Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Oh, Let Me Tell You About It!
On November 14, 2011, Alan and I sat in Wisconsins's Lambeau field, five seats above the 40 yard line, watching the Green Bay Packers play Minnesota. On the short flight out from Chicago we got a taste of just how internationally popular the Packers are...there was one woman from Australia who'd been following them since she was twelve and two men from Ontario. In our tour group on Sunday (they run tours every fifteen minutes) we had people from Brazil as well as from Texas, California, Arkansas, Oregon and Alaska.
We bought long silk underwear from the Olympia REI but told each other we'd resist buying anything obviously "Packers". We're just not "that way". Not us. We're grown ups, after all. We love the team, not the team's packaging. So,God. Give us a break.
On Sunday we hit Lambeau's gift shop and looked around. We pretended for awhile, then spent two hundred dollars on the green and gold. And that was just inside. The next day, before the game, we bought the really gauche stuff. Beads. Fluffy ropey neck things. A shirt for Alan that read .......I can't remember exactly what it read. Ask him. He'll tell you. Alan had a heck of a time figuring out which player's jersey to buy...should he buy a jersey with Woodsman's name on it? Or Donald Driver's? He thought, he thought. Finally, after airing his innermost confusion to one of the elderly men working in the gift shop, he decided on Driver, because Driver writes children's books. If any of you out there want Alan to buy your shirt, start writing for the little one's. Melts his heart.
Our tour took us through the tunnel (accompanied by loud music and taped roars of the fans) which the Packer's actually come out onto the field through. Big moment. We were taken above the field to one of the luxurious box seats where we could look down over everything. Another big moment. It was Veteran's Day Weekend and, during the game's intermission, we were asked to lean over, grab the plastic bag fastened onto every seat, grab the big red, white or blue cardboard mask and put it over our faces when signalled to by the sideline TV people. When we completed our paper trick, the entire stadium turned into a red, white and blue flag-like sign that read "Thank You, Military!" So THAT'S how they do that. After tail-gaiting with open trunks full of nearly every kind of liquor and beer on the market, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (there were something like 78,000 people in the stadium that evening) of significantly drunk people trying to get the eye holes in those masks to slide on up to meet their eyes.....major parts of the stadium's words were not only nearly unreadable but pre-tt-y darn swervy ..... but hey - - there were no fights, no accidents, no police were called, and Packers sat next to Vikings in relative harmony. I myself (don't you hate it when somebody says "I, myself" - - like, who else would "I" be? And yet I feel compelled to say it:) - I, myself, sat next to a Viking. And it was fun. It made things particularly fun, when the game ended and we won, 45-7. We smashed that Minnesota team right into the next hemosphere.
Yeah.
And the food. Oh,the food. Yes. Where the only green vegetable we saw for three days was a chunk of iceberg lettuce. Where they even butter the butter. Where they fry the cheese. Where they serve up something called cheese curdles. Where the burger, the brat and the cheeseburger are the only offerings on the menu even at the Hyatt Hotel, where we stayed. Where the women are as large as the men and you'd be too. Where we filled up on eggs, bacon, sausages, sweet rolls, sweet cakes and sweet cream in the morning. Where we ate burgers for dinner every night. Where even Alan (Alan!) ordered a quesadilla just to get to the iceberg lettuce. I never thought I would see him eat iceberg, and yet he did; wolfed it right down. Good God almighty. Shows what deprivation can do to a man. Makes 'em run for the iceberg. My only regret? That I never had me a brat. Damn. I was THERE. It's very sad to look at yourself in the mirror once you're back on the island and know you've just come from Wisconsin and you didn't eat a brat. Brings on a feeling kind of like a mix between shame and regret. Shoulda had a brat.
And the Packers, whom we went to see play? Oh yeah. There are a whole bunch of things I thought I'd rather see...the New York ballet, The Met opera, even Oregon's Shakespeare festival....but this team, these Packers....are really something. They are part machine and part ballet. They ARE a team. They are beautiful. They are beautiful to watch. Everyone who knows me said something like, "YOU? YOU? Are going to see a team play......FOOTBALL? Do you.....KNOW? Anything ABOUT....FOOTBALL? .....KAY?" And the answer to all these questions is yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. And it was worth it all. And I DO happen to know at least...SOME...about football. And when Alan walked into the room where Lambeau keeps the Lombardi trophies...and when I watched his face as we walked out on the field....and when I watched the Packer's fans and the Packer's themselves, the community pride for this team they OWN.... you know, it's just one of those things. It was beautiful to behold. HE was beautiful to behold. And my heart was full.
So here we are back home and it's hard to believe we were ever there. "Human kind," said T.S. Eliot," can not bear too much reality." I suppose three days was about all we could bear and about all we really could take in, realistically, of Wisconsin, brat or no brat. The Packers have played two or three more games since we were there and they've won each game and Alan is now hoping they will lose one before the play-offs. I've been trained to listen to the worst of childhood trauma, but I haven't been trained to go through the psychological distress of my favorite team losing. I know it comes with sports, it comes with the game, but I'm new to all this, but I'm a baby, I'm a novice and I don't have my big girl boots on yet. I don't want them to lose, ever.
Meanwhile, life goes on. Angela called to say that Aleister is now up to class level in all his classes. His English instructor did complain to Aleister about his latest paper, though. He told Aleister that he needs to know "his audience". The assignment was to "write about your worst day". The first of Aleister's sentence for that paper went like this, "The worst day of my life, Oh, let me tell you about it...." and the instructor didn't enjoy the "looseness", he said it needed to be more "academic". So. I know about all of this. I know about "voice" and "audience" and "academic" writing and technical writing. I also know I used to be hired to teach English instructors to "write with a voice," at Centrum in Port Townsend. And I know it took every trick in the book to loosen those teachers up. l know you have to know the rules but I don't know which comes first, the voice and then the rules or the rules and then the voice. I think whichever comes first naturally, needs to be well validated. Anyway, I love that, "Oh, let me tell you about it!" and so I am going to title this blog with those words. I love the looseness and the vibrancy and the enthusiasm, especially for something awful, like the "worst day of my life". If that voice and that vibrancy is what he's using to describe the worst day of his life, I sure do want to know what the kiddo is going to say about his best.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
BUT REALLY, IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE!
I turned my life around when I met Alan. Baby steps, sure, but even so, steps. I became a person who reads food labels and "due dates", or whatever one calls those stamped dates on food products which signify it might be best if you stopped eating said products after October, 2009. I follow rules for recycling (yes to plastic dairy tubs, no lids,) yes to plastic bottles (with caps on).
I no longer comb,brush or pick my hair. There should be a foot note here but I'm not going to bother. I will tell you, though, I do get lots of complements.
Go figure.
In order to assure my children and the people who may still love me out there in Bremerton-Land and beyond, I still am hell on wheels in a car and I still eat lots of canned peas when Alan's not looking. If canned peas have a due date, I do not pat any attention whatsoever.
I don't want to make them feel bad.
Back again to the Life Changes.I have become a woman who flies to New Jersey and New York and, when she (I) goes to New York, she always (twice) goes to see a Broadway play. So far (two trips), I've seen MEMPHIS and, last week, Sondheim's FOLLIES, with Bernadette Peters. To hear Ms. Peters sing "Losing My Mind" was rapture........to hear the actress who sang "Broadway Baby," an older woman playing a Jewish cleaning woman who'd seen show after show go by in the theatre where she worked.....was rapturiously magnificent.
As good even as eating Junior's cheesecake and letting it melt all over my tongue and into my throat and not swallowing until I absolutly positively had to.
That's what I'm talkin' about.
We first flew in to New Jersey where we stayed with Alan's sister Fran and brother-in-law, Leo. Once again, they generously opened up their house to us, including feeding us the best breakfasts - something chocolate and vanilla called Bobka, oh and something Fran cooked called Noodle Kuchen ohmygod it was SO good - - I ate my own piece and then I turned to Leo and ate his piece as well. For desert. Because, , with this kind of food, there is never enough. As one of the actors shouts out in the wonderful film about food in the film "The Big Night!" "There is NEVER enough! There is only NOT enough!"
Which is how I felt about Fran's kuchen. If I had been willing to drop the socialbility and reveal the fathomless level of my pure food-passion and utter selfishness which occurred to me both at the same time in one singular moment, I would have grabbed the entire kuchen, jammed it under my arm like a football player and run out of the house and onto the street down the street, the way my Grandfather did in North Dakota on Thanksgiving on some sunny, grisly day in the 1950's.
Leo spent time showing me books which revealed the differences between New York NOW and New York THEN (early 1900's)....hard to believe. Hard to believe what could be done back then with a penny, a nickle, a dime, hey, let's all go back and buy cars, houses, CANDY!
We could not find Alan's camera while in New Jersey so we have no pictures from Fran and Leo's. There are some pics from last May on my blog but none of Leo, which I regret. We found the camera on the second day of Alan's reunion and I'll try to get a few pictures into this blog. One will be of one of Alan's fraternity "brother's" and dearest friends, a guy named Byrde (not his real name but back then hardly anyone went by their real name and the nicknames stuck) and his sweet (but spicy) wife Alice, and Alan and me. We were eating desert after our meal at a Jersey place called Bogart's. Here we are, having eaten a scrumptous Jersey meal:
And of course, the reunion of the Something Something Chi's - - I obviously don't remember and Alan isn't here to give me the information. The college was Mammouth college in New Jersey and I think I am correct in saying that Alan's fraternity was the.....most raucous, most creatively raucous, most organically, orgasically raucous, psychologically,raucous, disgustingly raucous fraternity......ever experienced up to that point (1964 - 69??)--especially on such a beautiful...distinguished and historically famous, even, college on the East Coast. Later, I believe the college shut this particular fraternity down, but NOT before the lads made plenty of videos of themselves, which they called "The Monkey Tapes".
Here are Alan and his dear friend Barry, who used to sit around with Bruce Springsteen (sp?) and play guitar at Alan and Barry's place. Barry went on to form a band of his own.
To view the Monkey Tapes which could be torture to many brain or digestive systems - - and then to look around the room and see so many judges and attorneys and scientists and teachers, coaches, musicians, teachers, admen, businessmen, absoutly proves the old cliche about the acorn never falling "that far from the tree". Because these guys, in their late teens and early twenties, rolled miles and miles away from their tree .....and NOW look at them. They rolled right back.
This is Alan and Dr. Peter, an electrical engineer. They got that gulpy thing going in their throat when they hugged goodby.
So. Politics? Money? Didn't matter. What mattered was the love. You could hear it in the voices. That little gulpy thing that happens in a man's voice when hr's trying to hold the tears in but he just can't manage it and it starts spilling out like globs of honey.......globs of honey from big ol' love holds and crunches that started out as mere male pats on the back.....
To watch Alan go through that was great fun. Or maybe not "fun", exactly, so much as that feeling you get when you know you are witnessing a rare dose of intimacy and tenderness. More like that.
The reunion was held at Sal's house; Sal,who wrote the commercials, "I Can't Believe I Ate the WHOLE Thing" and "That'sa Some Spicy Meat Ball!" as well as hundreds more. Yup, they live in a mansion. Yup, with an elevator. With so much food you couldn't count it all. With the meatballs and the sausage and the pizza and the salads and the breads and the morning fruit and bagels and lox and egg dishes and ohmyGod I can't remember - and a HUGE cake with a frosting-photo-copy of the OLD Mammoth College on top and yes there was lots of alcohol and nope, not one person got drunk. Not ONE.
And they called a couple of guys up who, due to force of circumstance, couldn't attend. I'm changing names here......."Did you hear about Bobby? Ah, God, it's terrible, it's a shame, and that it should happen to him, and then there's Jonesy from New Mexico, can you believe that? God, I always loved him, hey, let's go call him, let's go call him right now, do you think it'd make make him feel better or worse if we called him? Better? Yeah? Worse? You think so? Jesus, I don't know, I just can't stand it, my wife says I wouldn't know a feeling if you pulled it out a my ass, but I can't stop thinking about him, I gotta call him, come on, life's too short, anyone else with me? You? AlRIGHT! You TOO? Oh, Christ, we gonna be on the phone all night here! Yeah,yeah, sure, but it's something we got to do! We GOT to, right? Don't we got to? We love him,we got to TELL him that! SHOW him that! If he cries, he cries, hell, I'M gonna cry, I'll tell you THAT right now! Let's go! We'll do a conference call,lots of phones around here, so........okay, let's go this is what you do when you love somebody and they're hurtin' and they're....you know, they're alone...huh? Don'cha think? This is what'cha do, because, really, it's all about love!"
I no longer comb,brush or pick my hair. There should be a foot note here but I'm not going to bother. I will tell you, though, I do get lots of complements.
Go figure.
In order to assure my children and the people who may still love me out there in Bremerton-Land and beyond, I still am hell on wheels in a car and I still eat lots of canned peas when Alan's not looking. If canned peas have a due date, I do not pat any attention whatsoever.
I don't want to make them feel bad.
