He stared at the computer screen. It held a single word, font size 24. No chance of mistaking it for anything else. The one word in their personal lexicon that signaled over, done, finished. He sighed, closed the email and tended to his work, mind rollercoasting.
What had brought this on? He hadn't even spoken to her for a few days. What had changed everything?
Staring at the phone, the code for her speed dial pressed. Call her? How many times a day he picked up the phone, wanting her, missing her. But this, now? It was beyond him. To know what to do, how to do was for the gods, not him.
Pointless. If it was over, it was over. That was their agreement. Either could end it at any time. He just didn't think after all they'd been through that it would ever end. Ever.
Had his dreams scared her? His desire for more of her? His pressure for a more formal relationship, a public declaration? Did it matter why if she wanted it over?
Did anything matter at all?
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Do You Know Who You Are?
We are each other's
Only when we're together
Oh god, I miss you...
I carry your scars:
Your sins eaten with each kiss
Balm and Gilead.
Tired? So tired.
Sleep will heal you, beloved,
Moon casts sun shadow
Sweet eclipse of sweat
Soaked skin. Forget-me-not? Yes.
Your need calls to me
Gears mesh. We are meant...
For what? We are transient
I'll not cry for you
I tell a beautiful lie
Who do I protect? Not me.
Only when we're together
Oh god, I miss you...
I carry your scars:
Your sins eaten with each kiss
Balm and Gilead.
Tired? So tired.
Sleep will heal you, beloved,
Moon casts sun shadow
Sweet eclipse of sweat
Soaked skin. Forget-me-not? Yes.
Your need calls to me
Gears mesh. We are meant...
For what? We are transient
I'll not cry for you
I tell a beautiful lie
Who do I protect? Not me.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
My Little Songbird Writes
My little one is writing a book, an illustrated book for children. She sees me working all the time, scribbling, typing, translating, ‘channeling the ether' as I call it. Sees her sisters writing, drawing, composing. Understands the value, the impact of the written word. She sees that spoken words assume their own life in your being, but written words have a life which travels beyond the initial speaker. She wants to be part of my world, fall into the maelstrom of vowels and consonants which rule my existence.
Sitting here in the Florida heat, she drinks cocoa and whistles as she sketches, narrating the tale to me. I cannot follow the story line. She was conceived in New York and thus is prone to many digressions and sidebars. Even now she interrupts herself, whistling at the birds. They settle on her chair, heads cocked to listen. They caw and she trills back. Mating call? Want ad? Menu presentation? I do not know, I am not privy to the ways of feathered creatures despite my name.
Yes, I am a winged creature but not an avian. I am as Icarus, my wings attached with sticky plaster and artifice, subject to self-destruction. Consider my nom de plume, my wings only evident when I choose to fly, otherwise blending into my heavily muscled torso.
Shall I fly? Will my hubris make me fall into the sea? I would relish sinking into that salt brine, down down down....I know so well that I will fall that I do not even lift off.
My little one has the spirit. She wears an old headband with Mercury wings on it. I hope that she keeps her wings open, always open to catch the breeze and glide off. I want her to fly high, achieve, hit the sun. I want her to break the pattern.
Sitting here in the Florida heat, she drinks cocoa and whistles as she sketches, narrating the tale to me. I cannot follow the story line. She was conceived in New York and thus is prone to many digressions and sidebars. Even now she interrupts herself, whistling at the birds. They settle on her chair, heads cocked to listen. They caw and she trills back. Mating call? Want ad? Menu presentation? I do not know, I am not privy to the ways of feathered creatures despite my name.
Yes, I am a winged creature but not an avian. I am as Icarus, my wings attached with sticky plaster and artifice, subject to self-destruction. Consider my nom de plume, my wings only evident when I choose to fly, otherwise blending into my heavily muscled torso.
Shall I fly? Will my hubris make me fall into the sea? I would relish sinking into that salt brine, down down down....I know so well that I will fall that I do not even lift off.
My little one has the spirit. She wears an old headband with Mercury wings on it. I hope that she keeps her wings open, always open to catch the breeze and glide off. I want her to fly high, achieve, hit the sun. I want her to break the pattern.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Where There's Smoke, There's No Fire
An interesting night. Now that's a loaded word in my circle, interesting. If we're not sure how to respond to an inquiry or statement without being derogatory, we say, "interesting." Covers a multitude of possibilities, from the angelic to the absurd. Last night around 2:30 am, I'm awakened by the raucous sound of the smoke detector-again.
Again. As its done each day I've been in my latest bedsitter, whether from burning the toast or my current roomie smoking, at this point the noise is meaningless. I am numb to its cry of wolf. I climb up on the sofabed to hit the reset button. Roomie, whom I have forgotten in my sleep fog exists, sits up and asks what I'm doing. I point at the still clanging smoke detector. He sighs, stands up and removes it from the wall so he can hit the reset button on the inside. Sometimes I envy tall people, being the height of a typical 4th grader myself. But the noise DOES NOT STOP
We look at each other, puzzled. Why isn't it stopping? I call the desk to have maintenance come up but get voicemail. What could that mean? Roomie is still fiddling with the wires on the detector, yanking and detaching various nuts, bolts and screwlooses. I feel like I'm watching the episode of "The West Wing" [20 Hours in America, Part Two] where President Bartlet comments on Josh and Toby missing Air Force One: "Three hundred IQ points between them, they can't find their way home."
Hearing more noise outside, I open the door. People are streaming towards the stairwell. Oh my. It's a for real fire drill, just like in grade school! What fun! Does anyone out there remember the book, "Five Little Firemen"? Everybody grabs their most precious possession: The boys grabs their cat, rabbits and flowers, the mom her pillow, the dad his pipe and the jolly fat good cook slides down a lifeline. I take my car keys, flashdrives and notebooks, your typical female taking her jewels.
