playground some color replacement soy bean oil 1 ice ice baby

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Sunday, December 16, 2007

When I wake it is 16 degrees out. I put on a wool, stocking hat knit by Nena five Christmases ago and before Grumps died, mohair mittens knit by Amanda when Aidan was a baby and I wrap my neck in a soft scarf knit by Lee the Christmas before Cole learned to walk.

This is how I stay warm and keep time, wondering how I'd know what happened and when without these things. I negotiate the icy streets of Gloucester making my way to work via the part of Middle Street that is not closed. Though my father-in-law has already given news of the fire, I am shocked when I see the burning temple and burnt apartment building. It's devastating--a life lost, people without homes, this time of year, ice stuck to trees, billowing smoke, skeleton of a synagogue and charred wood that was once an apartment building. I see people weeping in the street and others excitedly spectating because they don't know what else to do. There is a sad, displaced energy on Main Street that makes me wonder out loud: "What can I do?"

I step over soot frozen to bits of thawing ice. I walk around thick hoses lying in the road, careful not to step on them. When I arrive, my coat and scarf and hat smell like smoke--the smoke of loss, of buildings burning in the cold night and early morning, of tears and fear and flame.

I do the best that I can at the store, but all day I am thinking about the people who have been hurt by this fire. Around three I walk home, the fire still going. There is more soot. There is smoke. And when I arrive at the house there is an e-mail. It tells of how she moved from the 90-year old building just two weeks ago after living on the fourth floor for four years. She had been unable to get used to the idea of a fire and no way out, understandably so.

I think about fires and ways out. I think about Dave holding baby Galen and Mac missing Amanda's father and Amanda missing them all.

Quietly out loud I say "I love you" to all of the people I love. I say it again. And then again. I want people to know.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

snowing

they were right
Last night I had a dream that I met the children in the photos. They were nothing like their pictures.

I've been dreaming about snow. And snow swirls, the way the wind whips it around into a cloud. Then his voice in a message tells me to mind the snow.

It is a pile of snow, soft and light at first, but turning heavy and wet. It covers me. It covers me again.

By the end of the dream I can see my eyes. Not my mouth, but my eyes.

The snow is light. The snow is heavy. The snow is nothing.

The snow is not as I dreamt it.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Knitting Mormons' Christmas

The Mormons visit yesterday. It has been weeks, months even, our last meeting less than satisfactory for them. There is a new girl with the girl who talks, impressed that I know that Carson City is the capital of Nevada. The girl who talks talks and talks and I miss the other girl, quiet and pleasantly unassuming. I learn that the quiet girl has moved to Vermont and the girl who talks will be going home at the end of this month. This is what makes visiting my house again and again easy for them.

When they knock at the back door I am on my computer paying bills and listening to "The Rebel Jesus" (this is the truth), part of a Mostly Denominational Mix of Christmas tunes that I made at Cole's request. This seems appropriate backdrop to conversation about religious conversions. "Six baptisms," the answer to my question of how many since she's been out. "It's wonderful to be a part of," she gushes. "To see how people change when they discover the love of Christ."

After a few minutes, talk turns to knitting. "We had to return the knitting to Amanda," she says. "We feel bad, but we just don't have time to sit and knit." I think a lot of mean things about the ways they spend their time, but mostly I think, "If I'd had knitting, I might still be Mormon. I'd have had something to do during all that talking."

Knitting didn't save me then, but it's saving me now. And I'm not Mormon and that's a good thing, though it's complicated at this time of year. And difficult. I try to read things like "Burning the Christmas Greens," William Carlos Williams and other poems. I put together collections of Christmas music for my kids because they love this holiday and there's hardly a reason they shouldn't. I try to revel in their joy and their anticipation.

I try to do it all and in doing so I am reduced to a shell of a person. I'm a faker and I'm not fooling anyone, especially myself.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Modern Man

In the quiet afternoon of the coffee shop Cole starts singing loudly, "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto. Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto. Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto."

We are finished with our coffee and I quickly head for the exit.

"Excuse me, was your son just singing Styx?" asks the man in the suit holding the door.

"Well, yes." "And if you're lucky he'll break into "Come Sail Away" next.

"Chuckle, chuckle," says the man.

"Man I love this kid," I think to myself. Another 4 o'clock gone by. Rainy afternoon sunshine. All because of a four-year-old kid in a coffee shop singing Styx. Utter horror. Utter embarrassment. Utter delight.

Addendum:

"Cole, where did you learn that song?"

"From the internets."

Of course. From the internets.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Monday

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Daughter

Recently I watched Knocked Up a movie about a sassy, career motivated E! reporter getting knocked up by and with a goofy, loveable and broke website developer. I am a semi-fan of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up is done by the same people.

As can be guessed, at the end of this movie a baby is born. A baby is born and I cry. I almost always cry when babies are born and so I cried when this movie baby was born, its movie birth reminding me of the live and in stereo births of my three babies, the births of my friends' babies, the births of all babies.

I first heard Loudon Wainwright III's version of "Daughter" at the end of this movie. Naturally I cried. Probably because I have two daughters and probably because I'm a sap. Then I went and found the song. Then I read a bit about LWIII. Then I read a bit about his children with Kate McGarrigle, Rufus and Martha, also singer-songwriters. I found lyrics to Martha's song "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" which is supposedly about her father and begins "poetry is no place for a heart that's a whore."

After all of this reading and listening, I stopped reading and I stopped listening.

Until the other day while writing the daughter knitting post. I decided to find out more about the song "Daughter," my recent obsession with music history the direct result of a terrifically late discovery about 'Til Tuesday and Aimee Mann (Does my growing up Mormon in Salt Lake City in the 80s explain anything?)

I found this:

"Daughter" was written by Peter Blegvad, a singer-songwriter who used to play with the avant-rock combo Henry Cow in the '70s and the Golden Palominos in the '80s. "Daughter" comes from his 1995 album, Just Woke Up.

I have no idea what kind of a parent LWIII was/is. I will not pass judgment. Parenting is fucking hard. My children could very well write a song about me someday and it might not be pretty.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm happy that "Daughter" was penned by a man whose "lyrics frequently feature word games, literary references and complex and extended rhyme schemes. He can also claim credit for one of the world's longest grammatically-correct palindromes (from Kew. Rhone.):

Peel's foe not a set animal laminates a tone of sleep" (this about the lyrics and palindrome from the ever-semi-reliable source Wikipedia).

And because I am a freak and geek I am now going to listen to Blegvad's "Daughter" followed by Wainwright's "Daughter" followed by Martha Wainwright's "M.B.F.A."

I do not recommend that you do the same.

Geeks click here.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Sunday, November 18, 2007

day's end sunlight on a house

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Ball of Mush or Bowl of Mush or Old Lady Whispering Hush

If I say something to you and you can't figure out what I'm saying or think to yourself "Now that's odd," I have an explanation. I've been listening to In Rainbows and it's bringing out all sorts of stuff. Good and bad. If I hadn't already been given and then rejected religion, I might consider, god, that is. Please don't tell any missionaries.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Accidentally Stolen Car Story

First she tells us about the time she accidentally stole a car. "Accidentally stole a car" is the kind of statement capable of getting a laugh out of anyone. By the end of the story I am convinced that it was an accident--same car, same color, different steering wheel grip, different keys. If Volkswagen made a bunch of cars with keys that work in same-looking cars then that's an accident on their part.

I blame Volkswagen. What were they thinking? What am I thinking? What are any of us thinking?

Sunday, November 11, 2007

One

that face

This baby is one. One is one of those ages that is unbelievably cute and unbelievably menacing. Yes I called her a menace, mostly because she's been climbing onto the dining room table and computer keyboard all day, though I've almost forgotten about it, except for the bruise on her cheek reminding me that babies fall off of tables. And I did say cute along with menace.

This is also the age that is over in a second. She'll be stealing somebody's wallet and heart before we know it. Wait. Where's my wallet? And my heart? They're gone. Gone. Gone. My baby is growing up and I have no idea what to do about it.

Friday, November 09, 2007

B Y Who?

If you have been wondering to yourself or aloud what it might be like to attend Brigham Young University click here.
woolgathering \WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:

Indulgence in idle daydreaming.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Play by Play

I start writing on the Lord's day. It is supposed to be quiet and restful. They are at church and she is playing "Love One Another" on the piano while her seven-year-old daughter tells knock knock jokes.

I have been in this city for almost 72 hours. It hasn't gotten me and I haven't gotten it, though we are both trying.

One of the first things I do is see a friend, my BFF since Mr. Olson and fifth grade and city bus rides to buy Snoopy and candy corn. I stand in her modern, edgy kitchen as she copies onto a note card a recipe for Candy Corn Sugar Cookies and later in her laundry room as she tells me about how cancer has invaded her life and the lives of others. We ease into and around the conversation like friends who have been friends a long time. We hug and kiss goodbye to talk of a 20-year reunion and children and when we will meet again.

