To those of you who noticed I had not posted, thank you for letting me know. It is a shock to me. This blog represents the first time I have allowed my personal writing out of the box... out of a classroom... into the big marvelous, messy mish-mash that is the Web.
It is taking a while to sink in that people like my writing and are moved. This is my training ground for a memoir. I have been warned and supported in being careful of what I put here, but, by the same token, one sends a memoir into the world.
My back's been a mess and my regular work has suffered. When you write for someplace like Stanford, you cannot write in short bursts as I can for my blog. The entries take time and love and attention, but my work requires that I sit too long sometimes. Doesn't sound bad, I suppose, but I have had eight spinal operations. At 57, now, it has taken a toll. I've had to face some tough decisions over the last two weeks, so I've been away from the writing I love so much.
You nine who follow me regularly, and others who visit from time to time? For the first time, I am thinking that perhaps, if I wrote a memoir there are those who would want to read it, who might connect with what I say and how I say it. All of you have given me some confidence there.
I will write about what's gone on, but not today. I write from a position of objectivity, ironically enough. Only when I have processed the event can I feel free enough to attach the force of my emotions to it.
So. I'm in a state of flux, wondering whether I take the risk to focus on the work I want--my poetry and memoirs, and fiction and painting. Or do I keep pounding my head against the wall because it's what my MOM and the RELATIVES would say is wise. How do I find work to replace it?
It is not easy to admit limitations. I've fought doing that now for thirty years; it's why I walk. What I had to remembered is that I have ALSO stayed walking because I do recognize when the word "enough" is the right word. When it is pounding my head against a wall. And it is always better to walk away from something before it's blown out of the ater and taken out of our hands, don't you agree?
Anyway, thank you for letting me know that you look forward to my words. It means so much more than you know.
Today is my daughter, Jessie's birthday. She would have been 38. I am missing her today--that's the age I was when we bought this home, this last place my daughter lived. I'll be back.
Accidental Spring
"Accidental Spring" This began as the background for painting other papers, but became something else!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Equal Time for Daddy
I hint about him, his gentleness, his womanizing, the big man on the periphery. I mostly focus on my mother with my brother Jim in the shadows, lurking.
But I had a Dad and a Daddy, both. Too absent, sometimes, but not always. Not at bedtime when I was smaller than the length of his legs. Not when I had to be lifted into his big chair, the chair that held the scent of him a full year after he died. Old Spice and something uniquely him. Snigglefritz and bitty bit. I was his Jetty, mostly.
We curled up in his chair, Jacky and I, one on each leg, while her read Wind in the Willows, doing every single voice just so. Or Robin Hood and, finally, the Scarlet Pimpernell. I do not remember the stories, just the rumble of his voice against my ear. He tickled. I never stayed awake, and somewhere between Toad and Mole, Marion and Friar Tuck, somewhere in the halfway world of voice and sleep, my daddy's arms held me above the mess. Held me above the dangers, the worries, the day's trapped noises, carrying me to my bed as if I were nothing but a rather small pillow. I hear him talking to Jack, falling deeper, I feel the sandpaper on my cheek, smell his late day, tired smell.
And the covers would tuck beneath my chin, just so, cool sheet folded so the scratchy wool never touched my skin. He always remembered to prop the extra pillow for turning, against the plastered walls. Gone already, some part of me heard his "Night Snigglefritz." Feel his dry kiss on my hair, and one last barely felt drift of his long hands across my hair.
And when the monsters attacked in the night, my father came. He came bigger than anything, fiercer still. He heard the scream before it left my mouth, I swear. And he taught me more important things, like how to make the Bahbo go. My first room, with Jacky, was haunted by a giant creature, sometimes rabbit, sometimes unknown creature, I called the Bahbo. After four nights running, my dad said, "Let me teach you secrets of chasing monsters, Jetty. They are cowards. All they want is to THINK that they can scare you, you know."
I would grab the sides of his pajama top and bury my head in his chest mumbling something profound like, " I AM scared, Daddy."
He made me sit up and said, "Now. We're going to practice. Say, BOO. Go a-WAY."
"Boogoaway."
"Jetty, I've heard you yell at Jacky better than that. Okay. BAHBO. BOO. Go a-WAY."
And we practiced until I passed muster. The next night, I woke again and Daddy wasn't there. IT WAS, though. Leaning over Jacky's bed. I SCREAMED, "BOO! Bahbo! GO AWAY!" It turned and walked toward ME, but I did it. I shook my three-year-old finger at it. I was mad. "GO AWAY!"
And it did.
And Daddy came to let me know he was proud of me. I buried my head in his top anyway.
It was the in-between years that were a bit rough. He was gone. He was busy running like all hell from OLD. I understand that. I think I understood it then, and it wasn't so much I minded the fact that he was cheating on mom. We ALL knew that, somehow. It was the leaving that hurt. He left me to the sickness. The torture. The madness. He left his little Jetty to slay dragons that I never seemed to see in time.
James, Sr. was human. Go figure.
But when I was graduated from college, he came back to me. He gave me What Color Is Your Parachute, first edition. He told me that I should never, EVER seriously pursue a traditional line of work. "You'll try, my Jetty. You'll think you should because your mother wants it. And you'll think you are supposed to fit. It's okay. It will eat you up and spit you out, but you'll learn. Don't worry about change. Enjoy change. If you learn nothing else, Snigglefritz, get these two things. Change can be a wonderful thing, and that the comment 'life isn't fair' is wholly irrelevant to anything that matters. FAIR has nothing to do with life. And security is an illusion that we all will try to make for ourselves. You were not made to fit any mold I've seen, honey." He kissed me and got me a job when I was floundering, at the university where he worked.
