Treasures untold

Sparks of ideas. Free-writing that I am quite intrigued by, because we all know what I really want to do with this fancy education:

I shall live a long time. I shall live past the point of understanding how the world works. I am nearly there already, and still my heart thumps on and I haven’t had to replace my glasses in three years. Mama Zuri once told me that in death even the old and wise tremble under the newness of the world like a newborn dik dik. Perhaps she is right, which is why I don’t watch the television except for David Attenborough documentaries and Jane Austen, and only if Mary is nearby to turn it off when I am through.

Aubyn Hall is quiet these days, save for Tuesdays and every third Saturday when the west wing and great hall are opened to the public as is our agreement with the wretched Trust. My days are now kept by dust-covered portraits and the damn dogs and memories of warm corridors and people of my own blood. I have filled my Bible with their names, and this is what is left.

As for man, his days are as grass. Mama Zuri wrote it with a square carpenter’s pencil in block letters on the back of a tin label. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. When the rains came and all the boys from the quarters danced in the streambed by the north pasture. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. Starkers, shock, said Alfie. In a state of nature, said Kate. You just keep writing, girl, said Mama Zuri. I didn’t mind not being allowed outside to see the dancing boys. The orphaned dik dik had been allowed inside and to be given a name. This made all the difference. And the place thereof shall know it no more.

I first met him in my final year at small dinner party of a mutual tutor, Professor Llangyden, a boisterous Welshman who liked to surround himself with students who would perhaps one day prove an advantageous contact. I knew from the moment I set eyes on him that he would not have received an invitation had it not been for his friend, Mr. Will Barrett, a young man destined for a seat in government. His evening jacket was obviously borrowed from a man several inches thicker and a good deal taller.

Memory and truth, running parallel, sometimes intersecting—I cannot remember, for instance, if we left Mama Zuri behind or if she left us behind. Which direction did she walk on the road from Sibilo Station to Mombasa? She must have walked while Mother and Father drove because this is the way of things. Those who could have told me have gone on and taken their secrets with them. I have a dream which in which the smells of Aubyn Hall and monsoon-rotted straw linger in my mouth and nose as I walk through an unfamiliar passageway, guided along by strange portraits and paisley wallpaper, crumbling at the seams and corners. Sometimes Mama Zuri is standing there at the end of the hall, holding a wax candle from the hives at Sibilo. Sometimes Lieutenant Richardson with a black and red stained telegram. Sometimes Peter with an ageless smile and an atlas opened to the Dead Sea. Sometimes you are there with your easy courage.

Imposter

I just finished up my self-inflicted crash course in 16th and 17th century British History. I now know the succession of kings and queens, the difference between the Long and Rump parliament, and the definition of rough wooing. So why is it that I still feel as if someone (either them or me) has made a horrible mistake?

Maybe it is just a language barrier thing. I have to learn the language and the cultural norms. I feel like an anthropologist, observing the natives. Many of the guys wear coats and/or ties to class and everyone looks very well put together. Many people here are too smart for their own good, and get so wrapped up in what they are talking about that they don't realize that they've lost the rest of us. Or those people who speak so quickly trying to keep up with their own brains. I'm a slow talker (I'm Southern, what can I say?) and I appreciate slow talkers. I've heard many a word that I don't know, many of the academicky, made-up words that I'm not sure the people saying them know what mean.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the challenge and meeting many sensible, fairly un-pretentious people, but it is another world. I met another Bardian who said the transition can be rough. Even at the highest levels of classes at Bard, there was always humor and the fear of taking oneself too seriously. There have been several moments where I have wanted to laugh outloud at the absurdity of some people in my classes, but I quickly realize that no one else finds it funny, so I stifle a grin and watch for others doing the same. Those are the people I want to know better.

Tears

I had my grieving dreams last night.

On a beach unlike any I've ever seen. Lots of driftwood. I was there with my mother and we were desperately trying to pack up a room and move out of the beach house. The grief seemed distant and yet so raw, and we were both avoiding it until it blew up. Someone we loved fiercely had died. I'm not even going to write down who here because it was so horrible and I can't bear to think about it in the daylight hours. Somehow in the dream I ended up crawling across this beach, so stricken with sadness that normal balance was not possible. In the dream, I sobbed and wailed for what seemed like hours. Every time I tried to redirect myself, I was bowled over again. As I entered the door to the beach house, I knew that I would never stop crying ever again. How could I? And then I realized that my mother was in more pain than I could ever imagine. And so I cried even harder. When I finally woke up, dry-eyed and shaken, I felt this insane sense of relief. I usually know that dreams are not real, but in my crying dreams, I cannot see past the cloud of grief.

I know this probably sounds like a horrifying nightmare, but it really isn't. I can't cry like that when I am awake. To do so in my dreams feels oddly satisfying, maybe even good. It hurts, but the lack of control is almost exhilarating. I've had these dreams for many years, even before I had encountered grief and loss in my waking life. They are rare, but poignant. I am usually not that shaken by them, unless, as in this one, the death is someone I do love and care for in real life and not a vague or created figure. I don't even think that these dreams are a sign of distress or tension in my waking life. They just...exist. They allow a kind of release that I don't often get.

New smells

It’s funny how when you move to a new place, every time you step out your door it feels like some grand excursion, including that panicked feeling right before you close the door to your building (Do I have my keys, my wallet, my money, my phone, my bus pass, my whatever) as if you might never find your way back. And every small errand leaves you weary of mind and muscle and sore of foot. Somehow I manage to become drenched in sweat even though it is so cool and breezy outside. And you never realize how little walking you do living in a rural area with a car until you move to a city without one.

