Grief, suffering & sacrifice

Years ago, a friend of mine said to me, "You have a deep well of grief hidden inside you." At the time I didn't believe him.

But evidently I didn't dig the well deep enough. Or maybe didn't hide it well enough. A couple of years ago it overflowed or came uncapped or was stumbled upon. Whatever it is deep wells of grief--hidden in such a way that the person housing them doesn't even know they're there--do.

We are supposed to be in control of ourselves and our emotions, but I am not in control of mine.

I cry. Like, a lot. "I could write a whole book on crying," I wrote in one of my pieces, and it's true. This essay might be the beginning of it.

Malcontente

Today the dogs weigh me down.
I think how nice it would be
to walk alone
without competing agendas.

We walk for a full block in harmony.
Then one stops, digs in her heels to sniff the grass
the other keeps walking
I pulled taut between them.

Three creatures vying for control.
I win only
because I'm biggest and strongest.

Today the fact that the dog walker
tied a series of knots in my dog's leash
two years ago
is a fresh source of annoyance.
And the dirt or
possibly dried shit
at the foot of my white comforter.
And the pile of unwashed dishes 
waiting in the sink,
and counter tops unclean with
crumbs and spills.
Just the thought of them
exhausts me.

Yesterday it was the neighbor
who brings his Rhodesian Ridgebacks
unleashed to my front yard
as though it were a city park
to do their doody.

The day before it was 
a lover's waning interest.

I feel the muscles 
knotting between my shoulder blades. 

We walk past a garden box with
unplucked cabbage
now of gargantuan proportions.
If all the people disappeared
would the cabbage spread out and run rampant? 
Would it shelter 'neath the rhododendrons
or overpower them?

This waning moon
is taking its toll.

The day does not care what day it is, Part II

The day does not care
what day it is. It's Friday;
the rain has stopped.
Stepping outside
I am greeted by sunshine and
warm air: a world washed new.
"Come out and play!" says this day.

Yesterday I was tired
in body and spirit,
so I rested. Today the day
beckons: Come out and play!
My body, breathing deeply,
pupils dilating, says,
"Yes! I want to work.
Sweat. Breathe the air and
clean the tar from my lungs.
Hear the breeze whisper
through the tree-tops."
So I go.

On top of Mount Tabor
all covered with trees
a man with a
baby in a backpack
has stopped, pointing
toward the city skyline,
head turned over shoulder.
"Look," he says to the baby. "See."
He wants to share the world with her.
His daughter is so little I think
she can't possibly understand
or focus or answer.
But as I pass he says,
"Isn't it pretty?" and
she acknowledges
the beauty with 
something approaching words.

Today I am fearful

On my walk: 
My eye was twitching.
The wind was high.
The dog was skittish.
My smile was tight.

A green mini-van
maybe twenty years old
the hatchback open
driven by a dark-haired man
with large biceps
in a track suit.
My imagination made him
into a violent gangster
who'd shoot me in the back
if no one else were around.

The silver-haired man
with the electric mower
was a serial killer
with a bloody basement.

The two dudes on bikes
a vaguer threat;
just don't talk to me, please.

The moon is almost full:
pregnant with dark possibilities.

Your future self

For Jeffrey Gardner

I saw your future self today
on the corner of 39th and Division.
He was clean.
Well-dressed in black 
wool coat, fedora,
funky sunglasses.
Brown Carhartts.
Silver beard shot with black
trimmed neatly.
He still walked like you
ever so slightly stooped
leaning forward
as if battling a wind
or climbing uphill.
He was talking to himself
and looked
like someone I'd want to know.

I like my people like I like my coats

It isn't my only coat. It's not the most fashionable or the most rain-resistant. But it is the warmest.

It is my warmest coat despite the fact that the zipper met its end a couple years ago between my dog's teeth, and last year the main button stopped buttoning. No notice, no note, just up and gave up the ghost.

I wear this coat because it is my warmest, but also I wear this coat because people seem to find me approachable in it. They are more likely to smile, more likely to engage in witty banter, when I wear it.

Maybe it's the puffiness. It lends me an air of softness.

After-dinner stroll

He had some time to kill before he needed to be at the airport, so my dad and I teleported to Prague for an after-dinner stroll. Neither of us had ever been there before, and I wished we could hear the street-noise and smell the city-smells, the din and odor being essential to the travel experience. But there were other delights. A few steps was all it took to bring on a change in strangely ordered seasons: bare branches now obscured by the fullness of summer's leaves; a few more steps and spring's new buds and early green abound. The sun shone eternal. We began near the National Museum and wound our way--past graffiti'd doorways and people whose faces never came into focus--to the Old Town Square, where the tops of buildings hung disembodied in the sky like heavy clouds. Next to the copper sculpture green with age, the tree, hung with streamers and balloons, suddenly here now gone.

The day does not care what day it is

The day does not care what day it is;
the sky was as blue
on Tuesday as on Friday afternoon.
A warm breeze caresses the tree branches
causing them to sway and dance
to music I don't hear.