We commuted together. I saw that he promoted every woman and person of color he could, before anyone said he should. He would say, "Why not give the underdog the shot? Usually they will work harder and do a more creative job anyway." He was beloved and we would have the most wonderful, far-reaching, leaping conversations with other faculty at lunch. He opened my eyes to the idea that education should be part of our whole lives, and he was so proud when, after two semesters of Spanish, I was offered an upper class independent study.
I was one of those daughters who got to move into friendship with her father, all the while I knew his failings. I watched my mother sink as he rose, worshiped by women around him. Mommy dimmed. But I shone too, so I did not defend her. Perhaps I was too young. I was not yet twenty-five. On my own with my sister. Free, wild, working, on fire intellectually and physically.
Silver hair, long hands, and the voice that rumbled across the room, though it was seldom loud. I could write of the flashes of temper, the difference in how he loved me better than the rest. I'll get there. Not tonight, though. Tonight I remember when I visited him in the hospital, the night before exploratory surgery. I sat by his bed and held those long, smooth hands and he looked up at me. I was married. He already knew my marriage was in trouble. He already knew that the light had gone from his Jetty's eyes.
But we looked at one another and he said, simply, "You know, don't you."
I said, "Yes, Daddy. I know. But I guess you need the surgery to let everyone else know?"
He nodded. "You'll be around?"
"Always, Daddy."
And the next morning, I drove to a nearby Lake. Late August morning, and I drove there, to be by the lake at dawn, when I knew they were getting him into surgery.
Canada Geese © 1986
I grabbed his hand and looked in the darkening eyes. "You DID, Daddy. Most days you did. You lived them more often than most, Daddy. It's all done now."
But I had a Dad and a Daddy, both. Too absent, sometimes, but not always. Not at bedtime when I was smaller than the length of his legs. Not when I had to be lifted into his big chair, the chair that held the scent of him a full year after he died. Old Spice and something uniquely him. Snigglefritz and bitty bit. I was his Jetty, mostly.
We curled up in his chair, Jacky and I, one on each leg, while her read Wind in the Willows, doing every single voice just so. Or Robin Hood and, finally, the Scarlet Pimpernell. I do not remember the stories, just the rumble of his voice against my ear. He tickled. I never stayed awake, and somewhere between Toad and Mole, Marion and Friar Tuck, somewhere in the halfway world of voice and sleep, my daddy's arms held me above the mess. Held me above the dangers, the worries, the day's trapped noises, carrying me to my bed as if I were nothing but a rather small pillow. I hear him talking to Jack, falling deeper, I feel the sandpaper on my cheek, smell his late day, tired smell.
And the covers would tuck beneath my chin, just so, cool sheet folded so the scratchy wool never touched my skin. He always remembered to prop the extra pillow for turning, against the plastered walls. Gone already, some part of me heard his "Night Snigglefritz." Feel his dry kiss on my hair, and one last barely felt drift of his long hands across my hair.
And when the monsters attacked in the night, my father came. He came bigger than anything, fiercer still. He heard the scream before it left my mouth, I swear. And he taught me more important things, like how to make the Bahbo go. My first room, with Jacky, was haunted by a giant creature, sometimes rabbit, sometimes unknown creature, I called the Bahbo. After four nights running, my dad said, "Let me teach you secrets of chasing monsters, Jetty. They are cowards. All they want is to THINK that they can scare you, you know."
I would grab the sides of his pajama top and bury my head in his chest mumbling something profound like, " I AM scared, Daddy."
He made me sit up and said, "Now. We're going to practice. Say, BOO. Go a-WAY."
"Boogoaway."
"Jetty, I've heard you yell at Jacky better than that. Okay. BAHBO. BOO. Go a-WAY."
And we practiced until I passed muster. The next night, I woke again and Daddy wasn't there. IT WAS, though. Leaning over Jacky's bed. I SCREAMED, "BOO! Bahbo! GO AWAY!" It turned and walked toward ME, but I did it. I shook my three-year-old finger at it. I was mad. "GO AWAY!"
And it did.
And Daddy came to let me know he was proud of me. I buried my head in his top anyway.
It was the in-between years that were a bit rough. He was gone. He was busy running like all hell from OLD. I understand that. I think I understood it then, and it wasn't so much I minded the fact that he was cheating on mom. We ALL knew that, somehow. It was the leaving that hurt. He left me to the sickness. The torture. The madness. He left his little Jetty to slay dragons that I never seemed to see in time.
James, Sr. was human. Go figure.
But when I was graduated from college, he came back to me. He gave me What Color Is Your Parachute, first edition. He told me that I should never, EVER seriously pursue a traditional line of work. "You'll try, my Jetty. You'll think you should because your mother wants it. And you'll think you are supposed to fit. It's okay. It will eat you up and spit you out, but you'll learn. Don't worry about change. Enjoy change. If you learn nothing else, Snigglefritz, get these two things. Change can be a wonderful thing, and that the comment 'life isn't fair' is wholly irrelevant to anything that matters. FAIR has nothing to do with life. And security is an illusion that we all will try to make for ourselves. You were not made to fit any mold I've seen, honey." He kissed me and got me a job when I was floundering, at the university where he worked.
We commuted together. I saw that he promoted every woman and person of color he could, before anyone said he should. He would say, "Why not give the underdog the shot? Usually they will work harder and do a more creative job anyway." He was beloved and we would have the most wonderful, far-reaching, leaping conversations with other faculty at lunch. He opened my eyes to the idea that education should be part of our whole lives, and he was so proud when, after two semesters of Spanish, I was offered an upper class independent study.
