There’s really nothing like it; singing with those women from Women’s Singing Night. We performed for the second time tonight, this time at the coffeehouse. At its peak, the little place, which normally seats fifteen, held forty audience members and our five singing, shining faces.
It helped that Peg brought a little flask of whiskey. And it also helped that Mel and her husband brought Syrah from the Biltmore Estate wineries. And also that the spotlights on us made it hard to see the crowd. So after a song or two I really just forgot myself and sang with all the ease of a woman hanging laundry, for example, on the clothesline in her backyard.
Except we weren’t just hanging laundry. We were doing quiet, steady work on the human soul. Singing gives permission and takes permission. It opens the floodgates and invites what’s already there to come out, Here I am!
Performing the second time around was easier for me because I was able to take myself less seriously. It’s just singing, I told myself. It’s an offering to other artists, who work so hard on their own creativity that they deserve a chance to escape into another form for a night. Now the task is to apply this mantra to life. It’s just dating. It’s just money. It’s just grad school. It’s just, it’s just, it’s just….just about time to roll-tuck into bed and kiss another day of worry and accomplishments and the sweet, swelling moon goodnight.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
This is a Call
I roller coaster up and down all day, convinced in one moment that I have pushed too hard and shown too much and that Parker is running scared and now who knows what. Other moments I am uplifted, knowing I was no one other than I could have been, assured that my pushing is no more or less rapid-fire than his pulling, that even though he can’t seem to name things as they happened so fast, I know that seeing someone every other day and staying overnight and sharing music and meditation and meals and kisses and more does have a name, and I call it dating.
And in some moment of steady consciousness on this roller coaster day, I pick up the phone and call Mission Hospital in BigCity, NC and learn that “Fred,” as they registered him, is fifty-six years old and was admitted at 2:11 p.m. into the ER via the ambulance that came after Parker and I helped him. I get this information by offering what I know: “Hi, my name is Katey. I was the first responder to a victim who had a grand mal seizure while crossing Merrimon Avenue on Saturday. He was homeless and in his late forties or so and his name was Freddie. I’d like to know if he was released?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the operator said. Her voice was as cold as glacial melt and I wondered how long she had been at the switchboard. I thought, too, how Freddie and his seizure were nothing in the grand scheme of things, how once I heaved a dead body out of a crevasse in Canyonlands National Park, hoisted it into a life flight helicopter, and cried later about the sad paradox of lifting a dead man into a life flight. And yet…
And yet that seizure did mean so much more to me. It uncapped the fact that my life in the South Toe Valley is so protected, which is a blessing, but that it is also so blind. That there is so much I don’t have to see if I don’t want to. That I don’t have to see Freddie on the edge of winter, looking for a place to sleep, digging through dumpsters with the same friends that told him to “Stay with us Freddie, stay with us!” Take a step out, into a wider circle, and I do not have to see the struggles at our nation’s borders, the political fights about building the next Great Wall in freaking Arizona, of all places. Step out again and I don’t have to see those unmoored oil rigs off the Gulf Coast, spewing the Earth’s guts into the Earth’s salty tears and killing the Earth’s creatures. Step out again and I don’t have to see the waves of those tears crashing into other continents, where we wage wars and kill civilians and fight Abstract Concepts in the name of Abstract Concepts, and stab the soil with our American flags as if marking the moon. The same moon, mind you, that pulls those tides of tears, that moors our very planet to its axis, that keeps us pulsing through the days and months and years and casts its wild blue light into the night as if blessing even the moments that we sleep through. Would that I could always be awake.
I cast out love like a spider casts filament after filament into the immeasurable wind [Whitman’s image]; a silk thread of hope attached to an internal source that will never run out. We are given so much and yet some days I find myself empty. What place have I been given on this Earth but to love and be loved?
And in some moment of steady consciousness on this roller coaster day, I pick up the phone and call Mission Hospital in BigCity, NC and learn that “Fred,” as they registered him, is fifty-six years old and was admitted at 2:11 p.m. into the ER via the ambulance that came after Parker and I helped him. I get this information by offering what I know: “Hi, my name is Katey. I was the first responder to a victim who had a grand mal seizure while crossing Merrimon Avenue on Saturday. He was homeless and in his late forties or so and his name was Freddie. I’d like to know if he was released?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the operator said. Her voice was as cold as glacial melt and I wondered how long she had been at the switchboard. I thought, too, how Freddie and his seizure were nothing in the grand scheme of things, how once I heaved a dead body out of a crevasse in Canyonlands National Park, hoisted it into a life flight helicopter, and cried later about the sad paradox of lifting a dead man into a life flight. And yet…
And yet that seizure did mean so much more to me. It uncapped the fact that my life in the South Toe Valley is so protected, which is a blessing, but that it is also so blind. That there is so much I don’t have to see if I don’t want to. That I don’t have to see Freddie on the edge of winter, looking for a place to sleep, digging through dumpsters with the same friends that told him to “Stay with us Freddie, stay with us!” Take a step out, into a wider circle, and I do not have to see the struggles at our nation’s borders, the political fights about building the next Great Wall in freaking Arizona, of all places. Step out again and I don’t have to see those unmoored oil rigs off the Gulf Coast, spewing the Earth’s guts into the Earth’s salty tears and killing the Earth’s creatures. Step out again and I don’t have to see the waves of those tears crashing into other continents, where we wage wars and kill civilians and fight Abstract Concepts in the name of Abstract Concepts, and stab the soil with our American flags as if marking the moon. The same moon, mind you, that pulls those tides of tears, that moors our very planet to its axis, that keeps us pulsing through the days and months and years and casts its wild blue light into the night as if blessing even the moments that we sleep through. Would that I could always be awake.
I cast out love like a spider casts filament after filament into the immeasurable wind [Whitman’s image]; a silk thread of hope attached to an internal source that will never run out. We are given so much and yet some days I find myself empty. What place have I been given on this Earth but to love and be loved?
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Running Errands. To Run From Errands. Running to Errands
[Sorry in advance for the long post, especially if you’re on LJ friends page.}
Parker and I are trying to turn onto Merrimon Avenue out of the Shell gas station in downtown BigCity, NC. We had to stop and ask for direction to Ross, where Parker wants to buy shoes, although he doesn’t know where the store is and while his need to have my fashion advice is sweet, I find myself growing frustrated as the afternoon passes by and we have yet to settle down into our study time. My mind is tight and annoyed and he’s about to gun the engine when we both see a man lying face down in the middle of the road, body twitching like a hooked fish and an SUV headed straight for him.
The SUV screeches to a halt and traffic in all lanes swerves, stops, then stares. Parker is fumbling with his seatbelt and I leap out the passenger door and the words, Check the scene for safety, scroll across my adrenaline-doused mind.
The scene is relatively safe. Cars are stopped. Horns are honking. Some people are yelling, though I don’t know where from. I am the first responder and Parker is just two seconds behind. I put my hand on the man’s back.
“Freddie! FREDDIE!!!” A woman from behind me screams. I do not turn to look at her. My eyes are locked onto his torso, where I’ve placed my hand to check for breathing.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” another woman screams. I turn to see her leap from the SUV, blonde hair unfurling behind her in slow motion.
“Go into that gas station and call 9-1-1!” I point directly at her and shout.
“We’ve got them on the cell right now. What street are we on?” Her husband runs up behind her, phone in hand. More people have gathered on the sidewalk. Two? Three? Four? Five? People are at my back, shouting his name. Come on Freddie. Stay with us, stay with us man. Freddie, oh Freddie!
Parker has his hand under the side of Freddie’s head so when he lurches he doesn’t keep hitting it repeatedly on the pavement. “We’re on Merrimon!” he shouts to the man with the cell phone. The flesh of Freddie’s face hangs loosely from his skull bones and his eyes are locked straight ahead. His arms appear pegged to the middle of the road and his legs seem small and unmanly, jerking like a toddler’s who is trapped in a high chair. Let me go!
“He’s having a seizure, stick something down his throat so he doesn’t choke. Oh my god, don’t let him choke!” the blonde woman is screaming at me, backing away, clutching her husband, but none of them matter. I know her advice is a wive’s tale and dismiss her to I can regain focus. My left hand is already on Freddie’s wrist where I feel a pulse. My right hand registers deep, infrequent breaths felt through his back. I scan for blood, which there is a speck of near the top of his head, though I cannot see any open wounds.
“Freddy, I’m going to help you. Is that okay? We’re going to help you. Just keep breathing.” No response.
“He’s having a seizure, help him! That’s my friend Freddie. He’s homeless, he’s having a seizure.” The friend’s screaming is heightened and emotional and the only thing really tugging at my focus.
I turn to her and give her a task: “Check his ankles for an epilepsy or diabetic band!”
“Do you need help? I’m calling 9-1-1!” another driver shouts, this time from an onramp a block away. I see him, his face, his open and gasping expression. I register his existence but that is all. That is a person, in a car, wondering what the hell happened.
From the side, another man approaches, breathless. “What can I do?”
“Keep the traffic stopped!” I shout, sticking my head above the crowd to get a glimpse of the busy street. No one is moving and everything is clear and I feel my hands move up the length of Freddie’s torso to grip to back of his neck. I look at Parker and say. “I’ve got hands on stable but I don’t want to move him. I don’t know how he fell or if he was hit. I don’t know the point of impact. I don’t want to mess with his spine.” More messages scroll across my mind’s eye: Only move the victim if it’s a matter of life and death. Don’t reposition the spine unless you are certain of the method of injury, and furthermore… I am not certain. I still do not know if he was hit or if the bleeding is from a simple fall. I do not know if he bounced, if he fell more than his own height, if the bleeding is from hitting the pavement or from a sideswipe by a moving vehicle.
“We could try moving him, though,” Parker says, moving his hands to Freddie’s sides. We place our hands on his sides and push/pull a little bit but I don’t give it my best effort. Freddie’s body is a quaking brick wall and while his breathing is severely labored, he is breathing nonetheless, which is the important thing. I hear the blip-blip of the fire department somewhere in the distance and stick my head up to check the traffic again.
“He’s breathing, he’s not loosing too much blood. We’ve got to let his body do what it’s going to do,” I say to Parker. “He’s not wearing any medical bracelets but the paramedics will be here soon.” I turn to Freddie and speak calmly: “Freddie, just keep breathing, just keep breathing.” I am petting his back and holding his wrist when I notice the puddle of blood above his head. It has doubled in size to about the diameter of a paper plate. It is deep crimson and thick as syrup. Freddie’s eyes roll back into his head and his body stops moving. Drool has collected at the corners of his mouth and his nose is running, a thin yellow stream dangling into his agape mouth. I can register a pulse, but his gurgling breathing has stopped and for a moment I think to myself, This man is going to die. This is his last view of the world. He’s letting go, he’s fading back, he’s drifting away. He’s going to die right here in our hands. I breath out a feeling of calm, an offering, something for him to take with him if he’s going to go. The mantras don’t come to me in this moment but my body fills with something utterly unfettered.
“Freddie, stay with us Freddie! He hit his head, oh my god!” His friends continue to shout. “He’s homeless! He had a seizure!”
I keep my left hand on his wrist and use my right hand to check his back pockets for a wallet. An outside thought enters my mind in slow motion. The reason I’m doing this is because my father is diabetic and carries a card. Seizures can happen from concussions, from epilepsy, from blood-sugar imbalances, from…. I hear the sirens again, this time closer. I look up to check the traffic for safety again and see a woman rushing towards me. She throws a blanket at Parker, “Here, take this!” then turns to me. “Do you want a pair of gloves?” I nod yes and she tosses them at me then backs away.
My hands are shaking slightly and I can feel Parker watching me struggle to slip my hands into the latex gloves. I get them on without ripping them and pull the cuffs of my coat down to cover my wrists. Then I flip my scarf backwards so the dangling ends don’t get in the blood. I stand up to approach the bleeding at a better angle. Another thought: Well-aimed direct pressure. I remember this from my Wilderness First Responder Course, which certification I let expire last 18 months ago.
I cup my hands beneath the right side of his face and guess where the blood is coming from. Perhaps above the eyebrow? I’m unsure, but help is on the way. Let his body do what it needs to do, I keep thinking, watching the blood puddle to see if it’s growing too fast. Too fast, and I’ll have to really get in there and find the spot. Slow or not at all, and I don’t have to risk tweaking his neck. Freddie opens his eyes and his torso tightens into a knot, raising his head and arms temporarily off the ground. He is effectively curved into boat pose, something I’ve learned in yoga class. He gasps for air, a relief after the shallow breaths he had been taking for about…ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Freddie looks around, eyes moving and scanning the scene and although I am frightened, I try to catch his eyes in mine for reassurance. His movement suggests slight awareness but then his torso slackens and his head falls again. Parker is there to cushion it and I’ve got the blanket on the bleeding and before I know it, the fire department has arrived.
The woman from the SUV whose husband placed the first 9-1-1 call drives by and shouts from the window at me. “Tell them he was walking across the street. We saw him raise his hands high in the air and fall and hit his head. He had a seizure!”
I repeat this to the fire department rescue squad. Slowly, people start to back away. Parker and I get up and I keep my arms bent at the elbow, a safe distance from the blood on the gloves. We cross the street back to his car and I remove the gloves carefully and throw them in the trash. People everywhere are staring at the whole scene. A young girl comes up to us. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s breathing. He should be fine. He had a seizure,” I say what I know, or what I think I know. I try to be reassuring.
Parker and I get in the car and go shoe shopping. He finds a coat too, and decides to buy it.
Later, I drink a double soy cappuccino and try to do homework. I wash my hands before I eat my muffin.
On the way home Parker and I are talking about sexual expression and he tells me I’m scaring him. That it’s all too much, too fast. That there’s such a thing as pacing. “Don’t you see the story you’re building?” he presses. I blush next to his razor sharp vision.
“Yes, I see the story I’m building,” I say, but I am thinking about the story of Freddie, which I will never know and which most people will never know. I can guess at the ending though, and it has something to do with no one to pick him up from the hospital and no warm bed to lie in after his body unwinds itself. “I’m trying to go slow, Parker. But we can’t just see each other every other day and have it go slow. You can’t just be that way if you want it to go slow. Don’t you see how you refuse to associate with your own attraction? There’s a distance. You’re holding a cushion up.” I think about his hands under Freddie’s head.
“What actions? Be what way?”
Does he not understand the significance of slow dances? Of playing music together? Of daily visits to the work place? It must be me. I’m going to turn into one of those seriously disillusioned women. Maybe I already am one. I’ll wear my desperation on my sleeve and write trashy romance novels just to get my kicks. I’ll change my name. No one will ever know the real me. I’ll keep my too-big heart to myself. I’ll crumple it into a tight, seizuring ball and try to make all the love disappear.
Our conversation circles, deepens, heightens, and hurts for three hours. My muscles grow tight. My heart is pumping a familiar crimson red blood. I can feel it pounding through my ears. I can’t seem to sit still. Sometimes I let out deep, sad breaths.