The day does not care
that it was the first week of school
and we want to say it’s fall:
it’s 91 degrees
the day says, "it’s summer still."

My body says, “I’m still tired,”
but I have to get up now.
The day says, “Come out and play,”
but I have to work.
My body says, “I’m hungry,”
but it isn’t time to eat.
“Pipe down, body, and do my bidding.
We are on a schedule.”

The day does not care what day it is
yet I live by these constructed notions of time
of month and day and hour—
these boxes that determine
when I get up and when I go to bed
regardless of the sun’s whereabouts
regardless of my body’s rhythms—
and feel surprised
somehow betrayed
when the sun shines Monday through Friday
and the weekend is gray and rainy.

Merging

I’m all bent out of shape over

some b---- who

couldn’t take no for an answer.

I’d merged way back when

where I was supposed to, and

she rode the line until

the last minute

and tried to cut in front of me.

I kept close distance

Between my car and the car

in front so she f---ing honked

at me, angry gestures ahead, like

I’m the one to blame.

Do you think that just because

you ask for something

I have to give it to you?

I gestured too and yelled

at her through my closed window, “Why

the f--- didn’t

you merge back there?!”

She shook her head, disgusted

with me, and inched forward

anyway.

I wasn't willing to hit

her car, so she won the battle.

I called her a f---ing

b---- while waving wildly

At her back.

She didn’t seem to see me.

I want to explain

To her I want to say,

“Look.

I’m coming out of

A long, dark time in my life

When I didn’t know what I wanted, or

I knew and couldn’t ask, or

I asked and didn’t get.

When others’ desires seemed

more important than mine

always, and I

didn’t feel I had the right

To insist.”

Maybe that is her story too.

The Eleventh Commandment

Truths claw at my guts,

struggling to get out,

making me

first ravenous

then nauseous.

Nervousness,

jitters, and

a sour stomach.

When we say a thing

gone long unsaid,

the truth is released

from its prison in our cells

into our bloodstream:

a toxic rush.

Only then can it find

a way out of our bodies,

through sweat, blood,

urine, shit,

tears.

Our tears are laced

with poison.

When I speak a long-buried truth aloud,

I shed poison.

In romance novels

it is not uncommon

for the heroine to cry,

and the hero to kiss away her tears.

He would erase her pain

by taking it into his own body.

How romantic.

But know this:

My tears are sacred.

Thou shalt not kiss them away.

Thou shalt not dismiss my pain with your lips.

"Kiss it better" does not apply here.

Omfg: an update

Here are a few dishes that have been served up on the smorgasbord of my life lately:

A few nights ago I'm in bed with the dogs (my own, Milton, plus one of my mother's dogs, Grindel), Milton next to me at the head of the bed and Grindel lying by my feet. Suddenly I smell Milton's ass, which is never a good thing. I look over and he's licking it and I'm like "ew! stop it!" so he does but then I notice that there's a little brown spot of ass juice on my white comforter. Aaaaggh! Yuck! Of course I leap out of bed and go get a sponge to try to clean it off but it doesn't really work so I try to find my Tide eraser pen thingy and I can't find it so I grab a bottle of lavender deodorizer and spray the spot and then we all get into bed again only now Milton feels like he's in trouble so he's lying at my feet and Grindel is up by my head. So okay, fine, I turn off the light and we go to sleep. And in the morning I look over to see that Grindel has laid a little turd. Aaaaggh! WTF?!? Stupid dogs and their damned ass wars. Obviously got rid of turd and threw the comforter in the washing machine.

Last week I was on vacation from work. It was a stay-cation, which means I didn't go anywhere, but I did spend most of the time writing, which was wonderful. Finished a first draft of the vampire romance novella I've been working on for ages. I'd expected to feel more of a sense of accomplishment about that than I do, but maybe is just because I know I still need to do some editing before it's ready to be published.

Have been taking a creative non-fiction class this term and am really excited about some of the stuff I've been producing. Also have been awed and slightly discouraged by how good some of the other people in that class are. One of my favorites is Jeffrey Gardner, who (I discovered yesterday) writes poetry as well as creative non-fiction and has a blog too: Scribbling Truth with Crayons. Was checking it out last night and reading his stuff inspired me to write a few lines of poetry too, which is very cool.

And finally, here's an image that keeps popping into my head lately: that scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he takes a leap of faith (video below). I know several women, including myself, who seem to be at the edge of a precipice lately. We have realized that what we've been doing isn't working for us and that we need to make some major changes to our lives. In my case I can see across the ravine to where I'd like to be (writing full time), but I have no idea how to get there...there's no visible "bridge," if you will, between the life I have now and the one I imagine. And so I have two choices: a) continue doing what I'm doing, or a slightly different version of it, which is tantamount to staying on this side of the ravine forever and ever, or b) take a leap of faith and trust that the bridge will appear.

So my leap of faith is this: I'm starting up a freelance business for writing, editing, tutoring and assessment consulting.

I'm creating a new life for myself. What could be more creative than that? What could be more thrilling or more terrifying than leaping out into the great abyss of the unknown?