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.

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.

keeping calm

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pirate Baby

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.

Cole turns four

"How does it feel to be four?'

"It feels kind of fourish, you know?"



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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'"

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.

stop

Is there no redemption? No justice?

Big questions for a Wednesday night.

I'm hoping that Radiohead has the answers.