I’ve only been here for two days now, but I am slowly navigating this neighborhood. I seem chronically unsure of biking etiquette. My fat tires do not go as fast as the skinny road bike tires, so I feel bad being in the middle of the lane, but I don’t want to get run off the road by crazy cab drivers. I also don’t know exactly what to do about one lane roads. They go right to all the places I want to go, but I always seem to be on the wrong side. And I also see tons of people biking on the sidewalk, which I thought was not allowed. Is it rude or understandable. In general, I would be happier if I had my helmet which somehow was left behind in SC.

Anyway, I am more or less settled in aside from a small stack on unsorted clothes. I even made my bed today to make the room more aesthetically pleasing. My roommates and I are beginning to shed layers and sort out logistical stuff. Now that I have made the move unscathed, I am ready to begin what I cam here to do. Being here gives me the confidence boost I need. I feel a need to prove myself, that thirst that got me through Bard in three years and saw me to the end of some difficult papers. I’m a little tired of the nervous social energy in learning the lay of the social landscape. Some lessons so far.

1.) Being poor and coming from no money is NOT status quo here, and it makes people of means uncomfortable when people without means talk about money.

2.) Fuck is in vogue. Shit is decidedly out of vogue. Sonofabitch is probably out of the question.

3.) Leg cuffs are getting smaller. Most people are not having an existential crisis about it.

4.) Graduate school dinner parties are actually kind of expensive, because generally it is good manners to bring something (apparently) usually wine. And Yellow Tail probably would raise eyebrows.

5.) I need a new bike lock. A mean looking chain with a teeny u-lock. Or so says Mr. So and So at the bike store.

Some new smells:

1) My new bathroom, not mildewy, but strangely other.

2) New coffee, mediocre at $8.50 a pound.

3) Peppermint and Tea Tree together....not a new smell, but one I haven't smelled since I left Bard nursery school.

4) Foreign-smelling honey, grown in Kansas where people are batshitcrazy.

5) The most amazingly sweet apple I've ever had.

Free to a good home

I think this is my favorite Bob Dylan song ever. It is the ultimate slow dancing in the bedroom song...or maybe the perfect lullaby. Anyway, it's been covered by a million people, so I thought I would join them. I'd really like Lucinda Williams to do this song.



In other news, I am trying to find a place to live come September. Mostly I'm finding sublets, but I have sent out a few emails to people searching for roommates and I even posted a little roommate groping note on the apartment board. I read a bunch of them, and they seemed to be 500-word biographical sketches more than anything else. It wasn't so much "find a room" as "find a life partner." It's a bit like a platonic dating site. I didn't give a sketch, just the normal "I can spend this much, I want to live in this area, and I have references/money/blah blah blah."

What should I have put?

Insufferably disorganized South Carolinian in need of place to house her madness.
Takes abnormally long showers.
Cannot abide life in August without a damn good air conditioner.
Occasionally makes enough grits to feed a family of 20 because have yet to learn how to measure out grits, despite being taught at one point.
Sings gospel hymns in the shower. No interest in proselytizing.
Housebroken.
Loses important papers.
Cannot find keys on a regular basis.
Watches The Vicar of Dibley when upset or depressed.
Icemaker preferred.
Must be let out to pee at 5 am.
Sheds.
Small adoption fee may apply.

The Deathbed

A month has passed since PaPa died. I haven’t really slowed down enough until now to think about it much. I’ve seen Mema a few times and noted how frail and windblown she seems. I can only imagine what it is like to be left in such a state, the center of gravity of your universe suddenly gone, now a deep dark hole in the middle of your life.

I suppose I never realized how much Mema and Papa loved each other. I never remember them being in the least bit affectionate with one another, not in the way my own parents are. Their life together seemed more practical than passionate, more ingrained than invented. I figured the births of their two sons were the result of a two sudden bursts of friendliness very much in the past tense. When I was driving Mema to her hair appointment the Tuesday after, she told me that after his last stay in the hospital, he could no longer sleep lying down. She said for almost the entirety of their marriage, they had fallen asleep facing one another and holding hands.

The deathbed is such a hard, uncertain reality from the moment it ceases to become a hospital bed and becomes the deathbed. There is that excruciating moment when it is understood that there will be no homecoming. For us, it was a hard and fast transition. Papa had rallied his last bit of strength when Shosha came home. The words “recovery” and “rehabilitation” had been mentioned. He had looked at us and known us and talked to us and loved us. One moment Shosha and I were talking to him about his childhood and the war, smiling softly to one another when he drifted off into sleep. The next moment, we exchanged anxious glances as his weak lungs began to rattle and hum. The nurses were called in. His gurgling breath echoed around the room, a horrible sound like crumpling rice paper.

For nearly two hours we listened to him struggle and gag, suctioning the phlegm out of his mouth when it finally came out. I remember when the others came into the room, wanting to protest to them that not an hour before he had been talking and smiling and fine. And now we were watching him drown, watching him as his lungs fought the inevitable, frantically asking the nurses if anything could be done. And then asking them if this was the end. Hospital bed became deathbed. Visitors became mourners.

