The Gift That Keeps On Giving

So Amazon now has a policy wherein if someone sends you a present via Amazon, you can be forewarned and allowed to either accept the gift - - or allowed to change the gift, secretly, of course, along with sending the giver a thank you note that sounds as if you received the original gift and no one is the wiser.

Yuck. Ick.

Gee, I guess it really IS the thought that counts. Or the lie that counts. or......what IS it that counts? What (listen to the older generation blather on!) kind of people are we raising here? But that's not true, I know lots of younger people who would find Amazon's newest gimmick as abysmally awful as I do. Not that I'm the Poster Child of present giving. I've given my share of ....what are they called? Second-hand gifts? Gifts that had already been given away once.....by someone else....to me. But said gifts tend to be fairly fabulous gifts, given only because someone else collects them and I don't. Something like that. In my once-upon-a-time-really-really-skinny-days I was once given five or six gowns which had been owned by the actress Frances Farmer. They arrived at my home in a box wrapped in gold foil with a huge red velvet ribbon tied round and round into a huge bow on top. Each gown was slinkier and hip-bone-showier than the next. I chose one of the gowns, re-wrapped it and gave it to a similarly bodied friend. THAT kind of gift. Anybody wanna say "No" to that kind of gift? Not on your life.

Today I've heard what six individuals received for Christmas; from French silk scarves attached to airplane tickets to Paris, France - - to ten coupons for ten different kinds of kisses. I'm not much of a traveler. I'll take the kisses. Although on the other hand .....

I'm glad to know that gift giving is not the dinosaurish-activity I had feared it was. I used to hear so much of, "Oh, George and I don't bother with presents anymore, we have everything we want." Really? You have everything you want? I'll never be that person. I know it's unchic as hell of me, unchic and out of style and out of step and oh-so-ugly-American, but I don't think I'll ever get over my lust for silver jewelry or books or cd's or dvd's or blank journals or bracelets or necklaces or anything I deem as beautiful or magical or sparkly or glowy or wonderful. I loved the moment when, the day AFTER Christmas, Alan looked at me and said, "I wanted to wait till tonight but I just can't wait any longer, put out your hand," and he rummaged through his backpack until he pulled out a green package and plunked it into my proffered right hand, whereupon I hurriedly (I'm always in a hurry when it comes to unwrapping presents) tore off the wrapping paper and discovered the most fabulous pair of earrings - earrings for a gypsy queen, for an Spanish gypsy queen, for an ethnically beautiful (inside joke) Spanish gypsy queen with a sense of humor and good strong ears although the earrings are light as a dove's wing. Earrings beautiful enough to speed up one's heart rate, if for no other reason than one is racing to the nearest mirror to see how they look. Even though I am not especially adventurous, they make me LOOK adventurous, and that's good enough for me.

However, I am not altogether "thing-oriented" -- I am well aware that gifts come in all sizes and all sorts of transformations and transfigurations and that most often, the very best gifts do not come in any state of being wrapped or having ever been wrapped. No bows, no ribbons, no frills, just a state of being, often fleeting, like a grin or a giggle or a smile where, only moments earlier, a frown had existed in its stead.

Alan and I are, of course, in the magnificent process of learning each other. Really, there is nothing better, nothing more fascinating, nothing more curious or delicious or exultant or maddening or heavenly than to learn another human being....especially a human being of the opposite sex. It is a Shakespearean experience, worthy of William Himself. It is huge, like a Tsunami. It is epic, like Tolstoy. It is vastly entertaining. It is multi-layered and multi-fascited, causing the writer to misspell several words in a row. My computer is underlining all my "Multi" words with little red wavy lines and yet I proceed, because I still have three patients to go and I refuse to stop for spelling. I am not writing for my English professor, even though I know that some of you out there ARE or have been English professors. Bite me.