Back again to the Life Changes.I have become a woman who flies to New Jersey and New York and, when she (I) goes to New York, she always (twice) goes to see a Broadway play. So far (two trips), I've seen MEMPHIS and, last week, Sondheim's FOLLIES, with Bernadette Peters. To hear Ms. Peters sing "Losing My Mind" was rapture........to hear the actress who sang "Broadway Baby," an older woman playing a Jewish cleaning woman who'd seen show after show go by in the theatre where she worked.....was rapturiously magnificent.
As good even as eating Junior's cheesecake and letting it melt all over my tongue and into my throat and not swallowing until I absolutly positively had to.
That's what I'm talkin' about.
We first flew in to New Jersey where we stayed with Alan's sister Fran and brother-in-law, Leo. Once again, they generously opened up their house to us, including feeding us the best breakfasts - something chocolate and vanilla called Bobka, oh and something Fran cooked called Noodle Kuchen ohmygod it was SO good - - I ate my own piece and then I turned to Leo and ate his piece as well. For desert. Because, , with this kind of food, there is never enough. As one of the actors shouts out in the wonderful film about food in the film "The Big Night!" "There is NEVER enough! There is only NOT enough!"
Which is how I felt about Fran's kuchen. If I had been willing to drop the socialbility and reveal the fathomless level of my pure food-passion and utter selfishness which occurred to me both at the same time in one singular moment, I would have grabbed the entire kuchen, jammed it under my arm like a football player and run out of the house and onto the street down the street, the way my Grandfather did in North Dakota on Thanksgiving on some sunny, grisly day in the 1950's.
Leo spent time showing me books which revealed the differences between New York NOW and New York THEN (early 1900's)....hard to believe. Hard to believe what could be done back then with a penny, a nickle, a dime, hey, let's all go back and buy cars, houses, CANDY!
We could not find Alan's camera while in New Jersey so we have no pictures from Fran and Leo's. There are some pics from last May on my blog but none of Leo, which I regret. We found the camera on the second day of Alan's reunion and I'll try to get a few pictures into this blog. One will be of one of Alan's fraternity "brother's" and dearest friends, a guy named Byrde (not his real name but back then hardly anyone went by their real name and the nicknames stuck) and his sweet (but spicy) wife Alice, and Alan and me. We were eating desert after our meal at a Jersey place called Bogart's. Here we are, having eaten a scrumptous Jersey meal:
And of course, the reunion of the Something Something Chi's - - I obviously don't remember and Alan isn't here to give me the information. The college was Mammouth college in New Jersey and I think I am correct in saying that Alan's fraternity was the.....most raucous, most creatively raucous, most organically, orgasically raucous, psychologically,raucous, disgustingly raucous fraternity......ever experienced up to that point (1964 - 69??)--especially on such a beautiful...distinguished and historically famous, even, college on the East Coast. Later, I believe the college shut this particular fraternity down, but NOT before the lads made plenty of videos of themselves, which they called "The Monkey Tapes".
Here are Alan and his dear friend Barry, who used to sit around with Bruce Springsteen (sp?) and play guitar at Alan and Barry's place. Barry went on to form a band of his own.
To view the Monkey Tapes which could be torture to many brain or digestive systems - - and then to look around the room and see so many judges and attorneys and scientists and teachers, coaches, musicians, teachers, admen, businessmen, absoutly proves the old cliche about the acorn never falling "that far from the tree". Because these guys, in their late teens and early twenties, rolled miles and miles away from their tree .....and NOW look at them. They rolled right back.
This is Alan and Dr. Peter, an electrical engineer. They got that gulpy thing going in their throat when they hugged goodby.
So. Politics? Money? Didn't matter. What mattered was the love. You could hear it in the voices. That little gulpy thing that happens in a man's voice when hr's trying to hold the tears in but he just can't manage it and it starts spilling out like globs of honey.......globs of honey from big ol' love holds and crunches that started out as mere male pats on the back.....
To watch Alan go through that was great fun. Or maybe not "fun", exactly, so much as that feeling you get when you know you are witnessing a rare dose of intimacy and tenderness. More like that.
The reunion was held at Sal's house; Sal,who wrote the commercials, "I Can't Believe I Ate the WHOLE Thing" and "That'sa Some Spicy Meat Ball!" as well as hundreds more. Yup, they live in a mansion. Yup, with an elevator. With so much food you couldn't count it all. With the meatballs and the sausage and the pizza and the salads and the breads and the morning fruit and bagels and lox and egg dishes and ohmyGod I can't remember - and a HUGE cake with a frosting-photo-copy of the OLD Mammoth College on top and yes there was lots of alcohol and nope, not one person got drunk. Not ONE.
And they called a couple of guys up who, due to force of circumstance, couldn't attend. I'm changing names here......."Did you hear about Bobby? Ah, God, it's terrible, it's a shame, and that it should happen to him, and then there's Jonesy from New Mexico, can you believe that? God, I always loved him, hey, let's go call him, let's go call him right now, do you think it'd make make him feel better or worse if we called him? Better? Yeah? Worse? You think so? Jesus, I don't know, I just can't stand it, my wife says I wouldn't know a feeling if you pulled it out a my ass, but I can't stop thinking about him, I gotta call him, come on, life's too short, anyone else with me? You? AlRIGHT! You TOO? Oh, Christ, we gonna be on the phone all night here! Yeah,yeah, sure, but it's something we got to do! We GOT to, right? Don't we got to? We love him,we got to TELL him that! SHOW him that! If he cries, he cries, hell, I'M gonna cry, I'll tell you THAT right now! Let's go! We'll do a conference call,lots of phones around here, so........okay, let's go this is what you do when you love somebody and they're hurtin' and they're....you know, they're alone...huh? Don'cha think? This is what'cha do, because, really, it's all about love!"
Friday, October 7, 2011
BEING WRONG AND BEING ME
"Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we
are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf."
- William James, "The Will To Believe"
In reading a fascinating book, part philosophy, part psychology, titled BEING WRONG, ADVENTURES IN THE MARGIN OF ERROR by Kaththryn Schulz, I find I am experiencing the phenomena of being "Me" in an entirely new way. If, thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world and if the capacity to err is actually a sign of intellectual superiority, crucial to human cognition (that is, if we can freely acknowledge our errors and go on), and if, indeed, there is actually very little we can one hundred per cent be right about....then I am an absolutley fabulous,fabulous person.
Because I am wrong.....or at least I0 make lusciously hearty errors....at LEAST once or twice a day.
Probably more.
I was wrong when I approached the line of men at the automobile place and said, quite audibly, "I don't know what to do." I was wrong when I backed up out of my narrow garage on the first day I purchased it....and put a dent and a scrape on its shiny red surface.
I was wrong when I kissed Aleister in front of a group of boys his own age beneath the Victoria Secret's new bosom laden sign.
I was wrong when I didn't add butter to the oil.
I was wrong when I machine washed the new red top that said "Dry Clean Only".
I was wrong when I took the fashion magazine's advice and began going to bed minutes after having washed my hair. Ahhhh-chooo.
This last not-very-interesting but somewhat telling list all occurred within a week. But there's more. Much, much more.
Each time I claim to know something, I am essentially saying that I am not wrong. And if I want to contend with the (very real) possibility that I COULD be wrong, then the idea of knowledge only serves me so far. I must also examine my belief system, which is mostly subjective, even if I think it is not. And we are all full of beliefs, both conscious (_____________ are nutjobs) and unconsious (the table will hold my plate of food)....well, see I am probably now wrong for going on and on in such a way that interests me but not likely anybody else.
For the past three weeks I have been eating two Madeleine cookies for breakfast along with one cup of coffee. While this is in no way illegal, nor is it anybody else's business, I have an idea that a nutritionist might shudder and might even find me to be.........wrong. Bananas are the only fruit I eat. I have fallen in love with ginger beer. I have lost ten pounds. That is good, but WHY is it good? Is it good because I get complements? Eating like I do? Is it right? No, it's wrong. Am I out of my mind? No, I am very much IN my mind. In fact, one might say I live much more inside my mind than I really SHOULD.
Alan says I am sedentary.
I know what he's saying.
He's saying I'm wrong.
To be sedentary is wrong.
Perhaps I'm simply a tad rebellious. One of the first words all of us learn is: no. It is soon followed (or, less often, preceded) by "yes". But, ueually, "no" comes first.
When my parents used to tell me to do something I would start, slowly, slowly, oh ever so slowly, to back up until I was about one or two feet away.... at which point I would yell, "I Will and I Will and I WON'T"........at which point I'd run like hell.
The author Philip Gourevitch writes, "One doesn't write what one means to write, one writes what one CAN write." See, this a variant on the kind of erring I do every day. I decided to write a blog on how fabulous I am because of how many errors I make every single day (read: hour) of my life and here I am, discussing matters of childhood and writing.
Oopsie. Wrong again.
are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf."
- William James, "The Will To Believe"
In reading a fascinating book, part philosophy, part psychology, titled BEING WRONG, ADVENTURES IN THE MARGIN OF ERROR by Kaththryn Schulz, I find I am experiencing the phenomena of being "Me" in an entirely new way. If, thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world and if the capacity to err is actually a sign of intellectual superiority, crucial to human cognition (that is, if we can freely acknowledge our errors and go on), and if, indeed, there is actually very little we can one hundred per cent be right about....then I am an absolutley fabulous,fabulous person.
Because I am wrong.....or at least I0 make lusciously hearty errors....at LEAST once or twice a day.
Probably more.
I was wrong when I approached the line of men at the automobile place and said, quite audibly, "I don't know what to do." I was wrong when I backed up out of my narrow garage on the first day I purchased it....and put a dent and a scrape on its shiny red surface.
I was wrong when I kissed Aleister in front of a group of boys his own age beneath the Victoria Secret's new bosom laden sign.
I was wrong when I didn't add butter to the oil.
I was wrong when I machine washed the new red top that said "Dry Clean Only".
I was wrong when I took the fashion magazine's advice and began going to bed minutes after having washed my hair. Ahhhh-chooo.
This last not-very-interesting but somewhat telling list all occurred within a week. But there's more. Much, much more.
Each time I claim to know something, I am essentially saying that I am not wrong. And if I want to contend with the (very real) possibility that I COULD be wrong, then the idea of knowledge only serves me so far. I must also examine my belief system, which is mostly subjective, even if I think it is not. And we are all full of beliefs, both conscious (_____________ are nutjobs) and unconsious (the table will hold my plate of food)....well, see I am probably now wrong for going on and on in such a way that interests me but not likely anybody else.
For the past three weeks I have been eating two Madeleine cookies for breakfast along with one cup of coffee. While this is in no way illegal, nor is it anybody else's business, I have an idea that a nutritionist might shudder and might even find me to be.........wrong. Bananas are the only fruit I eat. I have fallen in love with ginger beer. I have lost ten pounds. That is good, but WHY is it good? Is it good because I get complements? Eating like I do? Is it right? No, it's wrong. Am I out of my mind? No, I am very much IN my mind. In fact, one might say I live much more inside my mind than I really SHOULD.
Alan says I am sedentary.
I know what he's saying.
He's saying I'm wrong.
To be sedentary is wrong.
Perhaps I'm simply a tad rebellious. One of the first words all of us learn is: no. It is soon followed (or, less often, preceded) by "yes". But, ueually, "no" comes first.
When my parents used to tell me to do something I would start, slowly, slowly, oh ever so slowly, to back up until I was about one or two feet away.... at which point I would yell, "I Will and I Will and I WON'T"........at which point I'd run like hell.
The author Philip Gourevitch writes, "One doesn't write what one means to write, one writes what one CAN write." See, this a variant on the kind of erring I do every day. I decided to write a blog on how fabulous I am because of how many errors I make every single day (read: hour) of my life and here I am, discussing matters of childhood and writing.
Oopsie. Wrong again.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
HOW TO BUY A USED CAR
Exhaust yourself by driving around for three hours in your old car. The car you have come to hate. By this time you are in the mind frame of "any car will do." You are supple, vacant, Zen-like in your approach to how the river of life flows. Drive to West Hills Honda and park your Volkswagen Beetle. The one you can't handle. The one you've had for four years and you still can't figure out where the front or back begins or ends. In other words, you are zoned out and It Is Time.
Struggle to get out of the car, grab your purse and limp up the hill to a line of four young men who look like they would eat wombat balls if only you would meet one of their eyes. You look at one of them and say, "I don't know how to do this."
They positively shiver in delight.
Really. You can feel the ground move.
You know you have made, by this time, possibly four or five big mistakes while telling the truth. You don't know how to do this. Life no longer has any room for truth. Life is a game, damn it, when will you LEARN this?
One man, name of Frank, herds you away from the rest. Frank wears thick glasses and is not, like the rest of the guys, sweating. He says, "It's easy!" He doesn't yet know what it is I want to do, and it's easy. I like his attitude, kind of devil-may-care. Kind of Mary Poppins Meets Harpo Marx. Heido Ho! It's Easy!
We go inside and sit down at Frank's desk. He wants to know what I do for a living. I tell him I'm a psychologist. Frank's major interest seems to be Frank. He leans back in his chair, gathering some kind of points. "Well, now," he says, "roll your chair over here," and tell me what you can tell about me."
