Life: Looking Back, Looking Forward

For the first time in 45 years I'm thinking tattoo.....

Guffaw!!

We'll want pics!

Lash--

Psychic expansion is good. Physical expansion is....not.

Boomer--

Get yourself a Mama Tiger tattooed on your bicep and then offer Mo's blood family free tiger scratch tats--applied instantly on request.

Don't bother to clean your fingernails.

So.

Stuff.

Apologies in advance.

A landslide of stuff en route.

Looking forward...

Me too.

I'm not a 'walking in front of people' person, or a 'being in a crowd' person...

But, tonight, I made myself do these things, and I survived.

I posed for pictures, won awards and lived through local publication of a few poems. They sucked, for sure. Endymion or edgar could crap better poetry, but it was mine, and it won, and I lived to tell.

I sat with my daughter as my PolySci /Global Issues professor said the following:

"You've seen her up here earlier tonight, and I want to tell you more about her. She kept me on my toes in Global Issues. For that, I'll never forget her.....and I'll never forgive her! She has more knowledge about current events than any student I've ever taught, and she could easily teach a graduate class on global politics..." (This man tried to run over me last Spring. I e-mailed him that my savage Jewish lawyers would clean his bones... Jewish lawyers always sound scarier!) When I went to accept my award from the President of the college, he said: "I expect you to come back and teach for me when you finish your education."

<No ****>

I won the Poetry Award, as well.

I don't think I can be held accountable for the choking deaths of Walter and Set, because this did actually happen. These kids are in the middle of nowhere and they're 18, so that may explain how the hell this could happen...but I am in another dimension of bliss right now.

Not so much because this neat stuff happened to me, but because my daughter saw it, and was influenced by it. It revved up her ambition. She was proud of me, and she saw that she could reach a bit higher. Is there anything better than that? <That would be a no.>

So, I must say the poetry sucked, too. Everyone else's just must have sucked worse. This is a crazy place for a normal person to say their poetry won something, because A2K is populated with incredibly talented people. Remember, <please> that I'm competing with the MTV demographic.

But, **** it. I'm just going to put all my stuff here. The interminable poetry, the godawful things I wrote when I went through recent transitions... The thought of it feels brave. I need to be brave again. Going through life a coward doesn't seem worth the trip.

So, prepare for extreme self-indulgent suckage.

If anyone else...all the wonderful women, who have so much to say--if you want to drop off poems, vignettes, short stories, thoughtful insights...anything that reveals you....


Do.


<smiles at the lionesses I love>

Winter Now
Winter is here.

It has rolled around again
Empty and ignorant.

There's no hand in your pocket,
No firelight on your face,
No chilly nights of mounted defiance, planning summer trips.

The world spins ruthlessly,
Falsely; stripped bare.
Dead leaves bury dead ground.
How I hate this illusory shell!

Handsome coats need you; they wait, orderly, in muted tones.
Listless scarves anguish in a tangle, never again
To be made alive by your blue pirate eyes.

Who leaves treasure in such breakable jars?
~L

Uncle's in a Briefcase
In his portrait, by the podium of Reverend McGee,
He looked like the Old Man and the Sea.
Hemingway.
Debonair.
Older than we remembered, shock of white hair.
It was a joke to have the preacher there;
The whole town knew he'd been in Satan's snare
Since age thirteen.
Down and dirty.
Mean.
His wives, numbers two and four,
Wound up wrasslin' on the parlor floor
of Murchison Funeral Home.

A fine establishment.

His giant daughter cried loudly, so everyone could hear
"Good God, Mama. I need a beer,"
Though we thought


she'd had enough.


He was dead, the bard of Vidalia.
They all said he could regale you
With mythology,
philosophy.

He communicated with nature.

Wives and young'uns came in from all parts
Strategizing separately in the town's three bars.
Callin' Jerry


Springer.
It was just the burying' he'd want,
Nobody cried, everybody fought.
Word got out that the bunch from Dallas
meant to dig him up, and this sounds callous,
But we don't hold kindly to sharing parts


Of our departed.


We could have portioned him out in Dixie Cups
But Mama was worried when he woke up
went to heaven and knocked on the gate, he'd be locked out, due to

portioned out state


Rule 31
In the manual

As if.

~~L

Hey, enjoy your fame and glow in it. You certainly deserve
it, Lash.

Congratulations!!

Thank you. You're sweet!

I am sort of floaty.

Goodlord, CI, whyn't you just fly bank flags?
Many of us struggle without your sense of justified accumulation.

It's nice you got there. We aren't all less.

A scholarship application that required an answer to: What piece of art affected you most, and how?

Ann Hamilton's installation art, "myein"

I am a socially liberal, Conservative American. I deeply love my country, and I hope for the age, when the people of the United States fulfill our great promise. For most of my life, I've received criticism of my country as an attack on it. I was quick to counter criticism with a litany of moral and tangible accomplishments....America is benevolent, successful, and strong: Our immigration policies compare favorably to those of European countries: America's level of freedom and our liberal human rights standards are not an empty clichés...

