’s just a girl,” her father said. “Why does she need to finish high school?”
“You will never be beautiful, Mary, so you must create the illusion of beauty.”
“Do you know how silly you look?”
“What are you going to do if you leave your husband; go live in a trailer with cats?”
“You’re ugly.”
“This won’t hurt.”
“She didn’t deserve that award, if you know what I mean,” wink wink.
“No one will ever love you like I do.”
“I hate you.”
“I want to live with Daddy.”
“Get out of my house,” my mother said.
“I wish you would die.”
“I can’t see you anymore.”

That’s all you get. Believe me, I have mined my emotional pain in my writing. I know the writer can’t hide even if they try.

Pain is a catalyst to action. We know something must be done, our lives must change.

Tao of Beatles

When one is contemplating the big questions in life, one can always find comfort in the Beatles. This is my tao of Beatles lyrics:

“And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.”

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly”

“Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.”

Recovery

Recovery from any injury (physical, emotional, or spiritual) is an every day thing, an hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute stilling. Standing still is sometimes the best that I can do. I'm standing still. But it doesn't feel much like living. It feels like catching my breath.

Recently my daughter called me her "lighthouse." The lighthouse may be still, but the light is nearly endless, full of purpose. I could be a lighthouse. Better than the boulder under the surf at the land's end. But it is fruitless to compare one thing to another sometimes. Such as now.

Flogging

Michael Chabon wrote, “every great love was in some measure a terrible mistake.” I wonder what happened to him so he knew that. I wonder about the minor loves, if they are terrible mistakes or just misdemeanors? I wonder about the people I’ve hurt and if they feel loving me was a terrible mistake. Of course, though he tempers the quote with “in some measure.” Does that mean that in all other measures it was a wonderful thing? My head hurts. My heart hurts. Here is a poem I am not going to finish, so feel free to do something with it. I don’t want it anymore.

Maggie carries her heart on her sleeve,
which was particularly painful on
flogging day.

Sucker

I feel the need to explain something.
There is a difference between the quick
rip of a band aid
and a sucker punch to the gut.

With the band aid, you were already
wounded, and afterward there
is usually a hug and sometimes a lollipop.

The sucker punch,
is a crepuscular event
denying defense, breath, or explanation.
No hug. No lollipop.

Has Been

So there she is, the minor farceur.
Here is what she supposes;
to have been
Some force, incalculable,
A tutelary shelter from the fray.

Instead she steps into you
under a stem of sandlewood.
Your fingers wrap over
hers to dress Palmer
method fluency into
her southpaw stammer.

Drawings in the Alabama red
clay tell the faded tales
they deny with peach
tinted souls.

Der mentsh trakht, un Got lakht.

Translation: A man thinks and God laughs. Last Friday was Erev Rosh Hashanah. I am a temple administrator and it is expected of me to attend all high holy day services. But this year, I just knew that I couldn't do it for Rosh Hashanah. Perhaps it is a professional hazard.
So on that Friday night, I planned to attend a birthday dinner for my daughter's birthday at one of my favorite restaurants. Just as I got home to freshen up, the phone rang and my daugher, Sara, said, "Denny doesn't feel well. He's flushed and his heart is racing. So I'm going to his house. Call him right now."
So I call. I run through my usual mother questions about what he has been eating and what medicines he's been taking, etc. We determine that while he probably isn't well enough to go out to dinner, we will visit him at his house instead and go for dinner at a later date. We are flexible, accomodating, understanding. It's not the original plan but it will still work out.

After an hour, just as we are starting to dig into our chinese carryout, his heart starts racing and now he has a pain in his chest. We consult with the nighttime medical facility and they urge us to go to the emergency room. It seemed like a dramatic step to take. On the other hand, Denny is having chest pains. So off to AA Medical Center's emergency room we go.
During the ride, Denny's pulse calms down and his chest stops aching, but his face is still the color of a red delicious apple. Because it is a heart pain, they take him back right away and hook him up to equipment, draw blood, ask him some questions (primarily the same ones I had asked but they also ask his history - I already knew that portion of the story). Then they send us with a beeper back out to sit with Sara in the waiting room.
FOR FIVE HOURS

During that time they call him back one more time to do a chest x-ray. Around 1:00 AM, I go up to the counter and ask what are we waiting on and am informed that they are waiting for someone to read the x-ray (for five hours?). Now, this was not an excessively busy emergency room. I realize I couldn't see who was showing up in ambulances but the whole place had a dreamy, "let's all just take a nap", quality to it.
Denny's face is still red but his normal complexion is that of a ruddy Irishman who has enjoyed a Jameson or two (as you can tell from this photo of Denny and Sara).
At 1:30 AM the television that has been on throughout the evening gets louder. Michael Steadman (Oprah's boyfriend - doesn't matter who he was before or since, his biggest claim to fame is that he is Oprah's boyfriend whether he likes it or not) is being interviewed. His speil is very repetitive. "What you pay attention to, enlarges." This is his answer to everything. By 2:00 AM, Denny had had enough of attending to himself so he went up to the desk and asked them to remove the needle for taking blood and we left.


This is not the birthday celebration I envisioned for my daughter. She had spent the day before her birthday helping me through a little medical episode and although we'd had some cake later that night, it was such a small celebration that the dinner was going to be the real party. And I'm sure it will be. But as for me, it seems that God/life/fate was having a good laugh.

