More, more, more

Everyone should clean under and behind large appliances at least once a year. Or, lest it be thought that I actually do this, a person should clean behind appliances when and if a child (not to be named) pours nearly half a gallon of milk (the expensive kind) on the kitchen floor. The milk then makes its way like a stream, a milky stream, to the most logical and downsloping place in the kitchen--beneath the refrigerator and beneath the stove, leaving me to wonder which would be worse--the stench of the dried and soured milk if I do not clean it properly or the debris, the dusted, crusted food that has accumulated over four years.

I chose to go where no man or woman has been since the purchase of our home and I was not disappointed, the terrain lovely, the crust the finest quality, and the dust sculpture enough to make any woman long for more--more pools of milk spilled on kitchen floor, more crusts of bread lodged between cushions of couch, more of the dried, more of the solidified and petrified. Oh the richness of color.

More. Give me more, more, more.

Not a turtle

For some reason this gets me right in the place where people get gotten.

And by the way, according to Aidan, it's a dinosaur not a turtle.

For Want

Time. There is little of it. Seems, for some, better to do something without care, than nothing at all.

What does it mean to care for someone, to be cared for? How many ways to listen, or not? To say the same thing, saying nothing?

Nothing at all.

He's a man you don't meet every day

This morning my brother called. He called to tell me that I'm a good mother, that he'd watched my interactions with my daughter for a couple of hours during our recent visit to Utah and that yes indeed, I'm a good mother, despite and perhaps because of comments about my daughter being a book s-l-u-t (of course I always spell it, what kind of a mother do you think I am?). Book s-l-u-t because of the way in which she sidles up to ANYBODY, ANYWHERE who is reading a book aloud. He was sincerely touched by Aidan's intense desire to be present, right next to him, while he read with his theatrical flair Manners Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf, a book that my grandmother read to us in childhood. If you haven't read it I recommend getting yourself to the nearest computer (perhaps the one in front of you) and ordering up a copy if only for the section on "whineys" and "me firsts," and to see the large lump in the whiney's throat and the sad state of the "me first" who "wore his arms off grabbing things first and wore his legs off pushing in every place first..." Smash, Rip and Ruin, Touchey The Snoopers, and Yawner are also very funny and worth the $15 the book might cost.

This call may not sound like a big deal, but it is and here's why. I never know what my brother is going to do until he does it--which--in spite of my love for whims--is not a joy. I've spent too much not-well-spent time waiting for a return call to one of 10 that I've made, or for him to show up for a lunch date or a wedding. I've wondered, more often than I thought possible, whether he's alive or dead. And most of the early morning calls I receive from him are desperate pleas to be plucked from misery--so that talking to him for 45 minutes this morning, delightfully lucid, about parenting, Mormon homophobia, and the Netherlands’s Black Peter celebrations, made my day. It fucking made my holiday, my Kwanzaa, my Hanukkah, my winter solstice, my Christmas, my New Year's and all of the holidays that come before, after and in between.

Bananas, death and love

At 6:40 this morning Cole climbed onto my bed and pressed his cheek to mine and said, "Wake up sleepyhead." After a minute or two of snuggling and love he said, "Do you want a "manna"?; translation--banana or Amanda. I took it to mean banana because for a few weeks now I've been eating one banana before I get up to try to quell nausea resulting from, um, pregnancy (the first time that I've said this here). I answered, "yes" and "please" and then Cole walked downstairs to find a banana, climbed upstairs and onto the bed with the banana and asked, "Mama, you die?"; translation--Are you dying? Aidan, now in the room and listening said, "Honey, she's not dying, she's just sick because she's going to have a baby." Cole said, "oh" and that was the end of it.

I have a couple of questions here: First, how does a two-year-old know, without prompting, to ask his nauseated mother if she wants a banana? Second, how does a four-year-old know to explain to her two-year-old brother that his mother is not dying--that she's having a baby, though I've hardly talked with her about it? And how does my two-year-old know what dying is? No one he knows has died, except Henry and he slept through that. And I haven't killed anything in his presence, on purpose, yet.