Down we go, an odd parade of human flesh. Roomie and I circumnavigate the hotel, speculating on the huddles masses displayed before us. Which groups are families, which friends and what are the dynamics within each group? Who is the leader, the problem child, the foci, the needy one, the troubled, the rock?
I decide I've had enough of this and sit in my car, blasting the stereo. Singing along to Sister Hazel's "Sweet Destiny", I stop because roomie doesn't know the words and his "la la la" annoys me. Our duet is cruel and unusual punishment to anyone within hearing distance, a cacophony which could only be surpassed by that of myself and my brother David or my friend Fran. The disharmony and discord we made was extraordinary. My singing without them surely has them spinning in longing, their bones clanging as if playing a glockenspiel. We put dingoes baying at the moon to shame, we were that loud and that painful. You know what? We didn't care because we made a joyous noise. We were together. Happy.
Getting out of the car, I watch the light show of the fire trucks as from the wrong end of a telescope. What is missing from my life? So much trivia, commentary, lack of balance, perspective. I know that once I had inner harmony although I do not remember the feeling.
The alarms still clang. The moon, aloof, hold court with the stars dancing attendance, bowing and scraping in obeisance. She plays in a Versailles of the heavens and would be amused by the fire alarm if she could hear it.
I stare up at the moon. The night sky has no answer, of course it does not. But I do. I will seize the joyful noise and run with it. Far. Fast. And I will be happy again. Despite everything. I have roads to travel. And all roads lead to roam.
Again. As its done each day I've been in my latest bedsitter, whether from burning the toast or my current roomie smoking, at this point the noise is meaningless. I am numb to its cry of wolf. I climb up on the sofabed to hit the reset button. Roomie, whom I have forgotten in my sleep fog exists, sits up and asks what I'm doing. I point at the still clanging smoke detector. He sighs, stands up and removes it from the wall so he can hit the reset button on the inside. Sometimes I envy tall people, being the height of a typical 4th grader myself. But the noise DOES NOT STOP
We look at each other, puzzled. Why isn't it stopping? I call the desk to have maintenance come up but get voicemail. What could that mean? Roomie is still fiddling with the wires on the detector, yanking and detaching various nuts, bolts and screwlooses. I feel like I'm watching the episode of "The West Wing" [20 Hours in America, Part Two] where President Bartlet comments on Josh and Toby missing Air Force One: "Three hundred IQ points between them, they can't find their way home."
Hearing more noise outside, I open the door. People are streaming towards the stairwell. Oh my. It's a for real fire drill, just like in grade school! What fun! Does anyone out there remember the book, "Five Little Firemen"? Everybody grabs their most precious possession: The boys grabs their cat, rabbits and flowers, the mom her pillow, the dad his pipe and the jolly fat good cook slides down a lifeline. I take my car keys, flashdrives and notebooks, your typical female taking her jewels.
Down we go, an odd parade of human flesh. Roomie and I circumnavigate the hotel, speculating on the huddles masses displayed before us. Which groups are families, which friends and what are the dynamics within each group? Who is the leader, the problem child, the foci, the needy one, the troubled, the rock?
I decide I've had enough of this and sit in my car, blasting the stereo. Singing along to Sister Hazel's "Sweet Destiny", I stop because roomie doesn't know the words and his "la la la" annoys me. Our duet is cruel and unusual punishment to anyone within hearing distance, a cacophony which could only be surpassed by that of myself and my brother David or my friend Fran. The disharmony and discord we made was extraordinary. My singing without them surely has them spinning in longing, their bones clanging as if playing a glockenspiel. We put dingoes baying at the moon to shame, we were that loud and that painful. You know what? We didn't care because we made a joyous noise. We were together. Happy.
Getting out of the car, I watch the light show of the fire trucks as from the wrong end of a telescope. What is missing from my life? So much trivia, commentary, lack of balance, perspective. I know that once I had inner harmony although I do not remember the feeling.
The alarms still clang. The moon, aloof, hold court with the stars dancing attendance, bowing and scraping in obeisance. She plays in a Versailles of the heavens and would be amused by the fire alarm if she could hear it.
I stare up at the moon. The night sky has no answer, of course it does not. But I do. I will seize the joyful noise and run with it. Far. Fast. And I will be happy again. Despite everything. I have roads to travel. And all roads lead to roam.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
We've Reviewed Your Files
As if I don't have enough tsuris, now this?
Between my kinda sorta homelessness and unemployment, my beloved psychotic perpetual victim older daughters and my youngest who is truly otherworldly at times, and that not in a good way, I still need more?
That which the gods would destroy they first make great. I'm not great.
God does not give you more than you can bear. Sez who?
That which does not kill you makes you strong. Knock me over with a feather.
I am neither great nor filled with fortitude nor strong. So what am I? In any case...
Not enough to have every other brick in my tower tumbling down, burying me, the foundations crumbling neath my feet. Not enough to be dragged into an abyss, tentacles twined lovingly around my ankles. "Would you like a glass of water, dear?" So says the torturer. "Drink deep." So says. Now to have this trivial stress added?
"Ms W, we've reviewed the results of your recent MRI. The doctor would strongly advice you to see a specialist. We've already referred your files to Dr C. You should call him ASAP to make an appointment. Here's the number."
You've reviewed? The doctor reviewed? WTF? Two damn months ago the doctor reviewed my files and sent me for the MRI. NOW he looks at the report? WTF?
Okay dear readers, time to spill. Because you have to understand something not obvious. This was NOT an MRI of my brain. We all know what an MRI of my brain would look like: swiss cheese. Moldy swiss cheese. Drippy moldy swiss cheese.
