I ran into myself in New York this morning.
It’s funny. I’ve gotten so accustomed to getting on and off of planes and being in different cities that it didn’t occur to me I was in the big apple until last night, when suddenly I didn’t know where to go grab dinner. Then, I remembered that I was on a coast, so dinner meant sushi.
There I was, sometime between 8:30 and 9 am, marching along in my little business casual outfit with heavy laptop strung to my back, when I passed the southwest corner of Grand Central terminal & its ornate porticos. That’s where I saw her, 17 year old Caroline and a few of her newest friends trying to catch a cab uptown to the museum of art. One of those claiming more city experience kept turning cabs away, thinking that some were cheaper than others. We could have just grabbed a subway. But today I suddenly remembered standing on that corner, staring up and all around at the big, busy, grey place that engulfed me while trying to not look young and naïve. Well, New York City was a different sort of place in the 80’s.
And now? A city is a city is a city, but the differences in architectural detail jump out at me more. New York has more art deco and early modern details whereas Chicago will display a neo-classical hangover amidst some more bland attempts at contemporary. SOM hasn’t done my sweet home any favors. London mixes an exquisite oldness with and edgy new. Medieval towers elbow up to giant glass and steel structures resembling a slinky perhaps left lying on the riverfront by a giant baby. Such contrast leaves a tart sweet taste in the mouth that makes one want more after the shock is over. So, whereas 20 years ago I stood amidst they grey, cavernous beehive of midtown and made little sense of what was about me, today I see that the bricks on that building are arranged to make a subtle plaid pattern as they sculpt the edifice. Neat.
Maybe cities all seem the same after a while, but they press their character on you in subtle ways. I get into a cab to the airport and the cabbie looks up at me in his mirror. “You’re going to Chicago!” “How did you know?” “You look like Chicago!” I’ll take that as a compliment. One third the people and twice the fun - I love this place.
I always said I would never live in an unnatural, electronically mediated world. That was the reason I bought books and shunned TV. But I get to the airport and remain tethered to my iPhone calling this or that person and emailing my boss to ask to work from home tomorrow as I have a sniffle and a backache. From security to jetway I suckle the information nipple. I am not apart from this world I inhabit. I do not have the luxury of commenting on it. I need it too much to be a critic and perhaps I need it too much to poke at it too heavily with design.
On the plane I am next to a man so tiny the can sit cross-legged in the middle seat. He is the largest of his family, who populate the two rows behind us. He speaks no English and so we communicate through sign language for a bit. This is his 3rd flight in a row and he smells like it. He wears a tag about his neck stating that he is traveling from Myanmar to Fort Wayne, IN. An immigrant, a refugee, he sees this world with a mindset I can only begin to fathom. I make sure he gets drinks of water and hope he feels welcome. His legs are thinner than some people’s arms. His hands are delicate and the nails tell a story of times of nutrition and famine like the rings on a tree. I compare his legs to my notoriously meaty ones and wonder if this thing I call life really in any way stretches what it means to be alive. That’s what brings me back to the garden, I guess. I need that place to see life force in motion and to see it exercising a will that is not always benevolent or pretty as much as necessary.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
4 pictures of friday
Three strangers pass each other on the street, each coming from different directions. They’re all wearing polo shirts with inch wide horizontal strips, but the colors are different. Grey and navy, orange and green, black and white, for five seconds they meet in space and from where I sit on the passing bus they form one single, stripey flag of cotton and bodies.
The planes are practicing their formations overhead. If you hear that loud noise, it’s already too late. If you hear the noise coming from the left look right, they’re that fast. It’s lunchtime and everyone is out walking around and nobody is looking at where they’re going because of this strange, combative dance of noise and steel in the sky above us. People collide, step out into the street without looking, stop in their tracks and point. One guy almost burns me with his cigarette as he rounds a corner, his head fully turned upwards to see a formation of three planes spiraling overhead.
I’ve heard people repeat this line over and over again. It’s from step 6. “having come this far, you have swallowed some large chunks of truth about yourself.” And sure enough, just to own it, this old man repeats it again. Just then a thought pops into my head. “Wonder what those will look like when they come out the other end?” I bust into laughter in the middle of the meeting. Sure I’m sober. Really.
Moon floats just above the horizon in a perfect pool of lavendar fading to pink. It’s glow is just the faintest chartreuse. It dares me to put something of such beauty and command onto a piece of paper. That might not be so possible, old lady. But I might just catch you in plastic.
The planes are practicing their formations overhead. If you hear that loud noise, it’s already too late. If you hear the noise coming from the left look right, they’re that fast. It’s lunchtime and everyone is out walking around and nobody is looking at where they’re going because of this strange, combative dance of noise and steel in the sky above us. People collide, step out into the street without looking, stop in their tracks and point. One guy almost burns me with his cigarette as he rounds a corner, his head fully turned upwards to see a formation of three planes spiraling overhead.
I’ve heard people repeat this line over and over again. It’s from step 6. “having come this far, you have swallowed some large chunks of truth about yourself.” And sure enough, just to own it, this old man repeats it again. Just then a thought pops into my head. “Wonder what those will look like when they come out the other end?” I bust into laughter in the middle of the meeting. Sure I’m sober. Really.
Moon floats just above the horizon in a perfect pool of lavendar fading to pink. It’s glow is just the faintest chartreuse. It dares me to put something of such beauty and command onto a piece of paper. That might not be so possible, old lady. But I might just catch you in plastic.