I was one of those daughters who got to move into friendship with her father, all the while I knew his failings. I watched my mother sink as he rose, worshiped by women around him. Mommy dimmed. But I shone too, so I did not defend her. Perhaps I was too young. I was not yet twenty-five. On my own with my sister. Free, wild, working, on fire intellectually and physically.
Silver hair, long hands, and the voice that rumbled across the room, though it was seldom loud. I could write of the flashes of temper, the difference in how he loved me better than the rest. I'll get there. Not tonight, though. Tonight I remember when I visited him in the hospital, the night before exploratory surgery. I sat by his bed and held those long, smooth hands and he looked up at me. I was married. He already knew my marriage was in trouble. He already knew that the light had gone from his Jetty's eyes.
But we looked at one another and he said, simply, "You know, don't you."
I said, "Yes, Daddy. I know. But I guess you need the surgery to let everyone else know?"
He nodded. "You'll be around?"
"Always, Daddy."
And the next morning, I drove to a nearby Lake. Late August morning, and I drove there, to be by the lake at dawn, when I knew they were getting him into surgery.
Canada Geese © 1986
Late that summer at dawn,
I sat shivering on the still warm hood of my car.
Clear-eyed sky above mists
Blanketed geese sleeping, still, on the beach.
I heard your cry.
Then geese and fog rose together.
They fled, calling, one cacophony of joy.
Crying, I called after "Please!
Take me with you--" but they didn't hear me.
Silly geese.
Later, holding your withered, gentle hand,
Your death-stamped eyes said more than your words
As I stood by your too-sterile bed.
I realized in horror, the geese had made a mistake.
They took you instead.
You know I've always said
that's the trouble with geese, Daddy;
they just never listen.
My father was opened at 7:30 a.m. that day, and closed up at 8:05. I don't think most children of my generation are given the opportunity to escort their fathers with full disclosure to their final departure. He had six months to make as much right as he could; he did well. He wasted no time with dancing around difficult truths, and he bluntly admitted to his conceit, his need to feel younger than his years, how it hurt his marriage and his relationships with every child except me. Somehow or other, he thought that I had been oblivious to his lies. I let him know that I had always known the truth, but that I'd loved him. But he was increasingly worried long after he could no longer eat. After his feet had become too bony to stand, even to pivot to the bedside commode.
I had been the one to insist we wrap the mattress before it was necessary, learn the bedroll to change his sheets without disturbing him unnecessarily, and shift his position on schedule, although the bedsores appeared despite our efforts. I bought the swabs for his mouth, made the crushed ice, found the nurses. My mother sat helpless and hopeless in her chair.
"I'm glad you are here," she said, "He needs a wife. I can't be one." She couldn't. She was too far gone. And I did the dance with them, daughter, head of household, living by day in my parents' dissolving world; returning in the afternoon to a dissolving world of my own, but trying to hold on. I do not regret being there. And it is too many years ago to even feel anger toward my absent siblings as anything more than the return of a horsefly. I shoo it away.
There was far more grace to hold onto. The House of Extremes had as much Love and Light as it did sickness and darkness.
****
I had been the one to insist we wrap the mattress before it was necessary, learn the bedroll to change his sheets without disturbing him unnecessarily, and shift his position on schedule, although the bedsores appeared despite our efforts. I bought the swabs for his mouth, made the crushed ice, found the nurses. My mother sat helpless and hopeless in her chair.
"I'm glad you are here," she said, "He needs a wife. I can't be one." She couldn't. She was too far gone. And I did the dance with them, daughter, head of household, living by day in my parents' dissolving world; returning in the afternoon to a dissolving world of my own, but trying to hold on. I do not regret being there. And it is too many years ago to even feel anger toward my absent siblings as anything more than the return of a horsefly. I shoo it away.
There was far more grace to hold onto. The House of Extremes had as much Love and Light as it did sickness and darkness.
****
The day he died, I was on the bed next to him, reading something to him. His bony hand covered mine and he said, "I should have listened to the words in the shower, when I bellowed them."
His favorite wake up song was, "Ah, sweet mystery of life at last I've found thee."
"I was so damned busy with the sound of my own voice. I should have listened more, honey. For it's love and love alone the world is after. Why didn't I listen?"
I grabbed his hand and looked in the darkening eyes. "You DID, Daddy. Most days you did. You lived them more often than most, Daddy. It's all done now."
"Really?"
I remember his hanging onto my face, hoping for something. As if I could absolve him somehow of sins I simply sensed rather than knew. But I let him keep my gaze and simply said, "We know you love us, Daddy. It's okay. You can go now."
And he did.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Sleeplessness: friend or foe?
When I was little, on Christmas Eve night, it was undoubtedly foe. I got up once in the middle of the night, out of my mind with excitement, because the reindeer had landed outside my window, first on the roof of Daddy's den below. I heard them and had awakened my sister, never the best of ideas.
Jean Ellen got up, but I do not think she felt my thrill. I was five. She was nearly fourteen. We had different perspectives.
"Jean Ellen, look at the tracks. LOOK!" I shone the flashlight on the snow. It was one of those rare mid-Connecticut years when there was new snow for Christmas. Those movies about Connecticut White Christmases are myths, and they really are about the Northwest corner — part of the Buffalo run. We were more of a slush and ice place for the first month. But there it was. Slightly bluish purple, with a very clear line of tracks of something bounding across.
Jean Ellen might have said many things, having been awakened rudely. What she did say was, "They are awfully small for reindeer, so I really don't know."