No, this was an MRI of another body part. I should use the plural to be perfectly accurate, it being a pair of body parts. The body parts which are specific and used to easily and obviously identify the female of the species. So to hear the dreaded words, "We'd like you to see a specialist," especially when the hearer is well aware of how high risk she is, does not make for a good afternoon.
Except....
They waited two months to call me on this? Is this for real incompetence and inefficiency (we are in floriduh) or does the doctor have August billing doldrums? Back in NYC, if there was an anomaly on an x-ray, test, MRI, you were called in a day or two. Surely this necessitated a call within a week if there was real cause for concern? Surely?
Because while I may love going topless, I do not look forward to being topless. At least not for a few more years.
So. I can give credence to this and worry my freshly dyed head (more grey, so much more grey than a week ago) OR...
I can make chocolate mousse.
I made mousse.
-30-
Between my kinda sorta homelessness and unemployment, my beloved psychotic perpetual victim older daughters and my youngest who is truly otherworldly at times, and that not in a good way, I still need more?
That which the gods would destroy they first make great. I'm not great.
God does not give you more than you can bear. Sez who?
That which does not kill you makes you strong. Knock me over with a feather.
I am neither great nor filled with fortitude nor strong. So what am I? In any case...
Not enough to have every other brick in my tower tumbling down, burying me, the foundations crumbling neath my feet. Not enough to be dragged into an abyss, tentacles twined lovingly around my ankles. "Would you like a glass of water, dear?" So says the torturer. "Drink deep." So says. Now to have this trivial stress added?
"Ms W, we've reviewed the results of your recent MRI. The doctor would strongly advice you to see a specialist. We've already referred your files to Dr C. You should call him ASAP to make an appointment. Here's the number."
You've reviewed? The doctor reviewed? WTF? Two damn months ago the doctor reviewed my files and sent me for the MRI. NOW he looks at the report? WTF?
Okay dear readers, time to spill. Because you have to understand something not obvious. This was NOT an MRI of my brain. We all know what an MRI of my brain would look like: swiss cheese. Moldy swiss cheese. Drippy moldy swiss cheese.
No, this was an MRI of another body part. I should use the plural to be perfectly accurate, it being a pair of body parts. The body parts which are specific and used to easily and obviously identify the female of the species. So to hear the dreaded words, "We'd like you to see a specialist," especially when the hearer is well aware of how high risk she is, does not make for a good afternoon.
Except....
They waited two months to call me on this? Is this for real incompetence and inefficiency (we are in floriduh) or does the doctor have August billing doldrums? Back in NYC, if there was an anomaly on an x-ray, test, MRI, you were called in a day or two. Surely this necessitated a call within a week if there was real cause for concern? Surely?
Because while I may love going topless, I do not look forward to being topless. At least not for a few more years.
So. I can give credence to this and worry my freshly dyed head (more grey, so much more grey than a week ago) OR...
I can make chocolate mousse.
I made mousse.
-30-
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Hit Me
Another drag
another drag, yes that's the phrase
Inhale the sweet weed
pot, grass, ganja, smoke, reefer
numb for a while
take the edge off
Huddle into my favorite pillow
pink pillowcase so frilly
so girly
Shred it. Rip it.
So fucking stupid looking
As my pupils dilate in horror
the dead come up
they come out
arrayed before me
Speak to me.
Tell me what to do.
Please.
They are silent.
Silent as the graves they live in.
I need another hit.
another drag, yes that's the phrase
Inhale the sweet weed
pot, grass, ganja, smoke, reefer
numb for a while
take the edge off
Huddle into my favorite pillow
pink pillowcase so frilly
so girly
Shred it. Rip it.
So fucking stupid looking
As my pupils dilate in horror
the dead come up
they come out
arrayed before me
Speak to me.
Tell me what to do.
Please.
They are silent.
Silent as the graves they live in.
I need another hit.
She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes
Right now, I am a constant barrage of b-sides. Semi-catchy tunes on constant replay in my head, background noise to the carrousel I cannot seem to stay off. It sucks me back in with its bright lights and movement. I am tired of it. I want to have a life, go forward, be able to make plans and not have them thrown into the air like so many dust eddies. This chaos wears at me.
Yes, I realize that I precipitated a large amount of this. Yes, I admit it I have formulated and fomented this. Yes, I still insist this was necessary. A greater good will come from it in time, but I need some iota of resolution that will not crack as soon as I blink.
The invisible carpet under my feet has been pulled out again and I lay here, flat on my ass, wondering why? Why? Can krazy glue mend my shattered life, my shattered heart? Can anything? And krazy glue would be oh-so apropos. A fine line of cyanoacrylate which can put anything back together....or so they claim. A nasty gel which is poison to ingest or smell. It works when it works.
The bandage solutions that have worked prior are just that, bandages. They do not cover the wounds completely and they certainly do not mend. The wounds seep past the edges, jagged flesh and plasma ooze.
My evil dream of this morning still unsettles me, prevents sleep 20 hours later. "You're not going anywhere." It haunts me. I lay there, shivering, afraid to move. Surrounded by bleak, I stand at the mountain. I see no way through it nor a way around it. I have neither explosives to drill with nor struts to build with. And yet...I will find a way. I must.
Yes, I realize that I precipitated a large amount of this. Yes, I admit it I have formulated and fomented this. Yes, I still insist this was necessary. A greater good will come from it in time, but I need some iota of resolution that will not crack as soon as I blink.