Monday, August 11, 2008
digging in the dirt
Christmas morning, 1978. So, I was eight years old. I’ve just opened up a box containing a plastic baby doll and I’m holding it up to myself, hugging it with glee. This was just what I’d asked for - the doll from the commercial, Baby this n’ that. It had arms that moved in different directions when you squeezed its toes (obviously something you need to practice for eventually dealing with a normal baby, right? Possible younger siblings would love that). The right arm went back and forth (so it could brush its own teeth or hold a crayon). The left arm went up and down so it could feed itself. Pressing a little toe made the mouth move like a real baby’s so that it could eat from its spoon or drink from its bottle. It ‘could’ eat. But the possibility of food rotting inside of a doll instantly got my mom to put a kibosh on feeding the baby. I did give it a bottle, once. It was just water (again, the rotting doll theory). It was just one bottle of water, but that doll peed for a long time! We finally just put in on a stack of newspapers until it stopped wetting itself. By that time, the rubber booties, concealing the pneumatic devices in the toes, were completely stained from the newsprint. Although, pink eraser helped get those marks off.
I look at this doll I cuddle so happily and a few things amaze me. First of all, it’s blonde with blue eyes. Come to think of it, all of my baby dolls were blonde with blue eyes. Why didn’t they bother to make color-correct dolls for little girls who were not toe-heads? I don’t get that. I remember marveling then that there were so few dolls to be had what did not have blonde hair. I had one Barbie – type doll with black hair. I played with that doll A LOT. I’m sure generations of non-whites felt the same way about handing their daughters plastic dolls with peach colored “skin”. Why bother when you can make a sock puppet?
I also wonder why the hair on the doll, though it’s new, does not look like the hair of the doll pictured on the box. It’s wiry and messy. Shouldn’t it at least have started out neat? I think at some point I put baby oil on the hair to tidy it up! Really the most interesting thing about dolls was the inside of their heads. I couldn’t pull the head off this n’ that doll because of the various contraptions that coordinated facial movement with toe-pressing. But I pulled the head off lots of dolls to see the amazing pattern of how their hair was sewn into their plastic scalps. I wondered if my own hair were attached in a similar fashion.
Hair – I always had a thick mass of hair, right from the very start. For some reason moms go ga-ga about keeping their daughters’ hair long when they themselves keep it cut short. I had this terribly long mop (and I do mean MOP) that constantly resisted being restrained in ponytails or buns and was insufferable when let loose. In this image my hair is up in a loop (make a ponytail and wind the length back through the rubber band a few times). And my hair is all breakage from the constant pulling back with rubber bands. I tried cutting it myself once I was so sick of it. Bad idea.
The smile is cute. I’m in the middle of loosing teeth. The incisors are in place in the front and the two on either side are making their way into their crooked form. If we’d taken me to a dentist we’d have known that my cuspids weren’t coming in at all. My whole face is in an awkward state of transition from baby sized to something bigger. I don’t seem to be noticing.
Why the hell did they give me dolls and why did I ask for them? I see dolls now and just… I don’t understand them. The one stuffed animal in my possession is only there for the sole reason of having been a gift of exceptional cuteness. Although I did take it to therapy once when I wanted something to cuddle. When someone comes to my house for the first time and sees my stuffed animal I am compelled to quickly explain and validate its presence. I squeeze it’s tummy. It says “whoooo!” Case closed. I look at this picture and just think it’s absolutely silly. I asked for dolls, but I really played with trucks and liked to dig around in the dirt. A set of garden tools would have been perfect as I distinctly remember spending the following summer using flat stones attempting to dig a hole to China in the back yard. Or a brand new hoe – I know that playing in the dirt would occupy more of my time than the relationship – obsessed dolls of those doomed-to-be-a-girl. An erector set or some modeling clay would have been great. Or two paint sets (with extra amounts of pink paint!) would have been great! I wasn’t necessarily playing with the wrong things as much as thinking I should play with the wrong things for who I was. Dolls? BABY dolls? What was I thinking? Kids are supposed to have some measure of unconscious, pre-adult honesty. Was I missing mine? Or had I already been told too many times by television and siblings what I should want? I was happy to have this doll that I’d asked for and didn’t know what to do with it. I tried taking it to bed with me to cuddle, like I’d seen girls do with dolls in pictures, but it was hard plastic. OW! Eventually the little spoon it came with would assist me in my outdoor activities.
I brought the doll in to school for show and tell in January. Peggy, one of those people I called a friend who, now that I think about it, never acted like a friend at all, had also gotten one. She actually LOOKED like her doll, with her light eyes and hair. I guess we could have sat down and played with our same –type dolls together. But we didn’t. I put my doll away, took it home, didn’t play with it much after that. It remained in near-new condition (except for the hair which never looked new…) at the bottom of the wooden doll crib grampa Joe had made for me. I had holes to dig in the back yard!
I look at this doll I cuddle so happily and a few things amaze me. First of all, it’s blonde with blue eyes. Come to think of it, all of my baby dolls were blonde with blue eyes. Why didn’t they bother to make color-correct dolls for little girls who were not toe-heads? I don’t get that. I remember marveling then that there were so few dolls to be had what did not have blonde hair. I had one Barbie – type doll with black hair. I played with that doll A LOT. I’m sure generations of non-whites felt the same way about handing their daughters plastic dolls with peach colored “skin”. Why bother when you can make a sock puppet?
I also wonder why the hair on the doll, though it’s new, does not look like the hair of the doll pictured on the box. It’s wiry and messy. Shouldn’t it at least have started out neat? I think at some point I put baby oil on the hair to tidy it up! Really the most interesting thing about dolls was the inside of their heads. I couldn’t pull the head off this n’ that doll because of the various contraptions that coordinated facial movement with toe-pressing. But I pulled the head off lots of dolls to see the amazing pattern of how their hair was sewn into their plastic scalps. I wondered if my own hair were attached in a similar fashion.