Then she looked at my face. "Well, Santa's reindeer change size, you know. They have to. They get really tiny because they cannot be detected that way by all those big radar dishes on t.v." She had me in her hand by now, and she brought me to her bed, and went on. "Plus, they have to shrink all the presents and make the sleigh lighter, for flying. When they shrink the reindeer, they don't lose their strength or get slower. They just get small. You see? So the presents get little and lightweight and so does Santa. I mean, he's a big elf, really, when you think about it."
I remember being absolutely enthralled. They never TELL you the logistics of it all, you know?
"And how would 'eight tiny reindeer' lug around presents for the whole world? I mean, really, Jetty. How? So I think you are right. And Santa's probably HERE, with Dad, and--"
I was out the door and straight into my dad, walking down the hall with a platter about the size of our flying saucer sled, with a giant turkey on it. It was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen, but Daddy had SHOWN us all the presents for Mommy already. And it couldn't be for anyone else. I was stunned, there, trying to figure things out. And why was Daddy up anyway? Santa was here. He didn't have a cap, but he was supposed to be asleep.
I said, "Daddy, Santa is HERE. I gotta see him."
"WHOA, there, Jetty. What are you thinking of? You can't do that." I was still eying that platter.
"Is that for Mommy? How come you didn't show me when I asked you? You PROMISED me you'd trust me with the secrets Daddy, and I didn't tell even one, even when I knew you got the pretty combs Mommy wanted, with the blue."
Then I saw he stockings at the top of the stairs, too.
He didn't miss a beat. He said, "Well, This is PRECISELY why you have to go to bed, young lady. Santa is downstairs and he is running behind. So he asked me to help. I have to wrap this from him to your mom, because those elves ran out of time. PLUS, he asked me to bring the stockings up on my way. Now I have to quickly do this and go back down there so Santa can sign the card, so you... better ... skeedaddle... off ... to... bed...."
LONG pause and he looked like he would chase me...
"NOW"
I squealed and ran and jumped into bed, laughing.
Jean Ellen mumbled, "Okay now? Will you PLEASE sleep?"
I hurried up and slept faster than any five year old on the planet.
***
But not tonight. Earlier I wrote a tribute to my ex-husband, but left it posted for about an hour. then I took it down, realizing it was TOO personal. I have never told HIM what he gave me, why I will never consider our marriage a mistake. I decided I should tell him first. Married couples have their own secrets, and though, for once in my life there was nothing but love in it toward him, I felt as if it were sacred. As if I shouldn't share THAT. Isn't that strange, after we've been apart now for longer than we were together? He blew up my life in ways from which I'll never climb back--financially, anyway. Yet it felt disloyal.
And it kept me awake.
I am sleepy and I have work to do, but I am too groggy to work, which is not good. I tried all day to work, but I spent time with my grown son--important time. And that was far more important than money to me. And my constant companion of pain of the last few days was at hand, talking loudly to me all day long.
And that keeps me awake.
But what fun to move from either kind of pain--poignant and loving emotional pain or physical--to this. To pure joy, given to me by a five-year-old's faith in magic, a sister's love that outweighed her own love of sleep, and a Dad's willingness to keep his little girl's faith bright and shining. The same Dad of yesterday's entry. MY daddy.
I want to sleep. Just for a couple of hours. Perhaps now, after remembering the BEST sleepless night EVER, I can go to sleep now really, really fast. I don't know.
But I think, perhaps, I was mistaken at the beginning of this entry! The judgment rendered for tonight is sleeplessness: friend, without a doubt.
Good night all.
Jean Ellen got up, but I do not think she felt my thrill. I was five. She was nearly fourteen. We had different perspectives.
"Jean Ellen, look at the tracks. LOOK!" I shone the flashlight on the snow. It was one of those rare mid-Connecticut years when there was new snow for Christmas. Those movies about Connecticut White Christmases are myths, and they really are about the Northwest corner — part of the Buffalo run. We were more of a slush and ice place for the first month. But there it was. Slightly bluish purple, with a very clear line of tracks of something bounding across.
Jean Ellen might have said many things, having been awakened rudely. What she did say was, "They are awfully small for reindeer, so I really don't know."
Then she looked at my face. "Well, Santa's reindeer change size, you know. They have to. They get really tiny because they cannot be detected that way by all those big radar dishes on t.v." She had me in her hand by now, and she brought me to her bed, and went on. "Plus, they have to shrink all the presents and make the sleigh lighter, for flying. When they shrink the reindeer, they don't lose their strength or get slower. They just get small. You see? So the presents get little and lightweight and so does Santa. I mean, he's a big elf, really, when you think about it."
I remember being absolutely enthralled. They never TELL you the logistics of it all, you know?
"And how would 'eight tiny reindeer' lug around presents for the whole world? I mean, really, Jetty. How? So I think you are right. And Santa's probably HERE, with Dad, and--"
I was out the door and straight into my dad, walking down the hall with a platter about the size of our flying saucer sled, with a giant turkey on it. It was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen, but Daddy had SHOWN us all the presents for Mommy already. And it couldn't be for anyone else. I was stunned, there, trying to figure things out. And why was Daddy up anyway? Santa was here. He didn't have a cap, but he was supposed to be asleep.
I said, "Daddy, Santa is HERE. I gotta see him."
"WHOA, there, Jetty. What are you thinking of? You can't do that." I was still eying that platter.
"Is that for Mommy? How come you didn't show me when I asked you? You PROMISED me you'd trust me with the secrets Daddy, and I didn't tell even one, even when I knew you got the pretty combs Mommy wanted, with the blue."