An impromptu lunch with sisters and nieces and nephew and mother results in a ride to see the new condo that will replace the other new condo. The project supervisor runs when he sees my mother. She laughs it off as I swallow uncomfortably and sweat a little. It's four o'clock on a Friday and they want to go home, but she is determined to show me the emptiness. I am unimpressed and I can't hide it.

Later in the car with my almost youngest sister and her husband I recount this story of the unfinished condo which leads to talk of lice and bed bugs and parasitical behavior. We soon arrive in Provo, home to Brigham Young University and thousands of young married and procreating and wanting-to-be married and wanting-to-be procreating people. Provo feels as if a cultural vacuum has been taken to it, swallowed up dirt particles, crumbs and even carpet. As luck would have it, the vacuum has conveniently dumped its best contents into my aunt's house.

My aunt and grandmother and cousin gurgle surprise when they see me. I have not told anyone, but for a few, that I will be at the party. It is my grandmother's 86th birthday and she does not look a day over 60. "I am so glad to see you Jane," she says. "I'm 86 and I am going to die soon. I don't know if I will see you again." My grandmother has always been this matter-of-fact about death. She doesn't skirt the issue. At all. And as much as I want to be thrown by the prospect of losing this dear, feisty, high-heeled, little woman, I know that she is right. But I also know that she won't be passive about death's arrival. She will go pluckily and beautifully, especially if her hairdresser comes through. My grandmother, at the party while sipping punch and eating sugar cookies, asks this woman to take responsibility for her funeral hair.

I talk with anyone who will listen about the Red Sox and my cousin gives me a lead on a place to watch the game. It's called Fiddler's Elbow. "The fans are loud," my quiet cousin who favors the Yankees says. "But you'll find them there." Around midnight I feel like I am going to fall asleep in my Fresca and finally find someone to take me to Salt Lake. My parents live in a condominium complex where one needs magnetic cards and keys to get in. I borrow a card, but forget the key thus requiring a sit with my luggage outside their door. I read my plane book called How to Be Good by Nick Hornby and think about applying its contents. "How do I be good?" I wonder aloud to the stale artwork on the walls.

By 1 I am asleep on the blow up bed. Morning light and my mother on the computer wake me around 5. My parents want to go to Ruth's Diner, a favorite breakfast joint, and I am pleased. We take a drive up Emigration Canyon and wait for a table and chat. I embarrass my father when I talk about eggs, not the kind a person eats for breakfast. I do not embarrass my mother, yet. Eventually conversation turns to excessively large houses, first ladies, private jets and sexism, though they wouldn't call it this.

After breakfast we go separate ways. A few years ago out of guilty familial conscience I might have joined them for errands to buy scuba diving wetsuits and unnecessary furniture, but not this day. This day I try not to feel slighted and take myself to the Coffee Garden and to see Into the Wild. I sit in the dark Broadway theater and send messages to people I love. A woman asks how many seats I am saving and I chuckle and tell her that I am alone.

The game is in the top of the third when I arrive at the bar. Fiddler's is a "private club" which in Utah terms means that people have to pay for a membership in order to drink. The price is $4. A woman explains to me that before recently acquiring private club status for serving more alcohol than food, a person had to buy food if they wanted to drink. "So it's kind of the same thing," she says. "$4 for an appetizer or $4 for a club membership." I'm smiling big because I used to know about the private club rule and the food rule and the one shot rule. I don't tell her about Massachusetts and my local bar and the stiff drinks that the bartender pours with our without food for accompaniment.

I see comfortable leather sofas and a gigantic television. Red Sox fans occupy three of four seats. I ask if I can sit and we joke about the team for which I will cheer. They welcome me by offering up cold wings and Gorgonzola. I accept and by the end of the night we are hugging and high fiving and making plans to watch the next game.

Sunday seems the day to take a drive up Little Cottonwood. It is hazy and I am anxious with the idea that I might not see him. I decide to call and get him on the phone, which is a rarity. "I'm not going to make it to dinner. I'm watching football and drinking beer and I'm trashed," he says to me through the phone as my on-listening parents puzzle out the conversation. "Tell them I got called into work," he says. "O.k." I say. "I'll tell them that you got called into work."

Dinner passes pleasantly enough, but I can't stop thinking about my brother. Three weeks ago I wanted to fly out to see only him. I thought through this idea and waited. Now it's been over 48 hours in this city and nothing. At 7 I sheepishly excuse myself from dinner and go off to be with Sox fans and find him.

After the game is won I drive to where I can see the temple all lit up in the night. It is a beacon, a warning. He invites me in and introduces me to three women, friends, maybe lovers. The apartment is bare but for a shelf stacked with books, CDs and pictures. There is a sofa, an entertainment center and one painting hanging on the wall. We talk. We talk about Into the Wild and death wishes and family. We talk and talk.

At 1 I feel tired. I say that I'll be leaving. "I want to give you something," he says. "It's important that I give you something. What can I give you?" he asks. He goes to some boxes in the back of the apartment. "Here. I want you to have this." It is an old photo taken in the airport after his visit to New York City when he was 13, the defining visit, the one that "will fuck him up forever." The look on his face, then and now, tells me what I need to know. The sadness is heart stopping and thick and palpable. I want to rip it up, this photo and the sadness. I want to vomit.

Outside, the nearby temple throwing light, he looks me in the eyes like he is looking at me for the first time. "I don't know if I will see you again," he says. "I am sick. My heart is sick. My liver is sick. I am sick. I can feel it."

These words make me sick. "I don't want you to die," I say. You are 35," I say. 35 fucking years old. Not 86. Not my grandmother. This is my 35-year-old brother and I'm trying to talk him out of dying like a person would try to talk someone out of hang gliding or buying a motorcycle or walking alone into the Alaskan wilderness with a 10 pound bag of rice.

There is nowhere for this conversation to go. I am selfish and I tell him so. "This is about me, me, me. I would rather have you here in pain than not here at all," and as soon as the words leave my mouth I am floored. I think about the knife in the Nick Hornby book, the one that gets stuck in her gut. The question is one of severity: Do I remove it and bleed to death or do I leave it in and live with the pain?

I don't do either. I walk to my mother's car and drive to my mother and father's condominium at the top of the hill and enter the gate with the magnetic card and a key and quietly drop onto the aero bed and lie awake until the sun comes up and it is a new day.

The sun comes up and it is a new day. It is a new day and anything could happen.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Being Obsessive has its Good Points

The album title Eveningland comes from the title of a D.H. Lawrence poem. This I didn't know until I couldn't sleep. Nettles, birds, beasts, flowers, kingfishers. Lawrence is eveywhere in the lyrics.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

I have been looking for comfort in familiarity, wrapping fingers around warm and swallowing melodies and harmonies and advertisement jingles. I have been smoking air and trying to understand the polite and not-so-polite ways people step over and around and between the subject of death.

I have been obsessively and compulsively listening to Hem, Eveningland.

As I waited in line at the wake for almost three hours to get in to give them everything I could while trying not to take too much this song played and replayed and played in the space of my head. It gave me comfort.

Carry Me Home

We were raised in the nettles
And they showed us how they grow--
Where a poison comes to settle
And what a poisoned man comes to know

So me and Jessie, we left Ohio--
Left him bleeding on the valley floor
I felt so dirty I could hardly stand it--
Carrying Jessie on my back

She said, hold on, I know you'll bury him for me
Hold on, I know you'll bury him for me
Hold on, I know you'll carry me and carry me and
Carry me home

Tell me nothing's wrong there
Tell me nothing's wrong there
Tell me nothing's wrong there

Nothing's wrong there
Nothing's wrong there
Nothing's wrong there

--Dan Messe

Monday, October 22, 2007

Prepping for Wednesday

Some of the best Sox photos I've come across. Slideshow will allow you to loop forever with photo popping black background.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

for Jane Z and her family

Because I don't have words right now.

autumn light

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Window Trickery

I have been trying to trick myself. But I'm onto me.

We tell ourselves things because we want to believe them. Vegetables are healthful. X, Y and Z make me a good parent. I can warm my hands with a patch of sunlight. Drinking too much makes it worse.

I've bought a plane ticket to Salt Lake City and I'm going. To see the lake. I'm going to see the lake.

I will dance with my grandmother and drip sarcasm with my cousin. I will say Happy Birthday and mean it.

No one will know that the windows need cleaning. That the lake is cold and not as salty as I had hoped. That I am pretending not to miss him with every minute. That I am pretending not to notice that he has almost slipped away from us all.

cloud shapes

window in need of cleaning

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Of Knitting and Football and Evil Penguins and Mothers and Daughters

rainbow knitting

This here is the rainbow knitting of Aidan. About a year ago we had a tearful, frustrating encounter with learning to knit. Two days ago she asked if we could try again. A lot must change in a year because we figured it out and then she couldn't stop. She knit in the car. She knit while riding in a grocery cart in a grocery store crowded with people preparing for a football game. She knit while watching Wallace and Gromit, not the one about the sheep rustling and the knit-o-matic, but the one with the evil penguin. And she knit before bed. I love this girl and her knitting and that now we can knit together.