Hair – I always had a thick mass of hair, right from the very start. For some reason moms go ga-ga about keeping their daughters’ hair long when they themselves keep it cut short. I had this terribly long mop (and I do mean MOP) that constantly resisted being restrained in ponytails or buns and was insufferable when let loose. In this image my hair is up in a loop (make a ponytail and wind the length back through the rubber band a few times). And my hair is all breakage from the constant pulling back with rubber bands. I tried cutting it myself once I was so sick of it. Bad idea.
The smile is cute. I’m in the middle of loosing teeth. The incisors are in place in the front and the two on either side are making their way into their crooked form. If we’d taken me to a dentist we’d have known that my cuspids weren’t coming in at all. My whole face is in an awkward state of transition from baby sized to something bigger. I don’t seem to be noticing.
Why the hell did they give me dolls and why did I ask for them? I see dolls now and just… I don’t understand them. The one stuffed animal in my possession is only there for the sole reason of having been a gift of exceptional cuteness. Although I did take it to therapy once when I wanted something to cuddle. When someone comes to my house for the first time and sees my stuffed animal I am compelled to quickly explain and validate its presence. I squeeze it’s tummy. It says “whoooo!” Case closed. I look at this picture and just think it’s absolutely silly. I asked for dolls, but I really played with trucks and liked to dig around in the dirt. A set of garden tools would have been perfect as I distinctly remember spending the following summer using flat stones attempting to dig a hole to China in the back yard. Or a brand new hoe – I know that playing in the dirt would occupy more of my time than the relationship – obsessed dolls of those doomed-to-be-a-girl. An erector set or some modeling clay would have been great. Or two paint sets (with extra amounts of pink paint!) would have been great! I wasn’t necessarily playing with the wrong things as much as thinking I should play with the wrong things for who I was. Dolls? BABY dolls? What was I thinking? Kids are supposed to have some measure of unconscious, pre-adult honesty. Was I missing mine? Or had I already been told too many times by television and siblings what I should want? I was happy to have this doll that I’d asked for and didn’t know what to do with it. I tried taking it to bed with me to cuddle, like I’d seen girls do with dolls in pictures, but it was hard plastic. OW! Eventually the little spoon it came with would assist me in my outdoor activities.
I brought the doll in to school for show and tell in January. Peggy, one of those people I called a friend who, now that I think about it, never acted like a friend at all, had also gotten one. She actually LOOKED like her doll, with her light eyes and hair. I guess we could have sat down and played with our same –type dolls together. But we didn’t. I put my doll away, took it home, didn’t play with it much after that. It remained in near-new condition (except for the hair which never looked new…) at the bottom of the wooden doll crib grampa Joe had made for me. I had holes to dig in the back yard!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Another passing storm
“Love it away” she says. Look at that dark cloud and love it away. I glance up from my work. It’s early yet but the sky has gone to night. Storms roll through the city, lightning like a monster on the loose. Water pours through the glass and steel walls like they are made of chicken wire. It hits like a wall out of nowhere in what was such a sunny day.
We were doing so well. How dare you cancel time with me to be with HER? Her night is Wednesday! This was supposed to be my time! Once the vapors gather, clouds thicken quickly. Why is it you keep trying to get me to state my opinions just so you can bash them about with your personal take on things? You say you’re trying to convert me into a non-liberal? Hey! Did I ever sit there and try to change YOUR mind on anything? Did I ever say that anything about you was unacceptable to me? By the way – I’m a little sick of having a partner who’s not interested in morning sex. So fuck you. There are a lot of people who’d be plenty happy to spend an evening with me. Think I’ll go out to dinner with one of them now! Hear the thunder, here comes the lighting. ZAP. You’re almost gone, “sweet heart”.
I can’t compete with that 3-year-old daughter. There is a joy he gets in playing with the tot in whose features he sees his own that spending time with me will never render. She brings a joy to his life that I don’t. And it’s a joy that something tells me I have never brought to anyone’s life.
“That’s not true.” she says, again.
The question just under my rage is just this - “Who is going to love me best?” As soon as I verbalize it I know how selfish it sounds. Black sheets of fearsome rain pour through the best defenses of maturity. I’m drenched in knowing I won’t get enough of what I want. Self-pity is making party favors in the kitchen. But there it is, the craving to be on the top of the heap and the suspicion that I belong on the bottom.
I go hunting for answers back in the source, my I-Ching, my family photo album. I don’t know when this one was taken, but I must have been just shy of 3 years old judging by the toys I’m holding. That big vinyl easy chair where Dad always sat and watched television (hence it became known as the “daddy chair”) doesn’t yet look as cracked and depleted of stuffing as I remember it. That crazy chair would leak bits of foam such that it had to be swept under regularly. But in this photo, it’s new.
I remember that chair, suddenly. I remember piling in there next to my dad, squeezing into the space between him and the armrest. He’d remark that I was getting bigger as it got tougher for me to fit in. (I wasn’t the only one growing bigger, thanks to mom’s cooking, however.) I don’t remember when the point came that I stopped getting into that chair. It doesn’t matter for this memory, though. For that time, in that shot, I was wedged in good. Having to have all of my dolls with me at all times, the chair is a pile of me, dolls, and dad. The smile on his face is just so happy. He must have been out mowing the lawn or downstairs working on those cars judging from the work clothes he’s wearing. His hair is still dark and from the shape of his face I can tell he still has his teeth. He’s still relatively thin in his face and I can see the vestige of that handsome young guy mom married still there. And there I am. Holding 3 near-naked, beaten up plastic baby dolls and my Dressy Bessie, face dirty, hair in a “palm tree”, squished in under his arm, just a baby, still oblivious. I’m in that stage of violent play and steamrolling my way through growth. The satisfaction of that moment, the payoff in the shot, is all on Dad’s face.
I’ve seen the wedding photos, I’ve seen the valentines and anniversary photos. This smile is not in those pictures. It’s here. It’s mine. It’s like daddy’s nudging me through the ether, “Tootsie, I loved you best.”
