Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The other woman
She zeroed in on the place his other girlfriend was from. His old but maybe new girlfriend. Closer and closer: Little Peconic Bay. Detected by the brain of her computer, the impersonal PO box had her living in this body of water—it must be the geographical center of town. Closer and closer: Little Peconic Bay. Closer and closer seemed to mean deeper and deeper, the screen all blue. Was I diving now? Would I find her at the bottom of the bay, meet her soul there? She must be deeper than me. She would never look for me on a cold blue screen, diving into that hard electric bay. She was from another country, her life had to have more meaning than mine ever could. Damn it. She won when she was born. Check and mate. Russia.
This scared me the most about cheating. As much as I hate myself mostly because of my looks, pat a good narcissist on its head, it wasn't that she was better looking than me. Or even the possibility she could perform tricks in bed, foreign tricks, passed from untold generations and guarded like a vaginal national treasure, gleaming. What most crippled was this: that she was deeper. Rather, that he thought she was deeper. That he thought of her and thought of peaceful things, of Ansel Adam prints and batting eyelashes. Of them standing together in a field, with a rusty barrel or wheelbarrow or barn in the back and her saying “Oh. Let me take out my camera”. Of her taking a picture and him holding a pose, happily. That her life has more meaning, I cringe. She might be the first in her family to go to college—insta-meaning. Worse: she attends graduation, makes an appointment to have her hair done before, makes a day of it. She could probably even get away with an updo. A swooping, kempt updo. In her world, there are deep breaths , there are “There, there's”, the word nice has a life. Nice time, nice earrings, nice breeze. Commemerations. She calls a few friends. Maybe she picks up a cake. Probably, someone makes her a cake. Probably, there is more than one friend in on the baking of the cake. They talk beforehand: “We should really get N a cake”. “Oh, I was going to bake one. My grandmothers recipe, from Germany-German chocolate.” For her, even the cake becomes a thing. Has a life. Her cake has more of a life than I. And I, my mantra is “forget forget goodbye goodbye”.
This scared me the most about cheating. As much as I hate myself mostly because of my looks, pat a good narcissist on its head, it wasn't that she was better looking than me. Or even the possibility she could perform tricks in bed, foreign tricks, passed from untold generations and guarded like a vaginal national treasure, gleaming. What most crippled was this: that she was deeper. Rather, that he thought she was deeper. That he thought of her and thought of peaceful things, of Ansel Adam prints and batting eyelashes. Of them standing together in a field, with a rusty barrel or wheelbarrow or barn in the back and her saying “Oh. Let me take out my camera”. Of her taking a picture and him holding a pose, happily. That her life has more meaning, I cringe. She might be the first in her family to go to college—insta-meaning. Worse: she attends graduation, makes an appointment to have her hair done before, makes a day of it. She could probably even get away with an updo. A swooping, kempt updo. In her world, there are deep breaths , there are “There, there's”, the word nice has a life. Nice time, nice earrings, nice breeze. Commemerations. She calls a few friends. Maybe she picks up a cake. Probably, someone makes her a cake. Probably, there is more than one friend in on the baking of the cake. They talk beforehand: “We should really get N a cake”. “Oh, I was going to bake one. My grandmothers recipe, from Germany-German chocolate.” For her, even the cake becomes a thing. Has a life. Her cake has more of a life than I. And I, my mantra is “forget forget goodbye goodbye”.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Spirit
Coming home from school the last day before Winter break pops loud like a bottle cork getting pried off. Christmas season: shrouded mystery, open book. Consistently warm, regardless actual weather. Better than wet-weather baking, better than snow days, better than any day in November, in February, than even July. There was nothing that wasn’t possible. Smiles said “I’m right here, right now. And I expect joy”. How often is joy expected? Joy in bursting: bursting off that last bus; bursting through the door; bursting up and down aisles in stores. Bursting so much so the night before, that only eyes grew tired waiting for that moment of bursting from bed. (*Now getting out of bed involves verbs like “pry” or “brace”, and unfortunately not “burst” or “joy”.)
Piping chimney, piping hot fire, hot stove. Cold toe, hot breath. Sweating through wool. Lonely outdoor aromas inhaled deeply, ravenously, with animal lungs. Deep inhales that said “Hold on. Don’t rush. Let’s let this last for more than just one slice of forever”. Huffing visible breath in the air, thinking “Wow, look at us, we are air making machines and we can see life”.
The promise of Christmas wonder was guaranteed: no school meant sleep late, meet with friends. Take treks in the woods, wear yourself out. It meant people held doors for one another and on those doors were wreaths which smelled of laundry. Elves’ laundry, done in the woods. All around, people were harried in a good way--they hustled, like in the last lap of a race or better yet last quarter of a tied game because that means “fight for the team” and that is also part of the Spirit: Unity.