She's making a scarf, by the way.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Taking Happiness

I made soup today. I coarsely chopped collard greens. Chopped onion. Minced garlic. I poured olive oil into a stainless steel pot. Added tomatoes, beans and sausage, things the recipe didn't call for. I added Tabasco that forever reminds me of Lucy, red pepper flakes, freshly ground pepper and salt. I stirred. I gently boiled and then served soup. With fresh bread from Virgilio's, butter, Cole eating the middle and leaving the crust.

We talked of mothers and Mormons and doctors. Of baseball, in a roundabout way, and of love.

This is my happiness. In the middle of sadness. To sit at a table and break bread and drink coffee as babies squawk for cookies and life lives around us.

It's soup weather

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Happiness Redefined

Lately I've been thinking about happiness, the definition of it, the impracticality of it. All this inspired by a "You should get more happier," comment that pissed me right off in the other direction.

I am not an "unhappy" person by definition or by nature. I smile and laugh. Unhappy people don't smile and laugh nearly as much as I smile and laugh.

Sometimes I play monster with the kids and kiss them or tickle them until we are all laughing. Sometimes when I'm watching them read a book or dig in the dirt or draw a picture a feeling comes over me that I can't explain.

I get out of bed in the morning, most days. I eat. I communicate. Or at least try to. I wash things. I drink coffee in the morning and beer at 6 o'clock. I do not drink beer at 6 o'clock in the morning.

Sometimes I yell. At people. And for this I am sorry. Sometimes I grumble into the air, mumble obscenities because sometimes I get angry with humans and the world. I can't help it. Really.

Yesterday as I walked my baby along the boulevard staring into the calm of the ocean, watching blue-grey water meet sand, I heard a familiar voice. It was my back yard neighbor. I hadn't seen her since the birth of the baby, Thea now over a year.

We took a few minutes to hear about each other, her three daughters here and everywhere and "happy." "It's a gift to have them doing what they want to be doing, traveling, working. It's a relief to have them 'happy.'"

"Yes," I say. I can imagine that it would be a relief.

"You are so lucky to be doing what you are doing. This is a wonderful time for you you know? You can't get it back."

"Yes," I say automatically. "I am lucky. This is a wonderful time," and we part.

I think for a minute. Sometimes I want to beat up the people who say this to me. "Do you remember?" I want to say.

But for some reason today I do not want to do harm to this woman. For one, I like her. I've liked her since I met her while teaching her youngest daughter my first year at the high school. And two, I believe her. Today I believe her.

Not yesterday. Not the day before. And probably not tomorrow.

But today I believe her. Could it be that I am happy? Today. Maybe tomorrow. And probably the next day.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Scratch almost everything I said about laundry.

good old, old-fashioned washboard

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Go Sox

Up late folding laundry. Listening to the game on the radio. Folding laundry. At least 100 loads. Then falling asleep on the new, old red sofa only to be stirred by bits of excitement about the game. Tied. Tied. Then around 1 I hear ecstatic commentators. "They've done it." "Manny, Manny, Manny." The game is over. The laundry sits. And waits. Clean and folded, it waits. I go to bed.

This morning I drive to the bank. One clean and folded basket left. Small clothes for little people. A day's worth. But it only takes a minute to undo, to strew across their room, like confetti. After game confetti. For all the world to see. Or for no one.

Addendum--10 minutes later

"It looks like he was trying to put away his laundry and the other kids' laundry got in the way. What can you say to that? He was being helpful," he laughs, clearly unaware of the direness of the situation.

"Yes. Helpful?????" I say sarcastically. But I finally chuckle a little thinking about confetti and strewn socks and Sox and my four-year-old son putting away his laundry.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Rose the Duck

I'd like to introduce Rose the duck. She is three. Aidan made her at a clay workshop at the Sawyer Free. The workshop was indeed free.

This duck makes me happy every time I see her. I'm posting her here with a hope that she'll make someone else happy, too. At the very least me, every time I make a visit.

the duck

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Get out the Vote

Back corner last night
first time
reading Jim Dunn's book
makes me cry a little
while the jam
jams on
a candidate for mayor
peacocks by
for pretty eyes to see
through broken latticework
and another hole
punched by an angry man
in and out
of love.

We vote
ourselves silly
with anticipation
and say the same damn
things
every time.

The earth gets
warmer
and I can feel it
through
ice caps
fingerless fingers
mending hearts
with barbed wire
another night gone
gotten away from me
gone without so much
as a wave goodbye.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Under the cover of darkness

Poetry reading at PA's Lounge in Somerville.

Good to see you all.

subway lights

Derek

poetry reading

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Baby Bites, Mad Jesus' and Small, Good Things

I was raised Mormon in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have not been a practicing Mormon for approximately 24 years. Yet they keep visiting. They keep calling. Yesterday I let two young girls in for approximately 45 minutes as tactics such as rudeness and asking for my name to be removed from their lists, asking them not to call or come by have not worked. I offered them a beverage. They accepted and sat side by side at our dining room table. I smiled and asked a few easy questions about whereabouts and numbers of siblings--5 and 6, respectively. Then I smiled and asked some hard questions about family. They smiled and didn't answer them, except to tell me to visit General Conference, the great meeting of Mormon minds. I smiled and said, "I don't need a bunch of nearly dead white guys telling me what to do." They smiled and asked if they could visit again next week. I said yes.

And then sent them to my best and most beautiful partner in crime's house to do some weed whacking, but with this warning, "Be careful. She might bite." And this might be a good thing for them. A very good thing. Maybe even "A Small, Good Thing" if they're lucky.

my baby ate the mad jesus card and now I can't find church

softer jesus

Monday, September 24, 2007

angel

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Love Conversations

Note to tired readers: This will definitely be my LAST reference to 69 Love Songs for at least a year. O.k, at least a month.

Every so often it happens. I fall completely in love with a song. I wanna make out with this song, get coffee with this song, and do other things with this song.

But it's a song and we can't do these things. So instead I listen. And listen. And listen.

The song I have most recently fallen in love with is "The Book of Love" by The Magnetic Fields. Yeah, I've mentioned them here before and yeah I'm eight years slow to recently acquire the three CD album, so bear with me as my love for this album plays itself out.

I like this song more for what it doesn't say than for what it does say. It starts out, "The book of of love is long and boring/No one can lift the damn thing." I imagine a big, brown, sturdy book with all sorts of dryly inaccessible information, "....charts and facts and figures/and instructions for dancing." But then comes the twist, which is often the case with Stephin Merritt. Interspersed between the description of the book is, "...but I/I love it when you read to me/and you/you can read me anything," this the first place that makes me want to drink red wine and read Creeley with this song. It's slow and sweet the way the words are drawn out to emphasize the beauty of this simple doing.

Then there's the place that makes me want to go out dancing with this song and afterward take it ocean swimming.

And finally the place that makes me want to have a conversation with this song, one that lasts a long, long, long time, maybe forever.

Without getting into a discussion of marriage here because, well, because marriage is hard in theory and in practice, this song makes me think about how some conversations between some people keep going because some conversations can't and won't be finished. Marriage can be this kind of conversation.

I love this song for its ability to make me keep wanting to have ongoing conversations with the people I love. I love this song for its ability to make me remember to fall in love, with a song, again and again and again.

Now please go have a listen. And I promise not to talk about 69 Love Songs ever again.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Monkey

monkey bars

To see the set click here.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Saturday Morning Phone Call

"Is this Jane?"

"Yes. I can't hear you. I'll call you back on the other phone."

"O.k."

Dial. Music through the phone on his end. The music is intelligible. But he's kind of unintelligible.

We talk. About lots of things, death being one of them.

There are a lot of things I could say but I try to change the subject. To music.

I tell him about 69 Love Songs. He already owns it.

He mentions David Byrne, Massive Attack, a few others. He has 300 CDs. His life's worth, he says.

"My crappy t.v., my CD collection, a few other things."

"I'll be pissed," I say. "I'll be pissed if 300 CDs show up at my door. And you're not with them."

What am I supposed to say to him? What is there really to say that hasn't already been said?"

I'm cynical about this now, years of trying to be a saviour and years of it not working. This is the best our relationship has been. And we both know it.

He keeps calling. He keeps living. Barely.

I've decided that it doesn't hurt to keep saying, "I love you." It can't hurt.

I'll say it as many times as I need to. I'll say it and mean it. I'll say it if he's here. And I'll say it if he's not.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Cole

Cole and I have had a rough go of it lately. Crying, both of us. Yelling, both of us. Frustration, both of us. Finally smiling, both of us. Tomorrow is his first day of four-year-old preschool.

The crying and yelling and frustration are all well and good. But I want to remember the smiling. I love this boy. Love. This. Boy.