I think all of us were pretty determined to get this right. After his gurgling stopped with the Morphine and Ativan, the vigil began. It began with the acceptance that this was the last stand. There would be no recovery. The details get fuzzy after this. I remember holding his warm, slightly swollen hand, tracing the veins and massaging the palms in an intimate and loving way, things that would never have been entirely appropriate before. I stroked his hair and tucked it behind his ear. I touched him like I would a lover or a baby.

I watched as the people with far more complex relationships to Papa than mine came to terms with our situation. I watched my uncle, damaged as he is, cry almost imperceptibly. I watched Mema, facing this horrible reality that she had been preparing for, but not really known how would feel. I watched her crumble and straighten and crumble and straighten. I watched my own father, saw the lines of anguish and worry in his face. I watched Shosha as she struggled with this shock of death after being so far away. I watched my mother, whose sensibility in a crisis is matched only by her compassion and capacity to love, comfort us all in the ways we needed it most.

On Saturday morning, I read Papa and Mema my Jocassee piece, as Papa began to slip into advanced organ failure. It was stupid, but I thought it would make a change from the sterile and surprisingly loud hospital noises. Plus, I was hoping to put Mema to sleep (she had not slept all night). Maybe my voice was heard past the fog of morphine. It didn’t matter. I should have read it to him earlier, but it was better late than never.

Saturday was a day of music and counting breaths. We watched as his breaths came slower and slower and more shallow. The nurses told us with their faces that this was most likely the end. So we watched and counted the seconds between shallow gasps. Breath…2..3..4..21...22. It was like some frantic form of yoga relaxation breathing. And then there came a moment when we all sat around his bed, an intuitive (or wishful) feeling that we could somehow lift his soul out of his tired, broken body to that next place. Mama asked me to sing and tried to herself, but couldn’t. I didn’t think I could handle a hymn, so I sang “Riddle Song” that Leah taught me when I was 18 or 19 and that I had sung as a fail proof lullaby first to Anna and Catherine, then to Kira, then to Eli, then to Stevie. After that, I could move on to others. We sang softly and poorly, our throats filled with the cotton of grief, but mostly on key and hitting those few lovely moments of familial harmony. The nurses closed the doors to give us privacy, though I’m sure we were an intriguing bunch. We exhausted our hymn knowledge, pausing to count seconds between breaths after each song. I remember pleading with God to just take him now. Give us this beautiful moment to remember. Make this death into a poem. Let us line his passage to heaven with sweet songs. We were all ready. There was no need for him to suffer any longer. We had just sung him our blessing. There had already been so many moments when he was surrounded by the people he loved the most. Times when we could have all watched him leave the room for the last time.

But it was another whole day. Shosha had to go back to California. We who were not on the deathbed had living needs; papers to write, calls to be made, showers to be had, food to be eaten, decisions to be made, sleep to be snatched from a restless night. I remember being so angry. Angry at God who would not just take him from that God-awful hospital. Angry at an old man’s surprisingly stubborn heart.

He held on for so long, long enough to make us think that maybe we had been wrong. Maybe we had given up to quickly. The nurses were so surprised each morning and evening when they changed shifts. They asked us if we knew of anyone that he was waiting for. Sometimes death will wait for reunification. They had seen it happen. We then thought that perhaps he was waiting for permission. And we all, in our way, gave it. I whispered in his ear that he could go. That we were all ready and willing to let him go. That we loved him. That we would take care of each other. I told him to let go of this tired old world. I heard my father assure him that he would take care of Mema. Maybe this did the trick, but it was a delayed reaction. Papa was a champion worrier. Maybe he really did need to feel this assurance that he could leave us behind and that we would be okay.

Apprehension gave way to exhaustion. Nicholas, Mama, and Dale left to get some rest. Mema sat fretting in the corner about funeral stuff while Daddy tried to convince her to take things one at a time. I propped my computer by Papa playing gospel grass internet radio. I held his hand and began counting breaths. It was sometimes up to 70 or 80 seconds between shallow gasps. Every time, I thought “this is it” and then he would gasp again. Maybe it was the music, or the fact that I was physically and emotionally worn down. But I let go of his hand and began to zone out, tracing the pattern of the wallpaper with my eyes. A few minutes passed and I was vaguely aware of his breathing. And then vaguely aware that there had been no gasping.

I waited for three long minutes, afraid to touch him, paralyzed. I always imagined the face turning blue and the body suddenly becoming limp, but the only thing I noticed was that his lips turned the same color as his skin. I struggled to find my voice. I remember trying to somehow get my father’s attention without alerting my grandmother, worried that I was making a mistake. I had been 12 inches from him. I had expected death to be louder, more obvious. What followed was a surreal half hour. He had gone away in the blink of an eye, but it took about four people listening for a non-existent heartbeat before he was declared.

I remember reading this poem by Thomas Hood a long time ago.

WE watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied--
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed--she had
Another morn than ours.


I am always humbled by the ability of poetry to transcend in this world.

Saying goodbye

I needed to write something. So I did.

We are born alone. Our first breath is our own and no one else’s. Our little lungs spring to life as we are welcomed into arms that love us. But we are lucky in birth for we have a mother whose body surrounds us and protects us, easing our passage into the world and waiting to comfort us the moment we arrive in it.

We die alone. The last breath is a breath we take on our own, and after that…I have to believe that we are welcomed into arms that love us. I think perhaps what is so hard about losing someone we love is the helpless feeling of knowing that in those few moments, we could not provide a seamless, un-solitary transition into the beyond.
I have never had a chance to say goodbye to someone before now. What a strange blessing it is. To know that the last words you spoke to someone were words of an uncomplicated love, that he looked last upon the face of love.