Then I saw he stockings at the top of the stairs, too.
He didn't miss a beat. He said, "Well, This is PRECISELY why you have to go to bed, young lady. Santa is downstairs and he is running behind. So he asked me to help. I have to wrap this from him to your mom, because those elves ran out of time. PLUS, he asked me to bring the stockings up on my way. Now I have to quickly do this and go back down there so Santa can sign the card, so you... better ... skeedaddle... off ... to... bed...."
LONG pause and he looked like he would chase me...
"NOW"
I squealed and ran and jumped into bed, laughing.
Jean Ellen mumbled, "Okay now? Will you PLEASE sleep?"
I hurried up and slept faster than any five year old on the planet.
***
But not tonight. Earlier I wrote a tribute to my ex-husband, but left it posted for about an hour. then I took it down, realizing it was TOO personal. I have never told HIM what he gave me, why I will never consider our marriage a mistake. I decided I should tell him first. Married couples have their own secrets, and though, for once in my life there was nothing but love in it toward him, I felt as if it were sacred. As if I shouldn't share THAT. Isn't that strange, after we've been apart now for longer than we were together? He blew up my life in ways from which I'll never climb back--financially, anyway. Yet it felt disloyal.
And it kept me awake.
I am sleepy and I have work to do, but I am too groggy to work, which is not good. I tried all day to work, but I spent time with my grown son--important time. And that was far more important than money to me. And my constant companion of pain of the last few days was at hand, talking loudly to me all day long.
And that keeps me awake.
But what fun to move from either kind of pain--poignant and loving emotional pain or physical--to this. To pure joy, given to me by a five-year-old's faith in magic, a sister's love that outweighed her own love of sleep, and a Dad's willingness to keep his little girl's faith bright and shining. The same Dad of yesterday's entry. MY daddy.
I want to sleep. Just for a couple of hours. Perhaps now, after remembering the BEST sleepless night EVER, I can go to sleep now really, really fast. I don't know.
But I think, perhaps, I was mistaken at the beginning of this entry! The judgment rendered for tonight is sleeplessness: friend, without a doubt.
Good night all.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
About Forgiveness
So My Mother Died ©2004
When my mother died the eleven o'clock news said nothing.
The flag flew high at the post office.
My morning coffee still smelled good.
My kids still wanted their supper.
When my mother died the sun still found my prisms
And my Christmas cactus bloomed.
When my mother died the willows didn't weep real tears;
I did.
My mom was a miracle of a mom ... when she was not drunk and when psychosis was not her mistress. This means that most of the time, my mom was a miracle of a mom.
But to deny the depth of her darkness is to deny the depth of our love, the depth of both our strengths. I am not sure that forgiveness is about accepting that horrible things were done and we say it's okay. I am not sure but that real forgiveness lies in looking at the darkness full in the face and accepting that there were riches we gleaned from the very worst of the other person. That the person we want to forgive was, perhaps, a source of magic in part because of the darkness.
I start with two poems I wrote about my mother's pain and of my worst responses to it. When my mom was in a psychotic state, she was violent. She lost control. She would then, after the haze was lifted, remember... and drink to forget. There were three moms. Drunk mom, Mommy, and "Not mommy." She fought the psychosis with every fiber of her being, but sometimes she lost--rarely, in fact. Yet those times when she did lose the fight were horrific and terrifying. And it took me many, many years to understand just how much she worked to cage that. To kill it. I wrote this early on, when I was trying to understand, trying to put myself in her position and experience what her pain must have been.
Lion's Eye ©1985
Spring-tight tension, beyond my control
It watches without blinking,
Ready to attack; I'm held rooted, fixed by
The lion's eye.
Gold-brown, glittering mellow,
Colors of sun-dried grass,
Glints of blind-bright dancing water, my joy,
My lion's eye.
My child cries so close,
I refuse to hear, so hypnotized
By the dry-ice murdering beauty behind
My lion's eye.
Her fear encroaches,
I wrench free her bleeding hand
To loft my molten topaz, sacred cup,
This lion's eye.
Back-hand slap. There, she’s silent.
Amber-kissed lips parted,
I drink deep the warming flame from the lid of
The lion's eye.
Fangs pierce my soul without pain,
Claws rip my flesh without blood,
Blessed Southern silk-gold Comfort, sweetest love,
My lion's eye.
I loved her.
When I was little and climbed into her lap for comfort, when I was too small to understand that the vacant stare and amber drink meant stay away, I would find myself on the floor before I'd even found my comfy spot. I would sit, stunned, holding my hand to the burning spot on my cheek. I was lucky. I had my sister to whisk me away to her land of drawings and paper dolls and color wheels and asymmetry and other big words. I also had Mommy as herself 59 days out of 60, and, back then drunk Mommy only about 3 days out of 30. Yet you know something's amiss. You sensed that the house wasn't right, that always, always, there was an undercurrent, the possibility of an explosion. Maybe that's why Jean Ellen was always there, ready to soothe at just the right times.
It was not until I was around thirteen that I began to again sense, more than understand why it was that mother got very strange when our father went on his semi-annual business trips with his secretary. Or why my mother wanted the gift of the secretary's piano in the basement, where she never saw it; or why she left the house when Jean Ellen was given the blue convertible Marie had driven for so long.
I learned that my father was not faithful and early on, I learned to be variously angry with him for his arrogance and sleaziness and angry with her for "driving him away." Oh, the allure of the country western song. The drama of it all.
