I'm flying, but I'm just a sparrow under the vast sky. I'm tall on my new self powered machine but yet so small. The lake, starting just there, 4 feet to my right, marches off into the darkness all the way to the horizon. The black unmeasureableness of it mesmerizes me. In the morning, with that line of horizon punctuated by a round sun, I can easily quantify my presence and size against its glimmer. But after dark the sea monster emerges. Her big, black mouth, whose throat stretches thousands of miles away to the cold North Atlantic, might swallow me up so easily. In just one tiny bight of the those toothy windswept waves, I could be gone. Lost forever in that inky dream.
Hungry Lake Michigan reminds me every day that I am small; that it is hungry; of how hard I must work to maneuver just 9 miles of her shore. Lest I think that the zenith of power lies in the pumping engines of those cars on the highway to my left, her dark water rolls in the breeze, splashing over a barrier to make a reach for me. What is power when one embodies force?
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
dark
It's that dark time. Time to pull the black air out of one's eyes. Along rain glistened streets feet shuffle like a marching shadow. We are reduced by winter to silhouettes. Shapes chasing desires into the night. From sleep to sleep.
Monday, August 17, 2009
fog
I got funny looks heading out this morning. Rain poured down, the sky glowered a deep grey, and there I was, wheeling my bike out for my commute. Turning on the lights and heading the hissing wheels out under thick, boiling skies, I wouldn't miss this for the world. Shreds of some low clouds finger the skyline, tasting each building. How sweet is sweet home, Chicago?
A cold wind brushes in from the lake - maybe a interloper from Canada- and soon I'm not just alone out here but awash in a chill cloud. The normal vista breaks down into the chunks which reveal themselves in the orb of each light. Here a lonely trail, here an empty beach, here water still as bathwater. The air is full of this cold water - a mystery.
Love and death - two of the biggest how-to mysteries known to humanity. I'd like to think that, having failed at one, I might well avoid the other. But as the roots in my hair grow I see the dots of silver growing from my head. "Who knows", I tell the mirror, "who knows... You might just fall in love yet."
A cold wind brushes in from the lake - maybe a interloper from Canada- and soon I'm not just alone out here but awash in a chill cloud. The normal vista breaks down into the chunks which reveal themselves in the orb of each light. Here a lonely trail, here an empty beach, here water still as bathwater. The air is full of this cold water - a mystery.
Love and death - two of the biggest how-to mysteries known to humanity. I'd like to think that, having failed at one, I might well avoid the other. But as the roots in my hair grow I see the dots of silver growing from my head. "Who knows", I tell the mirror, "who knows... You might just fall in love yet."
Monday, August 10, 2009
Why I like Monday
In the silence of Monday morning I move through an abandoned world accompanied by just a few other hard-working ghost people. The lake shore is open and empty while the sand itself seems to heave sighs of relief. Evidence of two hot days of abuse - piles of broken bottles, soda cups, napkins and food wrappings, bags of junk left from cookouts - make mountains at her edges. The cyan light of morning opens its eye over Chicago to illuminate an exhausted relief. Thank god, the people are gone!
In the empty locker room I open a makeup case and my chosen weapons make clattering plastic sounds across the counter. In this antiseptic and air-conditioned world I erase the evidence of a weekend. Cover-up liquid will conceal dark circles under the eyes and some zits which grew from sweating out in the hot sun while working in the dirt. The little pot labeled "paint" will do the trick to hide the tiny purple dots which appeared all around my face when, disgusted with my own eating, I decided to purge up Saturday's dinner. The blood vessels that burst in my right eye during that process still leak brilliant red. It can't be fixed, so I change the part in my hair, snap the hairdryer out of the wall holster and re-style the coif. Now long bangs fall in front of the right side of my face and conceal the bloody evidence. I tell people I threw up because of heat exhaustion. I hide any traces leading to a different truth. I don't really care if there's anything wrong - any thing wrong with me or any injury. I only care that there be no appearance of my having slipped.
I open my blush compact carefully. The cake inside is shattered and sits in jagged, cracked piles that threaten to dump out of the container and make a mess at any second. It looks as broken up as I feel. I gently poke some color out with my brush and snap the little compact shut to hide the evidence within a smooth, black case.
I slip on the dress I toted along. It's a light, linen thing bought during a trip to Finland. That's the place to shop, for sure. For me, I have to go where all the women are built like linebackers to find clothing that won't yell "her shoulders are too big! Her legs are too stocky!" The more I bike to work the lighter the clothes I wear are becoming. Linen dress makes a neat line and as there's less on my hips to hold it up, it floats down below the knees. I review the evidence of yesterday's fast in the mirror. It made a good start in fighting back this disgusting mass of self. I step back to review the results of my efforts.
The weekend, with its terrifying stretches of unstructured time, is over. Back to Monday, I wake up extra early to the comfort of a schedule, times to work and times to eat, clear times to exercise and times to rest. Wrapped in paint and cloth, I'm ready.
In the empty locker room I open a makeup case and my chosen weapons make clattering plastic sounds across the counter. In this antiseptic and air-conditioned world I erase the evidence of a weekend. Cover-up liquid will conceal dark circles under the eyes and some zits which grew from sweating out in the hot sun while working in the dirt. The little pot labeled "paint" will do the trick to hide the tiny purple dots which appeared all around my face when, disgusted with my own eating, I decided to purge up Saturday's dinner. The blood vessels that burst in my right eye during that process still leak brilliant red. It can't be fixed, so I change the part in my hair, snap the hairdryer out of the wall holster and re-style the coif. Now long bangs fall in front of the right side of my face and conceal the bloody evidence. I tell people I threw up because of heat exhaustion. I hide any traces leading to a different truth. I don't really care if there's anything wrong - any thing wrong with me or any injury. I only care that there be no appearance of my having slipped.
I open my blush compact carefully. The cake inside is shattered and sits in jagged, cracked piles that threaten to dump out of the container and make a mess at any second. It looks as broken up as I feel. I gently poke some color out with my brush and snap the little compact shut to hide the evidence within a smooth, black case.
I slip on the dress I toted along. It's a light, linen thing bought during a trip to Finland. That's the place to shop, for sure. For me, I have to go where all the women are built like linebackers to find clothing that won't yell "her shoulders are too big! Her legs are too stocky!" The more I bike to work the lighter the clothes I wear are becoming. Linen dress makes a neat line and as there's less on my hips to hold it up, it floats down below the knees. I review the evidence of yesterday's fast in the mirror. It made a good start in fighting back this disgusting mass of self. I step back to review the results of my efforts.
The weekend, with its terrifying stretches of unstructured time, is over. Back to Monday, I wake up extra early to the comfort of a schedule, times to work and times to eat, clear times to exercise and times to rest. Wrapped in paint and cloth, I'm ready.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Another dead drunk.
Dog darts out in front of me, thick black hair flying as he intently chases a truck heading down Lake Shore Drive. It's a hopeless pursuit for the pup. I look around but find no owner in sight. But dogs are sprinting animals and it darted in front of me with no notice and poor calculation. Only a quick squeeze of the breaks saved it.
Further down the line I negotiate the turns at Fullerton and start down the long, flat stretch by North Avenue beach. It's a golden morning and the lake is as calm as bathwater. Up ahead there's something on the trail, a truck of sorts. Getting closer I see it's an ambulance. While a woman holds her bicycle up for inspection another figure, strapped to a gurney, head and neck in supports, little running shoes poking out the end, is lifted into the back of the waiting vehicle of mercy. It could have been one of those chance encounters - a tiny mistake which normally falls well within the margin of forgivability. But this time the math didn't add up together so well. Tiny mistakes, miscalculations of motion or distance at exactly the moment when the jogger tries to move abruptly without looking. There's no malice. Just... bam.
Bam! "Hey Caroline, congratulations - a few days late. In other news our friend Mario - one of our class of '98 group - OD'ed on Monday. Went to the wake tonight and the funeral is tomorrow".
Mario... He wasn't just on the perimeter of people I got sober with. He was a force. He piled us into his beat up car to drive to & from commitments. He showed up at my house every Sunday for 3 months in that big crown vic & by the end I had a driver's license. Then, one day, a different light appeared in his eyes. Rather, it was a sudden lack of light. Wasn't anything alarming, at first. He started chasing tail, doing guy stuff. Soon enough he just didn't seem as interested in people. He didn't talk or engage in conversation but his eyes made furtive movements as if looking around for something not offered by current company.
Last year when I visited Boston I asked after him and was told that he was "out there". He'd relapsed into his old life. And now? Another body dead. Dead in the dumbest of ways. Perhaps that body had more sense than his mind and knew that the only way cease the chemical abuse was to simply STOP. He over dosed. Sought pleasure until it killed him. Maybe it was planned. Maybe he wanted off the roller coaster and deliberately...
I don't know. I just know that the glint of clever blue eyes and that grin on a dimpled face are gone. Gravelly bass voice, gone. Why him? Why not me? I've made my share of bad decisions in sobriety. I've gone off the deep end with 'problems other than alcohol'. Why him, not me?
Bam! It all seems such a roll of hypersensitive cosmic dice. Maybe not me because it's not me, with my failings, that keeps me clean after all. Today it adds up. Just for today...
Further down the line I negotiate the turns at Fullerton and start down the long, flat stretch by North Avenue beach. It's a golden morning and the lake is as calm as bathwater. Up ahead there's something on the trail, a truck of sorts. Getting closer I see it's an ambulance. While a woman holds her bicycle up for inspection another figure, strapped to a gurney, head and neck in supports, little running shoes poking out the end, is lifted into the back of the waiting vehicle of mercy. It could have been one of those chance encounters - a tiny mistake which normally falls well within the margin of forgivability. But this time the math didn't add up together so well. Tiny mistakes, miscalculations of motion or distance at exactly the moment when the jogger tries to move abruptly without looking. There's no malice. Just... bam.
Bam! "Hey Caroline, congratulations - a few days late. In other news our friend Mario - one of our class of '98 group - OD'ed on Monday. Went to the wake tonight and the funeral is tomorrow".
Mario... He wasn't just on the perimeter of people I got sober with. He was a force. He piled us into his beat up car to drive to & from commitments. He showed up at my house every Sunday for 3 months in that big crown vic & by the end I had a driver's license. Then, one day, a different light appeared in his eyes. Rather, it was a sudden lack of light. Wasn't anything alarming, at first. He started chasing tail, doing guy stuff. Soon enough he just didn't seem as interested in people. He didn't talk or engage in conversation but his eyes made furtive movements as if looking around for something not offered by current company.
Last year when I visited Boston I asked after him and was told that he was "out there". He'd relapsed into his old life. And now? Another body dead. Dead in the dumbest of ways. Perhaps that body had more sense than his mind and knew that the only way cease the chemical abuse was to simply STOP. He over dosed. Sought pleasure until it killed him. Maybe it was planned. Maybe he wanted off the roller coaster and deliberately...
I don't know. I just know that the glint of clever blue eyes and that grin on a dimpled face are gone. Gravelly bass voice, gone. Why him? Why not me? I've made my share of bad decisions in sobriety. I've gone off the deep end with 'problems other than alcohol'. Why him, not me?
Bam! It all seems such a roll of hypersensitive cosmic dice. Maybe not me because it's not me, with my failings, that keeps me clean after all. Today it adds up. Just for today...
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
under the see
Truly the unconditional love & romance I thought was outside me was never there. It was always hiding in the deep dark sea of myself. I have to be willing to dive, hold breath, hold on. Feel pressure and cold on the skin pushing me back to the surface. I don't belong on the surface of my own life. There's more life under the sea, in the deep.
mom-over
Let's call it a mom-over. I catch myself warning myself about every little hazard only to subsequently react and swing hard in the opposite direction. I ride my bike fast and reckless. I've figured out how to swing my hips and swerve the bike at tight angles. In my head I hear myself reply to her. As I see my day my thoughts reach out to her in conversation.
"This is what I meant..." "Don't you think..."
Some of these mental conversations are painful as her attitudes about women or black people present themselves. Then I remember, I'm not allowed to talk with people who aren't there.
And some day she won't be. There will be no jam. There will be no one seeing me to the Buffalo airport - no reason to even fly there. I hear, in my gut, what she meant when she said that my siblings would be all I'd have when she's gone.
And she will go. Maybe it's something about people in their 7th decade. She could trudge along for another 20 years like her grandmother. But I have to hide watering eyes as I hug her good bye. After security, after I turn and waive and see that lone, boney hand in the air, I strut toward the gate in high heels, eyes flowing with tears.
I may never see her again. Who knows. But that voice will always be in my head!
"This is what I meant..." "Don't you think..."
Some of these mental conversations are painful as her attitudes about women or black people present themselves. Then I remember, I'm not allowed to talk with people who aren't there.
And some day she won't be. There will be no jam. There will be no one seeing me to the Buffalo airport - no reason to even fly there. I hear, in my gut, what she meant when she said that my siblings would be all I'd have when she's gone.
And she will go. Maybe it's something about people in their 7th decade. She could trudge along for another 20 years like her grandmother. But I have to hide watering eyes as I hug her good bye. After security, after I turn and waive and see that lone, boney hand in the air, I strut toward the gate in high heels, eyes flowing with tears.
I may never see her again. Who knows. But that voice will always be in my head!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
If you don't like spats, don't start one.
Ok, here are just two examples that provide a sample of what I mean.
Two weeks ago I put out a request for a 1-word description of me, which I needed for a questionnaire. You wrote that mom would call me fussy and then you said "princess dry me". First of all, I've never heard mom call me fussy and I don't believe you have the right to speak for her. Secondly, whatever possessed you bring up the dry-me thing? That was inappropriate. Facebook is not a private forum & that comment went out to people I see every day and to friends that I work with! I was so embarrassed!! How do you think it felt to have someone ask me about "this dry-me thing?" It escapes me how could you have thought that would be acceptable.
This is just one of a few instances where I was getting a string of positive comments and you followed up with something inappropriate and derogatory. It felt like you were slapping me in the face to make sure I didn't think to well of myself.
When I posted the NPR article about the rural medical camp I really DID just want to know if they have that problem in places with government run medicine. I have fb friends living in countries like Canada, France, Germany & the UK and hoped to attract their input. And I did get an answer to that question, actually. As I read the comments you left it became obvious that you had not even listened to / read the article!
I don't live in an echo-chamber of liberal politics and new-thought Christianity out here. I have some very close friends who are politically conservative and practicing different forms of Christianity or other religions than I do. And it's not that we "agree to disagree" or avoid certain topics. No, we embrace those differences and have a respectful exchange of ideas. I value how they see things different from me and receive the same respect. It has consistently been my experience that differences of opinion matter far less than comportment. Respect, kindness & tolerance frame my friendships, not opinions.
I know in the past that I have sent emails regarding religion and politics which endeavored to push my opinion upon you & disregarded your thoughts and experience. I was wrong to be so arrogant about what I think and truly regret having done this. So, for the past 2 years I've made every effort to move past how we are different but to honor your opinions and focus on how we're the same.
But, I feel alone in this effort. You always seem to be preaching at me or trying to change my mind. You seem to always be aiming to put me down - and I don't think you see it because when you say things that put me down you laugh like you think it's funny! It's not funny! I've never laughed!
Well, that's all I got. I'm on empty.
Two weeks ago I put out a request for a 1-word description of me, which I needed for a questionnaire. You wrote that mom would call me fussy and then you said "princess dry me". First of all, I've never heard mom call me fussy and I don't believe you have the right to speak for her. Secondly, whatever possessed you bring up the dry-me thing? That was inappropriate. Facebook is not a private forum & that comment went out to people I see every day and to friends that I work with! I was so embarrassed!! How do you think it felt to have someone ask me about "this dry-me thing?" It escapes me how could you have thought that would be acceptable.
This is just one of a few instances where I was getting a string of positive comments and you followed up with something inappropriate and derogatory. It felt like you were slapping me in the face to make sure I didn't think to well of myself.
When I posted the NPR article about the rural medical camp I really DID just want to know if they have that problem in places with government run medicine. I have fb friends living in countries like Canada, France, Germany & the UK and hoped to attract their input. And I did get an answer to that question, actually. As I read the comments you left it became obvious that you had not even listened to / read the article!
I don't live in an echo-chamber of liberal politics and new-thought Christianity out here. I have some very close friends who are politically conservative and practicing different forms of Christianity or other religions than I do. And it's not that we "agree to disagree" or avoid certain topics. No, we embrace those differences and have a respectful exchange of ideas. I value how they see things different from me and receive the same respect. It has consistently been my experience that differences of opinion matter far less than comportment. Respect, kindness & tolerance frame my friendships, not opinions.
I know in the past that I have sent emails regarding religion and politics which endeavored to push my opinion upon you & disregarded your thoughts and experience. I was wrong to be so arrogant about what I think and truly regret having done this. So, for the past 2 years I've made every effort to move past how we are different but to honor your opinions and focus on how we're the same.
But, I feel alone in this effort. You always seem to be preaching at me or trying to change my mind. You seem to always be aiming to put me down - and I don't think you see it because when you say things that put me down you laugh like you think it's funny! It's not funny! I've never laughed!
Well, that's all I got. I'm on empty.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
sisters...
I thought my facebook page was my face book page. What I didn't realize was that these snippets I make become pieces of other people's pages. And, whatever shows up in someone else's space they feel the right to decorate in a manner of their own choosing. Unfortunately, the pieces that I made co me back to me covered with the graffiti of others' ideas. mm.
And all this to leave me wondering why, oh why, my sister is my sister. Why god did two people so radically different choose to be born from the same womb? I keep thinking that if somehow I could figure out the right words, figure out why someone like this is in my life, things would finally go smoothly.
Part of me, the part that's pretty tired of her being who she is and not who I think I should have in my life as a 'sister', wants to attack.
"where is this Christianity you keep talking about? I've been watching your actions for the past few years now and I just don't see it. You say Jesus is at the wheel - but who's the monkey at the keyboard?"