Parker and I are trying to turn onto Merrimon Avenue out of the Shell gas station in downtown BigCity, NC. We had to stop and ask for direction to Ross, where Parker wants to buy shoes, although he doesn’t know where the store is and while his need to have my fashion advice is sweet, I find myself growing frustrated as the afternoon passes by and we have yet to settle down into our study time. My mind is tight and annoyed and he’s about to gun the engine when we both see a man lying face down in the middle of the road, body twitching like a hooked fish and an SUV headed straight for him.
The SUV screeches to a halt and traffic in all lanes swerves, stops, then stares. Parker is fumbling with his seatbelt and I leap out the passenger door and the words, Check the scene for safety, scroll across my adrenaline-doused mind.
The scene is relatively safe. Cars are stopped. Horns are honking. Some people are yelling, though I don’t know where from. I am the first responder and Parker is just two seconds behind. I put my hand on the man’s back.
“Freddie! FREDDIE!!!” A woman from behind me screams. I do not turn to look at her. My eyes are locked onto his torso, where I’ve placed my hand to check for breathing.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” another woman screams. I turn to see her leap from the SUV, blonde hair unfurling behind her in slow motion.
“Go into that gas station and call 9-1-1!” I point directly at her and shout.
“We’ve got them on the cell right now. What street are we on?” Her husband runs up behind her, phone in hand. More people have gathered on the sidewalk. Two? Three? Four? Five? People are at my back, shouting his name. Come on Freddie. Stay with us, stay with us man. Freddie, oh Freddie!
Parker has his hand under the side of Freddie’s head so when he lurches he doesn’t keep hitting it repeatedly on the pavement. “We’re on Merrimon!” he shouts to the man with the cell phone. The flesh of Freddie’s face hangs loosely from his skull bones and his eyes are locked straight ahead. His arms appear pegged to the middle of the road and his legs seem small and unmanly, jerking like a toddler’s who is trapped in a high chair. Let me go!
“He’s having a seizure, stick something down his throat so he doesn’t choke. Oh my god, don’t let him choke!” the blonde woman is screaming at me, backing away, clutching her husband, but none of them matter. I know her advice is a wive’s tale and dismiss her to I can regain focus. My left hand is already on Freddie’s wrist where I feel a pulse. My right hand registers deep, infrequent breaths felt through his back. I scan for blood, which there is a speck of near the top of his head, though I cannot see any open wounds.
“Freddy, I’m going to help you. Is that okay? We’re going to help you. Just keep breathing.” No response.
“He’s having a seizure, help him! That’s my friend Freddie. He’s homeless, he’s having a seizure.” The friend’s screaming is heightened and emotional and the only thing really tugging at my focus.
I turn to her and give her a task: “Check his ankles for an epilepsy or diabetic band!”
“Do you need help? I’m calling 9-1-1!” another driver shouts, this time from an onramp a block away. I see him, his face, his open and gasping expression. I register his existence but that is all. That is a person, in a car, wondering what the hell happened.
From the side, another man approaches, breathless. “What can I do?”
“Keep the traffic stopped!” I shout, sticking my head above the crowd to get a glimpse of the busy street. No one is moving and everything is clear and I feel my hands move up the length of Freddie’s torso to grip to back of his neck. I look at Parker and say. “I’ve got hands on stable but I don’t want to move him. I don’t know how he fell or if he was hit. I don’t know the point of impact. I don’t want to mess with his spine.” More messages scroll across my mind’s eye: Only move the victim if it’s a matter of life and death. Don’t reposition the spine unless you are certain of the method of injury, and furthermore… I am not certain. I still do not know if he was hit or if the bleeding is from a simple fall. I do not know if he bounced, if he fell more than his own height, if the bleeding is from hitting the pavement or from a sideswipe by a moving vehicle.
“We could try moving him, though,” Parker says, moving his hands to Freddie’s sides. We place our hands on his sides and push/pull a little bit but I don’t give it my best effort. Freddie’s body is a quaking brick wall and while his breathing is severely labored, he is breathing nonetheless, which is the important thing. I hear the blip-blip of the fire department somewhere in the distance and stick my head up to check the traffic again.
“He’s breathing, he’s not loosing too much blood. We’ve got to let his body do what it’s going to do,” I say to Parker. “He’s not wearing any medical bracelets but the paramedics will be here soon.” I turn to Freddie and speak calmly: “Freddie, just keep breathing, just keep breathing.” I am petting his back and holding his wrist when I notice the puddle of blood above his head. It has doubled in size to about the diameter of a paper plate. It is deep crimson and thick as syrup. Freddie’s eyes roll back into his head and his body stops moving. Drool has collected at the corners of his mouth and his nose is running, a thin yellow stream dangling into his agape mouth. I can register a pulse, but his gurgling breathing has stopped and for a moment I think to myself, This man is going to die. This is his last view of the world. He’s letting go, he’s fading back, he’s drifting away. He’s going to die right here in our hands. I breath out a feeling of calm, an offering, something for him to take with him if he’s going to go. The mantras don’t come to me in this moment but my body fills with something utterly unfettered.
“Freddie, stay with us Freddie! He hit his head, oh my god!” His friends continue to shout. “He’s homeless! He had a seizure!”
I keep my left hand on his wrist and use my right hand to check his back pockets for a wallet. An outside thought enters my mind in slow motion. The reason I’m doing this is because my father is diabetic and carries a card. Seizures can happen from concussions, from epilepsy, from blood-sugar imbalances, from…. I hear the sirens again, this time closer. I look up to check the traffic for safety again and see a woman rushing towards me. She throws a blanket at Parker, “Here, take this!” then turns to me. “Do you want a pair of gloves?” I nod yes and she tosses them at me then backs away.
My hands are shaking slightly and I can feel Parker watching me struggle to slip my hands into the latex gloves. I get them on without ripping them and pull the cuffs of my coat down to cover my wrists. Then I flip my scarf backwards so the dangling ends don’t get in the blood. I stand up to approach the bleeding at a better angle. Another thought: Well-aimed direct pressure. I remember this from my Wilderness First Responder Course, which certification I let expire last 18 months ago.
I cup my hands beneath the right side of his face and guess where the blood is coming from. Perhaps above the eyebrow? I’m unsure, but help is on the way. Let his body do what it needs to do, I keep thinking, watching the blood puddle to see if it’s growing too fast. Too fast, and I’ll have to really get in there and find the spot. Slow or not at all, and I don’t have to risk tweaking his neck. Freddie opens his eyes and his torso tightens into a knot, raising his head and arms temporarily off the ground. He is effectively curved into boat pose, something I’ve learned in yoga class. He gasps for air, a relief after the shallow breaths he had been taking for about…ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Freddie looks around, eyes moving and scanning the scene and although I am frightened, I try to catch his eyes in mine for reassurance. His movement suggests slight awareness but then his torso slackens and his head falls again. Parker is there to cushion it and I’ve got the blanket on the bleeding and before I know it, the fire department has arrived.
The woman from the SUV whose husband placed the first 9-1-1 call drives by and shouts from the window at me. “Tell them he was walking across the street. We saw him raise his hands high in the air and fall and hit his head. He had a seizure!”
I repeat this to the fire department rescue squad. Slowly, people start to back away. Parker and I get up and I keep my arms bent at the elbow, a safe distance from the blood on the gloves. We cross the street back to his car and I remove the gloves carefully and throw them in the trash. People everywhere are staring at the whole scene. A young girl comes up to us. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s breathing. He should be fine. He had a seizure,” I say what I know, or what I think I know. I try to be reassuring.
Parker and I get in the car and go shoe shopping. He finds a coat too, and decides to buy it.
Later, I drink a double soy cappuccino and try to do homework. I wash my hands before I eat my muffin.
On the way home Parker and I are talking about sexual expression and he tells me I’m scaring him. That it’s all too much, too fast. That there’s such a thing as pacing. “Don’t you see the story you’re building?” he presses. I blush next to his razor sharp vision.
“Yes, I see the story I’m building,” I say, but I am thinking about the story of Freddie, which I will never know and which most people will never know. I can guess at the ending though, and it has something to do with no one to pick him up from the hospital and no warm bed to lie in after his body unwinds itself. “I’m trying to go slow, Parker. But we can’t just see each other every other day and have it go slow. You can’t just be that way if you want it to go slow. Don’t you see how you refuse to associate with your own attraction? There’s a distance. You’re holding a cushion up.” I think about his hands under Freddie’s head.
“What actions? Be what way?”
Does he not understand the significance of slow dances? Of playing music together? Of daily visits to the work place? It must be me. I’m going to turn into one of those seriously disillusioned women. Maybe I already am one. I’ll wear my desperation on my sleeve and write trashy romance novels just to get my kicks. I’ll change my name. No one will ever know the real me. I’ll keep my too-big heart to myself. I’ll crumple it into a tight, seizuring ball and try to make all the love disappear.
Our conversation circles, deepens, heightens, and hurts for three hours. My muscles grow tight. My heart is pumping a familiar crimson red blood. I can feel it pounding through my ears. I can’t seem to sit still. Sometimes I let out deep, sad breaths.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Coaching, Pacing, Breathing
Pace yourself.
Omit needless worrying.
Have fun.
Don’t make unhealthy compromises.
This is what I repeat to myself daily as my time with Parker seems to deepen. We’re seeing each other every other day, which seems like a lot but has yet to feel like too much. He came to the singing performance Wednesday and we agreed to study together for the afternoon at my place. After going back to the yurt for his textbooks, he arrived late afternoon with a big pot of soup and an overnight bag. “I was going to cook the soup and then bring it, but then I thought I’d rather spend the time here. So everything’s chopped and the broth is made. It just needs to boil down. Is that okay?”
Is that okay? Um. Yes.
“Does my singing distract your studying?” he asked later, as we worked side by side at different desks. He was studying something about ATP’s, I think, and I was writing about my fifth grade soccer coach whose shorts were too short. Parker likes to sing spontaneously, making up melodies and nonsense sentences.
“No words,” I said, not looking up from the keyboard. “But humming is fine.”
Humming ensued.
The thing is this: Finally I felt my worry-brain turn off. Studying together was a good, healthy, normal activity. But still, I felt at times that I was playing the role. That I’m engaging in all of this with a goal-oriented perspective rather than a moment-to-moment appreciation of his presence.
Strong relationships take time, and all the ones I’ve had in the past have formed together – friendship and lover in one, at the same time, never just friendship first. This pacing thing is new ground for me, and the more restraint I feel myself exercise, the more anxious I get. My willingness to restrain – or try to be moment-to-moment – is a measure of how much I like him and how much I want a lasting partner. And then the worrying ensues.
Weekend plans include errands together tomorrow (or rather, his errands, my studying, then a team effort bargain shopping at a discount food store). Then we’ll go to the Halloween Party at the craft school. Who knows what Sunday will bring. All of this and the writing, oh the writing, awaits. I’ve got nine new pages done. Eleven more to go. Oh, and I’ve got to read another book. Hah!
Pace yourself.
Omit needless worrying.
Have fun.
Don’t make unhealthy compromises.
Omit needless worrying.
Have fun.
Don’t make unhealthy compromises.
This is what I repeat to myself daily as my time with Parker seems to deepen. We’re seeing each other every other day, which seems like a lot but has yet to feel like too much. He came to the singing performance Wednesday and we agreed to study together for the afternoon at my place. After going back to the yurt for his textbooks, he arrived late afternoon with a big pot of soup and an overnight bag. “I was going to cook the soup and then bring it, but then I thought I’d rather spend the time here. So everything’s chopped and the broth is made. It just needs to boil down. Is that okay?”
Is that okay? Um. Yes.
“Does my singing distract your studying?” he asked later, as we worked side by side at different desks. He was studying something about ATP’s, I think, and I was writing about my fifth grade soccer coach whose shorts were too short. Parker likes to sing spontaneously, making up melodies and nonsense sentences.
“No words,” I said, not looking up from the keyboard. “But humming is fine.”
Humming ensued.
The thing is this: Finally I felt my worry-brain turn off. Studying together was a good, healthy, normal activity. But still, I felt at times that I was playing the role. That I’m engaging in all of this with a goal-oriented perspective rather than a moment-to-moment appreciation of his presence.
Strong relationships take time, and all the ones I’ve had in the past have formed together – friendship and lover in one, at the same time, never just friendship first. This pacing thing is new ground for me, and the more restraint I feel myself exercise, the more anxious I get. My willingness to restrain – or try to be moment-to-moment – is a measure of how much I like him and how much I want a lasting partner. And then the worrying ensues.
Weekend plans include errands together tomorrow (or rather, his errands, my studying, then a team effort bargain shopping at a discount food store). Then we’ll go to the Halloween Party at the craft school. Who knows what Sunday will bring. All of this and the writing, oh the writing, awaits. I’ve got nine new pages done. Eleven more to go. Oh, and I’ve got to read another book. Hah!
Pace yourself.
Omit needless worrying.
Have fun.
Don’t make unhealthy compromises.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
In Need of Movement
When I do not get outside enough, all my thinking and writing turns inward. I write about people, thoughts, buildings. I spin circles in my mind’s eye in the shape of abstract concepts, forgetting the leaves, forgetting the cut peaks, forgetting the chilling river. For the time being, thirty hours of work per week plus grad school means no long walks and few short walks. It means I miss yoga class in order to carpool (which means staying after the coffeehouse closes). It means I’m asking my body to repeat physical activities (sitting for long hours at the computer, standing for long hours on the concrete coffeehouse floor). Furthermore, I’m not replenishing my body with physical diversity because time slips away, and sleep sinks in, and there are always words yet to be written.
People who know me well, know that this chips away at my mental, spiritual, and physical health.
I see the local chiropractor.
I check my posture obsessively.
I stretch when I can, though never enough.
But ultimately, I set goals:
Get through the remaining three weeks of Concentration at the craft school, and you’ll be self-employed from November 18th through mid-March. You can walk all you want then, and even make up for lost time with some longer hikes.
Keep submitting query letters and essays and you might save up enough money for a yoga retreat.
When you can’t walk outside because you’re too busy, open your mind and invite the outside in. Hold it there in your mind’s eye and study it like a flake of gold floating in water. Take inspiration in the small things and remember the limitless of your own imagination.
People who know me well, know that this chips away at my mental, spiritual, and physical health.
I see the local chiropractor.
I check my posture obsessively.
I stretch when I can, though never enough.
But ultimately, I set goals:
Get through the remaining three weeks of Concentration at the craft school, and you’ll be self-employed from November 18th through mid-March. You can walk all you want then, and even make up for lost time with some longer hikes.
Keep submitting query letters and essays and you might save up enough money for a yoga retreat.