In college, she once crashed a party I was at. She humiliated me, called me names, rambled on about wanting my father to come home. I was furious, but something about her, after I'd brought her home and she let her hair down and danced in the moonlight. My heart opened. I did not understand to what, exactly. Not until my own loneliness in my marriage, in almost every relationship I ever knew, smacked me in the face. Not to ever feel pretty enough, smart enough... enough. Or to be told you are too smart, too attractive, too alive. All of them added up to a loneliness I saw in my mother.
I learned that she was a woman who was desperately alone, who loved people with every fiber of her being, never leaving enough to be able to love herself. She had subjugated her own dreams to my dad's. She had settled for less than she knew she could be, and she began, once I was out of the house, to kill herself a bit faster, to drink more and to do it more often. I left her alone.
Naturally.
Dervish of the Empty Nest ©2001
Mama dances all alone in the moonlight,
When Daddy doesn’t bother to lie,
Kickin’ off the saddle shoes, Lettin’ down her braids,
Waltzing with her bottle of Rye.
Mumbling to the boys from the college,
Prettiest faculty bride.
Young men tussled for a dance, for a twirl,
For a midday tumbledown ride.
Mama silhouetted by the starlight,
Round eyes lifted to the sky:
Dulled ears listening, straining for his footsteps,
While tears start their tumbledown slide.
She dances on, lonely in the moonlight,
Praying for my father to lie,
Barefoot and glowing; dervish in the dead night,
Whispering to her bottle of Rye.
I learned to see my mother as she really was, her wit, her compassion, her pain, her passionate love for my dad and the best of who he was, her imagination and her many talents. She was not her drinking. That was a sickness that ate her up and spit her out.
Perhaps the biggest thing to learn about forgiveness is that very often there is nothing to forgive; instead we accept the absolute humanity and we choose to love that and let all the rest fly away.
I did not understand my own poem until after my father died. In those two years, as my mother's drinking cycled so far out of control that I had to walk away from her entirely unless she got help, and, ironically, only then did I come to understand her. Thank God I did. I will always be grateful. My own stupidity, selfishness, struggles, and pain opened at last that enormous castle door I'd shut against her. Six months before she died, she got sober. Mom and I were able to talk, to connect, to be with one another in a way that none of the others were able to do. I don't know why; it doesn't matter.
Jetty got Mommy back. And the daughter got to know the woman at last.
Before she went into the hospital, before the liver failure killed her. we were sitting in her living room, sharing some iced tea. She was looking at some empty liquor bottles she had made my brother Jack and me leave there. We had not discussed that she was dying, though I knew it. I was the only child who had said to her that I knew this was so, and we had agreed to leave it alone. I was so sick of secrets, though, I had had to say that much. She was staring into an empty bourbon bottle and then looked at me, tears in her eyes.
"You know what really stinks now, Jetty? All this time I've worked so hard to kill myself? Well, now that I've actually gone and succeeded, turns out I really don't much want to die. Isn't that a kicker?"
I loved my mother. I love her so much my heart hurts. Isn't that a kicker?
When my mother died the eleven o'clock news said nothing.
The flag flew high at the post office.
My morning coffee still smelled good.
My kids still wanted their supper.
When my mother died the sun still found my prisms
And my Christmas cactus bloomed.
When my mother died the willows didn't weep real tears;
I did.
My mom was a miracle of a mom ... when she was not drunk and when psychosis was not her mistress. This means that most of the time, my mom was a miracle of a mom.
But to deny the depth of her darkness is to deny the depth of our love, the depth of both our strengths. I am not sure that forgiveness is about accepting that horrible things were done and we say it's okay. I am not sure but that real forgiveness lies in looking at the darkness full in the face and accepting that there were riches we gleaned from the very worst of the other person. That the person we want to forgive was, perhaps, a source of magic in part because of the darkness.
I start with two poems I wrote about my mother's pain and of my worst responses to it. When my mom was in a psychotic state, she was violent. She lost control. She would then, after the haze was lifted, remember... and drink to forget. There were three moms. Drunk mom, Mommy, and "Not mommy." She fought the psychosis with every fiber of her being, but sometimes she lost--rarely, in fact. Yet those times when she did lose the fight were horrific and terrifying. And it took me many, many years to understand just how much she worked to cage that. To kill it. I wrote this early on, when I was trying to understand, trying to put myself in her position and experience what her pain must have been.
Lion's Eye ©1985
Spring-tight tension, beyond my control
It watches without blinking,
Ready to attack; I'm held rooted, fixed by
The lion's eye.
Gold-brown, glittering mellow,
Colors of sun-dried grass,
Glints of blind-bright dancing water, my joy,
My lion's eye.
My child cries so close,
I refuse to hear, so hypnotized
By the dry-ice murdering beauty behind
My lion's eye.
Her fear encroaches,
I wrench free her bleeding hand
To loft my molten topaz, sacred cup,
This lion's eye.
Back-hand slap. There, she’s silent.
Amber-kissed lips parted,
I drink deep the warming flame from the lid of
The lion's eye.
Fangs pierce my soul without pain,
Claws rip my flesh without blood,
Blessed Southern silk-gold Comfort, sweetest love,
My lion's eye.
I loved her.
When I was little and climbed into her lap for comfort, when I was too small to understand that the vacant stare and amber drink meant stay away, I would find myself on the floor before I'd even found my comfy spot. I would sit, stunned, holding my hand to the burning spot on my cheek. I was lucky. I had my sister to whisk me away to her land of drawings and paper dolls and color wheels and asymmetry and other big words. I also had Mommy as herself 59 days out of 60, and, back then drunk Mommy only about 3 days out of 30. Yet you know something's amiss. You sensed that the house wasn't right, that always, always, there was an undercurrent, the possibility of an explosion. Maybe that's why Jean Ellen was always there, ready to soothe at just the right times.