The invisible carpet under my feet has been pulled out again and I lay here, flat on my ass, wondering why? Why? Can krazy glue mend my shattered life, my shattered heart? Can anything? And krazy glue would be oh-so apropos. A fine line of cyanoacrylate which can put anything back together....or so they claim. A nasty gel which is poison to ingest or smell. It works when it works.
The bandage solutions that have worked prior are just that, bandages. They do not cover the wounds completely and they certainly do not mend. The wounds seep past the edges, jagged flesh and plasma ooze.
My evil dream of this morning still unsettles me, prevents sleep 20 hours later. "You're not going anywhere." It haunts me. I lay there, shivering, afraid to move. Surrounded by bleak, I stand at the mountain. I see no way through it nor a way around it. I have neither explosives to drill with nor struts to build with. And yet...I will find a way. I must.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
When the World Is Running Down
I have had a month of revelation. And nothing, not a single damned thing, compares to what I've learned in the last 48 hours.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
When every dream I've ever had has been shattered
When I look at the world and see a tower of rubble
When all I want is to be beaten because it will hurt less than this torture
When all I am is random pixels
When I turn a corner into a dead end
When I can't protect the ones I love
When I don't know if I can endure the joy of another sunrise
When every god I know has clay feet
What do I do?
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
To quote my brother: Deal. Cope. Go on.
Because what other choice do I have?
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
When every dream I've ever had has been shattered
When I look at the world and see a tower of rubble
When all I want is to be beaten because it will hurt less than this torture
When all I am is random pixels
When I turn a corner into a dead end
When I can't protect the ones I love
When I don't know if I can endure the joy of another sunrise
When every god I know has clay feet
What do I do?
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
To quote my brother: Deal. Cope. Go on.
Because what other choice do I have?
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Not Writer's Block, More Like Writer's Speedhump
Not a writer's block. A block is something that you build with. This is something I must climb over or work around. Rarely happens any longer, but it does happen. Spent so many hours on my last assignment that I am numb and disinclined to write anything. I've looked at it, mulled it, edited it, rewritten it, vivisected it, dissected it and otherwise thrown it hither and yon. Count up the hours I've put into the piece already and think, better off tossing and starting fresh than deal with the frustration of banging my head in this drivel any more. It does not sing to me. It does not flow. I SEE the work in it. It is all nails in the roadway, flattening my tyres. Problem is with four flat tyres, I cannot go forward. Instead, I sit here cranking the stereo full blast which drains the battery (today's picks: Savage Garden Custom Mix and Robyn's Personal Police Mix. Is Robyn revisiting her past, hmmm? Ripping scabs perhaps?) Maybe I'll just find that random phrase generator website and use that for inspiration. Or call AAA for a boost and tow. Boost and tow? Boost and tow...yeah. That works. Later.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Cook Until the Correct Internal Temperature is Reached or How Post- Partum Depression Helped Create a Chef
Cooking relaxes me. It is methodical, improves hand-eye coordination, uses math skills, teaches chemistry. It yields an immediate tangible result. And it so impresses people when they taste my work. They don't expect it of me to not only be able to cook (after all, there are cookbooks) but do it well and enjoy it. Enjoy the doing, that is. But I know that having the right equipment, cookbooks, ingredients makes it much easier to get a good result. As is knowing when and how to substitute or not.
My oldest loves to cook and wants to be a chef. Loves it. Has a real talent for it. She has the nose, tastebuds creativity, vision and courage to do great things in the kitchen. If she doesn't kill her nose and tastebuds with cigarettes and alcohol, she'll go far. She has that intangible, too. Star quality. People love watching her cook, listening to her talk about food. I can see her with her own show one day.... "Fusion Vegan" "Vegetarian Visions" "Breuklyn Heat"
I flatter myself that I had a hand in the creation of this wonderful person. Not just the obvious of being there at her conception and birth, giving her 23 chromosomes and an ancestry but more. That I gave her foundations and knowledge for her ambition and a hand in the creation of HER as a feeling, thinking, creating, strong person. Encouraged and am still encouraging her to achieve and be what she wants to be. To have courage where I have none to live the life she is destined to live. Not mine or her dad's. Hers.
I've cooked since I was a little kid. When I was about six, my mom decided she did not want to cook any longer. It brought her no pleasure and was one more thing that was not appreciated or even noticed by those around her. So she felt anyway. And she stopped. I opened cans, used the toaster, the stove top. And learned to feed myself in more ways than just the obvious.
My mom died when I was 27. When I had my first child four years later, I missed her. Natural feeling, to miss your own mother when you become one. I felt...lost. Clueless. Alone. Helpless. My world was turned topsy turvy. Forget about asking for help, I could not even formulate the question. Find someone to answer? Admit that I was totally inept, incompetent, unable to do something that women had always done, men too? And done naturally, effortlessly? There was nothing natural about it, not for me.
I thought I knew it all. I spent plenty of time with my friends' kids or at kid places. I liked being with them, taking them places. I read all the books and took the classes. How hard could it be? Boy, talk about clueless! The 24/7 responsibility of caring for this squalling, spasming, sucking five pound person who never slept? Never stopped crying? Never stopped needing? The books made it sound SOOOO easy. It was not easy. Not for me. It was... tragic.
I went from being a high powered executive, always on the go to being a downsized stay at home mom. There was no rug under my feet. No order. No quiet. How do I cope with this? How do I learn this? How do I fake it?
If I do things I know how to do, easy repetitious tasks, I'll be able to pass. They have to be interruptible too. Because every hour, every half hour, every quarter hour, she needed to be fed. Or changed. Or talked to. Or held. Okay, that was good, the holding. Holding her holding me. Laying on the sofa with her on top of me. Not thinking. Just feeling her heartbeat against mine. So good.