When you can’t walk outside because you’re too busy, open your mind and invite the outside in. Hold it there in your mind’s eye and study it like a flake of gold floating in water. Take inspiration in the small things and remember the limitless of your own imagination.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Performance #1
Women’s Singing Night went live today for the first time, well, ever. Rather than our Wednesday night potluck and wine gathering, we met at noon in downtown SmallTown, NC at the Episcopal Church. We were invited to sing as a part of lunch hour series that encourages dialogue about creativity.
I arrived early and was greeted by the entire Montessori elementary school. The cheers and shrieks from the playground as they saw me pull up were about enough to make my heart melt. But I had to hold off any sentimentality and focus, trying to fend off my nervousness.
I haven’t “performed” in any formal “choral” situation since my one and only year in middle school choir. I only lasted a year, first of all, because I preferred brass instruments to vocal chords at the time. And second, because everyone teased that I was a lesbian because I always sat next to Stephanie Goldberg. Stephanie had near perfect pitch, and I didn’t. I needed her voice in my ear more than anything and was willing to take the ridicule to get through the class. But come registration time a year later, I wasn’t about to subject myself to that pain again.
History aside, the further down the playlist we got, the more relaxed I became. I was keenly aware that I could not have performed without the vote of confidence gained from all these previous months of informal practice. And if a surge of nervousness pumped through my veins, I could look up and see row after row of chubby-cheeked kindness emanating from the little hearts that came to hear the singing. There could have been no better gift than the gift of their presence.
Next Tuesday (Halloween!), we perform at the coffeehouse, then back to our regular in-house informal gatherings which I miss already. I remind myself that the purpose of our singing is to explore a different form of creativity and to share that form. Each woman in the group is an artist in her own write, working with letterpress, print, painting, photography, papermaking, drawing, words, and metals. The singing is our vocal yoga, if you will, and the performing – I’ve recently learned – is meant to inspire the stretching of thoughts and creative habits for those that have a willingness to listen.
I arrived early and was greeted by the entire Montessori elementary school. The cheers and shrieks from the playground as they saw me pull up were about enough to make my heart melt. But I had to hold off any sentimentality and focus, trying to fend off my nervousness.
I haven’t “performed” in any formal “choral” situation since my one and only year in middle school choir. I only lasted a year, first of all, because I preferred brass instruments to vocal chords at the time. And second, because everyone teased that I was a lesbian because I always sat next to Stephanie Goldberg. Stephanie had near perfect pitch, and I didn’t. I needed her voice in my ear more than anything and was willing to take the ridicule to get through the class. But come registration time a year later, I wasn’t about to subject myself to that pain again.
History aside, the further down the playlist we got, the more relaxed I became. I was keenly aware that I could not have performed without the vote of confidence gained from all these previous months of informal practice. And if a surge of nervousness pumped through my veins, I could look up and see row after row of chubby-cheeked kindness emanating from the little hearts that came to hear the singing. There could have been no better gift than the gift of their presence.
Next Tuesday (Halloween!), we perform at the coffeehouse, then back to our regular in-house informal gatherings which I miss already. I remind myself that the purpose of our singing is to explore a different form of creativity and to share that form. Each woman in the group is an artist in her own write, working with letterpress, print, painting, photography, papermaking, drawing, words, and metals. The singing is our vocal yoga, if you will, and the performing – I’ve recently learned – is meant to inspire the stretching of thoughts and creative habits for those that have a willingness to listen.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Roller Coaster, Of Course
Vic comes to the coffeehouse and says, “So, help me understand this. You’re having all these nice romantic experiences and you’re…worried about this?”
I give her a big hug and buy her a double latte.
Then I explain my over-thinking, how I’ve been trying to coach myself all day and have been getting better and better at it. I tell myself to chill out. To just take one day at a time. That it’s rare in relationships of all kinds to find two people at the same level of vulnerability and commitment in the same moment. That I don’t even know what any of this is, anyway. That what’s meant to be will be. That there’s no sense in all this worrying anyway and I can choose to put my mind to other things. Then I tell her I was hiding under the bed sheets but I’m better now. That I’m back on track with my MFA work and that I had a wham-pow-great conversation with my advisor this morning and I’m rearing to go.
Then Parker comes into the coffeehouse and I almost spill an entire pitcher of milk. That crisis averted, I forget a customer’s order, forget to introduce Vic to Parker, over-pour a gingerade, and sing out of nervousness. I seem to be the eternal elementary student, smitten and swooning, every ounce of my ability to focus gone down the tubes for long moments in time.
I give up and give in. Life’s too short to get so mentally entangled in each and every move that is made or not made. If I can just keep telling myself this, remembering my commitment to writing first and foremost, remembering how really what I was going for is a winter snuggle buddy with potential for long-term love, how not all love is cinema-quick-and-perfect, how it takes patience and work and vast oceans of uncertainty (in the form of minutes and days, hours and weeks, years and decades), and how I’m fine the way I am and somehow someone will be able to appreciate all my tenderness alongside all the rest that is me. Build it and they will come.
Hi. My name is Katey. Here I am.
I give her a big hug and buy her a double latte.
Then I explain my over-thinking, how I’ve been trying to coach myself all day and have been getting better and better at it. I tell myself to chill out. To just take one day at a time. That it’s rare in relationships of all kinds to find two people at the same level of vulnerability and commitment in the same moment. That I don’t even know what any of this is, anyway. That what’s meant to be will be. That there’s no sense in all this worrying anyway and I can choose to put my mind to other things. Then I tell her I was hiding under the bed sheets but I’m better now. That I’m back on track with my MFA work and that I had a wham-pow-great conversation with my advisor this morning and I’m rearing to go.
Then Parker comes into the coffeehouse and I almost spill an entire pitcher of milk. That crisis averted, I forget a customer’s order, forget to introduce Vic to Parker, over-pour a gingerade, and sing out of nervousness. I seem to be the eternal elementary student, smitten and swooning, every ounce of my ability to focus gone down the tubes for long moments in time.
I give up and give in. Life’s too short to get so mentally entangled in each and every move that is made or not made. If I can just keep telling myself this, remembering my commitment to writing first and foremost, remembering how really what I was going for is a winter snuggle buddy with potential for long-term love, how not all love is cinema-quick-and-perfect, how it takes patience and work and vast oceans of uncertainty (in the form of minutes and days, hours and weeks, years and decades), and how I’m fine the way I am and somehow someone will be able to appreciate all my tenderness alongside all the rest that is me. Build it and they will come.
Hi. My name is Katey. Here I am.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Meditation on Daily Living
Upon waking, I read Annie Dillard for an hour in bed. For the Time Being was published in 1999 and given to me as a gift not long after that. It takes me a long time to get to a book. And so it is, seven years later, with all the warmth of eight hours’ sleep swirling at my feet under the covers in the darkness of morning, that I decide Dillard is getting more and more obscure with each printed word.
She’s doing something grandiose; I can tell that much. But is it the fault of the writer or the reader that I cannot find the strength of mind to connect the dots? Or in the name of obscurity, perhaps it is the fault of timing. The sun is not up and my heart is heavy from gamblings with love; poor timing to read a book indeed. I decide, instead, to burrow under the covers with all the determination of a small mammal preparing for winter. This bed my earth, these quilts my soil, these hands my claws.
Down here it must be eighty degrees. One sheet, a thin wool blanket from Mexico, two quilts, and my zero degree synthetic down sleeping bag make up the layers of my cave. I have sealed off every point of light, pinching them out like candles with the tips of my fingers; a tuck of the covers here, a yank there. Darkness.
This is an experiment. Some people live like this, all the layers of their cocoons stuffing their real skin farther and farther away from the surface of life. I could become a submarine in my own life, conducting events from below sea level, adjusting the blankets around my coral-decaled body to afford the most protection. Sealed off.
I imagine it would be different trying to live like this, in my tight cave cocoon sunken far below the roughness of life. I can feel the air I’m breathing moving in and out of my lungs, the same molecules each time. There is the slightest sensation of pressure building in my chest. I want, almost, to fall asleep, but there is not enough air available to support full relaxation. It’s a twisting game of comfort and pressure, calming the mind and the surrendering of the body. And yet, and yet…And yet my mind is racing. West Virginia coal miners. Second-class citizens on the Titanic. The three children of Susan Smith drowning in their Volvo after she, the mother, lept from the car, released the e-brake, threw a brick on the accelerator, and watched them pummel over the side of a dock into the lake. She remembered to lock the doors and roll up the windows.
I come up for air. The sun has risen and natural light paints one white wall of the loft. There is sweat on my brow, behind my kneecaps, above my upper lip. I rest my chin on the pillow near the top of the bed, the cocoon falling away below my neck. The pillow smells distinctly like Parker; sweet with a hint of wood smoke. I do not ask for these small tortures; they find their way into my psyche. I recoil under the covers again, my cocoon-building almost immediate, yet still pretend. Within seconds I have submerged myself.
***
By mid-afternoon the dread and anxiety fade. I begin to have some distance between myself and see how dramatically I experience even the slightest twist of fate. The cocoon could never be my way of walking in the world. I feel things so deeply, so immediately; it is my way of being in the world. There is no such thing as blunt, no such deal as only half-way, no such thought that does not carry weight. I carry a seriousness that has cost me deeply but also carried me far in the directions that I want to go in life. Like this morning’s cave under the bed sheets, any hiding or burrowing I claim to do would be superficial. I simply couldn’t pull it off even if I tried. Heart and bone. That’s me.
So by nightfall I arrive home well past sunset and it is snowing, the winds picking up and the temperature dropping. An ocean of clouds has swollen over the top of the Black Mountains (I can see the clouds’ swooping silhouettes, undulating like the waves of the Bermuda Triangle at six thousand feet). The electricity has gone out and the neighbors have been gone for over a week. I build a fire first in my cabin, then in their house to keep the pipes from freezing. At this point, the fire in their house is more for peace of mind than necessity; a favor I’m doing to keep a promise and guard on their house while they’re away.
This is the real me. Task-oriented. Doing things where things need doing. Casting worry aside with confidence because it takes away from my efficiency and ultimately, my ability to focus and get down to the art of writing. By late evening I have calmed down entirely. The morning’s suffocation has almost fallen away completely. I could never live in the cocoon and no is asking me too. Pain is part of the game. But perspective is what matters most, and I choose to calm down. I choose to omit needless worrying. I choose to lighten up and let love fall where it may. I choose to stop forcing labels and start being present in the moment. I choose to count my lucky stars – of which there are many visible on this electricity-free new moon(ish) night. I choose a fire in the hearth, the reassurances of its warmth, the strength to start anew tomorrow living the only way I know how. One heartbeat at a time, mediated by wisdom and a passion for life’s lessons.
She’s doing something grandiose; I can tell that much. But is it the fault of the writer or the reader that I cannot find the strength of mind to connect the dots? Or in the name of obscurity, perhaps it is the fault of timing. The sun is not up and my heart is heavy from gamblings with love; poor timing to read a book indeed. I decide, instead, to burrow under the covers with all the determination of a small mammal preparing for winter. This bed my earth, these quilts my soil, these hands my claws.
Down here it must be eighty degrees. One sheet, a thin wool blanket from Mexico, two quilts, and my zero degree synthetic down sleeping bag make up the layers of my cave. I have sealed off every point of light, pinching them out like candles with the tips of my fingers; a tuck of the covers here, a yank there. Darkness.
This is an experiment. Some people live like this, all the layers of their cocoons stuffing their real skin farther and farther away from the surface of life. I could become a submarine in my own life, conducting events from below sea level, adjusting the blankets around my coral-decaled body to afford the most protection. Sealed off.
I imagine it would be different trying to live like this, in my tight cave cocoon sunken far below the roughness of life. I can feel the air I’m breathing moving in and out of my lungs, the same molecules each time. There is the slightest sensation of pressure building in my chest. I want, almost, to fall asleep, but there is not enough air available to support full relaxation. It’s a twisting game of comfort and pressure, calming the mind and the surrendering of the body. And yet, and yet…And yet my mind is racing. West Virginia coal miners. Second-class citizens on the Titanic. The three children of Susan Smith drowning in their Volvo after she, the mother, lept from the car, released the e-brake, threw a brick on the accelerator, and watched them pummel over the side of a dock into the lake. She remembered to lock the doors and roll up the windows.
I come up for air. The sun has risen and natural light paints one white wall of the loft. There is sweat on my brow, behind my kneecaps, above my upper lip. I rest my chin on the pillow near the top of the bed, the cocoon falling away below my neck. The pillow smells distinctly like Parker; sweet with a hint of wood smoke. I do not ask for these small tortures; they find their way into my psyche. I recoil under the covers again, my cocoon-building almost immediate, yet still pretend. Within seconds I have submerged myself.
***
By mid-afternoon the dread and anxiety fade. I begin to have some distance between myself and see how dramatically I experience even the slightest twist of fate. The cocoon could never be my way of walking in the world. I feel things so deeply, so immediately; it is my way of being in the world. There is no such thing as blunt, no such deal as only half-way, no such thought that does not carry weight. I carry a seriousness that has cost me deeply but also carried me far in the directions that I want to go in life. Like this morning’s cave under the bed sheets, any hiding or burrowing I claim to do would be superficial. I simply couldn’t pull it off even if I tried. Heart and bone. That’s me.
So by nightfall I arrive home well past sunset and it is snowing, the winds picking up and the temperature dropping. An ocean of clouds has swollen over the top of the Black Mountains (I can see the clouds’ swooping silhouettes, undulating like the waves of the Bermuda Triangle at six thousand feet). The electricity has gone out and the neighbors have been gone for over a week. I build a fire first in my cabin, then in their house to keep the pipes from freezing. At this point, the fire in their house is more for peace of mind than necessity; a favor I’m doing to keep a promise and guard on their house while they’re away.
This is the real me. Task-oriented. Doing things where things need doing. Casting worry aside with confidence because it takes away from my efficiency and ultimately, my ability to focus and get down to the art of writing. By late evening I have calmed down entirely. The morning’s suffocation has almost fallen away completely. I could never live in the cocoon and no is asking me too. Pain is part of the game. But perspective is what matters most, and I choose to calm down. I choose to omit needless worrying. I choose to lighten up and let love fall where it may. I choose to stop forcing labels and start being present in the moment. I choose to count my lucky stars – of which there are many visible on this electricity-free new moon(ish) night. I choose a fire in the hearth, the reassurances of its warmth, the strength to start anew tomorrow living the only way I know how. One heartbeat at a time, mediated by wisdom and a passion for life’s lessons.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
In Flux
So it’s another marathon weekend with Parker, with Friday stretching into Saturday afternoon whereupon I found myself on the top of Roan Mountain taking a nap on the grassy balds. We lay across the North Carolina/Tennessee state line (also the Appalachian Trail) and cooked in the sun for an unmeasured length of time and I felt more relaxed than I have in weeks. Driving down the mountain, we ate goat cheese and crackers and sang overloud to Soundgarden and Rusted Root, wind screaming through the open car windows, fall colors flying by us like kites. And I felt like I could fall in love; that it would be a lot of work but that it could actually happen.