"You suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," I say. "Yep, sure do!" he says, happily. "You're divorced, and you have one or two children," I say. "One," he says, "Oh boy, you're good," he says. "You drink too much," I say. "Hey," he frowns," how do you know that?" "I can smell it on your breath, Frank," I say.
He straightens up. "I'll have to watch that," he says. "Now. What can I do for you?"
"I want to trade in my 2007 red Volkswagen Beetle," I say. "For something inexpensive like a Kia or a Hundea."
Frank happily slaps one of the perfectly placed pieces of paper on his desk. "We can DO that!" He says. "We can DO that! Come on and let's go find some Kias and Hundeas for you to look at and drive! You're gonna love this!"
Frank's small eyes are blinking fast. He may have some kind of tic that I missed mentioning, I don't know. He certainly does have an ability to go from down to up in a New York second, all that money.
We walk around a big curve and end up in Kia and Hunda-ville. I climb inside a cool looking jet black Kia. It's nice Chic. The motor sounds a little fast. I drive it around the area and decide against it. I love the look but am sorry about the motor sound. "I don't think so, Frank," I say.
"Oh, we've got LOTS of cars," Frank says.
"I know you do, Frank, I looked them up on the computer, last night." He didn't seem to cotton to this information, I don't know why. I drove the Hundea but the wheel was a bit jerky and I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, either. As we were parking the Hundea my eyes lit on a nice looking red car. Too long? Too sleek for the likes of me?
A 2010 Nissan. With my trade I could have it for $4,000. I drove it around, the motor sounded good, it felt right, I liked it. What more should I know? "I'll take it," I said.
"I'll take it," I said.
And so I did.
After an hour and a half of signing forms which is one of the things I most hate in life (you're credit is excellent, your mileage is low so we'll knock off...., do you want the this, do you want the that, you have one more year of waranty left on this Nissan....), I paid my money and drove it home.
Later, I called Alan and said "I bought a car.
Silence.
"A 2010 Nissan."
Silence, then, "Did you ask questions about it?"
"You mean about the price?"
"No, I mean about who owned it before?"...."Or.....anything?"
"Well, the people who owned it before didn't want it anymore and so they took it to West Hills and traded it in."
Silence. Then,"Good luck."
"What?"
"I said 'Good luck'."
It's not easy being me. It's not easy being a car that belongs to me. How I ever even got to the ripe old age I am sometime just floors me. How I ever made my way into the professional world and delivered all those lectures I used to deliver and taught all those classes around the U.S. and got all those degrees......I mean, I was the same me then as I am now....how the hell did I do it?
"And I shall easy to be", said Emerson. Well, yeah, it's pretty easy to be me, too, or at least it feels like it, until I get next to other people and they explain to me the Right way to do things, or, indeed the Only way to do things.....but if it really were the ONLY way, then I wouldn't really BE here, would I? My father used to suggest that all of this (he's wave his arms) was just a dream, HIS dream, as a matter of fact, and that I was simply a part of his dream. It was only when he died that I could truly let my breathe completely go (I was thirty-four by then) and absolutly know down deep inside that he had NOT constructed me through his dreams. I was me. I existed all by myself.
And so does that beautiful 2010 red Nissan sitting down in my garage. I know where it's front is. I know where's back is. I know where it's sides are. It's longer than the Beetle was but at least I CAN SEE WHERE I BEGIN AND END.
Which is a good thing.
Please, y'all. PLEASE. Wish me good luck.
Struggle to get out of the car, grab your purse and limp up the hill to a line of four young men who look like they would eat wombat balls if only you would meet one of their eyes. You look at one of them and say, "I don't know how to do this."
They positively shiver in delight.
Really. You can feel the ground move.
You know you have made, by this time, possibly four or five big mistakes while telling the truth. You don't know how to do this. Life no longer has any room for truth. Life is a game, damn it, when will you LEARN this?
One man, name of Frank, herds you away from the rest. Frank wears thick glasses and is not, like the rest of the guys, sweating. He says, "It's easy!" He doesn't yet know what it is I want to do, and it's easy. I like his attitude, kind of devil-may-care. Kind of Mary Poppins Meets Harpo Marx. Heido Ho! It's Easy!
We go inside and sit down at Frank's desk. He wants to know what I do for a living. I tell him I'm a psychologist. Frank's major interest seems to be Frank. He leans back in his chair, gathering some kind of points. "Well, now," he says, "roll your chair over here," and tell me what you can tell about me."
"You suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," I say. "Yep, sure do!" he says, happily. "You're divorced, and you have one or two children," I say. "One," he says, "Oh boy, you're good," he says. "You drink too much," I say. "Hey," he frowns," how do you know that?" "I can smell it on your breath, Frank," I say.
He straightens up. "I'll have to watch that," he says. "Now. What can I do for you?"
"I want to trade in my 2007 red Volkswagen Beetle," I say. "For something inexpensive like a Kia or a Hundea."
Frank happily slaps one of the perfectly placed pieces of paper on his desk. "We can DO that!" He says. "We can DO that! Come on and let's go find some Kias and Hundeas for you to look at and drive! You're gonna love this!"
Frank's small eyes are blinking fast. He may have some kind of tic that I missed mentioning, I don't know. He certainly does have an ability to go from down to up in a New York second, all that money.
We walk around a big curve and end up in Kia and Hunda-ville. I climb inside a cool looking jet black Kia. It's nice Chic. The motor sounds a little fast. I drive it around the area and decide against it. I love the look but am sorry about the motor sound. "I don't think so, Frank," I say.
"Oh, we've got LOTS of cars," Frank says.
"I know you do, Frank, I looked them up on the computer, last night." He didn't seem to cotton to this information, I don't know why. I drove the Hundea but the wheel was a bit jerky and I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, either. As we were parking the Hundea my eyes lit on a nice looking red car. Too long? Too sleek for the likes of me?
A 2010 Nissan. With my trade I could have it for $4,000. I drove it around, the motor sounded good, it felt right, I liked it. What more should I know? "I'll take it," I said.
"I'll take it," I said.
And so I did.
After an hour and a half of signing forms which is one of the things I most hate in life (you're credit is excellent, your mileage is low so we'll knock off...., do you want the this, do you want the that, you have one more year of waranty left on this Nissan....), I paid my money and drove it home.
Later, I called Alan and said "I bought a car.
Silence.
"A 2010 Nissan."
Silence, then, "Did you ask questions about it?"
"You mean about the price?"
"No, I mean about who owned it before?"...."Or.....anything?"
"Well, the people who owned it before didn't want it anymore and so they took it to West Hills and traded it in."
Silence. Then,"Good luck."
"What?"
"I said 'Good luck'."
It's not easy being me. It's not easy being a car that belongs to me. How I ever even got to the ripe old age I am sometime just floors me. How I ever made my way into the professional world and delivered all those lectures I used to deliver and taught all those classes around the U.S. and got all those degrees......I mean, I was the same me then as I am now....how the hell did I do it?
"And I shall easy to be", said Emerson. Well, yeah, it's pretty easy to be me, too, or at least it feels like it, until I get next to other people and they explain to me the Right way to do things, or, indeed the Only way to do things.....but if it really were the ONLY way, then I wouldn't really BE here, would I? My father used to suggest that all of this (he's wave his arms) was just a dream, HIS dream, as a matter of fact, and that I was simply a part of his dream. It was only when he died that I could truly let my breathe completely go (I was thirty-four by then) and absolutly know down deep inside that he had NOT constructed me through his dreams. I was me. I existed all by myself.
And so does that beautiful 2010 red Nissan sitting down in my garage. I know where it's front is. I know where's back is. I know where it's sides are. It's longer than the Beetle was but at least I CAN SEE WHERE I BEGIN AND END.
Which is a good thing.
Please, y'all. PLEASE. Wish me good luck.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
KEEP ON SWINGING
It's been a year, folks. One year this weekend. One year since I actually cancelled patients (oh my god Loss of income, big irritation to patients, lots of rescheduling, something I never do)....to meet this "Island Man" named Alan. With one "L". And he was late due to traffic. And he was tall, due to genetics. And I was so nervous I still don't remember one word I said. What's to say? "Hi, I'm Kay, I love hot dogs and Tolstoy and Woody Allen and I'd rather read books than travel and I'm only slightly koo-koo and I'm always thinking about the worst that could happen and I'd love to see you with your shirt off......." ???? !!!!Oh, God. Those Match.com things are SO difficult. I don't have any idea what he said, either. He'd worked for the state in energy for twenty-four years but I thought he told me he'd worked in salmon.I went around telling everybody he worked in salmon. He was sixty-five, near sixty-six. I was sixty-four, never sixty-five.
At lunch's end, he bent down to kiss me and I blushed and he said, "Oh, look at you! You blushed! Just like a little furry thing!"
I had to get back to see a four o'clock patient. But I couldn't find my car.
We've seen each other every single weekend since. Every. Single. Weekend. Since.
In June of this year, we became spiritually tied to each other (married) and we wear rings on our wedding hands. They are like us. Beautiful. Well, handsome and beautiful. Anyway, this picture is taken not long ago at the Sawatdy Thai which is the first the first middle-of-the first-weekend restaurant we ever frequented. Something about spice.
The above picture was taken in my oldest daughter Kelly's yard. Alan had a conference nearby and off we flew. Kelly, whom I raised from the time she was...ten? eleven? along with her sister Erin, are my daughters, and I love them both immensely. There are many many pictures taken at Kelly's which, though adorable, are simply not fit for public viewing. Dancing, dancing, dancing to the music. Kelly, her friend Carol and me....and, of course, Alan, who won not one, but two, dancing contests, just like John Travolta in Saturday Night Live, when he was young. Jumped up, twirled around, landed in the splits, used one arm to spring himself back up and....you get the picture.Whew, I would have loved to have been there. Well, we went to the market, brought back food and ate. California watermelon, berries, avacados, string beans, raspberries, strawberries, CORNDOGS, salmon, chicken, oh my god, we ate, we ate, and we danced it off each night. It's been one slam-dunk of a summer. Watch the sun go down at Alan's sweetheart of a bungalow with it's straight-across view of Mount Rainier. Dining with dear, dear friends. Tolerance up, expectations down. Learning each other. Laughing. Loving each other's familles and friends. Knowing we don't have limitless prospects but that even makes it better, somehow. We'll keep our heads down. We'll keep our eyes on the ball. And we'll keep on kissing and swinging.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Hospitals? Get DOWN With Your Bad Voice!
Well, it's nearly two weeks since I had the fifteen inch medical implement surgically removed at the U. of W. hospital. I was scheduled for a one day (in and out) visit (don't you love the euphemisms?), but I got to thinking -- gee, that's a long implement to give such little attention to.....what would Eugene O'Neil have to say? Surely he would trot out his famous statement and bellow it to the skies: "Attention muct be paid?!" After all, it was this very instrument that, (unbeknownst to me, because I didn't know it was in there until 2-8-11) led me to relocate to Bainbridge Island where I would be able to walk nearly everywhere I needed to go because car seats where the worst, left me buying six chairs plus two medical chairs my neurologist swore by (and I swore AT), brought me to a year in rehab, six months in acupuncture, chiropractic practice, medical hypnosis, rounds of inner and outer botox, shots in my spine, pain clinics dispensing morphine and oxycodone.......and all I get is an in and outie? No, no, no, no, no. By this time, I was afraid. I was uneasy. A couple times before this surgery my blood pressure had zoomed to zero during day surgeries.
And yet.....I was afraid of my doctor. Oy! My doctor! She is golden, she is the queen of the department at the University Hospital, she's one of those women who was once the smartest girls in those adolescent books about...well, smart girls. You need to tie a knot and there's nothing around but broom and a horse? Use the horse to tie the knot and the horse to ride out on. Dummy. She has a no-nonsense approach, not much of a bedside manner at all: "Hello, I'm Dr. ____________, I'll be seeing you next week to remove the ____________." She doesn't waste a word. Or a smile. Other doctors worship her. "Oh, Dr. _________ is doing the surgery? Oh, my God, you can't do better than that!"
I CAN'T?
Then I want her for longer then an in & outie!
"You've got to be your own best advocate," said Alan. "Stand up for yourself. You're paying, she's doing her work. Tell her what you want. Use plain English. Tell her what you want and tell her why you want it. Be firm. Nice, but firm. All she can say is 'No', but you've got to give her a chance to say 'Yes'. You can do this. Just everybody else seems to worship her doesn't mean that you have to worship her. Now, get in there and Go for it."
What does he think this is, football?
There are about five things in my life that I'm really proud of and not one of them has anything to do with being firm with doctors. Well, there was the time at Virginia Mason when the doctor wouldn't examine me because, she said, that wasn't part of what she did, and I looked at her and said, "Okay. You're the doctor here. I'm you patient. I'm going to pull down my pants. See? See me pulling down my pants? Now, YOU, as my DOCTOR, are going to walk up behind me, closer, closer, and TAKE A LOOK! I don't care if you've never examined another patient in your LIFE! YOU ARE GOING TO EXAMINE ME!" And she did. But I wasn't afraid of her. Come to think of it, I think she was the department head, too. But she was a weenie compared to this UW doc. I have all kinds of nerve when it comes to weenies.
