Everything That Lives is Holy

Windows
Bowls
These are the things that call
Me to and through and in
Possibility
Illusion
What is true
Not what was true
Nor what will be true
I filled my bowl with tears
Then broke it
And all that was sorrow ran out
The emptiness became a space
To fill anew
Carefully
Careful of what I put inside
Aware now of the damage
But empty for the filling
None the less

I watched from the outside
Looking up into the window where
The drapes were pulled back
And I saw into what looked like my soul
It made me sick
To see how sick it had made me
How hard it was to be inside
Looking out through the dirty window
And how much time I stood at the window
Looking in
I met my eyes through the glass
And said “everything that lives is Holy.”
And inside I awoke

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2008...lost in blog editing/draft land until now...(“Everything that lives is holy” is something William Blake wrote and was the inspiration for this piece.)

The Altruistic Efforts of a Gourd

Are admirable.

From excess water, it forms knobby tumors
So a blind person, coming up empty for odor
And oblivious to the brilliancy of its colorful show
Finds the messages in Braille.

An experienced gourd interpreter

Or a tactile hungry unseeing person
Might, after spending time with the gourd,
Come up with the secrets of the garden
Or life.

In the afternoon,

grief soaked and spent,
I held the gourd and tried to channel its messages
And interpret the earth and the garden that gave and took my father.
It had so much to say
Though I think it mostly spoke about any of us
And not my father
Who would have outspoken the gourd and told it a few things or two.

-Jennifer Lowe
From Hugo House class "The Poetics of Objects", 2012

How To Eat Porn

I’ll admit it.  I have succumbed to the “Fifty Shades of Gray” mania and have jumped into this soft porn for hard old ladies phenomenon that has become so popular.  While the subject matter has successfully taken me to old familiar heights of passion it left me slightly unsatisfied: the story line dependent on a beautiful young co-ed and a dashing young rich entrepreneur. Characters a little too far-fetched to relate to personally.  However, I was thinking perhaps it did get the libido engaged as I found myself wanting to write about my recent dining experience at the Pantry at Delancey in mostly pornographic terms.  Thus, my latest entry:

How to Eat Porn

Start with a tease.  Let your partner know what you are capable of.  What treasures you might have in store.  Perhaps a quarter sized mushroom shell, softly supple, with a smooth, moist flesh loaded with a sharp salty goat cheese blended with a hint of sweetness emanating from the creamy caramelized onions blended in.  Approach gingerly.  These may be too hot to handle at first, all fired up from their time in the oven.

Or slap your palate, shocking your taste buds with a bright bite from the lively blend of finely minced salsa of biting green jalapeno pepper and white fleshed apple lightly saturated with freshly squeezed lime juice preciously poised atop an also quarter sized round bed of pink salty salmon flesh.

And just in case you are not yet primed for the sensual encounter, wrap your tongue around a savory herb stuffing laced with juicy pieces of wrinkled currents all atop a fat, juicy, soft plump clam which you scrape off the shell with the sharp edges of your sharp and assertive front teeth.  Try not to sigh out loud too loudly as you macerate this very satisfying combination.

While you are playing with your taste buds it is good to keep your mind well lubricated with very good wines.  For the first few rounds a lively, fragrant, flowery Riesling which deflowers your mouth with the aroma of springs newest blooms, like a 2011 Efeste Columbia Valley Riesling will do very well. 

At this point you become aware of the fact that your palate will be experiencing a long night that will go down in the books as a multiply orgasmic experience and you want to be fully present to the dance going on inside your mouth besides the distractions emanating from the room around you.  You must focus on the dishes set before you, not wanting to miss a single touch to your taste buds.

The next course will send you over the edge, even though you are early on in the encounter.  Bite sized pillows of creamy ricotta dumplings bathed in a bath of browned butter give way in your mouth.  Your mind sorts through a question of whether this is a lightness or a richness you are pressing to the roof of your mouth with your eager tongue.  You decide it is perfectly both.  The dumplings are wearing a conservative top coat of beautiful bright green wood sorrel shedding a crisp peppery flavor with a hint of fresh lemon.  The perfect way to cut through the richness of the dumplings.

Next arrives a more rugged entry, rustic and bold, a taught layered complex soul just waiting to be explored.  A crusty toasted slice of levain bread with chunks of nutty walnuts incorporated provides the mattress on which a perfectly poached egg is laid out.  This is tucked under a beautifully executed garlicky green fennel pesto which helps to contain the oozing yolk of the egg as it breaks into the toast in which it is absorbed.  You lap up every streak on the plate, blotting with the pieces of toast scattered to the sides as you abandoned your soul to this hearty romp.