Which of course means that Sunday morning, when I heard a mysterious knock at my cabin door and shouted from the sleeping loft, “Come in!” I was entirely pleased to see Parker – again. I was still half-asleep when he shed his shoes at the top of the stairs and flung himself into my bed. Finally, with his bright green eyes next to mine, I remembered a passing conversation we had about “maybe, possibly, coming by to go to Quaker Friends Meeting with you on Sunday.”
Oh yeah.
I love going to Friends Meeting, though I rarely go because worship occurs at the same time I meditate with the sangha in BigCity, NC if I have time enough to make the drive. And if I don’t have time enough to make the drive, it’s because I need to do homework all day, in which case I don’t go to Friends Meeting either.
[And as an aside, it occurs to me that I have an irrational reaction to most Christian-based activities. This is something I see in myself and am not especially proud of, even though I have come a long way since my earlier, seething skepticism. In college I had friends who were part of a Christian group called Intervarsity, and they helped me get over some of this – just by their way of being and through their openness to discussion. Here in the mountains, the Quakers and I have lived and worked with so closely for four years now help me in similar ways. And Friends Meeting for worship is in silence, a form that I can relate to and cherish and therefore feel welcomed by. For what it’s worth, I believe most spiritual practices boil down to the same truth.]
The point is this: Parker is complex and hilarious and already I can tell he is tortured, to a certain degree, by his own brilliance (though he would never put it that way). It takes work just for us to communicate directly with each other – but for some reason it’s work we’re both willing to do. Hours upon hours of conversation have already ensued. It’s the kind of relationship where you learn more about yourself through the other person than you were ever anticipating – though I realize how premature that statement sounds this early in game. But relationship; even he used that word today.
And most importantly, I have been trying to approach this with a different presence of mind. I’ve learned my lessons and I’m done with the casual and I’m sick of games and on and on and on. But after Friends Meeting, we’re back at the house giving each other moxa treatments (Chinese medicine) and planning to go on an afternoon walk, when something shifts.
I can suddenly see myself in this bubble of an experience and I’m already putting so much on the line. My vulnerabilities seem to pour from me; it is the most meaningful way in which I can engage in the world. On the other hand, Parker uses humor and intellectualism to get from one moment to the next. He only occasionally reveals vulnerabilities but mostly he is just in the present moment, not reeling and spinning and dealing with all the discursive, habitual stuff I feel I’m trying to wade out of and before I know it, we’re having a “state of the union type conversation” (to quote John Cusak in High Fidelity).
I’m open to the possibility of finding the one, the right person, someone for all time. That’s barely on Parker’s radar, he says. (I try not to shrink away from the whole world when he says this, though I can feel something inside of me crumple.) When I am physically intimate, I am expressing myself very clearly and directly, and I use this method, well, frequently. Intimacy is a mixed bag for Parker, he says, at times it’s exciting and right on and other times it’s wholly confusing and even unwanted. Furthermore, it interferes with his spiritual practices. (Here we go…The world knows I’d never make it with a celibate man.)
We’re thick into the conversation now and Parker can feel me reaching, wanting; there’s no way around it – I am open to the possibility of love and I tend to wear that possibility on my sleeve. This feels like the crucial moment – the one where I’m honest and vulnerable because that’s the only way I know how to be, and the one where he will walk away, feeling overwhelmed by all that is me, feeling unsure about who that girl was that he’s spent so much time with already, anyway.
But it doesn’t quite end like that – somehow, and I’m not sure how yet, but we out somewhere on the other end of the conversation and there is some tenderness it’s all out there on the table. He owns nothing of what has happened so far except to say that it’s all an experiment. He’s got an anybody’s-guess-is-as-good-as-mine sorta perspective. When he leaves me with a kiss and hug then whoosh, out the door, I cannot tell if we’re saying the same thing in very different ways – or if we’ve just confessed that we’re in wholly different places and we’re misleading each other and well, it all needs to hold up for a while.
What made me this way? I refuse to harden my heart, but it seems as though that might be closing all the doors around me. I cannot be other than I am and the thread of hope inside me that tells me I’m not the only person this way is growing more and more thin. I want to believe that yes, other people are die-hard romantics, the sort of give-it-all-ya-got type of lovers, the never-coulda-lied-even-if-I-wanted-to types. That somewhere out there, maybe even in these mountains, there’s a match. Someone not afraid to love.
Which of course means that Sunday morning, when I heard a mysterious knock at my cabin door and shouted from the sleeping loft, “Come in!” I was entirely pleased to see Parker – again. I was still half-asleep when he shed his shoes at the top of the stairs and flung himself into my bed. Finally, with his bright green eyes next to mine, I remembered a passing conversation we had about “maybe, possibly, coming by to go to Quaker Friends Meeting with you on Sunday.”
Oh yeah.
I love going to Friends Meeting, though I rarely go because worship occurs at the same time I meditate with the sangha in BigCity, NC if I have time enough to make the drive. And if I don’t have time enough to make the drive, it’s because I need to do homework all day, in which case I don’t go to Friends Meeting either.
[And as an aside, it occurs to me that I have an irrational reaction to most Christian-based activities. This is something I see in myself and am not especially proud of, even though I have come a long way since my earlier, seething skepticism. In college I had friends who were part of a Christian group called Intervarsity, and they helped me get over some of this – just by their way of being and through their openness to discussion. Here in the mountains, the Quakers and I have lived and worked with so closely for four years now help me in similar ways. And Friends Meeting for worship is in silence, a form that I can relate to and cherish and therefore feel welcomed by. For what it’s worth, I believe most spiritual practices boil down to the same truth.]
The point is this: Parker is complex and hilarious and already I can tell he is tortured, to a certain degree, by his own brilliance (though he would never put it that way). It takes work just for us to communicate directly with each other – but for some reason it’s work we’re both willing to do. Hours upon hours of conversation have already ensued. It’s the kind of relationship where you learn more about yourself through the other person than you were ever anticipating – though I realize how premature that statement sounds this early in game. But relationship; even he used that word today.
And most importantly, I have been trying to approach this with a different presence of mind. I’ve learned my lessons and I’m done with the casual and I’m sick of games and on and on and on. But after Friends Meeting, we’re back at the house giving each other moxa treatments (Chinese medicine) and planning to go on an afternoon walk, when something shifts.
I can suddenly see myself in this bubble of an experience and I’m already putting so much on the line. My vulnerabilities seem to pour from me; it is the most meaningful way in which I can engage in the world. On the other hand, Parker uses humor and intellectualism to get from one moment to the next. He only occasionally reveals vulnerabilities but mostly he is just in the present moment, not reeling and spinning and dealing with all the discursive, habitual stuff I feel I’m trying to wade out of and before I know it, we’re having a “state of the union type conversation” (to quote John Cusak in High Fidelity).
I’m open to the possibility of finding the one, the right person, someone for all time. That’s barely on Parker’s radar, he says. (I try not to shrink away from the whole world when he says this, though I can feel something inside of me crumple.) When I am physically intimate, I am expressing myself very clearly and directly, and I use this method, well, frequently. Intimacy is a mixed bag for Parker, he says, at times it’s exciting and right on and other times it’s wholly confusing and even unwanted. Furthermore, it interferes with his spiritual practices. (Here we go…The world knows I’d never make it with a celibate man.)
We’re thick into the conversation now and Parker can feel me reaching, wanting; there’s no way around it – I am open to the possibility of love and I tend to wear that possibility on my sleeve. This feels like the crucial moment – the one where I’m honest and vulnerable because that’s the only way I know how to be, and the one where he will walk away, feeling overwhelmed by all that is me, feeling unsure about who that girl was that he’s spent so much time with already, anyway.
But it doesn’t quite end like that – somehow, and I’m not sure how yet, but we out somewhere on the other end of the conversation and there is some tenderness it’s all out there on the table. He owns nothing of what has happened so far except to say that it’s all an experiment. He’s got an anybody’s-guess-is-as-good-as-mine sorta perspective. When he leaves me with a kiss and hug then whoosh, out the door, I cannot tell if we’re saying the same thing in very different ways – or if we’ve just confessed that we’re in wholly different places and we’re misleading each other and well, it all needs to hold up for a while.
What made me this way? I refuse to harden my heart, but it seems as though that might be closing all the doors around me. I cannot be other than I am and the thread of hope inside me that tells me I’m not the only person this way is growing more and more thin. I want to believe that yes, other people are die-hard romantics, the sort of give-it-all-ya-got type of lovers, the never-coulda-lied-even-if-I-wanted-to types. That somewhere out there, maybe even in these mountains, there’s a match. Someone not afraid to love.
Friday, October 20, 2006
The Many Peaks of Life
Peak leaf season is the most dangerous time of year for me to drive on the road. Forget snow – I either don’t drive at all or the freeze isn’t bad enough. But give me burnt orange hillsides, golden yellow oak branches, scarlet red maples flapping their buoyant leaf-hands towards the sky, and you can bet I’ll be all over the double yellow line.
Today might just be the true peak, that day we lust after all fall and then the next morning always feels a little bit like the day after Christmas. Nature takes her inevitable turn towards winter, which I love, though the browning of leaves away from their fluorescent brilliance does wear me down a little, too.
The wind plays a huge factor in this symbolic day, as well. We had moderate winds once last week, knocking pastures full of leaves off prematurely (if you will). Today has been clear, finally, but blustery as well. I had a moment walking into the wind today across the campus of the craft school that was utterly picturesque: Orange rain fluttering around my face and down to the ground, where already crisp layers of yellow and red, lime green, and brown lay in wait. It felt like walking underneath a rainbow.
And so it is, that I wear a spark of color in my eyes all day long. Not just because fall is truly falling. Not just because the sun is finally out again. Not just because I caught up with my homework and read over 100 pages before noon, today. But also because Parker pops into the coffeehouse for the second time this week, his cheeks dotted with pink from the cold, an ivory and sage green crocheted hat atop his head. His smile is wild yet gentle, and very playful. Guthrie and Quinn and Noelle are having a party tonight and Parker and I will be in full attendance.
It’s amazing, this capacity we have in ourselves for trust. The leaves rain down and yet, no one questions that they will bud again, that after fall comes winter, then spring and summer and yes again, our sweet fall. It’s a cycle but no single year is the same. I’m hoping that’s how I can approach this new interest. It’s part of what’s been laid out for me, part of what I’m creating for myself as I live in this world. But my time with Parker does not have to be just like other dates, other love interests, other men. This feels intrinsically different. Maybe I’ve finally exhausted some of my old games. I put forth so much for the people I meet in my life. Maybe it gives the impression that I’m impossible to damage, a thought which falseness I know all too well. I take a breath and hope for patience. Breathe again and hope for wisdom. Breathe my deepest breath yet and exhale into that wide, open space of trust.
Today might just be the true peak, that day we lust after all fall and then the next morning always feels a little bit like the day after Christmas. Nature takes her inevitable turn towards winter, which I love, though the browning of leaves away from their fluorescent brilliance does wear me down a little, too.
The wind plays a huge factor in this symbolic day, as well. We had moderate winds once last week, knocking pastures full of leaves off prematurely (if you will). Today has been clear, finally, but blustery as well. I had a moment walking into the wind today across the campus of the craft school that was utterly picturesque: Orange rain fluttering around my face and down to the ground, where already crisp layers of yellow and red, lime green, and brown lay in wait. It felt like walking underneath a rainbow.
And so it is, that I wear a spark of color in my eyes all day long. Not just because fall is truly falling. Not just because the sun is finally out again. Not just because I caught up with my homework and read over 100 pages before noon, today. But also because Parker pops into the coffeehouse for the second time this week, his cheeks dotted with pink from the cold, an ivory and sage green crocheted hat atop his head. His smile is wild yet gentle, and very playful. Guthrie and Quinn and Noelle are having a party tonight and Parker and I will be in full attendance.
It’s amazing, this capacity we have in ourselves for trust. The leaves rain down and yet, no one questions that they will bud again, that after fall comes winter, then spring and summer and yes again, our sweet fall. It’s a cycle but no single year is the same. I’m hoping that’s how I can approach this new interest. It’s part of what’s been laid out for me, part of what I’m creating for myself as I live in this world. But my time with Parker does not have to be just like other dates, other love interests, other men. This feels intrinsically different. Maybe I’ve finally exhausted some of my old games. I put forth so much for the people I meet in my life. Maybe it gives the impression that I’m impossible to damage, a thought which falseness I know all too well. I take a breath and hope for patience. Breathe again and hope for wisdom. Breathe my deepest breath yet and exhale into that wide, open space of trust.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Bartender + Barista + Bartendista
My customers love me and I love them. Dora bursts through the doors:
“I need you!” Her voice is elated yet grasping as she runs behind the counter to give me a hug.
And as if on cue, I know precisely what all of this translates to: A double-tall-soy-latte-to-go-please, and with her cup in hand on her way out the door she smiles back at me and sends me that sweet Southern call (with a hint of badass in it): “See ya later, darlin’.” Whoosh she is gone, back into the magic of the craft school.
There’s a more passive style, too, like Guthrie. He likes it when I try and read his mind. Earlier this afternoon he came in, feet scuffing the floor, left hand twisting his goatee out of habit.
“Hmm. Katey, I don’t know. Err, ehh. Uuummmm”
It sounds sometimes as if he is in pain. Pre-caffeine, he really hates having to make decisions. “What are you doing this afternoon?” I inquire.
“Going to work for Thor.”
“Hot glass?”
He nods, yes. This means I want to make him something to keep him alert in the studio but we don’t want his hands to shake.
“And how are you feeling, temperature-wise?” I ask further.
“Hmm, you know. Either way. It’s warming up out there though, eh?”
I glance over his head out the window to the mountain-top view. Indeed, a few clouds have parted. “Ok, got it. How about the summer special I made up for you in July?”
“A little cold for that, right? Though…” He puts his hands in his pockets, wades over to the door, and peers out the window from beneath his shaggy black locks. “Ahhh, yes. Ahem. Hmmm.”
“Guthrie, what time do you start with Thor?”
“Huh? What, yeah, oh.” He looks at the clock on the wall. “About now. Well, not technically now. In like, oh, six minutes.”
“Uh-huh.” I tap the counter, awaiting the cue.
“Yes, the summer special. Do it, perfect!”
And with that: A double iced latte with the shots run through twice, light on the ice so Guthrie can sip off the water that settles the top, then let him hand me back the cup so I can top if off with a bit more milk, easing up the ratio to an ungodly perfection.
“Oh god,” he jolts awake when the cold hits his tongue. “Why is it so good?”
“I need you!” Her voice is elated yet grasping as she runs behind the counter to give me a hug.
And as if on cue, I know precisely what all of this translates to: A double-tall-soy-latte-to-go-please, and with her cup in hand on her way out the door she smiles back at me and sends me that sweet Southern call (with a hint of badass in it): “See ya later, darlin’.” Whoosh she is gone, back into the magic of the craft school.