Last, and aware that I've asked more than two questions: How does a mother keep from crying uncontrollably over beautiful, perfect moments such as these? How does she? Not even the screaming and fighting over a raw, wagon-wheel pasta necklace a few minutes later can stop it--the emotion, the fiercest of motherly respect, and the not-oft-enough realization that these little beings are wise and loving in a way that a mother may never understand no matter how many questions she asks.

Anyone need an apartment?

Hyper

I wish that I could describe smell. Pleasant aroma or foul odor. It changes, depending on time of day and mood. Wet soap after Tad's shower or coffee grounds in trash or eucalyptus when I go for acupuncture. Fish from Vito's. Lemon drops from Walgreens and peppermint Altoids. Sautéing onions or garlic for soup or chili for dinner or no dinner. Peppers on a Mike's or Mikes' pizza. Poop, nonspecific. Wet towels that need washing. Sheets that have been slept upon and in and around. Cole's blankets. Someone else's laundry, the soap, I think. Newspaper, pulp. My mother in law's perfume. Smoke wreaths. Babies. Pine. Exhaust. Outside. The smell of outside.

Letting Go

Sometimes people need to let go, a little. And it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Oh Henry

Swimming, swimming in your tank
blue and green
like water
following your reflection
fighting with your reflection
you ate
you swam
you pooped
you died
and we will miss you.

created by Aidan Elise and Jane no-middle-name to be recited at the ceremonious toilet flushing on the occasion of the death of one Henry Betta blue fish arrived beginning of May, 2004, died December 7, 2005

Last Year

Last year I
learned to look
beneath her bed
for dust
to watch it
dance
with the sweep
of a bedskirt
and settle itself
differently
every time.

Unlike the way
paint dries
to bristles stiff
and unwilling
to bend even
for art's sake
or push into
that
which cannot
be, the dust
resolved
to dull
the brightness ever
for want.

Making it Mine

Memory crawls in like a scorpion, tail flicking, whispering. This place is the same but with a condo instead of a parking lot. And without the box of wine, or whatever we could find. It is close to the mountain, cool of autumn, dry heat of summer and nearly colorless brush that the neighbor boy set on fire, half a dozen helicopters to douse the dry flames. Later, I smoked my first cigarette. Her backyard, stolen from the secret pack of a quiet smoker, few knew until he quit.

A drive around the block, from here, reveals slick pavement on bicycle at age six, yellow and banana-seated with basket. I hear screaming and see blood and a woman whose face I do not recall collecting me like a postage stamp, crumpled and running to a house, any house, telephoning my mum, a scar for remembering.

Now it's our old house, new folks there. Paint. Making it theirs, slowly, but unable to remove memory. Mine. The hole in the bathroom ceiling in the basement. My basement. Upstairs oblivious to what went down. Stairs. Creaky, but not creaky enough. A hideaway beneath the landing. For siblings and such. Girlfriends. A boy balancing on a railing. Falling. Falling in love. Or thinking about falling in love.

In the car again this time to Indian Hills Elementary School. New, but same name. With Aidan. "That's where Mommy went to school, like you'll do next year." She wanted to know about the playground, the slightly ominous building now squatting where we once ran ourselves to pieces, boys chasing girls. Girls screaming. Jungle gym and monkey bars. Metal, not plastic.

Breakfast to George's with sisters, niece and daughter--George's was Nick's now it's Demetri's. Waitress wanted to know what language "they" speak in New England. Didn't order a roundhouse--hash browns that Susan cannot find in Massachusetts, eggs then cheese, then meat. A pool of grease, a school day's hangover cure. Wood-paneled walls, no smoking now. Seems like these walls should ooze stale, high school smoke and grease, but they don't. Used to be once a week with the boys--one's in Texas now. One's in Colorado, as far as I know, with a wife and a couple of kids, devout. One married an ex-Mormon girl and started painting and sculpting--enough art for both of them. One went on to meet his wife at a Dead concert, happily married? And my boy, railing boy, the second of six boys and with a mother still breathing, ex-Mormon, now National Guard boy--wondering if he and his wife are in Iraq, but too scared to ask. For a roundhouse or a roundhouse and a half. And today, it's the girls. My four-year-old girl.