This calls for a stronger libation.  Something to stand up to the testosterone of the egg and toast.  A red blend which must have at least four or five different grapes to get your palate immediately sorting and wondering.  For this you have a 2009 Columbia Valley Red from “For a Song.”  The complex layers draw your attention from the fennel pesto and you think “is this too much?  Can I take so much in one night?”  But like many cases of overstimulation, you adapt.  Boost yourself up.  Give yourself a pep talk and remind yourself you are in it for the long run. 

And just in time, arrives a virginal palate cleanser, white and shivering on the platter, pale and thinly shaved flesh of fennel, turnips and radishes.  Very lightly sprinkled with a clean mildly tart vinaigrette.  Then dusted with a coarse salt and dry grana parmesan. 

The tricky thing with love is to know when to stop before too much damage is done.  Or actually more about how to let your love know when you have had enough.  You look forward to lying together, fully sated in the arms of a sweet blanket of surrender.  So when one is spent and the other arrives with a lovely offering of even more perfection the work of love is cut out for you.  Disguised as a bath to soak your senses in, the blend of the sea brine found in the fish broth is made richer from the crème freche with which it is steeped.  Lovely little French carrots float with fleshy pocketed morel pieces and short lengths of crispy asparagus spears swimming with perfectly poached shrimp, scallops and fleshy halibut pieces.  Ah, if this had just arrived in your lap before you were so perfectly sated by your earlier moments of palate pleasing bliss.  It is too much stimulation for one night.  You force yourself beyond comfort, perhaps faking your pleasure as there is just nothing more to give.  Perhaps.  Only you will know.  This is the only dish you cannot fully imbibe.    Even chilled glass of Righteous 2009 Walla Walla Viogner is pretty much un-noticed.  Your mind wanders away from the lovingly executed offerings set before you to thoughts of future fasting, which gym class you must hit the following morning and what strategies you might come up with to be able to find comfort enough to sleep in the following hours.  You want to get up and walk away but you don’t want to hurt any feelings.  Or, selfishly, miss anything further that might be coming, even though you know you are already done.  In the arms of a great lovely meal you are grateful that you were able to find in the depths of the soul that is you the ability to come up with the proper sounds and words to let your server believe that you are still in it.

And there is a final offering.  Painfully undeniable.  Your own personal jar of tart and spicy ginger roasted rhubarb layered with a pillowy lemon fluff topped with crunchy ginger cookie chunks.  Somehow you find a way.   Spent and panting.  Nearly comatose.  So grateful for the mug of black coffee, this one a Stacya’s blend, True North.  A lovely and reorienting final note.

An Ikea Moment: It's a Fantasy Suite Life

I took a break from powering through Ikea (I really love/hate that store…or is it “love to hate" that store…or "hate to love" that store?) and glided into the 320 square foot demo living space.  Here, within six temporary walls was a beautifully coordinated compact space.  In pristine colors of sea foam blue, black and white, with polished silver accents, was a space one could live in containing everything you’d need to live a beautiful life. (I do realize that in parts of the world there are families of eight living in the same space with even less stuff, but that is not what my fantasy was about.)  The daybed’s daytime job of becoming a couch pulled it off under a toile façade (and I do like my toile).  Small scale furniture, most with dual purposes (like surfaces and storage) and built in storage taking advantage of every inch of wall space allowed enough extra room for me to imagine arriving home and waltzing with a cat at the end of a work day (if you know me you know this is truly a fantasy as I would no more waltz with a cat than choose to hang out at an Ikea just for fun).

 I took my time wandering through that little space, soaking in the fancy fold down drying rack, the convertible table with just one of its two fold down leaves extended.  I pulled out the little drawers of said table and saw that my chopsticks and spaghetti noodles could fit into those drawers if needed.  I opened the closet door in that back hallway of a room and figured out how limited my wardrobe would be in that space.  I imagined only my little black dress, a black blouse or two, a pair of black pants and a sea foam blue cardigan nicely filling up that space.  I looked around and determined I could dress in this space without anyone seeing me from the imaginary flats facing the imaginary windows that exposed the rest of the space.  Yes, I could balance on my black stiletto heeled boots and pull on black tights in this close space.  After all the walls would easily prop me up on either side. 