There’s a more passive style, too, like Guthrie. He likes it when I try and read his mind. Earlier this afternoon he came in, feet scuffing the floor, left hand twisting his goatee out of habit.
“Hmm. Katey, I don’t know. Err, ehh. Uuummmm”
It sounds sometimes as if he is in pain. Pre-caffeine, he really hates having to make decisions. “What are you doing this afternoon?” I inquire.
“Going to work for Thor.”
“Hot glass?”
He nods, yes. This means I want to make him something to keep him alert in the studio but we don’t want his hands to shake.
“And how are you feeling, temperature-wise?” I ask further.
“Hmm, you know. Either way. It’s warming up out there though, eh?”
I glance over his head out the window to the mountain-top view. Indeed, a few clouds have parted. “Ok, got it. How about the summer special I made up for you in July?”
“A little cold for that, right? Though…” He puts his hands in his pockets, wades over to the door, and peers out the window from beneath his shaggy black locks. “Ahhh, yes. Ahem. Hmmm.”
“Guthrie, what time do you start with Thor?”
“Huh? What, yeah, oh.” He looks at the clock on the wall. “About now. Well, not technically now. In like, oh, six minutes.”
“Uh-huh.” I tap the counter, awaiting the cue.
“Yes, the summer special. Do it, perfect!”
And with that: A double iced latte with the shots run through twice, light on the ice so Guthrie can sip off the water that settles the top, then let him hand me back the cup so I can top if off with a bit more milk, easing up the ratio to an ungodly perfection.
“Oh god,” he jolts awake when the cold hits his tongue. “Why is it so good?”
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Immune Boost
Health comes first.
The plague of stuffy noses and fatigue has hit the craft school.
Must rest now, for the sake of all future sentences to come.
Will not get sick.
Will, in fact, endure.
The plague of stuffy noses and fatigue has hit the craft school.
Must rest now, for the sake of all future sentences to come.
Will not get sick.
Will, in fact, endure.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Gratitude
The phone rings at 6:30am after I have had only five hours’ sleep. The Amos Lee concert still rings in my ears and at first I am confused, groping for the phone across the hardwood floor of the loft.
It’s the manager of the coffeehouse. She’s sick as a dog, can’t work, needs me to pull a double, “will be forever indebted.” I oblige. We are a staff of two, with one extra person who works Saturdays only and another person who is in training for times like this, but isn’t yet ready for a full shift alone at the shop. And so it is.
I decide it will be a joyful day. The clouds are wrapped relentlessly from edge to edge of the horizon and my clothes hang heavy and dripping on the clothesline. In the predawn light the world looks bleary, yet familiar. Oregon is still in my veins and I often take comfort in the rain, each drop resounding down to the earth with an echo of my old home.
I don’t know what I did to deserve such simple pleasures. Don’t know who or how or if I even asked for this life as it is given to me each day. But when I can pull the strength of heart and spirit up out of bed on just five hours’ sleep to a rainy day, when I can push through a double shift and still love nearly every minute of my job, when I can come home and have a glass of wine and push a little bit more to write these words, my faith in the ways of the world thickens with gratefulness.
We move in circles, painting our lives concentrically to the tune of our own hearts. My life in this cabin, this writing life, the friends that surround me, the love that chances my way, all of it coming to fruition in this circle of the present, is humbling enough to make me wish there was a God, so that I had someone to thank. Even when I feel this way, and want to pray if praying was what I did, I am not drawn to the heavens or to my knees. My gratefulness comes in other ways. In the ease of my walk, in an unerring and authentic smile throughout the course of the day, in the swelling I feel around my heart as it opens, unafraid to love and be loved, opening its doors to some kind of heaven, some kind of light, some kind of everlasting hold on all things unsaid. It’s that part of me, right in there, cavernous yet open, that is actually not me at all. It’s something else, something surrendered, something woven out of the silk threads of our common experience. Something to be thankful for.
It’s the manager of the coffeehouse. She’s sick as a dog, can’t work, needs me to pull a double, “will be forever indebted.” I oblige. We are a staff of two, with one extra person who works Saturdays only and another person who is in training for times like this, but isn’t yet ready for a full shift alone at the shop. And so it is.
I decide it will be a joyful day. The clouds are wrapped relentlessly from edge to edge of the horizon and my clothes hang heavy and dripping on the clothesline. In the predawn light the world looks bleary, yet familiar. Oregon is still in my veins and I often take comfort in the rain, each drop resounding down to the earth with an echo of my old home.
I don’t know what I did to deserve such simple pleasures. Don’t know who or how or if I even asked for this life as it is given to me each day. But when I can pull the strength of heart and spirit up out of bed on just five hours’ sleep to a rainy day, when I can push through a double shift and still love nearly every minute of my job, when I can come home and have a glass of wine and push a little bit more to write these words, my faith in the ways of the world thickens with gratefulness.
We move in circles, painting our lives concentrically to the tune of our own hearts. My life in this cabin, this writing life, the friends that surround me, the love that chances my way, all of it coming to fruition in this circle of the present, is humbling enough to make me wish there was a God, so that I had someone to thank. Even when I feel this way, and want to pray if praying was what I did, I am not drawn to the heavens or to my knees. My gratefulness comes in other ways. In the ease of my walk, in an unerring and authentic smile throughout the course of the day, in the swelling I feel around my heart as it opens, unafraid to love and be loved, opening its doors to some kind of heaven, some kind of light, some kind of everlasting hold on all things unsaid. It’s that part of me, right in there, cavernous yet open, that is actually not me at all. It’s something else, something surrendered, something woven out of the silk threads of our common experience. Something to be thankful for.
Amos Lee Live
Sarah and I drive to BigCity, NC to see Amos Lee at a small venue downtown. There are about 150 people there for the show on a Monday night and Sarah and I look at each other with shock and excitement as we realize, almost simultaneously, that we don’t know anyone else there.
“We’re in a room..” Sarah says, leaning in to shout over the cacophony of the crowd.
“Uh-huh…”
“And there are happy urban people here…”
“Uh-huh…”
“And none of them know our lives!”
“Yes!” I say, taking it all in. And really, for all that a small mountain community has to offer, I can say that for once it is nice to be away and anonymous. We have broken out of the fishbowl and are no longer so easy to spot.
But of course the highlight of the evening is Amos Lee himself. I watch him sing and play, soulsy-folk-blues voice slipping out of him like water, his seamless lyrics filling the audience’s parched mouths, those brown, gumball eyes hidden behind closed lids. It occurs to me that he is praying at the microphone, creating something new and offering it up right before our eyes. I am reminded again of how important it is for artists to seek out other artists, how we need to fill ourselves with another person’s creativity every once in a while to grant our own spinning souls a reprieve.
I watch the crowd, too, and am most appreciative of the twenty-something male in a hipster train conductor-like hat that has come to the show alone. He closes his eyes during the slow songs and mouths the words. He drinks water and dances humbly with himself. By the time the encore rolls around, he moves in full head swings, body quaking with Amos’ musical mélange. I contrast this with the exceedingly drunk pair of couples in front of Sarah and I. They are in their forties and yell loudly and dance as if attempting to procreate through denim. The men try to high-five each other and miss and whenever they leave their girlfriends to go get more beer, the women look around like puppies waiting for their owners return. It occurs to me that they are not capable, at least on this occasions, of having an independent experience for themselves.
So all this is to say that I take note of the teachings around me. I take note of Amos closing his eyes, fingers poised for a musician’s prayer across the strings of an opal-inlaid guitar. I give in to the lull of his creativity, his artwork, his offering to the world. It is nice to dive into someone else’s work like this. And I take note of the young man, how comfortable he was with himself, how fully engrossed he became in the performance, how perfect attuned he was to the present moment. And I take note of the drunk women, the obnoxious men, and I remember that I never want to be that dependent. Remember that there must be a balance in life; that for all my wants and waitings and broken hearts that ultimately, happiness cannot be planted in anything external. The necessary nutrients lie within our own souls, the sunlight of our own unique spirits shines to make that happiness grow.
“We’re in a room..” Sarah says, leaning in to shout over the cacophony of the crowd.
“Uh-huh…”
“And there are happy urban people here…”
“Uh-huh…”
“And none of them know our lives!”
“Yes!” I say, taking it all in. And really, for all that a small mountain community has to offer, I can say that for once it is nice to be away and anonymous. We have broken out of the fishbowl and are no longer so easy to spot.
But of course the highlight of the evening is Amos Lee himself. I watch him sing and play, soulsy-folk-blues voice slipping out of him like water, his seamless lyrics filling the audience’s parched mouths, those brown, gumball eyes hidden behind closed lids. It occurs to me that he is praying at the microphone, creating something new and offering it up right before our eyes. I am reminded again of how important it is for artists to seek out other artists, how we need to fill ourselves with another person’s creativity every once in a while to grant our own spinning souls a reprieve.
I watch the crowd, too, and am most appreciative of the twenty-something male in a hipster train conductor-like hat that has come to the show alone. He closes his eyes during the slow songs and mouths the words. He drinks water and dances humbly with himself. By the time the encore rolls around, he moves in full head swings, body quaking with Amos’ musical mélange. I contrast this with the exceedingly drunk pair of couples in front of Sarah and I. They are in their forties and yell loudly and dance as if attempting to procreate through denim. The men try to high-five each other and miss and whenever they leave their girlfriends to go get more beer, the women look around like puppies waiting for their owners return. It occurs to me that they are not capable, at least on this occasions, of having an independent experience for themselves.
So all this is to say that I take note of the teachings around me. I take note of Amos closing his eyes, fingers poised for a musician’s prayer across the strings of an opal-inlaid guitar. I give in to the lull of his creativity, his artwork, his offering to the world. It is nice to dive into someone else’s work like this. And I take note of the young man, how comfortable he was with himself, how fully engrossed he became in the performance, how perfect attuned he was to the present moment. And I take note of the drunk women, the obnoxious men, and I remember that I never want to be that dependent. Remember that there must be a balance in life; that for all my wants and waitings and broken hearts that ultimately, happiness cannot be planted in anything external. The necessary nutrients lie within our own souls, the sunlight of our own unique spirits shines to make that happiness grow.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Sorry It Took So Long
So everything goes well. In fact, it is one of the best dates I’ve ever been on, and it lasts until the next day and still now, Sunday, I am watching it all replay in my mind’s eye.
Maybe it was slow dancing hip to hip to Stan Getz up and down the aisles of the coffeehouse (long after I closed shop for the day, of course). How he kissed my forehead mid-stride, then offered those green eyes again.
Or maybe it was how my muscles were sore the next day from laughing so much. How later, I looked in the mirror and my lips seemed almost split from all that smiling.
It could have been how charming his spontaneous singing was as he made up verses and melodies for no apparent occasion. How in 36 hours I said more than once, “What song is that?” and it wasn’t any song – just his song, and song enough indeed.
Or maybe it was Parker’s constant sense of humor in a large crowd. Example from the Core Show:
“And what do you do?” [random co-worker talking to Parker]
“I’m a ninja.” [co-worker cracks up, conversation ensues, Parker leads the way]
Or perhaps it was his absolute bravery and comfort level with himself. Example from the post-party party:
“I tried something new the other week,” Parker says to the executive director of the Craft School, not knowing that’s whom he is speaking to.
“What’s that?” she says, noticing Parker’s hand in mine, then noticing me, smiling, then returning her attention to Parker.
“Tibetan cave chanting,” [Insert audio recording of throbbing, deep chanting, which Parker demonstrates immediately in a crowd of 300 people. So that within minutes, the executive directors is taking throat tips from Parker, and the two of them tip their chins in the air and expel their gutteral calls. Meanwhile, Wesley appears at my side and says, between laughs, “Does your date know he’s teaching the executive director of Craft School to cave chant?” At which point the director herself interrupts the chanting for a proper introduction, and then the two of the continue in their call.]
It could also have been the fact that he lives in a solar powered yurt with a composting toilet and a wood stove and hot water heater, that over breakfast the next morning we read Rumi and Hafiz to each other, and how he said “Thank you. Yes, thank you. I enjoy your company.”
Or later, just before I left, he turned to me and said, “So the mood just shifted. What’s that hint of sadness?” And how I, bashful that I could be read so easily but humbled all the same, confessed that already I wanted to see him again, which meant that already I was worrying about whether or not I would, which triggered an entire additional series of worries about men who do kind things in the moment but don’t really mean them for the long term, to which I then scolded my own skepticism, to which he tried to understand that bundle of worry but to which mostly he just said, “Don’t worry.”
Maybe it was slow dancing hip to hip to Stan Getz up and down the aisles of the coffeehouse (long after I closed shop for the day, of course). How he kissed my forehead mid-stride, then offered those green eyes again.
Or maybe it was how my muscles were sore the next day from laughing so much. How later, I looked in the mirror and my lips seemed almost split from all that smiling.
It could have been how charming his spontaneous singing was as he made up verses and melodies for no apparent occasion. How in 36 hours I said more than once, “What song is that?” and it wasn’t any song – just his song, and song enough indeed.
Or maybe it was Parker’s constant sense of humor in a large crowd. Example from the Core Show:
“And what do you do?” [random co-worker talking to Parker]
“I’m a ninja.” [co-worker cracks up, conversation ensues, Parker leads the way]
Or perhaps it was his absolute bravery and comfort level with himself. Example from the post-party party:
“I tried something new the other week,” Parker says to the executive director of the Craft School, not knowing that’s whom he is speaking to.
“What’s that?” she says, noticing Parker’s hand in mine, then noticing me, smiling, then returning her attention to Parker.
“Tibetan cave chanting,” [Insert audio recording of throbbing, deep chanting, which Parker demonstrates immediately in a crowd of 300 people. So that within minutes, the executive directors is taking throat tips from Parker, and the two of them tip their chins in the air and expel their gutteral calls. Meanwhile, Wesley appears at my side and says, between laughs, “Does your date know he’s teaching the executive director of Craft School to cave chant?” At which point the director herself interrupts the chanting for a proper introduction, and then the two of the continue in their call.]
It could also have been the fact that he lives in a solar powered yurt with a composting toilet and a wood stove and hot water heater, that over breakfast the next morning we read Rumi and Hafiz to each other, and how he said “Thank you. Yes, thank you. I enjoy your company.”
Or later, just before I left, he turned to me and said, “So the mood just shifted. What’s that hint of sadness?” And how I, bashful that I could be read so easily but humbled all the same, confessed that already I wanted to see him again, which meant that already I was worrying about whether or not I would, which triggered an entire additional series of worries about men who do kind things in the moment but don’t really mean them for the long term, to which I then scolded my own skepticism, to which he tried to understand that bundle of worry but to which mostly he just said, “Don’t worry.”