But I can't do that. She will only be who she has been created to be. I keep coming back to the notion that my siblings are in my life so that I might learn unconditional love. I don't get to decide who they should be and how they should act before I decide to show them love.
And all this to leave me wondering why, oh why, my sister is my sister. Why god did two people so radically different choose to be born from the same womb? I keep thinking that if somehow I could figure out the right words, figure out why someone like this is in my life, things would finally go smoothly.
Part of me, the part that's pretty tired of her being who she is and not who I think I should have in my life as a 'sister', wants to attack.
"where is this Christianity you keep talking about? I've been watching your actions for the past few years now and I just don't see it. You say Jesus is at the wheel - but who's the monkey at the keyboard?"
But I can't do that. She will only be who she has been created to be. I keep coming back to the notion that my siblings are in my life so that I might learn unconditional love. I don't get to decide who they should be and how they should act before I decide to show them love.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Unworthiness, Depression, Grief, Fireworks.
Going to see them on July 4 was mandatory, or so it seemed. How could we NOT go out and watch fireworks on the night of July 4? We'd be missing out on something essential, surely. Now, when I got back to school in the fall no one inquired as to whether I had gone to see fireworks on July 4. I guess it's just that they were so rare. Like having your own orange in your Christmas stocking, fireworks came once a year and could not be missed.
But unlike the oranges, fireworks don't come from a store and don't come cheap. Village picnics and fairs which featured pyrotechnic shows tended to charge admission either in the form of an entry fee or by way of food vendors and games that dazzled children would instantly crave. Add to this the hassle of keeping track of everyone (at least one child would get in a huff and want to adventure off on their own) to the constant worry of having one's pocket picked and July 4 was no holiday for my parents. They tried all sorts of means to get around actually taking us somewhere but still sating the desire for fireworks. We drove and drove around. We parked on top of a hill in the dark and were told that we would be able to see all the fireworks shows in the different towns if we just looked real fast. This met with immediate complaint after the first few "look over there! quick! Now there's some over there!". Fireworks were supposed to be big! They should fill the sky and leave the sensation that stellar glitter would soon fall all over one's person.
Finally, my parents hit upon taking us to "Hamlin park". Hamlin Park housed a village picnic for East Aurora and every year they held fireworks. We drove down dark, deserted side streets into the parking lot of a nearby firehouse and watched the show that came up over the trees. I wondered why we were the only ones watching all these fireworks. I wondered why half the show didn't manage to come up taller than the trees. How was one supposed to view them? I sensed something was wrong but didn't realize this was a workaround for a few years. My by then high school aged oldest sisters would murmur about how it would be fun if we went "into the park". My mom began to stay home and not go at all. I couldn't understand how she would think of missing fireworks. That would be like skipping Christmas! But as an adult who has skipped a couple Christmases, I get it now. Something was slightly off. But no one really wanted to bother righting a ship so off kilter from years of habit. My mom wasn't missing fireworks at all. she and my father were routinely bickering over money and debt with sparks that rained down on all of us. I smelled the smoke early, I heard the angry percussions through the wall my bedroom shared with theirs, but didn't understand the burn. Soon enough I knew that any school activity that would require me to bring in money was instantly "no". Ski club membership? NO. Yearbook down payment? No. AFS trip? No. New cleats for field hockey? No. I didn't even ask after 10th grade.
In the summer before I left for college, I worked at the nursing home in East Aurora. I'd get off work at 3, my mom would get off at 5. So for 2 hours I would either go to the public library or walk around town to while waiting for her to ferry me home. One day, in my wanderings, I decided to follow signs to "Hamlin Park". A massive open space hedged along all sides by thick maple trees greeted my shock. Just then I realized the extent of the July 4 ruse. I saw the space full of bodies, vendors selling popcorn and cotton candy, stalls offering games of chance, and all the interpersonal shenanagens of a hot summer night. I realized that the fireworks we had seen from a parking lot were a way of not having to take us into a park where Dad might be pressed upon to spend money.
I wish he were here today to tell me that he meant for it to be better. I wish he could tell me that we didn't go into the park because I was unworthy but because of his own fear and financial insecurity. I wish I'd known how hard things were going for him and had been the kind of kid who would understand. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time twisting the repurcussions of his troubles into a mentality of un-deservedness. But I know where he is, Dad has plenty now. And today I do, too.
Like a puff the flame goes out and drifts into the summer night.
But unlike the oranges, fireworks don't come from a store and don't come cheap. Village picnics and fairs which featured pyrotechnic shows tended to charge admission either in the form of an entry fee or by way of food vendors and games that dazzled children would instantly crave. Add to this the hassle of keeping track of everyone (at least one child would get in a huff and want to adventure off on their own) to the constant worry of having one's pocket picked and July 4 was no holiday for my parents. They tried all sorts of means to get around actually taking us somewhere but still sating the desire for fireworks. We drove and drove around. We parked on top of a hill in the dark and were told that we would be able to see all the fireworks shows in the different towns if we just looked real fast. This met with immediate complaint after the first few "look over there! quick! Now there's some over there!". Fireworks were supposed to be big! They should fill the sky and leave the sensation that stellar glitter would soon fall all over one's person.
Finally, my parents hit upon taking us to "Hamlin park". Hamlin Park housed a village picnic for East Aurora and every year they held fireworks. We drove down dark, deserted side streets into the parking lot of a nearby firehouse and watched the show that came up over the trees. I wondered why we were the only ones watching all these fireworks. I wondered why half the show didn't manage to come up taller than the trees. How was one supposed to view them? I sensed something was wrong but didn't realize this was a workaround for a few years. My by then high school aged oldest sisters would murmur about how it would be fun if we went "into the park". My mom began to stay home and not go at all. I couldn't understand how she would think of missing fireworks. That would be like skipping Christmas! But as an adult who has skipped a couple Christmases, I get it now. Something was slightly off. But no one really wanted to bother righting a ship so off kilter from years of habit. My mom wasn't missing fireworks at all. she and my father were routinely bickering over money and debt with sparks that rained down on all of us. I smelled the smoke early, I heard the angry percussions through the wall my bedroom shared with theirs, but didn't understand the burn. Soon enough I knew that any school activity that would require me to bring in money was instantly "no". Ski club membership? NO. Yearbook down payment? No. AFS trip? No. New cleats for field hockey? No. I didn't even ask after 10th grade.
In the summer before I left for college, I worked at the nursing home in East Aurora. I'd get off work at 3, my mom would get off at 5. So for 2 hours I would either go to the public library or walk around town to while waiting for her to ferry me home. One day, in my wanderings, I decided to follow signs to "Hamlin Park". A massive open space hedged along all sides by thick maple trees greeted my shock. Just then I realized the extent of the July 4 ruse. I saw the space full of bodies, vendors selling popcorn and cotton candy, stalls offering games of chance, and all the interpersonal shenanagens of a hot summer night. I realized that the fireworks we had seen from a parking lot were a way of not having to take us into a park where Dad might be pressed upon to spend money.
I wish he were here today to tell me that he meant for it to be better. I wish he could tell me that we didn't go into the park because I was unworthy but because of his own fear and financial insecurity. I wish I'd known how hard things were going for him and had been the kind of kid who would understand. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time twisting the repurcussions of his troubles into a mentality of un-deservedness. But I know where he is, Dad has plenty now. And today I do, too.
Like a puff the flame goes out and drifts into the summer night.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
No "one"
"Well, it all starts with a friendship. If you aren't friends first - what do you have?"
"I have you!"
He's on the other side of this mammoth bed, facing the other way. We've already been through another battery of pillow-talk questions. What do you like about me? Well, what do you like about me? I answer and ask those questions about this situation, this sex, while watching a pattern of street lights coming through venetian blinds dance across the ceiling. We've wandered into how things go with dating lives and online profiles. He's rolled away to stake out a position on the far side of the bed. The internet seems to be good for friends, but not for finding 'the one'.
"What do you mean?"
"You are here regardless of having sex or not. You are honest with me. I have a feeling that you would be there no matter what I needed."
"Well, I am your friend."
And it's true. Partly. I'm also, I suspect, his chump. I knew there was another woman he dated this spring. I knew because the few times I'd stop by there would be something different in the bathroom or two wine glasses in the kitchen sink. He says he told me, but he did not. I simply kept telling myself that my hope for him was that he'd be happy. And I hid my hand about attempts to date other men also. Now, he asks if I've been protecting him and I have to wonder, have YOU been protecting ME? I've been busy protecting myself.
"You are the only good thing to come from {that site}".
"You are the only person I've ever met on there that I'm still friends with."
"We'll do ok, just keep being honest with each other."
In the dark, no one can hear you smile. I'm not the one. I've never been anyone's "one" which is fine by me. It's never comfortable to feel the mantle of someone's myth fall over my shoulders. But it's true. He's not my myth or my solution, but my friend. I've realized that I already met "the one" right in my mirror.
At the gym I find myself dressing next to an African American woman. This could be the woman he dated. What was the dynamic of that? How did that end? Is he still talking with her? Is she in pocket, too, like I have been, at the ready for some future intimacy? I imagine him next to a dark skinned woman. So here I am, having sex with him again. Plunk, into the old rut we go, as if no time has passed between April and June.
Do I only have sex with him on the suspicion that at some point he'll come around and see me as being worth something more? Wouldn't I rather just be his friend? Part of me wants to smack him... look what you are passing up! Maybe he thinks I'm not interested in more? I know I've had too much to think, but one moment floats back into memory. One response still gives me pause.
"What do you like about me?"
"You are sweet."
"What does that mean?"
"You are accepting of what I want to do."
Suddenly sweet doesn't sound so hot. The man likes his sugar but this rots.
In the morning, after the usual 5:45 exercise of passion, he grabs my hand to keep me there. But I'm up and in the shower. Because all night one thing has forced me out of a sound sleep only to see him curled up on the opposite side of the bed. It's a cry. "Touch me."
"I have you!"
He's on the other side of this mammoth bed, facing the other way. We've already been through another battery of pillow-talk questions. What do you like about me? Well, what do you like about me? I answer and ask those questions about this situation, this sex, while watching a pattern of street lights coming through venetian blinds dance across the ceiling. We've wandered into how things go with dating lives and online profiles. He's rolled away to stake out a position on the far side of the bed. The internet seems to be good for friends, but not for finding 'the one'.
"What do you mean?"
"You are here regardless of having sex or not. You are honest with me. I have a feeling that you would be there no matter what I needed."
"Well, I am your friend."
And it's true. Partly. I'm also, I suspect, his chump. I knew there was another woman he dated this spring. I knew because the few times I'd stop by there would be something different in the bathroom or two wine glasses in the kitchen sink. He says he told me, but he did not. I simply kept telling myself that my hope for him was that he'd be happy. And I hid my hand about attempts to date other men also. Now, he asks if I've been protecting him and I have to wonder, have YOU been protecting ME? I've been busy protecting myself.
"You are the only good thing to come from {that site}".
"You are the only person I've ever met on there that I'm still friends with."
"We'll do ok, just keep being honest with each other."
In the dark, no one can hear you smile. I'm not the one. I've never been anyone's "one" which is fine by me. It's never comfortable to feel the mantle of someone's myth fall over my shoulders. But it's true. He's not my myth or my solution, but my friend. I've realized that I already met "the one" right in my mirror.
At the gym I find myself dressing next to an African American woman. This could be the woman he dated. What was the dynamic of that? How did that end? Is he still talking with her? Is she in pocket, too, like I have been, at the ready for some future intimacy? I imagine him next to a dark skinned woman. So here I am, having sex with him again. Plunk, into the old rut we go, as if no time has passed between April and June.
Do I only have sex with him on the suspicion that at some point he'll come around and see me as being worth something more? Wouldn't I rather just be his friend? Part of me wants to smack him... look what you are passing up! Maybe he thinks I'm not interested in more? I know I've had too much to think, but one moment floats back into memory. One response still gives me pause.
"What do you like about me?"
"You are sweet."
"What does that mean?"
"You are accepting of what I want to do."
Suddenly sweet doesn't sound so hot. The man likes his sugar but this rots.
In the morning, after the usual 5:45 exercise of passion, he grabs my hand to keep me there. But I'm up and in the shower. Because all night one thing has forced me out of a sound sleep only to see him curled up on the opposite side of the bed. It's a cry. "Touch me."
hot
Hot.
On the corner of Randolph and Upper Columbus I pass the artist formerly known as "purple coat lady". Her signature rolling luggage still sits at her side, but the heavy purple woolen coat has been traded down for a denim jacket. This garb also looks a bit hot for the weather. But her face is well tanned and almost looks to be happily turned toward the very bright morning sun.
For a few days i've been happily remarking on the return of the fat spider to the window outside my office. How they climb all the way up here and what they find to eat at this high perch I don't know. But she stretches her fine web across the window between the girders and grows fat and brown. today I hear the sound of thudding on the outside of the building and turn around to see the thin ropes going up the side of the building. in minutes smallish brown men with suction cups on their hands and only the smallest seat to secure thier tenuous ride up and down the outside of the building, have washed the windows clean. I look at them and marvel for a minute that they hang at such a height from such delicate threads, but to them this might be normal. Spiders of any size have learned not to look down.
Just for one more day I tell myself to look, observe, breathe and be. Not to think.
On the corner of Randolph and Upper Columbus I pass the artist formerly known as "purple coat lady". Her signature rolling luggage still sits at her side, but the heavy purple woolen coat has been traded down for a denim jacket. This garb also looks a bit hot for the weather. But her face is well tanned and almost looks to be happily turned toward the very bright morning sun.
For a few days i've been happily remarking on the return of the fat spider to the window outside my office. How they climb all the way up here and what they find to eat at this high perch I don't know. But she stretches her fine web across the window between the girders and grows fat and brown. today I hear the sound of thudding on the outside of the building and turn around to see the thin ropes going up the side of the building. in minutes smallish brown men with suction cups on their hands and only the smallest seat to secure thier tenuous ride up and down the outside of the building, have washed the windows clean. I look at them and marvel for a minute that they hang at such a height from such delicate threads, but to them this might be normal. Spiders of any size have learned not to look down.
Just for one more day I tell myself to look, observe, breathe and be. Not to think.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monster under the skin
A long walk down the lakeshore takes me out of the isolation of my home, further from the voices of crazy selfishness, into an afternoon like a modern take on Seurat's "Sunday after noon on Grande Jatte". Although in my version the people are plumper and far less likely to cover their corpulence with Victorian decorum. Sand in my shoes can be tolerated for just so long and I move to the edge of the surf, flirting with the water while the lake breathes.
White people play volleyball on Foster beach, Black men clog the one basketball court with a game of pickup. All manner of hair flies up and down the tiny concrete court. A tall man with his long dreds tied back, lifts his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He's well fed.
Rounding the bend to head down the long stretch of Foster beach, I get lost in a new found throng of people. Bikes, scooters, children waddling from the water to the family blanket all criss-cross my path. I marvel at how over weight so many of the people, especially children, are. I pass families with crying babies, men nursing coal fires awaiting meat and marshmallows, women with beaded hair flipping their heads in conversation. Kids laugh. Three scabs talk about the various painkillers they've tried out. Single women read books. Volleyball nets go up, picnics are packed up. Soccer games fill every possible open lot of space. How do they do it? How do people collect families about themselves like this? And, listening to a tottler squaling, I wonder if I'm quite sure this is something that I want?
I check my phone again. Yes I have signal. No, he hasn't called. Stop it. Keep breathing. Just be present to what's around you, the canvas of human activity.
At long last I find myself on a bench 3 miles from home. Give me a sign, God. What should I do? Give up? Go home? Just then, he calls. Come on over here.
And here we are again. What do I do here? Am I being selfish? What could I possibly add to this man's life? My god, we're opening this book up again...but personally I'm on a different page of this volume called 'love'. Here I am again. It's not yet midnight and I'm sprawled on my half of the king sized bed listening to him purr en route to dream land. Tired, can't sleep yet. Roll over and watch his expression go lax, become placid. Watch his real face emerge.
He's so much easier to be around than he used to be. Maybe I've learned to translate his translation better. Maybe without the immigration stress he's able to open up more. Or, he's up to something. Hmmm.
Periodically through the night I wake up from fitful dreams of looking for a doll in London or running from one of those robots from the movie we saw tonight. I swim between the sheets and wrestle the monster. The monster masks itself as a sort of love, or maybe just adoration, during the day. But under this blanket, this blanket I curl myself in because it smells like him, the monster is loose. I know there's a body next to me, I want so badly to cuddle up next to it. But I don't. I don't interrupt his slumber. The monster's imperious urges wake me up with its continual curiosity as to weather the other body in this bed will feed it some attention.
It's 5 am and the octopus next to me wakes up.
It isn't what I want, I realize. I just want someone to enjoy being near me and to want to be close to me. Tell me that I'm worthwhile. Please, just touch me. It's so easy to walk away, to trade a casual bisou and 'good day' when the sunshine returns. But that solves nothing. For now I see that all the monster craves is to come in from the cold.
White people play volleyball on Foster beach, Black men clog the one basketball court with a game of pickup. All manner of hair flies up and down the tiny concrete court. A tall man with his long dreds tied back, lifts his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He's well fed.
Rounding the bend to head down the long stretch of Foster beach, I get lost in a new found throng of people. Bikes, scooters, children waddling from the water to the family blanket all criss-cross my path. I marvel at how over weight so many of the people, especially children, are. I pass families with crying babies, men nursing coal fires awaiting meat and marshmallows, women with beaded hair flipping their heads in conversation. Kids laugh. Three scabs talk about the various painkillers they've tried out. Single women read books. Volleyball nets go up, picnics are packed up. Soccer games fill every possible open lot of space. How do they do it? How do people collect families about themselves like this? And, listening to a tottler squaling, I wonder if I'm quite sure this is something that I want?
I check my phone again. Yes I have signal. No, he hasn't called. Stop it. Keep breathing. Just be present to what's around you, the canvas of human activity.