So the day of surgery came and they had found my veins (terrific veins) and piled my hair into the cartoon cap and put the breathy-warm-air-blankie over me and suddenly here she comes. I'll call her June. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Fine, just fine," I said, "but....June....I believe it's in my best interests to spend the night here in the hospital." She turned her back away. "So you think you ought to spend the night?" she questioned me.
"I do," I said.
"It can be a long wait for the ferry and there's all kinds of lumps and bumps on the
planks getting on to the ferry and I'm uneasy about the first night. I am not at all convinced that I won't need hospital care tonight."
She turned towards me. "Well," she said. "I'll see what I can do about that. I'll try to find a room for you."
After surgery I got a cheeseburger. Ice cream. Morphine every six minutes. My blood pressure began to slide downwards all through the night but that was okay because there were doctors there to come in and check it and do what doctors are trained to do, things Alan is NOT trained to do. And the next day I was let go at about one o'clock, by which time many of the staff and I were singing and having a high old time. Well, I was having a high old time and they were having a contact high old time.
Four days ago a representative from the U. of Washington called to give me the date of my follow-up visit. September 20. Okay. "And you were a 'day patient'?" she asked. "Nope," I said, "I spent the night." She whistled through her teeth. "How did you manage that?" she questioned me. "I just asked." I said. "Wow," she whispered.
This morning, another staff member called, wanting to re-remind me of the follow-up date. "And what was it that we did to you?" she asked. "You removed a _________________," I said. "Did we do anything else to do?" she asked. I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. "Other than monitoring me and changing my dressings and making me feel safe and being very very nice to me, that's it." "I just wanted to be sure," she said.
So that's it. I'm much less sophisticated about these things than the rest of you are, out there. I just want to put my two cents in and say GRAB YOUR VOICE AND USE IT. Because it's true - nobody's gonna say it for you. And there's nothing. Nothing at all to lose.
By the way - - no more pain!!!!!
And yet.....I was afraid of my doctor. Oy! My doctor! She is golden, she is the queen of the department at the University Hospital, she's one of those women who was once the smartest girls in those adolescent books about...well, smart girls. You need to tie a knot and there's nothing around but broom and a horse? Use the horse to tie the knot and the horse to ride out on. Dummy. She has a no-nonsense approach, not much of a bedside manner at all: "Hello, I'm Dr. ____________, I'll be seeing you next week to remove the ____________." She doesn't waste a word. Or a smile. Other doctors worship her. "Oh, Dr. _________ is doing the surgery? Oh, my God, you can't do better than that!"
I CAN'T?
Then I want her for longer then an in & outie!
"You've got to be your own best advocate," said Alan. "Stand up for yourself. You're paying, she's doing her work. Tell her what you want. Use plain English. Tell her what you want and tell her why you want it. Be firm. Nice, but firm. All she can say is 'No', but you've got to give her a chance to say 'Yes'. You can do this. Just everybody else seems to worship her doesn't mean that you have to worship her. Now, get in there and Go for it."
What does he think this is, football?
There are about five things in my life that I'm really proud of and not one of them has anything to do with being firm with doctors. Well, there was the time at Virginia Mason when the doctor wouldn't examine me because, she said, that wasn't part of what she did, and I looked at her and said, "Okay. You're the doctor here. I'm you patient. I'm going to pull down my pants. See? See me pulling down my pants? Now, YOU, as my DOCTOR, are going to walk up behind me, closer, closer, and TAKE A LOOK! I don't care if you've never examined another patient in your LIFE! YOU ARE GOING TO EXAMINE ME!" And she did. But I wasn't afraid of her. Come to think of it, I think she was the department head, too. But she was a weenie compared to this UW doc. I have all kinds of nerve when it comes to weenies.
So the day of surgery came and they had found my veins (terrific veins) and piled my hair into the cartoon cap and put the breathy-warm-air-blankie over me and suddenly here she comes. I'll call her June. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Fine, just fine," I said, "but....June....I believe it's in my best interests to spend the night here in the hospital." She turned her back away. "So you think you ought to spend the night?" she questioned me.
"I do," I said.
"It can be a long wait for the ferry and there's all kinds of lumps and bumps on the
planks getting on to the ferry and I'm uneasy about the first night. I am not at all convinced that I won't need hospital care tonight."
She turned towards me. "Well," she said. "I'll see what I can do about that. I'll try to find a room for you."
After surgery I got a cheeseburger. Ice cream. Morphine every six minutes. My blood pressure began to slide downwards all through the night but that was okay because there were doctors there to come in and check it and do what doctors are trained to do, things Alan is NOT trained to do. And the next day I was let go at about one o'clock, by which time many of the staff and I were singing and having a high old time. Well, I was having a high old time and they were having a contact high old time.
Four days ago a representative from the U. of Washington called to give me the date of my follow-up visit. September 20. Okay. "And you were a 'day patient'?" she asked. "Nope," I said, "I spent the night." She whistled through her teeth. "How did you manage that?" she questioned me. "I just asked." I said. "Wow," she whispered.
This morning, another staff member called, wanting to re-remind me of the follow-up date. "And what was it that we did to you?" she asked. "You removed a _________________," I said. "Did we do anything else to do?" she asked. I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. "Other than monitoring me and changing my dressings and making me feel safe and being very very nice to me, that's it." "I just wanted to be sure," she said.
So that's it. I'm much less sophisticated about these things than the rest of you are, out there. I just want to put my two cents in and say GRAB YOUR VOICE AND USE IT. Because it's true - nobody's gonna say it for you. And there's nothing. Nothing at all to lose.
By the way - - no more pain!!!!!
Monday, August 1, 2011
"Mama Kay," Aleister said on the phone to me today, "do you realize we have met our Higher Power?"
"How's that?" I asked.
"The Space Needle!" he exclaimed. "We have sat and eaten in It's Lap."
I must have gone silent for a few seconds too long because he followed up with, "...that was a joke."
"I know, I know!" I said.
"And you're not laughing," he observed.
"But I'm grinning!" I insisted. "If you could see me, you could see the grin. It's a really, really big grin, Aleister."
"We're on the telephone," he said, drawing out the word tel-e-phone, "and you could be sitting or standing or lying down; tears could be running down your face, you could be licking an ice cream cone, you might not be grinning at all."
"You're right," Allie," I said. "Absolutly. That's the great things about phones. Or at least the old fashioned kind that we have, without cameras. You can be doing any thing you want to be doing and you cn tak at the same time and it's cool, because nobody knows the difference."
"AHA!" exclained Aleisiter. "Another lie! I am beginning to worry about you. You told a lie inside the Higher Power and now you are admitting to a second kind of lie."
"Oh my God," Allie, saying it was your birthday at the Space Needle restaurant was a perfectly acceptable social kind of lie. And it got us a wonderful window seat! Without a reservation! And who did we hurt by that little lie? Nobody was behind !s? We were at the very very end of the brunch line. It's not like we were hurting anybody else...."
"But, Mama Kay, it was still...." Aleister tried to point out....
"Oh, stop," I interrupted.
".....a lie." He finished.
"So do you wish we hadn't gone? And eaten that fabulous food? While the restaurant totally revolved itself not once, but twice?" I asked.
"I'll bet you are not grinning right now, Mama Kay, "Aleister commented.
"Righteo," I said.
"No, I had a very great time with you and Grandpa Alan. He was an excellent protector. I did not think I would ever be able to go all the way up and keep all that food down."
"So how many people have you told about our adventure?" I asked.
"You mean about the lie?" he said.
"No, Smarty Pants, I mean about going all the way up to the Observation Deck and then down a bit to the restaurant and sitting there for two whole hours and eating our guts out."
"Uh.....five."
"Who were they?"
"My mom, my dad, my friend Alyssia, the Fred Myer guy and somebody else I forgot."
"Well, I'm gonna put it on my blog," I said. "Because for me it represented getting over a huge phobia about heights."
"Okay, you put it in your blog and I will put it in my dreams," Aleister said. "And if you or Grandpa Alan ever want to visit the dream, just ask. Okay?"
"Okay," I said. "We will."
"Mama Kay?" Aleister said, before we hung up.
"Yeah?"
"Did you get a look at the bolts on that thing?"
"Yes I did, Allie, "yes I did."
"I didn't know what to say when Grandpa Alan showed them to me so I just said 'wow'."
"I think that's the perfect thing to say," I said.
"Yeah," Aleister said. "Wow".
And then we hung up.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
TWO CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES
So we did it, dear Reader, we married. This past Sunday we spent several hours debating about whether we should or should not go through with an actual wedding ceremony, since neither of us wish, for several very good reasons, to not have a civil wedding. If not a ceremony, though, filled with family and friends, then, what? Very few of Alan's friends would be able to make their way to such a ceremony....it would be filled with my side of the family and my friends; and, although he has come to love my friends and my family as I have come to love his daughter Star, his sister Fran, her husband Leo and his cousin George, Fran and Leo can not attend, and George is not ambulatory. We awoke Monday, ate a light breakfast, dressed for the day. I threw on a dress, something I rarely do (wear a dress on a "day off", I mean; usually I wear jeans) We stopped at a thrift shop, where I found Alan the most gorgeously made Japanese (or are they all Japanese?) kimono and where he found (and wore out of the store) a kind of hippie-ish traditional "wedding" shirt. Then we took off for Poulsbo.
In Poulsbo, at the restaurant Mor Mor's, which we love because it serves our favorite red wine, called Abacela, a kind of Tempranillo, I asked him what he needed to feel married to me. He said, "Nothing. I already feel married to you." In turn, he asked me the same thing. I felt the same way. "Me too," I said. "I need nothing at all. I have felt for some time as if I am your wife."
The day went on. The day was a strand of ribbon, a length of rope like life itself, a new measure of time where mystery leads to what suddenly appears to be inevitable. That's how feels now. Inevitable.
We said our vows. Past the afternoon of our lives, but still open to meaning and wonder as we were in the morning of our lives, only the meaning and the wonder and the purpose are now different.
What did we say? What did we vow? Our vows were spontaneous. I remember words like "love" and "commitment" and "care for" and .....oh, why bother trying to remember? As one who has lived in a long term marriage I know one thing; a couple lives it's vows as a poet writes her poems...in step with whatever reality sets inside the couple's path. We vowed to keep the channels open. Perhaps that is the most important vow of all.I am afraid I may have disappointed my children by behaving so spontaneously. On the other hand, the money I have saved means that Alan and I can more easily fly to pay visits to see my children.....and I pray they realize how much they know I loved their father and how much I love them and how much Life and Love must go on, if one is willing to resist living mechanically. I hope I have not disappointed my friends (actually, I don't think they give one fig, so long as I am happy).
I will end with a quote, from which I have taken the title for this blog - - and a poem.
"For two personalities to meet is like mixing two chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed."
Carl Jung
And the poem, which I read aloud more than a month ago to Alan:
YOUR BLINDED HAND
Suppose that
everything that greens and grows
should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
I think that I would find your blinded hand.
Suppose that your cry and mine were lost among numberless cries
in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand.
Through flames everywhere
consuming earth and air
I must believe that somehow, if only one moment were offered,
I would
find your hand.
I know as, of course, you know
the immeasurable wilderness that would exist
in the moment of fire.
But I would hear your cry and you'd hear mine and each of us
would find
the other's hand.
We know
that it might not be so.
But for this quiet moment, if only for this
moment,
and against all reason,
let us believe, and believe in our hearts,
that somehow it would be so.
I'd hear your cry, you mine -----
And each of us would find a blinded hand.
- Tennessee Williams
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Try A Little Gratitude
In writing a eulogy for Lucretia Eddy, my best friend, Christine Dosa's mother, I ran across this quote from the philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The truth of being human is gratitude. The secret of existence is appreciation, it's significance is revealed in reciprocity. Humankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation." Today I am thinking about gratitude.
The above picture features Aleister in a rare moment of allowing a camera to catch him in a big smile, his Mom Angela, and me; photo taken by Alan. The camera clicked just after Aleister just informed us that "Sometimes I just like to go with the flow of other people....as long as their flow feels like a proper flow." I am grateful for Aleister. Grateful for Angela. Grateful for Alan. Grateful for this reality which I live, day after day, my house in Bainbridge, my patients, my books, the few friends I have been able to make despite my crazy schedule, the many friends I love but do not see nearly often enough and the plans I make to see them, grateful for my daughters Kelly and Erin, grateful for the Dietz's and my deep love for them as well as for Steve and Katy, grateful for Christine and my Cousin Linda and my friends Magge and Robin, grateful for my dear Dr. Buskirk, my psychiatric supervisor, whom I have been with for eight years, now.
I am even (sometimes) grateful for my chronic pain, which has informed me of human frailty and how much compassion is needed in the health field, mental or physical, it doesn't matter.