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Stanley Kunitz
The day is eager and honest and undulating and always, lulled back to the stanzas of Stanley Kunitz’s famed poem, The King of the River. I am moved to tears by the recording I have of Kunitz reading this poem and today, through Women’s Singing Night and life in baristaville and hot flashes for tomorrow night and all the joys of waking up to the wind on an autumn morning, this poem resonates with me more than ever:
The King of the River
If the water were clear enough,
if the water were still,
but the water is not clear,
the water is not still,
you would see yourself,
slipped out of your skin,
nosing upstream,
slapping, thrashing,
tumbling
over the rocks
till you paint them
with your belly's blood:
Finned Ego,
yard of muscle that coils,
uncoils.
If the knowledge were given you,
but it is not given,
for the membrane is clouded
with self-deceptions
and the iridescent image swims
through a mirror that flows,
you would surprise yourself
in that other flesh
heavy with milt,
bruised, battering toward the dam
that lips the orgiastic pool.
Come. Bathe in these waters.
Increase and die.
If the power were granted you
to break out of your cells,
but the imagination fails
and the doors of the senses close
on the child within,
you would dare to be changed,
as you are changing now,
into the shape you dread
beyond the merely human.
A dry fire eats you.
Fat drips from your bones.
The flutes of your gills discolor.
You have become a ship for parasites.
The great clock of your life
is slowing down,
and the small clocks run wild.
For this you were born.
You have cried to the wind
and heard the wind's reply:
"I did not choose the way,
the way chose me."
You have tasted the fire on your tongue
till it is swollen black
with a prophetic joy:
"Burn with me!
The only music is time,
the only dance is love."
If the heart were pure enough,
but it is not pure,
you would admit
that nothing compels you
any more, nothing
at all abides,
but nostalgia and desire,
the two-way ladder
between heaven and hell.
On the threshold
of the last mystery,
at the brute absolute hour,
you have looked into the eyes
of your creature self,
which are glazed with madness,
and you say
he is not broken but endures,
limber and firm
in the state of his shining,
forever inheriting his salt kingdom,
from which he is banished
forever.
-- Stanley Kunitz
The King of the River
If the water were clear enough,
if the water were still,
but the water is not clear,
the water is not still,
you would see yourself,
slipped out of your skin,
nosing upstream,
slapping, thrashing,
tumbling
over the rocks
till you paint them
with your belly's blood:
Finned Ego,
yard of muscle that coils,
uncoils.
If the knowledge were given you,
but it is not given,
for the membrane is clouded
with self-deceptions
and the iridescent image swims
through a mirror that flows,
you would surprise yourself
in that other flesh
heavy with milt,
bruised, battering toward the dam
that lips the orgiastic pool.
Come. Bathe in these waters.
Increase and die.
If the power were granted you
to break out of your cells,
but the imagination fails
and the doors of the senses close
on the child within,
you would dare to be changed,
as you are changing now,
into the shape you dread
beyond the merely human.
A dry fire eats you.
Fat drips from your bones.
The flutes of your gills discolor.
You have become a ship for parasites.
The great clock of your life
is slowing down,
and the small clocks run wild.
For this you were born.
You have cried to the wind
and heard the wind's reply:
"I did not choose the way,
the way chose me."
You have tasted the fire on your tongue
till it is swollen black
with a prophetic joy:
"Burn with me!
The only music is time,
the only dance is love."
If the heart were pure enough,
but it is not pure,
you would admit
that nothing compels you
any more, nothing
at all abides,
but nostalgia and desire,
the two-way ladder
between heaven and hell.
On the threshold
of the last mystery,
at the brute absolute hour,
you have looked into the eyes
of your creature self,
which are glazed with madness,
and you say
he is not broken but endures,
limber and firm
in the state of his shining,
forever inheriting his salt kingdom,
from which he is banished
forever.
-- Stanley Kunitz
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Baristaville
Joel, who will henceforth be called Parker, comes into the coffeehouse and looks at me and says, “Surprise me.”
“Caffeine or no caffeine?” I ask, leaning into the counter. Oh those green eyes.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Do you like chocolate?”
“Yup.”
“Soy?”
“Good point, yes.” His smile is big and boyish, just on the edge of mischief.
“Ok, I got it,” I pause dramatically, extending our play. “Soy chocolate chai tea latte.”
Parker smiles, then says, “Yes,” by which I think he means yes, he approves of the drink, until he adds, “I’ll go to the Core Show with you.” Then he turns from the counter and walks back toward the tables to set up his laptop. “Soy. That’s good; you caught that. Very good.”
And it’s not that I see everything spiraling away in front of me and envision myself chasing after it. It’s not that I know even precisely what I want, at this point. But it is enough that he called this week and was interesting, polite, and charming. It is enough that we stay late talking again. And that he helps me spot mop the floor at closing time. And furthermore that he asks what I do when I want to waste time, which he then clarifies and says, “ I mean, what do you do when you’re spontaneous?” (to which I answer, “I sing.”) It is enough, I suppose, so that when all is said and done and I have to turn out the lights and lock the coffeehouse doors, we step outside and I say spontaneously, “God, what a beautiful view,” to which he leans in jokingly, as if to block it, and somehow my hand is around his waist. It is enough, just for a few seconds, to hold that, before I pull away, surprised at my own move. It is enough to think to myself, Well, a date for dinner and the Core Show this Friday night. How about that!
“Caffeine or no caffeine?” I ask, leaning into the counter. Oh those green eyes.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Do you like chocolate?”
“Yup.”
“Soy?”
“Good point, yes.” His smile is big and boyish, just on the edge of mischief.
“Ok, I got it,” I pause dramatically, extending our play. “Soy chocolate chai tea latte.”
Parker smiles, then says, “Yes,” by which I think he means yes, he approves of the drink, until he adds, “I’ll go to the Core Show with you.” Then he turns from the counter and walks back toward the tables to set up his laptop. “Soy. That’s good; you caught that. Very good.”
And it’s not that I see everything spiraling away in front of me and envision myself chasing after it. It’s not that I know even precisely what I want, at this point. But it is enough that he called this week and was interesting, polite, and charming. It is enough that we stay late talking again. And that he helps me spot mop the floor at closing time. And furthermore that he asks what I do when I want to waste time, which he then clarifies and says, “ I mean, what do you do when you’re spontaneous?” (to which I answer, “I sing.”) It is enough, I suppose, so that when all is said and done and I have to turn out the lights and lock the coffeehouse doors, we step outside and I say spontaneously, “God, what a beautiful view,” to which he leans in jokingly, as if to block it, and somehow my hand is around his waist. It is enough, just for a few seconds, to hold that, before I pull away, surprised at my own move. It is enough to think to myself, Well, a date for dinner and the Core Show this Friday night. How about that!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Naming the Light
I was out the door a little after 6am this morning, wool cap and hiking boots on, guided through the pre-dawn solely by intuition and the light of the waning moon. I walked a mile down the loop, to the main gravel road, and finally to the state highway. There, on cue, GP pulled up in his little read Honda and we zoomed down the highway in the direction of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were going to watch the sunrise from the fire tower on the summit of Green Knob.
A little over six miles south down the Parkway we pulled over on the right hand side of the road near a trail marker. By now the light we had hoped to see once we were on top of Green Knob was already reflecting off the hills around us.
“What color is it?” I asked GP.
“Right now? Now it’s a peachy glow. This is only the beginning.” He took one last gulp of his piping hot coffee and we headed up the trail. Within minutes I began to shed layers. First the wool cap, then the fleece vest. GP took off his borrowed flannel, then his turtlefur hat. I kept my wool shirt on, however. From the Parkway, it is only a fifteen minute hike up switchbacks to get to the fire tower, a little over 5,000 feet.
We hiked in silence through the peachy glow and upwards, through a rhododendron thicket. There, a bright ball of orange light was cast in almost spherical perfection across the trail. It was so distinct and singular in shape, an illusion presented itself convincing me that I could touch the light. I wanted to lift it up to my face, look at it on all sides, feels its lightness.
“What color is it now?” I asked GP, with honest curiosity. I tend to write about the sunlight a lot and I was soliciting GP’s opinion because he is a poet.
“Apricot brandy. It’s apricot brandy. This one won’t last long, though.”
We looked through the rhododendron towards the horizon. He was right; the bright orange sun was peering above the horizon already. We wouldn’t see the sunrise proper from the fire tower, but we could stop long enough on the trail to watch it break free of the horizon.
A few minutes further up the trail we hit a fern grove. I never understood that ferns changed with fall too, until I moved to the South. They can go from deep green to lime to yellow to brown. In groves, this change is particularly noticeable, as the light seems to undulate on all sides of the ferns, their lightweight fronts seemingly reflective of the sun’s rays.
“What color is it now?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the fern grove.
“Like white wine,” GP said.
“Chardonnay,” I added. We pressed on. In no time we were racing to the stairs of the fire tower, then at the top we found ourselves suddenly hushed by the view that surrounded us on all sides.
From one vantage point we could look north and trace the Black Mountains from Mitchell all the way down to Celo Knob, then the view was chopped abruptly by the high rising Horse Rock Ridge. To the northeast we could see into Tennessee and Roan Mountain. Further east were Grandfather Mountain, Table Rock, and Hawk’s Bill (Beak?). Outward from the base of Roan was a flat valley covered in dense fog. There, I knew the South Toe Joined the North Toe River, and not long after that the Cane River flowed into it as well, creating a jumble of waters and rapids and therefore, I surmised, explaining the dense fog and evaporation in that part of the valley. GP agreed.
Turning directly east, we stared right at the sun, by now hovering above the horizon, full and perfect yellow and wider than my imagination can stretch. All to the south and west of us lay the Blue Ridge Mountains, layers upon layers of fluffy greens, yellows, and bitter oranges.
“The reason I do this,” GP said nodding to the west at the wall of the Blacks, “is so that I can see the sunlight touch the occasional flecks of scarlet in the trees.” I look at Mitchell, the highest point east of the Rockies, and my eyes trace down the watershed that forms the source of the South Toe. Scarlet dots appear like stars, suddenly visible across a familiar terrain.
“What color is it now?” I asked GP as we descended the steps of the fire tower. He had to get to work and I had a morning of reading then a full shift at the coffeehouse ahead of me. Already, the day was tugging at the edges of my thoughts, making boxes out of ideas and ideas into commands and commands into actions and actions into productivity.
“It’s day. The color of day,” GP said.
A little over six miles south down the Parkway we pulled over on the right hand side of the road near a trail marker. By now the light we had hoped to see once we were on top of Green Knob was already reflecting off the hills around us.
“What color is it?” I asked GP.
“Right now? Now it’s a peachy glow. This is only the beginning.” He took one last gulp of his piping hot coffee and we headed up the trail. Within minutes I began to shed layers. First the wool cap, then the fleece vest. GP took off his borrowed flannel, then his turtlefur hat. I kept my wool shirt on, however. From the Parkway, it is only a fifteen minute hike up switchbacks to get to the fire tower, a little over 5,000 feet.
We hiked in silence through the peachy glow and upwards, through a rhododendron thicket. There, a bright ball of orange light was cast in almost spherical perfection across the trail. It was so distinct and singular in shape, an illusion presented itself convincing me that I could touch the light. I wanted to lift it up to my face, look at it on all sides, feels its lightness.
“What color is it now?” I asked GP, with honest curiosity. I tend to write about the sunlight a lot and I was soliciting GP’s opinion because he is a poet.
“Apricot brandy. It’s apricot brandy. This one won’t last long, though.”
We looked through the rhododendron towards the horizon. He was right; the bright orange sun was peering above the horizon already. We wouldn’t see the sunrise proper from the fire tower, but we could stop long enough on the trail to watch it break free of the horizon.
A few minutes further up the trail we hit a fern grove. I never understood that ferns changed with fall too, until I moved to the South. They can go from deep green to lime to yellow to brown. In groves, this change is particularly noticeable, as the light seems to undulate on all sides of the ferns, their lightweight fronts seemingly reflective of the sun’s rays.
“What color is it now?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the fern grove.
“Like white wine,” GP said.
“Chardonnay,” I added. We pressed on. In no time we were racing to the stairs of the fire tower, then at the top we found ourselves suddenly hushed by the view that surrounded us on all sides.
From one vantage point we could look north and trace the Black Mountains from Mitchell all the way down to Celo Knob, then the view was chopped abruptly by the high rising Horse Rock Ridge. To the northeast we could see into Tennessee and Roan Mountain. Further east were Grandfather Mountain, Table Rock, and Hawk’s Bill (Beak?). Outward from the base of Roan was a flat valley covered in dense fog. There, I knew the South Toe Joined the North Toe River, and not long after that the Cane River flowed into it as well, creating a jumble of waters and rapids and therefore, I surmised, explaining the dense fog and evaporation in that part of the valley. GP agreed.
Turning directly east, we stared right at the sun, by now hovering above the horizon, full and perfect yellow and wider than my imagination can stretch. All to the south and west of us lay the Blue Ridge Mountains, layers upon layers of fluffy greens, yellows, and bitter oranges.
“The reason I do this,” GP said nodding to the west at the wall of the Blacks, “is so that I can see the sunlight touch the occasional flecks of scarlet in the trees.” I look at Mitchell, the highest point east of the Rockies, and my eyes trace down the watershed that forms the source of the South Toe. Scarlet dots appear like stars, suddenly visible across a familiar terrain.
“What color is it now?” I asked GP as we descended the steps of the fire tower. He had to get to work and I had a morning of reading then a full shift at the coffeehouse ahead of me. Already, the day was tugging at the edges of my thoughts, making boxes out of ideas and ideas into commands and commands into actions and actions into productivity.
“It’s day. The color of day,” GP said.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Adventures in Carpooling
Hollis and I have started carpooling to work at the craft school – a convenience that saves us each $25 a month, sometimes up to $50. Today he drove us in his second vehicle, a two-passenger truck with over 247,000 miles on it. Round about LittleTown, NC we got pulled over by a State Trooper.
“Mother f***er!” Hollis says in his deep, sonorous voice. He is the dinner chef at the craft school and also from the west coast. Instantly, we had solidarity, though today as the officer approached I knew the best help I could offer was of the silent variety.
The officer had white-washed skin and talked slower than a slug makes spit. His wide brimmed had shaded him from the sun while Hollis and I squinted rudely against the sun’s glare and tried to look as inncocent as possible. By some miracle or similar affect, Hollis told the truth (“I have to admit it officer, I gunned it in the passing lane. That other vehicle was tailgating me for five miles and I was a little annoyed.”) and talked himself straight out of a ticket.
“But you know your brake light is out, don’t you?” the officer said. His reached into his breast pocket for a click pen, swallowed in an awkward, noticeable manner, and continue his molasses dialogue. “Test it out now and I’ll go on back and have a look.” His badges indicated that he was a field operations trainer, and I was eager to ask him what it was like to train other officers but I bit my tongue. It was not the time for interviews.
