We're almost to the ground when I look out and see it go by. SUNY Purchase. For years... four years, I lived down there in that landscape of brown brick and looked up as the planes went overhead. I'd hear them land and take off from Westchester airport. We learned to pause during outdoor speeches and lectures. There was no fighting with it. it was just plane noise. I remember sitting out on the mall and watching the jets descending overhead.
And here I am, 16 years later, looking down on that campus from the window of a landing plane. A long way from home and a long way from that tall child who ran off to art school hoping for someone to validate her talents. The mall of brown bricks was lovely on a sunny day and trecherous in the rain. I arrived there as a born again christian, 25 lbs. over weight and wearing ill fitted, conservative clothes. By the end of my first year I was a hippie. By the end of four years I had travelled all over Europe, come back, and was ready to try speaking with my own voice. Teasing that voice out of the layers of programming, assumption and fear would take... well it's an ongoing process.
I have more in common with that girl on the mall than I used to. I'm much younger than I used to be. I've come back to her hair color. I'm running around in suits now, although it all fits much better. I like my mom again. I paint again. Yet there's things she went through that just aren't a part of my life make up anymore. I don't get into religious conundrums and no longer rail at an indecipherable god. I no longer feel guilty about listening to music with a beat. I don't have friends dying of AIDS anymore. I don't sweat the differences. It's just about being further down the road, I guess.
At dinner I sit next to a woman who is Swiss. She asks after my surname and I explain the original german spelling, before a new country and a couple world wars warranted its editing.
"Oh! you know what that means, right?"
No.
K-u-e-h-n. that means "courage".
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Back to change
I’m different.
Now.
For some reason, one month later, after stuffing life in and out of luggage, learning to cram my liquids into clear plastic bags and going through airport security enough times that I know the art of putting shoes, jacket and laptop into bins in just the proper manner so as to be pulled out and back on quickly, I’m changed.
I don’t feel so very different. I feel like someone racing against time, time spent in lines, on planes and across time zones, to do what I said I’d do. You want good user data. I told you I would get you good user data. Fuck, I hope I get good user data. I hope I don’t miss my flight home.
It’s what keeps me constant in this time zone tour that I find amusing. My anchor is my ipod. There’s tracks I listen to for meditating or exercise. Especially there’s the “Hard Candy” playlist I come back to every time I’m heading from hotel to meeting. Each song has the line “no one’s gonna stop me” in there at least once. In five minutes I’ve gotten the pep talk I need. I’m no longer someone nervous about not knowing what she’s doing simply from fear of stepping over the precipice into a new challenge. This is the opportunity to move, act, and inquire that I’ve hoped for and there’s simply no room for hedging or hiding behind some girlish façade. The only thing telling me that I might be doing badly or not knowing what I’m really doing at all is just fear. Fuck the shyness, I can do this. If I turn up the volume that scared voice can’t compete. No one’s gonna stop me, now.
I don’t feel so very different. I feel, well, tired. Tired but determined. What tells me something is different are the looks reflected back to me in other people’s faces. Some of them are funny looks. Some of them I’d say border on flirtation if it weren’t simply too inappropriate for that to be the case. Some of them are congratulatory recognition.
I can’t live there, though, in that reflected face. It’s just not safe. It’s liquid plastic, unable to truly support anything real. The real part I never get to see. It will never show up in the mirror no matter how many times stop to I do my hair and make sure my suit’s fit is impeccable. I can’t see it but I get to see with it if I don’t take my own tunes too seriously.
For now.
Now.
For some reason, one month later, after stuffing life in and out of luggage, learning to cram my liquids into clear plastic bags and going through airport security enough times that I know the art of putting shoes, jacket and laptop into bins in just the proper manner so as to be pulled out and back on quickly, I’m changed.
I don’t feel so very different. I feel like someone racing against time, time spent in lines, on planes and across time zones, to do what I said I’d do. You want good user data. I told you I would get you good user data. Fuck, I hope I get good user data. I hope I don’t miss my flight home.