The other night Alan and I disagreed on what movie to rent...he didn't want to watch the movie I wanted to see and I, who am used to getting my way when it comes to such matters, was.....flustered and flabbergasted. I didn't back down. He didn't back down. I couldn't believe he wasn't backing down. One of the most difficult perceptual problems people have is to realize that others (most typically, one's own mate) do not share their own personal psychological perceptions. Jim and I agreed on movies. It was not that I "got my own way"....it was that "we" were in agreement about ALMOST all films. And, to be fair, as Alan points out, we agree upon lots and lots of movies.....but not all. And it is in this "but not all" space, this rare "new" space where I experience such a lacuna of.....shock and utter disbelief......oh, why is he making trouble, anyway? Why not just go along with me? Wouldn't it just be easier to acquiesce? Why not make nice? I mean, oh my God, how can he live with himself,.... there I am, with the CD in my hand, and there he is, going on and on about, "Movies with lots of guns, or movies about the end of the world or movies about car crashes, those are movies that are, by and large, about making money. Period. And I'm not buying into it. Sure, I loved PULP FICTION, there are some great movies out there with guns and violence and I love some of them, but I'm not going to love them just because the owner of some video store tells me they're great. You're asking me to spend two and a half hours of my life watching something that looks like it's about a bunch of morons with guns in their hands? I don't think so."

Really?
Really.

So I leave the video store and go to Safeway because we've decided to make a chicken salad for dinner. And suddenly there he is, in Safeway, in the vegetable aisle, because we've decided to make a chicken salad for dinner. And I've been a psychotherapist for twenty-seven years. And I've got a good reputation, pretty good, at least, for being a pretty good couple's therapist. And I don't know where to look.

I'll be damned if I'm going to look at him.
I'm not going to look at him.
No way.
Uh-uh.
Nope.

But I suddenly feel a giggle erupt in side of me, like a burp.
I want to burp, but it's a giggle.
I want to slap myself, because I want to giggle, only it's a laugh.
I want to laugh.

I look at him and his lips are trembling, like he's trying hard not to laugh. We are both trying hard not to laugh. We are standing, two adults, next to all kinds of lettuce, this kind and that kind, I can't even tell you all the kinds of lettuce we are standing next to, soft kinds and hard kinds, not to mention spinach, and suddenly we both let it happen, we both let our lips sway into smiles and then tighter into grins and then into laughter and then we are hugging and then it's okay, it's okay, and we walk to the video part of Safeway and we rent a movie called THE LAST STATION with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer about Tolstoy and his wife Sophie, which I had seen, but I didn't tell Alan that until later because I wanted him to see it and he wanted to see it and I didn't yet know how delicate or how strong we were in the "I've seen it and you haven't" department category.........and we went home and fixed a delicious chicken salad and watched this deliciously marvelous (sad, sad) movie and then we watched one of Woody Allen's early hilarious movies, LOVE AND DEATH, and that was it. The gift was huge and it was in there somewhere. Where was it?

It was the smile and then the grin and then the laughter in the lettuce aisle at Safeway. As gorgeous as those earrings are, as gorgeous as all the gifts we gave each other, and we gave each other plenty, it was the smile and the grin and the laughter in the Safeway vegetable aisle that I will always remember. I placed the memory in my psychological and physical world of fundamental forces where it will always remain and help steady me when I am in trouble with myself or with Alan and I need a posse of psychological muscles to assist me in motation. Even if, as my computer is now telling me, I can not spell "motation".

And now my computer is informing me that I don't have any more blog space. Well, great. I need to go now, anyway. I just wanted to talk for awhile about gifts. So far this year, my best gift has been.....you guessed it...other than my kids and my grandkids and my friends....it's been Alan. He's become my best friend as well as my lover as well as my fiance. We've even spoken about marriage. While in Port Townsend we've even found me an engagement ring. And here is my conclusion to this raggedy blog - when (if) you marry your best friend, the talk (and nothing else, either) never grows old. It can't. It doesn't know how. The world becomes too fertile. The small world you two inhabit, your immediate intimate world, your neighborhood or neighborhoods, your country, your world....the world of art, of poetry, of literature, of music, of sensuality, of cuisine, of children, of grandchildren, of friends, of dreams, of life stories, of hopes, of dreams, of dashed hopes, of dashed dreams, of saviors, your own personal history, your parents' histories, your peoples' histories, your wishes, your fears, your successes, your failures, your personal saints and angels, the ones in your life you have blessed and wish to continue to bless, the ones in your life you have damned and wish to continue to damn or wish to forgive or wish to bash their heads in or wish to....or wish to.....or wish to......as long as you still wish to.........amen.....amen....amen......amen.....amen........it is all having to do with the gifts that keep on/giving.