He must have missed it after I no longer fit in the chair. I didn’t. It never even occurred to me that I was in the business of growing up. The toy car I fashioned out of a cardboard box had no rear-view mirror. It never occurred to me that I meant anything to anyone. It never has.
What do we get into these relationships expecting? What long lost piece of me is supposed to come flying out of him? Am I expecting him to be “Mr. Right” or “the one”? yick! If I don’t hold those sorts of expectations over this then I won’t have to start resenting him for failures of perfection that I out-picture into the future! I get along much better with people when they don’t have to be my savior. Did I mistake him for being the source of love in my life?
Lets get one thing clear, thunder cloud, I am my own source of sunshine. I am my own source of love. You can rumble and zap and dampen my day, but you can’t take that away from me.
He has to spend time with the 3-year-old. He has to fill photo albums and go on camping trips and keep her close because she will forget. She will turn into a teen who thinks her parents didn’t love her right because that love didn’t show up in just the way she wanted it to (even though she won’t be able to spell that out, precisely, when asked). He has to sacrifice the time now because it’s his job to remember, to be her mirror, to be a road home through the angry stages of growing up.
I manage my way to the subway through the underground tunnels. From the train I watch the lightning tear away at the night sky with deep, violet gashes. Its rage is passing off to the East. Before I head upstairs I check the mail and I’m surprised to find a card from mom.
I get cards from mom all the time. The poem in them is usually nice and she signs it “love mom XXOO” at the end. And I keep them. This one? She’s filled one whole side with a note. I’ve never seen this much of her handwriting in one place and I’m amazed just at the quantity of it.
“Thinking about you and your milestone achievement and how proud I am of your determination. You have proven to yourself and me that you have what it takes to do whatever you want. I hope you do something fun for your anniversary!”
oh yeah, that’s right. None of us is here to be “loved best”.
We were doing so well. How dare you cancel time with me to be with HER? Her night is Wednesday! This was supposed to be my time! Once the vapors gather, clouds thicken quickly. Why is it you keep trying to get me to state my opinions just so you can bash them about with your personal take on things? You say you’re trying to convert me into a non-liberal? Hey! Did I ever sit there and try to change YOUR mind on anything? Did I ever say that anything about you was unacceptable to me? By the way – I’m a little sick of having a partner who’s not interested in morning sex. So fuck you. There are a lot of people who’d be plenty happy to spend an evening with me. Think I’ll go out to dinner with one of them now! Hear the thunder, here comes the lighting. ZAP. You’re almost gone, “sweet heart”.
I can’t compete with that 3-year-old daughter. There is a joy he gets in playing with the tot in whose features he sees his own that spending time with me will never render. She brings a joy to his life that I don’t. And it’s a joy that something tells me I have never brought to anyone’s life.
“That’s not true.” she says, again.
The question just under my rage is just this - “Who is going to love me best?” As soon as I verbalize it I know how selfish it sounds. Black sheets of fearsome rain pour through the best defenses of maturity. I’m drenched in knowing I won’t get enough of what I want. Self-pity is making party favors in the kitchen. But there it is, the craving to be on the top of the heap and the suspicion that I belong on the bottom.
I go hunting for answers back in the source, my I-Ching, my family photo album. I don’t know when this one was taken, but I must have been just shy of 3 years old judging by the toys I’m holding. That big vinyl easy chair where Dad always sat and watched television (hence it became known as the “daddy chair”) doesn’t yet look as cracked and depleted of stuffing as I remember it. That crazy chair would leak bits of foam such that it had to be swept under regularly. But in this photo, it’s new.
I remember that chair, suddenly. I remember piling in there next to my dad, squeezing into the space between him and the armrest. He’d remark that I was getting bigger as it got tougher for me to fit in. (I wasn’t the only one growing bigger, thanks to mom’s cooking, however.) I don’t remember when the point came that I stopped getting into that chair. It doesn’t matter for this memory, though. For that time, in that shot, I was wedged in good. Having to have all of my dolls with me at all times, the chair is a pile of me, dolls, and dad. The smile on his face is just so happy. He must have been out mowing the lawn or downstairs working on those cars judging from the work clothes he’s wearing. His hair is still dark and from the shape of his face I can tell he still has his teeth. He’s still relatively thin in his face and I can see the vestige of that handsome young guy mom married still there. And there I am. Holding 3 near-naked, beaten up plastic baby dolls and my Dressy Bessie, face dirty, hair in a “palm tree”, squished in under his arm, just a baby, still oblivious. I’m in that stage of violent play and steamrolling my way through growth. The satisfaction of that moment, the payoff in the shot, is all on Dad’s face.
I’ve seen the wedding photos, I’ve seen the valentines and anniversary photos. This smile is not in those pictures. It’s here. It’s mine. It’s like daddy’s nudging me through the ether, “Tootsie, I loved you best.”
He must have missed it after I no longer fit in the chair. I didn’t. It never even occurred to me that I was in the business of growing up. The toy car I fashioned out of a cardboard box had no rear-view mirror. It never occurred to me that I meant anything to anyone. It never has.
What do we get into these relationships expecting? What long lost piece of me is supposed to come flying out of him? Am I expecting him to be “Mr. Right” or “the one”? yick! If I don’t hold those sorts of expectations over this then I won’t have to start resenting him for failures of perfection that I out-picture into the future! I get along much better with people when they don’t have to be my savior. Did I mistake him for being the source of love in my life?
Lets get one thing clear, thunder cloud, I am my own source of sunshine. I am my own source of love. You can rumble and zap and dampen my day, but you can’t take that away from me.