"This is the place," Brigham Young said while retching over the side of his wagon as he gazed upon the Salt Lake Valley--or so I've been told.

This is the place. My place. Whether I want it or not. Returning proves that I want it, that I want to own it. Returning is figuring out how to own it, to make it mine. It is making the voices mine. The air. The leaves. The foothills. The snow. The smog. The hymns. Church and religion. Winter sunlight. The whispers. All mine. Returning is the settling of the scorpion tail after its sting, the flow of memory. Paralysis, then ownership, but not death. In this case, there is no death. Temporary paralysis, maybe, but no death.

Now I Get It?

Virago comes from Latin virago, "a man-like woman, a female
warrior, a heroine" from vir, "a man."

Is there a word like 'virago' for men? I'd like to know.

Virago

Should I be surprised by these differing definitions? The inner feminist says no. Who comes up with these words, anyway? Must be viragos. Male viragos.


Word of the Day for Wednesday October 26, 2005

virago \vuh-RAH-go; vuh-RAY-go\, noun:
1. A woman of extraordinary stature, strength, and courage.
2. A woman regarded as loud, scolding, ill-tempered,
quarrelsome, or overbearing.

In Honor Of

This and That

Occasionally,
if you ask me,
a lie is better
than this.

Send flowers
I'd have told you
if you'd asked
because that
is what people do.

They lie and lay.
They ask of love.
They this
until
there is that.

What is it?

To the Editor

If you live in Gloucester you might be familiar with a couple of articles written recently. See front page Times October 19th and 20th. The reporting has been bothering me a bit, enough that I've been composing letters to the editor in my head. This is what came out. If it's weak please tell me--stewingham@hotmail.com. I'd like to know before I send it.

To the Editor:

It is with regret that I read two recent articles detailing the arrest and subsequent arraignment of Gloucester resident Mac Bell. Aside from the basic facts detailing the arrest and a thorough account of Mr. Bell's police record, some personal information was included--cousin of the mayor, developer of the Gloucester Mill condominiums and Walgreen's Plaza, former city councilor, but other personal information, information that would have allowed readers to gain a more complete picture of Mr. Bell, was disappointingly left out.

I do not condone Mr. Bell's actions. I am saddened that people were injured as a result of such actions; Mr. Bell was definitely out of line. However, I am also saddened that the information was presented with such condemnation, "Children inside the school bus, going home from O'Maley Middle School, watched police handcuff Bell...", leaving many readers with an incomplete view of a person who has contributed positively to our community in many ways.

If a reporter is going to include any personal information, this information should allow the reader access to the full story, the one in which people are not characters in a Dickens novel, either very good or very bad. If the reporter is not going to tell the full and more complex story then he or she should leave arrests to the police notes, which as reported but with removal of all personal information aside from name, age and address, is where this story belonged.

99% Sure That He Ate It

The following is a conversation that took place between Cole (2) and me (35) at 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

"Something's wrong." (while whimpering)

"What's wrong?"

"I ate the bird. I ate it all up. It hurts."

"Honey, what did you eat?"

"Aidan's bird."

"What bird? Where is it?"

"Aidan's blue bird. I ate it all up. It hurts." (more whimpering)

"Is it in your throat?"

"In my throat. Mommy, will you hold me?" (crying, some panicking on my part, I pick him up)

"Are you sure that you ate Aidan's bird? Why did you eat the bird?"

"For some reason."

"What reason? Cole? Sweetie? What reason?"

"A raisin." (he seems a little more comfortable now, like maybe the piece was stuck and now it's on its way down to the belly parts)

"The bird is not a raisin. It's plastic and can hurt your belly."

"I can eat a peanut butter sandwich?"

"Yes!! That's food. A plastic Playmobil bird is not food."

"Yeah."

"Are you o.k.?"

"Yeah, I'm o.k."

After thorough evaluation of Cole (no bird in mouth or windpipe) leading to conclusion that Cole could and would continue to breathe and talk, and a few sips of whiskey, I mean tension tamer tea, I, Cole's mother and Aidan, Cole's sister (4), began looking around the house for the tiny (but big enough to cause worry), blue, plastic bird. We found one of the two birds from the set. We looked at the picture on the box (NOTE TO PARENTS: it is useful, very useful, to save these boxes so as to be able to consult detailed picture of pieces when determining which piece your child might have swallowed) and determined that Cole had eaten the bird that was sitting up and not the one with the pointy tailfeathers sticking up in the air and were relieved to know that this might mean a more comfortable passing of the bird.