We booked three nights at Port Townsend's Manressa Castle for the 24rth, 25th and 26th. Small room, okay view, hints of haplessly wandering ghosts, overly expensive Christmas dinner (of which we didn't partake), great bar - - we left after spending one night. We didn't have to look at each other and say, "Nah,", we didn't have to say, "We can do better than this," we didn't really say much of anything at all. We woke up on Christmas Day and I said murmured something like, "Let's get out of here and go down to the Tides," and Alan said, "Yeah," and we high-tailed it out of there. We didn't have to recite the reasons why. I knew the reasons why, he knew the reasons why, and we each knew that the other knew, without having said a word about it.

Kapish?
Right.
When you know you know.

Further back. June, 2008. I said to my friend Magge, "Someday I'd really love to live on Bainbridge Island" and Magge said, "Well, why don't you?" and four days later, I bought a townhouse on Bainbridge Island. I don't like to house shop any more than I like to do any other kind of shopping. If it isn't plaid, and doesn't have diamonds, I'll consider it. If I don't have t tie a knot, even better. If I can get somebody else to take a look at the kitchen and to see if there's any decent kind of storage space, whoopee.

Get it?
I'm easy, that way.
When I know I know.

At the party Alan invited me to, the family party held for his birthday, his cousin George's birthday and one other relative whose name (sorry! sorry!) I can't remember, that's when I knew. I knew as simply and surely as a thirsty man knows that water is what is absolutely needed. It was the third time we'd met. He spent just the right amount of time next to me. He spent just the right amount of time away from me. His relationship with his daughter looked loving and respectful on both sides. He touched me just enough. Years ago, oh, many, I'd taught that kind of social touching in workshops at the Bangor Base. He was a natural. I didn't need a second opinion. I didn't need another date. I didn't need a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eight opinion. Three. One, two, three. Just enough.

Three.
Like the legs of a milk stool.
When you know you know.

On the other hand,I know I shouldn't be doing. Driving, for instance. I know shouldn't be behind the wheel. I'm not good there. When I'm behind the wheel, I DON'T know. One of the gifts I received for Christmas this year (no, not from Alan) was a key-locater so I can even FIND my car-keys. Or: trying to read a map. I shouldn't even OPEN a map. It's ludicrous to try. Everyone who knows me knows this. Because, although "When I know I know," the opposite may also be said of me - - "When I DON'T know, I DON'T know."

Ah, well.

I wanted to write a terrific blog on the WHEN YOU KNOW YOU KNOW theme. I wanted to write it tonight. But Life got in the way and handed me a broken afternoon and then a evening. A fire, a metaphorical fire, but a fire, nonetheless, has broken out regarding my son, and I am torn into pieces inside my chest. I won't be okay for a couple of days and it's no use putting off writing just because certain pieces of me are going to be busted up for awhile; those pieces will just have to heal in their own good time while the rest of me, like Time, marches on. Crap waits for no one, especially during holiday time.Especially big cruddy pieces like these.

Like cow pies.
Like cow pies with steam spewing out.
Like cow pies still wet in the middle and you slip and end up all squished up on your butt in the middle of one.
And you feel like you're ten years old again.
And you want to throw back your head and yell, "Hey, if there's a plug out there, would somebody mind pulling it?"