If reticence to confront and absorb difficult truths is a handicap, I was miraculously healed in one day, as I contemplated "myein," an installation by Ann Hamilton. The neo-classical, Jeffersonian building, on approach, imbues the surrounding grounds with the stately air of American government. The connection is unmistakable. As you enter the building, the appointments, carpets and furnishings, continue the mood. Leaving the rotunda, guests enter a distinctly different environment. The senses are touched so softly, upon entering the signature room: whispers; drifts of deep red powder, so fine, that the slightest movement stirs it like a crimson fog; a design, assembling and evanescing on the wall, as if written by a ghostly hand. The red powder, almost liquid in consistency, tufts lightly down the walls, and as it does, it meets with raised braille lettering. The effect is compelling. As more red powder rests on the lettering, anguished words rise up around the room, and testify to the bloody birth of our nation, through the eyes of natives and African slaves. With the next tuft, the words disappear, their stories are again silenced. All the while, a woman's whispering voice urgently recites a portion of the Gettysburg Address. She speaks as Lincoln did, wondering if a nation founded on ideals it had not yet achieved, could survive.

The juxtaposition of these elements, as arranged by Hamilton, is powerful. For me, myein represents the austere, unassailable specter of the American ideal, faintly, but persistently interrupted by our historical reality. How can we deeply love this land and her Constitutional foundation, and also acknowledge the horrors perpetrated by America's birth, which were equally foundational? During my life, to the day I experienced "myein," I politely listened to dissenting opinions and facts. Listening for me, then, involved creating a silence, and allowing someone else to speak. I considered that more than my duty. The ethereal tableau in that room changed the way I listen. The agonizing accounts of the people, who were destroyed, as Americans built an empire, fade silently in, in the manner of an apparition seeking justice. I know it is a better love of country to seek that justice, and to confront the entire truth about the country I love. I was one, who silenced unpleasant voices. I was comfortable focusing on the beautiful ideal, but not so much Sand Creek, Wounded Knee or the cargo hold of a slave ship. I listen to these stories now, and I hear them. It doesn't lessen my love for my country. It only inspires me to be another urgent voice, reminding my country of its promise.

Had to respond to the Einstein quote...


"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and science." ~~Albert Einstein

Since the Earth was formed, the whole of knowledge lay undetected, waiting. Trees dropped apples before Newton was watching. David stood unselfconsciously, waiting to be freed from that vast block of marble. Electricity, symphonies, vaccines… They were always there, waiting to be dreamed, craved, and hungrily sought. The human race owes a debt to our dreamers, our diligently dedicated, and the range of others, who push beyond convention. It is their curiosity, for some, their stubborn refusal to give up without an answer, that has decorated our world, unlocked mysteries, and posed new questions.

Einstein suggests "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious," because it is human curiosity that drives innovation and experimentation. Tycho Brahe was caught in such a torrent of insatiable curiosity. He simply saw an eclipse, and from that day, he immersed himself in astronomy. He wanted to know how it happened, when it would happen next, and likely, many other things about this awe-inspiring event. On his journey to answers, he discovered miscalculations in the heaven's measurements. The foundation required for accurate astronomy was in error. He devoted the rest of his life to righting this wrong. The brilliant work of Johannes Kepler could not have occurred without Brahe's contribution.

As Brahe sought answers to astronomical events, Vincent Van Gogh, a failed minister, sought another way to reveal God to the world. He was still considered a novice painter, when he rejected conventional Impressionism, and began to interpret the world on canvas, as no one had done before. Van Gogh changed art. He saw God in billowing fields of wheat, in a murder of crows, and in a starry night. With desperate, missionary zeal, he painted to share his beloved God. In paint strokes, he communicated love to the world. Seeking, he revolutionized attitudes about art, style, and method. His quest for artistic satisfaction was unquenchable.

This type of devotion can't be bought. Einstein also said: "True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist." This urge comes from within: it cannot be coaxed or manipulated. Mystery creates that irresistible urge, and propels the innovator forward, into new territory, where true art and science reluctantly acquiesce.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I enjoyed writing these, though they may suck.

When I was four years old, and my brother was two, we had our tonsils removed. I have vague memories of rolling down bright corridors on a big, white bed. As I grew older, I became aware that there was something different about my brother, and that made my family different. He'd received too much ether during the surgery, and aspirated into his oxygen mask, which permanently damaged his brain. Of all the events that touched my life, this one is the most profound, because it likely has more to do with who I am, than any other single event. I can't adequately speak to how this affected our family, and how it broke our hearts for him, ourselves, and one another, throughout his thirty-eight years on this earth. Beyond the unrelenting mourning for the life he wouldn't live, was additional pain, due to the surprising callousness of strangers and people we thought were friends.
People seem to be instinctively repelled by alterations in the norm. Living in a family, where someone I loved was considered unacceptable to society, because of a difference he couldn't help, softened my heart for other innocent people, who are unfairly considered socially unacceptable. As I got older, I frequently found myself taking on unpopular positions, and wading through the crowd to stand beside the surrounded. I felt a strong solidarity with minorities, poor people, handicapped people… Through the emotions that drove this change in me, developed my drive to serve other people. Every good thing that comes from me, comes from my brother, _______________.