The bathroom was genius in space use: a full sized sink had a polished silver little tray suspended over it to rest my white soap and black toothbrush on.  Built in cubbies around the mirror displayed pots with plastic green plants (the green a slight hue of sea foam blue): there was plenty of space for such luxuries as decor.  My M.A.C. makeup would have to go behind the closed cupboards, except for the face lotion in its black and white label that could live openly in the black and white world.  Wait, the eye shadow compacts in their brushed silver containers and my black applicator brushes could also live openly on the shelves.  My life could be accommodated.  I spent a good five minutes or more in that space, imagining a simple, yet color coordinated life.  It all seemed so attractive and doable. 

I began thinking of a scenario of something similar to a favorite childhood story: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler in which eleven year old Claudia Winkler runs away from home but decides to go somewhere comfortable so chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in which to escape.  Like Claudia, I become quite comfortable in the display bed.  I think of Novalee Nation in Home is Where the Heart Is who makes her home in a Wal-Mart after being abandoned by her boyfriend as she nears delivery of their child.  I like the idea of living a second life, in a fully public area, having the place to myself at night.  I’d end up decorating the store at night like Buddy in Elf and singing “Baby it’s Cold Outside” in the shower.  In the fantasy I have a beautiful singing voice.

Back in Ikea, I come back to earth and force myself to leave the fantasy suite.  A couple with whining child has wandered into my compact fantasy life and shattered my reverie.  I am plucked from the serene spaces of my mind into the confusing and aggravating maze that is Ikea to find more stuff to put into my “little" cottage, none of it which is black, white or sea foam blue.  I get pissy with the clerk who tells me that I can’t order anything off the Internet or call in an order in a few days when I will be ready for delivery of my temporary couch (I’m in the market for new living room furniture and have come to Ikea for the standard plain converter hide abed that will suffice until I can figure out what I really want).  I snap back at the clerk who rudely shuts me down when I inquire if I can unload my basket to the belt while she runs a price check for the couple ahead of me.  I roll my eyes at being forced to buy an awkward shopping bag made of blue tarp because they no longer provide bags of any size to customers.  I hate this place.  But I love my simple life in the 320 square feet of a simply beautiful life.  When I come back to order my couch I will build in some time to spend in that suite and maybe check out the security system to see if I could move in there.  And then I will remember it is in Ikea, its own little hell, and return happily, with couch to my relatively huge cottage and all my un-color coordinated stuff. 

Christmas Letter 2004

Two weeks before Thanksgiving the holiday decor schussed into Starbucks. Like the Mouse King vs. the Nutcracker, the Tuscany yellow colored walls battle with the cranberry red and tinsel silver of Starbucks’ Holiday Look. The tall centerpieces on the display tables, made of shiny metallic paper cones and silver spangles are vaguely tree shaped and look tacky. Trashy. The usual non-descript everyday cardboard cups offering stupid drivel of life advice have been replaced with a deep crimson holiday one sporting a cute sketch of a man and boy working together to put up a tangle of holiday lights. “It Only Happens ONCE a Year” it says. I think this is supposed to be encouraging.

Even though, at home, we are not yet dealing with Thanksgiving leftovers and dirty dishes, here Christmas tunes are playing in the background, as if to herald in these garish Christmas decorations. Faint staccatos of cinnamon dance through the typical peppery coffee aroma. Any sign of baby Jesus is conspicuously absent from all the décor and holiday gifts. Likewise, there are no Stars of David. No green trees. No gold stars. No white doves. It seems commercialism can’t afford to recognize the true meaning of the holidays. This makes me slightly sad. But mostly I am disgustedly amused. I’m certain this whole holiday campaign has been planned for at least ten months. Probably as soon as last year’s last post Christmas holiday sale items were boxed up and sent to some African country, the Starbucks visionaries got together and looked at several benign holiday campaign ideas to select this year’s winner. This year’s attempt looks oddly familiar to last. Which itself looked like the year before that. There is only so much you can do with crimson red, white and silver. It all starts to look the same. Now, if they would throw in some pine boughs, some golden stars, some brightly wrapped gifts: decorations as colorful and varied as the lives of these customers that come here and they might just knock me into the Christmas mood. These people, standing in line in peppermint-mocha daze, craving the wake up that only an espresso fix can give, are showered with snowflakes of holiday stress that this new seasonal Starbuck’s decor has released; depression dancing into their subconscious like the Sugar Plum Fairy.