But nobody you know has that kind of plug and if you knew somebody with one you'd dust yourself off and run like hell because you want to see where this next year takes you. Because there could be angels sitting on the fence posts. Somebody could bring you wildflowers. Maybe you could get married. Probably you could dance some more. Way, way more. Probably you're gonna laugh some more. A lot more. And listen to more Leonard Cohen and more the Reverend Al Green, especially his song,"Belle". And Tony Bennett. And Ray Charles. And eat more bagels. And make more chicken salad. And read more Lorca and Neruda out loud.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Phenomena is Us

Uh.....unusual, significant, a marvel. Three marvels. See them. Speak to them. Poke 'em in the ribs. Take 'em to lunch, why don't you. I am in the mood to write what I call "gut-busting" metaphors. "These Three Phenoms Will Blow Your Fruitcake!" "These three Phenoms Will Shatter Your Nervous System!" "Gut-Wrenching!" "Heart-Busting!" "Searing!" "Unequivocally Darling!" (Okay, okay, that's enough) - - I just like the picture, that's all. It was taken Sunday, when we were at Aleister's house.

I was engaged in conversation with a friend this morning. We were speaking about Jesus. Poor Jesus. We both agreed we just couldn't "get with" Him. He didn't seem real enough to us, we said. For one thing, He was too good. For another, there was no reference to a sex life. He was supposed to be part man. Well....where WAS that part? All the men WE'D ever known went around horny from age thirteen to ..... gee, does it ever really end? I mean, at least, in the mind? How can you trust a guy who doesn't suffer over the lack of a woman? How do you trust a guy who doesn't at least pay for a ticket once in a while? Is crucifiction really enough? Why? There are worse deaths. There were worse deaths then, there are worse deaths now. If crucifiction were really enough, I'd know how to spell it.


About presents. I like to work the week of Christmas because my patients bring me presents. So far, I've wracked up: a jar of real honest-to-God homemade mince-meat. Three gorgeous pieces of costume jewelry: a pin and a set of matching earrings. I'll wear the pin on New Year's Eve. And this Christmas evening at the Manressa Castle. A plate of homemade cookies. A plate of homemade fudge. And that's just so far today! There'll be more! Am I crass? Do you think I'm crass? No, no, no, no, no, I'm not crass. I'm just saying! I love it. I can't help it. I've always loved presents, ever since I was a little girl and my mother taught me how to open them without anybody seeing the evidence. We both did it. Then there was the year Grandpa got on the stepladder and piled our presents way up high on the tallest piece of furniture in their formal living room and, while trying to get at them with the broom, Mama knocked them all down the back of the tallest piece. Of furniture. And she had to confess. And I was so mad at her I wanted to spit. So we had to tell Grandpa. And it took three men - Grandpa, Daddy and Uncle John to move the tallest piece and drag out the presents. We hung our heads in shame (fake shame) until those presents were placed back under the tree ("where they BELONG"). We did it anyway. We got up at three that night and did it anyway. We opened them. Only Aunt Nettie, sitting in the big grey chair, dressed in grey silk, smoking her Canadian cigarette held in a real black onyx cigarette holder, drinking real liquor (usually forbidden) from a small champagne glass and chuckling quietly,saw. When she died, she willed all her old fur coats to Mama. Mama gave them to me. I still wear one or two.

Mama was a bad girl. Nettie was a bad girl. I am a bad girl, too. And, on the other side of being bad, Mama was a good girl. Nettie was a good girl. I am a good girl, too. That's what's right. That's what's right about this and every other picture. That's what's right about Christmas. That's what's right about The Day of the Dead. That's what's right about Mardi Gras. That's what's right about Veterans' Day and Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. Those Pilgrim's were a stupefyingly uptight bunch of geeks until you got to know their dark side, then they turned into new turkeys altogether. That's what's right about nearly every person you know. And that's what SHOULD be right about Jesus, if only we had all the information. I'm just tired of using my imagination to make Him be human. There is very little that is more miraculous than birth. Except for a man with no lust in his heart. And that ain't no good miracle, I'll tell you that right now. I know, I know, that's just me talkin'. I'm just sayin'. I'm just singin'.