Diary~ 12/25/05
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Status: denial.
Mood: Stupidly serene.
Pertinent word: fey
metaphoric image: an unnecessarily violent mugging.

Disclaimer: This will be sort of a long, self-pitying word association, with no grammatical or expressive structure. I appreciate this spot, on which to write things down and look at them later to note my progress, or lack thereof.

I have survived. I'm doing surprising well, and I feel very guilty about that. I have been able, for the most part, to repress images and unpleasant memories of what happened to my husband. When I speak of him to the children, we are all smiling, I'm sure, grasping psychotically to the tiny frozen images of happiness in the middle of all the unspeakable, tarry morass we're blocking out.

I was having a very bad time a few weeks ago--images of him were getting through, and I actually had to get up out of my chair and stalk through the house...I felt like something was on me-- and walking would get me away from it. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn't stay still. "Monkey on your back" has renewed meaning to me.

I watched my husband die three months and six days ago. No one has asked me about his last day. Not his last words. Not his comfort. Not one soul. There is no testament that he lived, no friend to talk to, no one to remember him but his son, his daughter and I. I'm going to say it all here. When I can. Just because I need to. I need to describe that day, and how I felt, and the stupid things I said, and the godless things I found out. When I can.

It's weird, my life. I'm 44. I'm a widow. My youngest child, 18, became engaged tonight. I will go from being an active mother of two, and partner in a 25 year marriage--to living alone. Seems abrupt, to me, but by the time he died, I'd already mourned him five or six times. I'd almost killed us in a wreck after one doctor's appointment--I'd started having panic attacks as the bad news started getting worse. I thought, at first, I might die, but maybe not. This denial thing is working well for now. I realize it can't last, but right now, it's keeping me sane....or at least operating within a reasonable facsimile of sanity.

I have other things to track. I'm a semester or two from transferring to a four year school. I'm doing well academically. I am living on the edge, financially. How I make it month to month is a miracle. And, I'm thinking of moving off to Athens (UGA) and starting over--a la Mary Tyler Moore. [cue soundtrack]

"How will you make it on your own....?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you're all alone
But it's time you started living
It's time you let someone else do some giving

Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You might just make it after all
You might just make it after all

Anyway. I'm somebody else now.

Did I not ask? I will, if you want.

I'm thinking you are referring to my surprise that no one in my family or his...asked what he said,...or what happened at the end of his life.

I wouldn't put that on anyone here. I was amazed at our families and people we know here, IRL.

Still shocked about that.

This place kept me sane...

No complaints here.

Nods, lash.

And, I don't want to pry... very much don't want to.
Things need to sit.

I feel like people are watching me vomit, but I sort of trust some of them to hold my hair....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Thanks for being here, osso. <Squeezes osso's hand.>


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

pertinent phrase: walking through water
mood: stupid

Appropriate Sarah McLachlan lyrics:
The winter here's cold, and bitter
It's chilled us to the bone
We haven't seen the sun for weeks
To long too far from home
I feel just like I'm sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love
So it's better this way, I said
Having seen this place before
Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love

My husband and I were wild--me moreso than him. We lived in a smallish college town and found a keg party every night. I was reckless and flirtatious, and he was outwardly gregarious, easygoing, but taking notes. Everyone loved him: there was always a crowd gathered around him. In retrospect, I was annoying. A little loud, a little too energetic, a little too friendly with the boyfriends... He was my pass, and I traded heavily.

He was an incredible lover, worried about pleasing me. Weird, that just sort of typed out. I haven't thought about him in those terms in a couple of years. He was too sick, and things were too serious. I miss him now. His smell, his warm skin, his mouth on my body.

I had been raised in a conservative, Christian fundamentalist household, where I never once did anything right. My mother had criticised everything I'd ever done, and later I had to face the fact that I'd married for a ticket out of that house.

He was already killing himself. I don't know if something happened to him that he never told me, or if he just couldn't handle some of the things he had told me. But, I do know he was killing himself. I know it now. Back then, I was so wild, what he was doing didn't seem so excessive. I hadn't even thought about this, until a couple of weeks before he finally died--he said to me, "You saved my life."

I prolonged it, but I didn't save him.

He said he'd planned never to get married. But, he married me and took me away from my mother. He was running hard from something, too. Something darker and worse. In the 25 years we spent together, we loved one another intensely, though mostly at different times, and I wished him dead for a few years. I finally met him for the first time in 1999. Clean and sober. I hadn't hated him--I'd hated what he was doing to himself, and me. I fell deeply in love with him. All the years of lies and palpable pain from a miserable marriage vanished--like the pain of childbirth...the moment you see what you've been fighting for, the pain evaporates. I was in love with him. I followed him around the house, making out with him everytime he slowed down enough. We had lunch dates, dinner dates, I seduced him against the frozen foods display doors in WalMart. I fondled him for the surveillance cameras.

We were impossibly happy.