I say this all pre-emptively. PaPa is near the end of this life--how near is uncertain-- but the truth of it is circling our hearts…and his. We say goodbye every moment. With every touch, every whisper, even when we don’t know what to say.

My grandfather’s line is one that has been broken and scarred, fragile and fierce, secrets and unspoken words littering the genetic make-up it seems. I know this. I have seen the battered hurt in my daddy, the furrowed brow I’ve always tried to make smooth again. But this is not the family I have known. From my earliest memories, PaPa has been a gentle, affectionate grandfather, never a harsh word or a begrudging look. He has softened even more in recent years, “I love you’s” coming easily and simply. What, perhaps, he could not give to his own sons, he gave in abundance to his granddaughters, and perhaps more so to his grandson. That is the PaPa I have known. Even here at the end, his firm grip on my hand and the slight smile makes me sure of his love. Loving someone is a blessing, perhaps even more than being loved. I’m so happy that he has loved me in such a pure and uncomplicated way.

My tears came freely tonight, but they were not even tears of grief or fear or uncertainty. They were tears of relief….of joy. How lucky are we to be able to say the things that needed to be said. How fortunate that we are able to give PaPa the gift of hearing what he needs to say to us, like “I love you” and “You’ve been a good son.” Perhaps this is as close as we can get to deliverance, to taking his hand and leading him into the next place. I can’t help this feeling in my gut that this is what we are meant to do.

These moments are what this family needs, the chance to speak what has been unspoken. It makes me realize how fortunate I am. If I were to die tomorrow, there would be no misunderstandings between my family and I. I am loved and I love. No questions or stipulations. No complications or conditions. Life has been complicated. Love has been certain. There is no need for words that have been spoken every second of my life.

Random thoughts...

Apparently, I am Britain.




Holy Shit! It snowed in March!

Productivity and Cleanliness in my classroom

Westminster shots aka my long commute

Mother, I climbed

I'm figuring out how to use iDVD. And I need to sing more lest I forget how. Cheers! It was either blurry or black. I chose blurry.

The Shortest Day

Shosha and I recorded this a few days after Christmas with her friend Mike. It was so nice to sing with her again, and with a new song to boot. We practiced for a really long time because it was a difficult harmony for me to find. In the bridge, I did it really well one time and then it took me about 15 times to get it the same again.

We were both nursing colds and so Shosha brought a bottle of Maker's Mark to help us sing better. It was pretty raunchy stuff and didn't seem very helpful in the voice department. But it turned out useful in the nerves department. Shosha put down her track and then I put down mine....several times. It was okay, but a little off somehow. Neither of us were singing very well on our own. So we did the Beach Boys think and just laid down a live track. It did the trick. There is something to be said about those sister harmonies.

I wish I had a copy of our version of Lyle Lovett's Family Reserve. We do it so well, and we've even gotten to the point where we don't giggle in inappropriate places.

Cry Like A Baby

Shosha and I did one of our favorites. Plus, you get to hear us fretting in the background. Yay!

Back together again

So I've decided to blog again at least until the break is over...hopefully after. I need to get in the habit of writing again. I seem to have forgotten how. Words don't dance for me like they used to.

Yesterday I went to the Governor's School reunion party. It was fairly overwhelming at first. I had never been to one as I've always been away at school or adventuring or other such nonsense. So I met Mark and Will in the parking lot (I was terrified to go alone) and we went in. I felt so old. The lobby was bursting with a really intense (kinda smelly) energy, and I found myself searching rather dazedly for familiar faces. The only people from our class were me, Mark, Will, Thomasina Sarah, and Jonathan, though we met up later with our juniors, Philipp, Amelia, Rachel, and Anna Kate. And then there were just swarms of other people to wade through.

I saw George. We talked for a bit, but then he was taken off by autograph seekers. Evidently he's written a writer's manual. I talked to Madame Glass and Dana Howard , but mostly just meandered around campus with old friends, thinking of a time when things were simpler.

GS has changed a lot. I hadn't realized how much. Doug (an 03 kid now an RA) said that they'd had to really crack down on kids because of poor grades and insincerity. Perhaps this was inevitable, but I couldn't help but feel guilty as someone led in Dr. Uldrick to the gift unveiling. This may not have been what she meant...just another cool place for rich(ish) folks to send their kids.

It's funny how the memory works. We were allowed to wander around for about an hour before getting spotted by the security people as strangers. I kept smelling things that took me right back. A stairwell that smelled like a crisis. A hallway that smelled like a late evening aimless walk. An office that smelled like acceptance. And get I walked into another hallway that I knew I had passed through a thousand times and had no memory of it, startled to realize where I was.

It used to sort of depress me to know that GS and the life I had there can never be replicated. I am beginning to feel similarly about Bard, though perhaps less so. I thought that I could never go back. Never be that person again. Never be loved in that way again. Never shine like that again. But that's only part of the story. I came into my own in those buildings. I allowed myself to be important in that place. I took such ownership of my existence. After a rather isolated existence at Liberty, I found myself surrounded by friends. And not just everyday friends, but people my own age that held qualities that I didn't know existed. People whose hearts spoke to mine. It may sound horrible, but until I went to GS, I had very few friends that I admired, certainly I was not surrounded. I've never felt at peace with my generation (their music only hurts my ears!), but at GS I was.