It’s what keeps me constant in this time zone tour that I find amusing. My anchor is my ipod. There’s tracks I listen to for meditating or exercise. Especially there’s the “Hard Candy” playlist I come back to every time I’m heading from hotel to meeting. Each song has the line “no one’s gonna stop me” in there at least once. In five minutes I’ve gotten the pep talk I need. I’m no longer someone nervous about not knowing what she’s doing simply from fear of stepping over the precipice into a new challenge. This is the opportunity to move, act, and inquire that I’ve hoped for and there’s simply no room for hedging or hiding behind some girlish façade. The only thing telling me that I might be doing badly or not knowing what I’m really doing at all is just fear. Fuck the shyness, I can do this. If I turn up the volume that scared voice can’t compete. No one’s gonna stop me, now.
I don’t feel so very different. I feel, well, tired. Tired but determined. What tells me something is different are the looks reflected back to me in other people’s faces. Some of them are funny looks. Some of them I’d say border on flirtation if it weren’t simply too inappropriate for that to be the case. Some of them are congratulatory recognition.
I can’t live there, though, in that reflected face. It’s just not safe. It’s liquid plastic, unable to truly support anything real. The real part I never get to see. It will never show up in the mirror no matter how many times stop to I do my hair and make sure my suit’s fit is impeccable. I can’t see it but I get to see with it if I don’t take my own tunes too seriously.
For now.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
renewal pruning
That vicaria has grown since I adopted this long neglected garden patch. I've made attempts at trimming or controlling her on more that a few occasions. I chop back at the running roots and evict the new growth from places it emerges in attempts to hog all possible water and sun for itself. I noticed that the blooming was pretty weak this year. She's getting lazy. Finally someone tells me how to manage this rambler. Cut it down to 3", pull up running roots and cut a canal around where I'd wish it to end. Today I can only handle the first part and take a thick corner of bushes down to the ground. In the center of the spread, no surprise, is a mass of dead stalks.
Now, I am told, I can prune the re-growth properly and keep it under control. However I can't help but to feel for this plant as I have at the many shoots. A neglected growth that's been allowed to follow her instincts even as they lead astray. And now comes the "renewal pruning" what feels more, I'm sure, like punishment. I've been renewal pruned a couple of times in my life, I know. Cut down to the ground with little more explanation than what hindsight has mustered. I wish I could grab all the drunks I see struggle and show them this plant. I can list the women I'd like to bring to this garden every week to see the progress. I wish I could pull up an audience of all the people I know who have been in pain and wondered why oh why the universe seemed to be taking a crap on them.
Why? Why did HE leave you? Why did you loose the money? Why didn't it work out? Why did things fall apart? Why did you get so sick? Why must you suffer?
Don't cling to those branches of yourself as they are taken away. they were never you to begin with. They were killing you in the middle, really, your life was becoming choked out with the ever expanding volume of yourself. The vicaria will not ask me why I snip her vigorously back to the ground. She will just grow again. And this time, she'll bloom much brighter to celebrate life while it lasts, knowing that me and my knippers are never far away.
Now, I am told, I can prune the re-growth properly and keep it under control. However I can't help but to feel for this plant as I have at the many shoots. A neglected growth that's been allowed to follow her instincts even as they lead astray. And now comes the "renewal pruning" what feels more, I'm sure, like punishment. I've been renewal pruned a couple of times in my life, I know. Cut down to the ground with little more explanation than what hindsight has mustered. I wish I could grab all the drunks I see struggle and show them this plant. I can list the women I'd like to bring to this garden every week to see the progress. I wish I could pull up an audience of all the people I know who have been in pain and wondered why oh why the universe seemed to be taking a crap on them.
Why? Why did HE leave you? Why did you loose the money? Why didn't it work out? Why did things fall apart? Why did you get so sick? Why must you suffer?