To calm myself, to bring a sense of order to my world, I cooked. Holding her in my left arm while my right hand measured or chopped or stirred. I'd prep it all for her and give her the cup or the piece of carrot. Say to her, "Throw it in the pot, sweets." "Pour it into the mixer, love." "Stir it. More. Yes, dear, like that." "Okay now, taste it." From when she was old enough to clasp, perhaps 3, 4 months, we cooked.
Soups. Pancakes. Cookies. Pies. Chocolate cake. Stews. Chicken marsala. Chili. Vegetable cutlets. Potato vindaloo. Sauteed stringbeans. Bread. Noodle kugel. If I could find a recipe for it, we cooked it.
We did this. And I slowly became a person again. Started to feel not quite so helpless. Even good. Now and then. What my little one and I made today! Come try it. My brother, my friends would stop by and we would feed them. They'd eat our creations while I sat there, topless, nursing my babe. Calm. Peaceful. For a few minutes out of the chaos, I was in control. And it felt good.
I like to think that influenced her. Our cooking together. We've never stopped. We still cook together. Now she instructs me. We talk about spices, compare rolling pins, flour sifting techniques, the melting point of apples and the smoke point of oils. I am so proud to have had a part in this.
And yes. I do cook with my other girls. Who knows?
My oldest loves to cook and wants to be a chef. Loves it. Has a real talent for it. She has the nose, tastebuds creativity, vision and courage to do great things in the kitchen. If she doesn't kill her nose and tastebuds with cigarettes and alcohol, she'll go far. She has that intangible, too. Star quality. People love watching her cook, listening to her talk about food. I can see her with her own show one day.... "Fusion Vegan" "Vegetarian Visions" "Breuklyn Heat"
I flatter myself that I had a hand in the creation of this wonderful person. Not just the obvious of being there at her conception and birth, giving her 23 chromosomes and an ancestry but more. That I gave her foundations and knowledge for her ambition and a hand in the creation of HER as a feeling, thinking, creating, strong person. Encouraged and am still encouraging her to achieve and be what she wants to be. To have courage where I have none to live the life she is destined to live. Not mine or her dad's. Hers.
I've cooked since I was a little kid. When I was about six, my mom decided she did not want to cook any longer. It brought her no pleasure and was one more thing that was not appreciated or even noticed by those around her. So she felt anyway. And she stopped. I opened cans, used the toaster, the stove top. And learned to feed myself in more ways than just the obvious.
My mom died when I was 27. When I had my first child four years later, I missed her. Natural feeling, to miss your own mother when you become one. I felt...lost. Clueless. Alone. Helpless. My world was turned topsy turvy. Forget about asking for help, I could not even formulate the question. Find someone to answer? Admit that I was totally inept, incompetent, unable to do something that women had always done, men too? And done naturally, effortlessly? There was nothing natural about it, not for me.
I thought I knew it all. I spent plenty of time with my friends' kids or at kid places. I liked being with them, taking them places. I read all the books and took the classes. How hard could it be? Boy, talk about clueless! The 24/7 responsibility of caring for this squalling, spasming, sucking five pound person who never slept? Never stopped crying? Never stopped needing? The books made it sound SOOOO easy. It was not easy. Not for me. It was... tragic.
I went from being a high powered executive, always on the go to being a downsized stay at home mom. There was no rug under my feet. No order. No quiet. How do I cope with this? How do I learn this? How do I fake it?
If I do things I know how to do, easy repetitious tasks, I'll be able to pass. They have to be interruptible too. Because every hour, every half hour, every quarter hour, she needed to be fed. Or changed. Or talked to. Or held. Okay, that was good, the holding. Holding her holding me. Laying on the sofa with her on top of me. Not thinking. Just feeling her heartbeat against mine. So good.
To calm myself, to bring a sense of order to my world, I cooked. Holding her in my left arm while my right hand measured or chopped or stirred. I'd prep it all for her and give her the cup or the piece of carrot. Say to her, "Throw it in the pot, sweets." "Pour it into the mixer, love." "Stir it. More. Yes, dear, like that." "Okay now, taste it." From when she was old enough to clasp, perhaps 3, 4 months, we cooked.
Soups. Pancakes. Cookies. Pies. Chocolate cake. Stews. Chicken marsala. Chili. Vegetable cutlets. Potato vindaloo. Sauteed stringbeans. Bread. Noodle kugel. If I could find a recipe for it, we cooked it.
We did this. And I slowly became a person again. Started to feel not quite so helpless. Even good. Now and then. What my little one and I made today! Come try it. My brother, my friends would stop by and we would feed them. They'd eat our creations while I sat there, topless, nursing my babe. Calm. Peaceful. For a few minutes out of the chaos, I was in control. And it felt good.
I like to think that influenced her. Our cooking together. We've never stopped. We still cook together. Now she instructs me. We talk about spices, compare rolling pins, flour sifting techniques, the melting point of apples and the smoke point of oils. I am so proud to have had a part in this.
And yes. I do cook with my other girls. Who knows?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Thor's Mighty Hammer
There was a thunder and rain storm tonight. Not an unusual occurrence in central Florida in July by any stretch of the imagination, but this was the first lightening storm since I moved out. Watching the jagged bolts from my hotel room, wondering if they could see the beauty of it a few miles away, smell the ozone. And if their power was out, too. I have discovered one advantage to hotels vs houses. There is only one clock to reset. No VCR's, no TIVO's, no coffee makers, microwaves, no other magically timed devices running in the background of our day to day lives fattening the local electricity providers in this room! I sat here, AC off, lights out, only the glow of my laptop (18 minutes left!) and the CRACK! of the lightening... thinking, "I want to go out and play. I want to feel the rain on me. I want to feel that jolt. I want my hair to sizzle." Easy for me to say, I've never been struck despite having lived in two areas known for electric storms, never even had a TV explode, never lost my server, my fertility, my sanity...well not to that anyway. Do I sound wistful? Perhaps. It will take a great jolt to wake me from my lethargy. A very great jolt to waken me fully and completely, no snooze alarm giving me 10 or 20 more minutes of life slumber, my living daydream. Or my living nightmare....