I called Amanda (rang a bunch of times and I didn't want to wake her), Kim, my mother-in-law, dial-a-nurse, not Tad only because he is almost impossible to reach during the day and finally Dr. Tom. Dr. Tom said to feed Cole a sandwich and give him something to drink and if it all went down fine then not to worry. "But what about the semi-sharpness of the bird's feathers," I asked. "If it's pointed in the right direction, which feeding him will determine, then he'll be fine." "O.k," I said as I began to make Cole's sandwich. He ate it without incident and I took the kids to the park.

Four days later we are yet to see the blue, plastic bird. Seems like it would be obvious in a pile of poop, but then who wants to go through a pile of poop looking for a blue, plastic bird about the size of the tip of my finger?

I don't. Because my kid is o.k. And that is what matters. Even if, from time to time, I DO miss that blue, plastic bird sitting on the limb of the green plastic tree, the other blue bird forever alone, forever wondering where and why its mate has gone.

That was then this is now

Religion can be a frightening thing. For a 12-year-old. Or it can be a good thing? I'm not sure, except that I know that one religion, in particular, frightened me. And still does.

Lately. I've been thinking. And talking. Always talking. About baptism for the dead. The memory as clear as Jello. 12 years old and allowed to enter their hallowed temple for the first time. All white. Polyester again. Like eight-year-old baptism, but 12 now. If eight is the age at which I could know the difference between right and wrong, then what at 12? Or were we simply agents, blatant disregard for our lack of understanding? This time, instead of my name, dead names. Names read, names that I could not understand for their length and ancientness. An unheard language to a 12-year-old ear. Under. Water. Under water. Baptismal font with oxen round and bathtub water and nearly teenagers wondering why--the mussed up hair, these clothes, the ugliness. Why us? Why must we act as proxy for those dead and what do we have to do with their say in it, the honor and privilege propaganda making sense to some but not all.

If I had the imagination, the creativity that he did, I would have been able to believe. To see the spiritual connect, a thin glowing line between death and life, the lasso to Purgatory (I forget the proper name for the spirit place). I would have felt something. But then. Back then. I felt nothing. Consternation. Annoyance? Simple-minded disgruntlement. Not knowing then what I know now about the questions that I should have asked.

Now is not then. Then is not now. I'm thirty five and I should know this. I want to know this.

I do know this. Sometimes it is difficult to remember.

Not Still

Call it escape
if you want
But for me
it's the closest thing
to real
without being real

Finally

Lately I have been thinking about Katrina, the gulf coast. A lot. The images, the stories, the poverty, the unseen America--by most--until now. I've been wanting to do something--with my money or my time--but haven't found the right thing, the right organization. Like most I've spoken with about the disaster, I want my money to go to those who truly need it, the people with nothing who've had everything taken away. It wasn't until today, in reading some of the political blogs that I read, that I noticed this, a thoughtful, moving, anger-provoking, loving account--images and words--of the effect of the tragedy on a community in Mississippi where the author's (Clayton James Cubitt) mother and brother lived. And after reading and viewing I have decided to purchase two of his images depicting the Katrina aftermath because I think that the stories that these images tell are important. Also, my money is going directly to someone who is working to tell the story of the other America, working to make anger--or sense--or realness--of it all, which--and I hope I'm calculating correctly--is the best I can do. For now.

Overview of Operation Eden
Direct link to images of the Katrina disaster

Somebody Else with a Birthday

The "I hate you" bit has passed. For now. All that was needed, for now, was a time out and a "We don't say that to people, especially people we love" speech so that today I feel gushy and sappy and giddily in love with my four-year-old.