I love this boy.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Here's the Thing (working title)

I have a fancy, new camera and I want to do something with it, though I could do what I want to do without a fancy, new camera. I'm writing what I want to do here because if I don't write it here I won't follow through. Also, I might need a swift boot to the ass if I start whining and acting like I can't finish what I'm about to start. The following is inspired by School House Rock, especially "Three is a Magic Number," the paper crane project, flickr's 365 days, Amanda's letter writing and 69 Love Songs, The Magnetic Fields.

Take at least one photo every day for 365 days.
Post one photo every day to flickr.
For 52 Fridays, print one photo, 4x6, taken during the week.
Choose one person--family, friend, or random--and write a note to this person.
Must be a handwritten note and person must not be expecting the note or picture.
For 52 Saturdays, mail note and picture.
If people want to write a return note they can, but there must be no expectation that they do so.
Cost of project not to exceed $35. Envelopes, notepaper, 52 stamps, 52 prints.
Punishment if I don't finish this project: A hairshirt.

Purpose:

To circulate handwritten mail.
To find cool stamps (I have a thing for stamps).
To make myself finish something that I've started, something long.
To surprise people by sending them unexpected, handwritten mail.
To write to people I want to write to, but for whatever reason, don't.
To make something. Call it art, if you want. Or, call it something else.


Don't forget about the boot in the butt, if I need it. If you know someone who would like a note, please send along their address, but don't forget not to tell them that they'll be receiving a note. Thank you. stewingham@hotmail.com

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Relentless

Yesterday I came home to a voice mail message.

"Hi Jane. This is the sister missionaries. We were calling to see if there would be a good time that we could come and see you, um, or give you any kind of service if you need any help around the house or anything. We'd love to come and help you out and to meet you. We'd love to hear back from you.

Our number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Do hope you are enjoying this nice warm day (laugh). We hope to hear back from "ya." Have a good day and everyone else. Bye."

I do not feel mean enough tonight to list all of the inappropriate services that could be rendered by the sister missionaries. Two of them. But as I've been going through my day I've been listening to these lyrics by The Magnetic Fields, not to be confused with the Air Supply lyrics of the same title.

Kiss Me Like You Mean It

"He is my lord, He is my saviour and He rewards my good behavior
My secret soul, I know He's seen it He says, come here baby and
kiss me like you mean it He calls me baby, says kiss me like you mean it
He is my life and my salvation He's always right, He's always patient
I pinch myself It's like I'm dreaming it... He is my love, He's always been it..."

The sister missionaries make me think of this song, or vice versa. But I'm afraid to tell them.

Stephin Merritt says, "Of course it's not a gospel song, really, or if it's a gospel song it's--well, I guess it's blasphemy either way. It's more about a B & D relationship."

Either way, what these girls are doing to me, it's relentless and soon, when they call, I'm going to quote Stephin Merritt, the "rabid militant atheist."

Soon girls, very soon.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Think Rattlebrained

This morning I'm up early reading junk e-mail, trying to find the right place to buy my Viagra. How can a person not be intrigued by the following subject line:

"it use turban?"

So I keep reading.

"was so refute decorative pullulate"

I look up the definition of pullulate. It's a verb.

To put forth sprouts or buds; germinate.
To breed rapidly or abundantly.
To teem; swarm: a lagoon that pullulated with tropical fish.

I look up the definition for decorative.

serving or tending to decorate.
Fine Arts. serving only to decorate, in contrast to providing a meaningful experience.

"decorative pullulate"

the abundant breeding of unmeaningful artistic experience?

"Was so refute decorative pullulate"

That's good, right?

But my favorite part is the ending,

"think rattlebrained," it says.

I like that. I'm going to use it as much as possible.

One woman's junk is another woman's treasure.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Dreams

All of us in bed by ten. An early night with the boy to come in first. A bad dream. Then she wakes sneezing, enough to need a sip of Benadryl and a box of tissues. It is after I've moved the boy back to his bed and she's settled that I have the dream. I am wearing yellow rubber gloves, the ones my mother used to wear while cleaning the toilet or the sink. There's a picture on the package of a woman looking pretty and wearing the gloves. I am in our aqua-tiled bathroom and I am not cleaning. I am looking for a shower curtain, a brown and black and white and green one that I bought at the outlets when we pulled the tile. It has been replaced by a white, vinyl shower curtain and I am frantic. I tear at the white curtain with the yellow gloves, but nothing, until I wake him with a cry, the muffled scream that comes through in my dream. "I had a bad dream," I say, and he wants to know what about. I am embarrassed to say that it's about yellow gloves and a white shower curtain. I'm embarrassed that this is what makes a bad dream for me.

I go back to sleep by three and the baby's up at five. Her fever is gone and she eats a banana. There is peace in the early morning darkness. I hear the train against its tracks and I think about dreams, how we can't stop them or change them. I think about what your dreams must be like as you remember things or fear things or want things, as you remember who you've known and what you've lost.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Bedbug Sleep Tight

I get a phone call this morning, one I've been anticipating for three months.

"Calling to tell you and the kids that I love you," he says. "And to follow up on the birthday call. I'm not very good at follow up, but I'm here now."

"I'm glad that you're here now," I say.

Apparently I am the last person to know anything because HE has to tell ME about the bedbugs, summoned between early a.m. film job and late p.m. wait job to fetch ice and move furniture. The headline might read:

Wanted guest brings unwanted guests.

As if she needs another thing to fret about, my sister a single mother of three. The retelling of the story is funny; my brother spins a yarn complete with drama, humour, love, strange things encased in plastic and a high speed chase in her Toyota Rav, blasting "Highway to Hell" along the quiet streets of Salt Lake City, self motivational tape ejected for ACDC, a little sanity.

His stories always come back around to them. How we've changed, how they might have changed, how we might have changed them, when to give up, when to accept, and when to move on.

"She's our sister," he says. "We love her."

"Of course we do," I say. "But what is there to do?"

"I've go an album for you," I say. "Nebraska."

"And I've got one for you," he says. "Hail to the Thief."

We pause briefly, resume talk.

"No! there isn't litigation. Yes, my landlord is crazy. No, you shouldn't worry. Yes, I have a place to live."

"Can you let me know that you're around? More often? A text message--anytime--one word--hello. Because I love you."

"O.K., fine," he says.

And it is fine. This phone call is fine. He's fine. She's fine. They're fine. It's all fine. The Book says that it will be fine, and it will be. It will all be fine.

Finally, it is all fine.

Friday, August 31, 2007

"Sleeping Lessons"

After another sleepless night with their faces and his insomnia I'm back to being sort of o.k. with how answerless and messy this life can be.

But first a BIG thank you to those who replied to yesterday's post. Another thank you to those who distracted me with humour, and such. And another to those who did both.

Today I'm working on answering Cole's question that goes like this:

Mommy, how do YOU get money if YOU don't have a job?

I raise eyebrows. Then furrow. And furrow.

You don't think I have a job?? What do you think I do all day? I ask--while sweeping the floor.

But he's already run off leaving me to furrow and fume and raise eyebrows and sweep by myself. I've since been writing a list of all things a mother does and it turns out that there's not nearly enough space here to list everything. It turns out, also, that maybe a mother should get paid SOMETHING directly and deliberately if only to keep small children from asking questions such as these.

Perhaps my soon-to-be new toy will set things right. It's one that'll enable me to take off my mother hat and try on another, if only temporarily. And it could help me to earn some cold, hard, green cash if I wanted and needed it to. Curious yet?

I'm eagerly anticipating its arrival.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Another Day, Another Bus Stop

To the very small number of people who read this blog, I could really use some advice. I sometimes try to be funny here, but today I'm going to lay it pretty thick. And I'll take whatever you've got to give. There's stewingham@hotmail.com, that other address, the phone and my face.

It's been a full night of internal dialogue. It goes something like this:

Does it help to know that he's there?
Yes, kind of. I want to know who's near the kids.
But in a way it's creepy. Watching his house. Waiting for a sign.
But isn't it creepier if I don't know, if I go to another stop and don't know.
Isn't it creepier not to know?
And then there's the matter of public lynching.
Is it wrong to want to get the guy?
Is it wrong to silently question his parents, ask what went wrong, as they drive past the bus stop, on their way to work?
What's with Dad wanting to tell everyone?
He's got three daughters.
I get that.
He lives next to a convicted pedophile and he has three daughters.
I have two daughters and a son.
None are safe.
But I can't live in fear.
I can't live my life in fear.
But it happened to him. A friend of the family came for dinner.
And it happened to her. But who was it?
It can happen.
It might happen.
I can't live in fear.
Is this why some choose not to have children?
The fear.
The wondering.
Always.
I can't live in fear.
I can't keep them safe.
I love them.
I can't live in fear.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Bus Stop Chitchat

Today at 7:30 a.m. I walked three children to the bus stop to put one of them on the bus. I met a dad of three daughters. After about 10 seconds of chitchat, names, ages of children, etc, he told me about the level three sex offender who lives a few doors down from the stop.