Sunday, July 8, 2007
House is Not A Home Pt I
While the terms are often used interchangeably, even synonymously, they are not the same. They don't feel the same. They don't taste the same. Think about it. The place you work may be in your home but it is not of your home. Whether it is a corner of a room, a desk, a separate wing, it is set apart from the overall living space, just as the segments of your mind fly off on their own, centripetal force flinging them hither and yon. So these terms form a funnel, the meaning of each more precise and yet more vague as the words shift from logical to emotional.
A building can be anything. It may be a house, it may contain your home, but it is a generic term for walls, floors, ceilings. It applies just as well to a castle as to a shed, chicken coop, multi-occupant apartment complex, shotgun duplex or waste disposal plant. It is a neutral word containing no emotional baggage. Nobody says, " This is my building" when pointing to their residence. Well, nobody except me. Because I lived in a building, not a home. When I feel kindly towards it, I say it is the house I used to live in, my former primary residence aka ‘the house of bad karma'. That at least indicates some ownership of it although not much. Only financial and legal ties, not emotional ones.
House? House is the first winnowing of the definition. House implies living space as opposed to commercial, farm, penal or storage space. It goes to the usage of the space. Can you say, "This jail is a house. This garage is a house." No. It fills your mouth with wrong. House will have sleeping, eating, bathing areas. The purpose of house is for people at rest, not things or activities. House provides the most basic shelter to any who have the key. Unless your name is House, in which case any who try to enter will find the doors locked tight. There is no key. My, that's a familiar feeling. Is House his own ‘house of bad karma'? Shall I send him a bonsai to care for, to warn him of pending evil?
Final term for today's lesson: Home. To quote Dorothy, "I want to go home." It is all anyone wants. To find the place that is not just shelter from the storms but shuts out the storms, gives safe haven, comfort. The place that never locks you out, but lets you in, keyless, naked and wraps you in warmth. Home goes to the essential and the existential. Home has nothing to do with a physical place and everything to do with velvet silver ropes that bind you to it. Do you have a home? Do I? Have I ever?
Many years ago, I searched for a house. Investment, shelter, tax advantages. All the usual logical claptrap which one needs to justify a big ticket item. I looked and looked, rejecting so many buildings, so many houses. Too small, too big, too crowded, too empty, too near, too far. I used every excuse that I did not even know was an excuse because I was looking for something else and didn't know it, was not aware what I searched for.
And then...
One day...
I opened the door. Saw a dusty mantle of a too small, too old, too many windows, too few baths house. With parquet floors. And it said, "I'm lonely. Please care for me and I will be your home. You will fill me and I will protect you." And I said, "Yes. I will love you. I will fill you with laughter and you will dry my tears."
I walked in, laid my head on that dusty mantle of that ugly little house. "I will make you my home. And I will love you and cherish you."
House replied, "I will be your home. You will be safe in me. I will protect you."
"I will paint you and make you beautiful."
"I feel beautiful already. For I am looking through your eyes at me. I see me as you see me. " and House was happy. "I will keep the evil outside, away."
"I will bring my friends here, House. I will fill your walls with good things, with joy and pleasure and shared pain."
House said, "Pain shared is lessened and joy shared is doubled."
I kissed the mantle. "I do."
And the realtor said, "Do? Do what? You like it? You haven't even seen the upstairs. Or the backyard or kitchen."
I replied, "I don't have to see it. Believing is seeing. I believe."
House smiled for the first time in many years. So I kissed it again.
Home. I was home.
A building can be anything. It may be a house, it may contain your home, but it is a generic term for walls, floors, ceilings. It applies just as well to a castle as to a shed, chicken coop, multi-occupant apartment complex, shotgun duplex or waste disposal plant. It is a neutral word containing no emotional baggage. Nobody says, " This is my building" when pointing to their residence. Well, nobody except me. Because I lived in a building, not a home. When I feel kindly towards it, I say it is the house I used to live in, my former primary residence aka ‘the house of bad karma'. That at least indicates some ownership of it although not much. Only financial and legal ties, not emotional ones.
House? House is the first winnowing of the definition. House implies living space as opposed to commercial, farm, penal or storage space. It goes to the usage of the space. Can you say, "This jail is a house. This garage is a house." No. It fills your mouth with wrong. House will have sleeping, eating, bathing areas. The purpose of house is for people at rest, not things or activities. House provides the most basic shelter to any who have the key. Unless your name is House, in which case any who try to enter will find the doors locked tight. There is no key. My, that's a familiar feeling. Is House his own ‘house of bad karma'? Shall I send him a bonsai to care for, to warn him of pending evil?
Final term for today's lesson: Home. To quote Dorothy, "I want to go home." It is all anyone wants. To find the place that is not just shelter from the storms but shuts out the storms, gives safe haven, comfort. The place that never locks you out, but lets you in, keyless, naked and wraps you in warmth. Home goes to the essential and the existential. Home has nothing to do with a physical place and everything to do with velvet silver ropes that bind you to it. Do you have a home? Do I? Have I ever?
Many years ago, I searched for a house. Investment, shelter, tax advantages. All the usual logical claptrap which one needs to justify a big ticket item. I looked and looked, rejecting so many buildings, so many houses. Too small, too big, too crowded, too empty, too near, too far. I used every excuse that I did not even know was an excuse because I was looking for something else and didn't know it, was not aware what I searched for.