I'm just singin' the Good Old Phenom Blues.

WINTER

I Took Alan to a party and introduced him around as if he were a big stuffed toy, like Jimmy Stewart did with his tall white rabbit Harvey,in the movie "HARVEY", whenever he got drunk. That is, when Jimmy Stewart got drunk, not Harvey. Harvey wasn't really real. (Or was he?) I've never had a big (well, Alan's not exactly big, he's slender, but he's certainly tall) - - toy to show off before. It's fun. And it's interactive.

You get to show the tall toy off and then the person you're showing the toy off to asks (they have to ask SOMETHING) how you met so you get to tell them and that leads to more questions and pretty soon you're just babbling away, happily filling them full of all sorts of information they probably don't really want to know but boy, do they ever know it now. It's good for diets, because, as everybody knows, if you're talking a lot, you're not eating a lot. I didn't eat until I got home. That was our one and only Christmas party and I'd say it was a resounding success.

We couldn't wait for Christmas, so we opened our presents this past weekend, paper flying everywhere. I had only Bainbridge Island to choose from so Alan's presents from me were a little........"Islandy".....and he had Olympia to choose from, so his presents to me were perfect. Perfect. Some were practical, like the beautiful knitted and lined wool gloves and slippers or the furry hat or the gorgeous multi-stone earrings with the turquoise in the center or the terrific book written by Kurt Vonnegut's son titled "Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So" or the beautiful little turquoise colored lidded pot which now sits on the table next to the turquoise blown glass bowl or the couple of ___________s I won't be mentioning here but they look like they could be fun when we have time and inclination. Well, we seem to have the inclination all the time, so I guess it's Time Itself we don't have. Would anybody out there like to donate us some of their precious time? Somebody out there with too much time, anyone?

We paid a visit to Aleister and his family on Sunday. When we walked through the door, Aleister was bent over a pamphlet-thing, filling in a page or two with check marks and words. "What are you doing, there, Aleister?" I asked. "I'm giving out vaccinations," Aleister said, "it's my Christmas present," he added. "You mean your Christmas present is going to be giving vaccinations to kids in Africa?" I asked, looking at the pamphlet? "Yup," he said, "fifty vaccinations for fifty poor kids." I pulled up a chair across from him. "Aleister," I said, "I think that is a really great Christmas present." He took a moment to lift his head and look me in the eyes. His eyebrows have turned really dark and, at the young age of ten, his voice has gotten quite deep. "Mama Kay," he said, "it is a super duper really great Christmas present," he said. Before we left I asked him what he planned on doing with the money I had given him for Christmas. "Uhhhhh," he said, "maybe give more vaccinations or some goats?" he said. "Oh, ALeister," I said, "how about taking some of the money and giving yourself something?" "Okay," he said. He looked at his Mom. "How much do one of those games I like cost?" he asked his Mom. "Fifty dollars," she said. "Then I'd like to buy one of those games and then give my Mom fifty dollars for her car engine," he said.

There's no stopping him. He's just a dang good kid, that's all. People can get wrecked at any time, of course, we all know it happens, we just don't like to think about it. Something happens and ka-boom. One night a rat crosses your path and your doomed. It's the spirit of the times. One morning you get up at an unlikely early morning hour and it's raining outside and even a priest can't save you. But these events are most unusual. But even more unusual is ALeister, hunched over his pamphlet with pictures of African children,his heart swollen in a mix of love and agony of sweetness of spirit, so deep and amiable that it is as stark in unconsciousness and consciousness as that perfect spot of purity that sways in silent balance between the light and the dark that keeps children mostly safe and adults mostly in awe throughout the greyness of the winter days.