Don't cling to those branches of yourself as they are taken away. they were never you to begin with. They were killing you in the middle, really, your life was becoming choked out with the ever expanding volume of yourself. The vicaria will not ask me why I snip her vigorously back to the ground. She will just grow again. And this time, she'll bloom much brighter to celebrate life while it lasts, knowing that me and my knippers are never far away.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
the burp of the century
There are vending machines in the Pentagon. And when the percussive force of the sept. 11 jet plane attack went through the building all of the glass in those machines burst. People came out of their vault like hovels of secret activity to find the halls filled with candy and cokes. Oh, and the smell of burning horse hair.
I had another 9/11 burp. Years ago, high, I had worked on a job for TJX, Marshall's & TJ Maxx parent corporation. We went out to their headquarters, filmed all sorts of people in suits, smiling and waiving. After a few sleepless nights we committed all sorts of antics in the name of their promo video. Put them in a Brady Bunch type grid, even. What was the ad agency that had us do that? the one with the grossly fat project manager. She had to ride up to our office in the sardine can elevator (which could fit 3 comfortably or 4 skinny folk) by herself. I did all the text titles for that piece. All the photoshop files of names lined up neatly in the bottom so as to match up with the video of the smiling face, not block the face yet be inside title safe. There were dozens of names. I was so tired, after weeks without sleep, I accidentally fell asleep and missed a key meeting. I was the kind of tired where after a moment I could fall over, unwakeable, and be none the wiser. Even B~ played guitar in his sleep and hallucinated a conversation with me.
In the days after the September 11 attacks I stood on a subway platform in the heart of Boston reading the roster of people who were on each of the planes sent crashing into new york. Some names I knew out right and for a moment it brought a real horror into my bones. Hands tied, yelled at by strange men, last moments, cell phone calls, honey - I love you - bye bye. Some names I knew I was grateful not to be seeing as they had their plans changed by chance or employers. But others on the list seemed somehow vaguely familiar. I couldn't place them. I couldn't see a face. Were they from a job where I used to work? Had they been people I just talked to over the phone, like at that theater job? I couldn't tell. So many names filter through our fingers, it's easy to misplace the people.
So B~ was in town this weekend and we caught up on 9 years of stuff. And as he described his experience of 9/11, the hallmark of modern day catching up for folks who haven't seen each other in a bit, more pieces fell into place. A bunch of people from TJX were on planes intended for CA and ended... That's how I knew those names, from making all of the titles. I couldn't remember the faces, I wasn't doing the video part. But I knew the white letters that defined who they were.
So there you go.
I wish 9/11/01 would just go away. I wish I never again had to say "my sister worked in WTC, tower 2, and on that day her alarm clock failed to ring so she was running 45 minutes late". 45 minutes. Does that mean she was blessed? That would make other people cursed and just I don't buy that. I wish there was no "where were you on that day" subtext to a discussion of millennial events. I wish the whole mess would stop lending it's foul, poorly spiced after-burps to contemporary life and let us simply digest our grief and confusion in peace.
When we were in New York 2 weeks ago, the day said sister was hooded with her PHD, my brother wanted to go see the site. I haven't been back there since October of 2001.
It's a big hole filled with night sky, now. "Where were they? Were they big?" he asked. I stretched my arm out to the side and high into he sky. "you'd have to look up like this." I craned my neck back. "I tricked M~ into going up onto the roof, once, and it was so quiet up there. Up is the only OUT for a city this big."
In that hole, one month on, were the burning remains of workers, computers, jet planes and paper work. Angry chards of architectural exoskeleton howled in the smoke. In that pile, somewhere, was a pair of pumps she kept in her desk. What happened to those shoes? That's the only question I have left for September 11. I guess the rest is just rhetoric.