He has to spend time with the 3-year-old. He has to fill photo albums and go on camping trips and keep her close because she will forget. She will turn into a teen who thinks her parents didn’t love her right because that love didn’t show up in just the way she wanted it to (even though she won’t be able to spell that out, precisely, when asked). He has to sacrifice the time now because it’s his job to remember, to be her mirror, to be a road home through the angry stages of growing up.
I manage my way to the subway through the underground tunnels. From the train I watch the lightning tear away at the night sky with deep, violet gashes. Its rage is passing off to the East. Before I head upstairs I check the mail and I’m surprised to find a card from mom.
I get cards from mom all the time. The poem in them is usually nice and she signs it “love mom XXOO” at the end. And I keep them. This one? She’s filled one whole side with a note. I’ve never seen this much of her handwriting in one place and I’m amazed just at the quantity of it.
“Thinking about you and your milestone achievement and how proud I am of your determination. You have proven to yourself and me that you have what it takes to do whatever you want. I hope you do something fun for your anniversary!”
oh yeah, that’s right. None of us is here to be “loved best”.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
It was 10 years ago today
These old ladies just about mom’s age, they’re like fans, sort of. Every so often they come up to me with slaps on the back and congratulations on the fortitude it’s taken me to stay single all my life. This was unthinkable in their youth and a status they’ve only attained and relished in later years (after HE kicked off). There’s a tacit admission into their ‘old girls’ club, like I’m smart enough to be one of them - like I’m strong or something.
I love these ladies, Pat, Marie, Cathryn, etc. I don’t deserve quite a lot of the good fortune in my life but this especially I cannot take credit for. Maybe it was an accident or a miracle, but independence certainly wasn’t in my plans. A life of feminist-self-determination wasn’t my fantasy. It was a by product of living in a time when I could take steps to make sure that all my romantic faltering did not get me pregnant. I wasted quite a lot of energy planning and hoping only for a life of being loved and cherished despite my not really having a marriageable character. Nuala was right about me.
Going through my old photos and attempting some sort of literary reconstruction of self from these images has taken up the past couple weeks efforts at this keyboard. I look at pictures of sisters, dogs, parents and grandparents, stringing it all together, focusing on one image by one image like working a rosary. It’s a meditation in empathetic family forensics, but empathy is not enough. What has being a female at the turn of the millennium meant to me and how have old and new ideas filtered into the example that is my life? Why don’t I play fair and look at myself for a change?
I can’t believe I actually wore a skirt like that. Must have still been shaking off a bit of the art-school hippie factor when I bought that long, crinkled affair with the loud pattern and put the rope bracelet around my ankle. I paired it with a coral t-shirt, possibly to hide a bit of belly. Must confess, still do that. I’m 23. I’m poised on some rocks at the harbor of Salem, MA, like an odd Venus just washed up out of the icy waves. Behind me lay just ocean, some ships in the distance and blue sky.
Oh yes, I remember that girl. She’s on a date with the first of many hostages. I was making precious little money with the work at the theater company and none as an intern at Chedd Angier. But that guy, André, had a knack for catching me eyeballing something in a store and handing it to me later. I had to learn to stop looking at things if I wasn’t quite serious about owning them. Recently, I visited the self-constructed library that I left in storage 5 years ago and retrieved one item Mr. Butterfly (yes, that is his name) handed to me after a visit to the MFA store in Boston. It’s a book full of color plates showing ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Yoshitoshi: Thirty six ghosts. Stunning work. I’ve since expanded the collection with Yoshitoshi’s Women and One hundred aspects of the moon. See there? I remember the gift more than the giver. How’s that for a nice girlfriend? But the fact is I liked having someone who would drive all over to see me, pick up the tab and give me stuff.
Right there I stepped out onto a slope what slips straight into marriage and babies despite all of the books I’d read in college and the consciousness raising groups where I had noisily voiced my independence. I simply failed to hit the mark in my slide. The credit for that doesn’t go to strong mentoring on how to be a modern woman. It goes to Jack Daniels.
That girl in the photo has already been drinking hard for over ten years. That girl in the photo has the emotional maturity of a twelve year old despite having the parts of a grown up. She wants to be loved best while she gives nothing away. She thinks people are disposable, starting with herself. She’s in the midst of a period of controlling the drink. One day soon, though, reason enough will turn up and the genie came back out of the bottle. André? One day she’ll just never pay him a call back. That’s that.
Some car just went by outside with the radio turned up and I could hear the first few guitar strains of Sgt. Pepper’s. “It was twenty years ago today…” Paul’s voice trails off down the alley. The only time I listened to that album stem to stern I had drank some of this and smoked some of that and I had to lie down because I couldn’t keep the music out of my eyes. The walls were breathing. I sit here thinking about that intense hallucination and the sense that I had opened a door, stepped out of a limited self into a field of color and sound.
You know, it was never about how much more (or less) intense the intoxicant of the day made things seem… it was about the dreams and feelings I couldn’t enter without hiding behind a chemical mask. It’s about those doors I couldn’t open without the artificial gateway past fear. It’s about finding a way past the lies. The conflicting fairy tales I bought regarding what it is I should achieve as a college educated woman and what I should want by virtue of being female are just lies. Lies and crap. But knowing that doesn’t change the fact that there are aspects of both I would very much like to cherry pick. It’s taken me longer to realize that these fruits are merely the by-product of the much longer process of self actualization (a word waffle I’m still figuring out). Happiness is not a goal at all. It’s a side effect of right living; of being my own cherisher and finding ways to give the rest away.
My latest theory is that there is a person I was put on this planet to be and a voice I’m here to express, however small. But that girl in the photo is not even close to finding the right road toward actualizing such a role. The universe had to get my attention because it knew I wanted it to. It sent in something so I’d have to slam on the breaks and change direction. It sent me Jack Daniels. I thank Jack for beating me into a state of reasonableness. I thank god that Jack didn’t kill me.