At long last I find myself on a bench 3 miles from home. Give me a sign, God. What should I do? Give up? Go home? Just then, he calls. Come on over here.
And here we are again. What do I do here? Am I being selfish? What could I possibly add to this man's life? My god, we're opening this book up again...but personally I'm on a different page of this volume called 'love'. Here I am again. It's not yet midnight and I'm sprawled on my half of the king sized bed listening to him purr en route to dream land. Tired, can't sleep yet. Roll over and watch his expression go lax, become placid. Watch his real face emerge.
He's so much easier to be around than he used to be. Maybe I've learned to translate his translation better. Maybe without the immigration stress he's able to open up more. Or, he's up to something. Hmmm.
Periodically through the night I wake up from fitful dreams of looking for a doll in London or running from one of those robots from the movie we saw tonight. I swim between the sheets and wrestle the monster. The monster masks itself as a sort of love, or maybe just adoration, during the day. But under this blanket, this blanket I curl myself in because it smells like him, the monster is loose. I know there's a body next to me, I want so badly to cuddle up next to it. But I don't. I don't interrupt his slumber. The monster's imperious urges wake me up with its continual curiosity as to weather the other body in this bed will feed it some attention.
It's 5 am and the octopus next to me wakes up.
It isn't what I want, I realize. I just want someone to enjoy being near me and to want to be close to me. Tell me that I'm worthwhile. Please, just touch me. It's so easy to walk away, to trade a casual bisou and 'good day' when the sunshine returns. But that solves nothing. For now I see that all the monster craves is to come in from the cold.
Monday, June 8, 2009
warm day
The warm air plumps with the smell of bodies lying on the grass and pollens in the air. The breeze is warm like it carries the smile of every past lover on it and for a minute I need nothing. This was such a barren place just forty days ago. barren and lonely and now its full of bodies in newly resurrected summer outfits. You'd think winter never even happened. It's all just a dim memory of the way things aren't supposed to be.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A dreamer, just like dad
That damned alarm clock.
I was talking with Dad, again, and he was younger. I saw a dad that predated me and an energy in him that had faded long before I knew him. Dad in the days of high testosterone. He was smoking. He was talking about boys to me. An he was telling me...
"Think about it Tootsie...Think about his man G~. He doesn't talk so much...sometimes a real hard read. Why do you still think about him? You know that hope for more lives on in your mind and you put it away but it rises back up, doesn't it? I'll tell you why. He's just like ME. Is that what you want? Do you want a man like your Daddio?"
And just then, 5:20am, the alarm clock cuts him off. damn.
There are so many reasons that I thought my dad was exactly the wrong type of man to be with. The music comes up in my ears as my feet pick up their trot down Sheridan toward the lake shore trail. It's that Beyonce tune what became my anthem around January 30 as I was kicking Bruce dust off my feet and thinking about meeting up with this nutty Italian for gelato. G~. "You must not know 'bout me!" Miss B snaps to the beat. I cannot see myself ever speaking this way to G~. Who knows where all this will go but he is my friend. Mostly.
He is a butterfly. The color he brings is the dream of life lived somehow differently. Gently, for a moment or a day, that dream comes to rest on my shoulder, volunteering itself as part of my life. We enjoy the moment of sunshine together but should I turn to touch or hold the butterfly - to offer it a more grounded love or attempt to define the relationship - it alights from me. Just as well. Touch to touch such gossamer wings would be death - to both of us.
I look down at the legs striding over the pavement. I see their strong shape. See my long fingers and tough shoulders. I see myself, the heap of DNA that has made me. Those reasons for not wanting a man like dad came from a mother who refused to pick up tools that might effect a working relationship. And for years her complaints filled me with guilt and shame because in truth, I look just like my dad. It's his cheekbones, dimples, limbs and shoulders echoed in my features.
Sr. G's cold is still sticking and he coughs a bit as we meet up. I must confess to being slightly happy at his convalesence as I've found him much more agreeable to deal with when ill. We listen to Dar sing as the moon comes up over the lake. I give him his birthday present. And we actually talk for a while. In that moment I feel like he could tell me anything and I would be ok with it. He could tell me he's seeing someone or done with me forever and I would accept it. Not like it, but accept it.
"I was looking at your website the other day. Everything about you, your training and experience, is 'artist'. I don't see where your job fits into this. And so why be shy about being artist more and getting art out there more?"
My gosh, he's right.
Almost four years ago we buried dad. At his funeral so many of the buddies from his small town band came forward and shared how they would have never tried to make music if it weren't for Dad. They never would have known quite for sure that, in fact, they have a tin ear. But Dad loved music and dreamed of being a great trombonist. And that dream got wedged into the margins around work that payed. He pursued the dream only to the edge of town. As his family we dealt with the second life and watched it take over all of our schedules.
And here I am, taking a paying job and wedging this art habit in around it. And I let myself get tripped up by...what? People not buying in a tough economy? I too have a second life. I'm just like him; just like Dad. And I think if Daddio were here he'd tell me to seize the dream before it's too late. This is what G~ sees when he looks at me. By his lights, I am the butterfly. He knows I have a spirit that flies and so he does not attempt to grasp at the delicate wings.
I invite him in for tea. I have no TV so we go through my bookshelves. I show him my worm box. He wants to rest his head in my lap again. I rub his shoulders and then feel a hand go around my waiste. And then... well...it's different this time. This time...we laugh.
Sniffling he heads back to his own home. I cannot close my fist on the certainty of any sort of relationship. He is my friend. He is a lover. And tomorrow is another dangerous day in which my brain will try to knit meaning out of a memory.
Don't plan, don't hope, don't fear. Just breathe.
I was talking with Dad, again, and he was younger. I saw a dad that predated me and an energy in him that had faded long before I knew him. Dad in the days of high testosterone. He was smoking. He was talking about boys to me. An he was telling me...
"Think about it Tootsie...Think about his man G~. He doesn't talk so much...sometimes a real hard read. Why do you still think about him? You know that hope for more lives on in your mind and you put it away but it rises back up, doesn't it? I'll tell you why. He's just like ME. Is that what you want? Do you want a man like your Daddio?"
And just then, 5:20am, the alarm clock cuts him off. damn.
There are so many reasons that I thought my dad was exactly the wrong type of man to be with. The music comes up in my ears as my feet pick up their trot down Sheridan toward the lake shore trail. It's that Beyonce tune what became my anthem around January 30 as I was kicking Bruce dust off my feet and thinking about meeting up with this nutty Italian for gelato. G~. "You must not know 'bout me!" Miss B snaps to the beat. I cannot see myself ever speaking this way to G~. Who knows where all this will go but he is my friend. Mostly.
He is a butterfly. The color he brings is the dream of life lived somehow differently. Gently, for a moment or a day, that dream comes to rest on my shoulder, volunteering itself as part of my life. We enjoy the moment of sunshine together but should I turn to touch or hold the butterfly - to offer it a more grounded love or attempt to define the relationship - it alights from me. Just as well. Touch to touch such gossamer wings would be death - to both of us.
I look down at the legs striding over the pavement. I see their strong shape. See my long fingers and tough shoulders. I see myself, the heap of DNA that has made me. Those reasons for not wanting a man like dad came from a mother who refused to pick up tools that might effect a working relationship. And for years her complaints filled me with guilt and shame because in truth, I look just like my dad. It's his cheekbones, dimples, limbs and shoulders echoed in my features.
Sr. G's cold is still sticking and he coughs a bit as we meet up. I must confess to being slightly happy at his convalesence as I've found him much more agreeable to deal with when ill. We listen to Dar sing as the moon comes up over the lake. I give him his birthday present. And we actually talk for a while. In that moment I feel like he could tell me anything and I would be ok with it. He could tell me he's seeing someone or done with me forever and I would accept it. Not like it, but accept it.
"I was looking at your website the other day. Everything about you, your training and experience, is 'artist'. I don't see where your job fits into this. And so why be shy about being artist more and getting art out there more?"
My gosh, he's right.
Almost four years ago we buried dad. At his funeral so many of the buddies from his small town band came forward and shared how they would have never tried to make music if it weren't for Dad. They never would have known quite for sure that, in fact, they have a tin ear. But Dad loved music and dreamed of being a great trombonist. And that dream got wedged into the margins around work that payed. He pursued the dream only to the edge of town. As his family we dealt with the second life and watched it take over all of our schedules.
And here I am, taking a paying job and wedging this art habit in around it. And I let myself get tripped up by...what? People not buying in a tough economy? I too have a second life. I'm just like him; just like Dad. And I think if Daddio were here he'd tell me to seize the dream before it's too late. This is what G~ sees when he looks at me. By his lights, I am the butterfly. He knows I have a spirit that flies and so he does not attempt to grasp at the delicate wings.
I invite him in for tea. I have no TV so we go through my bookshelves. I show him my worm box. He wants to rest his head in my lap again. I rub his shoulders and then feel a hand go around my waiste. And then... well...it's different this time. This time...we laugh.
Sniffling he heads back to his own home. I cannot close my fist on the certainty of any sort of relationship. He is my friend. He is a lover. And tomorrow is another dangerous day in which my brain will try to knit meaning out of a memory.
Don't plan, don't hope, don't fear. Just breathe.
My Improbable Friend
A funny light in the morning sky, reflecting in different ways off the storm clouds, makes it seem as if the sun were rising in the north. It's an illusion, I know, but it gives the city a sense of being someplace different. Perhaps this morning I'm really running through Helsinki, not Chicago. Just the sense of being somewhere ELSE is refreshing.
Sometimes I wish I knew what his deal is. Is he seeing someone else, now? Do I finally get to be that female friend who is the underlying threat instead of being the nervously possessive girlfriend? He's sick, but he comes to meet me at the tennis courts and then wants to see a movie. A walk. Says we'll go for a walk. Right. We sit on the lakeshore, watching boats and chatting. And you know, the chat is good. We talk about siblings and parent and how I came out of mom's womb last and wrecked the joint. Maybe whatever cold medicine he's on has disarmed the system a bit - but I finally got a sense of him. What is up with this man who still wants to do things together but still does not want to date? It's been over five months.
He falls asleep with his head on my lap. Asks permission first, but puts his head on my lap. Out of instinct I rub his head and shoulders. I feel a hand go between my legs in familiar acknowledgement. There is the last vestige of our affection in one bizarre moment of physical ease. Sometimes we're just silent. And silent is ok. I hugged him goodbye at the end of the day, genuinely grateful for the time together.
Part of me wants to know, to squeeze some sense of the future out of this. But there's no sense. It was just one day in the sunshine. And for today, he is my friend. Funny, I don't think I ever really knew what that was like. Ghosts of affairs past drift through my mind and while I wish them well, I do wonder where they are. But for today, he has survived and he's here. My improbable friend.
Sometimes I wish I knew what his deal is. Is he seeing someone else, now? Do I finally get to be that female friend who is the underlying threat instead of being the nervously possessive girlfriend? He's sick, but he comes to meet me at the tennis courts and then wants to see a movie. A walk. Says we'll go for a walk. Right. We sit on the lakeshore, watching boats and chatting. And you know, the chat is good. We talk about siblings and parent and how I came out of mom's womb last and wrecked the joint. Maybe whatever cold medicine he's on has disarmed the system a bit - but I finally got a sense of him. What is up with this man who still wants to do things together but still does not want to date? It's been over five months.
He falls asleep with his head on my lap. Asks permission first, but puts his head on my lap. Out of instinct I rub his head and shoulders. I feel a hand go between my legs in familiar acknowledgement. There is the last vestige of our affection in one bizarre moment of physical ease. Sometimes we're just silent. And silent is ok. I hugged him goodbye at the end of the day, genuinely grateful for the time together.
Part of me wants to know, to squeeze some sense of the future out of this. But there's no sense. It was just one day in the sunshine. And for today, he is my friend. Funny, I don't think I ever really knew what that was like. Ghosts of affairs past drift through my mind and while I wish them well, I do wonder where they are. But for today, he has survived and he's here. My improbable friend.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Artist statement for June - July show
Holon: and entity that is at once a whole and simultaneously part of some other whole entity
I've long enjoyed observing how the geometry of such tiny structures as molecules or delicate sea creatures is mirrored on the macroscopic scale of geological and cosmic formations. Exploring the relationship between geometry, discreet parts and the "wholes" has consumed my artistic efforts for quite some time. For while a great whole is comprised of many parts, that whole is itself present within each of the parts. And what is a "part" but merely where I decide to draw the line? I find myself making art which is really a map of relationships & influence between characters both tiny and great; primitive and sophisticated; matter and spirit; deductive and intuitive. Yet, the more I map, the more frontier appears just beyond the scope of my latest work.
A friend once asked me "why don't you just paint things as they really are...just as they look?". The truth is, I do just that all of the time. I simply stopped trusting my eyes a long time ago. My work re-presents discussions, humor, flavors, interesting shapes & textures all nabbed from unsuspecting donors. I have found that everything I re-present mirrors an evolving interior relationship with something bigger.
For some reason I'm always drawn to art media which force me to release control of the outcome. I always enter my studio with a head full of technicolor dreams intending to push pigment, water, or epoxy around. For an hour or most of a day I do my part. Then, I wait. I have to step back to allow the inherent nature of the material to take over to and dry, bleed, ooze, contract, cure, heat up or cool down. I get to shape the experience, but I don't get to force things. On a good day, this is a beautiful partnership. The finished product contains pleasant surprises I could not have planned and serves the medium much better than sitting in a can on my shelf would have done. While painting in watercolor and casting in plastic may seem like an improbable combination of media for one artist, this invitation to creative partnership is the common denominator for all of my work. The real medium is "self".
Friday, May 1, 2009
because they told me to
People wonder why I run. They wonder why I insist on going so far, and then farther still. Two miles used to be my max. It's not even a workout, now. I'm juicing up my ipod for the morning, adding new songs to do a quick 5 miles at 7 am. 5 miles is nothing now. Better make it 6:30.
Indoor gym. I get flashes of the early morning activities as I round every corner. At first cute man conceals himself in a corner to do his ab work. But soon that little woman who has started following him around has discovered this hideout and comes to chat next to him. They sit like that for 15 laps. He's cute, sure. But, whatever. I don't need that guy or his recognition. I focus on my feet, making sure that my toes always point forward, making sure my weight doesn't start to sway from side to side. Everything must point straight on to the goal. Rounding another corner I see my own reflection in a safety mirror. Lest we forget, there, in those sculpted features, is the goddess.
But that's not why I run. I run because they told me to.
"Run back there and tell them to get out of that pond!" The moms yelled, upon finding out that their tween-age sons were back catching frogs at a pond deep in the woods. They were worried, the boys were not. The great disadvantage of the whole conversation was that messages of warning and responses of rebellion were all being conveyed by me. Neither party really wanted to listen to me. So the argument between mothers and sons continued and all that hot summer afternoon I ferried messages between them, running through the woods. Finally, when I came back panting and sweating, Mrs. Schiltz looked at me and asked "are you RUNNING?". The argument promptly stopped.
"Go get your brother! NOW! I need his help!" Something was wrong with Dad. He had mentioned earlier that day how his stool was coal black. Mom took one look at him and knew he had better to go into the hospital. No one knew it would get serious so fast and she wanted him to take a bath, first. But in the bath dad lost all strength and mom couldn't handle his bulk. Oh yeah, he was still big, then. She yanked the door open and yelled to me and something in those words told me this was serious. So I ran. I ran the mile to the CCD building as fast as I could and demanded my brother be released from class. When he saw me, he started to run, too. We were back home in under 20 minutes.
A mile. That's just 12 easy laps around this silly little track. A mile is nothing. I could sprint that, now. I could make that dash for help faster, now.
At seeing us home so fast mom turned to me with incredulity "you ran!" I've since wondered if he knew. Did Dad know that I ran out of fear for him? The only private moments we get, now, me & his stone, come when I escape the house to go for a run. The route takes me about 5 miles. But at 4.25 is the cemetery.
The term for all this activity - at least the way I use it in my life- is called "athletica nervosa". But they just don't understand. Someone has to run. Someone has to be the go between who holds the works together.
Indoor gym. I get flashes of the early morning activities as I round every corner. At first cute man conceals himself in a corner to do his ab work. But soon that little woman who has started following him around has discovered this hideout and comes to chat next to him. They sit like that for 15 laps. He's cute, sure. But, whatever. I don't need that guy or his recognition. I focus on my feet, making sure that my toes always point forward, making sure my weight doesn't start to sway from side to side. Everything must point straight on to the goal. Rounding another corner I see my own reflection in a safety mirror. Lest we forget, there, in those sculpted features, is the goddess.
But that's not why I run. I run because they told me to.
"Run back there and tell them to get out of that pond!" The moms yelled, upon finding out that their tween-age sons were back catching frogs at a pond deep in the woods. They were worried, the boys were not. The great disadvantage of the whole conversation was that messages of warning and responses of rebellion were all being conveyed by me. Neither party really wanted to listen to me. So the argument between mothers and sons continued and all that hot summer afternoon I ferried messages between them, running through the woods. Finally, when I came back panting and sweating, Mrs. Schiltz looked at me and asked "are you RUNNING?". The argument promptly stopped.
"Go get your brother! NOW! I need his help!" Something was wrong with Dad. He had mentioned earlier that day how his stool was coal black. Mom took one look at him and knew he had better to go into the hospital. No one knew it would get serious so fast and she wanted him to take a bath, first. But in the bath dad lost all strength and mom couldn't handle his bulk. Oh yeah, he was still big, then. She yanked the door open and yelled to me and something in those words told me this was serious. So I ran. I ran the mile to the CCD building as fast as I could and demanded my brother be released from class. When he saw me, he started to run, too. We were back home in under 20 minutes.
A mile. That's just 12 easy laps around this silly little track. A mile is nothing. I could sprint that, now. I could make that dash for help faster, now.