It was not until I was around thirteen that I began to again sense, more than understand why it was that mother got very strange when our father went on his semi-annual business trips with his secretary. Or why my mother wanted the gift of the secretary's piano in the basement, where she never saw it; or why she left the house when Jean Ellen was given the blue convertible Marie had driven for so long.
I learned that my father was not faithful and early on, I learned to be variously angry with him for his arrogance and sleaziness and angry with her for "driving him away." Oh, the allure of the country western song. The drama of it all.
In college, she once crashed a party I was at. She humiliated me, called me names, rambled on about wanting my father to come home. I was furious, but something about her, after I'd brought her home and she let her hair down and danced in the moonlight. My heart opened. I did not understand to what, exactly. Not until my own loneliness in my marriage, in almost every relationship I ever knew, smacked me in the face. Not to ever feel pretty enough, smart enough... enough. Or to be told you are too smart, too attractive, too alive. All of them added up to a loneliness I saw in my mother.
I learned that she was a woman who was desperately alone, who loved people with every fiber of her being, never leaving enough to be able to love herself. She had subjugated her own dreams to my dad's. She had settled for less than she knew she could be, and she began, once I was out of the house, to kill herself a bit faster, to drink more and to do it more often. I left her alone.
Naturally.
Dervish of the Empty Nest ©2001
Mama dances all alone in the moonlight,
When Daddy doesn’t bother to lie,
Kickin’ off the saddle shoes, Lettin’ down her braids,
Waltzing with her bottle of Rye.
Mumbling to the boys from the college,
Prettiest faculty bride.
Young men tussled for a dance, for a twirl,
For a midday tumbledown ride.
Mama silhouetted by the starlight,
Round eyes lifted to the sky:
Dulled ears listening, straining for his footsteps,
While tears start their tumbledown slide.
She dances on, lonely in the moonlight,
Praying for my father to lie,
Barefoot and glowing; dervish in the dead night,
Whispering to her bottle of Rye.
I learned to see my mother as she really was, her wit, her compassion, her pain, her passionate love for my dad and the best of who he was, her imagination and her many talents. She was not her drinking. That was a sickness that ate her up and spit her out.
Perhaps the biggest thing to learn about forgiveness is that very often there is nothing to forgive; instead we accept the absolute humanity and we choose to love that and let all the rest fly away.
I did not understand my own poem until after my father died. In those two years, as my mother's drinking cycled so far out of control that I had to walk away from her entirely unless she got help, and, ironically, only then did I come to understand her. Thank God I did. I will always be grateful. My own stupidity, selfishness, struggles, and pain opened at last that enormous castle door I'd shut against her. Six months before she died, she got sober. Mom and I were able to talk, to connect, to be with one another in a way that none of the others were able to do. I don't know why; it doesn't matter.
Jetty got Mommy back. And the daughter got to know the woman at last.
Before she went into the hospital, before the liver failure killed her. we were sitting in her living room, sharing some iced tea. She was looking at some empty liquor bottles she had made my brother Jack and me leave there. We had not discussed that she was dying, though I knew it. I was the only child who had said to her that I knew this was so, and we had agreed to leave it alone. I was so sick of secrets, though, I had had to say that much. She was staring into an empty bourbon bottle and then looked at me, tears in her eyes.
"You know what really stinks now, Jetty? All this time I've worked so hard to kill myself? Well, now that I've actually gone and succeeded, turns out I really don't much want to die. Isn't that a kicker?"
I loved my mother. I love her so much my heart hurts. Isn't that a kicker?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
A New Month, a Fresh Start and Writer's Block
I have the feeling a weight has been lifted. My friend who had the stroke continues to improve, albeit slowly. We do not know how far his recuperation will take him. He is six foot four and cannot use the left side of his body, and has impulse control issues.
There is hope, however. And for now, that is what we will hold onto.
Thank you to those who still check back. I suspect I'll be back to my more normal blogging every week or so, very soon.
A Silly Ramble for Today
Today, I'm thinking of writer's block. For real. I have been kidding around on Facebook about how one can USE distractions to let things percolate and foment. I know the gist of what I want to say, but the words will not come. I want to meet my self-imposed deadline of Pacific Time 9:00 a.m. Noon, my time. I will be up all night I think.
We sit our butts in the chair and try. I wrote about five paragraphs of drivel. Incomprehensible drivel. Yet somewhere in those 450 words, I found about twenty I really like. Twenty words on which I will, I think craft a small, inconsequential release. Yet, perhaps the key to writing for a living is that I NEVER believe any little piece is inconsequential. While I work on it, that one release, be it 300 words or 700, is my novel. It is make or break time. On my release rests the future of this Stanford program.
Do I know that's a crock? Of course. And yet, I know also that putting myself into the work as if my soul is at stake keeps Stanford coming back. I care. I couldn't do this if I were on staff. I'd have to crank it out. They count on me to care more than they do, ironic as that may sound. Their standards are lower for what I do than my own are, and that's a good thing.
Somehow, though, I need to learn to dial it back just one notch. I do not need to make myself crazy. I need to breathe and enjoy this crazy process. I don't need to be crazy. Strange thing, making a living as a writer. Would that it were from my poetry or fiction, but it's not. I write releases and spotlights for programs in engineering, business, science, and international security. It is not glamorous; but I meet extraordinary people. I have to promote their work and try to make others want to study with them, go to seminars conducted by them, take programs online presented by them. I need to make a potential student who is surfing, searching for a certain type of training or, more importantly, education come to Stanford Center for Professional Development.