In Starbucks I see couples and sense a triple shot of tension between some. I remember that. How we would load into the Subaru always saying “next year we should go to the mountains and cut our own.” Son would be sulking. Though he said it was because he’d rather be doing something else, I suspect it is the same reason that my heart was also sulking. I knew that with the Christmas tree would come a day of cussing: help would be hard to find at the tree lot; carrying the tree to and tying on the car would have husband and son barking at each other; the stand wouldn’t fit right; the tree would be unacceptably crooked; the poor dog would get yelled at by husband as she got in the way in the excitement; the decorations weren’t put away right last year; the light strings are tangled and only half work. I do not miss that.

This year son and I got our tree up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving. As we pull the box with our take-apart fold-down pre-lit fake tree (no floss, no tinsel, thank you very much) out of the cardboard box that has been stashed in the basement of our rental, son laughs and calls us “trailer trash” because we have a fake tree which makes me laugh because there is no tree crisis, no day of swearing and moodiness though I used to vow that I’d never have a fake tree or use Presto Logs instead of real wood which are two fabulous changes in my newly single life. Make that a cup of seveneleven coffee trailer trash, please. Stained cardboard cup. Just black. No room.

Here at Starbucks, the Christmas gift packs are expensively assembled. They will be snatched up by the last minute gift shoppers who have to bring something for their seasonal catching up with friends or in return for some small gift somebody unexpectedly gave them. I know this because this is when I buy Starbucks overpriced gifts.

This year Christmas shopping is fun. No frustrating effort in going out with my uncommunicative husband who only whines about the parking and the crowds and how we should have a list. No exhaustive efforts on a mother-in-law who doesn’t like me. No obsessive shopping for careful selection of a special gift for my husband which he will store unused for years on his dresser, claiming he likes it but still wont use it and doesn’t want to return it but wont use it or donate it to a good cause. No, this year our shopping is fun. Son and I spend more than our limit selecting CD players, basketballs, footballs and make-up kits for needy teens. Son asks with worry if we have enough. I say, for trailer trash we are doing OK.

Coming home from shopping, we stop at Starbucks. Son is not as bothered as I by the garish colors and lack of Christmas in the decoration. He thinks I am being silly. He tells me that for trailer trash I sure am opinionated. I am OK with this. We pull into our driveway, crimson cups of Starbucks’ hot chocolate in our hands, reminding us that “It only happens ONCE a year.” Our trailer trash tree looks beautiful, all lit up in the corner window. This has been a peppermint mocha moment. With whip cream.

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Just cleaning up and found the 2004 Chrismas letter. Picture from Palermo (Sicily) Opera House, 2007. I want to go to Cappucino class in Italy and learn how to make designs in my foam!

Brazilian Wax Poetically

In South America they have no idea
How women in America pay for torture
In the name of their Country

Perhaps we shall do this for ourselves
Or on the off chance
An adventurous explorer
Will meander through
The foliage stripped rain forest
In search of the Fountain of Youth

Dilemma

It matters not
To those who will see
Without a thought
Of propriety
Selection of garb
For day of inconsequential interaction

Yet still she stands
Perplexed, unsure
Of who she is and what will fit
The state she’s in without a hint
Revealed to those whose path
Might cross as functioning on she goes

For what is the cut that fits the mood
Of ease and comfort
Or the constriction of formality
Unsure of who she is and what is right
For what she is supposed to be

With vast selection and depth of choice
But not a one will match the voice
That speaks to her of what is wrong
Or what is right

Selection stifled by too much thought
Turns away from so much there
Still unsure of what to wear
But none is right and all are wrong
To define the thing she is inside
As if it made any difference
To anyone
But her

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Picture source

Invisible Words

My words
Selected so carefully
I offer as a gift
Of myself to you

So much invested
Paid dearly for most of them
In return they gave me pleasure
And I had hoped would mean
As much to you

Intellectually
I know lack of acknowledgement
Is not in and of itself
A rejection of me
Or my thoughts

But I am back in pre-school
Presenting with great ceremony
My awkward drawing
With feet too big
And lumpy hands
Cartoonish really
But pridefully drawn none the less
And you don’t see me
Standing there with
My offering
And I am invisible
Once again

What I Will Miss When I Die

I will miss the quiet
Time to myself
I will miss the fine opportunity to
Break dishes
Roar and burn
And die a hundred times before sunset