I am grateful for my shampoo. I am grateful for my bar of soap. I am grateful for cold water. I am grateful for hot water. I am grateful to have toothpaste and my new electric toothbrush which Alan bought me. I am grateful to be able to read my self-imposed number of two books a week. I am grateful for my wardrobe of (mostly) black clothes. I am grateful for my engagement ring, which surrounds my finger like a demanding lover.
I am grateful for my friend and fiance and lover, Alan.
Here he is.
It has been said that realism is "the belief that things are in reality as they appear to be in the mind". Well, perhaps that's true. If true, then Alan is one big smart fun kind hottie, both in and outside my mind. He's....authentic, which is one of the decade's overu sed words to be sure, but there you go and here he is. He IS authentic. And I am grateful for knowing him. I can not, can not, can not imagine not having met him. How could it be, not to have met him? How could that have even been possible? I suppose all lovers spend plenty of time questioning each other on this one.....if only I hadn't showed up at the.....if only you hadn't sent that.....if only I hadn't answered the....if only you hadn't made that call....if only...if only.....But yes, my God! It's true! We all cook the facts in our favor, but, Wow! If only!
"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
- Shakespeare, Hamlet
Forget Yoga. Forget Yogurt. Forget flat stomachs. Forget Botox. Forget ipods. Just sit there and consider what you live with every day that you are grateful for. And WHO you are grateful for. Cereal. Soap. Milk. Your garden. Dirt. That hummingbird. Old Ray Charle's songs. Your bath tub. Your shower. Your hair. Your bald head. Your legs. Your teeth. Your false teeth. Your telephone. Your nail clippers. Your robe. Your windows. Your electric lights. Your candles. Your radio. NPR.
Go ahead. This could go on for years. Try a little gratitude.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Information, Consciousness, Enjoyment
So I'm still thinking about my New York experience and how difficult it was for my "being" to bring about keen feelings of immediate pleasure at the moment of seeing (often great) scenes I've always heard about, read about or seen pictures of. Indeed, I often felt quite numb inside, as if I weren't quite there, like an awkward geek. Later, I thought perhaps it was a matter of too much information, like the physicist James Gleick talks about: information is everywhere, in a certain way it is what the world is made up of these days, we are all bashed up against it, inside and out, and it's hard to get away from it all, to become "innocent" again - - indeed, Yeats believed that it was important to remain innocent from too much experience in order that one could feel.
What would Yeats think now!
In his new book "Soul Dust", Nicholas Humphrey states his own belief that it is important that we are most vividly conscious of the unexpected, because consciousness is liked to curiosity and exploration. Seeing the Atlantic ocean, for instance, moved me more than the Metropolitan Museum, because I had no idea what the Atlantic Ocean looked like. I had seen so many pictures of the famous paintings in the Met - to be actually standing in front of a Van Gogh or a George O'Keefe or a Renoir or a Braque or (I'm just naming names who are popping into my head, not necessarily my favorites, just naming names) a Modigliani.....did not move me. They were not unexpected. The elderly European waiters in the delis were, for me, unexpected. I want the unexpected. I want the "je ne sais quoi" , alright, the magic of experience, but I want my experience to carry the magic of the unexpected.
Or, one could argue that my senses were simply on overload, that I'm a hopeless rube and that I was simply too numbed out, too much on overload, to be able to appreciate. But I DID appreciate the Schubert Theatre because I had never in my life imagined what the inside of the Schubert Theatre had ever looked like before. Same for Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Same for the show we saw, "Memphis". Same for hearing the licks played by the sixteen year old guitar player, Solomon Hicks. Same for Alan's Uncle Leo's sense of humor. I had no idea. That's what I thirst for.
That's why I read.
When I read a new (terrific) book, I am not a zombie. I am alive, lively, excited, filled with ideas. Or those (too few) times when I write a poem or create a piece of art - - these my consciousness becomes highly aroused because , even though the "doing" part comes from inside me, I have no idea what's going to occur, no idea about the finished state, and that's excitement, folks. At least for me. Writing anything carries that kind of color. It's something I've never seen before, even though I realize we all think approximately 98,000 thoughts a day and they pretty much duplicate each other day after day after day... still, there are always emergencies and accidents and chaos still strikes and chaos isn't always bad........
......anyway, I'm still just thinking. I don't KNOW anything, none of this is knowledge, it's all just thought, and not very deep thought, at that. Just random thinking. Oh, the allure of one's own mind, huh?
What a great place to come home to.
What would Yeats think now!
In his new book "Soul Dust", Nicholas Humphrey states his own belief that it is important that we are most vividly conscious of the unexpected, because consciousness is liked to curiosity and exploration. Seeing the Atlantic ocean, for instance, moved me more than the Metropolitan Museum, because I had no idea what the Atlantic Ocean looked like. I had seen so many pictures of the famous paintings in the Met - to be actually standing in front of a Van Gogh or a George O'Keefe or a Renoir or a Braque or (I'm just naming names who are popping into my head, not necessarily my favorites, just naming names) a Modigliani.....did not move me. They were not unexpected. The elderly European waiters in the delis were, for me, unexpected. I want the unexpected. I want the "je ne sais quoi" , alright, the magic of experience, but I want my experience to carry the magic of the unexpected.
Or, one could argue that my senses were simply on overload, that I'm a hopeless rube and that I was simply too numbed out, too much on overload, to be able to appreciate. But I DID appreciate the Schubert Theatre because I had never in my life imagined what the inside of the Schubert Theatre had ever looked like before. Same for Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Same for the show we saw, "Memphis". Same for hearing the licks played by the sixteen year old guitar player, Solomon Hicks. Same for Alan's Uncle Leo's sense of humor. I had no idea. That's what I thirst for.
That's why I read.
When I read a new (terrific) book, I am not a zombie. I am alive, lively, excited, filled with ideas. Or those (too few) times when I write a poem or create a piece of art - - these my consciousness becomes highly aroused because , even though the "doing" part comes from inside me, I have no idea what's going to occur, no idea about the finished state, and that's excitement, folks. At least for me. Writing anything carries that kind of color. It's something I've never seen before, even though I realize we all think approximately 98,000 thoughts a day and they pretty much duplicate each other day after day after day... still, there are always emergencies and accidents and chaos still strikes and chaos isn't always bad........
......anyway, I'm still just thinking. I don't KNOW anything, none of this is knowledge, it's all just thought, and not very deep thought, at that. Just random thinking. Oh, the allure of one's own mind, huh?
What a great place to come home to.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
NEW YORK WOULD BE GREAT WITH JUST.........
............a few hundred thousand less people. At least that is my humble estimation. Because the people get in the way. You wanna see the new Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met? Sure, go right ahead. Except all you'll see is one thousand peoples' butts. On the other hand, we were in the fourth row at the Broadway show "Memphis" (Schubert Theatre, no less) and the people we were looking at were terrific actors, singers and dancers, all terrific. And, because they were terrific, we became terrific, too. There's something about being so close to that much talent that rubs off. Excitement, zest, ability, all that, rub off. Alan and I walked out of that theatre feeling like a million bucks. The violinist (who probably played with the symphony at night), along with the bass player and somebody else I can't remember - under a bridge in Central park - were so good they made my teeth ache. Scads of musical talent in Central Park. Not to mention the incredible beauty of the place, especially, for me, the amazing basalt formations filled with mica.
We had drinks several times at the Plaza, I had a make-over at Bergdorf Goodman (unfortunately I still look like me but I did walk out of that place feeling glowier), We paid a visit to the St. James Cathedral, walked our feet off at the Met Museum, visited the Museum of Folk Art which was a big disappointment to me - come on now, folks, this is New York! You can do BETTER than this! A few quilts, a primitive painting of Abraham Lincoln....NO. You can better than this. I did steal a bunch of their advertisement-postcards and send them out because I liked them so much, so the visit wasn't a total bust. We had fabulous food - Alan ate all kinds of spaghetti, ziti, eggplant and pasta, because he's six foot one and he can do it. I ate steak and salad, knowing that the pasta would stick to my hips like mama sticks to daddy.
Times Square nearly put me into a catatonic state. I just wanted to escape. Somehow, Alan was able to keep his cool. Right in the middle of Times Square, with what seemed to me to be two thousand people going this way and two thousand people going that way and another couple of thousand people going ways nobody had even imagined going before, and they're talking and yelling and Alan's speaking to me, pointing things out, "Baby, see that bridge over there? Remember that Simon and Garfunkel lyric about.....that's the bridge they were writing about!" And I couldn't think. I couldn't respond. For hours I just couldn't respond. The only words I could think of were either ironic or sarcastic or both. Not because I felt mean, but because...what can you say when you are in a state of shock? "Wow" sounds sarcastic. "Really!" sounds juvenile. "Geeze" sounds juvenile. He kept pointing things out and I kept thinking things like, "Where is the button that turns this part OFF?" And it's not just the people, its the overhead ads. Flashing. Flashing. Don't talk to me about hell. Times Square is hell. There is no devil, there are no flames, there is no fire. There is just Times Square.
We went to the famous Stage Deli, one of the three most famous delis in New York. Sandwiches as high as three or four books stacked together. Unbelievable. I loved the waiters. European, all of them. Older gentlemen, all humorous, each of them had developed their own style, their own schicht (sp)...I asked the waiter, "How's the meatloaf sandwich?"
"Ahh," he said, "I dona like the meataloaf."
"You don't?" I asked.
"Nah," he said. "Maybe you lika the meataloaf here, I dona like it."
"I'll take the meataloaf," I said.
"Yeah?" he said. "You're not from America," he said.
"Where are YOU from?" Alan asked him."
"I'm not saying," he said to Alan.
Alan ordered chopped liver.
We didn't order any of those huge disgusting sandwiches, but the sandwiches we did order were more than we could handle. Later, he did tell Alan where he was from but I can't remember now (it's early Saturday morning) where it was.
That evening, we went to Junior's for cheesecake. I have never had such cheesecake. It was like swallowing the entirety of Marilyn Monroe. Oh my God. If Times Square is Hell, Junior's Cheesecake is Heaven.
We stayed at the Warwick Hotel, where Cary Grant lived, for twelve years. Other famous people lived there too. The Beatles stayed there. I can't remember the rest. We stayed there. That's good enough for me. The weather in New York was warm to hot. Every day we were there. It was a miracle. We went to Central Park again a few days later but we didn't go through Times Square to get there this time, so I had my adjectives back and I could exclaim about the beauty of the place. Alan said he liked me much better with adjectives.
And then, New Jersey. Home of the foot long hotdog (I gobbled mine right up), the famous thin crust pizza (Alan once - well, twice) - ate two large pizzas and each time won a tee shirt for his magnificent feats (I think I could have done the same but I CHOSE not to)..... home of the gorgeous boardwalk which cuddles right up next to the great Atlantic ocean. We stayed in a hotel right on the ocean, drank our drinks in a Tiki-like place right on the beach, stayed in a fabulous hotel with a spa (I had a facial, he had a very fancy foot massage, we both had hot stone massages)....and then there was the day we were walking on the boardwalk and strayed into one of the many shops there, looking for something to bring home to Aleister. A very nice looking older woman helped us. Alan, who is extremely friendly, paid for whatever we bought, and exchanged words with the sales-lady. "Where are you from?" she asked him. "Washington State," he said, "but I used to be from here. From Jersey." "From here?" she said. "What's your last name?" "Schein," he said. "My dad owned a gas station a couple blocks from here." "And your name is Alan," she said. "And you're my cousin." "Oh my god!" he yelled and they threw themselves into each other's arms. She was his cousin Shirley. He was her cousin Alan. She was just a tiny bit of a thing who, in her eighties, decided that, to make ends meet, she needed to find a job, and so she did. Oh my God, indeed. It was wonderful, to see that. If you're looking for examples of people who love family, like Alan does, like all his family do, you should have been there to see that. AND then they all get on the telephone. "Now, who can I call?" she said. I don't know how many times I heard that said during the Jersey part of the trip. "Now, who can I call?" Telephones, "real" ones, are still good for something, let me tell you. Telephones are still alive and well in Jersey.
I met his eighty-some year old next door neighbor (from childhood) Lydia, who stood up for Alan when his parents were disappointed in him. We paid a visit to her. She walks with a walker, but otherwise seems to be in good health. They knew about each other's families, their children, grandchildren, and, at the end of the visit, she teared up and said, "Alan, I always thought of you as my own child. Now. Who can I call?"
I met several of Alan's best male friends and their wives.His friends have several names. Barry is called Punky and Harold is Byrde and Froggy is...I'm not sure who Froggy is other than he is, unbelievably if you met him, the coach at Mammoth University, and we ate dinner at Byrde and ALice's house and Barry and Laurel's house and onenight we went with some of these friends to a blues club and heard some blues and suddenly a large black woman sat down beside me and we locked eyes and I said, "Who ARE you?" and she tossed it back, saying, "Well, who are YOU?" and I said, "You want the true story or the other one?" and she said, "Tell me your Soul story," so we talked back and forth for a bit and then a young man, her sixteen year old son, dressed in a white tuxedo jacket and black slacks, got up from her table and went up on stage and played some of the best blues/jazz guitar ever. Ever. Sixteen years old and he plays at New York's Cotton Club. And his Mama and I were holding hands and moving back and forth and when that kid was done he got the first standing ovation that club has ever seen or given. Solomon Hicks is his name. Watch out, America. Solomon Hicks is gonna be part of America's soul story.