But I take some comfort in knowing that who I became there didn't stay there. Maybe there have been times when I forgot that. I stayed out long and late last night with old friends, several of whom I had not seen in 5 or 6 years. And it felt like home. I felt at home in myself. I didn't have to try. I just was. I feel similarly about my time at Bard, but I was older then. GS was my groundswell, where my new life began. Those people I laughed and played with last night...we shared a bit of light...somehow related by a post-genetic imprint. I felt such love for the experience and (most of all) myself.

All in all a good night. I wanted to explain to my friends at W-O. I wanted to share but knew that such things couldn't really be relayed through words.

Sprinkled and Dunked

This is probably one of my favorite hymns of all time, and like most of my favorite hymns, it is a redemption song. It's one of those "come on down to the altar and give your life to Jesus" songs.

Among the favorites:

Great is Thy Faithfulness
Jesus Paid It All
Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross
Abide With Me (not an altar call song, but a funeral one...equally great)
Just a Closer Walk with Thee
Higher Ground
Farther Along
It Is Well With My Soul
In the Garden
Have Thine Own Way
Open My Eyes, That I May See
Take My Life, Lead Me Lord
Old Rugged Cross


I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that I have done the rounds of all the major denominations of Christianity (and been confirmed in two), but I've probably spent the most amount of time in the bosom of the Southern Baptist Church (a bosom from which I have long since self-weaned). It's always a bit of shock when I go to various Baptist functions with family or for students/friends, and I spend most of the time squirming uncomfortably in the pew trying not to look offended. Until they start playing the music, that is. And then I remember that this is my spiritual groundswell. I remember that as a ten-year-old, I walked into my pastor's office and told him that I was ready to accept Jesus into my heart. I wrote a heart-felt testimony and my father read it tearfully at the altar as I waded into the fake river in a white robe and purple swim suit. And because the music meant so much to me even then, My mother and I recorded "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus" in the balcony of the church to be played while I was dunked. I would love to get my hands on that tape.

Recently, we went back to our old Church in Clemson to listen to the wonderful Roger Lovette (most sensible, poetic, liberal-minded Southern Baptist in existence) who had come back to town and out of retirement from Alabama for some anniversary or another. And, by God, if he didn't make me cry. Truth be told, I was in a bit of an emotional pickle. This was only shortly after I came back to South Carolina after my NYC fiasco. I just sat there and sobbed. Roger Lovett isn't as slick as most Baptist preachers, but he knows how to wrap your heart around a story and make it feel like he's just talking to you and no one else. And to top it off, just to make sure I knew my place, we sang "Just as I Am, Without One Plea" and I had I not had some iota of self-dignity, I would have stumbled to the altar right then and there. There I was, wretched and broken and wounded of spirit. And there it was, such easy forgiveness. Thankfully, I stayed in my seat and sang the damn song.

I'm not embarrassed by my faith, if that is what one can call it in its current form. It's real and not fabricated so I don't feel the need to apologize. Maybe it is just self-delusion, but it doesn't feel like it. I could never in good faith go back to any of the churches that sprinkled my childhood and profess to believe what they were selling. The God of my childhood has been unmasked and there isn't really a return to that, though I have to believe that there is a future for my faith. I've searched for many years for a spiritual community that rests easy in both mind and heart with little luck so far. I miss the storytellers and mesmerizers of my childhood, just as I miss their easy answers and security. Liberal Christianity seems cold and sterile, but I suspect I just haven't found the right place yet. It's a problematic place to be.

A started story

My grandmother, Mary Moss Harbinger, kept her gallstones in a mason jar in her avocado green Frigidaire for almost thirty years before she died of colon cancer. “Entrails is tricky, hon,” she said to me the last time she was able to walk to the bathroom. “You had better pray you take after your Daddy Baz’s side, because us Mosses got piss poor innards.” Daddy Baz, who had won the title Most Hateful Man in Deluda, SC a million times over, was the one who was paying me forty dollars a week that summer to sit with Grandma.

Another beginning

We go down to Gnat Creek in search of poems on a Friday afternoon in early May. Three weeks to convince our unimpressed faces of the merits of Donne and Pope, is what the State curriculum has awarded this group of budding adolescents and Miss Reason has reached the limits of her abilities in this endeavor. Truth be told, I have little fondness for poetry, despite my love of the written word, save for a particular poem concerning a moose’s face being as sad as the face of Jesus that Miss Reason keeps tacked up by the pencil sharpener in her classroom. But there are no moose in Camilla, although Paisley Mitchell tells me that there could be moose in Camilla if only Jesus wills it to be so. Paisley’s sorrow, kept hidden behind a face that looked like it was forever smelling something foul, is that her little brother, Fenner, drowned in a fly fishing accident three summers ago. They told her that Jesus wills us home to him when he sees fit, and the will of Jesus has since been printed upon Paisley’s every thought, poor thing. But I know that most of my classmates, Paisley included, would not see a moose in their lifetimes. I really wanted to see a moose so that I could see if his face really did look as sad as Jesus’s face, but then I realized that I don’t have a clear picture of Jesus’s face to use in comparison. So now I figure, if I see a moose in my life, fine, but if not, I’m not going to feel bad about it. A metaphor is a metaphor, and not to be taken too seriously. This Miss Reason must know.
I am at the front and Lloyd Murphey's at the back taking his precious time, as we all march like distracted ants behind the football field and down the kudzu bank, and that’s strange to me because Lloyd is supposed to be my boyfriend, but he doesn’t seem very devoted. Poetry has the best chance on Lloyd because he’s been to Paris twice but doesn’t have any friends except me. Miss Reason told us that all the great poets spent a lot of time in Paris and then committed suicide because they were so miserable and alone. I’m only Lloyd’s girlfriend because he’s my neighbor and my mother has made me walk home with him every day from the bus stop since he moved here eight years ago. I told I’d walk home with him, but I wasn’t going to be his friend, and my mama said Oh yes you will. I used to tell him at least once a week that the only reason I was his friend was so I wouldn’t get hit. He always said that he appreciated it.