I had another 9/11 burp. Years ago, high, I had worked on a job for TJX, Marshall's & TJ Maxx parent corporation. We went out to their headquarters, filmed all sorts of people in suits, smiling and waiving. After a few sleepless nights we committed all sorts of antics in the name of their promo video. Put them in a Brady Bunch type grid, even. What was the ad agency that had us do that? the one with the grossly fat project manager. She had to ride up to our office in the sardine can elevator (which could fit 3 comfortably or 4 skinny folk) by herself. I did all the text titles for that piece. All the photoshop files of names lined up neatly in the bottom so as to match up with the video of the smiling face, not block the face yet be inside title safe. There were dozens of names. I was so tired, after weeks without sleep, I accidentally fell asleep and missed a key meeting. I was the kind of tired where after a moment I could fall over, unwakeable, and be none the wiser. Even B~ played guitar in his sleep and hallucinated a conversation with me.
In the days after the September 11 attacks I stood on a subway platform in the heart of Boston reading the roster of people who were on each of the planes sent crashing into new york. Some names I knew out right and for a moment it brought a real horror into my bones. Hands tied, yelled at by strange men, last moments, cell phone calls, honey - I love you - bye bye. Some names I knew I was grateful not to be seeing as they had their plans changed by chance or employers. But others on the list seemed somehow vaguely familiar. I couldn't place them. I couldn't see a face. Were they from a job where I used to work? Had they been people I just talked to over the phone, like at that theater job? I couldn't tell. So many names filter through our fingers, it's easy to misplace the people.
So B~ was in town this weekend and we caught up on 9 years of stuff. And as he described his experience of 9/11, the hallmark of modern day catching up for folks who haven't seen each other in a bit, more pieces fell into place. A bunch of people from TJX were on planes intended for CA and ended... That's how I knew those names, from making all of the titles. I couldn't remember the faces, I wasn't doing the video part. But I knew the white letters that defined who they were.
So there you go.
I wish 9/11/01 would just go away. I wish I never again had to say "my sister worked in WTC, tower 2, and on that day her alarm clock failed to ring so she was running 45 minutes late". 45 minutes. Does that mean she was blessed? That would make other people cursed and just I don't buy that. I wish there was no "where were you on that day" subtext to a discussion of millennial events. I wish the whole mess would stop lending it's foul, poorly spiced after-burps to contemporary life and let us simply digest our grief and confusion in peace.
When we were in New York 2 weeks ago, the day said sister was hooded with her PHD, my brother wanted to go see the site. I haven't been back there since October of 2001.
It's a big hole filled with night sky, now. "Where were they? Were they big?" he asked. I stretched my arm out to the side and high into he sky. "you'd have to look up like this." I craned my neck back. "I tricked M~ into going up onto the roof, once, and it was so quiet up there. Up is the only OUT for a city this big."
In that hole, one month on, were the burning remains of workers, computers, jet planes and paper work. Angry chards of architectural exoskeleton howled in the smoke. In that pile, somewhere, was a pair of pumps she kept in her desk. What happened to those shoes? That's the only question I have left for September 11. I guess the rest is just rhetoric.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
9.5 years to rebuild
He is a person I knew for five years, the middle two and a half of which we were a couple. For three years I worked at the company he co-owned. For the last twelve months I knew him I was still his employee at the company which began popping at the seams from all the drugs and drinking, but I was no longer his mate. Between the January when I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore and the January when I told him I couldn't talk to him anymore was the day in August when he confronted me while I was trying to walk into Clarendon Liquors. It was about 5:30 pm. It was a Tuesday. I dropped the handle of the door after he marched away and wandered around Copley Square.
I remember looking up at the sun as it filtered through the trees. I was about to loose my job because of my behavior at a party thrown by one of our clients. Just a 3 hour boat cruise around Boston Harbor at sunset with 2 open bars on board. I promised I wouldn't get drunk. I walked up the gang plank, stepped onto the boat, walked 3 paces to the bar and ordered a vodka tonic. I promised I wouldn't be high. But, someone rolled a joint in the office before we took a cab over and, well, can't let good 'tween go to waste. It was just a 3 hour party. Is it so difficult to keep a lid on it for 3 hours? well, yeah. And here I stood, accused of ruining a client relationship due to behaviors I don't even remember doing. I didn't do that... I DIDN'T DO THAT!! I said. I knew he must have been making it all up. I didn't know what a black out was, then.