Unpacking boxes of Christmas ornaments and adorning the tree was a rite of passage. My seven siblings and I had filled boxes with glue-ronments, assorted kindling of felt and ice-pop sticks, glitter and pinecones, and starring Elmer’s glue by sight and smell…inhaled through the years. Bought breakables, the up-high ones sleeping in paper wombs, opening each like a secretly passed note or possibly prized Wonka bar. After fifty weeks of slumber in an attic tomb, they rose to life like marching soldiers upon seeing light, a yearly birth.
Things were thick. The weight of Winter was heavy yet not burdensome. Held up on frozen ground, nests of carolers huddled, offering their hearts. No constriction was felt in full rooms of family. Chock full of stuff. Dense with love. Loaded with the smell of bacon, of roast turkey and other delicious decaying flesh. Heavy linens with deep hues and heavy plates--the weight of finer things.
This time reflected one thing I liked about church: the ceremony. Here: extra care, extra tableware. There: extra people, extra Jesuses, extra Marys. Marking her calendar month: Mary, the original Mz. December. Extra altar adornments and Poinsettias abounded. People spoke in low tones, counted steps.
Within rites of passage, roles reverse: kids bow to their parents’ sugarplum visions. Think Santa. A neighbor (who I knew was smarmy even at seven) came over, Santa for hire, offering his lap, the usual line of questioning, and accoutrements like beard, Hohohoho--and I, knowing it was him yet playing along, prayed “This face must look more smile, less wince, no?” We all force stories of necessity eventually.
I wonder when the official fact of Santa’s non-existence stood up, Dean of Childhood’s Death?
It’s kind of like figuring the last time you did something, especially if it was A Thing. Every day after-dinner walks with Dad; Sunday: chicken day; Wednesday, Parcheesi tournament: Boys v. Girls; Thursdays with Aunt Edna (’91-’94). You never remember the last because you usually don’t know it’s The Last. And who among us recalls calling cut?
As years went by, the excitement of the Holiday waned: like an engagement ring offered after ten years of courtship-the smile of the bride not quite beaming, an “I do, not DO!!”. A submission. What happened to the wonder of Winter? For me: I got cold. Knew new kinds of heaviness: why person x and person y didn’t talk and why. That everyone had either x, y, or z in their family tree and that sometimes sorry wasn’t enough to call truce.
Now my wonder is in how it was all pulled off? What kind of veneer was used, what potion allowed adults to carry out the backstage handiwork which to me was just a play? Those theatrics. How did they get Peter to fly like that? It seemed it must include a lot of forgetting. Intentional forgetting. I can picture a priest reciting “Let us rise. In Peace. And let us all forget.” Amen.
Piping chimney, piping hot fire, hot stove. Cold toe, hot breath. Sweating through wool. Lonely outdoor aromas inhaled deeply, ravenously, with animal lungs. Deep inhales that said “Hold on. Don’t rush. Let’s let this last for more than just one slice of forever”. Huffing visible breath in the air, thinking “Wow, look at us, we are air making machines and we can see life”.
The promise of Christmas wonder was guaranteed: no school meant sleep late, meet with friends. Take treks in the woods, wear yourself out. It meant people held doors for one another and on those doors were wreaths which smelled of laundry. Elves’ laundry, done in the woods. All around, people were harried in a good way--they hustled, like in the last lap of a race or better yet last quarter of a tied game because that means “fight for the team” and that is also part of the Spirit: Unity.
Unpacking boxes of Christmas ornaments and adorning the tree was a rite of passage. My seven siblings and I had filled boxes with glue-ronments, assorted kindling of felt and ice-pop sticks, glitter and pinecones, and starring Elmer’s glue by sight and smell…inhaled through the years. Bought breakables, the up-high ones sleeping in paper wombs, opening each like a secretly passed note or possibly prized Wonka bar. After fifty weeks of slumber in an attic tomb, they rose to life like marching soldiers upon seeing light, a yearly birth.
Things were thick. The weight of Winter was heavy yet not burdensome. Held up on frozen ground, nests of carolers huddled, offering their hearts. No constriction was felt in full rooms of family. Chock full of stuff. Dense with love. Loaded with the smell of bacon, of roast turkey and other delicious decaying flesh. Heavy linens with deep hues and heavy plates--the weight of finer things.
This time reflected one thing I liked about church: the ceremony. Here: extra care, extra tableware. There: extra people, extra Jesuses, extra Marys. Marking her calendar month: Mary, the original Mz. December. Extra altar adornments and Poinsettias abounded. People spoke in low tones, counted steps.