I need to go back around now and tell about our first two days in Jersey (we hit Jersey first and then left for New York) where we stayed with Alan's older sister Fran and her husband Leo. And,to my wide-eyed delight, they were delightful. Alan and Fran seemed to forge an even-tighter relationship, Fran is as honest and gracious a hostess as they come and Leo couldn't be more charming or more humorous. He comes from that same part of town and that same time that gave birth to Woody Allen and Carl Reiner and, although his hearing is going, he's superb fun. We were wined and dined and, on Mother's Day, their daughter Amanda came home to celebrate which was especially nice. Two friends rounded out dinner on Mother's Day and I fell in love with the entire family. I gave Fran my blog address but I doubt she will read this...if she does, thanks, Fran, you're terrific. You too, Leo. You're the mensch. You're the Brooklyn Bridge.
My blog is giving me signals that they are about ready to close me down or shut my shutters or something...so I'll shut my own shutters ("you can't fire me, I quit!") and leave for now. Oh and I haven't even said a word yet about airports. I've got a whole blog in me about airports. Oy.
So. While we were gone to New York I had my entire house painted in seven or eight different colors. I'd hired a project manager to oversee everything and keep sending us pictures so that I wouldn't freak when I got home - - and I didn't freak - - but it will take a week before I find my Q-tips or my shoe horn. I love the colors. Some may find the marigold color of the downstairs hallway too....much...but not me. I think it's great. I think it gives one the feeling of being crushed by one of Van Gogh's sunflowers. One by one.
And what could be better than that?
We had drinks several times at the Plaza, I had a make-over at Bergdorf Goodman (unfortunately I still look like me but I did walk out of that place feeling glowier), We paid a visit to the St. James Cathedral, walked our feet off at the Met Museum, visited the Museum of Folk Art which was a big disappointment to me - come on now, folks, this is New York! You can do BETTER than this! A few quilts, a primitive painting of Abraham Lincoln....NO. You can better than this. I did steal a bunch of their advertisement-postcards and send them out because I liked them so much, so the visit wasn't a total bust. We had fabulous food - Alan ate all kinds of spaghetti, ziti, eggplant and pasta, because he's six foot one and he can do it. I ate steak and salad, knowing that the pasta would stick to my hips like mama sticks to daddy.Times Square nearly put me into a catatonic state. I just wanted to escape. Somehow, Alan was able to keep his cool. Right in the middle of Times Square, with what seemed to me to be two thousand people going this way and two thousand people going that way and another couple of thousand people going ways nobody had even imagined going before, and they're talking and yelling and Alan's speaking to me, pointing things out, "Baby, see that bridge over there? Remember that Simon and Garfunkel lyric about.....that's the bridge they were writing about!" And I couldn't think. I couldn't respond. For hours I just couldn't respond. The only words I could think of were either ironic or sarcastic or both. Not because I felt mean, but because...what can you say when you are in a state of shock? "Wow" sounds sarcastic. "Really!" sounds juvenile. "Geeze" sounds juvenile. He kept pointing things out and I kept thinking things like, "Where is the button that turns this part OFF?" And it's not just the people, its the overhead ads. Flashing. Flashing. Don't talk to me about hell. Times Square is hell. There is no devil, there are no flames, there is no fire. There is just Times Square.
We went to the famous Stage Deli, one of the three most famous delis in New York. Sandwiches as high as three or four books stacked together. Unbelievable. I loved the waiters. European, all of them. Older gentlemen, all humorous, each of them had developed their own style, their own schicht (sp)...I asked the waiter, "How's the meatloaf sandwich?"
"Ahh," he said, "I dona like the meataloaf."
"You don't?" I asked.
"Nah," he said. "Maybe you lika the meataloaf here, I dona like it."
"I'll take the meataloaf," I said.
"Yeah?" he said. "You're not from America," he said.
"Where are YOU from?" Alan asked him."
"I'm not saying," he said to Alan.
Alan ordered chopped liver.
We didn't order any of those huge disgusting sandwiches, but the sandwiches we did order were more than we could handle. Later, he did tell Alan where he was from but I can't remember now (it's early Saturday morning) where it was.
That evening, we went to Junior's for cheesecake. I have never had such cheesecake. It was like swallowing the entirety of Marilyn Monroe. Oh my God. If Times Square is Hell, Junior's Cheesecake is Heaven.
We stayed at the Warwick Hotel, where Cary Grant lived, for twelve years. Other famous people lived there too. The Beatles stayed there. I can't remember the rest. We stayed there. That's good enough for me. The weather in New York was warm to hot. Every day we were there. It was a miracle. We went to Central Park again a few days later but we didn't go through Times Square to get there this time, so I had my adjectives back and I could exclaim about the beauty of the place. Alan said he liked me much better with adjectives.
And then, New Jersey. Home of the foot long hotdog (I gobbled mine right up), the famous thin crust pizza (Alan once - well, twice) - ate two large pizzas and each time won a tee shirt for his magnificent feats (I think I could have done the same but I CHOSE not to)..... home of the gorgeous boardwalk which cuddles right up next to the great Atlantic ocean. We stayed in a hotel right on the ocean, drank our drinks in a Tiki-like place right on the beach, stayed in a fabulous hotel with a spa (I had a facial, he had a very fancy foot massage, we both had hot stone massages)....and then there was the day we were walking on the boardwalk and strayed into one of the many shops there, looking for something to bring home to Aleister. A very nice looking older woman helped us. Alan, who is extremely friendly, paid for whatever we bought, and exchanged words with the sales-lady. "Where are you from?" she asked him. "Washington State," he said, "but I used to be from here. From Jersey." "From here?" she said. "What's your last name?" "Schein," he said. "My dad owned a gas station a couple blocks from here." "And your name is Alan," she said. "And you're my cousin." "Oh my god!" he yelled and they threw themselves into each other's arms. She was his cousin Shirley. He was her cousin Alan. She was just a tiny bit of a thing who, in her eighties, decided that, to make ends meet, she needed to find a job, and so she did. Oh my God, indeed. It was wonderful, to see that. If you're looking for examples of people who love family, like Alan does, like all his family do, you should have been there to see that. AND then they all get on the telephone. "Now, who can I call?" she said. I don't know how many times I heard that said during the Jersey part of the trip. "Now, who can I call?" Telephones, "real" ones, are still good for something, let me tell you. Telephones are still alive and well in Jersey.I met his eighty-some year old next door neighbor (from childhood) Lydia, who stood up for Alan when his parents were disappointed in him. We paid a visit to her. She walks with a walker, but otherwise seems to be in good health. They knew about each other's families, their children, grandchildren, and, at the end of the visit, she teared up and said, "Alan, I always thought of you as my own child. Now. Who can I call?"
I met several of Alan's best male friends and their wives.His friends have several names. Barry is called Punky and Harold is Byrde and Froggy is...I'm not sure who Froggy is other than he is, unbelievably if you met him, the coach at Mammoth University, and we ate dinner at Byrde and ALice's house and Barry and Laurel's house and onenight we went with some of these friends to a blues club and heard some blues and suddenly a large black woman sat down beside me and we locked eyes and I said, "Who ARE you?" and she tossed it back, saying, "Well, who are YOU?" and I said, "You want the true story or the other one?" and she said, "Tell me your Soul story," so we talked back and forth for a bit and then a young man, her sixteen year old son, dressed in a white tuxedo jacket and black slacks, got up from her table and went up on stage and played some of the best blues/jazz guitar ever. Ever. Sixteen years old and he plays at New York's Cotton Club. And his Mama and I were holding hands and moving back and forth and when that kid was done he got the first standing ovation that club has ever seen or given. Solomon Hicks is his name. Watch out, America. Solomon Hicks is gonna be part of America's soul story.
I need to go back around now and tell about our first two days in Jersey (we hit Jersey first and then left for New York) where we stayed with Alan's older sister Fran and her husband Leo. And,to my wide-eyed delight, they were delightful. Alan and Fran seemed to forge an even-tighter relationship, Fran is as honest and gracious a hostess as they come and Leo couldn't be more charming or more humorous. He comes from that same part of town and that same time that gave birth to Woody Allen and Carl Reiner and, although his hearing is going, he's superb fun. We were wined and dined and, on Mother's Day, their daughter Amanda came home to celebrate which was especially nice. Two friends rounded out dinner on Mother's Day and I fell in love with the entire family. I gave Fran my blog address but I doubt she will read this...if she does, thanks, Fran, you're terrific. You too, Leo. You're the mensch. You're the Brooklyn Bridge. My blog is giving me signals that they are about ready to close me down or shut my shutters or something...so I'll shut my own shutters ("you can't fire me, I quit!") and leave for now. Oh and I haven't even said a word yet about airports. I've got a whole blog in me about airports. Oy.
So. While we were gone to New York I had my entire house painted in seven or eight different colors. I'd hired a project manager to oversee everything and keep sending us pictures so that I wouldn't freak when I got home - - and I didn't freak - - but it will take a week before I find my Q-tips or my shoe horn. I love the colors. Some may find the marigold color of the downstairs hallway too....much...but not me. I think it's great. I think it gives one the feeling of being crushed by one of Van Gogh's sunflowers. One by one.
And what could be better than that?
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Alan, Angela and Aleister
Here are pictures of Alan and me, Angela and me and Angela, me and Aleister. How is it that all three of these people's names begin with the letter A? It can not, of course, be significant in the least, but still.....well, it's just one of those
things. Aleister is young, Angela is what "they" call beginning-middle-aged and Alan and I are hitting the early-elderly wall, although we don't see it that way. Why, Aleister told Alan that he, Alan, looks to be in his forties - and he told me I look fifty-seven. I tried to get him to lower his estimation of my age just a little bit more and I managed to bring him down to fifty-two but he would go no lower. If I remember correctly, Aleister used to be sweeter.
Before he could speak.
Alan is my future husband. We've set the date for September 24rth, hopefully at the Unitarian Fellowship, which is a beautiful place, surrounded by trees. The wedding could be indoors or outdoors and you can all be invited, if you are good. If I don't die in New York, where Alan is taking me this coming May, I will be at the wedding as the bride. I am afraid of New York, mostly because of the movies, which, despite Woody Allen's brave attempts, have not done New York any favors. I would feel much better if I could be followed around by Woody Allen's fabulous background music....perhaps Alan could arrange that. Alan, who is from the Jersey Shore and no, he doesn't watch that TV show, in fact, he detests that TV show, although he has never actually sat down and, God forbid, watched it, is equally familiar with New York, swears I will love it. The cheesecake. The bagels. The pizza. Central Park. The Metropolitan museum. Broadway plays. And all I can think of is all the weight I will gain and what shoes will I wear? I, who have never been in a larger city than Seattle (well, I was in Chicago once, but my father drove as fast as he could and kept yelling at my mother to "Lock and duck! Lock and duck!") so I didn't really get a good feel for the place.....have a basic inbred fear of large cities. Seattle and Portland are large enough for me. I am not a big city girl. I am a small-town-with-a-good-book-store type of girl. I'm plenty neurotic, but I don't think I am neurotic enough for a huge place like New York.
On the other hand,I don't blend well. I want to be the center of attention. I don't want somebody dribbling mustard of my hot dog. What if somebody mistakenly dribbles mustard on my hot dog? What if I get mugged on the subway? What if Alan loses me? What if I wrench my neck by gawkingup at all the skyscrapers? What if I wear the wrong thing? What if what if what if what if............
Wild horses couldn't keep me from going to New York. Wild horses couldn't keep me from visiting Alan's friends in Jersey. I wanna see, I wanna see, I wanna see. I'm see I'll see Robert De Nero bopping down the street. I know I'll see Anna Winotaur dashing into the lobby of some chic building. I'll follow her. She'll take a look at me in one of my LOGGER'S DAUGHTER skirts, grab me by the arm and photograph me for Vogue. How can she not? Of course she will. Oh my God! And I can't wait to meet Alan's sister Fran and Fran's husband Leo who comes from the same area as Neil Simon and Woody Allen and is therefore hysterically funny, not to mention Alan's Jersey guy friends, all of whom have Jersey mouths on them. Can't wait. Can not wait. Can't wait to walk through Central Park with.....can't wait to see a Broadway play with........can't wait to eat New York pizza with.......can't wait to do ANYTHING with......because he is so likable. Know what I mean? He is just so .....likable! But he's not a pushover, not by any means. So listen here, you crazy-ass New York subway guys, don't f___k with Alan Schein, because, like Aleister says, "He's forty years old and he rocks bigtime!"
Look out, New York! The Schein Man is comin' home.
I'll be the short woman hiding behind the slice of pizza.