When I die
I will miss reading
And aha moments of truth
And lies
Mine and others

When I die
I will miss falling
And bruises and the pain
From goodbye
And hello

I will miss violation
Tears and tearing
I will miss missing out
I will miss the hours in the middle of the night
When I am holding hands with my demons
Daring each other to go beyond
What we would ever admit

I will miss misbehaving
I will miss shopping
I will miss writing a check to fill a bowl
I will miss buying avacados and mangos
Finding just the right ones in a pile of tough ones
I will miss buying pretty bowls that I do not need
I will miss buying books that I will never read
But want to anyway, someday

I will miss the burn and good pain
From pushing myself just a little too hard at the gym
I will miss good coffee and bad desserts
I will miss making mistakes whether I learn from them or not
I will miss stepping off the plane in a country I do not know
And finding myself there anyway

I will miss looking forward to dying

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Photo Villa Gadallo, 2005

I Am Fruit

I am fruit
Before the picking
Hard and sour
Hanging on to the branch
That will hold me
Until I am precious

I am grass
Reaching up to heaven
Until cut
I love the smell of cut grass

I am a pillow
Lay on me

I am glass
See through me
You will only know I am there
When I am dirty

I am a secret
What I keep
You can’t have
Like a liar
If I tell you I lied
Then I am not a liar
If I tell a secret
Then it is not a secret
I need the power of secret

Bones, hair, toenails
Skin, lips, a navel (pierced)
Blood and breath
Fat and muscle
Organs
Tongue and eyes
All around
This soul
Protected
And damn tired of it
Sometimes
I open up the outsides
Just to make sure
It’s still in there

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Photo Sicily, 2007

Night Storm

The sudden crack and rumble from the summer storm, bitch slaps the cabin in the stillness of a hot summer night. The disorienting violence yanking me from another plane. Reoriented only by the afterburn of rain slamming the metal rooftop like pee hitting a flat rock behind a roadside bar. Once relieved, that bitch moves on down the river. I can hear her as she curses out the neighboring land, pushing her way down through the forest burg. I lay there, happy that she’s found other places to unleash her anger. Settling back into a long wait until dawn now. The wet moss and pine trees pushing their scent through the open screen window: they too are delighted she has moved along. Inhale the coolness deeply through my alert nose: I love the cold tickle in my sinuses after the forest rain. It’s happy hour. Drink it in until goofy. In the morning, those who were awakened by the bitch’s sudden appearance in the still heat of the summer night talk about her violence. And wonder at the ability of those who weren’t awakened to sleep through her fury.

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Photo source

Worm Discernment

Lahum is gorgeous: thick wavy dark hair, yummy olive skin and eye-lashes fat and long. Like a venus fly trap. He is unaware of how gorgeous he is. He is six years old. As a conversationalist he is either on or off. Can go without saying a word for long stretches, but once he decides to engage, the most incredible things fly out of his mouth. This morning he arrived quite late and seemed unusually introspective. He will make a marvelous brooding husband someday. When the kids were lining up to walk to school he was so focused on pulling the skin off the blister on his thumb that he nearly got left behind. I was bringing up the rear in the school walk today, and since Lahum was so very slow and focused elsewhere we walked together. It was chilly, the numbing cold after a rain that was nearly snow, the air and ground wet. I tried a few conversation starters. Nothing. He was looking down and dragging slowly. I was watching his face and found my heart breaking. What could be so bad in this beauty’s life? I had to keep urging him to step it up a little as the rest of the group was getting quite far ahead. Still, he’s looking down. All I can see is his thick lowered eyelashes. I want to scoop this child up and run away with him. Just as we cross the street and get to school grounds he speaks. “There are a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot (I am thinking “Oh dear. Whatever it is, there are certainly a lot”) a lot, a lot of dead worms.” I look down and see what he is talking about. All over the sidewalks are worms that have crawled out of the cold wet ground and have thrown themselves onto the sidewalks for some reason. Lahum continues. “I don’t know if they used swords or guns or knives or if they just wrestled but they had a terrible fight.” “It’s hard to tell whether the good worms or the bad worms died. They are just dead. But I know there was at least one bad worm or else there wouldn’t have been a fight.” (Eureka. He is so very smart) So this is what he has been thinking, looking down at as we walked to school.

Then he says “I can tell though.”

“What?” I ask.

“I can tell which worms are good worms and which worms are bad worms.”

“How?” I am dying to know.

“I just can. It’s something I can do.”