If you could hear me speak, where would I begin?

I've been going back over my students' memoir projects this week. Some of them just hurt my stomach. Most of them chose to do post-secret cards even knowing that it would not be anonymous. It just seems like some of these kids are so desperate to let someone see behind their tough facades. Just a glimpse.

I hate Iraq and all them terrorists.

I took pills for my ADHD

I love the Middle Ages

I am afraid to die because I don't know what comes next, even though I say that I do.

I wrecked a stolen car.

I accidentally backed a four wheeler into my Dad's truck. I told him that a cow butted it.

I have a tattoo on my hip that no one has ever seen.

I hate the word panties because my uncle used to say it.

Sometimes I wish that me and Dan had a baby and had our own family.

My sister had to bail me out of jail when I was arrested for being high.

Pictures of horses calm me when I have a suicidal thought.

I had a breakdown and was put into a crazy house and everybody in my family knows.

I used to sneak out at night and do X

I can't tell time on a regular clock.

I hate cheerleaders, but I'd do anything to be one.

I got drunk for the first time when I was 13. I came home and threw up all over the house and told my mom I had food poisoning.

I eat salads every day so that I won't get fat, but I'm still fat.

I write poems.

My mom still tucks me in at night and kisses my forehead.

I feel ugly and fat all the time. I wish I could be skinny and beautiful.

I don't take my medication in the morning even though I'm supposed to.

I'm afraid my parents are going to die before I grow up.

They still think I don't know...He's my biological grandfather.

I'm afraid I won't be able to depend on anyone.

I have pigment on the top of my eyelids.

I have starved myself since I was twelve. I am always hungry.

I have had two abortions and I am really sorry.

In my own opinion, I thank that American should be made up of Southern folk and that's all.

I only eat twice a day because I am scared of getting fat.

I am terrified of going to sleep because I have horrible nightmares.

I play video games for over 6 hours every day.

My grandpa shaved my face when I was little.

I can't cry.

Most days I wish I would fall asleep and never wake up.

She's my drug and I'm addicted.

I feel like I'm growing up too fast and I blame you for that.

I need to go back to church.

I lie for him.

If I knew I wouldn't get caught, I would rob a bank.

Notice how most everybody's the same? Everybody adapting and accepting to each other...pushing the ones that are different to the outside? Would it surprise yhou if I told you my favorite color was green?

Sometimes I just want to run away...but where would I run to?

I know what people say about me, but I pretend not to hear so that it doesn't look like I care.

Whenever anything goes wrong, I always feel like it is my fault.

I'm afraid I won't be ready when Jesus comes.

Sometimes I make long distance phonecalls to complete strangers.

I love cutting grass.

I was once an accessory in the stealing of the gator from Berea High School.

When I am home alone, I walk around the house naked.

I was sold back into slavery.

I wish I was kidnapped.

I am scared of cotton balls. I imagine them being stuffed down my throat and choking on them.

I don't like girls, but I can't be gay.

When I was in Kindergarten, I faked sick every day so that I could go home.

The doctors say that I am bipolar, but I don't take my medicine.

I got raped all because of the alcohol.

I have weird dreams that come true.

It took me 4 times to get my learner's permit.

I love writing.

I always chew on gum because I am afraid that my breath stinks.

I still get butterflies.

I peed on my step-dad's tires about two weeks ago.

I stole dip from my daddy when I was 10 and now I am addicted.

I almost got a girl pregnant and I really didn't love her like I told her I did. I thought my life was ruined until she was she wasn't. I broke up with her and found me someone I reallly do love.

I don't know how to use a debit card.

I was addicted to tobacco in the 5th grade.

I collect old coins.

WHere were you when I needed you?

My family pretends like we are happy to hide the shame.

I can't swim by myself because I think something will come up and grab and drag me down with it.

I'm scared of getting fat again.

I can't cry except when I see a dead dog on the side of the street.

I always make As, but I am always anxious about my grades because I don't want to fail.

I'm afraid of becoming like my dad.

I might be an alcoholic when I am older.

She thought I loved her.

I would rather eat deer meat than any other meat.

Not all black people run when it comes to doing your homework. I do my homework.

I suffer from premature hairloss.

I go to stores and try on shoes and clothes that I will never be able to afford.

I tell people that I hate reading, but I love reading.

I used to think that papayas were mangos.

I hate sex, but I have it all the time.

I started dipping in the 4th grade.

I never finish my antibiotics.

I don't want to have boys.

I still get whipped at home when I get in trouble.

I love English class, but I can't read very good.

My grandpa raped my mom.

I wet the bed until I was 14. I am still terrified of wetting the bed.

My mom sells meth.

Every day when I get off the bus, I think I will find my mom dead from killing herself.

Sometimes I wish that my teachers would adopt me.

I stole an ipod from one of my best friends.

I sleep in class becuase I don't understand anything.

My boyfriend hits me and I don't care.