I love these ladies, Pat, Marie, Cathryn, etc. I don’t deserve quite a lot of the good fortune in my life but this especially I cannot take credit for. Maybe it was an accident or a miracle, but independence certainly wasn’t in my plans. A life of feminist-self-determination wasn’t my fantasy. It was a by product of living in a time when I could take steps to make sure that all my romantic faltering did not get me pregnant. I wasted quite a lot of energy planning and hoping only for a life of being loved and cherished despite my not really having a marriageable character. Nuala was right about me.
Going through my old photos and attempting some sort of literary reconstruction of self from these images has taken up the past couple weeks efforts at this keyboard. I look at pictures of sisters, dogs, parents and grandparents, stringing it all together, focusing on one image by one image like working a rosary. It’s a meditation in empathetic family forensics, but empathy is not enough. What has being a female at the turn of the millennium meant to me and how have old and new ideas filtered into the example that is my life? Why don’t I play fair and look at myself for a change?
I can’t believe I actually wore a skirt like that. Must have still been shaking off a bit of the art-school hippie factor when I bought that long, crinkled affair with the loud pattern and put the rope bracelet around my ankle. I paired it with a coral t-shirt, possibly to hide a bit of belly. Must confess, still do that. I’m 23. I’m poised on some rocks at the harbor of Salem, MA, like an odd Venus just washed up out of the icy waves. Behind me lay just ocean, some ships in the distance and blue sky.
Oh yes, I remember that girl. She’s on a date with the first of many hostages. I was making precious little money with the work at the theater company and none as an intern at Chedd Angier. But that guy, André, had a knack for catching me eyeballing something in a store and handing it to me later. I had to learn to stop looking at things if I wasn’t quite serious about owning them. Recently, I visited the self-constructed library that I left in storage 5 years ago and retrieved one item Mr. Butterfly (yes, that is his name) handed to me after a visit to the MFA store in Boston. It’s a book full of color plates showing ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Yoshitoshi: Thirty six ghosts. Stunning work. I’ve since expanded the collection with Yoshitoshi’s Women and One hundred aspects of the moon. See there? I remember the gift more than the giver. How’s that for a nice girlfriend? But the fact is I liked having someone who would drive all over to see me, pick up the tab and give me stuff.
Right there I stepped out onto a slope what slips straight into marriage and babies despite all of the books I’d read in college and the consciousness raising groups where I had noisily voiced my independence. I simply failed to hit the mark in my slide. The credit for that doesn’t go to strong mentoring on how to be a modern woman. It goes to Jack Daniels.
That girl in the photo has already been drinking hard for over ten years. That girl in the photo has the emotional maturity of a twelve year old despite having the parts of a grown up. She wants to be loved best while she gives nothing away. She thinks people are disposable, starting with herself. She’s in the midst of a period of controlling the drink. One day soon, though, reason enough will turn up and the genie came back out of the bottle. André? One day she’ll just never pay him a call back. That’s that.
Some car just went by outside with the radio turned up and I could hear the first few guitar strains of Sgt. Pepper’s. “It was twenty years ago today…” Paul’s voice trails off down the alley. The only time I listened to that album stem to stern I had drank some of this and smoked some of that and I had to lie down because I couldn’t keep the music out of my eyes. The walls were breathing. I sit here thinking about that intense hallucination and the sense that I had opened a door, stepped out of a limited self into a field of color and sound.
You know, it was never about how much more (or less) intense the intoxicant of the day made things seem… it was about the dreams and feelings I couldn’t enter without hiding behind a chemical mask. It’s about those doors I couldn’t open without the artificial gateway past fear. It’s about finding a way past the lies. The conflicting fairy tales I bought regarding what it is I should achieve as a college educated woman and what I should want by virtue of being female are just lies. Lies and crap. But knowing that doesn’t change the fact that there are aspects of both I would very much like to cherry pick. It’s taken me longer to realize that these fruits are merely the by-product of the much longer process of self actualization (a word waffle I’m still figuring out). Happiness is not a goal at all. It’s a side effect of right living; of being my own cherisher and finding ways to give the rest away.
My latest theory is that there is a person I was put on this planet to be and a voice I’m here to express, however small. But that girl in the photo is not even close to finding the right road toward actualizing such a role. The universe had to get my attention because it knew I wanted it to. It sent in something so I’d have to slam on the breaks and change direction. It sent me Jack Daniels. I thank Jack for beating me into a state of reasonableness. I thank god that Jack didn’t kill me.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Heart shaped box
I remember her making that gift – the one she holds out in presentation and that he accepts with a chubby grin. I remember her finding the red fabric, heart shaped box, that probably once held chocolates, and lining it with wax paper. The chocolaty goodness that had been cooking on the stove all afternoon was then poured in and leveled off and the works was spirited into the refrigerator where we couldn’t get at it so well. Our little arms were not yet strong enough to open the door or reach the top shelf.
Hours later the heart shaped box came out and the thick liquid had hardened into perfect fudge. She got out the frosting kit normally reserved for birthday cakes. With a pointed piece of wood she scratched out the words, “I love you” across the heart. Then, putting the writing tip onto the red frosting tube she scripted the words out properly. Changing tips she added a few rosettes. The wax paper was trimmed, the top was put on, and the works was presented to dad for Valentine’s Day. And that’s this photo. She holds out the opened heart box as she leans over his chair. The sideburns his barber insisted on cutting into his face are lifted with the grin of acceptance. The 3 elements, mom’s face, box of fudge, dad’s face, pose frontally for a shot one of my older sisters must have been trained to take.
It would take a novel and a half to map the faulty, subterranean lands beneath the surface of any relationship. Here, I need not bother. One sentence will do. I knew even then that this photo, this act of chocolate, was a lie.