At seeing us home so fast mom turned to me with incredulity "you ran!" I've since wondered if he knew. Did Dad know that I ran out of fear for him? The only private moments we get, now, me & his stone, come when I escape the house to go for a run. The route takes me about 5 miles. But at 4.25 is the cemetery.
The term for all this activity - at least the way I use it in my life- is called "athletica nervosa". But they just don't understand. Someone has to run. Someone has to be the go between who holds the works together.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Chef
I watch the silicone spread through the mold. Seeing the thick fluid ripple out of the container I can't help but remember being small and watching mom cooking. Egg and flour batter, whisked up to a high viscosity every Sunday morning in the plastic mix & pour bowl, descended into a thick liquid onto the grittle and spread out in neat circles. Cake mix would emerge from the electric mixer after the noise was over and fill in the waiting baking pan. I was at her elbow, waiting for tastes, a bowl to lick, and watching the powders and eggs and milky liquids become spongy, consumable solids.
And here I stand in my bathroom. There's no one to make birthday cakes for. No one is there for a Sunday breakfast. It's just me and in my mixer is silicone rubber. After combining silicone with hardener the thick fluid takes on a dried blood color. At the end there is no bowl to lick and the stains up my arms look like those of a demented surgeon. All the finger prints I leave are anonymous glove smears. The garbage of casting paraphernalia looks like something fowl and bloody has just happened. But it's just me, mixing up the solitary recipe for what I make to bring some happiness into the world. Mom cooked eggs and milk and flour and sugar. I cook chemicals into art snacks.
And here I stand in my bathroom. There's no one to make birthday cakes for. No one is there for a Sunday breakfast. It's just me and in my mixer is silicone rubber. After combining silicone with hardener the thick fluid takes on a dried blood color. At the end there is no bowl to lick and the stains up my arms look like those of a demented surgeon. All the finger prints I leave are anonymous glove smears. The garbage of casting paraphernalia looks like something fowl and bloody has just happened. But it's just me, mixing up the solitary recipe for what I make to bring some happiness into the world. Mom cooked eggs and milk and flour and sugar. I cook chemicals into art snacks.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Life is a 4-letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.
Plastics packaging dumps endocrine inhibiting chemicals into our children. Fragrances fatten with pthalates. Soap phospates in Chicago that deaden the Gulf of Mexico. Less fresh water draining into our oceans. Bears swim too much, their bulk drowning in pursuit of a meal. Coal from China rains acid over the midwest.
For what? So we can continue the inertia of our consumptive lives - pushing the present moment to a cushioned distance? Our cushion fluffs itself to the great discomfort of our future.
Why was I born into this world? I wish I could just absent myself from this craziness, I swear. Put on my sneakers and just run right off the edge of the whole thing to some better, cleaner, less fucked up place. Why am I here? Why do we do these things?
But yet, here I am. Not to judge it, not to pity it at all, but to love and revere the life even as the life is a mess. This life as it has been handed to us is a four letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.
Slowly, maybe first heeding the call of fad and fashion, minds pull themselves from the sludge of craving. Like first seeds maybe they will turn to the light and grow in a new way. It's a start. Every day must start at midnight. Even Earth day.
For what? So we can continue the inertia of our consumptive lives - pushing the present moment to a cushioned distance? Our cushion fluffs itself to the great discomfort of our future.
Why was I born into this world? I wish I could just absent myself from this craziness, I swear. Put on my sneakers and just run right off the edge of the whole thing to some better, cleaner, less fucked up place. Why am I here? Why do we do these things?
But yet, here I am. Not to judge it, not to pity it at all, but to love and revere the life even as the life is a mess. This life as it has been handed to us is a four letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.
Slowly, maybe first heeding the call of fad and fashion, minds pull themselves from the sludge of craving. Like first seeds maybe they will turn to the light and grow in a new way. It's a start. Every day must start at midnight. Even Earth day.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Girl with horn
The cleaning kit finally arrived and, finding myself with a pocket of time, I plunged Dad's coronet into hot bath water. We used to get into all sorts of trouble for playing these things when we found them in the basement. Now, it's MINE! I pull apart the one valve and yank out the tuning slide. Snaking the cleaner through pipes I watched as dark green clouds of old filth billow out. The valve is still missing a spring so it won't work to shift the key. This instrument is caked with slide grease and valve oil that have gone sticky and picked up basement gunk. The surface is dull and just looks like neglect. Soap. never had to soap a horn before but this needs it.
Then, it's time to put it together. At first I wonder if the horn is still dirty inside as it's tough to get air through. Then, I realize it might be my lungs that are out of shape. I figure out its intervals and briefly contemplate waking my party animal neighbors with a reveille at 5 am after their next late night fete.
As I take a cloth and polish the sediment off its surface a lovely silvery horn emerges. Like loosing the genie from the lamp I know I'm not alone in the room. Dad smiles over my shoulder. The brighter the horn shines the more clearly I can see his face. I put the new mouthpiece in and make sounds, experimenting with the few bugle calls I remember, and he plugs his ethereal ears.
After a few shots, my breathing comes back, my mouth remembers its "oo" arbrasure and the sound gets clear. "Next time you go home," he whispers "find my trumpet."
Then, it's time to put it together. At first I wonder if the horn is still dirty inside as it's tough to get air through. Then, I realize it might be my lungs that are out of shape. I figure out its intervals and briefly contemplate waking my party animal neighbors with a reveille at 5 am after their next late night fete.
As I take a cloth and polish the sediment off its surface a lovely silvery horn emerges. Like loosing the genie from the lamp I know I'm not alone in the room. Dad smiles over my shoulder. The brighter the horn shines the more clearly I can see his face. I put the new mouthpiece in and make sounds, experimenting with the few bugle calls I remember, and he plugs his ethereal ears.
After a few shots, my breathing comes back, my mouth remembers its "oo" arbrasure and the sound gets clear. "Next time you go home," he whispers "find my trumpet."
Saturday, April 18, 2009
the spring merit badge
I look down at my arms and notice the scratches around wrist and elbows have turned red. By tomorrow these lines will fade down to small scabs looking like they were drawn with a ruler. But I know what they are. These are my merit badge that spring has started.
Crouched close to the dirt, clipping away at dead grass and pulling out leaves, I listen to the sound of a plane going overhead and the children playing at the adjoining park. Basketball, screams, games of interpersonal chance float in percussive syllables over the soft spring air. The smell of melted dirt fills my nostrils. For a split second it clicks back into place. This is the garden. Five months of snow and persistent cold have kept me away, but here it is again.
I see the garden as it was last season. The day lilies which towered and bloomed persistently until October are now just a few dried leaves and husks on the ground. The marigolds which insisted on growing into bushes make ecru skeletons clutching the dirt. The rose bushes, ah my precious wild roses, are a mange and chaos that cannot be ignored. The discipline of my clippers is met with thorny protest. The beauty I've wrestled with has left me looking mauled as though by a beast. Last season was indeed lovely. But it's done. Spent bushes and plants left to seed must be removed. Dead leaves applied for winter warmth must be raked away. Dead grasses clipped. It was beautiful. And now it's just time to start again.
Each year I start this process hoping to head off any weedy chaos at the pass. But tending this patch is nothing like cleaning a kitchen counter. It would seem the same rules apply, to set up a system of organization, to create clean surfaces, but it doesn't. There's too much letting go and waiting in the process for it to be anything like neat and easy. I know what I'm doing - setting myself up for more work! I spend 4 hours clipping and raking and hauling. And I know as I do this that there is no guarantee in this act of preventing work later on. I'll be here, playing catch-up with nature, every week, all season. I already know what I have to do when I come back next week.
Gathering clouds part for a bit and I see the flower bed, now flat and bare save for the first few patches of plants coming up. There's the daffodils, ringed by day lily, some bearded iris, the poppies, the dianthus, the holly hocks, and the roses. Other surprises await. Will the marigolds and zinnias I let go to seed come back? In a month so much more life will have exploded from the dirt you'd be hard pressed to say its the same place. In two months the day lily will start blooming and the roses will be out. Sounds a bit like I know what will happen. But I don't. The blooming is like a christmas present I get to open over and over. I can barely wait.
Crouched close to the dirt, clipping away at dead grass and pulling out leaves, I listen to the sound of a plane going overhead and the children playing at the adjoining park. Basketball, screams, games of interpersonal chance float in percussive syllables over the soft spring air. The smell of melted dirt fills my nostrils. For a split second it clicks back into place. This is the garden. Five months of snow and persistent cold have kept me away, but here it is again.
I see the garden as it was last season. The day lilies which towered and bloomed persistently until October are now just a few dried leaves and husks on the ground. The marigolds which insisted on growing into bushes make ecru skeletons clutching the dirt. The rose bushes, ah my precious wild roses, are a mange and chaos that cannot be ignored. The discipline of my clippers is met with thorny protest. The beauty I've wrestled with has left me looking mauled as though by a beast. Last season was indeed lovely. But it's done. Spent bushes and plants left to seed must be removed. Dead leaves applied for winter warmth must be raked away. Dead grasses clipped. It was beautiful. And now it's just time to start again.
Each year I start this process hoping to head off any weedy chaos at the pass. But tending this patch is nothing like cleaning a kitchen counter. It would seem the same rules apply, to set up a system of organization, to create clean surfaces, but it doesn't. There's too much letting go and waiting in the process for it to be anything like neat and easy. I know what I'm doing - setting myself up for more work! I spend 4 hours clipping and raking and hauling. And I know as I do this that there is no guarantee in this act of preventing work later on. I'll be here, playing catch-up with nature, every week, all season. I already know what I have to do when I come back next week.
Gathering clouds part for a bit and I see the flower bed, now flat and bare save for the first few patches of plants coming up. There's the daffodils, ringed by day lily, some bearded iris, the poppies, the dianthus, the holly hocks, and the roses. Other surprises await. Will the marigolds and zinnias I let go to seed come back? In a month so much more life will have exploded from the dirt you'd be hard pressed to say its the same place. In two months the day lily will start blooming and the roses will be out. Sounds a bit like I know what will happen. But I don't. The blooming is like a christmas present I get to open over and over. I can barely wait.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Water normal
In the wind whipping off the lake this morning, the water works itself into foamy waves that march toward the the shore like rows of shark teeth. You'd think the land didn't stand a chance. But, at the last second each icy peak shatters and sprays into a million pieces like angels falling to earth.
The taste of water in my mouth. Neutral, wet, even and unthreatening, like a constant to come back and visit after so many visits to countries sweet and acidic. The water pretends to offer no answers and has no agenda of results. It just is for the consuming for anyone wanting to come home. Much like love.
We've talked for hours on the phone. We finally met f2f and while on one hand I enjoyed myself, I couldn't help but suppose afterward that I'd screwed everything up. Signals, men want signals. What does a signal look like? Where is the instruction manual for all of these feminine wiles I'm supposed to wield? Is that what all of those men who decided I wasn't for them wanted?
What did they want? Why didn't they stay? Or was it me? How many times did I hop off the rolling train when it passed through a tunnel? Was I supposed to want something? get something? Marry someone? The tide of self doubt comes in again, nibbling at my shore. I always come back here, to gnawing doubt and a subtle but pervasive unworthiness. The waves roll back to reveal what detritus lives under every life tide: suicidal depression.
Self pity comes easy. Just because that derelict of mental crashes remains in the deep sand doesn't mean I need to go excavating. I could. But today I keep it at a distance. I keep at a distance the way he asks so many questions and how many long pauses fill the conversation. I keep at a distance that line I've heard so many times "I'm not ready for a relationship." I won't dive in there, today, but keep running.
People wonder why I spend so much time alone. It's just that it's like water - a formless sense of normal that seeps in and where I don't feel expected to be anything. I just can't help but drink.
The taste of water in my mouth. Neutral, wet, even and unthreatening, like a constant to come back and visit after so many visits to countries sweet and acidic. The water pretends to offer no answers and has no agenda of results. It just is for the consuming for anyone wanting to come home. Much like love.
We've talked for hours on the phone. We finally met f2f and while on one hand I enjoyed myself, I couldn't help but suppose afterward that I'd screwed everything up. Signals, men want signals. What does a signal look like? Where is the instruction manual for all of these feminine wiles I'm supposed to wield? Is that what all of those men who decided I wasn't for them wanted?
What did they want? Why didn't they stay? Or was it me? How many times did I hop off the rolling train when it passed through a tunnel? Was I supposed to want something? get something? Marry someone? The tide of self doubt comes in again, nibbling at my shore. I always come back here, to gnawing doubt and a subtle but pervasive unworthiness. The waves roll back to reveal what detritus lives under every life tide: suicidal depression.
Self pity comes easy. Just because that derelict of mental crashes remains in the deep sand doesn't mean I need to go excavating. I could. But today I keep it at a distance. I keep at a distance the way he asks so many questions and how many long pauses fill the conversation. I keep at a distance that line I've heard so many times "I'm not ready for a relationship." I won't dive in there, today, but keep running.
People wonder why I spend so much time alone. It's just that it's like water - a formless sense of normal that seeps in and where I don't feel expected to be anything. I just can't help but drink.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Winter relapse
I can't tell if it's about to happen or if I've already missed it. I stare into the yellow glow on the horizon, trying to pick out the round form this morning's haze might conceal. Just as I turn to keep running the sun sneaks over the horizon in a blaze. The yellow ball burning through clouds is the same color as amber LED's on the front of a bus. Here she is, driving over the horizon on a west bound route, the #1 vehicle upon which we all hitch a ride through space.
On a whim I asked how she's doing and got back a flooding response. In the middle of a divorce, anyone who asks such a thing is a welcome chance to unload. Anyone who asks better be willing to show up for the whole story. You don't ask a soldier how they are and expect to run off. And she is a veteran of the heart wars. So this is what marriage and children can look like. It doesn't have to, but this is the picture I bolster myself with when too many popular voices upbraid me for staying single. You may say I'm selfish, but I'm quite happy.
Patches of snow remaining from winter's relapse remain like frozen sundials on the east side of trees and hills. The sun didn't come out yesterday until after leaving its zenith. All through the pounding wind, sleet and snow I was amazed at the sounds of birdsong, as if they were trying to keep the trees awake and reassure them that spring was not a joke. Would that they could wake us all up.
Meeting him today. After how long? A month? 3 weeks? of nothing but phone calls. "No pressure no pressure" became "dammit when are we going to meet?" Somebody got frisky, maybe. This should be interesting. Will it be a lecture on TM or a conversation about sex? I could use a nap. "Don't kid yourself" I say. exchanging words isn't knowing. Don't try too hard. Look good enough to feel happy about yourself but not too..sexy.
Feet don't want to move as fast today. Darn it. Must need more sleep. Push through. Seagull screeches leak through the audio fill of new ipod. Hop over melt off rivers. I thought we were done with seeing these weeks ago. Spring is back at step one, trying it again.
Metallic carnage that sustains our life starts to clang and thump to life. Arterial highways carry corpuscules of steel and rubber into the city. Is this really life? Are we really living if our actions enslave? We could be seeing the decline of human dominance. Soon we will negotiate our treaties not with cultures of other countries but of other species. Dolphins will tell us where we can go in the ocean and birds will discipline us in the forest. Will we be left to the cities or will our cities cease? What if there were fewer of us?
Coming through the door at home I see the full buds on branches, days, maybe minutes, from exploding. Hey birdies, it worked.
On a whim I asked how she's doing and got back a flooding response. In the middle of a divorce, anyone who asks such a thing is a welcome chance to unload. Anyone who asks better be willing to show up for the whole story. You don't ask a soldier how they are and expect to run off. And she is a veteran of the heart wars. So this is what marriage and children can look like. It doesn't have to, but this is the picture I bolster myself with when too many popular voices upbraid me for staying single. You may say I'm selfish, but I'm quite happy.
Patches of snow remaining from winter's relapse remain like frozen sundials on the east side of trees and hills. The sun didn't come out yesterday until after leaving its zenith. All through the pounding wind, sleet and snow I was amazed at the sounds of birdsong, as if they were trying to keep the trees awake and reassure them that spring was not a joke. Would that they could wake us all up.
Meeting him today. After how long? A month? 3 weeks? of nothing but phone calls. "No pressure no pressure" became "dammit when are we going to meet?" Somebody got frisky, maybe. This should be interesting. Will it be a lecture on TM or a conversation about sex? I could use a nap. "Don't kid yourself" I say. exchanging words isn't knowing. Don't try too hard. Look good enough to feel happy about yourself but not too..sexy.
Feet don't want to move as fast today. Darn it. Must need more sleep. Push through. Seagull screeches leak through the audio fill of new ipod. Hop over melt off rivers. I thought we were done with seeing these weeks ago. Spring is back at step one, trying it again.
Metallic carnage that sustains our life starts to clang and thump to life. Arterial highways carry corpuscules of steel and rubber into the city. Is this really life? Are we really living if our actions enslave? We could be seeing the decline of human dominance. Soon we will negotiate our treaties not with cultures of other countries but of other species. Dolphins will tell us where we can go in the ocean and birds will discipline us in the forest. Will we be left to the cities or will our cities cease? What if there were fewer of us?
Coming through the door at home I see the full buds on branches, days, maybe minutes, from exploding. Hey birdies, it worked.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Social Nigger
"Alcoholic"
It's like social speak for 'nigger'. Some folks will understand, maybe even accept you. Some will be astonished by the quality of your personality and intelligence despite the obvious flaw. But among the normies, among those that ain't your own, you're sitting on the back of the friendship bus. You're giving up your seat as mate or girlfriend when a 'normal' person presents similar (maybe even a few less) strategic qualifications.
So we stick to our own, make more of our own, get together and share our tribal stories and have our rituals. We have our private picknics with burgers and watermelon in the summer where we laugh at pain and tell stories in a lingo nobody but us understands. But, quite without pointing fingers we can see lots of niggers in hiding amongst the legions of 'normal' folks. I see my same disease festering just below the surface of a culture crazed by entitlement and the pressure of 'more'. I see it boiling over into stress and spiritual crisis now that consumptive wings have been collectively clipped by the tumbling tower of lies. Just as humanity all came from Africa if you dig back far enough, we all proceed in our various incarnations from a sacred wound which bids us to re-member Who We Really Are through as many paths as, well, humanly possible.