Stop Christmas, I Want to Lie Down

I want to figure out how to make things stop happening to me. Or, better yet, I want to figure out how to stop myself from happening to "things". Days ago, in reading Jim's early Journal, I noticed he had written (in 1965) "One thing is: Kay must not be allowed to ever drive a car." I was indignant when I first read that statement, but later I understood. It's pure and simple and honest and true. Kay must never be allowed to drive a car. Because there is so much else one can do while driving a car and those people out there are doing them!! Not only do you have to keep your hands on the wheel and look back and forth and keep your eyes going forward into the rear view mirror and to the left and right and keep in mind that half of those drivers out there are on the verge of nervous breakdowns and heart failures and have just broken up with their loved ones and have just had appendicitis attacks or have been bitten by dogs or bees or their girlfriends - - but they are also yelling into their cell phones and turning up their Ipods and God knows what else, if only God had been keeping up with all this technical shit which, of course, He/She/It hasn't been because He/She/It hasn't had anything at all to do with any of this shit.

I found another pole to run into. That's three. Two on my very own drive way and one on the Olympia freeway. I backed into it because (denial? River of De-Nile?)---my car has no visibility. And neither do I. If I were a car, I wouldn't. I'd be a tricycle. I was highly successful as a tricyclist. Also, as a wagon-puller. I once had a red wagon that I pulled incessantly. But, folks, I can't even get a piece of toast to brown up to the standards of anybody who likes their toast to come out even, and, no, it's not the toaster, it's me. I'm impatient. I'm impulsive. I'm an instant replay sort of person. Not good for toast.

I was so embarrassed about The Third Pole I paid for the damage myself instead of letting my insurance pay. Why should they have to pay for my mistakes? These are things I do not understand. If the world were full of "me's" we would all be much poorer even than we are now.

So I went to the store today. Standing on the curb was a woman, nicely bundled up, holding a sign that read "NEED". I parked my car (I do happen to be a great parallel parker), went up to her and said, "What's going on?" "I need everything," she said. "I've got allergies, I need food, I came here on the train but I got off at the wrong stop, today is clothing day at Helpline House but I don't need clothes, last night was food night and I had a good steak but there won't be steak tonight, there all kinds of foods I just can't eat...." her teeth were all worn down and I'll wager she was quite a few foods I can't eat...." I pulled out a twenty and handed it to her. I gave her a hug. "Oh! You're perfume! You're perfume!" she called out, in protest. I backed off, muttered, "sorry" and kept on walking. I decided I didn't like her very much. I decided I don't have to be a wonderful, heartfelt, angelic giver, just a giver.

This past weekend, at Alan's house near Olympia, the one with the fabulous full frontal view of Mount Rainier rising above Puget Sound, we trimmed his Christmas Tree (a real one - - I put up an iron tree --not true, Robin put up my iron tree and it's beautiful- - maybe I could manage to back my car into my Christmas tree, as well) - - we each put up ornaments from our past. It occurred to me that this tree is a journal of sorts, his two marriages, my two marriages, his child, my children, my life with Jim, his times with his two wives, all the stories, the laughter, the disappointments, the parties, the Christmas dinners, the boxes and platters of cookies, fudge, fruit cake (which I happen to adore), the new robes, the old robes, the children banging their chubby little noses into the lowest ornaments, the children, shaking the boxes, me down there, shaking the boxes, Jim dragging me away from the boxes, the great Christmas music, the crap Christmas music, all those stories from Alan's life and lives and my life and lives and now here we are merging this tree with his precious ornament he made for his daughter Star, the one which is so fragile it keeps breaking year after year and he keeps patiently glueing it back together year after year - and the little perpetually damp pipe-cleaner angel which Jim and I hung near the top of every tree we ever had. Alan's tree has presents beneath it - my tree has none. His tree is the the pig that went to market, my tree is the pig that stayed home. This weekend he will bring his presents here and we'll open them up....I can't remember where or when. We'll be in Port Townsend at the Manressa Castle over Christmas - do we open them there? Or here?

I like our tree that is a Journal. Everybody who has been with each other for at least a few years - - or who is doing it "our way" - has a Journal-Tree - and is fortunate to have such a tree, so that they may tell each other stories, may hold the stories in each other's hearts, adding credence to the 'jimmied up' phrase, "Everybody's Christmas Tree is worth a novel."