They lied because the truth was beyond the scope of who they were both brought up to be. They lied because they had both said words investing themselves into a cultural fairy tale of love and marriage without realizing that in their hearts each held very different views of those two words. They lied because it’s easier to pretend and do strange things in chocolate than to admit that a dream had soured; that in fact the ideal held out to them as a possible state of wedded bliss was personally quite destructive. Dreams are best left as such if they prevent one from asking honestly each day what the relationship means. The truth is they didn’t have words for the truth. But it’s easy for me to criticize. I’m not 22. It’s not the early 60’s. The pressures to conform in my life are mere annoyances – like flies floating about a light. ZAP!
I remember Mom’s fudge. Now that lady knew how to cook. People rave about my cooking, now. I make soup. I make stews, I use garlic in intelligent ways, and I’ve been known to even torture chocolate into a mousse to gain crowd approval. I can look at a pile of ingredients and figure out something to do with it provided I have kosher salt and amchur powder (ahhhh! Secret ingredient!). But it’s all very random. Unlike mine, mom’s cooking always had a purpose. The cakes came from a box and the frosting from a tub but the writing on the top and the frosting flowers she made herself. There was a craft. She makes jam with the berries picked in the summer. She focuses yams and pineapples into her famous candied sweet potatoes. There was always some tradition or favorite dish to be upheld. There was a meal to be made that must be different than yesterday or embellish the pleasure of a summer evening. Me? Put a recipe in front of me and I become a cripple in the kitchen. I tried to make potato salad this afternoon. The result is a mix of roasted organic potatoes, crisp organic celery and home made aioli which, though very tasty, would curl the toenails of a potato salad purist. Next time I add bacon, too!!
They were already fighting about money. They had already realized the falsehood of their assumptions regarding how each would continue or support the other’s hobbies. They were tired too soon. But at that point they were still trying. She still thought he’d get a decent job and give up the old cars and marching band. He thought she’d play along with his whims without posing too much opposition. They don’t see the real storm on the horizon.
I still get the horror stories from mom, now that she is the survivor and able to get in the last word. Her “oppressor” is beyond the Lethe. His half of the picture, what it was he received in that heart, has faded to nothing. And nothing is where the works will stay. I can’t waste any more energy contemplating the dynamics of what went wrong for those two. Despite the desire I will never manage the perfect act of mending what they spent 43 yeas tearing apart. I didn’t fall for the dream. I don’t need to contemplate destruction. Not today. My empathy is best spent on the living.
Hours later the heart shaped box came out and the thick liquid had hardened into perfect fudge. She got out the frosting kit normally reserved for birthday cakes. With a pointed piece of wood she scratched out the words, “I love you” across the heart. Then, putting the writing tip onto the red frosting tube she scripted the words out properly. Changing tips she added a few rosettes. The wax paper was trimmed, the top was put on, and the works was presented to dad for Valentine’s Day. And that’s this photo. She holds out the opened heart box as she leans over his chair. The sideburns his barber insisted on cutting into his face are lifted with the grin of acceptance. The 3 elements, mom’s face, box of fudge, dad’s face, pose frontally for a shot one of my older sisters must have been trained to take.
It would take a novel and a half to map the faulty, subterranean lands beneath the surface of any relationship. Here, I need not bother. One sentence will do. I knew even then that this photo, this act of chocolate, was a lie.
They lied because the truth was beyond the scope of who they were both brought up to be. They lied because they had both said words investing themselves into a cultural fairy tale of love and marriage without realizing that in their hearts each held very different views of those two words. They lied because it’s easier to pretend and do strange things in chocolate than to admit that a dream had soured; that in fact the ideal held out to them as a possible state of wedded bliss was personally quite destructive. Dreams are best left as such if they prevent one from asking honestly each day what the relationship means. The truth is they didn’t have words for the truth. But it’s easy for me to criticize. I’m not 22. It’s not the early 60’s. The pressures to conform in my life are mere annoyances – like flies floating about a light. ZAP!
I remember Mom’s fudge. Now that lady knew how to cook. People rave about my cooking, now. I make soup. I make stews, I use garlic in intelligent ways, and I’ve been known to even torture chocolate into a mousse to gain crowd approval. I can look at a pile of ingredients and figure out something to do with it provided I have kosher salt and amchur powder (ahhhh! Secret ingredient!). But it’s all very random. Unlike mine, mom’s cooking always had a purpose. The cakes came from a box and the frosting from a tub but the writing on the top and the frosting flowers she made herself. There was a craft. She makes jam with the berries picked in the summer. She focuses yams and pineapples into her famous candied sweet potatoes. There was always some tradition or favorite dish to be upheld. There was a meal to be made that must be different than yesterday or embellish the pleasure of a summer evening. Me? Put a recipe in front of me and I become a cripple in the kitchen. I tried to make potato salad this afternoon. The result is a mix of roasted organic potatoes, crisp organic celery and home made aioli which, though very tasty, would curl the toenails of a potato salad purist. Next time I add bacon, too!!
They were already fighting about money. They had already realized the falsehood of their assumptions regarding how each would continue or support the other’s hobbies. They were tired too soon. But at that point they were still trying. She still thought he’d get a decent job and give up the old cars and marching band. He thought she’d play along with his whims without posing too much opposition. They don’t see the real storm on the horizon.
I still get the horror stories from mom, now that she is the survivor and able to get in the last word. Her “oppressor” is beyond the Lethe. His half of the picture, what it was he received in that heart, has faded to nothing. And nothing is where the works will stay. I can’t waste any more energy contemplating the dynamics of what went wrong for those two. Despite the desire I will never manage the perfect act of mending what they spent 43 yeas tearing apart. I didn’t fall for the dream. I don’t need to contemplate destruction. Not today. My empathy is best spent on the living.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The lot
There was no special reason for us to be lumped together as such. We were a collective accident of demographics, time, and geography all standing together on paper covered risers in front of the stage during the spring of 1976. Singing "It's a small world after all" with yellow construction paper graduation hats propped on our heads we graduated from kindergarten.