Four Seats

Pose this question: In the lifeboat, there is room for four people. Who are they?

Easy. This first two seats go to Sara and Dylan. Because I could not continue to live without them. We lose people; sometimes to death, sometimes to hurt, and sometimes to attrition. But there are precious few who would leave us with our breath stilled, our hearts cleaved, our minds incapable of a coherent thought.

My mother died on All Saints Day. And I have not functioned in the world in the same fashion since. My early testament is buried. No witnesses are left. She would have been the third into the boat.

Instead the third and fourth seats remain empty. It is as if there are tiers of loved ones in our lives. The top tier is reserved for Sara and Dylan. I have longed for another to take a place on the highest branch with them but never is there anyone else I would step into the path of the train to save.

I kept going after the loss of my mother. I can take almost anything now.
But there are those two empty seats mocking me. When I think of them, a sea of confused and baffled faces swim before me, confused that I would hesitate. My sister, Pam, is laughing that I should be confused at all. My brother, Michael, is disappointed but nodding in his own rationalization. David, the middle child, tells me it’s okay, he doesn’t mind. He does but he doesn’t even know that he does because he just wants it to be okay.
There are some shadows in this group. Mark, my first love, is a faded gray image, standing on the swinging foot bridge, leaning his hand on the railing, his hair falling onto his forehead, and he’s smiling. I would have certainly put that young man on the boat. That was such a time of absolute certainty, and I wronged him in it.

Maybe I’m saving the fourth seat for what comes next. Maybe there are only two seats on my lifeboat. But if life is going to offer four, then I want four. Even if it means that they will be so precious to me that without them, my breath would still, my heart cleave, my mind become incoherent.

Back Together Again?

All the kings horses and all the kings men,
we all fall down.

Just outside Mesquite under the mosquito
drone and jukebox ballad, the sauce
watered down and the constitution
in question, we crack.

Where did we park my car?
Did we lock the door?

And that wolf baying
at the drive in movie screen,
is he yours?

Under

Under

the full moon, everything becomes clear.

Shoe, shirt, leg, and arm diffuse
to weight, breathe, stride, embrace.
Light slides under shadow, and only
intent is visible.

The rest is camouflage.

Blue

Maybe she was wrong about August
Maybe she was wrong about a lot of things.

Maybe eight glasses of water a day was one too many
glasses of anything in any given day.

Maybe second kisses were more important
than first kisses

Maybe the blue morpho butterfly wasn’t only
sighted in Costa Rica. Because this morning
walking in the woods, she inhaled one. Her chest is
full of wing fluttering and now she can’t settle down
on any one spot very long.

What I've Learned So Far

Sally likes to chew ice. Not in that annoying way that the person sitting behind you in the movie theatre does, the person who gulps ice from a paper cup and as she minces the pieces, she sprays the back of your neck with her spittle and adds odd timpani to the soundtrack.

No, Sally likes to take a solid cube out of your hand and deftly snap it into three bite size bits that she efficiently crunches up right from the kitchen floor.

After Sally finishes a meal, she likes to bring her dish into the living room to see if perhaps you forgot to put something else into it. If you ignore her, she will deposit it at your feet and lick every speck of dog food dust out of it until it is clean enough for surgery.

Sally was born on All Hallow’s Eve, which seems so fitting in this family. She came to us with another name, but Dylan and I discussed it and thought that maybe the rag doll from the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” might serve as a good moniker for her. Not to mention the classic musical references of “Mustang Sally” and “Lay Down Sally.” And the cinematic character in “Harry Met Sally.”

Early this morning we came in from a walk, and as I was drying her slender paws, she lowered her head (and I swear she chuckled a little bit), locked the towel into her teeth and took off for the living room. Chasing a sheltie is a waste of energy but I’m sure her paws dried perfectly on the carpet.

We found Sally (Daisy) courtesy of Sheltie Rescue. This is the second time they have answered our call for the companionship one only finds with our furry friends. And this time, just as when we found Sam, the timing and elements all seem to fit perfectly. Sam challenged us, taught us sheltie business and thereby the tough world business we were also facing in the early days of divorce and challenges of starting over. Sally is lapping up life, no matter if it’s ice cubes or filet! We are so grateful to be of “help.”

Practically Prancing Prius Owner

Okay, get ready for the excitement.
In the first 28 miles, I average 47.7 miles per gallon. So you may be wondering why all the excitement?. Every mile I drive this little wizard, the mileage improves! It's going to be my new addiction. So the next time you need someone to run to the dry cleaner, the grocery store, or Idaho, let me know.

.
It is divine: the silence, the new car smell, the backup camera, the consumption monitor with the little green car, the keyless ignition. It's precious. I only wish I could bring it into the house

Uh-oh. I'm going to have to buy a different house. I see how this works. It is like when you buy those perfect tangerine sling-backs with the stacked wood heel. They don't go with anything you wear, and yet they are perfectly suited to you. So you have to get a bag that matches, and then a blouse, and some sunglasses, and pants, and a skirt (they are sling backs after all), and the patio so you can have friends over for grilled salmon and since it's summer, you'll need a sun hat and an inground pool.

I guess I can learn to leave the car outside. Maybe I'll just buy one of those car covers. I think they are called garages.