Can't you see past my disease? It is NOT a "lifestyle choice"! I didn't ask for this. But it has been my curriculum to God. Love doesn't have a color and certainly doesn't show up with a menu of demands.
I'll show you. I'll show you I'm as good as and someday your children, the children you didn't want to have with me because of these two scarlet letters - "AA" - will look at you in shock and disappointment that you would put a person of my caliber to the back of your bus. "How could you expect a perfectly capable human being to settle for such treatment?"
When they ask that, I want you to tell those children quite plainly that I DIDN'T.
It's like social speak for 'nigger'. Some folks will understand, maybe even accept you. Some will be astonished by the quality of your personality and intelligence despite the obvious flaw. But among the normies, among those that ain't your own, you're sitting on the back of the friendship bus. You're giving up your seat as mate or girlfriend when a 'normal' person presents similar (maybe even a few less) strategic qualifications.
So we stick to our own, make more of our own, get together and share our tribal stories and have our rituals. We have our private picknics with burgers and watermelon in the summer where we laugh at pain and tell stories in a lingo nobody but us understands. But, quite without pointing fingers we can see lots of niggers in hiding amongst the legions of 'normal' folks. I see my same disease festering just below the surface of a culture crazed by entitlement and the pressure of 'more'. I see it boiling over into stress and spiritual crisis now that consumptive wings have been collectively clipped by the tumbling tower of lies. Just as humanity all came from Africa if you dig back far enough, we all proceed in our various incarnations from a sacred wound which bids us to re-member Who We Really Are through as many paths as, well, humanly possible.
Can't you see past my disease? It is NOT a "lifestyle choice"! I didn't ask for this. But it has been my curriculum to God. Love doesn't have a color and certainly doesn't show up with a menu of demands.
I'll show you. I'll show you I'm as good as and someday your children, the children you didn't want to have with me because of these two scarlet letters - "AA" - will look at you in shock and disappointment that you would put a person of my caliber to the back of your bus. "How could you expect a perfectly capable human being to settle for such treatment?"
When they ask that, I want you to tell those children quite plainly that I DIDN'T.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Ciao bella
Clouds dry brush the sky with steel and indigo. The approaching sun peeks through in pastel drawn lines of pink and red. It's not like last week's clear, perfect sunrises. But somehow it's even better, as if the clouds, the steel sky and blue shadows make something even more clear. Push through the wall that's coming to meet me after just two miles.
My earphones aren't interfacing properly with my auditory canal. Something about the vacuum it forms lets no sound in from the left. Instead, the morning leaks in, the echo of no traffic & bird song.
Here it comes; the glycogen wall. I will my legs to keep up the pace.
So I told him. I told him about my past as an addict and decade plus of sobriety. He wished me well, puzzled, and then said "It's ok for friends, I respect this was your lifestyle choice, but for a mate - someone I might even have children with - is unacceptable...Why are you telling me now?"
"I thought, based on what you said during that conversation we had while driving to Home Depot, that you wouldn't talk to me anymore. I finally just decided that I couldn't hide it anymore. Being a sober person is a big part of my life and I decided that if you don't want me around because of that well, you should be able to make that decision. I was afraid. There have been times I've told people and they said it was cool, but they disappeared. No returned phone calls, gone."
"No no, I don't disappear. I'm attached to you. Not going away." But again, I don't trust it. Attached... check your dictionary again. In subsequent days since this conversation? Silence. Better to know the truth, I guess. So I guess that's it. Done. Over and out. Ciao bella.
Right now, as birds scream around me, I want to yell at him. I want to shake him until his brains rattle and ask "Since when is having a disease a 'lifestyle choice'? It's a sickness! A pre-existing condition like any cancer. So fuck you! Every day for 10 + years I've had to dig down & tap a greater source just to stay alive! If you want to have a negative judgement about that it's your problem! My journey has been a blessing! You want to walk away? Fine. FINE!! You're selfish and I hate the way you make humor by putting me down, anyhow! Ciao!"
The flock of seagulls mingles, squaks and swarms, conversing with jets flying low. Our birds eat McDonals and our waterlife takes unwilling doses of ridalin & antidepressants. It seems like too much, for a minute.
I feel the volume of my heart, pumping away in my chest. Pushing through I get that power and it carries me all the way home.
My earphones aren't interfacing properly with my auditory canal. Something about the vacuum it forms lets no sound in from the left. Instead, the morning leaks in, the echo of no traffic & bird song.
Here it comes; the glycogen wall. I will my legs to keep up the pace.
So I told him. I told him about my past as an addict and decade plus of sobriety. He wished me well, puzzled, and then said "It's ok for friends, I respect this was your lifestyle choice, but for a mate - someone I might even have children with - is unacceptable...Why are you telling me now?"
"I thought, based on what you said during that conversation we had while driving to Home Depot, that you wouldn't talk to me anymore. I finally just decided that I couldn't hide it anymore. Being a sober person is a big part of my life and I decided that if you don't want me around because of that well, you should be able to make that decision. I was afraid. There have been times I've told people and they said it was cool, but they disappeared. No returned phone calls, gone."
"No no, I don't disappear. I'm attached to you. Not going away." But again, I don't trust it. Attached... check your dictionary again. In subsequent days since this conversation? Silence. Better to know the truth, I guess. So I guess that's it. Done. Over and out. Ciao bella.
Right now, as birds scream around me, I want to yell at him. I want to shake him until his brains rattle and ask "Since when is having a disease a 'lifestyle choice'? It's a sickness! A pre-existing condition like any cancer. So fuck you! Every day for 10 + years I've had to dig down & tap a greater source just to stay alive! If you want to have a negative judgement about that it's your problem! My journey has been a blessing! You want to walk away? Fine. FINE!! You're selfish and I hate the way you make humor by putting me down, anyhow! Ciao!"
The flock of seagulls mingles, squaks and swarms, conversing with jets flying low. Our birds eat McDonals and our waterlife takes unwilling doses of ridalin & antidepressants. It seems like too much, for a minute.
I feel the volume of my heart, pumping away in my chest. Pushing through I get that power and it carries me all the way home.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
A drift
"How long are you going to hang out on that glacier? How many more years to cling to that frozen landscape you've called a heart?"
I'm floating, again, in the sapphire sea, adrift on my rock of ice. It's a comfort, this cold stillness that I can cling to, like the cool side of the pillow on a hot night. I come back here for solace, for knowing, despite knowing that there is no truth on this glacier.
It's melting. I've given it permission to melt. I've asked for it to be warmer, here, in this environment I call a soul. But as I watch large chunks calve into the blue void and leave me, I can't help but to be filled with grief. Less and less space is left for me to act out the old play. Old roles and actors leave gaps in the mental drama after they've gone. And as I watch another piece float away part of me accepts the departure, part of me screams with grief.
Yet another addictive facet of me instantly it melts into the warm, understanding sea like an ice cube in bath water. There it goes. I pretzel my self, twist stories and bend truths just to look good enough to get that measure that means approval. I just want to be in this whatever we're calling it today (friendship? relationship?) so that I can take the satisfaction I want. I'll exert whatever verbal calisthenics are necessary to come out looking justified and right. And now all 'needing to feel good about myself by what you tell me about me' all of the 'I'm nothing unless I can take what I want from you' chunks off with a base thud and a quake - gone. With it go the fairy tales of what life should bring to ME. Me me me wants someone to say "I love you" just once, wants someone to think about her before they go to sleep, wants to be right, just wants.
Want has drifted off. I'm left on an even tinier island of my ice. What will be left of me, now. What do I become now if I've hit the point of truly realizing that I need nothing from another person - neither sex nor approval nor cash - to be Who I Really Am. I was born to give, not to take. I knew this... KNOW it in my head. But now, taking it into being and behavior and saying yes to that truth feels like dying.
"Maybe that's ok. Consider that something has to die for something wonderful to be born. Without the disintegration of fall and death of winter no new seeds could be born into fresh growth."
For now I ride in the bluest ocean, clutching what remains. What remains? I don't even know yet what sediments lie under the surface of what's left. I shudder to think of what life will look like without these few old things to cling to. My shrinking glacier is a cold, hard and barren turf. It is a lie of a landscape. But, it's what I know. And when its gone I will be left in this big, empty ocean drowning in the sea of feelings. I will die. I will absolutely die.
"No. You will not die because you cannot be killed. Let go of the ice and you may find that you've known how to float all along."
I'm floating, again, in the sapphire sea, adrift on my rock of ice. It's a comfort, this cold stillness that I can cling to, like the cool side of the pillow on a hot night. I come back here for solace, for knowing, despite knowing that there is no truth on this glacier.
It's melting. I've given it permission to melt. I've asked for it to be warmer, here, in this environment I call a soul. But as I watch large chunks calve into the blue void and leave me, I can't help but to be filled with grief. Less and less space is left for me to act out the old play. Old roles and actors leave gaps in the mental drama after they've gone. And as I watch another piece float away part of me accepts the departure, part of me screams with grief.
Yet another addictive facet of me instantly it melts into the warm, understanding sea like an ice cube in bath water. There it goes. I pretzel my self, twist stories and bend truths just to look good enough to get that measure that means approval. I just want to be in this whatever we're calling it today (friendship? relationship?) so that I can take the satisfaction I want. I'll exert whatever verbal calisthenics are necessary to come out looking justified and right. And now all 'needing to feel good about myself by what you tell me about me' all of the 'I'm nothing unless I can take what I want from you' chunks off with a base thud and a quake - gone. With it go the fairy tales of what life should bring to ME. Me me me wants someone to say "I love you" just once, wants someone to think about her before they go to sleep, wants to be right, just wants.
Want has drifted off. I'm left on an even tinier island of my ice. What will be left of me, now. What do I become now if I've hit the point of truly realizing that I need nothing from another person - neither sex nor approval nor cash - to be Who I Really Am. I was born to give, not to take. I knew this... KNOW it in my head. But now, taking it into being and behavior and saying yes to that truth feels like dying.
"Maybe that's ok. Consider that something has to die for something wonderful to be born. Without the disintegration of fall and death of winter no new seeds could be born into fresh growth."
For now I ride in the bluest ocean, clutching what remains. What remains? I don't even know yet what sediments lie under the surface of what's left. I shudder to think of what life will look like without these few old things to cling to. My shrinking glacier is a cold, hard and barren turf. It is a lie of a landscape. But, it's what I know. And when its gone I will be left in this big, empty ocean drowning in the sea of feelings. I will die. I will absolutely die.
"No. You will not die because you cannot be killed. Let go of the ice and you may find that you've known how to float all along."
Thursday, March 19, 2009
designer dawn
Some days she paints and the mushy, watery pigments of nature blend in edges of mystery. Today, though, mother designs. In the pantone blue west a half moon glows as if stenciled on with a 20mm deckle. Schaedler precision rulers set the deep aqua lake apart from the neat gradient of encroaching dawn in a perfect horizontal line. Eastern sky could be called a "rainbow" but the mesh is more complicated. In the moving mix shades of grape juice, apricot jelly and strawberry candy present fleeting overtones. I can see the caption written out, in perfectly kerned Helvetica. "Dawn" - neatly punctuated at the end by a water pumping station resting on the horizon.
I was tardy for the iPod parade this morning, taping the feet up took a bit longer. After the last run I managed to rip all the skin off the top of my foot. Fuckin nice! Have to be more careful, now. Today the feet send back no messages of pain whatsoever. All systems are go.
"And so what? I am a rock star! I got my rock moves! And I don't need you!"
Out here the dark silhouettes of trees are fast becoming old fashioned. In an hour, charcoal shadows will seem so passé. Why, dark is so night time! Naked limbs expose brown clumps of abandoned birds' nests. I can hear the ticking in the trees. In each branch a countdown nears the zero point when green will explode on the earth. In some day to come we will be shocked with the sudden blessing of leaves.
"I'll be eaten by the worms, and weird fishes. Picked over by the worms, and weird fishes. Weird fishes..."
I look up at soccer hill, opting for the longer path around its circumference today. 8 runners use it to train; I see their black creature-ish silhouettes against the sky. They each go down the hill, then up, then down a different direction, then back up. Together at the top, then breaking into a chaos and then converging at the crest, they are a perfect swarm.
"It's all and illusion. There's too much confusion. I'll make you feel better..."
Rounding that bend which could hook me back north or feed me further south, I take in the perfectly crafted vantage point of Montrose Harbor. My feet yell "next stop: Belmont harbor!" But I look at the time and force them northward, promising that on Sunday we'll go for 10 miles. I promise! From this spot on this clear morning, I can see all the way to Navy Pier. "Navy Piers" he calls it. Silly Italian, he pluralizes everything. "Piers", "Cereals"...
"Something is going on at Navy Piers this weekend I thought maybe we could do that..." Later I get an SMS updating the suggestion to one of going to galleries - a genius stroke. Someone has been doing his homework. He's being awfully friendly; awfully kind and even, maybe, sweet. It's dawning on him that I don't need him, maybe. Maybe he's realizing that I can be pleasant company, after all. But, something has shifted. I'd love to trust the kindness, but I don't. I can't. We'll see how he acts once the green card issue gets resolved.
"I woke up this morning the sun shining brightly I put on my happy face..."
Dawn doesn't just happen at the horizon. The whole sky participates in sunrise. The west takes its cues from the refracting atmosphere and accepts the hug of long pink and purple arms, gently waking the whole dome. A gold glow above the horizon, an atmospheric revealing the hideout of angels, marks the location to watch. There, in moments, the thinnest pink line appears. Line grows into a mound like a bright pimple on the water. Soon, there she is. Blink and you see every step of the sunrise still framed in the retina burn of your eyes. Look at that, will you. Look at that color and drama and tell me it isn't natural for humans to adorn themselves and seek beauty.
Nature itself rolls the drum - such a showoff.
On the other side of me, the drive is starting to fill with southbound traffic. Off to markets and jobs, man rolls the dice - another day.
I was tardy for the iPod parade this morning, taping the feet up took a bit longer. After the last run I managed to rip all the skin off the top of my foot. Fuckin nice! Have to be more careful, now. Today the feet send back no messages of pain whatsoever. All systems are go.
"And so what? I am a rock star! I got my rock moves! And I don't need you!"
Out here the dark silhouettes of trees are fast becoming old fashioned. In an hour, charcoal shadows will seem so passé. Why, dark is so night time! Naked limbs expose brown clumps of abandoned birds' nests. I can hear the ticking in the trees. In each branch a countdown nears the zero point when green will explode on the earth. In some day to come we will be shocked with the sudden blessing of leaves.
"I'll be eaten by the worms, and weird fishes. Picked over by the worms, and weird fishes. Weird fishes..."
I look up at soccer hill, opting for the longer path around its circumference today. 8 runners use it to train; I see their black creature-ish silhouettes against the sky. They each go down the hill, then up, then down a different direction, then back up. Together at the top, then breaking into a chaos and then converging at the crest, they are a perfect swarm.
"It's all and illusion. There's too much confusion. I'll make you feel better..."
Rounding that bend which could hook me back north or feed me further south, I take in the perfectly crafted vantage point of Montrose Harbor. My feet yell "next stop: Belmont harbor!" But I look at the time and force them northward, promising that on Sunday we'll go for 10 miles. I promise! From this spot on this clear morning, I can see all the way to Navy Pier. "Navy Piers" he calls it. Silly Italian, he pluralizes everything. "Piers", "Cereals"...
"Something is going on at Navy Piers this weekend I thought maybe we could do that..." Later I get an SMS updating the suggestion to one of going to galleries - a genius stroke. Someone has been doing his homework. He's being awfully friendly; awfully kind and even, maybe, sweet. It's dawning on him that I don't need him, maybe. Maybe he's realizing that I can be pleasant company, after all. But, something has shifted. I'd love to trust the kindness, but I don't. I can't. We'll see how he acts once the green card issue gets resolved.
"I woke up this morning the sun shining brightly I put on my happy face..."
Dawn doesn't just happen at the horizon. The whole sky participates in sunrise. The west takes its cues from the refracting atmosphere and accepts the hug of long pink and purple arms, gently waking the whole dome. A gold glow above the horizon, an atmospheric revealing the hideout of angels, marks the location to watch. There, in moments, the thinnest pink line appears. Line grows into a mound like a bright pimple on the water. Soon, there she is. Blink and you see every step of the sunrise still framed in the retina burn of your eyes. Look at that, will you. Look at that color and drama and tell me it isn't natural for humans to adorn themselves and seek beauty.
Nature itself rolls the drum - such a showoff.
On the other side of me, the drive is starting to fill with southbound traffic. Off to markets and jobs, man rolls the dice - another day.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
pinch me
She sounded so excited on the phone yesterday, and I mean excited not in a good way. Like her world just got put on a merry go round and run in circles too fast after lunch. So I took her a little something this morning to brighten up the workspace. Get rid of that "twilight zone" feeling of watching all of the people and departments you work with the most get disappeared. She's the only one who would, here, and she refrains, from making a weight comment. Hiding half of me behind a counter helps. I don't like the comments. There's a subtle criticism to them, I think. Some small disapproval of the change. Oh but the change is coming. Just you weight.
I pinch myself. Hiding in the dressing room at the gym because I don't like being subjected to the nattering on of other women, I pinch and find the pockets which will be the target of next ten pounds. Outer thigh, not so bad. But inner thigh still has parenthenthetical adipose tissue. That must go. Arms don't suck, just need more muscle to shape them out. Inside of knees... how does one loose the inside of the knee fat? Belly, not so bad at all. But there's this persistent pocket, like a guffle of bread made out of fat, that rides on the back of my hip bones. It's neither butt fat, nor waist or hip it's just... back fat.