I tell him that he has a special gift. Then we are at school and I have to leave him so I can go to work and he can learn about numbers and letters and such. He doesn’t even miss me. Just keeps walking along the hall, head down. I have no idea what he’s looking for now. I’m hoping some day he can teach me how to tell good worms from bad worms. I’d like that gift too. In the meantime I thank God for this little boy who trusts his gift of discernment. I pray that it will serve him well some day. The circumstances of his young life I’m sure are tough. But he knows he is gifted, special, in at least one way. May he always have at least that.

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(Note picture is not of Lahum but it's at least a picture of a kid looking at a sidewalk worm.)

When Things Fall Apart: a little story of home (and life) repair

This morning the bathroom doorknob came off in my hand. Unfortunately the door was latched. Fortunately I was on the bedroom side of the door and not stuck in the bathroom. This is a really pretty crystal doorknob that fits perfectly with the décor of my 1928 remodeled lake cottage. As we know “pretty does not make perfect” and this doorknob had been giving me trouble. We’d been limping along, with me having to constantly retighten it. It had fallen clean out once before but that wasn’t problematic because the door was not latched, and I was able to reinstall it into the prior wobbly state of installation. This morning, however, the door was latched when the knob came off in my hand.

First I tried to pop it over the shaft from the knob on the other side but that just pushed the other side out and I heard that knob fall to the inside floor. I got my flashlight and a screwdriver and tried to jiggle the door open sans knob but no such luck. Then I looked for the hinges, in case I had to take off the door. Hinges are on the bathroom side of the door. That plan got tossed. Then I gave thanks that I was not stuck on the inside of the door. My mind wandered to another scenario where I would be stuck on the inside of the door with no tools and no phone to call for help. MacGyver inspired resourcefulness had me daydreaming about eating toothpaste while fashioning some door knocking explosives by creating sparks from razor stubble and explosive gasses from aerosol cans of hairspray. Those scenarios gave way to playing Rapunzzel through the bathroom window, either lowering myself down from the second story to my patio below, shimmying down a rope of tied together towel strips. Or perhaps hanging out until one of my neighbors on the way to their car could be persuaded to work with me in direction to getting the key hidden outside for just such an episode. Then of course they’d be on the other side of the door without a knob and would get to help me puzzle it out.

Back to the problem at hand from the bedroom side of the door…I tried and tried with the screwdriver but there was no progress what so ever. I unscrewed the knob face plate but that didn’t give me access to anything more than I had with the plate on. I thought about calling a handful of men who have helped me with projects in the past. I did not think about calling my wasband (that is what I refer to my ex as) to give him the opportunity to be my knight in shining armor. I thought about calling a lock smith so that I would not have to put anybody out. Then I went to the basement and retrieved my toolbox. This toolbox was a gift from my son, Andy, the first Christmas we had moved out of the family home and on to our own. I love my tool box, if for nothing more than my son gave it to me with the unsaid message that he thought me resourceful enough to take care of him on my own if I had the right set of tools. Bless him for that symbol of faith.

I set up in front of the door and opened my tool box and grabbed the awl first. I took it and poked and pried at the inner mechanisms of the knob and latch. Nothing moved. Then I grabbed the needle nose pliers and stuck them in the hole, opened them up and twirled. The door swung open. Hallelujah! I opened it. All by myself. I didn’t panic…almost, but didn’t.

Previously I replaced the ballcock in the toilet of our rental, where we lived before I bought this cottage. I’ve learned to install molly bolts and securely hung a towel bar in the same bathroom from the scene of my MacGyver daydreams. I single handedly disconnected and reconnected washers and dryers when we moved. I’ve changed light bulbs. (I only mention that as an accomplishment because my ex-mother-in-law used to have my wasband change her bulbs when they burned out. I would hate to need a man every time a light bulb burned out.) It is good to be able to put things back together when things fall apart.

When I think about how pleased it makes me to be able to successfully accomplish some home repair chore I need to pause and feel the same sense of pride and accomplishment in putting my life back in order after my marriage fell apart. There were moments when I did not think I’d make it. I thought the tasks at hand were potentially beyond me: finding a place to live; finding a way to feed and clothe my son on my own; learning to juggle everything needed to run a house without help while working full time; hanging on to a job and clients when I could hardly put two words together in a sentence; learning to get through every day without completely melting down and being carted off to the mental ward. There were days I felt utterly alone and overwhelmed to the point of wanting to throw in the towel. If I had thought there was someone there to catch that towel I probably would have done it. Somehow, despite the despair, we get through. Days march forward, we build our skills, stretch our capacity, test our limits and then one day we find ourselves going for a tool box instead of crawling back into bed. We recognize that it is the toilet or the doorknob that has fallen apart, not us. We stretch beyond a feeling of dependence to the joy of independence and resourcefulness. And then we reach out to those who have grown along side of us and remind them how far they too have come from when things fell apart.