Some of the girls had new dresses, easily spied by that long 70's look with a ruffle along the bottom. Most of us wore something probably a bit older, maybe a hand-me-down from an older sister. Kids grow so fast. And trips to the mall for something new just weren't on the map back then. The dresses are nice, but they have the high high hemlines of a few years earlier. My dress was older still, from before the hemlines went up in the first place. But I loved it. It doesn't come out so well in the photo, but I remember it was a blue chiffon with little pink flowers sprinkled all over it. This was before the years of being teased for wearing clothing about 10 years out of date and it didn't yet occur to me to despise how mom dressed me. Although, now I look at these pictures and realize my dress was perfectly fine. And we did much better than those plaid pants that all the boys wore. (WHAT were they thinking?) I look at the mix of patterns in the fabrics and see the explanation for why I insist on only wearing solids, today.
Some of the kids in this bunch would grow up and thin out. Some wouldn't grow too much taller than they were here. There in the front row is Dan, the kid who loved orange (which he pronounced "ah-nj") and would always hog the orange paint during finger painting. He also stole my pencil case (which, ironically, was orange). Oh look, he's wearing an orange shirt with those blue plaid pants. Yeah, he disappeared after 3rd grade. Behind him stands Justin. I could never figure out how he always managed to do things wrong like piss off the teacher or get bad grades. Now it occurs to me, he was dumb. Right in front of me is Fred, who would go on to be our class valedictorian and who at that age was probably already doing trigonometry in his head.
Next to us stands Miss Clear, the most breathtakingly ignorant teacher I have ever suffered in my entire life with the possible exception of Carol Bankherd. First of all, with a poochie belly like that she should have known better than to wear those diagonal stripes (hey, what good is unearthing the family photographic coprolites if you can't be catty about fashion). She put all of the tall kids on the front risers so they neatly block everyone else. And, to boot, she always called me "Carolyn". Thus began the battle of a lifetime. That's not my name.
All kindergarten just seemed like some weird ideas for playing. I had no idea at the time the amount of stress these people were under to quickly assess us and put us into proper boxes of like-level-intelligence kids. I'm convinced they had me all wrong. How dare they assess me by their own boringness?
Well, it's about 32 years after kindergarten graduation and 20 years after high school. Tomorrow I get on a plane to go see what happened, and what's left, of the lot of us. I think it was a bad idea to attend this shindig. They'd do just fine without me, I'm sure. And I'd do just fine without a trip back to "my roots". Roots? please! Roots are something to be ripped up by or something to color correct once a month. I'm told I'll have a chance to gloat, but if that's supposed to be the carrot, I'm not biting.
I should be packed. I haven't started. I'm just getting cold feet on the verge of going back there and waiting for some force to come up from behind and make me jump in.
Some of the girls had new dresses, easily spied by that long 70's look with a ruffle along the bottom. Most of us wore something probably a bit older, maybe a hand-me-down from an older sister. Kids grow so fast. And trips to the mall for something new just weren't on the map back then. The dresses are nice, but they have the high high hemlines of a few years earlier. My dress was older still, from before the hemlines went up in the first place. But I loved it. It doesn't come out so well in the photo, but I remember it was a blue chiffon with little pink flowers sprinkled all over it. This was before the years of being teased for wearing clothing about 10 years out of date and it didn't yet occur to me to despise how mom dressed me. Although, now I look at these pictures and realize my dress was perfectly fine. And we did much better than those plaid pants that all the boys wore. (WHAT were they thinking?) I look at the mix of patterns in the fabrics and see the explanation for why I insist on only wearing solids, today.
Some of the kids in this bunch would grow up and thin out. Some wouldn't grow too much taller than they were here. There in the front row is Dan, the kid who loved orange (which he pronounced "ah-nj") and would always hog the orange paint during finger painting. He also stole my pencil case (which, ironically, was orange). Oh look, he's wearing an orange shirt with those blue plaid pants. Yeah, he disappeared after 3rd grade. Behind him stands Justin. I could never figure out how he always managed to do things wrong like piss off the teacher or get bad grades. Now it occurs to me, he was dumb. Right in front of me is Fred, who would go on to be our class valedictorian and who at that age was probably already doing trigonometry in his head.
Next to us stands Miss Clear, the most breathtakingly ignorant teacher I have ever suffered in my entire life with the possible exception of Carol Bankherd. First of all, with a poochie belly like that she should have known better than to wear those diagonal stripes (hey, what good is unearthing the family photographic coprolites if you can't be catty about fashion). She put all of the tall kids on the front risers so they neatly block everyone else. And, to boot, she always called me "Carolyn". Thus began the battle of a lifetime. That's not my name.
All kindergarten just seemed like some weird ideas for playing. I had no idea at the time the amount of stress these people were under to quickly assess us and put us into proper boxes of like-level-intelligence kids. I'm convinced they had me all wrong. How dare they assess me by their own boringness?
Well, it's about 32 years after kindergarten graduation and 20 years after high school. Tomorrow I get on a plane to go see what happened, and what's left, of the lot of us. I think it was a bad idea to attend this shindig. They'd do just fine without me, I'm sure. And I'd do just fine without a trip back to "my roots". Roots? please! Roots are something to be ripped up by or something to color correct once a month. I'm told I'll have a chance to gloat, but if that's supposed to be the carrot, I'm not biting.
I should be packed. I haven't started. I'm just getting cold feet on the verge of going back there and waiting for some force to come up from behind and make me jump in.
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