For one, even if she continues to have whiney, screamy, sassy moments, she has entered that stage of life at which it is a pleasure (for both of us) for her to be helpful. This translates to, "Sweetie, Would you please get Cole a sip of water?" Or "Would you mind bringing me a napkin?" Or "Do you think that you could help me clean the toilet? Scrub the floor? Cook? (counting the days until I can safely set her free with kitchen appliances)" Each request met with, "Sure Mommy." Or "O.k. Mommy." Or "I can do it, Mommy." And it might seem obvious to say and as if I am relying on child labor perhaps a little more often than I should be, but I LOVE the help--my child, too, of course.

Two, Aidan loves books. I don't know if it will last and how to make it last, but there is almost nothing that she and I enjoy doing more than reading together, our most recently read book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. As most geeky former English teachers probably would, I decided to show her the movie AFTER reading the book so that we could discuss whether the director's decisions "obscure or reflect the author's intent" (to borrow a phrase from KT). About ten minutes into the movie Aidan said, "I'm not watching this." "Why," I asked, not having considered that she might find displeasure with television. "Dorothy is too old. She wasn't that old in the book. And I don't like her voice. And the lion that has a man's face scares me." She refused to watch it. "Maybe when I'm older," she added. And that was the end of it.

Three, the other night she hid plastic bugs, one under my pillow and one under Tad's pillow, to surprise us and just for the fun of it.

Four, when I finally agreed to delve into a plastic tub in basement filled with toys stashed one night in a fit of motherly anger because Aidan wouldn't help pick up toys, she told me that I was "the best mommy ever" even after I told her that she must 'swap out' some of the toys that don't get played with for these 'new' toys. She did so willingly, agreeably, and then acted like it was Christmas for the next few hours.

And because I've gushed enough already and written enough already and said enough already, I'll end with Aidan's words, a dream she had a couple of nights ago that she insisted that I write down with obvious references to The Wizard of Oz and Tina and Tony, a couple of characters invented long ago at bedtime by her grandfather for his own children and now beloved by Aidan and Cole.

"The horse carries Tina and Tony through a little door in the castle. And then they get to Tina and Tony's house. Their house is yellow and green. And then they get to the Scarecrow's island where the winged monkeys carry them. They go to the monkey's castle. It's green and blue and the king monkey sits in his chamber and the horses jump off of the wall with Tina and Tony on their backs but they land safely on their feet. Tina and Tony then meet a fox with the horses. The fox carries the horses and Tina and Tony--still on the backs of the horses--to the woods and they see a big, brown bear outside without his cave. They go to find a birthday somebody with the fox. They find somebody, at last. Wolf eats Fox's nose. Then Fox eats Wolf's nose. Wolf eats Fox. Fox eats Wolf. The trees in the forest slowly blow, blow, blow. And the horses decide to go back home galloping, galloping, galloping with Tina and Tony to have breakfast. After breakfast they go outside to find somebody else with a birthday."

Cronies

It happened today. As Bush sought approval for nomination of crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, I engaged in my own battle, a battle involving the words "I hate you" uttered by my four-year-old for the first time when I told her that she had to put on her shirt (long-sleeved with pink and blue and green hearts) and shoes (pink and purple) before I'd turn on the television--only so that she'd be ready when the carpool arrived to carry her to preschool. Evil, evil mother.

At first I was shocked. And then enraged. And then sad. And then I transported myself ahead 10 years to a 14-year-old girl, freshman in high shool, not preschool, standing in doorway with poorly applied makeup (because I do not wear it and have not taught her how to "appropriately" apply it), with a bad dye job (best case--a punkish blue or red, worst case brassy blonde with roots), and too short mini skirt, or "belt," as DE calls it. I say something like, "You're not leaving the house like that." And she says something like, "I can wear whatever I want to." A few more things are said, perhaps not delicately, and then she tells me that she hates me. There it is again. The hate. The hating of someone you love, obviously.

And to think that I think that it might be hard now. This is the easy part. And that's what makes hearing those words, today, easier. It's easy now. That's what I keep telling myself. It's easy. Now. Easy now. Love. Love. Love. Easy. Love.

Thursday Afternoon

Wild Pony

S

Probably not what you had in mind, but...these were begging to be posted--garish pony with bad hair meets New Hampshire wilds. If you want to see more--prettier ones--click on the Flickr link to the right.