Bursting

I am a seed,
Over ripe
Bursting with

Words
Keep me up
At night

Reading
Writing
Spilling
Bursting
Pinching
Poking
Pushing out from
Below the surface

My skin
My head
My chest
My heart
My feet
My fingers
Hair even
Spills

Words
Contained
Only agitate
Compelled
To spill
My passion
Words

When I worked in Pioneer Square my second floor office window looked out over the corner of 2nd Avenue and Cherry Street. Nearly every day, several times throughout the day, I would look out and see “the Professor” braced against the side of the bank, bending over a notepad, frantically taking notes. Always writing. He had the dress of the homeless, poorly fitting sports jacked, brown/gray tweed, holes in elbows. Skinny. Bearded. Generally dis-shelved, professorial looking. I am on my way to being the professor. Always writing. I would like to compare notes with him someday.

Can Paper Cry?

Can paper cry? Letters rearranged to put voice to a rumbling that starts so far below what can ever be pushed out of the mouth to the receiving ears of another. My fingers tap out the tears that well up but are not allowed to spill. I am silenced and muffled and mute. Except my fingers. And if I write the words that no one can read then does the paper have meaning? It’s the same as the question of the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear: does it make a sound? Do my words exist if nobody reads them?

(photo)

Woman's Beautiful (on the beauty of an old woman's shoulder)

I want to write 10,000 words about the space between the end of a woman’s neck to the outer curve of her shoulder. The strength and beauty as evident here as that in a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. As a woman ages, her neck gets longer, the sinewy ridge becomes more pronounced, as does the hollow below. The skin, as a result of her many burdens and hard fraught victories, brandishes the ridges and crinkles of a life fully lived.

Baby girl, chub of love, dimples here, as the angels kissed you and sent you to your mother’s womb. No wrinkles here, only dimples. You laugh and shoulder fat bounces. You cry and it strains. Grandmother raises you over your head, her beautiful hands hooked under your armpits, raising you from overhead to her lips. Your giggles contagious. Above your granny’s strong shoulders you fly, feeling safe in strong arms on your swooping flight. And from the corner of your exalting grin, a drop of milky drool baptizes grandmother’s strong shoulder. The same shoulder which later you will snuggle into and onto which you blot your tears.

Little tomboy. Athletic now, freckle kissed and sunburned, your shoulders sinewy and strong. Defiantly raised in anger as you fight the world head on, only wanting to keep up with the boys and get credit for what is rightly yours. Shirtless when allowed, your shoulder becomes part of your flat, not yet aching, chestwall. You have shed the baby fat, not yet fully girl. You are as strong as the boys. Your shoulder beautiful and strong, shoring up for the disappointment that will be borne, the love that will attach itself.

Lolita, woman/child. Trying to be comfortable in this body. Your perfect shoulders now fight the chafing from your first bra that cuts into your silky shoulder. Shamed by lingering eyes from old men and jealous women into covering up the beauty of your edge. The first tinge of the burden these shoulders will cause and then to carry sparks in your hungry heart. Wondering how these shoulders measure up to the ideals you soak up from magazine ads and beauty queens.

His rough hands and warm breath upon your shoulder ground you. This span between neck and shoulder tease from flowing off the shoulder garments as you become aware of the luring capabilities of flesh and muscle. This shoulder aches as it holds together what your heart has rendered broken. Open, exposed, available for admiration and strength. It betrays you. A nod in the mirror as your eye draws to the fantastic shoulder zone and inspires you to share what is only fully yours.

“I do” surrender this shoulder to one man, to have, to hold, to claim his own. The myth that he will take care and cherish it…always. Those hands that traced the span, from neck to shoulder, were assessing. Assessing not the beauty and power, but the skin and the capacity. His to take for pleasure personal. His to slap with words or fists. His to pout into when his own mother’s are no longer available to him. A woman’s shoulder, they long to possess, the outward handle of the inward devotion and obedience. As easily accessible for a passionate kiss as it is for a loving brush of caring hand or pinch or shove in anger unleashed.