On a pig that would be called the "leaf lard". It's a persistent little storage depot, I can tell. Furthest back ancestors foraging across Africa would be proud. But 21st century woman gets a less positive judgment when the fat pocket puckers out from her side like an anatomical interloper during prayer twist pose. Well, you're next. I'll think of you every time I'm hungry enough to eat my fingers. With herbal laxatives, fiber supplements, protein powder and pickles for dinner, I'm coming for you, leaf fat. Leaf lard is supposed to be the highest quality. "Aren't you eating anything?" Why yes, I'm eating the best bit of fat on earth.
On line at Livestrong.com obsessing over which foods spiked my carb intake and how to classify my homemade chicken with no noodles soup. The system has popped me down to 1600 calories a day outside of tracked exercise which I don't enter until I go to bed so that it doesn't suddenly start telling me I can eat way more calories. I stay at least 200 below what they allot me, as a rule. Down too much too fast and I open myself up to bingeing. If there's nothing else I've done right in a day I've done hunger properly. There are charts where I can watch the graphs of what I eat and what I do and what I lose and the best part? No one is admonishing me. The computer just watches in mute anonymity. Thank you for the data, user "meatball".
Down just 15 lbs. from Jan 23. BMI at 22. Fuckin not enough! I remember that day. On that day I said 'no one will ever reject me again!' I'll never be not good enough again. It was all the fat's fault, that artificial layer of ick that is not part of the real me, I'm sure of it. No sir, from now on the ball is in MY court! She who is perfect gets to call the shots! Just another 20 lbs. to go. I fiddle with the numbers on the BMI chart. Well... 23. 23 pounds to go before the BMI raises official eyebrows. 23. How is that for symetry?
I pinch myself. Hiding in the dressing room at the gym because I don't like being subjected to the nattering on of other women, I pinch and find the pockets which will be the target of next ten pounds. Outer thigh, not so bad. But inner thigh still has parenthenthetical adipose tissue. That must go. Arms don't suck, just need more muscle to shape them out. Inside of knees... how does one loose the inside of the knee fat? Belly, not so bad at all. But there's this persistent pocket, like a guffle of bread made out of fat, that rides on the back of my hip bones. It's neither butt fat, nor waist or hip it's just... back fat.
On a pig that would be called the "leaf lard". It's a persistent little storage depot, I can tell. Furthest back ancestors foraging across Africa would be proud. But 21st century woman gets a less positive judgment when the fat pocket puckers out from her side like an anatomical interloper during prayer twist pose. Well, you're next. I'll think of you every time I'm hungry enough to eat my fingers. With herbal laxatives, fiber supplements, protein powder and pickles for dinner, I'm coming for you, leaf fat. Leaf lard is supposed to be the highest quality. "Aren't you eating anything?" Why yes, I'm eating the best bit of fat on earth.
On line at Livestrong.com obsessing over which foods spiked my carb intake and how to classify my homemade chicken with no noodles soup. The system has popped me down to 1600 calories a day outside of tracked exercise which I don't enter until I go to bed so that it doesn't suddenly start telling me I can eat way more calories. I stay at least 200 below what they allot me, as a rule. Down too much too fast and I open myself up to bingeing. If there's nothing else I've done right in a day I've done hunger properly. There are charts where I can watch the graphs of what I eat and what I do and what I lose and the best part? No one is admonishing me. The computer just watches in mute anonymity. Thank you for the data, user "meatball".
Down just 15 lbs. from Jan 23. BMI at 22. Fuckin not enough! I remember that day. On that day I said 'no one will ever reject me again!' I'll never be not good enough again. It was all the fat's fault, that artificial layer of ick that is not part of the real me, I'm sure of it. No sir, from now on the ball is in MY court! She who is perfect gets to call the shots! Just another 20 lbs. to go. I fiddle with the numbers on the BMI chart. Well... 23. 23 pounds to go before the BMI raises official eyebrows. 23. How is that for symetry?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
I'm going to live today
5:55 am. On with sneakers. On with iPod. Out the door. There's more what's awake at this hour than a normal person would believe. But somewhere folks are already at work or assembling for a 6 am aerobics class. The day to come is just a faint amber glow to the east of an ink blue sky.
Descending in the west, the ancient overseer glows, still, though her eye is half shut from a month's tiring work. The path is dry as there is no more snow left to melt. Already one can feel it. This will be a good day.
My belly complains. 40g of prunes and 2 tsp. of honey didn't shut it up at all. They compound with yesterday's total intake of 1200 calories to mock my effort. But just that much sugar is turning the trick & I hit a stride with pure octane pumping the engine. Feet go, legs leap, no wall in sight.
I weighed in at 146 lbs. at 5:15 am. I checked. That's down 15 lbs. from January 23. People keep asking if I'm loosing weight and I retort with a surprised "no!". Why it's so impolite to comment about weight - no one would say shit if I were a man! But the numbers don't lie - not like I do. After the weigh in I pulled my thinspiration out of hiding and compared again. Down 15 lbs. and still there is a bit of a tire around the middle! Of all things my tits get smaller! But for now I take the hunger in stride. That pain in the gut is a comfort, telling me I'm still alive - as does the twinge on my feet from the tape which holds them together.
The glow brightens. The lesser light bows down as a rosy stain spreads across the big bowl of sky. Spaceship Earth is turning. I can feel it - slightly different moment by moment under each foot fall. Cue dawn.
Maybe this morning I'll run over the hill between the soccer fields. From Cahokia to Giza, humans have pulled higher vantage points from the flat earth, seeking mountaintop experiences where nature provided none. Some theorize this stems from a common spirituality or a synchronicity. Perhaps it's just the instinct brain expressing a vestige from when our souls were bird soul. We go up because we must leap. We leap, once knowing but now just hoping, that a thermal will catch our frail selves and buoy us on.
"I wanted to take you out to dinner. Not well planned, I know. I wanted to do something nice together other than just me relieve stress at you..."
'Relieve stress'. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? What's so terrible about stress relief? But he's right. I'd rather just talk, sometimes. Sometimes I wish breakfast together lasted longer. He has been awfully nice lately. Knit one eyebrow. He also still needs that green card. But then, he must know I suspect him of being up to something. Knit one eyebrow, pearl two. Maybe he wants to feel different about himself? Maybe being nice is his way of stepping away gently? No idea. Knit two eyebrows, pearl one. I'd still love to put him in my pocket and protect him forever. But I know what happens next. It's time to pull back the curtain, show him who I really am... and wait to see if he stays or runs.
I make myself run until the flat top of the hill levels out. Around me city towers encircle like a glittery Stonehenge. Brightly lit birds, on wings of American and United, fly off to the east. It is a good day to wear green and have a holiday. It is a good day to heal. I look over the morning rituals of other humans subjecting themselves to this early exercise and glory. Some run in tandem, others in circles. Some walk with arms pumping while others skirt along on two wheels. I stretch.
And then, through an invisible gap in the horizon's blue curtain, the sun steps through. First, she demurs with an artsy smile. Then in red roaring glory that arrests the eye, she makes the heavenly demand for pause. This is the day. I'm going to live today.
Descending in the west, the ancient overseer glows, still, though her eye is half shut from a month's tiring work. The path is dry as there is no more snow left to melt. Already one can feel it. This will be a good day.
My belly complains. 40g of prunes and 2 tsp. of honey didn't shut it up at all. They compound with yesterday's total intake of 1200 calories to mock my effort. But just that much sugar is turning the trick & I hit a stride with pure octane pumping the engine. Feet go, legs leap, no wall in sight.
I weighed in at 146 lbs. at 5:15 am. I checked. That's down 15 lbs. from January 23. People keep asking if I'm loosing weight and I retort with a surprised "no!". Why it's so impolite to comment about weight - no one would say shit if I were a man! But the numbers don't lie - not like I do. After the weigh in I pulled my thinspiration out of hiding and compared again. Down 15 lbs. and still there is a bit of a tire around the middle! Of all things my tits get smaller! But for now I take the hunger in stride. That pain in the gut is a comfort, telling me I'm still alive - as does the twinge on my feet from the tape which holds them together.
The glow brightens. The lesser light bows down as a rosy stain spreads across the big bowl of sky. Spaceship Earth is turning. I can feel it - slightly different moment by moment under each foot fall. Cue dawn.
Maybe this morning I'll run over the hill between the soccer fields. From Cahokia to Giza, humans have pulled higher vantage points from the flat earth, seeking mountaintop experiences where nature provided none. Some theorize this stems from a common spirituality or a synchronicity. Perhaps it's just the instinct brain expressing a vestige from when our souls were bird soul. We go up because we must leap. We leap, once knowing but now just hoping, that a thermal will catch our frail selves and buoy us on.
"I wanted to take you out to dinner. Not well planned, I know. I wanted to do something nice together other than just me relieve stress at you..."
'Relieve stress'. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? What's so terrible about stress relief? But he's right. I'd rather just talk, sometimes. Sometimes I wish breakfast together lasted longer. He has been awfully nice lately. Knit one eyebrow. He also still needs that green card. But then, he must know I suspect him of being up to something. Knit one eyebrow, pearl two. Maybe he wants to feel different about himself? Maybe being nice is his way of stepping away gently? No idea. Knit two eyebrows, pearl one. I'd still love to put him in my pocket and protect him forever. But I know what happens next. It's time to pull back the curtain, show him who I really am... and wait to see if he stays or runs.
I make myself run until the flat top of the hill levels out. Around me city towers encircle like a glittery Stonehenge. Brightly lit birds, on wings of American and United, fly off to the east. It is a good day to wear green and have a holiday. It is a good day to heal. I look over the morning rituals of other humans subjecting themselves to this early exercise and glory. Some run in tandem, others in circles. Some walk with arms pumping while others skirt along on two wheels. I stretch.
And then, through an invisible gap in the horizon's blue curtain, the sun steps through. First, she demurs with an artsy smile. Then in red roaring glory that arrests the eye, she makes the heavenly demand for pause. This is the day. I'm going to live today.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
sketch of a day
Inky sky in the frigid morning gives way to slate grey and snow. Soon it will be spring, but not yet. Today, still, the wind blasts me in the face like a power drill forcing its way into every pore. Someone leaves their takeout on a post box and it has frozen faster than a hungry mouth could find it. The barker selling papers on the corner makes a "wooooooo wooooo" song that he does when the wind whips up real cold. Sometimes, on particularly warm mornings, he's out there singing a tune at 7 am, but he pipes down when someone gets close. I've started saying "good morning" when I go by, even though he seems to ignore me.
I walk into the gym, the same song comes through the speakers as was playing when I walked out yesterday morning. In the locker room I run into the "running granny" as I call her. She's in her 60's, runs marathons, skinny as a bird. Today I'm a bit earlier and she's just stepped out of the shower. Perhaps I've surprised her but we look at each other for a long second. Hair wrapped in a towel, the bones of her face seem to jut out further and I see how dark and sunken are her eyes. Is that where I'm heading by going on 5 hrs of sleep a night?
That same PM at work has been offering me beers for over a year now. Finally just tell him "allergic...sorry". Maybe the allergy theory of alcoholism is bunk, but I happen to like it and have repurposed it handily to circumnavigate events I don't wish to attend. Company lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I could do that, consume almost 1000 empty calories and spend 2 hours in awkward conversation not working - or I could just beg out thanks to an MSG allergy. Pizza? Gluten intolerant!My rarified system can only tolerate the finest sashimi and European chocolate!
Now if only I could beg off being allergic to silliness and stupidity. It still chaps my hide, that person who seemed so shocked at my suggesting they take the CTA."I'm from Texas! We don't have trains there!" Yet you've lived in a city WITH trains for long enough to get a medical degree. I moved from a tiny town of 900 to New York City in 1988 and after 5 minutes with a map - I spoke 'public transit'. Ok ok, drop it.
It's light out at 6, but sooner or later the sun must slide under the bend in the Earth. Night like a stain that won't go away. Dark that one has to wipe out of your eyes upon finally arriving home.
I walk into the gym, the same song comes through the speakers as was playing when I walked out yesterday morning. In the locker room I run into the "running granny" as I call her. She's in her 60's, runs marathons, skinny as a bird. Today I'm a bit earlier and she's just stepped out of the shower. Perhaps I've surprised her but we look at each other for a long second. Hair wrapped in a towel, the bones of her face seem to jut out further and I see how dark and sunken are her eyes. Is that where I'm heading by going on 5 hrs of sleep a night?
That same PM at work has been offering me beers for over a year now. Finally just tell him "allergic...sorry". Maybe the allergy theory of alcoholism is bunk, but I happen to like it and have repurposed it handily to circumnavigate events I don't wish to attend. Company lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I could do that, consume almost 1000 empty calories and spend 2 hours in awkward conversation not working - or I could just beg out thanks to an MSG allergy. Pizza? Gluten intolerant!My rarified system can only tolerate the finest sashimi and European chocolate!
Now if only I could beg off being allergic to silliness and stupidity. It still chaps my hide, that person who seemed so shocked at my suggesting they take the CTA."I'm from Texas! We don't have trains there!" Yet you've lived in a city WITH trains for long enough to get a medical degree. I moved from a tiny town of 900 to New York City in 1988 and after 5 minutes with a map - I spoke 'public transit'. Ok ok, drop it.
It's light out at 6, but sooner or later the sun must slide under the bend in the Earth. Night like a stain that won't go away. Dark that one has to wipe out of your eyes upon finally arriving home.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
1300: Over the moon
Another abnormally warm late winter day. Waxing gibbous overhead reaches its zenith in the early evening sky as I turn onto the lakeside path for a run. Remnants of melted snows catch her like many tiny mirrors and I step over the moon.
The lights on top of the Hancock have gone back to white with the passing of Valentine's day. It's like a big fake moon hanging over the city. And at 11pm, the moon shuts off. In the darkness I hear the purring next to me. Man - cat sleeps happy.
At Foster beach I take the unpaved, unlit path next to the water. In the eastern sky approaching stars move and weave as they come in for a landing at O'Hare. Our conversation keeps running through my head. His constant worry is his green card. While we watch the telly a birth control commercial comes on and I hear myself making the comment about how I hate the pill - how it felt like having the steering wheel to one's brain stolen by an angry monkey.
Then, he says it. "If you got pregnant I could get my green card."
"Neither of us needs that mess."
"But I could get my green card!"
"You run that idea past your momma, see what she says." Me, I know what mine would say. I know what she'd do and how she'd feel. It's the wrong reason. Of all the ways to fall of the horse of independence that would be the worst. What if he tricks me and sabotages the birth control?
The melt off has left puddles in the pathway which do not refreeze now that night has come. I'm hitting the wall a little early and my legs feel weak and light. Still, I step over the moon.
It's tempting, though, if for no other reason than it's nice to have the brief illusion of being wanted. In the early morning, before the sun has arisen, his form covered with soft skin finds me. His arms feel good. His back feels good. His head rubbing against my neck feels good. His cock feels good. Afterwards we both lay silent, playing possum, when I hear the whisper.
"You awake?"
"yes"
"Tell me, what makes me such an irrisistable lover?"
"Hm. Let me think about it."
"Ok, talk to you later."
"Ok, I'm just going to go to sleep and take over the whole bed now. That's my German half that does that!"
I roll over to fall asleep. The smell of his sweat is on my skin. I love it and feel sorry to have to wash it off in the morning. I don't know what it is that makes him irresistable. He's like catnip.
The wind along the lake is terrific. It pushes me backwards and threatens to tear the hat off my head. I turn back and finally hit a groove. In the dark the puddles collect her silvery light. I know she's high over my head, and leaping over water, I step over the moon.
Can I trust his being kind? Now that the idea is out there, that the green eyed lady could double as a green card lady, how do I know that the friendliness is genuine? He wants something. But then, we all want something and pose hard to the side that will get us what we want. He won't be content to be my hostage for long. In the morning I come to the end of the cereal. Do I buy more cereal or stop coming over?
By the elevator I grab his chin to kiss him goodbye. "oh, your question..." He seems a bit baffled that I would answer it there! "I need to do some more experimenting!"
The walkway to my front door is terrific for collecting water and so her reflection lights my path like a celestial guide. Coming home to independence, to strength, to me, I step over the moon.
The lights on top of the Hancock have gone back to white with the passing of Valentine's day. It's like a big fake moon hanging over the city. And at 11pm, the moon shuts off. In the darkness I hear the purring next to me. Man - cat sleeps happy.
At Foster beach I take the unpaved, unlit path next to the water. In the eastern sky approaching stars move and weave as they come in for a landing at O'Hare. Our conversation keeps running through my head. His constant worry is his green card. While we watch the telly a birth control commercial comes on and I hear myself making the comment about how I hate the pill - how it felt like having the steering wheel to one's brain stolen by an angry monkey.
Then, he says it. "If you got pregnant I could get my green card."
"Neither of us needs that mess."
"But I could get my green card!"
"You run that idea past your momma, see what she says." Me, I know what mine would say. I know what she'd do and how she'd feel. It's the wrong reason. Of all the ways to fall of the horse of independence that would be the worst. What if he tricks me and sabotages the birth control?
The melt off has left puddles in the pathway which do not refreeze now that night has come. I'm hitting the wall a little early and my legs feel weak and light. Still, I step over the moon.
It's tempting, though, if for no other reason than it's nice to have the brief illusion of being wanted. In the early morning, before the sun has arisen, his form covered with soft skin finds me. His arms feel good. His back feels good. His head rubbing against my neck feels good. His cock feels good. Afterwards we both lay silent, playing possum, when I hear the whisper.
"You awake?"
"yes"
"Tell me, what makes me such an irrisistable lover?"
"Hm. Let me think about it."
"Ok, talk to you later."
"Ok, I'm just going to go to sleep and take over the whole bed now. That's my German half that does that!"
I roll over to fall asleep. The smell of his sweat is on my skin. I love it and feel sorry to have to wash it off in the morning. I don't know what it is that makes him irresistable. He's like catnip.
The wind along the lake is terrific. It pushes me backwards and threatens to tear the hat off my head. I turn back and finally hit a groove. In the dark the puddles collect her silvery light. I know she's high over my head, and leaping over water, I step over the moon.