Again, Hollis told the truth (“It is? I had no idea, really. Must be that back right one where the cover is busted?”) and no ticket was issued. With a promise to get the light repaired quickly, we were released from the officers disaffected gaze. But when the door of the State Trooper vehicle slammed shut and Hollis didn’t start his car and pull out of the parking lot we had stopped in, I began to worry.
“Just wait,” he said, watching the officer in the rearview mirror. Slowly, as if the vehicle moved to the cadence of his voice, the office pulled away and Hollis and I sat cooking in the vehicle. “Ok, hang me that crow bar under your feet,” he said.
I sifted through a few Coke bottles, lifted my bag and my feet, and sure enough there was a crow bar. Hollis hopped out of the car, ran around to the passenger side of the vehicle and reached underneath the engine, banging loudly on something below the floorboards under my feet. Then, like a sprinter from a starting block, he leaped up from the ground, crow bar in hand, and ran around to the driver’s side where he gunned the engine and put the truck in gear while turning the keys.
Nothing.
“One more time,” Hollis said, as much to himself as to me. He repeated the act and when met with a similar outcome, I looked at him knowingly.
“Let me push, ok?” I said.
“We both can,” Hollis nodded his head towards the tail end of the car, which was pointing downhill and therefore the only way we could go to get enough momentum and bypass the electric starter on the truck.
Picture the State Trooper now, long gone into the sunny morning, cruising perhaps by now across the county line. Parallel his idyllic drive with Hollis and I laughing and huffing as we push the truck backwards. I looked up and somehow Hollis was already in the truck and shouting at me, then waving. “C’mon, you can get in now, get in!”
I grabbed the ends of my skirt and lifted them up high enough to get a jump, then hoisted myself into the moving truck, half-shouting at Hollis: “Have you see Little Miss Sunshine, yet?”
“No, why?” Hollis looked confused.
“Just see it, trust me. There’s plenty of pushing and jumping into vehicles. You’ll appreciate it.”
“Mother f***er!” Hollis says in his deep, sonorous voice. He is the dinner chef at the craft school and also from the west coast. Instantly, we had solidarity, though today as the officer approached I knew the best help I could offer was of the silent variety.
The officer had white-washed skin and talked slower than a slug makes spit. His wide brimmed had shaded him from the sun while Hollis and I squinted rudely against the sun’s glare and tried to look as inncocent as possible. By some miracle or similar affect, Hollis told the truth (“I have to admit it officer, I gunned it in the passing lane. That other vehicle was tailgating me for five miles and I was a little annoyed.”) and talked himself straight out of a ticket.
“But you know your brake light is out, don’t you?” the officer said. His reached into his breast pocket for a click pen, swallowed in an awkward, noticeable manner, and continue his molasses dialogue. “Test it out now and I’ll go on back and have a look.” His badges indicated that he was a field operations trainer, and I was eager to ask him what it was like to train other officers but I bit my tongue. It was not the time for interviews.
Again, Hollis told the truth (“It is? I had no idea, really. Must be that back right one where the cover is busted?”) and no ticket was issued. With a promise to get the light repaired quickly, we were released from the officers disaffected gaze. But when the door of the State Trooper vehicle slammed shut and Hollis didn’t start his car and pull out of the parking lot we had stopped in, I began to worry.
“Just wait,” he said, watching the officer in the rearview mirror. Slowly, as if the vehicle moved to the cadence of his voice, the office pulled away and Hollis and I sat cooking in the vehicle. “Ok, hang me that crow bar under your feet,” he said.
I sifted through a few Coke bottles, lifted my bag and my feet, and sure enough there was a crow bar. Hollis hopped out of the car, ran around to the passenger side of the vehicle and reached underneath the engine, banging loudly on something below the floorboards under my feet. Then, like a sprinter from a starting block, he leaped up from the ground, crow bar in hand, and ran around to the driver’s side where he gunned the engine and put the truck in gear while turning the keys.
Nothing.
“One more time,” Hollis said, as much to himself as to me. He repeated the act and when met with a similar outcome, I looked at him knowingly.
“Let me push, ok?” I said.
“We both can,” Hollis nodded his head towards the tail end of the car, which was pointing downhill and therefore the only way we could go to get enough momentum and bypass the electric starter on the truck.
Picture the State Trooper now, long gone into the sunny morning, cruising perhaps by now across the county line. Parallel his idyllic drive with Hollis and I laughing and huffing as we push the truck backwards. I looked up and somehow Hollis was already in the truck and shouting at me, then waving. “C’mon, you can get in now, get in!”
I grabbed the ends of my skirt and lifted them up high enough to get a jump, then hoisted myself into the moving truck, half-shouting at Hollis: “Have you see Little Miss Sunshine, yet?”
“No, why?” Hollis looked confused.
“Just see it, trust me. There’s plenty of pushing and jumping into vehicles. You’ll appreciate it.”
Saturday, October 07, 2006
A Chilly Fall Walk
I go on a walk with GP and my parents up behind Silver Cove. We start on an overgrown trail that goes over a small ridge, then dips down into a creek bed. Here, the water flows in a narrow path down towards Little White Oak Creek, all of which will eventually flow in to the South Toe River. The trail widens and we follow it alongside the creek behind a handful of houses for the boarding school. We are not within sight of any known points, yet we are still within earshot of the school. By the sound of a dog’s bark I can tell we are near Woodside, then further on past Falcon House, and so on.
We wind down to an old forest road and cross onto National Wildlife Game Lands. It doesn’t take long before Dad spots a deer feeder hung high in the trees through a pulley system. Apples and corn dapple the ground. As far as we can tell, the rig is checked every few days and bait has to be shaken by hand (or with a long branch). It falls on the ground and a hunter can perch in a tree and wait for the deer to come. It occurs to me that we might have been wiser to wear bright orange hats rather than our fall colored orange and green fleece coats. The air temperature is in the thirties and not a gust of wind blows. Perfect for a huddled hunter to get a good aim at a buck without his scent giving him away. We move on quickly, continuing the slow downgrade towards the Marshall property.
As we make our way in a wide loop to the entrance of Wildflower Cove and the tail end of Hannah Branch Road, my mind calms and I start to notice the nuances of fall all around me. The view of the Black Mountains from Ballew Fields was breathtaking. Today the mountains were ablaze with color, rolling swaths of orange and red, burnt brown and shades of lime. Back on the road, acorns, hickory nuts, and buckeye crunched beneath our feet. I thought of all the squirrels and chipmunks burrowing down for winter, storing their food and thickening their fur. On some parts of the trail, the nuts were so abundant we could hear them popping beneath our feet. For a short while, the wind blew down the gentle slopes of the valley and I watched the leaves wave, each one like a hand offering itself as a gift. If I could, I would accept them all, spread them around the globe and back again, symbols of the brightness of change.
We wind down to an old forest road and cross onto National Wildlife Game Lands. It doesn’t take long before Dad spots a deer feeder hung high in the trees through a pulley system. Apples and corn dapple the ground. As far as we can tell, the rig is checked every few days and bait has to be shaken by hand (or with a long branch). It falls on the ground and a hunter can perch in a tree and wait for the deer to come. It occurs to me that we might have been wiser to wear bright orange hats rather than our fall colored orange and green fleece coats. The air temperature is in the thirties and not a gust of wind blows. Perfect for a huddled hunter to get a good aim at a buck without his scent giving him away. We move on quickly, continuing the slow downgrade towards the Marshall property.
As we make our way in a wide loop to the entrance of Wildflower Cove and the tail end of Hannah Branch Road, my mind calms and I start to notice the nuances of fall all around me. The view of the Black Mountains from Ballew Fields was breathtaking. Today the mountains were ablaze with color, rolling swaths of orange and red, burnt brown and shades of lime. Back on the road, acorns, hickory nuts, and buckeye crunched beneath our feet. I thought of all the squirrels and chipmunks burrowing down for winter, storing their food and thickening their fur. On some parts of the trail, the nuts were so abundant we could hear them popping beneath our feet. For a short while, the wind blew down the gentle slopes of the valley and I watched the leaves wave, each one like a hand offering itself as a gift. If I could, I would accept them all, spread them around the globe and back again, symbols of the brightness of change.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Observance
The former manager of the coffeehouse, Kim, is now employed part-time as our baker, to accommodate her new life as a mother. She comes into the coffeehouse three days a week with a trunk full of baked goods, toting little Trevor in a baby pack on her back.
“Tomorrow Trevor is eight moons old!” Kim says, glancing at the calendar.
“Was Valentine’s Day a full moon last February?” I ask, remembering Trevor’s birthday because it is the same as my cousin’s.
“Yup…Eight moons.” She turns to look at Trevor over her shoulder, then plays gently with his dangling feet. I watch them in their play as Kim’s speech melts into cuddles and oohs and ahhs. She is almost petting him with her voice and the baby responds intuitively.
It is a sweet language and I don’t want to interrupt, so I begin unpacking the treats. Cream cheese brownies. Butter pecan cookies. Aunt Sally’s apple cake. Chocolate mint wedges. Orange ginger cookies. The smells are overwhelming, each treat still warm and steaming from the oven.
“It was such a magical night,” Kim says, returning her attention to the baked goods, intending to sort and label them.
“When he was born, you mean? The full moon night?”
“Yes. And it was snowing, and he came at night. It was magical.” And with that she is off again, now cuddling Trevor, whom she has taken out of the baby pack.
Their affection seemed so private and encoded that for long seconds I didn’t know what to do with myself. Her love was so genuine and thorough, so unencumbered, that all other loves seemed to pale. When I did find myself looking directly at them, their ritual grew metaphorically to fill the room. All my coffeehouse tasks at hand were miniscule in comparison to the job of mothering. Indeed, the day’s endeavors paled in comparison to Kim’s nobility and Trevor’s infant dependency. So beautiful, I thought, it almost hurts to look at them.
“Tomorrow Trevor is eight moons old!” Kim says, glancing at the calendar.
“Was Valentine’s Day a full moon last February?” I ask, remembering Trevor’s birthday because it is the same as my cousin’s.
“Yup…Eight moons.” She turns to look at Trevor over her shoulder, then plays gently with his dangling feet. I watch them in their play as Kim’s speech melts into cuddles and oohs and ahhs. She is almost petting him with her voice and the baby responds intuitively.
It is a sweet language and I don’t want to interrupt, so I begin unpacking the treats. Cream cheese brownies. Butter pecan cookies. Aunt Sally’s apple cake. Chocolate mint wedges. Orange ginger cookies. The smells are overwhelming, each treat still warm and steaming from the oven.
“It was such a magical night,” Kim says, returning her attention to the baked goods, intending to sort and label them.
“When he was born, you mean? The full moon night?”
“Yes. And it was snowing, and he came at night. It was magical.” And with that she is off again, now cuddling Trevor, whom she has taken out of the baby pack.
Their affection seemed so private and encoded that for long seconds I didn’t know what to do with myself. Her love was so genuine and thorough, so unencumbered, that all other loves seemed to pale. When I did find myself looking directly at them, their ritual grew metaphorically to fill the room. All my coffeehouse tasks at hand were miniscule in comparison to the job of mothering. Indeed, the day’s endeavors paled in comparison to Kim’s nobility and Trevor’s infant dependency. So beautiful, I thought, it almost hurts to look at them.
Victory!
[Sorry for the late post. My phone line went out last night.]
Today my front right tire blew out. We’re not talking puncture wound here. No nails to be found. I mean, I heard it pop. Then felt the slight bounce, followed by pained screeching and the wheel seeming to command itself to the right shoulder of the road. I found myself on the uphill side of someone’s gravel driveway on the right hand side of CraftSchool Road.
Immediately, I recognized that conditions couldn’t have been better. I even smiled. Sunny and sixty-five degrees. Safely off the road in an area that I know well. I locked the car and turned to walk to the nearest gas station, about half a mile down the road back to the main highway. (This was truly a blessing, seeing as how you can easily drive ten miles without a gas station around here.) But as I turned to cross the road, a woman about my age pulled into the driveway.
“Can I help you with something?” she said sweetly. She was Southern, casually dress, with soft brown eyes and matching hair. There was not an ounce a skepticism in her tone; I could tell she was willing to help.
“I’ve got a flat. Do you know if the BP down the road has a payphone?” I asked.
“Oh get on in,” She said and unlocked her door. “I live here, I”ll just take you up to use my phone.”
She inched past my car, which almost blocked her driveway, then drove up the gravel road for a half-mile or so, winding around to a lovely modern home atop the hill. I called my boss first, explaining I’d be late.
Then I called dad.
Dad. It wasn’t like I was about to ask him to drive 17 miles to come change a flat for me. But still, there was something about the necessity of this call. It’s me. I’m ok, but. I’m here, and. Dads just have to know these things, in real time if at all possible. And so I told him, then went back down the driveway determined to change the flat myself.
I’ve changed a flat tire once before, but that was in a shop with a level floor and all the best tools readily accessible. It was also just for fun and practice. Now the pressure was on, the ssun was getting hotter, and I was later by the minute for my coffeehouse shift. Not to mention the fact that the right front tire was on the uphill side of an awkward driveway, just near the upslope of a hill.
I could tell you that there was not an ounce of doubt in my mind and boyd when I began my work with the jack. I could tell you I did not break a sweat. I could tell you I didn’t occasionally digress and hope someone would pull over and offer to do the job for me. But all of that would not be true.
What is true is that I knew I had to prove that I could do this, for some reason, and so I plunged onto the ground willingly, caring not for my work clothes, eager to come out on the other side of things successfully. I must have reset the jack at least three times to be sure. Again, the hillside did not make it easy. Succeeding with this, I popped the hubcap and got to work on what I knew would be the hardest part – removing the lug nuts.
By now I was sweating and stripped to my undershirt – a tight shelf bra tank I had not planned on baring to the world. I jostled with the lug nuts for quite some time, on more than on occasion balancing all my weight onto the handle and heaving like a rugby player as I bore down on the metal. After five minutes, one loosened. Four more to go.
I took fifteen minutes to get the next three off, but by then I had developed a rhythm. I kept one eye on the edge of the jack beneath the car, careful that it wasn’t slopping. I kept my toes clear of the body of the car in case it did go down. And I double-checked the parking break to make sure the car couldn’t roll even if it wanted to. Again, the hillside.
Just when I could taste victory, the fifth lug nut refused to give. I worked so hard at it, in fact, that I began to strip the metal. I heaved and hawed and tried to “get all Buddhist about it” and then I tried to “get all Incredible Hulk about it” but nothing seemed to work. Just as I was bouncing up and down in a ferocious last attempt, my tank top slipping ominously lower down my chest, a truck pulled to the side of the road.
Miller’s Painting and Company. Two men stepped out and I popped my head up from my work, inadvertently exposing inches of cleavage and my disheveled breasts.
I reached to adjust myself, when the first man said: “Can I help you?” Not with that, I thought to myself. Then, Oh.
“Yes, please. Yeah, thanks. It’s the last lug nut, that’s all. “ I tried to sound like a pro. “I can’t seem to get it. Can one of y’all give it a yank?”