And then...
One day...
I opened the door. Saw a dusty mantle of a too small, too old, too many windows, too few baths house. With parquet floors. And it said, "I'm lonely. Please care for me and I will be your home. You will fill me and I will protect you." And I said, "Yes. I will love you. I will fill you with laughter and you will dry my tears."
I walked in, laid my head on that dusty mantle of that ugly little house. "I will make you my home. And I will love you and cherish you."
House replied, "I will be your home. You will be safe in me. I will protect you."
"I will paint you and make you beautiful."
"I feel beautiful already. For I am looking through your eyes at me. I see me as you see me. " and House was happy. "I will keep the evil outside, away."
"I will bring my friends here, House. I will fill your walls with good things, with joy and pleasure and shared pain."
House said, "Pain shared is lessened and joy shared is doubled."
I kissed the mantle. "I do."
And the realtor said, "Do? Do what? You like it? You haven't even seen the upstairs. Or the backyard or kitchen."
I replied, "I don't have to see it. Believing is seeing. I believe."
House smiled for the first time in many years. So I kissed it again.
Home. I was home.
My Addiction: To Have and To Hold From This Day Forth
Paranoia does not mean they aren’t out to get you. I think its usually justified. I have everything I do so encrypted, so password protected that sometimes I have a problem figuring out how to get into my own files. You may wonder why I do that. Fear blankets me. It is my innermost skin, the layer closest to the throbbing veins and arteries. It runs through me with every heartbeat and synaptic charge. It is such a relief to be back in my pro tempore edificium. After spending time in a place that despises me, even though I was with people I love, I needed my safe haven. It is freeing. I had been told this, that freedom was addictive. And you can only feel free when you feel safe, when you live without fear. There is no justification in this world, in this beautiful terrible awesome world that god created for ANYONE to live in fear. None. I will fight no more forever. The war with myself is over. I will be at peace. Without fear.
The Only Addiction Worth Having
Paranoia does not mean they aren’t out to get you. I think its usually justified. I have everything I do so encrypted, so password protected that sometimes I have a problem figuring out how to get into my own files. You may wonder why I do that. Fear blankets me. It is my innermost skin, the layer closest to the throbbing veins and arteries. It runs through me with every heartbeat, with every synaptic charge. It is such a relief to be back in my pro tempore edificium. After spending time in a place that despises me, even though I was with people I love, I needed my safe haven. It is freeing. I had been told this, that freedom was addictive. And you can only feel free when you feel safe, when you live without fear. There is no justification in this world, in this beautiful terrible awesome world that god created for ANYONE to live in fear. None. I will fight no more forever. The war with myself is over. I will be at peace. Without fear.
Friday, July 6, 2007
1st Thurs at OMA
July 5 2007
"Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth"
Tonight was First Thursday at the Orlando Museum of Art. I’ve gone to special evenings at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Met, but never here. Heard it was a big singles scene. Who told me that? K? S? Well I guess either of them and their respective husbands would know if it was a singles scene or not, if there was anything worth hunting. Never been my thing, singles places, but I guess I’ll be finding out at some point in the future. In any case, the place reeked of couples and coupledom. Not coupling, that’s a smell I enjoy. This was more....complacent.
The theme was illustration, artwork created for posters, publicity, books, newspapers, magazines. Diving into the surrealism of "Tsunami Moon", the genetic memory of "I’ll Never See Another Butterfly", and that of a friend of a friend’s work [www.briandemeter.com], the work that spoke to me, that hit me, that hurt me to look at it, was "Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth."
I know that feeling. The cold steel, grey or blued. Slick and hard and smooth. Sliding between my anxious hungry lips. Running my tongue around the sight and flicking it, sucking on the shaft. Cradling the grip in one hand, while the other strokes the chamber, making sure it does not slip from my eager mouth. Hoping for fulfillment. Counting the seconds until it shoots into my throat, into my brain...
Oh I cannot cry with a gun in my mouth. I will laugh with joy, but I will not cry.
There have been times when, speeding down a rain slicked road, the traffic poles were a beacon welcoming me, calling to me. If I swerved just a little bit...but the terror of not dying stops me. To risk, not death, but incapacitation? That I will not do. Trapped in a life I hate, a me I despise, is a sorry enough existence. To be trapped in a body, useless, my mind still functional? Who will pull the plug? Who?
If I cannot live, I do not want to be here.
Homicide can be more subtle than suicide . Driving a person to drink, to drugs, to self-doubt on a scale beyond imagining, making a person crazy enough to want to end life. If I have lost touch with this world, I might as well sever my links to it. But I have not lost touch. It was taken from me. And I want it back.
I will not die. I have a mission, a calling, a charge to complete. I have orders to follow and I cannot leave this world until my work is done.
I am not a gambler, spinning the chamber and cocking the hammer. I will love it, I will make love to it, but I am faking every second. I will pull away and let it discharge wherever it will but not into me. Oh no. Not into me. No. I have a life to live. And I will.
"And I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."
"Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth"
Tonight was First Thursday at the Orlando Museum of Art. I’ve gone to special evenings at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Met, but never here. Heard it was a big singles scene. Who told me that? K? S? Well I guess either of them and their respective husbands would know if it was a singles scene or not, if there was anything worth hunting. Never been my thing, singles places, but I guess I’ll be finding out at some point in the future. In any case, the place reeked of couples and coupledom. Not coupling, that’s a smell I enjoy. This was more....complacent.