Naked

A short short story by yours truly

You don’t know a thing about dead people, not one GD thing.
How did it start? It started with brown paint smudged on her chin as she lay on the ground looking at the ceiling.
Or it started when Adam looked down and saw his nakedness, the sweet taste still on his lips, when first he hated.
Or it started with a father who feared.
Or it started when a child had been born of the dead, cut like the pit of a ripe peach from the lifeless form of her mother, one-half heathen, one-half saint, one-half dead, one-half alive. The child had seen with her own eyes, smelled it in her nostrils still clogged with amniotic fluid, felt it run through her very own veins in those minutes between her mother’s death and the cutting of the chord.
They say you are not really born until the day your mother gets out of the birthing bed. Here I am still waiting. I never finished this thing. One-half born. One-half unborn.
The Reverend had been born again. Born so many times and ashamed of his nakedness every time. Born until he didn’t notice any more. All the way born from a long line of hard men. Born to spread good news, to drain the love from his own heart and give it away.
His daughter, who is she? One-half fire. One-half water. One-half alive. One half-dead. Born again, but not all the way born. Ashamed of her nakedness.
The brown smudge of paint on a woman of unwelcome blood, born only once, and unashamed of her nakedness. Naked, proud, who gave her love away and kept it for herself as well. The sister of a dead mother come to love like the Reverend could not.
Would not.
It started with brown paint, a lost job, a secret witnessed from the bottom of a closet, and an empty seat in the Reverend’s church.
Or it started with a prairie dog on a TV screen, and a heartbroken woman who would not go to church, between a girl who had never seen a prairie dog and a man who was ashamed of his nakedness.
Or it started with a girl who wished she were an orphan, but only half-way wished.
If only they knew what it felt like under my skin, in between my skin and muscle. If they knew about that place, they would take me away from here.
Let us consider the color of the Reverend’s face:
Pink, the color of the meat of a watermelon when he was calm.
The color of a wet brick when he was irate.
He was irate most of the time. Like when he came home from church to find the woman watching prairie dogs on the television, proof that she was not ashamed of her nakedness.
Sometimes people throw things when they are angry and leave a purple knot to prove it. She threw the flipper at him today.
And what if a woman who had enough love inside for herself found that sometimes anger was stronger than love? What if she got angry at her nakedness? What if she forgot to care?
And what if the Reverend forgot what it felt like to be born that first time? What if he forgot what he needed? What if his face turned the color of flesh dipped in a vat of hot oil.

Phenotype

A new song.

I wished upon a star that wasn't mine.
It was just passing through on someone else's dime.
So I can wait at my window
or I can turn my head away
and fall asleep to someone else's song
and dream about my father when he was just a boy
and know that he was fragile just like me
and dream about the springtime in the land that I love
(I'll be there for a while,
I'll be there for a while
and then I'll go).

I walk this world in a rented soul,
leased down from generations.
I took it from my mother
and I'll pass it right along
to a little bitty unsuspecting stranger
Because there's not enough room in this life for this shame
(So I'll feel it for a while,
I'll feel it for a while
and then let it go).

Sometimes we write the book
before we know the whole story
and fill the lines with all we thought we'd be,
but for all the things we carry
and what we left behind,
we're painting daisies over the pages of our lives.
Because when I dream of heaven
you're cradled in my arms
(and I'll hold you for a while,
I'll hold you for a while,
and then I have to go).

Harry Potter dreams...

Mama, Shosha, and I went to Charleston this weekend and listened to about 10 hours of The Order of the Phoenix and I've been having dreams ever since. I keep dreaming about Professor Umbridge, that maggot-of-a-woman. In my dreams, I just throw fits whenever she appears, but I never seem to affect her demeanor--calm, collected, and absolutely loathsome. And then I have dreams where I am totally and completely infatuated with Snape. Of course, I think I just have an unhealthy attraction to Alan Rickman. And sometimes in my dreams, Alan Rickman is Sherlock Holmes from Laurie King's Mary Russell series, which makes me want to go reread all those books...but I will not. I have a list a mile long already. I don't have time to reread things.

But if I do end up moving to San Francisco, I will need to reread Locked Rooms and The Art of Detection.

I'm not really any closer to figuring out what I need to do with myself. I'm just in a vile mood lately, which I am working on as it is no fun to be in such a state. Things have stopped making sense to me. The things I have wanted for so long, I'm not sure I want anymore (or I just feel indifferent in the face of this seemingly impossible reality). But I haven't found any knew things to want...so I just feel lost in it. Unsure of my direction, restless in my present, distrustful of my mind.
Nothing is making me excited...not grad school, not New Zealand, not California, not anything. It's just one big void.

I just realized that Alan Rickman is very very old.

I had an idea for a good blog last night, but now I've forgotten it...

For the first time in a long bit, I will not be writing about Stevie.

Since the job search has been going so abysmally, I decided to follow through on an ad I saw in the news for plasma donors (or plasma sellers, actually). I don't mind needles and I'd heard that you could get something like $30 bucks per session, and when you are so utterly and completely broke like I am, $30 dollars is really nice...and you don't need a resume. You just have to have not had sex with an African male since 1976.