"I want to get him out of here," he said. "He lives by a playground, a ball field, a bus stop. I think it's against the law. Lives with his parents, works out of town, so he's gone a lot. People like his parents."

"Oh."

Silence. Silence.

More chitchat. Schools. Bus routes. Chit. Chat.

But the whole time I'm thinking Little Children. It's Little Children. This is Little Children.

I think about my children. I spend the rest of the day thinking about children. And what it means to keep them safe.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Praise ye the Lord!

I caught the baby singing "Hallelujah" this morning at breakfast.

How is this so?

A) The baby's channeling Inge B.

B) I found god.

C) God found me.

D) I'm in love with a green ogre.

E) I'm in love with Leonard C.

F) It's one of AC's favorite words.

F) It's the first day of school.

G) All of the above.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Piano

If yesterday was a bad day, then today is a good one. I am no longer seeing red.

I walked into town in the sunshine and the air and sat for coffee, outside, in the air reading what Fanny Howe wrote about Edith Stein ("Immanence" from The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life). I lost myself a hundred times over. I'm nearly a convert.

I walked to the Fort. And looked for signs with which to catch the King.

I walked to the Boulevard. I looked at people. Until I saw a woman, small and thin and grey. She reminded me of Aurora, the sweet woman who walked our street and loved our children.

I haven't seen Aurora in months; it's been that long.

I got to thinking about JC and Looney Tunes and the piano. You know, the piano; the 'effing' piano (this is a child-friendly website). "The one that could drop on you at ANY second."

Yes, that one.

Life is beautifully fleeting. Or fleetingly beautiful.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Two Part Story

I.

It's a story about Turtle Wax,

half-used container

kicking around the garage as a kid.

Protagonist: suds mitt made of sheep's wool.

Antagonist: microfiber mitt, bright orange.

It's over before it's started, cell phone ringing

in Target.

Then a planned escape

via bath rugs, No. 2 pencils, and shoes.

II.

I am the person standing

in place of the person who is standing.

She inhales words,

and exhales,

brown tub ring

around the fine porcelain tub

that is us.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Cole turns four

"How does it feel to be four?'

"It feels kind of fourish, you know?"

on purpose

Over the weekend, Cole thought it fun to purposely crash into the bushes on his bike. This photo was taken before we saw a black bear standing on its hind legs shaking a nearby apple tree for fruit.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Sunlight on a Building

I want to write about Hopper while it's still fresh. All of it. Driving around town for parking. Pizza in the cafeteria. The crowds. A tap on his shoulder. Audiophiles. The Gloucester room. The strange proportions of the woman in "Office at Night." "Eyeless people." The neat handwriting in his notebooks, his wife's descriptions. A film conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Hopper. And Jo, the face that launched a thousand ships. Later, finding A at the crowded bar and shaking it as Willie played. Getting EM to dance and Tad and the others.

At the beginning of the exhibit having not seen enough of Hopper's work, I could not describe myself as a fan. At the end of the exhibit, after seeing a large collection of his work, I will not describe myself as fan.

I appreciate Hopper's capabilities and I like some things about some of his work. I like his clean, simple lines--his use of light and color, and that he painted ordinary scenes in unordinary ways, sometimes from the bottom up or top down, sparse and austere. I like that he painted at a time of day when the light is long, that his favorite thing to paint was sunlight on a building and that he described his work with few words, allowing critics and historians and everyone else to interpret it or not interpret it however.

Some argue that Hopper was trying to make a statement about modern city life, isolation, solitude, ordinariness, and lack of privacy. But I'm not convinced that he was *trying* to make a statement about anything. I envision a deliberate, probably grumpy, somewhat anal man with an interest in outdated architecture and a longing for some unreachable something or someone, perhaps my own invention of this person getting in the way of the art. He painted what he wanted to paint and when he felt he had exhausted a place and himself, he moved somewhere else and painted that.

By the end of the exhibit, I felt emotionally vacant and withdrawn. There's something about the combination of unrealistic color and light with the realistic depiction of empty American landscape that made me feel sad beyond description, the fullness and richness and vibrancy of life sucked out of me in an hour's time so that what was left is life without life, no reason to exist beyond sunlight on a building.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Little Things

People have come and gone. And nobody fought. Or cried. Unless they were aged six or under. There is something to be said for this, I think.

We spent a semi-respectable week in one another's company, cooling ourselves in the waters of Good Harbor beach and eating fresh (as opposed to Utah caught) seafood at Lobsta Land. Saturday the women went to see The Belle of Amherst in which Lindsay Crouse plays a convincing Emily, at least as far as the poetry is concerned. We sat and ate around our long, dining room table, even told a couple of stories while cleaning up. We're a family of storytellers.

If stories could be rated, and sometimes they must be, the best goes out to my mum on the way to the Manchester airport, stuck in traffic, both of us wondering aloud if they'd make their flight. She talked at length about a dinner date she and my dad had with a couple who is in the process of buying my mom and dad's condo. During dinner my dad offered up opinions about his favorite restaurant and voila, another dinner date was born.

I try to imagine all of them eating together. A tall, white and conservatively dressed man (in the way that suits are conservative) with his partner, a small, black transsexual, appropriately attired, my sixtyish, white parents, conservatively dressed in a way that reflects their commitment to their Mormon values--no plunging necklines, sleeves covering shoulders and upper arms, and sensible shoes.

"What do you talk about?" I ask wishing that I could borrow an invisibility cloak and join them for dinner.

"Music and art," she says. "I made C a cd with some of my favorite music. He loves it." "They want to do things with us," she says. "Go to concerts, and dinner."

She even tells me a little about a passport problem due to confusion surrounding C's photo and surgery, this from a woman who leaves the room during discussions or readings of Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi because of the uncomfortable way this subject and many subjects make her feel.

"That's great," I say. And I mean it.

My parents have changed. A little bit and a little bit at a time. Person by person. Place by place. And thing by thing. Little, itty, bitty, bit of change. At a time.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Police Note Grief

To live here means to read obituaries and police notes. They tell a story. 23. Died unexpectedly. Wanted to be a cop. Worked as a security officer at a pharmaceutical company. I remember him sweetly, his love of music.

Died unexpectedly at 23 doesn't always mean drug overdose. It could mean died of heartbreak. Died of loneliness. Died of too much of something. Or too little. Just died, nothing attached.

Which kind of grief is the worst? Is it the kind that makes its way into police notes weeks after a son is found dead?

Which kind is the worst?

From this mother to that mother, I am sorry. More sorry than I am able to tell you.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Flowers for You, or Algernon

What do you say? You.

Drop me a line.

Or a poem even.

If it keeps, in my hand

or my pocket.

Like a bank note flower

on a 'bak yard' grave

Let's just say.

I'm yours.

Monday, July 30, 2007

git

Perhaps I'm slow to learn this word. It makes me laugh. It makes me laugh.

From dictionary.com....

git

noun
a person who is deemed to be despicable or contemptible; "only a rotter would do that"; "kill the rat"; "throw the bum out"; "you cowardly little pukes!"; "the British call a contemptible person a 'git'"

Friday, July 27, 2007

Forecast--snow

A life might be made of assessments. A series of. Then lumps and clumps and bumps. Then reassessments. Reclumps and relumps. When a person learns that something does not work, so a person reworks, until the thing is something different. No one has to suffer. No one has to cry. But someone might suffer. Someone might cry.

Sometimes the new way sneaks in. At night. Or even day. It is subtle. And a person hardly knows that anything is different, but for the old way, when reencountered, as obnoxious as an obnoxious drunk.

There is a period, maybe brief, of remembering. An engagement, of sorts. And then a disengagement. Not a breaking up or a breaking of, but a no. A loud no. A stop whispering no. Not meant to be hurtful. But meant to say I'm finished. I'm finished with this. Not you, but this. People can't be constructed, built to please, but boundaries can be. So I've drawn lines, in the snow, where I need them. Not out of anger. But out of love. For them. And for you.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

stop

Is there no redemption? No justice?

Big questions for a Wednesday night.

I'm hoping that Radiohead has the answers.

stop!

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Creep

Some of you Radiohead fans may have already seen this...but I thought I'd post it anyway. It's creepy (sorry, necessary pun).

P.S.--If you have an oldish computer like I do, it might take a minute to load up.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Two Legs Bad

About a week ago, while driving and listening to the radio, I began to quietly fume as Bush talked about the Iraq war. He fielded questions, maintaining his stay-in-Iraq-because-I-say-so position. He went on about Al-Qaida and the threat they pose and after a few minutes of 'we have to get these guys' talk I realized exactly how long Bush has been trying to connect Iraq and Al-Qaida. I had to stop and shake myself awake to remember that we went to war over the threat of weapons of mass destruction, unseen and unfound weapons of mass destruction. I've heard his silly lines of reasoning so many times that I feel like a character from Animal Farm in that I've almost started to believe that what he says is true. I'm nearly guilty of not being able to remember what the farm was like before the pigs took over, foggy and distant as it is.