The theme was illustration, artwork created for posters, publicity, books, newspapers, magazines. Diving into the surrealism of "Tsunami Moon", the genetic memory of "I’ll Never See Another Butterfly", and that of a friend of a friend’s work [www.briandemeter.com], the work that spoke to me, that hit me, that hurt me to look at it, was "Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth."
I know that feeling. The cold steel, grey or blued. Slick and hard and smooth. Sliding between my anxious hungry lips. Running my tongue around the sight and flicking it, sucking on the shaft. Cradling the grip in one hand, while the other strokes the chamber, making sure it does not slip from my eager mouth. Hoping for fulfillment. Counting the seconds until it shoots into my throat, into my brain...
Oh I cannot cry with a gun in my mouth. I will laugh with joy, but I will not cry.
There have been times when, speeding down a rain slicked road, the traffic poles were a beacon welcoming me, calling to me. If I swerved just a little bit...but the terror of not dying stops me. To risk, not death, but incapacitation? That I will not do. Trapped in a life I hate, a me I despise, is a sorry enough existence. To be trapped in a body, useless, my mind still functional? Who will pull the plug? Who?
If I cannot live, I do not want to be here.
Homicide can be more subtle than suicide . Driving a person to drink, to drugs, to self-doubt on a scale beyond imagining, making a person crazy enough to want to end life. If I have lost touch with this world, I might as well sever my links to it. But I have not lost touch. It was taken from me. And I want it back.
I will not die. I have a mission, a calling, a charge to complete. I have orders to follow and I cannot leave this world until my work is done.
I am not a gambler, spinning the chamber and cocking the hammer. I will love it, I will make love to it, but I am faking every second. I will pull away and let it discharge wherever it will but not into me. Oh no. Not into me. No. I have a life to live. And I will.
"And I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Visions. God gives visions. Man does not have them, formulate them. That is hubris, wrong. Do I have hubris? Damn straight I do. But do I have visions? Dare I to dream, at this point when so much is already crushed? Every step feels so wrong. Every path is kudzu around my ankles, a bramble at my throat, thorns putting out my eyes.
I am Rapunzel, my hair cut off. I fall from the tower of destruction into the rose bushes. No, no, no. It was the prince who fell in his attempt to rescue her. If I fall into the bushes, then I am.....? She was already cast out, homeless, destitute, lost. The poor deluded prince so loved her he risked life, limb, fortune, reputation for her. Lost injured souls, traveling many highways until they were reunited and her tears restored his sight.
So who am I? The lost princess, helpless, awaiting her savior? The heartbroken, blind prince seeking his beloved? I am both, I must be both, together. I will save myself when I am whole. I will only be whole when I have the courage to be saved.
My dream? I just want to be me. I want to know who I am. I want the blinders off, the ear stoppers out and the ice to melt. I want to feel.
I do not remember how to feel.
I have always had a way of working around an assignment. Change it to suit myself, manipulate it, sculpt it. Rule breaker? No, rule bender, I stop before the snap point.
You wonder what my hopes, aspirations are, what I want. To feel. Then, maybe, just maybe instead of being an observer, writing what others feel, perhaps I’ll be able to write myself.
You tell me I am the cowardly lion. That I am afraid to take a chance or step outside my self-created boxes. You tell me I am the scarecrow seeking wisdom, so stupid about the simplest rules of human existence. But I, if I were asked, would say: I am the tin man, without a heart. Without a heart, what good is wisdom? Knowledge is a book in a foreign language without love to translate it. Without a heart, how can you have courage? There must be passion for nothing is worth defending or fighting for without love.
I am an empty shell, afraid I will remain an empty shell. Forever.
I am Rapunzel, my hair cut off. I fall from the tower of destruction into the rose bushes. No, no, no. It was the prince who fell in his attempt to rescue her. If I fall into the bushes, then I am.....? She was already cast out, homeless, destitute, lost. The poor deluded prince so loved her he risked life, limb, fortune, reputation for her. Lost injured souls, traveling many highways until they were reunited and her tears restored his sight.
So who am I? The lost princess, helpless, awaiting her savior? The heartbroken, blind prince seeking his beloved? I am both, I must be both, together. I will save myself when I am whole. I will only be whole when I have the courage to be saved.
My dream? I just want to be me. I want to know who I am. I want the blinders off, the ear stoppers out and the ice to melt. I want to feel.
I do not remember how to feel.
I have always had a way of working around an assignment. Change it to suit myself, manipulate it, sculpt it. Rule breaker? No, rule bender, I stop before the snap point.
You wonder what my hopes, aspirations are, what I want. To feel. Then, maybe, just maybe instead of being an observer, writing what others feel, perhaps I’ll be able to write myself.
You tell me I am the cowardly lion. That I am afraid to take a chance or step outside my self-created boxes. You tell me I am the scarecrow seeking wisdom, so stupid about the simplest rules of human existence. But I, if I were asked, would say: I am the tin man, without a heart. Without a heart, what good is wisdom? Knowledge is a book in a foreign language without love to translate it. Without a heart, how can you have courage? There must be passion for nothing is worth defending or fighting for without love.
I am an empty shell, afraid I will remain an empty shell. Forever.
Monday, July 2, 2007
losing my virginity
after much persuasion on the part of many, i am taking the plunge. reminds me of that day many moons ago when i took part in another rite of passage. will this be as painful? pain is a learning experience, i am fine with that. will it be more pleasurable? i hope so. certainly in the long run....
many life changes loom. the warp is set, throw the bobbins, bang it, shift. again. examine the pattern. add beads, feathers from a broken wing, scraps of memory. lather rinse repeat.
many life changes loom. the warp is set, throw the bobbins, bang it, shift. again. examine the pattern. add beads, feathers from a broken wing, scraps of memory. lather rinse repeat.
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