J

A Few Words about Whim

I like whims. Mostly always have. And now that I care for two small children and a husband, whims have become a necessary part of existence. Though I have found that some days, when things NEED to get done, the whim may be somewhat underappreciated--which is why I feel a need to explain the why. The why of the whim.

But first. In an effort to NOT sound like a whiney, ungrateful stay at home mother who is whining about nothing, I'll say that I am a go-out-of-the-house-mother trying to perform the duties of a SAHM with the help of her sensitive, new age (without the hairdo) husband who does things around the house and likes children and cooks. We own a house--or at least a mortgage. We have a couple of cars. Computer, television, telephone, running water, electricity. I have choices. I have money, more than some, less than some, but enough. People, besides me, love my children and help me with them. My children are healthy. I am healthy. Tad is healthy. Did I say that I have choices?

Choices. There are choices. And then there are choices. This is where whim figures into the discussion. The one that I have with myself while executing duties of motherhood. It goes something like--I am in the mood for something. I don't know what it is, but I know it's something. And then I wait and see. Look and find. Let the whim come to me--so that when both children scream at each other, scream at me and I, unsuccessfully try not to scream at them, all of us loud enough so that the neighbor out for a smoke asks if everything is o.k. I say, "We're going to the art store to buy a canvas." Whim.

The whim says, "Choose me," when faced with screaming or a pile of dishes and a dishwasher (I bow down to it), or a pile of laundry and a washing machine (on knees in worship). The whim says, "Go ahead and do what wants to be done instead of what should be done." And finally, the whim says, "Do it later." Or at least make it interesting when you do get around to doing it. The wiping. The picking. The paying. The cleaning. Choosing to whim is a way of exerting control, I guess, over that which must be done, the predictable. Doing laundry when I want to do it is better than doing laundry when I don't want to do it. So the whim and the conscious, unconscious decision making become a way of not hating what I do, of honoring what I do--honoring the sporadic moments of unfettered love and joy and wonder that do not involve cleaning or water or wiping or spit out food or poop.

I say whim, not folly, when describing why I buy canvases and buy paint and try to create. Something. Anything. Taking pictures--whimmish. The whim--responsible for a rainbow of yarn bought to knit a vest for Aidan. I blame whim for my saying that I'm going to stay in and then later, deciding to go out and whim is the reason for my leaving the house simply to see what will happen, to see who will happen. The whim is the reason my child, sitting next to me as I write, drops a bowl from the table and breaks it. Whim, of course, an explanation for my spotlessly unclean house (no white glove test here).

And whim, if misinterpreted, misdirected, can become the equivalent of irresponsiblity. But the whim is not irresponsible. The whim is the whim. It is pure. And it is free. It gets the job done. And the follower of the whim, if engaged correctly, doesn't feel guilty or worried or sad about his or her decision to have a whim, but rather feels that this decision, the decision to whim, is the rightest thing. If the whim is irresponsible, the whim follower will suffer the consequences. Don't you worry. Don't you worry.

It doesn't help to worry. Whims get worried by worrying. And the problem is--I need the whim and the whim needs me. It's what keeps me participating. It's what makes me remember. It's what keeps me interested. And it's what makes me forget. It's the whim, the promise of the whim. That keeps me. Here and able and willing.

More than a Debate

Been thinking about Roe v. Wade, lately, thinking about who would be most affected by a decision to let states make their own decisions about abortion (legality). Then I came across this NYT article. I was struck by the realness of it, what you don't hear from the extremists--either side of the debate, enough so that I felt like posting a link.

Like Flynn

John Roberts, g'dammit, stop sounding smart.

Looks like you're in.

But please, for the sake of women living in the red, leave Roe v. Wade alone.

Another Thing

One thing leading to another (The Fixx???*#**)

An experiment in resistance
leads to an exercise
in numbness
leads to a poem about
knitting
leads to
numb fingers.
Whiskey.
And James Joyce.

Upstairs they're buying a stairway to Heaven
Down in the Garden they're changing sticks into snakes
And the jangle of religious medals would put
The Fear of God into an angel
Come all ye faithful

from king james version
Billy Bragg: guitar and vocals

If I try an Experiment

If I try an experiment
in resistance
will you love me
then?