GOODBYE, ELIABETH TAYLOR
Who said you could go, Elizabeth? Who said you could leave us here alone without any other dangerous stars to blink at and perhaps go blind because of one silly human blink? Who were you, you broken British tower, you short stumpy thirst quencher whose eyes befuddled so many men, you nearly conquered a certain part of the world in your time, and you kept on conquering and conquering, bashing down knights and paupers, never flattering falsehoods, flashing your diamonds around because you loved them, you loved them, and that was so utterly unAmerican of you, wasn't it, weren't you, because we Americans don't like to admit we love anything that's gorgeous and nonessential, no, not us, uh-uh, we are Puritans and you weren't a Puritan, nothing like that, were you, you ravishing golden sword, and now your Parade just drifted by in some L.A. hospital which had to be, which had to be way too mundane for you. I said that, not you........
Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, whom I adored even more than Debbie Reynolds, whom you did wrong but you did it in such a way, so openly and nondefiantly, so transparently, like a circus queen, no,like an entire circus act without a net, (I remember THE SEATTLE TIMES headline, when I was twelve years old, reading "Elizabeth Taylor Says Needs Only Four Hours Sleep At Night") so intimately, that even my childish mind knew you were right, you were playing by a different set of rules than Debbie's poor little housewife rules and that girls like Debbie could never ever win and should never even try to win but should just step out of the way and allow the wave to happen, allow the tree to fall in the forest, allow the tiger to chew up its prey, allow the inevitable bombs to inevitably fall.....because you can not fool, you can not out talk, you can not out walk, you can not stop Mother Nature. Even if it's wearing the largest diamond in the World, you can't, you can't, you can't. Just step aside, dearie, step aside. Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, my cousin Linda and I would walk through the Silverdale farm fields looking for tokens, for broken pins or bottle caps or crow feathers and send them to you along with little girl notes, and you would send back pictures, signed pictures, pictures signed with ink, and we would spit on our fingers and rub our fingers on your signature to see if the ink was real or not, which ruined the signatures but satisfied our hearts that it was you, you, your hand which signed the photographs, never stopping to think that the world held secretaries, that you paid secretaries to sign those pictures, those millions of pictures MGM shipped out to little farm girls like Linda and me....and we would pin these ravished photographs on the walls of our Grandpas chicken coop and sit and eat stolen peas and smile and feel like the biggest little girls in all the world, yes, us. Yes, us. Yes, us........
Oh, Mrs. Lavender, with that almost-Betty-Boop voice toppling out of that most beautiful face of yours, that seriously beautiful face which was not a joyful Rita Hayworth face or a happy Doris Day face but a solemn face, a face that said, "...and I MEAN it...", "...and I MEAN it...".....oh, Mrs. Lavender, owner of that almost implausible voice, I heard them call you "One of the last of the great Hollywood goddesses", but that is not true, you are THE last of the Hollywood goddesses, there is no other, there is no one left, not one. You have held the throne for decades now, and you have tried to hold on to a life of your own, as well, marrying and unmarrying, sipping teacup after teacup of ashes, ashes, your body torn apart by pain and the surgeon's knife, I hope you are sitting next to Shakespeare now, I hope you are back again in Mike Todd's arms, I hope you are well again, no scars, no audience, no pulp magazines, no pain patches, no crutches, no pumps, and you live and you live and you live and you live......only for you...........
Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, whom I adored even more than Debbie Reynolds, whom you did wrong but you did it in such a way, so openly and nondefiantly, so transparently, like a circus queen, no,like an entire circus act without a net, (I remember THE SEATTLE TIMES headline, when I was twelve years old, reading "Elizabeth Taylor Says Needs Only Four Hours Sleep At Night") so intimately, that even my childish mind knew you were right, you were playing by a different set of rules than Debbie's poor little housewife rules and that girls like Debbie could never ever win and should never even try to win but should just step out of the way and allow the wave to happen, allow the tree to fall in the forest, allow the tiger to chew up its prey, allow the inevitable bombs to inevitably fall.....because you can not fool, you can not out talk, you can not out walk, you can not stop Mother Nature. Even if it's wearing the largest diamond in the World, you can't, you can't, you can't. Just step aside, dearie, step aside. Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, my cousin Linda and I would walk through the Silverdale farm fields looking for tokens, for broken pins or bottle caps or crow feathers and send them to you along with little girl notes, and you would send back pictures, signed pictures, pictures signed with ink, and we would spit on our fingers and rub our fingers on your signature to see if the ink was real or not, which ruined the signatures but satisfied our hearts that it was you, you, your hand which signed the photographs, never stopping to think that the world held secretaries, that you paid secretaries to sign those pictures, those millions of pictures MGM shipped out to little farm girls like Linda and me....and we would pin these ravished photographs on the walls of our Grandpas chicken coop and sit and eat stolen peas and smile and feel like the biggest little girls in all the world, yes, us. Yes, us. Yes, us........
Oh, Mrs. Lavender, with that almost-Betty-Boop voice toppling out of that most beautiful face of yours, that seriously beautiful face which was not a joyful Rita Hayworth face or a happy Doris Day face but a solemn face, a face that said, "...and I MEAN it...", "...and I MEAN it...".....oh, Mrs. Lavender, owner of that almost implausible voice, I heard them call you "One of the last of the great Hollywood goddesses", but that is not true, you are THE last of the Hollywood goddesses, there is no other, there is no one left, not one. You have held the throne for decades now, and you have tried to hold on to a life of your own, as well, marrying and unmarrying, sipping teacup after teacup of ashes, ashes, your body torn apart by pain and the surgeon's knife, I hope you are sitting next to Shakespeare now, I hope you are back again in Mike Todd's arms, I hope you are well again, no scars, no audience, no pulp magazines, no pain patches, no crutches, no pumps, and you live and you live and you live and you live......only for you...........
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
PLEASURE PUDDINGS
This morning, while sitting in my green armchair waiting for my ten o'clock patient to arrive, my eyes zeroed in on a dream journal from 2004. Upon opening it, it was with immense pleasure that I noticed I'd dropped in all sorts of quotes from this place and that place, just anything, really, that took my fancy at the time. So, without any further adieu, here are a few of the "little pleasure puddings" I discovered mashed upon before and amongst my dreams:
"No one, ever, can give the exact measure of his needs, his apprehensions, or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we bang out tunes that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity."
- Gustave Flaubert
"One of language's first functions is to help a child create a mental image of his mother, one that can soothe him when she is absent."
- Julia Kristive, from THE MIDNIGHT DISEASE
"The main thing is....father and mother must eat. Write!"
- Chekhov
"No words can express the secret agony of my soul; Even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man, and wander desolately back to that other, older time in my life."
- Charles Dickens
"There is some Myth for every man which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all that he did and thought."
- Yeats
"Mama Kay, which is the other hand?"
"Which other hand?"
"You know, like 'On the other hand!"
-Aleister
And this, my favorite, by an anonymous but accurate source"
"According to all aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly because its body weight is not in the right proportion to its wingspan. But ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway."
"A book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us."
-Franz Kafka
"Genius is the recovery of childhood at will."
- Rimbaud
*********************************************************************************
And that's that. Today my three o'clock patient, I shall call her Helen, said, "I guess I've felt quite good all week because I don"t remember feeling at all badly."
One year ago this entirely elegant and beautiful woman stood up and stated, "I can't believe how absolutly tolerable all my imperfections have become!"
**********************************************************************************
Oh, and there's more, so much more. Two weeks ago, Chris Dosa and I were drinking wine and rolling around on my living room (or whatever one calls it) sofa, making up words and finally we settled on the word DUKE. As in, "He or she got 'duke'." Meaning, "She gets it, she understand the blues and blues lyrics, jazz, hip, rip, rag, rag-mop, Ella, Aretha, Billy H., etc."........."....but does she 'duke it'" meaning: "But does she do it with style, with juice, with cool, with elan, with a sense lf 'hey now', with a sense of 'get down', with a sense of 'go' or 'stay' or..... 'easy, easy, easy, baby' or whatever is needed even if it's not needed, exactly, you know'........." ......aw, it's hard to explain, it's ineffable, it sounds stupid to explain, you've got to hear it, got to see it, got to walk it....she got duke, she got duke, he duke, she duke.......we rolled around heaven all day.
It felt good. That day, we were ridiculous.
**********************************************************************************
In movie terms, "duke" is style. It's Michael Chekov saying to Gregory Peck who's marrying Ingrid Bergman who used to be married to Michael Chekov, "Any husband of Constance is a husband of mine, so to speak."
or; "To hardly know him is to know him well."
- Cary Grant criticizing Katharine Hepburn's fiance in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
Or Eva Marie Saint asking Marlon Brando,"What are you rebelling about?"
And Brando, responding: "I don't know, wha'tve ya got?"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
OKAY, THAT'S IT - ANOTHER PATIENT - GOTTA GO - LOVE YOU ALL, GIVE MY REGARDS
TO BROADWAY AND KEEP THOSE WORDS COMMIN'
"No one, ever, can give the exact measure of his needs, his apprehensions, or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we bang out tunes that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity."
- Gustave Flaubert
"One of language's first functions is to help a child create a mental image of his mother, one that can soothe him when she is absent."
- Julia Kristive, from THE MIDNIGHT DISEASE
"The main thing is....father and mother must eat. Write!"
- Chekhov
"No words can express the secret agony of my soul; Even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man, and wander desolately back to that other, older time in my life."
- Charles Dickens
"There is some Myth for every man which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all that he did and thought."
- Yeats
"Mama Kay, which is the other hand?"
"Which other hand?"
"You know, like 'On the other hand!"
-Aleister
And this, my favorite, by an anonymous but accurate source"
"According to all aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly because its body weight is not in the right proportion to its wingspan. But ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway."
"A book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us."
-Franz Kafka
"Genius is the recovery of childhood at will."
- Rimbaud
*********************************************************************************
And that's that. Today my three o'clock patient, I shall call her Helen, said, "I guess I've felt quite good all week because I don"t remember feeling at all badly."
One year ago this entirely elegant and beautiful woman stood up and stated, "I can't believe how absolutly tolerable all my imperfections have become!"
**********************************************************************************
Oh, and there's more, so much more. Two weeks ago, Chris Dosa and I were drinking wine and rolling around on my living room (or whatever one calls it) sofa, making up words and finally we settled on the word DUKE. As in, "He or she got 'duke'." Meaning, "She gets it, she understand the blues and blues lyrics, jazz, hip, rip, rag, rag-mop, Ella, Aretha, Billy H., etc."........."....but does she 'duke it'" meaning: "But does she do it with style, with juice, with cool, with elan, with a sense lf 'hey now', with a sense of 'get down', with a sense of 'go' or 'stay' or..... 'easy, easy, easy, baby' or whatever is needed even if it's not needed, exactly, you know'........." ......aw, it's hard to explain, it's ineffable, it sounds stupid to explain, you've got to hear it, got to see it, got to walk it....she got duke, she got duke, he duke, she duke.......we rolled around heaven all day.
It felt good. That day, we were ridiculous.
**********************************************************************************
In movie terms, "duke" is style. It's Michael Chekov saying to Gregory Peck who's marrying Ingrid Bergman who used to be married to Michael Chekov, "Any husband of Constance is a husband of mine, so to speak."
or; "To hardly know him is to know him well."
- Cary Grant criticizing Katharine Hepburn's fiance in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
Or Eva Marie Saint asking Marlon Brando,"What are you rebelling about?"
And Brando, responding: "I don't know, wha'tve ya got?"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
OKAY, THAT'S IT - ANOTHER PATIENT - GOTTA GO - LOVE YOU ALL, GIVE MY REGARDS
TO BROADWAY AND KEEP THOSE WORDS COMMIN'
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
THE PRIVATE LIFE
The photo is of Kay and Alan at the 4 Swallows celebrating a Valentine's Day dinner.
Earlier, the man in the photo presented the woman in the photo with a big bouquet of flowers on Valentine's Day. Each time she attempted to place the flowers in a vase filled with water, he called out, "Not yet, not yet!" and diverted her attention elsewhere. Finally, he took her by the shoulders, led her into the kitchen and said, "NOW!" she poured water into the vase, placed the flowers inside, and noticed a small white package, wrapped in cellophane. She fished around in the water and lifted the package out. Inside the package was a ring, gold, silver, with a pearl in the center. An engagement ring. The man led the woman to the sofa, where he lowered himself to one knee and asked for her hand in marriage. This was the third time he had made this request and the third time she had answered yes. The process of reaching a consensus, in this case, was irrefutably elegant. She loves the man. She loves the ring. She will have the same Port Townsend designer create her fiance a ring for his finger. A wedding date is not yet known.
I have been greedily devouring Joyce Carol Oate's new book "A Widow's Story", the passionate memoir of the death of Oate's husband of forty-seven years. Her husband, Ray Smith, editor of THE ONTARIO REVIEW, died the same year Jim died, in 2008. Unlike Joan Didion's memoir of her writer husband's death, Oate's book is singed with emotion: anger, passion, disorientation. Married once again, Oates has written the truest book I have read (I think I must have read them all)about a widow's experience. Grief is a stress reaction which takes one for a ride. There is no formula for grief, no one way, no two ways, no ten or eleven ways, to "go about" it. People have ideas about it, that is true. But ideas are artifices and ignorance is bliss, always an excuse; and even one who has gone through enormous grief, has only (only!!!) gone through one's own. I do appreciate Oate's book immensely, though. Thank you, thank you, Mrs. Smith.