Can I trust his being kind? Now that the idea is out there, that the green eyed lady could double as a green card lady, how do I know that the friendliness is genuine? He wants something. But then, we all want something and pose hard to the side that will get us what we want. He won't be content to be my hostage for long. In the morning I come to the end of the cereal. Do I buy more cereal or stop coming over?
By the elevator I grab his chin to kiss him goodbye. "oh, your question..." He seems a bit baffled that I would answer it there! "I need to do some more experimenting!"
The walkway to my front door is terrific for collecting water and so her reflection lights my path like a celestial guide. Coming home to independence, to strength, to me, I step over the moon.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
When the cereal runs out
I wonder who will tire of this first? I don't wish for the affair to end - but I don't care to be the curb kick-ee either. Sometimes I wish I could fold him up and put him in my pocket. Sometimes I'd like to just knock his block off. No matter what we try to go out and do he sits there looking bored. I'm far too nice. I've done "relationships" enough to know what I don't like so much. And this? Could be courting disaster once again or - not. Freewheeling. Just deciding to feel differently about some similar circumstances is all.
Who will phone whom first? Was two nights in a row too much? Too close? We run back to our solitary routines in a hurry lest any closeness creep in. Back in loneliness I buttress feelings and remind myself to not drink of the tempting offer to hope for more. There is no more. There never really has been, ever, in any one's arms, just a cosmic tease of a dream that is in fact, a mirage. I stop and ask, where is it? Where is this love I hear so much about? I don't see it. It cannot survive a face without makeup, morning breath, funny digestive noises, sour pusses, sms messages that go misinterpreted. Thank you for not being too nice. Now I don't have to worry about being in love with you. I don't have to worry about making something last or making sure you love me. I can put on those 4" heels that make me just a bit taller than you - and walk. Whenever I feel like it. Maybe tomorrow.
Does he make sure there is milk for my cereal because he cares or because he's unable to prevent himself from planning everything? Does he fix me breakfast out of courtesy, caring, or because he just doesn't want me dickering around in the kitchen, spilling the chocolate milk and making him late? Why did he make sure to stash some of this tea he knows that I like - yet point out its procurement with such show? When my gluten-free cereal runs out - will the affair be over?
Who will phone whom first? Was two nights in a row too much? Too close? We run back to our solitary routines in a hurry lest any closeness creep in. Back in loneliness I buttress feelings and remind myself to not drink of the tempting offer to hope for more. There is no more. There never really has been, ever, in any one's arms, just a cosmic tease of a dream that is in fact, a mirage. I stop and ask, where is it? Where is this love I hear so much about? I don't see it. It cannot survive a face without makeup, morning breath, funny digestive noises, sour pusses, sms messages that go misinterpreted. Thank you for not being too nice. Now I don't have to worry about being in love with you. I don't have to worry about making something last or making sure you love me. I can put on those 4" heels that make me just a bit taller than you - and walk. Whenever I feel like it. Maybe tomorrow.
Does he make sure there is milk for my cereal because he cares or because he's unable to prevent himself from planning everything? Does he fix me breakfast out of courtesy, caring, or because he just doesn't want me dickering around in the kitchen, spilling the chocolate milk and making him late? Why did he make sure to stash some of this tea he knows that I like - yet point out its procurement with such show? When my gluten-free cereal runs out - will the affair be over?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Blue run
I had forgotten how it feels, those first few runs in the spring when the air is still cold but the ground is just melty enough. The encroaching evening is kind and doesn't threaten to freeze the slush beneath me into anything frightening. I ease in for a fast run. It's hard to believe this is a workout - it feels too easy.
From the east, through the thickening aqua air, a moving constellation approaches. First Big Dipper, now Orion's belt, the stars fasten their seat belts, put up tray tables and prepare for a landing. Hello Boston, hello New York, hello London, welcome home.
Lighter than air I chase ovals of amber light down the lakeshore, finally turning. Turning from pavement to the slushy path, abandoning the lights, i trot off into the blue cloud of encroaching night and take the way of trust.
From the east, through the thickening aqua air, a moving constellation approaches. First Big Dipper, now Orion's belt, the stars fasten their seat belts, put up tray tables and prepare for a landing. Hello Boston, hello New York, hello London, welcome home.
Lighter than air I chase ovals of amber light down the lakeshore, finally turning. Turning from pavement to the slushy path, abandoning the lights, i trot off into the blue cloud of encroaching night and take the way of trust.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wise monkey, foolish heart
If we are the "wise" monkeys, why do we keep making such dumb decisions?
I left him cool his heels for a week. Didn't tell him about Aunt Flo, just left him wonder why I wasn't picking up on any of those subtly placed "So...!" trailers he dropped in conversation. I don't have to really know where anything is going or for how long; I've yet to see any amount of hope or determination pay off in a relationship. When push came to shove and the truth got dragged out from behind the curtain of sweet gestures - they were all just friends with benefits. We've only got but just one day. I don't even want to know about tomorrow.
So on this day, after 7 nights of waking up in that big apartment alone and finding the expanse of a king sized bed to be too much for one person, he lights up my phone like a Christmas tree. Voicemail, SMS, begging, "I need your company". Of course you do. It sucks to be alone, to waste this flesh on empty sheets, to know that no one listens and wonders if you twitch from a nightmare or wake up in the middle of the night thirsty. I know. I take some persuading. I have to wash my hair, after all. But... ok. I'm far too nice to you, but OK.
I can make the requisite turn through my home in under an hour and a half. Make a 250 calorie smoothie for dinner, take a shower, blowout hair, change the clothes, pack the bag, grab the mail.
Hey! puffy envelope!!! It could be the proof for my novel come from the publisher! How exciting! I flip the package over and...shit. It is the return of a borrowed novel from the former hostage of my affections. I had completely forgotten about that whole deal as for over a month he'd been only an electronic presence. SMS messages telling me I meant nothing. Indicators on a singles site telling me that he never stopped looking over his shoulder for something better. Emails holding to the politest line of information exchange. This envelope is, at last, the caboose. But it's still funny to see his scratches on the envelope. I'm grateful that there is no awkward attempt at personal communication inside, but I do find a discarded bookmark in the pages. It's a ticket stub to a broadway show dated Jan 21. So that's what you were up to when not returning my calls. For a second a vision of a gesture, the way he looked standing in my vestibule, a scent, wafts through my mind. I let it pass through like a breeze. Not catching it to squeeze forth any meaning, I just let it go, let it pass into the thick forest of memory. Let it mean nothing.
On the bus I send an sms indicating my arrival time. The trail of messages, collected here over weeks, is like a sieve run through our relationship and coming up with the grosser chunks of truth. Here is encouragement, here is longing, here is capitulation. Here I go again - making the same situation that somewhat resembles a potential mess despite what experience has taught me. Smart. I'm on this bus because my apartment is big and lonely, too. I'm on this bus because a destructive spring full of fairy tales about love still bubbles and seeps under my rocky exterior. I'm on this bus because I want something and haven't quite put my finger on just the way to not need it anymore. I'm on this bus because something in my nature always says "full steam ahead" forgetting it's the engine, not the caboose, that kills you when it strikes. I'm on this bus because, today, it just doesn't feel like the most loving thing to stay alone.
I left him cool his heels for a week. Didn't tell him about Aunt Flo, just left him wonder why I wasn't picking up on any of those subtly placed "So...!" trailers he dropped in conversation. I don't have to really know where anything is going or for how long; I've yet to see any amount of hope or determination pay off in a relationship. When push came to shove and the truth got dragged out from behind the curtain of sweet gestures - they were all just friends with benefits. We've only got but just one day. I don't even want to know about tomorrow.
So on this day, after 7 nights of waking up in that big apartment alone and finding the expanse of a king sized bed to be too much for one person, he lights up my phone like a Christmas tree. Voicemail, SMS, begging, "I need your company". Of course you do. It sucks to be alone, to waste this flesh on empty sheets, to know that no one listens and wonders if you twitch from a nightmare or wake up in the middle of the night thirsty. I know. I take some persuading. I have to wash my hair, after all. But... ok. I'm far too nice to you, but OK.
I can make the requisite turn through my home in under an hour and a half. Make a 250 calorie smoothie for dinner, take a shower, blowout hair, change the clothes, pack the bag, grab the mail.
Hey! puffy envelope!!! It could be the proof for my novel come from the publisher! How exciting! I flip the package over and...shit. It is the return of a borrowed novel from the former hostage of my affections. I had completely forgotten about that whole deal as for over a month he'd been only an electronic presence. SMS messages telling me I meant nothing. Indicators on a singles site telling me that he never stopped looking over his shoulder for something better. Emails holding to the politest line of information exchange. This envelope is, at last, the caboose. But it's still funny to see his scratches on the envelope. I'm grateful that there is no awkward attempt at personal communication inside, but I do find a discarded bookmark in the pages. It's a ticket stub to a broadway show dated Jan 21. So that's what you were up to when not returning my calls. For a second a vision of a gesture, the way he looked standing in my vestibule, a scent, wafts through my mind. I let it pass through like a breeze. Not catching it to squeeze forth any meaning, I just let it go, let it pass into the thick forest of memory. Let it mean nothing.
On the bus I send an sms indicating my arrival time. The trail of messages, collected here over weeks, is like a sieve run through our relationship and coming up with the grosser chunks of truth. Here is encouragement, here is longing, here is capitulation. Here I go again - making the same situation that somewhat resembles a potential mess despite what experience has taught me. Smart. I'm on this bus because my apartment is big and lonely, too. I'm on this bus because a destructive spring full of fairy tales about love still bubbles and seeps under my rocky exterior. I'm on this bus because I want something and haven't quite put my finger on just the way to not need it anymore. I'm on this bus because something in my nature always says "full steam ahead" forgetting it's the engine, not the caboose, that kills you when it strikes. I'm on this bus because, today, it just doesn't feel like the most loving thing to stay alone.
Friday, February 20, 2009
tasca
Let me stick you in my pocket. You'd be warm and cozy and well contained in there. I would feel you curled up at my hip and pat you softly with silent contentment, knowing that you are safe.
Your dimples and soft skin need meet no more harsh gusts of reality. They need face the possibility of judgment and rejection no more. The guarantee of regular visits from adoring fingers seeking your warmth would be the only surprise. But these would come often to curl up in your flesh. I know you're not a cat, and that a life of safe contentment isn't the vision you hold for yourself. But then why do you purr in your sleep?
No, this isn't a proposal of love; we're both too selfish for that. But no one wants to go through life with empty pockets and find their heart shivering out in the cold.
Your dimples and soft skin need meet no more harsh gusts of reality. They need face the possibility of judgment and rejection no more. The guarantee of regular visits from adoring fingers seeking your warmth would be the only surprise. But these would come often to curl up in your flesh. I know you're not a cat, and that a life of safe contentment isn't the vision you hold for yourself. But then why do you purr in your sleep?
No, this isn't a proposal of love; we're both too selfish for that. But no one wants to go through life with empty pockets and find their heart shivering out in the cold.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
child of god
Empty 2 quart bottle next to him on the floor. Stink and cloudy gaze cast hazily about the fellow passengers. On a crowded train where people are standing, the seat next to him is empty. His pants aren't all the way up because there's no belt. It could be some fashion statement, or he could really be 'jailin' as the smell of him denotes a stint in the clink during recent hours.. But as he sits it's obvious the waistband stops well short of the tighty whities. It's this, more than the smell and curious, hazy begging in his eyes that keeps that seat empty. One might sit down and find yourself in contact with that naked bit of upper thigh.
The fragrance of hard liquor on breath is broken up by the aroma of tomato sauce and oregano coming from the take home pizza a woman boards, clutching in her hands. He points a dirty finger toward the box, asking if he can have her leftovers. By the looks of her, she's chubby enough to not warrant needing anything in that box, but she refuses. Turns to keep the box away from him.
It takes him minutes to stand up and get ready for the next stop. I keep hoping that those pants timidly holding to his thighs won't fall. He picks up his empty bottle and tries stuffing it under the mass of his many layers of shirts, dropping it once. When the doors open he lurches out and we all hear the smash of that bottle onto the platform. Passengers react, shake their heads. He staggers off down the platform, child of god.
The fragrance of hard liquor on breath is broken up by the aroma of tomato sauce and oregano coming from the take home pizza a woman boards, clutching in her hands. He points a dirty finger toward the box, asking if he can have her leftovers. By the looks of her, she's chubby enough to not warrant needing anything in that box, but she refuses. Turns to keep the box away from him.
It takes him minutes to stand up and get ready for the next stop. I keep hoping that those pants timidly holding to his thighs won't fall. He picks up his empty bottle and tries stuffing it under the mass of his many layers of shirts, dropping it once. When the doors open he lurches out and we all hear the smash of that bottle onto the platform. Passengers react, shake their heads. He staggers off down the platform, child of god.
Friday, February 13, 2009
49 on 13
49 People.
Just fifty less one people on a plane into a relatively nowhere city. When you say you're flying into New York City, Chicago, or San Francisco the response usually amounts to an excited "oooo!". But say you're flying to Buffalo and you get "oh". Oh, you must know someone there. Oh, you must have a darn good reason. Oh, now where is that?Is that in Wyoming?
Yet on that plane, in those 49 people who sat in seats and landed in flames, were a cantor, an activist for 911 families' rights, an activist who was among the first in this country to sound the alarm on Darfur, an aunt of one friend, & the colleagues of another. Just 49, like taking a metal scoop, dipping it into the giant well of humanity and look what you come up with. Probably there were more than a couple sinners on there, too, like people who might have been unfaithful to a spouse during their sojourn in New York City. Even the saintly among them might have lied to get out of an extra $20 charge at the hotel. "Internet? I didn't use no internet!" Sure, we know who all was on that flight, now. But did THEY know?
But it makes me pause, just to think of what kind of calibur was among just 49 humans flying around in one tin can. Of all those planes I've been on in the past year... who was on there with me? What were their stories? I remember the screaming babies, for sure, and the daffy-professor type who sat next to me coming back from London. But then, too, there was the skinny little man with his even skinnier and littler family, exhausted from having traveled all the way from Myanmar. They were refugees from the typhoon. He held out the large card hanging from a string around his neck to explain himself to me. I could only frown as my imagination filled in the gaps. I said "oh". I made sure he had lots of water and pillows. That was the flight back from... Atlanta? San Francisco? New York? Shit.
It gives me something to think about as I eyeball my fellow fliers for she who clearly brought on luggage too large to be a carry on and he who obviously ate beans for lunch before getting into the seat in front of me. Who are they all, really, beyond the normal sensory offenses which make convenient excuses for distance?
Just fifty less one people on a plane into a relatively nowhere city. When you say you're flying into New York City, Chicago, or San Francisco the response usually amounts to an excited "oooo!". But say you're flying to Buffalo and you get "oh". Oh, you must know someone there. Oh, you must have a darn good reason. Oh, now where is that?Is that in Wyoming?
Yet on that plane, in those 49 people who sat in seats and landed in flames, were a cantor, an activist for 911 families' rights, an activist who was among the first in this country to sound the alarm on Darfur, an aunt of one friend, & the colleagues of another. Just 49, like taking a metal scoop, dipping it into the giant well of humanity and look what you come up with. Probably there were more than a couple sinners on there, too, like people who might have been unfaithful to a spouse during their sojourn in New York City. Even the saintly among them might have lied to get out of an extra $20 charge at the hotel. "Internet? I didn't use no internet!" Sure, we know who all was on that flight, now. But did THEY know?
But it makes me pause, just to think of what kind of calibur was among just 49 humans flying around in one tin can. Of all those planes I've been on in the past year... who was on there with me? What were their stories? I remember the screaming babies, for sure, and the daffy-professor type who sat next to me coming back from London. But then, too, there was the skinny little man with his even skinnier and littler family, exhausted from having traveled all the way from Myanmar. They were refugees from the typhoon. He held out the large card hanging from a string around his neck to explain himself to me. I could only frown as my imagination filled in the gaps. I said "oh". I made sure he had lots of water and pillows. That was the flight back from... Atlanta? San Francisco? New York? Shit.
It gives me something to think about as I eyeball my fellow fliers for she who clearly brought on luggage too large to be a carry on and he who obviously ate beans for lunch before getting into the seat in front of me. Who are they all, really, beyond the normal sensory offenses which make convenient excuses for distance?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
I'm the "one"
Do not look at that oracle again. Do not pick it up. Do not ask the same question you ask every damn time. For just one moment of one day, let it go.
I've had my opinions about what I thought should happen in one situation and what I thought should have happened in another. I wouldn't even have called them opinions at the time, but they were; they were judgments. I thought B~ was a horrible disappointment and that events revealed hideous flaws of character. But I thought that because of my hope and expectations about the direction of our relationship. I really thought we would be in a long term relationship. I could envision him meeting my family or worse, making one. And that will never happen. I can see, now, how my expectations of him proved to mismatch the character he brought to the table. Expectation and hope were the only offenses, really. He was who he was and I came in with an unvocalized demand that the picture we make together look a certain way. Sure, I was willing to do my part to make that happen. But THAT had to happen. This has been the ripple underneath all of my dating escapades - stay with me.
And why do I crave this? It's like some odd obsession whose origins I cannot pin down. It's a chain tethered to some undisclosed location which constantly yanks my thoughts back into the same old rut. Please love me, please stay with me. Not only do I not need this thing I crave, seeking to sate it would be to my great detriment. What if I had married any of those various men I'd pinned hopes and time upon in the past? I'd be miserable! None of them were someone I could have been with for a long time. None of them were 'partners'. And have I ever really wanted a partner? Open the dirty, dark chasm of my mind and what hides in there is a woman shivering with fear and hoping to not face life. She wants someone to hide behind, protect her, hold her hand. That frightened form is a lie.