We say that
the argument
is an old one

How to eat sand
without
it killing us.

It means
for you
that grains
they become bearings
grease
less.

Then the machine
it goes
if we make it.
Goes this way
in love
and that way
it goes.

Charles and Frances

I read ahead because I wanted to see. But first reading a draft of Projective Verse. As sent to Frances.

Is this a love story? Introduction--through letters. More letters. Changing letters--in intensity and salutation. A meeting. Infatuation. Adoration. Coupling. Resistance. And on and on. Until one gives up. And one arrives by train. 1950.

Projective enough?

And I don't care what Tom Clark says. Most of it is in the letters. Read them.

Note to Cole

A couple of weeks after your second birthday, in honor of your second birthday

Dear Cole--

I admire your sweetness, your exuberance, your determination. And I slightly envy the love you have for people and things--no need to discriminate now--they are all worthy.

Loaders. Backhoes. Excavators. Tractors. Meat. Olives--like your grandfather. Blueberries and blueberry bushes. Busy People. Boats. Books. Kids and people. Your sister. Babies. Nakedness. Blankies and ice cream. Words--such as "Whatzitmean?" and bike trailer. Screaming and flinging your body to the floor (added after today, particularly grumpy). These things are important to you.

Oh. And keys and electricity. You started a small electrical fire the other day--maybe I should keep this information to myself. But some day you might appreciate it.

I love you Cole. Happy second year of life. Also, please forgive me for not cutting your hair.

the guy with the tie (for Susan)

Susan wrote--

It is really sad that the people who were the most devastated by the storm were also the poorest and most unable to help themselves. The fault lies in community and the lack thereof. It was the inability of the wealthy, educated and clearly ignorant people to look around and say, "I know I'm going to be safe but what about my neighbor." It's the people who live and interact, or should interact with their fellowman, their grocers, bankers, bikers, commuters, plumbers, fireman, policemen, shoe-shiners, bee-keepers, janitors, McDonalds food-servers, etc... Honestly, what would you do if you knew a hurricane was coming? Would you get in your car and drive away or would you go round up all your neighbors and give rides to everyone who couldn't get out. That is why community is so important. In times of need, you have to be able to pull everyone together and save everyone, not just the lucky few.

As cheesy as it sounds, it is the lack of willingness of those who were nearest to help out, for those who were educated and able to step up and say, let's do something. The responsibility is for the people closest to the situation to rise to the occasion, not some guy in a tie in some office, nor his administration. Yes, they could have responded in a timelier fashion, yes, they could have spent less on the war, yes, they could have lost the election, but they DIDN'T. So it is up to us, the people, the ones who live with and around each other to help out. It is our responsibility to look around and lift up our own people. I don’t want some ego-maniac who doesn’t know “my people” to have the honor and privilege of doing it.


And to Susan I say.........yes. I agree with the points about community and responsibility. Nicely said, I might add. But here comes the but..............

We have to ask questions of the people who lead this country. Difficult questions. Would this administration have acted differently for a different segment of the population? It does matter. Because though some of the immediate problems may trace back to the local level and people unwilling to help, federal acts matter. Money spent on a personal and holy war rather than war on poverty, a real and visible threat to this country--this money matters. Making it easier for rich folks to become richer--part of the problem, not just on a local scale, but a larger, international one when one thinks about how American greed affects global politics. The sharp divide between the working class and the upper classes of this society--a problem. It seems that material, lifestyle needs (or rather entitlements--as we've come to know them) overshadow basic human needs--and that this administration is not going to go out of its way to change this. And the irony--oh the irony--in the messages of this administration. "Promote culture of life." "Promote family values." The guy with the tie, if nothing else, is going to have to try to explain. And make a fool of himself in front of enough people, in doing so.

Angry and Sad

Slow response to hurricane and people devastated by it. This fucking president and this administration. And I wonder, wonder, wonder what this has to to with it? Why don't we take care? Of people.

Olson and the Motz

I am reading Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff--A Modern Correspondence. And I feel fucked with.

Maybe because I am reading letters--personal and private, or so they thought. But I like letters. Receiving them. Writing them. Reading them.