I try to get engineers to fall in love.
It's not easy; it sure is fun. I forgot that today, that it is FUN to do my job.
I will put the coffee on and stay up until I have a rough draft. I will sleep a couple of hours, get up again and smooth it out. I know it will be fine, but...
What if I blow it? What if they find out I'm a fraud? What if it is not perfect? I may write the perfect party to which no one comes!
We writers are really silly. The conceit. The insecurity. They are bound together in this process -- on a blog, in an essay, published for money, published for free, with or without our byline. We write with the goal to simply knock others out with our wonderfulness. Reach in and touch a soul. Reach in a pocket so they'll take out their money... not glamorous. Even when we say we are writing just for ourselves, if we are putting it online, who are we kidding? We want to be read, and we want people to love what they've read. And there's nothing in the world wrong with that.
I care about lifelong learning. I market only what I think matters; it's how I can agree with myself to market. I learn while I do this. I learn to write better, and I learn about all sorts of wondrous things. I had to make that choice, to write to promote only what I thought was worth promoting. I just couldn't sell water heaters and cosmetics. It wasn't me. And perhaps I would have earned more. So much of life is compromise, learning where our boundaries lie. This is okay; THIS is over "the line." The danger is in judging other people's lines, and in not seeing our own inconsistencies in this writing for money, writing to spec.
So much of writing involves my ego and I can get lost in trying to make something about it far more noble than it is. In the romance of being the writer. Fade out in the garret. I sit in half-light, in my garret window seat, agonizing over one word, chewing on the tip of my quill.
oh. Wait. I have a computer.
So much for the romance of it all. I can wax on forever. I won't. What it boils down to is this: I have to get the thing done so I'd best get to it.
***
My mom called me her biggest project ever. And she kissed me on my nose when she said it. She also told me I was her greatest unfinished work.
I don't know about the greatest part, but unfinished? That part's still true.
Get the coffee, Jeannette, and get to work.
There is hope, however. And for now, that is what we will hold onto.
Thank you to those who still check back. I suspect I'll be back to my more normal blogging every week or so, very soon.
A Silly Ramble for Today
Today, I'm thinking of writer's block. For real. I have been kidding around on Facebook about how one can USE distractions to let things percolate and foment. I know the gist of what I want to say, but the words will not come. I want to meet my self-imposed deadline of Pacific Time 9:00 a.m. Noon, my time. I will be up all night I think.
We sit our butts in the chair and try. I wrote about five paragraphs of drivel. Incomprehensible drivel. Yet somewhere in those 450 words, I found about twenty I really like. Twenty words on which I will, I think craft a small, inconsequential release. Yet, perhaps the key to writing for a living is that I NEVER believe any little piece is inconsequential. While I work on it, that one release, be it 300 words or 700, is my novel. It is make or break time. On my release rests the future of this Stanford program.
Do I know that's a crock? Of course. And yet, I know also that putting myself into the work as if my soul is at stake keeps Stanford coming back. I care. I couldn't do this if I were on staff. I'd have to crank it out. They count on me to care more than they do, ironic as that may sound. Their standards are lower for what I do than my own are, and that's a good thing.
Somehow, though, I need to learn to dial it back just one notch. I do not need to make myself crazy. I need to breathe and enjoy this crazy process. I don't need to be crazy. Strange thing, making a living as a writer. Would that it were from my poetry or fiction, but it's not. I write releases and spotlights for programs in engineering, business, science, and international security. It is not glamorous; but I meet extraordinary people. I have to promote their work and try to make others want to study with them, go to seminars conducted by them, take programs online presented by them. I need to make a potential student who is surfing, searching for a certain type of training or, more importantly, education come to Stanford Center for Professional Development.
I try to get engineers to fall in love.
It's not easy; it sure is fun. I forgot that today, that it is FUN to do my job.
I will put the coffee on and stay up until I have a rough draft. I will sleep a couple of hours, get up again and smooth it out. I know it will be fine, but...
What if I blow it? What if they find out I'm a fraud? What if it is not perfect? I may write the perfect party to which no one comes!
We writers are really silly. The conceit. The insecurity. They are bound together in this process -- on a blog, in an essay, published for money, published for free, with or without our byline. We write with the goal to simply knock others out with our wonderfulness. Reach in and touch a soul. Reach in a pocket so they'll take out their money... not glamorous. Even when we say we are writing just for ourselves, if we are putting it online, who are we kidding? We want to be read, and we want people to love what they've read. And there's nothing in the world wrong with that.
I care about lifelong learning. I market only what I think matters; it's how I can agree with myself to market. I learn while I do this. I learn to write better, and I learn about all sorts of wondrous things. I had to make that choice, to write to promote only what I thought was worth promoting. I just couldn't sell water heaters and cosmetics. It wasn't me. And perhaps I would have earned more. So much of life is compromise, learning where our boundaries lie. This is okay; THIS is over "the line." The danger is in judging other people's lines, and in not seeing our own inconsistencies in this writing for money, writing to spec.
So much of writing involves my ego and I can get lost in trying to make something about it far more noble than it is. In the romance of being the writer. Fade out in the garret. I sit in half-light, in my garret window seat, agonizing over one word, chewing on the tip of my quill.
oh. Wait. I have a computer.
So much for the romance of it all. I can wax on forever. I won't. What it boils down to is this: I have to get the thing done so I'd best get to it.
***
My mom called me her biggest project ever. And she kissed me on my nose when she said it. She also told me I was her greatest unfinished work.
I don't know about the greatest part, but unfinished? That part's still true.
Get the coffee, Jeannette, and get to work.
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