The problem was, obviously, that I said I wouldn't get drunk and I did. Fine. I'll quit. I. Will. Quit.
...
Bull. shit.
"How many times have you made that promise before? Remember last March when you 'stopped'? That lasted 2 weeks. How about last weekend? How long did you last? a day? Remember two days ago when you had a pile of your drug of choice in front of you, knew that putting that shit into your body would not change anything at all, yet couldn't NOT put the shit into your body? Remember that? Stop? Now you think you can just stop? Show me when that tactic has EVER worked."
"Oh. I can't stop. I can't stop drinking."
"NO."
"So that must mean, if I can't stop, that I'm some sort of alcoholic?"
"Right."
"So that must mean I need the... the... that thing.. OH NO!! No way in hell! NO NO NO! I'm not going to any meeting things or doing any step things and I am not, NOT getting brain washed! NO way man!"
By this point I had stopped walking, I was standing there, on the street, just holding onto a tree and looking up at the sun while some... thing... or someone, talked into my ear.
"Remember Lynn? Was she brainwashed? No, she's one of the people who you admire most in the world. Remember Christina? Was she brainwashed? no, she was not. And Bob? He is living out his dream!"
I let go of the tree. I wandered back to the office, which was empty by then, and opened the yellow pages. I called a number I found in there and one hour later, my life was pointing 180° in the opposite direction.
The next day, he found my discarded paraphernalia stuffed into a filing cabinet. He noticed that I was insisting on leaving the office at 5 pm. Within a week he had guessed what was different. I was going to meetings. If ever we fought before, those conflicts were diminished by our new arguments. As the fog lifted I was a tougher person to be around and to push around. Still worse, I began coming in early with a most annoyingly sunny disposition and I would say "hi" to all sorts of strange people when we walked anywhere. I caught a very bad virus that December and while I convalesced at home, my job was terminated.
January 4th a fight ensued which I ended by telling him I couldn't talk to him again. I told him that we had grown to toxic for each other and it was time for our friendship to go dormant.
"Will I ever talk to you again?"
"Yes, In the spring." Both of our lives were absolutely falling apart from the weight of the lies we'd built them upon.
In March, maybe April of this year (9 years later) we bumped into each other on face book. He has a cute kid and looks happy. We said 'hi' via email. Last week I got a note saying he was in Chicago. I suggested coffee.
We chatted over the phone. We went for a walk and had lunch. Perfectly decent and intelligent person to talk to... and I was completely unable to bring forward the sensation that I knew this person. Beyond the tactical details of life and facial features, I did not recognize him. I asked if he was having the same experience and he said "yes". We are like strangers with the scoop on each other's back stories. We probably never, ever, just sat and had an interesting and intelligent conversation like this. He talks on the phone with his wife twice during the day and the love in his voice and respect in his language are just not that of the person I had a relationship with.
At one point, years ago, I started doing astrological charts for folks to earn some side money. I decided to cast a chart for 5:30 pm, August 4, 1998, Boston MA. In the resulting chart several major planets were trining ( at 120°). Trines are moments when something gets easy, when connections are made. It's like putting a wire with very low resistance between elements of an electrical circuit. Charts mostly just look sort of technical and lopsided. But that day, in that place and at that time, with 2 grand trines in the sky, the chart looked like a lovely star. I fancied that this moment of grace was my star rising. As I look into the clear eyes of this man and hear him talk about the past 9 years I realize that, on that day, the star was rising for all who needed it.