Or maybe because of reference to DHL, Shakespeare's "dryness," Blake, Joyce, Melville (he who started the conversation--Boldereff's reading of Call Me Ishmael), a little Whitman, some others--letters literary, literate. The coming back to DHL. Or the exuberance, a bit much, but exuberant.

There is passion. And person to person meetings are few, but relevant.

It adds up to a couple of lines. So far.

ONE OF OLSON'S
& i need no bait but you, lady!

SOME OF MOTZ'S
Cancel blood

Fr unsought, add
And the eyes
which should burst
do not.

48. This emendation to the draft of the previous day appears in the poem as sent to Edward Dahlberg a few days later (see "Dura" in Collected Poems, p. 85).

Today

Being able to hear all of the sounds through speakers that work. This makes me want to weep. Somebody said this once, about Radiohead. And I sit here listening to the noise, thinking. About people. And why they do the things that they do. And I weep for them. And I weep for myself.

Baby Girl

Four years ago today I was giving birth. To a baby girl. 36 hours plus of labor--so they call it--and delivery. And this is what I want to remember--Kathleen, our midwife, and the nurse whose name I have forgotten who stayed into vacation time to see my strong-willed (not stubborn) child finally agree to leave the comforts of the womb. Operating room, scrubs, bright lights, at least 10 bodies standing over me and one standing next to me head pressed to cheek as I screamed and with the aid of forceps pushed my baby across the table, the doctor moving quickly, but almost not quickly enough, to catch her. And then the sound of my baby's cry. Tiny fury. Pink skin. Alert eyes. More wails. Her father's announcement that we had a boy, and a few minutes later, a girl because sometimes a penis is really umbilical cord. Holding her small, wrinkled body and thinking that she's mine, ours, and feeling responsibility in bringing a child to this world--momentary fast forward to joy, love. Knowing, too, that there will be sadness. An ache, the rawness of emotion and crying when my father-in-law cried. Asshole doctor who wanted a c-section early on and the pain of my tailbone after giving birth, the time that I took to heal. At last, baby to breast to do what babies do.

In four years my baby has grown into an inquisitive, fiery and loving little girl. And, as they say, it happened quickly. Quickly. And what I saw in the operating room is real because I have watched her experience joy and love and react as I might expect. Eyes wide, sparkly. Mouth open. Arms stretched. "I love you," she says and means it. I have also seen her sad, unsure, awkward in a new situation, screeching and hitting because she doesn't know what else to do, uncomfortable and frustrated, unable to negotiate the social waters and hanging back, clinging. I have seen her angry, "I don't like what you're telling me." Or, "I want people to do things MY way and no one else's way." And I have seen her curious--about a caterpillar eating milkweed, about where germs come from and why people get sick (after particularly annoying stomach bug), about the creation of stories and characters, saying with confidence, "If the story is from imagination then the people in the stories must be from real life, at least a little bit."

That's my girl. My itty, bitty girl. I love you baby girl. Happy Birthday.

It's a Girl

ppppppppppppp;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;///////////////0000000000?????????????????)))))))))::::::::::::::::::::

Yessssssssssssssssss.

New keyboard. Apple even. Apple. Apple. Apple.

pppppppppppppppppppppp. I missed you.

She's so white. But not for long. And sounds different, too.

I'm in love.

You Decide

Where have all the flowers gone?
Where have all the hippies gone?
Where have all the protesters gone?

















Click on image for larger image.

Not a Choice

Disappointment. Even if it has been this way for, well, 15 years. Waiting, interminable. Wanting him to show. Or at least to return a call. Trying to act like it doesn't matter. Knowing that it does. And I thought it was different now, what with us talking through. "Allies," he said.

When you love someone you have expectations, even if you try not to. And expectations lead to hurt and hurt is not what most people want. What does anyone want but to be noticed, cared for, loved? Really loved. And wholly loved, on all of the levels that love exists, despite tragic flaw.

I will continue to love through the disappointment because I don't have a choice. It's what I know how to do. It's what I do. And there is hope, always, for us humans. Hope that circumstances will change, even when there is overwhelming evidence indicating that things mostly do and will stay the same.







Oh, and if interested click on image to view larger image. Seems like this is how they should be viewed.