Then there are things that cause me to snap to, like an around the world headline found today in the B section on page SIX of the GDT. It reads, "Intel report: Al-Qaida threat is heightened." First line: "Al-Qaida is using its growing strength in Pakistan and Iraq to plot attacks on U.S. soil, heightening the terror threat facing the United States over the next few years..."

And now war supporters say, "Look, see, Al-Qaida...they're a threat." But why are they a threat? How stupid can a person be? How can someone not see this war's role in the mobilization of said groups? I want analysis...the straightforward, no nonsense kind that links the growing strength of terrorist groups to four years of chaos, destruction and violence in Iraq....to our middle finger up, poised and ready to fire, U.S. leader and White House cabinet middle fingers that say....well....they say precisely what a middle finger is supposed to say, the gesture universal.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Last Night at Harbor Loop

On 7/12/07 old folk and young folk and middle-aged folk of Gloucester and thereabouts came out to hear music at Fitz Henry Lane. Featured musicians donating their time and talent: Joe, Leo and Inge and a bunch of other local and semi-local music makers. It was a good time.

the inge berge band

For more photos click here.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Summer

Cosmos about to bloom. I can see the tall stems from here.

A man in front of me at Market Basket tells me how to properly unload my cart. There's a right way. And a wrong.

Baby starts screaming, I take her out and a kid offers to walk my cart to the car. "At least you have a car," he says. "Mine got taken when my girlfriend smashed the headlights in with a baseball bat. Someone called the police. It got impounded and sold at auction for $300. I put almost 15 grand into it."

Baby in the car. Asleep. Listening to our leader drone on and side step, not looking any of us in the eyes.

I think about basil from the garden, fresh pesto last night for supper, the way the warmth of toasted pinenuts brings out the sweet, spicy smell of basil, garlic on the tip of my tongue this morning.

Summer makes me take notice, the way the light is long and drawn out, how sounds sit at the tip of the ear, the way sea-salt air is here. And there. And then gone.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Gift

There are things about being a parent that are difficult.

And then there are things that are easy, this afternoon, the kids and their sweetness, wanting to make cards and gifts for Thea who turns one on Friday. Cole drew a gasoline tanker sitting atop a yellow and black road. And Aidan made a card with a baby wearing a birthday crown, cake and presents within reach. Upon completing the card Aidan said, "A card isn't enough. I want to make something for her to play with." "Sketch it out," I said, and a few minutes later she'd created instructions for a wooden baby rattle. With a bell inside so that the baby can hear it ring, arrows pointing here and there so that she and the wood cutter will know what to do, where things should go.

This is a world full of sadness and disappointment and longing. It is also a world full of tenderness and beauty and love. I am glad for myself on days that I am able to see and feel both. My children help me to see.

remorseful?

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Everywhere

It is everywhere. In the crevices of the sofa. My hair at night. The stone steps cold, we do a dance together. A jig, of sorts.

Her skin is brown and smooth and clean. Not sandy. But clean.

No lines. Smooth. No lies. But tender.

And beautiful.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Friday, June 15, 2007

Familiar Word in My Inbox

Word of the Day for Thursday, June 14, 2007

proselytize \PROS-uh-luh-tyz\, intransitive verb:

1. To induce someone to convert to one's religious faith.
2. To induce someone to join one's institution, cause, or political party.
3. To convert to some religion, system, opinion, or the like.

Jesuit missionaries appeared; the Japanese allowed them to proselytize.
-- Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations

It has given the world an example of what hard work can do, but in general Japan prefers to focus on its own affairs and let other countries proselytize for democracy, capitalism, communism, or whatever else they believe in.
-- James Fallows, "Containing Japan", The Atlantic, May 1989

He has a message and he wants to proselytize the whole world.
-- William Schneider, "The Republicans in '88", The Atlantic, July 1987

Proselytize is formed from proselyte, "a new convert, especially a convert to some religion or religious sect, or to some particular opinion, system, or party," from Greek proselutos, "a proselyte, a newcomer," from pros, "toward" + elutos, from eluthon, "I came."

Thursday, June 14, 2007

New Sofa

Last week we gave away our 100-year-old sofa bed in exchange for a 100-year-old sofa, slightly bigger, longer, perhaps better for taking a nap or sitting three people. The sofa bed had recently been becoming uncomfortable, a small tear beneath the seat cushions had turned into a larger rip almost all the way across that made sitting feel like sinking. And when I learned that the 'new' sofa would be a palatable shade of green and that it would have funky wooden feet, I began plotting the white (if you can call it white) sofa's removal, the stained, threadbare slipcover free to be threadbare and stained in someone else's living room, someone else's attic. An enthusiastic woman from Maine came to take our old couch away; I nearly hugged her.

After a week of sitting on the new sofa in all sorts of configurations, it turns out that it sprongs instead of springs. It is tired beyond tired and this shows, especially when sitting. The outercovering might be nicer than that of the other couch, but the insides, they spring and sprong and rumble and threaten to break free when pressed upon by little feet. And while it's true that taking a whole-body-stretched-out nap is now possible, that's about all the new couch can do--one body stretched out, not moving, not springing or spronging, this type of couch sitting such a rarity in our house that we might as well enshrine it. In plastic.

The going and coming of the couches, along with a school year ending and children growing and the coming and going of people in my life, makes me wistful, thinking about the things that I once had that were slightly flawed but more than acceptable, exchanged for something that might be better. So I am not yet plotting the removal of the new green sofa, mostly because I know that it can't be replaced.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Happy Medium

girl with flowers

Aidan painted this a few days ago. It's one of my favorites.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

And I even have all of my eyeballs

In a day or two the birds will be gone. I'll walk to the window as I've done dozens of times during the day for the past 10 days and the nest will be empty. I'll pause, I'll wish they were there, and then I'll go about my day. I'll move the dishes, clean the table, sweep the floor, wash the children, count to three, be stern, be loving, be a mother.

I'll look for something else to watch, to notice and to let go. But I'll miss the birds.

pre flight

ready to fly

Thursday, May 24, 2007

You knew that there would be at least one picture...

....but this will probably be the only one because mother bird nearly pecked my eyeballs out while I was taking this. Though I can't say I blame her.

I'm thinking of naming the babies. I like Percy. Maybe Otto or Otis.

Or maybe I'll see what Aidan and Cole think. I'm guessing that Cole will offer up Ivan or Coco Crisp. And Aidan...probably something like Rose or Princess or Mrs. Bird. She recently named a stuffed lamb Whipped Cream, Whipty for short. So the birds might end up with porn star names, if we're lucky.

nest

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Fecal Sac is Fun to Say

Today I am able to count them. Four babies in the nest. FOUR. Four always hungry mouths to feed. Four pooping babies.

While I am watching the father bird feed his beaky children, I catch sight of a fecal sac. Food in. Food out. A tidy white package emerges, one that doesn't end up in the land fill. These robins clearly aren't part of the global waste problem.

If the words fecal sac, in and of themselves do not tell you enough, go here.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

A Discovery

Her muted red breast feathers bristle. Angry and cat-like, she's ready to pounce. Chirping loudly, he dive bombs to protect the nest. I casually chat with the neighbor as territorial war cries erupt around us. We watch the birds, she of the occasional buxom breast and he of the tiny black toupee. She carries a wiggly insect in her mouth. He chirps and warns. The pair flits and flies from tree to wire, to stone wall and back again until we've walked away from the sprawling Rhododendron that grows alongside the house.

Once inside I look through the dining room window, follow a bit of white balloon string up from the ground into a small nest resting on the branches mid bush. I watch and wait. When the mother bird flies in with a worm, three, fuzzy, closed-eyed birds stretch their gangly necks, tiny mouths open and waiting. Their mother drops food into each gaping mouth and proceeds to sit on her babies. She nestles, stands up, sits down again, a bit of fuzz peeking out around her side feathers. She does not look comfortable.

She seems to be looking for something. And waiting, if not patiently. The look in her eye, the one eye that I can see, says that it's five o'clock and that he's due home any time. In a few minutes she perks, stands and flies and her partner enters the nest, perches himself at its edge. He feeds the seemingly starving birds. Again they strain and crane to find the food. Again the food is dropped into their persistent, hungry mouths. Again the father bird flies out. Again the mother bird flies in, sits, waits. Sits and waits.

I show Aidan the birds. Then I show Cole the birds. I watch the birds for the better part of an hour. I watch the flying, the chirping, the feeding, the sitting, the perching, the flying, the feeding. The baby birds require constant care. I watch. And I watch. I feel tired. And exhilarated. All at once I feel tired and exhilarated by what I have seen.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Dino Makeover

Isn't it cute?

Dinosaur wrangling by Aidan E.

dinosaur makeover

dinosaur makeover

Friday, May 11, 2007

Somebody's Baby

Yesterday in the car on the way to school Cole said, "Mommy, I want to be in the army when I get bigger." In zero to 60 I went exorcist spinning like and erupted into what was possibly one of my worst parenting moments. Ever. Fire-spitting, she-bear emerged to protect my baby, the one I envisioned taking a bullet or a bomb while fighting in a war, a war that I couldn't or wouldn't or shouldn't believe in. I started driving to Canada, right then. Forget school. Must get to Canada. Must. Save. My. Baby.