I feel it already with the Italian. I'm wondering why we don't talk about this or that... go do this or that... why it doesn't feel THIS way. Frankly, it's not supposed to look like anything! He's never ever going to fulfill that secret and unacknowledged fantasy of permanent security. He will never be the perfect partner. He will just be G~ and he'll be around for as long as he or I care to be. I don't know what his soul is up to in this. I don't know what B~'s soul was up to. There's nothing I can take from them. I don't need them to be who I am. What I am here to express will come out regardless. I'm slowly realizing that I'm just simply not here to judge and in not judging I save myself from expectation. In not expecting I take us all off the hook for results.
For a day I give myself a break. I don't let my imagination run anywhere. I don't think of certain people when song lyrics come up. I remind myself that there is no future. And for a bit I feel clean.
I've had my opinions about what I thought should happen in one situation and what I thought should have happened in another. I wouldn't even have called them opinions at the time, but they were; they were judgments. I thought B~ was a horrible disappointment and that events revealed hideous flaws of character. But I thought that because of my hope and expectations about the direction of our relationship. I really thought we would be in a long term relationship. I could envision him meeting my family or worse, making one. And that will never happen. I can see, now, how my expectations of him proved to mismatch the character he brought to the table. Expectation and hope were the only offenses, really. He was who he was and I came in with an unvocalized demand that the picture we make together look a certain way. Sure, I was willing to do my part to make that happen. But THAT had to happen. This has been the ripple underneath all of my dating escapades - stay with me.
And why do I crave this? It's like some odd obsession whose origins I cannot pin down. It's a chain tethered to some undisclosed location which constantly yanks my thoughts back into the same old rut. Please love me, please stay with me. Not only do I not need this thing I crave, seeking to sate it would be to my great detriment. What if I had married any of those various men I'd pinned hopes and time upon in the past? I'd be miserable! None of them were someone I could have been with for a long time. None of them were 'partners'. And have I ever really wanted a partner? Open the dirty, dark chasm of my mind and what hides in there is a woman shivering with fear and hoping to not face life. She wants someone to hide behind, protect her, hold her hand. That frightened form is a lie.
I feel it already with the Italian. I'm wondering why we don't talk about this or that... go do this or that... why it doesn't feel THIS way. Frankly, it's not supposed to look like anything! He's never ever going to fulfill that secret and unacknowledged fantasy of permanent security. He will never be the perfect partner. He will just be G~ and he'll be around for as long as he or I care to be. I don't know what his soul is up to in this. I don't know what B~'s soul was up to. There's nothing I can take from them. I don't need them to be who I am. What I am here to express will come out regardless. I'm slowly realizing that I'm just simply not here to judge and in not judging I save myself from expectation. In not expecting I take us all off the hook for results.
For a day I give myself a break. I don't let my imagination run anywhere. I don't think of certain people when song lyrics come up. I remind myself that there is no future. And for a bit I feel clean.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
I am welcome
At 11 pm the row of lights atop of the Hancock tower blink off. Up here I can look passing clouds in the eye. Up here I look down over buildings as windows shut their eyes and go dark for the night. It's that time again. Time again I'm listening to the sound of him sleeping next to me, sounding like the soft purr of a giant cat. It's time again I look out over the skyline, over the night city, and wonder.
I never know how to figure these out. I can lie here suspecting that this man just won't understand certain parts of me. But roll the tape back even one month to a man I thought did understand. Re-hear his talk; the sweet and understanding language. Hold his subsequent behavior up to the light and observe what hideous revelation of character eventually brought into view. His soul rotted in self-pity, his mind full of drink: it's sad to watch someone fall so perilously far short of the person they could be. Sad for him. I step over the body and move on with amazing alacrity.
Perhaps expecting someone to "care", to "understand", is simply too much and too gooey a goal to really understand in physicality should it arrive at the door. What does this understanding look like? What does it sound like? What does it ACT like? Perhaps it's a gift one only gives yet truly releases the strings. Maybe the math on feeling "known" will never balance out. It's fruitless effort on an impossible equation. I look around my full life and don't know what it is I want or somehow think I need. There's nothing, really, nothing I need. But the question of how can I just not hurt one more person with selfish behavior for one more day persists. I'd like to say that I would like someone to be good to. But is that, too, selfish? What spark of my own happiness am I expecting to come flying out of some man? Why am I here? The horns atop the tower blink red, warning planes and keeping a pace for all insomniacs of the city. What do I do here, god? How am I to be authentic, here, today?
Roll over and watch him sleep, face relaxed in an unconscious lack of expression. It's the same face I see as he answers the door or cleans up after me when I spill precious chocolate milk in the kitchen. He wears only his own face and there's no denying it's simply beautiful. He shuffles slightly, perhaps sensing my regard from the distance of his dream. Settling back in, his purring returns. I hate to admit it. It will feed right into that big Italian ego, but he really is the best lover. I doubt the oracle telling me to 'go ahead with this' every day, but when has certainty ever been a guarantee? Never.
I retrieved the cracked offerings of my affection from him who tossed them back so carelessly. And I'm fine. It was mine to keep all the time & I'm certainly not less anything in the attempt. Maybe I try too hard to give away that which I should be keeping.
As we part in the morning, wishing each other good day with a peck, it hits me just what I'm seeking. I want him to tell me outright, in that very moment, that he wants me to see me back as soon as possible, wants to call me, looks forward to seeing me again. I'm just looking for a welcome. Just another person hoping their heart doesn't die homeless. So that's what it is.
Unusually warm air kisses my face as I step out into a sun drenched morning. Saunter down the street like a soft jazz song plucked on a Les Paul. Despite all my thinking, who couldn't smile, now?
I never know how to figure these out. I can lie here suspecting that this man just won't understand certain parts of me. But roll the tape back even one month to a man I thought did understand. Re-hear his talk; the sweet and understanding language. Hold his subsequent behavior up to the light and observe what hideous revelation of character eventually brought into view. His soul rotted in self-pity, his mind full of drink: it's sad to watch someone fall so perilously far short of the person they could be. Sad for him. I step over the body and move on with amazing alacrity.
Perhaps expecting someone to "care", to "understand", is simply too much and too gooey a goal to really understand in physicality should it arrive at the door. What does this understanding look like? What does it sound like? What does it ACT like? Perhaps it's a gift one only gives yet truly releases the strings. Maybe the math on feeling "known" will never balance out. It's fruitless effort on an impossible equation. I look around my full life and don't know what it is I want or somehow think I need. There's nothing, really, nothing I need. But the question of how can I just not hurt one more person with selfish behavior for one more day persists. I'd like to say that I would like someone to be good to. But is that, too, selfish? What spark of my own happiness am I expecting to come flying out of some man? Why am I here? The horns atop the tower blink red, warning planes and keeping a pace for all insomniacs of the city. What do I do here, god? How am I to be authentic, here, today?
Roll over and watch him sleep, face relaxed in an unconscious lack of expression. It's the same face I see as he answers the door or cleans up after me when I spill precious chocolate milk in the kitchen. He wears only his own face and there's no denying it's simply beautiful. He shuffles slightly, perhaps sensing my regard from the distance of his dream. Settling back in, his purring returns. I hate to admit it. It will feed right into that big Italian ego, but he really is the best lover. I doubt the oracle telling me to 'go ahead with this' every day, but when has certainty ever been a guarantee? Never.
I retrieved the cracked offerings of my affection from him who tossed them back so carelessly. And I'm fine. It was mine to keep all the time & I'm certainly not less anything in the attempt. Maybe I try too hard to give away that which I should be keeping.
As we part in the morning, wishing each other good day with a peck, it hits me just what I'm seeking. I want him to tell me outright, in that very moment, that he wants me to see me back as soon as possible, wants to call me, looks forward to seeing me again. I'm just looking for a welcome. Just another person hoping their heart doesn't die homeless. So that's what it is.
Unusually warm air kisses my face as I step out into a sun drenched morning. Saunter down the street like a soft jazz song plucked on a Les Paul. Despite all my thinking, who couldn't smile, now?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Mi dispiace
"Can I make a request?"
"Sure...."
"Can you wear nice shoes? A skirt would be nice, but can you wear nice shoes?"
What?! My comfy sneakers and earth shoes aren't so appealing? Those birkenstocks I wore on Saturday didn't turn him on? I know where it's coming from. He's trying to say "I like you to look sexy... and you mostly do... but you're missing a spot" I know I've worn rather overly comfortable shoes each time I've been near him - mostly because those are the shoes that won't make me too tall. I don't like to feel big. Well, if he wants to see what happens when I turn on the power of tower... god help him. But I'm no fashion maven and suddenly every pair of shoes in my closet falls into question. Are you a 'nice' shoe? I have one pair of Italian leather boots...maybe those...? What will go with those? what skirt? Darn it! It's never just about the shoes!
It says something when the first words you make the attempt to learn in your new lover's native language are "I'm sorry". Mi dispiace. Even worse that I figure how to get the pronunciation right from a Madonna song.
The fun might wear off at some unknown point and then we're two people wondering what we're doing together and what happens, exactly, when we're apart. Does she see other people? Is he still on the prowl? At this point in life you'd think I'd be better at pushing these questions early. But this isn't about knowing - I don't want to know shit. It's about forgetting. It's about forgetting those people who've kicked us both to the curb in favor of wallowing in their own drama and self pity. Those people made the mistake of not reciprocating such freely offered adoration. It's about not looking over our shoulder at the world collapsing outside. We've picked up what's left of our souls and come to this place 47 floors up to watch the sun rise over the lake. Here on this island we're happy and have hope that pleasure can outlast erosion.
"Sure...."
"Can you wear nice shoes? A skirt would be nice, but can you wear nice shoes?"
What?! My comfy sneakers and earth shoes aren't so appealing? Those birkenstocks I wore on Saturday didn't turn him on? I know where it's coming from. He's trying to say "I like you to look sexy... and you mostly do... but you're missing a spot" I know I've worn rather overly comfortable shoes each time I've been near him - mostly because those are the shoes that won't make me too tall. I don't like to feel big. Well, if he wants to see what happens when I turn on the power of tower... god help him. But I'm no fashion maven and suddenly every pair of shoes in my closet falls into question. Are you a 'nice' shoe? I have one pair of Italian leather boots...maybe those...? What will go with those? what skirt? Darn it! It's never just about the shoes!
It says something when the first words you make the attempt to learn in your new lover's native language are "I'm sorry". Mi dispiace. Even worse that I figure how to get the pronunciation right from a Madonna song.
The fun might wear off at some unknown point and then we're two people wondering what we're doing together and what happens, exactly, when we're apart. Does she see other people? Is he still on the prowl? At this point in life you'd think I'd be better at pushing these questions early. But this isn't about knowing - I don't want to know shit. It's about forgetting. It's about forgetting those people who've kicked us both to the curb in favor of wallowing in their own drama and self pity. Those people made the mistake of not reciprocating such freely offered adoration. It's about not looking over our shoulder at the world collapsing outside. We've picked up what's left of our souls and come to this place 47 floors up to watch the sun rise over the lake. Here on this island we're happy and have hope that pleasure can outlast erosion.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Purple coat lady
I see her again at the corner. Same purple coat, same rolling backpack and hand bag next to her. She walks back and forth, back and forth, never getting on a bus, never walking into an office. I ran into her the other night in the Cultural Center. I was marching toward some lecture, she was marching toward a warm seat. We show up in many of the same places, both of us in our long coats and toting worldly goods for the day. But the subtle differences make a world of difference. One of us looks like our steps have a purpose, the other actually has one.
On some days the differentiation is slim. I could dissect and twitter myself endlessly, trying to outline a life but find it to have been thin on purpose as I put head to pillow in the end. What goes through her head, I wonder? I notice her at her corner just after I finished playing chicken with a cabbie who proves to not possess the stones to send me into the afterlife. I'd like to stay with her, on that corner, pacing next to her, to see what it's like. I'm sure my head would not be empty at all but would soon fill with demons a-plenty. The tide of mental pollution I push away with purpose, a prayer and a job title would rise and flood my mind. The rush might drown reason but also cover a multitude of sad and sorry-smelling sins.
"I wish he'd just get off the pity pot, wipe his ass and live - plenty of people's father's get cancer. I hope he remembers to give me my book back.
I wonder how she is today. The furnace just go replaced, next the roof needs insulation, the well needs to be re-dug and the bathroom walls - shit the bathroom walls.
If that bitch bugs me about my weight again I'll scream! Don't people know how rude it is to comment about another person's weight? Jees!
I shouldn't have said that, or that or that. Shit it's 9 am and I haven't managed to do a single thing right today."
Soon enough my simple bag would also spill over with the detritus of life that must be carried around. What would the world look like? Would it be more frightening or would it in fact prove to be a simpler landscape of impressions and associations? Absent of the details of the day I could wander in a city of my own thoughts - lost. I want to know, for real, but don't have the time to find out.
Past purple coat lady I push up the street to the office building where I work. She didn't start out as the woman who wandered around downtown, I'm sure. Did she start like me and simply find the slippery tide of depression and confusion too tempting? Hard to say. That fall lands us all in different places somewhere between loss of appetite to loss of mind. I run into her at a corner sometimes. Out of habit or concern she looks both ways before crossing the street. Me, I've stopped bothering to look.
On some days the differentiation is slim. I could dissect and twitter myself endlessly, trying to outline a life but find it to have been thin on purpose as I put head to pillow in the end. What goes through her head, I wonder? I notice her at her corner just after I finished playing chicken with a cabbie who proves to not possess the stones to send me into the afterlife. I'd like to stay with her, on that corner, pacing next to her, to see what it's like. I'm sure my head would not be empty at all but would soon fill with demons a-plenty. The tide of mental pollution I push away with purpose, a prayer and a job title would rise and flood my mind. The rush might drown reason but also cover a multitude of sad and sorry-smelling sins.
"I wish he'd just get off the pity pot, wipe his ass and live - plenty of people's father's get cancer. I hope he remembers to give me my book back.
I wonder how she is today. The furnace just go replaced, next the roof needs insulation, the well needs to be re-dug and the bathroom walls - shit the bathroom walls.
If that bitch bugs me about my weight again I'll scream! Don't people know how rude it is to comment about another person's weight? Jees!
I shouldn't have said that, or that or that. Shit it's 9 am and I haven't managed to do a single thing right today."
Soon enough my simple bag would also spill over with the detritus of life that must be carried around. What would the world look like? Would it be more frightening or would it in fact prove to be a simpler landscape of impressions and associations? Absent of the details of the day I could wander in a city of my own thoughts - lost. I want to know, for real, but don't have the time to find out.
Past purple coat lady I push up the street to the office building where I work. She didn't start out as the woman who wandered around downtown, I'm sure. Did she start like me and simply find the slippery tide of depression and confusion too tempting? Hard to say. That fall lands us all in different places somewhere between loss of appetite to loss of mind. I run into her at a corner sometimes. Out of habit or concern she looks both ways before crossing the street. Me, I've stopped bothering to look.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The dirt of winter
I don't much mind the dead of winter, it's the dirt of winter I take issue with. Snow, rock hard from days of varying temperature never getting quite warm enough to melt the lot but merely render it into a colder kind of concrete, is like a blank sheaf of paper. Each page dropped from the sky successively records the detritus of the day. A cross section, on view maybe against the glass wall of a bus stop, reveals the sedimentary layers of city in winter. Snow bergs rise from the dirt, the dusty chalk of Chicago air and snow frozen and refrozen into ice.
Its safe to go out with just shoes on for even though two feet of snow still lay upon the ground the works is packed down enough by feet that one can make a way down the street. It's not just the cold that restricts the motion, though. Jaywalking, straying and cutting corners are not options on sidewalks hemmed in by piles of snow yick. More and more the page is dotted with yellow-orange stains and dog poos left behind in favor of hurrying home out of the cold. Someday when the works melts it will liberate months worth of garbage, doggy do, and things long ago dropped and unable to locate in the snow. Someday the grit held in the snow will lie all over the grass, all over the sidewalk and street. It will be as if the sky had rained grit and poo. It will be worth it just to jay walk again.
Its safe to go out with just shoes on for even though two feet of snow still lay upon the ground the works is packed down enough by feet that one can make a way down the street. It's not just the cold that restricts the motion, though. Jaywalking, straying and cutting corners are not options on sidewalks hemmed in by piles of snow yick. More and more the page is dotted with yellow-orange stains and dog poos left behind in favor of hurrying home out of the cold. Someday when the works melts it will liberate months worth of garbage, doggy do, and things long ago dropped and unable to locate in the snow. Someday the grit held in the snow will lie all over the grass, all over the sidewalk and street. It will be as if the sky had rained grit and poo. It will be worth it just to jay walk again.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
How fortunate are we
When it comes in great torrents, it's so easy to confuse the blessing of fresh water falling with a curse. But the rain, each drop, is only in and of itself intending to bless. Its volume, its timing, merely makes us confused. What it washes away, the attachment and appearance of things hoped for, longed for, worked for, these are the curse we place rain upon our own heads.
But am I brave enough to hang there, let this rain flood my life, erode those things not anchored too tight in the truth? I'm afraid. But what does that prove? If fear constantly won over creativity we'd still live in caves.
How fortunate to have employment to loose, how fortunate to have the love that might relocate, how fortunate is the healthy body sweating its way through 2 hours of yoga. Being is the blessing - its appearance, whether in him, her, it, or that, merely changes shape and appearance as it reflects our life. It will always find some new circumstance in which to manifest, should one get washed away. Life reflects being like the raindrop falling, always falling, to ground.
But am I brave enough to hang there, let this rain flood my life, erode those things not anchored too tight in the truth? I'm afraid. But what does that prove? If fear constantly won over creativity we'd still live in caves.
How fortunate to have employment to loose, how fortunate to have the love that might relocate, how fortunate is the healthy body sweating its way through 2 hours of yoga. Being is the blessing - its appearance, whether in him, her, it, or that, merely changes shape and appearance as it reflects our life. It will always find some new circumstance in which to manifest, should one get washed away. Life reflects being like the raindrop falling, always falling, to ground.
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