Then younger man stepped forward, finishing the job with one jerk-umph motion. Quickly, I finished lossened the lug not and yanked the tire off with as much officiality as I could muster. I was going to do this, I had to do it, there was suddenly something to prove. I carried the tire, lifting it high off the ground and slapping it into the trunk with authority. Then I rolled the full-sized spare over to the front right wheel with all the swiftness I had seen the Les Schwab boys do back in Portland.
The men stood and watched, and it hit me that I knew they would finish the job for me if I wanted. All I had to do was say the word. Our eyes met in silence. Another truck drove by, slowed, then moved on ahead. The painters seemed so patient, so kind, so ready to help on a moment’s notice. And I felt so grateful – but – I had to turn the other way.
Squatting down to the ground and hoisting the spare tire up to the wheel, I spoke again. “Thanks a bunch, guys, really. That was great timing. I’ll just finish this up here, no problem.”
They remained at my side, and I began sweating a little under the imagined pressure. Who was I proving something too, anyway? Myself, I guess. Which meant their presence shouldn’t have mattered either way but still, they represented temptation. Or something bigger, perhaps. Maybe they represented, in the kindest way possible, that regime of women or that time and place for women when the work I was doing wasn’t proper for a woman in the first place.
“Really,” I said, lifting the tire again, struggling to get it lined up properly. “I’ve got it from here. Thanks so much.” This time I turned to make eye contact, smiled my big assured smile, and offered the Southern chin nod I’ve been working on for the last four years.
It was the last move that seemed to do the trick and they both looked at each other, smiled, and headed on their way. I like to think they were impressed with my persistence but oh ego, hold on a bit – without them I don’t know that I could have finished the job
Today my front right tire blew out. We’re not talking puncture wound here. No nails to be found. I mean, I heard it pop. Then felt the slight bounce, followed by pained screeching and the wheel seeming to command itself to the right shoulder of the road. I found myself on the uphill side of someone’s gravel driveway on the right hand side of CraftSchool Road.
Immediately, I recognized that conditions couldn’t have been better. I even smiled. Sunny and sixty-five degrees. Safely off the road in an area that I know well. I locked the car and turned to walk to the nearest gas station, about half a mile down the road back to the main highway. (This was truly a blessing, seeing as how you can easily drive ten miles without a gas station around here.) But as I turned to cross the road, a woman about my age pulled into the driveway.
“Can I help you with something?” she said sweetly. She was Southern, casually dress, with soft brown eyes and matching hair. There was not an ounce a skepticism in her tone; I could tell she was willing to help.
“I’ve got a flat. Do you know if the BP down the road has a payphone?” I asked.
“Oh get on in,” She said and unlocked her door. “I live here, I”ll just take you up to use my phone.”
She inched past my car, which almost blocked her driveway, then drove up the gravel road for a half-mile or so, winding around to a lovely modern home atop the hill. I called my boss first, explaining I’d be late.
Then I called dad.
Dad. It wasn’t like I was about to ask him to drive 17 miles to come change a flat for me. But still, there was something about the necessity of this call. It’s me. I’m ok, but. I’m here, and. Dads just have to know these things, in real time if at all possible. And so I told him, then went back down the driveway determined to change the flat myself.
I’ve changed a flat tire once before, but that was in a shop with a level floor and all the best tools readily accessible. It was also just for fun and practice. Now the pressure was on, the ssun was getting hotter, and I was later by the minute for my coffeehouse shift. Not to mention the fact that the right front tire was on the uphill side of an awkward driveway, just near the upslope of a hill.
I could tell you that there was not an ounce of doubt in my mind and boyd when I began my work with the jack. I could tell you I did not break a sweat. I could tell you I didn’t occasionally digress and hope someone would pull over and offer to do the job for me. But all of that would not be true.
What is true is that I knew I had to prove that I could do this, for some reason, and so I plunged onto the ground willingly, caring not for my work clothes, eager to come out on the other side of things successfully. I must have reset the jack at least three times to be sure. Again, the hillside did not make it easy. Succeeding with this, I popped the hubcap and got to work on what I knew would be the hardest part – removing the lug nuts.
By now I was sweating and stripped to my undershirt – a tight shelf bra tank I had not planned on baring to the world. I jostled with the lug nuts for quite some time, on more than on occasion balancing all my weight onto the handle and heaving like a rugby player as I bore down on the metal. After five minutes, one loosened. Four more to go.
I took fifteen minutes to get the next three off, but by then I had developed a rhythm. I kept one eye on the edge of the jack beneath the car, careful that it wasn’t slopping. I kept my toes clear of the body of the car in case it did go down. And I double-checked the parking break to make sure the car couldn’t roll even if it wanted to. Again, the hillside.
Just when I could taste victory, the fifth lug nut refused to give. I worked so hard at it, in fact, that I began to strip the metal. I heaved and hawed and tried to “get all Buddhist about it” and then I tried to “get all Incredible Hulk about it” but nothing seemed to work. Just as I was bouncing up and down in a ferocious last attempt, my tank top slipping ominously lower down my chest, a truck pulled to the side of the road.
Miller’s Painting and Company. Two men stepped out and I popped my head up from my work, inadvertently exposing inches of cleavage and my disheveled breasts.
I reached to adjust myself, when the first man said: “Can I help you?” Not with that, I thought to myself. Then, Oh.
“Yes, please. Yeah, thanks. It’s the last lug nut, that’s all. “ I tried to sound like a pro. “I can’t seem to get it. Can one of y’all give it a yank?”
Then younger man stepped forward, finishing the job with one jerk-umph motion. Quickly, I finished lossened the lug not and yanked the tire off with as much officiality as I could muster. I was going to do this, I had to do it, there was suddenly something to prove. I carried the tire, lifting it high off the ground and slapping it into the trunk with authority. Then I rolled the full-sized spare over to the front right wheel with all the swiftness I had seen the Les Schwab boys do back in Portland.
The men stood and watched, and it hit me that I knew they would finish the job for me if I wanted. All I had to do was say the word. Our eyes met in silence. Another truck drove by, slowed, then moved on ahead. The painters seemed so patient, so kind, so ready to help on a moment’s notice. And I felt so grateful – but – I had to turn the other way.
Squatting down to the ground and hoisting the spare tire up to the wheel, I spoke again. “Thanks a bunch, guys, really. That was great timing. I’ll just finish this up here, no problem.”
They remained at my side, and I began sweating a little under the imagined pressure. Who was I proving something too, anyway? Myself, I guess. Which meant their presence shouldn’t have mattered either way but still, they represented temptation. Or something bigger, perhaps. Maybe they represented, in the kindest way possible, that regime of women or that time and place for women when the work I was doing wasn’t proper for a woman in the first place.
“Really,” I said, lifting the tire again, struggling to get it lined up properly. “I’ve got it from here. Thanks so much.” This time I turned to make eye contact, smiled my big assured smile, and offered the Southern chin nod I’ve been working on for the last four years.
It was the last move that seemed to do the trick and they both looked at each other, smiled, and headed on their way. I like to think they were impressed with my persistence but oh ego, hold on a bit – without them I don’t know that I could have finished the job
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Oh Grapple, Grab, Grind
The moon shed light tonight in wide, florescent slate streaks along the sides of the house. Rhododendrons cast deep shadows across the wood, enlarged and angled into tree sized beasts. The gravel crunched with a satisfied, cold, clanking beneath my feet. A few stray cicadas still dapple the high trees, singing their sweet goodbyes to summer, outlasting most of their kin.
Thin.
Bare.
This is my line of thought just a few days before a major MFA deadline. I’m at a standstill. Or cliffhanging, rather; fingernails ripping at the seams. I drink two beers. Play guitar with friends. Sing loudly almost all day long. I do yoga on the porch in the morning. I read and reread and revise and delete five pages and make new paragraphs and still…Flatline.
Self care. Rest. Exercise. A varied diet. But mostly, rest. I’ve got to sleep my way into re-inspiration. Oh sweet pillow, here I come.
Thin.
Bare.
This is my line of thought just a few days before a major MFA deadline. I’m at a standstill. Or cliffhanging, rather; fingernails ripping at the seams. I drink two beers. Play guitar with friends. Sing loudly almost all day long. I do yoga on the porch in the morning. I read and reread and revise and delete five pages and make new paragraphs and still…Flatline.
Self care. Rest. Exercise. A varied diet. But mostly, rest. I’ve got to sleep my way into re-inspiration. Oh sweet pillow, here I come.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Sweet Awakening
This morning the light was as fine as silk, so that upon waking I leaned into the windowsill magnetically, stretching toward the soft yellow rays by instinct. And though two essays waited, not even a first line put onto the page, I swapped my slippers for boots and went to where I knew the light would be the sweetest.
Ballew fields and the entrance of Wildflower Cove.
The gravel road opposite where I live, on the west side of the South Toe River, serves as a main artery for community “traffic,” though that never really means seeing more than three or four cars at once. But beyond the camp, beyond the turn for Silver Cove, beyond the stop gate and Little White Oak Creek (where I parked my car), beyond Shingle Pile Creek, and past the No Tresspassing sign and the abandoned farm equipment, the road peters out and is rarely used. Only a few cabins are hidden back this far, marked by the occasional “driveway” or more noticeably, a meter for an underground phone line.
The fields were overgrown with dangling, tall, yellow flowers and similarly tall, white blossoms that bloomed in the formation of distant fireworks. Sedges poked outward at all angles, nestling at fence posts and clustered between ruts and footpaths. Un-mowed grasses sagged with dew and a thin, white veil hung a few feet above the fields, slowly evaporating into the day. The veil undulated and seemed to breath, illuminated by the unfiltered light pouring from the east, over the top of Seven Mile Ridge.
The sounds of Ballew fields waking up were magnificent. A downy woodpecker humbly tapping into an oak snag. The syllabic call of a pileated woodpecker in the distance. The soft sifting of towhees on the ground. The quick flap of a female cardinal right in front of the path. And more pronounced, the loud, snapping, hustle of two grouse that were startled by my approach.
I wore my work clothes on my walk, to guarantee that I would pace myself, moving slowly and quietly. I knew I wouldn’t want to work up a sweat and have to change before work, but I also knew my tendency to push myself and whiz past nature’s gifts at trailside. The work clothes were insurance that I’d take my time, and that I did.
The sunlight. Such a simple gift. And it is given to us. Everyday. Asking nothing in return.
Ballew fields and the entrance of Wildflower Cove.
The gravel road opposite where I live, on the west side of the South Toe River, serves as a main artery for community “traffic,” though that never really means seeing more than three or four cars at once. But beyond the camp, beyond the turn for Silver Cove, beyond the stop gate and Little White Oak Creek (where I parked my car), beyond Shingle Pile Creek, and past the No Tresspassing sign and the abandoned farm equipment, the road peters out and is rarely used. Only a few cabins are hidden back this far, marked by the occasional “driveway” or more noticeably, a meter for an underground phone line.
The fields were overgrown with dangling, tall, yellow flowers and similarly tall, white blossoms that bloomed in the formation of distant fireworks. Sedges poked outward at all angles, nestling at fence posts and clustered between ruts and footpaths. Un-mowed grasses sagged with dew and a thin, white veil hung a few feet above the fields, slowly evaporating into the day. The veil undulated and seemed to breath, illuminated by the unfiltered light pouring from the east, over the top of Seven Mile Ridge.
The sounds of Ballew fields waking up were magnificent. A downy woodpecker humbly tapping into an oak snag. The syllabic call of a pileated woodpecker in the distance. The soft sifting of towhees on the ground. The quick flap of a female cardinal right in front of the path. And more pronounced, the loud, snapping, hustle of two grouse that were startled by my approach.
I wore my work clothes on my walk, to guarantee that I would pace myself, moving slowly and quietly. I knew I wouldn’t want to work up a sweat and have to change before work, but I also knew my tendency to push myself and whiz past nature’s gifts at trailside. The work clothes were insurance that I’d take my time, and that I did.
The sunlight. Such a simple gift. And it is given to us. Everyday. Asking nothing in return.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
A Pat on the Back
A pat on the back. We all deserve one. Give yourself one, then pass it on.
It’s been a roller coaster writer month. I deserve a recap:
Four weeks (MFA):
1,230 pages read.
Seventy pages of new writing, if you count the blogs.
Twenty-five if you don’t.
A few new poems.
Practical world (freelance):
Three essays forthcoming, all high-color glossy magazines.
One scholarship application out.
Two query letters out.
Three nonfiction submissions out.
One freelance project applied for, offered, and accepted (for my winter bread and butter).
Critiques (extracurricular):
Critiqued four other short essays or poems (by different writers).
Critiqued ten poems for Cam, as a part of our current collaboration.
Have had four poems critiqued by Cam already.
Two more in the ranks.
Jobby-Job (coffeehouse):
Finally working 25+ hours per week, therefore awarding me health insurance at only $20 per month from my paycheck.
Next pay period might, just might, cover my credit card bill from car repairs without having to dip into savings. Yay-rah!
Friendships:
Britt has a victory at the Literary Festival!
Vic is done moving to and from and into and out of all her houses/housesitting gigs!
Richelle is in love!
Lindsay is leaving her job!
Huck is MIA, but out there, for sure!
Dave fantasizes!
Kelly gets a full ride for the NC nursing program!
Attempts at continuation of the species, or at least, ascertaining physical comforts for the long winter ahead:
A retrospective was offered
A diversion has occured
Life goes on. I’m only human.
Deaths:
Coffee People Coffee
It’s been a roller coaster writer month. I deserve a recap:
Four weeks (MFA):
1,230 pages read.
Seventy pages of new writing, if you count the blogs.
Twenty-five if you don’t.
A few new poems.
Practical world (freelance):
Three essays forthcoming, all high-color glossy magazines.
One scholarship application out.
Two query letters out.
Three nonfiction submissions out.
One freelance project applied for, offered, and accepted (for my winter bread and butter).
Critiques (extracurricular):
Critiqued four other short essays or poems (by different writers).
Critiqued ten poems for Cam, as a part of our current collaboration.
Have had four poems critiqued by Cam already.
Two more in the ranks.
Jobby-Job (coffeehouse):
Finally working 25+ hours per week, therefore awarding me health insurance at only $20 per month from my paycheck.
Next pay period might, just might, cover my credit card bill from car repairs without having to dip into savings. Yay-rah!
Friendships:
Britt has a victory at the Literary Festival!
Vic is done moving to and from and into and out of all her houses/housesitting gigs!
Richelle is in love!
Lindsay is leaving her job!
Huck is MIA, but out there, for sure!
Dave fantasizes!
Kelly gets a full ride for the NC nursing program!
Attempts at continuation of the species, or at least, ascertaining physical comforts for the long winter ahead:
A retrospective was offered
A diversion has occured
Life goes on. I’m only human.
Deaths:
Coffee People Coffee
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