Though I could tell the Internet about the age inappropriate things that I said to my almost four year old, I'm choosing instead to tell about why an innocent statement from a little boy who doesn't know much about guns and armies and wars unleashed such sadness and fury. It was in this instant that I reacted to over four years of war in Iraq, to my own quiet escalation during this four years, to almost daily reports of the rising death toll, to a president's irresponsible actions. It was in this instant that I realized how many people have lost people they love as a result of this war.

And for what? I know that it's not simple. That war, when to fight and when to not, is not simple. I believe that war, at times, is necessary. But I am astounded by the extreme arrogance and naiveté and obstinance of our leader. I'm angry. And filled with an indescribable sadness for the mothers and fathers who have lost their babies to this war.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

But for the Blood

There is an irreconcilable difference between what I watched and what I lived. Between what I watch and what I live. Perhaps this is the problem. Or the answer. The one that comes through the phone line. Or through the tone dead e-mail. Or her voice when she asks, but doesn't ask. The earnestness in his voice, but not the desire to know that what is can't be.

In four hours I must have heard something along the lines of "family is everything" enough times to believe that this is so. This religion, my religion says that family is everything. Into the pores, oozing out, family. Family. "Families can be together forever. Through heavenly Father's plan. I always want to be with my own family. And the lord has shown me how I can. The lord has shown me how I can."

I've been passed along another message, a different one. And it says that families aren't everything, or maybe only sometimes. Perhaps I should write a song about it. Or at least a sentence fragment. Something that says there are other things that are important, more important. Like appearances. And papers. And books. And hair. And skin. And denial. And who. And where. And how much.

He is out in the world. And I am out in the world. And they are out in the world. And there is pain. The pain of knowing that this is how it is. And this is how it will be. There will always be family. In birth and in death we will be. Not together. But apart but for the blood. The blood isn't separate. And it will never be.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

A couple o' links

This is one of the coolest alphabet books I've seen in a long while. Click on flickr slideshow to see text.

This is also worth taking a look at--especially if you're someone who often finds yourself talking about poop.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Special

Because I often write about things Mormon here. And because Mitt's running for president. And just because.............I thought I'd mention the PBS Frontline special about the Mormons to air on April 30th and May 1st at 9 p.m. on WGBH (that's channel 2 in Gloucester).

It looks to be informative. Enjoy ye it. If ye can.

I'll be taping it for future viewing pleasure as missing a Monday night date with the bar to watch it seems, well, sacrilegious. So if you'd like to attend a screening complete with popcorn and chocolate and whiskey and knitting, let me know.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Tired and Sad

I'm starting to feel like I shouldn't be living in this country, that I don't belong. It's taken me a while to feel this way, being the Mormon-raised optimist that I am, I mean, used to be.

The VT massacre has me sad and scared. And sad and scared. Gun ownership/acquisition laws are slow to change, if at all. I read somewhere today that the NRA spent 400,000 a day for more than one day, if not hundreds of days, to try to prevent Kerry from winning the presidency. I don't believe everything I read, and this may not be an accurate statistic, but the NRA is powerful and it is able to spend money lobbying its positions and--bottom line--guns are getting into the hands of those who shouldn't have them, too many of THOSE who shouldn't have them. And Columbine. And Simon's Rock. And the Amish School. And other school shootings. Something's broken. Something's wrong.

You know it's broken when the swimming teacher is shocked that your three year old has never seen a squirt gun. That he doesn't know what to do with it. You know it's broken when kids spend more time indoors or in completely supervised situations than out riding bicycles with friends, or playing with a group of kids where kids watch each other's backs and learn how to be kids and be in the world without a thousand adults constantly reminding them what to do. And not do.

People are scared for their kids. I get that. I'm scared for my kids. But where can a kid go and be a kid? Maybe Lanesville.

I don't agree with the President's approach to the war in Iraq, or lack of approach, to this war. And I don't agree with the Supreme Court's recent decision about abortion. I live in a city that can't properly fund its schools due to an inane state aid formula and special education mandates that require cities to provide, provide, provide without funding, funding, funding. Then there's proposition 2 1/2 and rising health care costs and energy costs for the city--let alone the rest of the uninsured country. It doesn't make any sense.

But here I am. I'm here because I love Gloucester and a lot of the people in it. Because my children can be with their grandparents, people my kids love dearly. And I want to keep caring. I do. I want to go to the 'Up with Children' state rally and talk to the legislators as the city councilman I saw in the coffee shop suggested. I want to do the things that I'm supposed to do, as a concerned parent and citizen. And all of that.

But I'm losing motivation. The people in power and the money that puts the people in power, they're more powerful than I am. I think. I feel insignificant--and I'm tired of feeling this way. I'm tired of feeling like my views don't matter. Basically, I'm just tired. Tired and sad.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Is anyone else creeped out by him, or is it just me?

Cole found this guy in a box of Cheerios. Well, o.k., it was strategic, buying the box with the Spidey in it. And yes he's a water toy. He can spray water out of those holes.

creepy spiderman

his backside

Friday, April 06, 2007

Update

Cole's response:

"I love my name you know."

Four o'clock, or close enough

I think that someone invented digital cameras so that mothers who were about to 'lose it' with their children could take photos instead of losing it. Or in addition to losing it.

We have a little tagger in this house. He's three and obviously thinks highly of his place in the universe. Enough so that he wrote his name with orange crayon in as many places as possible before he was discovered. Places like the window ledge in his parent's bedroom. All of the walls in the upstairs hallway. A mirror. The wall. Another wall. And even another wall. The back of a rocking chair. A window. The side of a bureau. And on an original drawing of a bay-brested warbler (sorry Greg!).

I'm going to clean it up--if it can be cleaned. But first I'm going to document it. And then I'm going to tell him that I love him even when I'm angry with him. And then I'm going to have a bottle, I mean a shot, of whiskey.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

This post is about music and friends

One of the most revealing conversations a person can have with another person is the one about music; music then, music now, music once, and music forever. One of my favorite versions of this conversation is the one where I make a verbal list of shows that I've spent money on, money earned by pressing frozen cow patties through a machine with an auger to make nearly edible desserts for people living in the ice cream capital of the world. With this money I was able to splurge on shows at the outdoor venue formerly known as Parkwest, the hippest place to be on a summer night for the 18 and under crowd. It's here that I heard an aging and aged Bob Dylan though I'm pretty sure that I heard Boy George and Tears for Fears in some building somewhere. I also spent money--fresh, green money--to hear Howard Jones and a year later, with my longhaired boyfriend Dave, Scorpions (the 'the' has been removed, thank you to the nonfan Tad) on the tour of their lives. Chicago, only once, pulled at my tender pubescent heartstrings and I rocked out at a Def Leppard show where I nearly got my ass kicked for looking too 'pristine' while belting out the words to "Pour Some Sugar On Me," recently called the greatest strip club song of all time by Bill Simmons. Though I now wince at the sound of Jimmy Buffett, it was at the Salt Palace that I understood and loved the irony that was a bunch of Mormons singing, "Why don't we get drunk and screw?"

And then there was General Public, a band that will some day get its own post, or at least its own paragraph. I wanted to sleep with Dave Wakeling. What more can I say but a little tenderness, please, and it's true that my brother for at least three weeks had me going when he told me that he could get back stage passes to a GP show that never came to be. In high school I listened to, mostly through the loudspeakers of the high school gym and the stereos of a few pimply, wanna-see-my-stereo hormonal boys, the likes of Boston, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, ACDC, the Eagles, Jethro Tull, The Doors, The Stones and so on.

From what I can tell, I led a sheltered childhood, musically speaking. At a young age my parents introduced me to Neil Diamond, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir (sometimes referred to as MoTab), Beethoven and Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, not The Vaselines version. I later remember listening to Yanni 'makes me yawn' as well as selections from my mother's collection of hit musicals. Turns out my dad had a thing for Judy Collins, so I learned to play "Send in the Clowns" on the piano, along with the themes to Hill Street Blues and Arthur. On a good day I could be heard practicing "Longer Than" followed by "She's Always a Woman" followed by Bach and Rachmaninoff. I played Christmas tunes and hymns and "The Entertainer." I played a new agey tune at a church service that sent a high school friend off for two years of missionary work; I made people cry. I played and listened and listened and played. I think that I might have taken up violin as an escape, from this, the thing that people called music.

Looking back on it I thank the good lord above, or below, that my taste in music has changed. It's not that I don't or can't appreciate the music or the musicians of my past. I do. I do. I do. But I didn't marry them. I didn't take them in sickness or in health, til death do us part. I took them once. And now I've left some of them. I've left them behind with a lot of stuff, stuff that needs to be left behind.