Within rites of passage, roles reverse: kids bow to their parents’ sugarplum visions. Think Santa. A neighbor (who I knew was smarmy even at seven) came over, Santa for hire, offering his lap, the usual line of questioning, and accoutrements like beard, Hohohoho--and I, knowing it was him yet playing along, prayed “This face must look more smile, less wince, no?” We all force stories of necessity eventually.
I wonder when the official fact of Santa’s non-existence stood up, Dean of Childhood’s Death?
It’s kind of like figuring the last time you did something, especially if it was A Thing. Every day after-dinner walks with Dad; Sunday: chicken day; Wednesday, Parcheesi tournament: Boys v. Girls; Thursdays with Aunt Edna (’91-’94). You never remember the last because you usually don’t know it’s The Last. And who among us recalls calling cut?
As years went by, the excitement of the Holiday waned: like an engagement ring offered after ten years of courtship-the smile of the bride not quite beaming, an “I do, not DO!!”. A submission. What happened to the wonder of Winter? For me: I got cold. Knew new kinds of heaviness: why person x and person y didn’t talk and why. That everyone had either x, y, or z in their family tree and that sometimes sorry wasn’t enough to call truce.
Now my wonder is in how it was all pulled off? What kind of veneer was used, what potion allowed adults to carry out the backstage handiwork which to me was just a play? Those theatrics. How did they get Peter to fly like that? It seemed it must include a lot of forgetting. Intentional forgetting. I can picture a priest reciting “Let us rise. In Peace. And let us all forget.” Amen.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How my Cat will Die....A Children's Fairytale
Nearly the point of exhaustion. Obsessed with death. Lately I’ve been unable to look at even my cat without conjuring up, and then existing within, some historic timeline–starting with the cat’s arrival in my life and then gelling into a sort of montage, including highlights of what she used to be and do.
She used to play Fetch! In her youth, a master at finding balls, and
holding them in her mouth as she dainitily trotted back. She would only go for those aluminum balls, though. I’ve always thought (but never confessed) that clearly this had something to do with the fact that her natal Sun is in Aquarius. They love all things silver.
My Aquarian kitty. She could hear the aluminum crinkling some 20 yards to the fore, and come running. But alas, no longer a kitty.
There are various other scenes I replay, often for some unavoidable reason involving the different litter boxes and their respective surroundings that she has shat into over the years. Sigh.
It bothers me how her eyes have been dulled by time--less vibrant, less acute. And ultimately the timeline will end with her death. The imagining of all forms of that scenario: like for example, will I find her one day, just a little lump that I assume is sleeping?
She used to play Fetch! In her youth, a master at finding balls, and
holding them in her mouth as she dainitily trotted back. She would only go for those aluminum balls, though. I’ve always thought (but never confessed) that clearly this had something to do with the fact that her natal Sun is in Aquarius. They love all things silver.
My Aquarian kitty. She could hear the aluminum crinkling some 20 yards to the fore, and come running. But alas, no longer a kitty.
There are various other scenes I replay, often for some unavoidable reason involving the different litter boxes and their respective surroundings that she has shat into over the years. Sigh.
It bothers me how her eyes have been dulled by time--less vibrant, less acute. And ultimately the timeline will end with her death. The imagining of all forms of that scenario: like for example, will I find her one day, just a little lump that I assume is sleeping?
Picket: Lines, Fences
Picket: Lines, Fences
With outside noise boxed
In its own wilderness
I wait inside, first in line
For some serendipitous
Round and round
Theme park ride
I'm the white lap cat
That came out of nowhere
Stunning -- Hungry
Tossed from a seeming abyss
In a vast motel
I'm the Canadian quarter
That filled your icebox slot
An undetected foreigner
With a future just as uncertain as the blessed rest
With outside noise boxed
In its own wilderness
I wait inside, first in line
For some serendipitous
Round and round
Theme park ride
I'm the white lap cat
That came out of nowhere
Stunning -- Hungry
Tossed from a seeming abyss
In a vast motel
I'm the Canadian quarter
That filled your icebox slot
An undetected foreigner
With a future just as uncertain as the blessed rest
what happens when your home is sold
They will file in, buzzing
peck their ways to the view
laser eye the walls on either side down
and the horrible border of my childhood room
will be virtually redone
my biggest memory is the whole sky
at night smooth move up and down a porpus
and you warned me about the world
I was ten
you said materialistic, it was bad
and I knew you meant it
and it meant a lot
peck their ways to the view
laser eye the walls on either side down
and the horrible border of my childhood room
will be virtually redone
my biggest memory is the whole sky
at night smooth move up and down a porpus
and you warned me about the world
I was ten
you said materialistic, it was bad
and I knew you meant it
and it meant a lot
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