Ah, sweet baby, fruit of her womb, the shoulder as perfect a spot as ever was to cradle love and keep it safe. The shoulder aches in emptiness when babe is away. How must this expanse of strong smooth flesh smell to tiny nostrils? Lotioned with an abundance of snot and tears, the shoulder skin takes on leather qualities. Gladly given up for this period in life to one who needs it more than herself. The muscle qualities build with the weight of lifting this babychild, gradually strengthening, beyond her belief, as child grows in size and emotional span. Even when said child is in his self imposed age limit for public hugging, these shoulders carry him into the world and catch him when he falls. The most remarkable beauty treatment for this shoulder is the baby balm.

And now, with child gone, metabolism slowed, invisible to eyes of her man and men, these shoulders grow and sag with neglect. Cocoon stage in preparation for final blooming. For the first time she takes a breath to assess the toll these shoulders have taken. No longer beautiful, except in moments of honest inspection, the shoulder is covered. Only for her eyes to see. The memory of youthful promise and myth of unlimited capacity falls over these shoulders, a shawl of sorrow and amazement in where they have been, what has touched them, and at least just a little wedge of hope, which settles into that hollow below the edge, above the chest.

And one day, she drops that shawl. Her shoulder radiant in its beauty and story. No longer in need of cover up. She wears her wrinkles proudly, a badge of her life and direction. Her hips have spread, her skin and fat settled. On this shoulder, scars from biopsies and a life of bra straps. And yet this shoulder, this expanse from neck to top of arm, rope of ridge, hollow below yet full in its beauty, each wrinkle a story of amazing strength. More beautiful than a flower, more caress-able than a baby. 10,000 words could never capture the beauty of an old woman’s shoulder.

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Photo from Wise Women: A Celebration of Their Insights, Courage, and Beauty by Joyce Tenneson which was the inspiration for this piece

Jump Rope Rhyme

One to win as one I win
Two alone I have no twin
Evil things you say to me
Bounce they back me to thee
Return to you Three times Three
(times three times three times three times three)
An incantation, a desperate recollection
With Wicca based jump-rope rhymes
Little girls protect themselves
From the unseen evils of a treacherous future
Cinderella Dressed in Yellah
Went upstairs to kiss a fellah
Made a mistake and kissed a snake
How many Doctors did it take?
Four and counting as ropes go spinning faster
And reach the limits of fine found footing
Five to pair and one left over
Red rover red rover send left out one over
Do you have a pick for six?
Will you leave me now I’m sick?
Evil things you say to me
I am gone and there you be===============================
Photo from Victor Friedman Photography

In Awe of Mother Bird

How did you push your little one out of the nest? I realize it was a necessity, for survival, for your baby. But if feels like it’s a necessity for MY survival to keep him here with me. He was my reason for setting out each morning to find and bring home nourishment to help him grow. Each day as I returned he proudly showed me what progress he had made while I was off in the world providing for us. His downy soft features slowly leave as sleek and, unbelievably, more beautiful he becomes each day. His warm fuzzy coat is replacing itself with sharp and prickly pin feathers as he evolves into the form that will assure his survival outside our nest. I am proud and frightened at once. I want to spare him the harsh realities of survival. He is the only one that survived my egg laying season. He is my hope. My pain. My love. Mother bird, how do we give our children wings and survive? I hear your beautiful song. I want my song to be beautiful too. Clearly sounds of pain and pride, of laughter. Of love. That is our song.
(Spring 2006)

Green Mile

He takes his breath and breathes into the hurt
Sparks healing, embers of hope
As ashes of darkness flee from harbor
Miraculously reviving that which was dead or dying

Tall, giant of a gentle man
Simple and pure

But what was given freely from him
Takes his strength and resolve
Tearing down his resistance
To his own dark, defeating demons

Sacrificing his strength
In order to strengthen others

Full of love, he cries
For the pain of others
Becomes his own
And a little of him dies
And a little of him grows

But in balance,
It is killing him

Bird is Hurt

Bird is hurt. Devastated.
I want to mend him
But I am shut out.
Mother bird instincts kick in
Regurgitating my own sustenance
To force into his screaming beak
You will fly again
But come into the nest
Where we can practice singing
And flying
Baby hops,
One baby bird hop at a time
Mending you is mending me
Bird, it hurts. I know.

(May 2006)
Painting by Don Sutherland