I remember looking up at the sun as it filtered through the trees. I was about to loose my job because of my behavior at a party thrown by one of our clients. Just a 3 hour boat cruise around Boston Harbor at sunset with 2 open bars on board. I promised I wouldn't get drunk. I walked up the gang plank, stepped onto the boat, walked 3 paces to the bar and ordered a vodka tonic. I promised I wouldn't be high. But, someone rolled a joint in the office before we took a cab over and, well, can't let good 'tween go to waste. It was just a 3 hour party. Is it so difficult to keep a lid on it for 3 hours? well, yeah. And here I stood, accused of ruining a client relationship due to behaviors I don't even remember doing. I didn't do that... I DIDN'T DO THAT!! I said. I knew he must have been making it all up. I didn't know what a black out was, then.
The problem was, obviously, that I said I wouldn't get drunk and I did. Fine. I'll quit. I. Will. Quit.
...
Bull. shit.
"How many times have you made that promise before? Remember last March when you 'stopped'? That lasted 2 weeks. How about last weekend? How long did you last? a day? Remember two days ago when you had a pile of your drug of choice in front of you, knew that putting that shit into your body would not change anything at all, yet couldn't NOT put the shit into your body? Remember that? Stop? Now you think you can just stop? Show me when that tactic has EVER worked."
"Oh. I can't stop. I can't stop drinking."
"NO."
"So that must mean, if I can't stop, that I'm some sort of alcoholic?"
"Right."
"So that must mean I need the... the... that thing.. OH NO!! No way in hell! NO NO NO! I'm not going to any meeting things or doing any step things and I am not, NOT getting brain washed! NO way man!"
By this point I had stopped walking, I was standing there, on the street, just holding onto a tree and looking up at the sun while some... thing... or someone, talked into my ear.
"Remember Lynn? Was she brainwashed? No, she's one of the people who you admire most in the world. Remember Christina? Was she brainwashed? no, she was not. And Bob? He is living out his dream!"
I let go of the tree. I wandered back to the office, which was empty by then, and opened the yellow pages. I called a number I found in there and one hour later, my life was pointing 180° in the opposite direction.
The next day, he found my discarded paraphernalia stuffed into a filing cabinet. He noticed that I was insisting on leaving the office at 5 pm. Within a week he had guessed what was different. I was going to meetings. If ever we fought before, those conflicts were diminished by our new arguments. As the fog lifted I was a tougher person to be around and to push around. Still worse, I began coming in early with a most annoyingly sunny disposition and I would say "hi" to all sorts of strange people when we walked anywhere. I caught a very bad virus that December and while I convalesced at home, my job was terminated.
January 4th a fight ensued which I ended by telling him I couldn't talk to him again. I told him that we had grown to toxic for each other and it was time for our friendship to go dormant.
"Will I ever talk to you again?"
"Yes, In the spring." Both of our lives were absolutely falling apart from the weight of the lies we'd built them upon.
In March, maybe April of this year (9 years later) we bumped into each other on face book. He has a cute kid and looks happy. We said 'hi' via email. Last week I got a note saying he was in Chicago. I suggested coffee.
We chatted over the phone. We went for a walk and had lunch. Perfectly decent and intelligent person to talk to... and I was completely unable to bring forward the sensation that I knew this person. Beyond the tactical details of life and facial features, I did not recognize him. I asked if he was having the same experience and he said "yes". We are like strangers with the scoop on each other's back stories. We probably never, ever, just sat and had an interesting and intelligent conversation like this. He talks on the phone with his wife twice during the day and the love in his voice and respect in his language are just not that of the person I had a relationship with.
At one point, years ago, I started doing astrological charts for folks to earn some side money. I decided to cast a chart for 5:30 pm, August 4, 1998, Boston MA. In the resulting chart several major planets were trining ( at 120°). Trines are moments when something gets easy, when connections are made. It's like putting a wire with very low resistance between elements of an electrical circuit. Charts mostly just look sort of technical and lopsided. But that day, in that place and at that time, with 2 grand trines in the sky, the chart looked like a lovely star. I fancied that this moment of grace was my star rising. As I look into the clear eyes of this man and hear him talk about the past 9 years I realize that, on that day, the star was rising for all who needed it.
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