Call me unfaithful if you will, but I'm not true to any band, anymore. And a fancy music degree or fingers that masturbate along the neck of a guitar or an exquisitely formed fuck face or a 10-week stay at the top of the charts or perfectly pitched octaves or stellar reviews in mainstream music mags can't buy my love. Or respect. Nor do I think that music is 'good' because a musician is 'technically' good. There's music that I like that isn't technically good and there's music that I like that is technically good and there's music that I like because I like what I like. I don't have a formal education when it comes to these things, only the education described above, but it doesn't really matter because in the end what matters it that on some level, the music has got it for me, or for you, or for anyone. The music's got to have that thing that says people are vulnerable, that they're born and that they die, alone. The thing that says people create beautiful things. And that they make and do shit. The thing that says people are tough and build fortresses around themselves. Or that they get hurt but they can still love. That people come and go. Wake up. Together and alone. That they laugh. They love. They hate. They suffer.

Maybe we listen to the same music, but don't hear the same thing. Maybe we listen to different music and hear different things. Maybe my good isn't your good isn't anyone's good. Maybe good isn't good except when it's good. Maybe it's the music that matters, and not the why. Maybe it's the person who matters, and not the why. And maybe this is how it should be, between friends.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

"Ineluctable Modality of the Visible"

She's 88 today and I'm thinking about her. Thinking about her being alive this long. The things that she has seen. The things. The things that she knows.

Some people don't know things. They think that they know. And they have papers to prove it. But they don't know.

Angels know. The angels in America know because they see. Before any of us have eyes. Like the eyes in a dream. Like the dreaming waking dream that I had last night. Waiting for the baby to wake and thinking my way through sleep. Waking up and not knowing if I said it, or dreamt it, or dreamt that I said it.

And it's not because of the drink. Only one drink, last night, from the guy who wouldn't spill it. No story. Not like Dedalus. Dedalus has a story. He scrawls and writes. He writes his story for no one to read. But no one isn't nobody.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

I am finally reading Fanny Howe. Selected Poems. And she's kicking my ass, in a good way. After a particularly restless wrestle, I awoke with this in my head.


Think
I'm in love
with the poems
or is it lust?
certainly
we'll meet
and secret talk
of god
afterwhich
I'll pick words
from my teeth
like lettuce
apostrophes
a lumpy mess
of my throat.

Later, they'll turn
on me
the poems
I mean
grown tired of
my careful attention
to their every
word.

I'll pray
for a return
to before
alone
and preying
always praying
any way
but
any
way
that I can love
them
loving me.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

The Long Way Home

I'm a Buffy fan. Not a rabid Buffy fan, ya know, eat, drink, watch, read, post, make out with photo of Joss Whedon, rinse, repeat. But the kind who has watched every, single bloody episode at least once. The kind who searches out other Buffy fans, if not lazily, and talks about hot vampires and cool chicks over a cup of coffee, high school cafeteria lunch, or a piece of Thanksgiving pie expertly crafted by none other than Donnie who taught a college course devoted to the genre, clips from Buffy gracing, gracefully, the screens of his classroom.

I don't own the music, but I'd enjoy a copy of 'Once More, with Feeling' if someone burned it for me.

Having set forth that I'm not a rabid fan, it is with rabid-fan-like enthusiasm that I tell the internet how happy I am that season eight, as envisioned by JW, is here in comic book form. Buffy lives on. And on and on and on. There are slayers. And clones of slayers. Evil comic book universe characters that I think I'll love to hate. And there's something so seductive about it all. It's an escape that seems to exist even after I've shut the book, somehow unlike pushing the switch on a television. I find myself thinking about little details like hovering feet and a woman's face. I can go back to the book, with ease, flip to a page, call a friend. Wonder aloud, wonder to myself, this universe a salve, if briefly, for cold March winds and desires to drive, fly, run to warmer weathers.

variant cover

Monday, March 19, 2007

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

If I Should Fall From Grace with God

It seems lucky that on my walk to the bar last night I encountered two darkly clad men, Mormon missionaries doing what Mormon missionaries do at nearly 9 o'clock in a bar-filled town such as Gloucester. It seems, also, that they recognized me from a previous encounter, the one a few weeks ago during which they came to my house and after trying to save me asked if there was anything that they could do. "Like, you know, some manual labor." "I'll show you womanual labor," I said as I pulled them, neckties wrapped round my breasts, into my devilish lair. Well maybe it didn't go exactly like this, but I'm not a tell all kind of girl, so use imagination accordingly, or sparingly, or however.

It's not that I wished to fall from grace with God. People often ask me when and how and why it happened. And though I've looked for a defining moment, there isn't one. Instead, a thousand little moments of question and doubt and wondering add up to choosing not to belong to this religion, its lifestyle, its language, the near equivalent of severing a limb, phantom pains lasting a lifetime as the brain reminds the body of what used to be. As I grow less and less fluent in their language, I hear my voice trying to say it how they want to hear it. But the words don't come this way anymore. And there is awkward silence or nervousness at the other end.

Recently and a little ironically my brother tried to convince me to repair the rift that may or may not exist between my parents, my siblings, and me. "They're trying," he said. And I don't doubt that they are. They're always trying. In ways that I can no longer pretend to understand. I don't understand because I'm not trying not to fall. I am at the bottom looking up. It has taken years, the falling. And for me, this falling, the only way out. I want them to understand that it is my fall that has saved me.

from If I Should Fall From Grace with God
Shane MacGowan/Stiff Music Ltd

If I should fall from grace with god
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go boys
Let me go boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

Saturday, March 10, 2007

More than a Feeling

I have some fond memories of the band called Boston. For one, smooching (yes smooching) this kid Alan in the back of his parents' station wagon while "More than a Feeling" rumbled through the tape deck and out of the speakers and onto my mohair sweater. Then later, slow, but not dirty, dancing to "Amanda" in the stinky, sweaty high school gym after a few too many clandestinely consumed wine coolers of the citrus variety.

I also have a few recent memories of this band, replace tape deck with CD player, replace Alan's back seat with KT's back seat, sandwiched between two child restraint devices while the real life Amanda listened from the front seat and KT played DJ, loud the only way to listen to Boston. There may not have been kissing involved, but that night, sitting in my driveway, speakers rumbling, doors locked to prevent the escape of the passengers, I could feel the love. Love for a band. Love for a time gone by. Love for a feeling. And I get it. I get why the band's official website was taken down and replaced with the statement: "We just lost the nicest guy in rock 'n' roll." I get why fans everywhere are sad. It's a loss. And it's sad.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

A's photos of our housebound afternoon

a's photos

a's photos

a's photos

a's photos

a's photos

In

Temperature reads cold and windy and I'm wearing orange to make things warm. Seems there isn't an alternative. Two sick kids, one sleeping and not sick. Been in the house for two days without leaving. Think that's called housebound in some parts. Aidan and I entertain ourselves with mirrors and sunflowers and crayons and light. Lucky for the light, if you can call it luck. Lucky for love, if you can call it love. March brings emptiness, usually, and sickness. When the lion creeps in, quick and quiet like, I try to fill up. With baking and telephone, with Margaret Atwood in interview form, the way I like her, a baby to breast, loud words through the walls. Chocolate. I fill and fill. I feel until I'm full, emptiness growing smaller, a receding eye, a waning moon, a single pin prick.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Vacation

Lately I've been thinking. About motherhood and what it means to be a mother. This week, in particular, I have been acutely aware of my motherness and the motherness, or not-so-motherness of those around me. On Tuesday I took my children to the MFA in Boston where a woman offered to hold my tray as we waited in the cafeteria line with a hundred other people waiting in line to pay for their food. The woman told me that she'd "been there" and understood. I didn't hesitate a bit with "yes" when she offered. Then the cashier, who may or may not have had kids, left her post to carry my very full tray over to the empty table waiting for me, empty because a nice man who had been sitting alone at the small table saw my stroller, my three children and me; instead of avoiding eye contact, he offered a place for us to land. And then today a woman at the library with two children of her own helped clean up Aidan's spilled popcorn because I had a babe in arms. By four o'clock, looking for things to do with three children and in need of a few groceries, I poorly planned a late afternoon shopping trip to Trader Joe's. Two days full of understanding of motherness and then one woman at the friendly, happy, good karma store threw up her arms in disgruntlement as my two children, not able to fit in the baby and grocery-filled cart, looked, with their EYES, at a display. Couldn't I puuhhleaze move my children so that she and her shopping cart could get through? "It's busy in here," I said gruffly as I waved along my children who were NOT pissing in a plant, kicking, screaming, or telling the woman to go fuck herself.

I tell these stories because I want to remind myself that some people make things such as mothering easier and then some make things harder. This is obvious, yes, but I need to say it. Some understand that sometimes mothers need help and understanding, or at least a cup of coffee or a pint of beer or a night out. In a culture that tells us in a gazillion ways that mothers can't get it right, sometimes it's nice to feel the love instead of the hate. This week I've felt both, but mostly I want to remember the love.