Bar Poem

I'm composing a poem
for Mike County
about this bar
that used to sell
hot nuts
cuz my knitting's tangled
and tea lights make
a better story
with forgotten George's lighter
and the lilty-voiced guy asking,
"Whatchya writing?"
and later if
my marriage is happy
or if I'll pump and dump.

Amanda off being badkarmadized
by rhymes with Terminator
after DK plays
The Magnificent Seven
and we dance
like we've still got it
the woman in the blue beret
still does
until fat bottomed guy gets up
and vomits music
sends us running
to the back door, not smoking
til it's over.

But I'm not crying cuz
3's a magic number
and the first set
wasn't "schlock" and
there's a bass player, a kid,
his badge I think says, "kill the hippies"
But we don't talk to him.
Yet.

Turns out there's a guy
wants a baby but not the woman
to go with
so we walk.
In snow, talking about
glass sailboats and lace shawls,
husbands and babies
Monday out
to say that
all's not dead
when snow falls over Gloucester.

Lost and Found

Feeling Linky

I've been feeling linky lately. Saw and heard this over at boingboing.

Hoping some day for a combined Simpsons/Glass Prism thingy with "The Raven." I see a singing Bart, some family backup, and velvet jackets and Beatle-like coiffures all around.

Hobo's Blog and Ernie's Show

Hobo Elephant, uh, I mean Greg C has a blog. I like it. So far I'm partial to the Globe piece on Nan Goldin. It nearly broke my heart. As did Greg's kind words about Ernie Morin's work.

Speaking of, if you missed the city hall debut of At the Crossroads, Ernie's slideshow depicting the people, places, and t-shirts of Gloucester, you have another chance to see it. It'll be running on Saturday, January 27th at the Cape Ann Hysterical Museum at 3 p.m. I hear that the president of the CAHM will be in attendance and that this is a good time for you to encourage him to buy art for the museum. You know, work that you'd like to see there. Maybe made by local artists and such. More specifically, Ernie's work. I hear the prez is terribly mean but if you mention the names Aidan, Cole and/or Thea, he softens a bit. He also might be open to producing commemorative EM coffee mugs with "Love Slave" or "Ben's Bitch" scrawled upon them. In any case, I urge sweet talking of the sort that you are comfortable with to get your points across and get some new, new work, some new, old work, some attitude and some sass into Gloucester's museum.

I leave you with this photo of a partially costumed Hobo Elephant amidst miniature golf and flags and unsuspecting little girl.

Celebrating the return of the light

Back in December Cole made a "tower crane" solstice candle. I made a stripeded one.

It's getting lighter out. It is.

What I Meant

"The book came from somewhere deep within me and all my experience came together in it: mother's discontent, my own training in Gestalt and Freudian psychology, the fellowship I felt guilty about giving up, the stint as a reporter which taught me how to follow clues to the hidden economic underside of reality, my exodus to the suburbs and all the hours with other mothers shopping at supermarkets, taking the children swimming, coffee klatches. Even the years of writing for women's magazines when it was unquestioned gospel that women could identify with nothing beyond the home--not politics, not art, not science, not events large or small, war or peace, in the United States or the world, unless it could be approached through female experience as a wife or mother or translated into domestic detail! I could no longer write within that framework. The book I was now writing challenged the very definition of that universe--what I chose to call the feminine mystique. Giving it a name, I knew that it was not the only possible universe for women at all but an unnatural confining of our energies and vision."

Betty Friedan, 1973

As I sat thinking into my computer the other night, names like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Betty Friedan, Kate Chopin and Edna Pontellier, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Adrienne Rich, Jean Rhys and Bertha Mason Rochester, Virginia Woolf, even Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath came to mind. I've read these women, I've taught the literature of these women, I've claimed to understand these women. But I haven't understood these women--until now, age 36 and three children in.

This understanding versus a peripheral understanding has come with experience, the experience of being a woman, a wife, a mother. This leading to an understanding of subtleties, the yellow in The Yellow Wallpaper, the mystique of The Feminine Mystique.

In identifying with the struggles of some of these women, then, I'm paying homage. A tribute to any woman teetering on the edge. The Ednas. The Virginias. The wives. The mothers. The ones who make it, and the ones who don't. I intend to be one of the ones who makes it. To go skinny dipping occasionally when the air is hot and the moon is right. But to make it. Into the water and back out again. Into the water and back again.

To Understand

I hear snoring through the monitor. A good thing.

Sick children. Rooms switched. Life anew here in the Cunningham household.

Not one for resolutions, but here's one that I think I can stick to: Get out more.

I understand the delirium of 50s housewives. I understand the valium, why women walked into water with or without stones in their pockets. I understand. At 8:39 p.m. on a Monday evening, I understand.

I understand.

A's Question

Last night as Aidan was lying in bed, nearly asleep she asked, "Why do the days keep going and going?" Not in an 'I am dissatisfied with my life' kind of way, but more an 'I keep going to sleep and waking up' kind of way.

Inferring also, will they ever stop? Or when will they stop for me?

I'm having a little trouble with this one, aside from the everyone dies bit we discussed. Any takers? Send non Armageddon answers to stewingham@hotmail.com

A Collection of Results

Some results from this survey.

FONDEST MEMORIES AND/OR BIGGEST CHALLENGES:

Christmas

Molestation when I was 13--Drugs--Focus

Getting our Christmas tree and going to Disneyland

Consistently being charitable and resisting temptation

Our cabin

Trying to help my children who are struggling with serious problems . . . Staying focused on one thing at a time and not taking on too much . . .

Understanding that individual thought and freedom are as important as tolerance

Graduate school...

Marrying my wife

Trying to love and understand my in-laws and have them understand and love me in return

Playing with Legos

Mental illness and a constant feeling of inadequacy about everything. Lack of ability to focus and accomplish my goals.

Bringing my wife through the veil on our wedding day

Being married

When my family went to our ranch for spring break...We returned the next year but... we never had the same experience again.

Being a good parent

Summers spent at the beach

Law School

PROUDEST MOMENTS AND/OR BIGGEST FAILURES:

Becoming a parent, barn raising

Not having met and married my wife sooner

When I received the Sterling Scholar for dance

...not making the basketball team freshman year in high school. My brother played on the varsity team

Getting married to my husband

I remember trying out for the Elizabeth R. Hayes scholarship...I thought I did well, but as they were calling out names for dancers to go on to the 2nd round, my name was never called...

Singing "The Rose" at a high school assembly...Also, I was very proud when I completed my mission and gave my talk in church. I was proud not of my success nearly so much as the fact that I was so happy through most of it!

Wiping out during powder 8 contest at Alta

My marriage to my wife and the births of my children and grandchildren

My marriage

This summer in Hungary, when my daughter said her first word, “Baba”, which means dad in Farsi.

As a parent, not seeing big issues in my children’s lives in time to help alleviate future challenges, not being perceptive enough about what they needed . . . On a less serious note, not making songleader at the University of Utah the first year I tried out...

Nailing focus on a tough camera shot—standing up for marginalized people—questioning authority

While working, I made a big mistake involving signatures and affidavits. Need I say more? I guess hitting my face on the diving board and lying to a cop are up there on the list too.

When I graduated college, when I married my wife, when I returned from my mission, when I finished that 15-mile race. It’s more of a combination of positive experiences than a major moment.

Not achieving the levels of excellence I know I could have achieved with a little more effort and determination

When the Sigma Chi Fraternity sponsored me as a candidate for Homecoming Queen

All of my girlfriends. Rehab. AA. Trying to conform.