This past Saturday, Alan and I took Aleister to Seattle's Science Center. Getting off the ferry, Aleister ran up to Alan and pointed out something, calling him "Grandpa". Alan, who cares deeply about Aleister, was immensely moved. "Look, Grandpa!" Aleister said. Later, Aleister said to me, "Grandpa Jim walks up in Heaven and Grandpa Alan walks here on Earth." Coming back on the ferry, Aleister said to me, "They are so much alike, Grandpa Jim and Alan! They are both funny and smart and they play around but they are serious, too, and they both care about me! And they look so much alike!" He went silent for a moment or two and then added, "...well, they both have beards."
Notice that, for Aleister, both men exist in present tense. Notice that both men exist. The psyche, said Jung, does not know the difference between the imaginative and the real. And the "real". And the real.
Give my regards to Broadway.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
It Is Three Years Today That Jim...............
It is three years today that Jim is gone, gone as we knew he would be, gone as only gone can be when someone is absolutely central to your life, when someone's hand is central to your open hand and their scent is central to your nostrils and their voice is central to your ears and their height is central to your eyes and their voice is central to your respondent voice and their mind is central to the workings of your own mind and then they, or in this case, he -- is gone and it's not a dream, he is gone, and it's not a dread or a terror or a phantom, he is gone and it's not your imagination, or the worst phone call of your life, he is gone and it's not a conversation with your best friend, he is gone and it's not a speculation, he is gone and it's not a what-if kind of thing, he is gone and it's not a "what will I do when he's...." because he IS.....because he IS.....because he IS.....well, he's gone.
And you never for one moment thought to yourself, "Well, I'll wake the kids and tell them and then I'll start putting lotion on him," you never once thought to yourself, "Well, I'll wake the kids and then we'll make some calls and I'll start pleading people to come in and kiss him because he looks so beautiful," because Grief tells you what to do, you don't tell Grief what to do. Because Grief tells you who you are. You don't tell Grief who you are. That isn't the way of it. If, during the next few years of your grief, you are overly conscientious, your grief will squirt out at you somewhere, somehow. Illness, perhaps, or depression, which is enormously different than grief, or in some odd manner or behavior or pattern of thought or habit or attitude. Since Jim has died I have been regularly seeing at least three Patients-of-the-Broken-Heart a week which is what I call people who have lost long term mates or children and the kinds of care they need is vastly different than, say, the illness of depression or dysthymia or sadness or the blues. Each of these individuals have been on the verge of developing manic or compulsive or hermetic behaviors.
If living is a form of not being sure, which it is, death is a form of......what? For the living, death is a form of utter speculation, a form of shattering all sorts of lightly or tightly held inner "realities", and the death of a long term mate or a child is the beginning of the oddest type of faith, for the grieving person's psyche can not help but begin the strange wait for the deceased person to reappear; to, as Thomas Wolfe so woefully and beautifully put it, "Come back, grieved ghost, come back!" One waits. One denys it, of course, and no one wants to appear delusional, God, no, but, still, one waits. Esayist Joan Didion would not give up her husband's slippers. When he returns them, he might need them. I have not replaced all of the pictures of Jim and me around the house. When he comes back, he might feel badly.
Instead of speaking about grief, though, perhaps I need to speak about what it is Jim has passed down to me. He has left me with an overall sense that most men are good and patient and kind and trustworthy. I have been, perhaps, a bit more naive than are many women in their early widowhood, but, on the other hand, since nobody ever entirely knows much of anything except for technical or academic matters, it can only be to the good to be able to take a few leaps into the dark. Anyway, once we have lived a long time, it is difficult to tell our bad luck from our good luck. Jim taught me to think like this. Once he said to me, "All our best transformations are accompanied by pain. That's the point of them."
When you are married to a man who can say something like that with a straight face - then hand you a wad of Silly Putty and serve you a platter of cheese and crackers accompanied by the music of Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen, child, you're in business.
It's three years today, Jim, since that long locomotive stopped at our station as we knew it would, and the conductor called "On Board!" for you. We could not keep you. We held you for awhile and then settled you on board and let you go. We love you still, my dearest dear.
The longest train I ever did see
Was a hundred coaches long,
The very first man I ever really loved
Is on that train and gone.
He's on that train and gone, love,
On that train and gone.
The very first man I ever really loved,
Is on that train and gone.
-Love,
Kay, Kelly, Erin, David, Rachel, Michel, Morgan, Jessica and ALeister
And you never for one moment thought to yourself, "Well, I'll wake the kids and tell them and then I'll start putting lotion on him," you never once thought to yourself, "Well, I'll wake the kids and then we'll make some calls and I'll start pleading people to come in and kiss him because he looks so beautiful," because Grief tells you what to do, you don't tell Grief what to do. Because Grief tells you who you are. You don't tell Grief who you are. That isn't the way of it. If, during the next few years of your grief, you are overly conscientious, your grief will squirt out at you somewhere, somehow. Illness, perhaps, or depression, which is enormously different than grief, or in some odd manner or behavior or pattern of thought or habit or attitude. Since Jim has died I have been regularly seeing at least three Patients-of-the-Broken-Heart a week which is what I call people who have lost long term mates or children and the kinds of care they need is vastly different than, say, the illness of depression or dysthymia or sadness or the blues. Each of these individuals have been on the verge of developing manic or compulsive or hermetic behaviors.
If living is a form of not being sure, which it is, death is a form of......what? For the living, death is a form of utter speculation, a form of shattering all sorts of lightly or tightly held inner "realities", and the death of a long term mate or a child is the beginning of the oddest type of faith, for the grieving person's psyche can not help but begin the strange wait for the deceased person to reappear; to, as Thomas Wolfe so woefully and beautifully put it, "Come back, grieved ghost, come back!" One waits. One denys it, of course, and no one wants to appear delusional, God, no, but, still, one waits. Esayist Joan Didion would not give up her husband's slippers. When he returns them, he might need them. I have not replaced all of the pictures of Jim and me around the house. When he comes back, he might feel badly.
Instead of speaking about grief, though, perhaps I need to speak about what it is Jim has passed down to me. He has left me with an overall sense that most men are good and patient and kind and trustworthy. I have been, perhaps, a bit more naive than are many women in their early widowhood, but, on the other hand, since nobody ever entirely knows much of anything except for technical or academic matters, it can only be to the good to be able to take a few leaps into the dark. Anyway, once we have lived a long time, it is difficult to tell our bad luck from our good luck. Jim taught me to think like this. Once he said to me, "All our best transformations are accompanied by pain. That's the point of them."
When you are married to a man who can say something like that with a straight face - then hand you a wad of Silly Putty and serve you a platter of cheese and crackers accompanied by the music of Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen, child, you're in business.
It's three years today, Jim, since that long locomotive stopped at our station as we knew it would, and the conductor called "On Board!" for you. We could not keep you. We held you for awhile and then settled you on board and let you go. We love you still, my dearest dear.
The longest train I ever did see
Was a hundred coaches long,
The very first man I ever really loved
Is on that train and gone.
He's on that train and gone, love,
On that train and gone.
The very first man I ever really loved,
Is on that train and gone.
-Love,
Kay, Kelly, Erin, David, Rachel, Michel, Morgan, Jessica and ALeister
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Aleister, Alan, the Octopus, Gertrude and Me
On the way to the Seattle Aquarium, Aleister showed Alan and me his new pink braces. "I have decided to give up my fear of the color pink," he said, with a big grin on his face. "Mama Kay. Do you remember when I would not even look at the 'pink aisles' in stores like Target and Fred Meyers'?" "Yes, I do, Aleister," I said, remembering all those times we would have to slink by the girls' toy and clothing aisles as if we were allergic to anything having to do with the feminine sex. "Well," he said, "pointing at his braces," I have decided to embrace my boyness and include girls inside my life. It is GOOD to be different. And girls LIKE boys who are different......don't they?" His voice ended up on an upward, somewhat plaintive note. "Yes, oh, YES, ALeister" I responded. Angella nodded. Alan nodded. Aleister grinned. Alan, Aleister and I put on our warm coats and hats and headed out to the car. We had a ferry to catch.
In Seattle, as Alan parked the car, Aleister came up to me and said, "Mama Kay. Do not worry about if I like Alan or not. In fact, I LOVE Alan. AND he is becoming quite the family member!" I smiled and hugged him. "He IS?" I said. "Yes," Aleister said. "Mom likes him, Charlie likes him, and Grandma likes him. That's one hundred per cent. I don't think he can do much better than that."
Inside the aquarium, Mr. 100% and Aleister jostled around like a couple of kids, then settled down while Alan led Aleister over to the octopus and gave Allie lessons on what an octopus actually feels like, with its suckers traveling all the way down its arms. How amazing, how sad, that an octopus, intelligent creature that he is, can exist in such a small space inside an aquarium.As a practiced snorkeler, Alan has been "held" by an octopus, which I know I would count as being the No. 1 worst thing that had ever happened to me (if it were ever to happen to me), but Alan gets a nostalgic look in his eye whenever he speaks about it. He is one of those people who actually thinks that an octopus is beautiful. I try to keep this in mind whenever he says that he finds ME beautiful. A little active realism never hurt anyone.
We saw sharks. We saw tropical fish so radiantly beautiful they turn up the volumne on one's belief in Something Religious. We saw furry otters. Seals. Starfish. Jellyfish. Stingrays. And, outside the aquarium, we saw tall buildings, restaurants, foreign ships, and water, water everywhere.
I am not comparing the octopus to Alan when I say that here we have two beings, Aleister and Alan, who both find two other beings - in one case human, in the other case, a carnivorous marine mollusk - - lovable. Despite the fact that Aleister loved his Grandpa Jim with his entire heart and soul, he has taken to Alan with the very same heart and soul, which means that ALeister has three characteristics completely and wholly intact: trust, acceptance and hope. And Alan, in his love for the mysteriously gray fleshy body of the octopus, so different in its irridescent gray muscularity than our own, also possesses his own rigorous (and unusual) set of trust and acceptance. He's not kidding. He DOES not the octopus, as well as a number of other creatures and critters and peoples other folks might run away from. Which is one of the reasons I love both Aleister and Alan.
And me? I need to be around this kind of ability to love. I need it the way some need water. I need it the way some need exercise. And, like my beloeved Gertrude Stein said, "It is inevitable, when one has a great need of something, one finds it. What you need, you attract like a lover."
In Seattle, as Alan parked the car, Aleister came up to me and said, "Mama Kay. Do not worry about if I like Alan or not. In fact, I LOVE Alan. AND he is becoming quite the family member!" I smiled and hugged him. "He IS?" I said. "Yes," Aleister said. "Mom likes him, Charlie likes him, and Grandma likes him. That's one hundred per cent. I don't think he can do much better than that."
Inside the aquarium, Mr. 100% and Aleister jostled around like a couple of kids, then settled down while Alan led Aleister over to the octopus and gave Allie lessons on what an octopus actually feels like, with its suckers traveling all the way down its arms. How amazing, how sad, that an octopus, intelligent creature that he is, can exist in such a small space inside an aquarium.As a practiced snorkeler, Alan has been "held" by an octopus, which I know I would count as being the No. 1 worst thing that had ever happened to me (if it were ever to happen to me), but Alan gets a nostalgic look in his eye whenever he speaks about it. He is one of those people who actually thinks that an octopus is beautiful. I try to keep this in mind whenever he says that he finds ME beautiful. A little active realism never hurt anyone.
We saw sharks. We saw tropical fish so radiantly beautiful they turn up the volumne on one's belief in Something Religious. We saw furry otters. Seals. Starfish. Jellyfish. Stingrays. And, outside the aquarium, we saw tall buildings, restaurants, foreign ships, and water, water everywhere.
I am not comparing the octopus to Alan when I say that here we have two beings, Aleister and Alan, who both find two other beings - in one case human, in the other case, a carnivorous marine mollusk - - lovable. Despite the fact that Aleister loved his Grandpa Jim with his entire heart and soul, he has taken to Alan with the very same heart and soul, which means that ALeister has three characteristics completely and wholly intact: trust, acceptance and hope. And Alan, in his love for the mysteriously gray fleshy body of the octopus, so different in its irridescent gray muscularity than our own, also possesses his own rigorous (and unusual) set of trust and acceptance. He's not kidding. He DOES not the octopus, as well as a number of other creatures and critters and peoples other folks might run away from. Which is one of the reasons I love both Aleister and Alan.
And me? I need to be around this kind of ability to love. I need it the way some need water. I need it the way some need exercise. And, like my beloeved Gertrude Stein said, "It is inevitable, when one has a great need of something, one finds it. What you need, you attract like a lover."
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
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