In a perfect world, I should really donate my plasma, but when you can get paid for it...I had to at least check it out. And check it out I did. I went to a place called Talecris Plasma in downtown G-ville, but was told that they weren't accepting new donors and to come back at 8am tomorrow. I was a little weirded out by the whole scene. There were definitely some dodgy characters and no one was friendly. Some of the people looked like they were homeless (or close to it) or patients in an Alzheimer's ward. Lots of lanky men with grotesque, greasy facial hair, and old women with crazy eyes and missing teeth. I was looking around for the poor student types and saw none. But I said, Maura, damn it, you lived by the projects in Harlem and you can handle this. You can get a little money to work towards paying your next insurance bill. So what if it is unethical. Deal with it.

So I rolled out of bed (literally, I'm sleeping on the dog bed these days) at 6:30 am and drove back to G-ville. There was practically a line out the door of more shady folk. I got handed a pamphlet that specified where the plasma went, and mostly it goes to pharmaceutical companies to make drugs (overpriced and useless, most likely) and not people who actually need it. And the people running it treated everybody like shit, and this guy beside me kept harassing me and informing me that I was too pretty to be there. And it just hit me...the clear message from God or whatever that I shouldn't be there (and not because I am pretty). So I left. And then I felt stupid for going all the way to G-ville just to leave. So I drove over to the Blood Connection and donated my platelets instead. It was just a whole different experience. Everyone was so nice and the building was clean and friendly looking. And I was glad I did it. Sometimes you just have to listen to your gut, I guess.


And then I came home, feeling tired and a little woozy, only to find out that I didn't get the GS job. I am upset because of the lost opportunity to return to that place and those people (and maybe it is for the best that I don't take that step backwards), but mostly I am just overcome with frustration, anger, and self-pity. If I can't get a job at GS where people know and like me and I am more than qualified, where can I get a job. I am just completely demoralized and beyond exasperated with the whole process. I just spent my last dime in the world on Stevie's book and couldn't even afford to bind it properly. And I just don't understand how I got here. I mean, even three months ago, I had no financial problems. I was slowly starting to replenish my savings that I had lost due to not having work for a while. And then overnight...it happens. I have a major medical emergency while under-insured and get dumped out on the street by a new set of jerks a few weeks later. I don't understand. And maybe I don't care. But I feel like I am twelve years old. I almost forget what it was like to take care of myself. I know I'm so lucky to be here. I really I am. But it is still hard.

I don't know what to do. I almost never have to say that. It is a strange sensation. But I don't know what the right move is for me. And I don't think it is something that anyone else can tell me. And I get caught up on what I should have done to begin with. It seems like every decision I have made in the last 18 months has haunted me. Hindsight is always 20/20. After Stevie, I should have immediately started looking for another nanny job instead of flittering away my savings while desperately trying for a "normal job." I should have taken the agency-sponsored job with those filthy rich people with a child-care staff at $20 an hour instead of falling for a few kind words and an adorable baby. And I should have stuck it out in NYC and found another nanny job as soon as possible instead of coming back here. Or maybe those were all the right decisions, but I just can't see it yet. Because I thought the GS job was the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

I hope that is the case. I don't know what to trust in anymore. I don't even feel like I can trust myself, but I know I have to. I feel like I need to pray, or soul-search, or maybe they are the same thing. I just feel alone and scared and too weak to go it alone.

day-o

I've been missing in action for a few days, I know.
Shosha came home, which has been wonderful. For some reason, it feels like summer camp around here. I like my new little home, though I still might like to live in the camper. Despite still having no job (which is getting a little ridiculous), I feel more satisfied than I have been.

I have been having baby pangs again (as if they ever stop), but I'm sort of working through the psychology of that. The truth is, for the past 5 or 6 years of my life, I have had a baby or two to love. I can just list them all off: Haleigh, Cameron, Hamish, Jenny, Anna, Catherine, Franz, Kira, Eli, Stevie, Stephen, Madeleine. I have the caretaking gene. I always have. I'm your typical ultra-sensitive, middle child who wants to be able to fix everything and takes emotional responsibility for things that aren't hers. I think I have sort of transferred that persona into a kind of super-maternalism. And I think it is mostly positive. It doesn't feel like a crutch, even if it is difficult to be without it. I find a kind of peace and purpose in loving children, even if they are not my own. I find solace in the uninhibited closeness. I feel stronger and more alive in that kind of relationship. I have found joy in loving the little ones who have pranced into my story.

And working with very young children and babies, even though it isn't really what I want to "do" with my life, has been meaningful to me. I have not been restless or unsatisfied, which is no small feat. Maybe that is what is so scary about this phase of my life. I don't know what will come next, and I am afraid that it might not be meaningful. I may get this corporate real estate job for the summer and while, at this point, I am not in a position to turn down a job offer at Fuckrudders, I don't think I've ever done anything that I wasn't emotionally or intellectually invested in. Well, I take that back...I took those two classes at Clemson two summers ago. Totally pointless. And aside from the fact that I would love to be a part of the GS community again, I am terrified that if I don't get the job at GS, I'll have no choice but to settle for something utterly meaningless for the next year. The thought is almost enough to make me march myself back up to NYC and lay my heart down in the middle of Lexington Ave to be trampled again. Because I know that I can always get a job as a nanny there. Sometimes I think that maybe my heart would just stop minding so much...that leaving wouldn't hurt anymore. But that's stupid.

Where is my love?

places I'd like to visit before I die...

New Zealand
Italy
Greece
Denmark
Romania
Egypt
Chile
South Africa
Kenya
Zimbabwe
Indonesia
Iceland
Japan
Australia
Israel (probably never gonna happen, but I have always wanted to see Jerusalem)
Tonga
Bolivia
Macedonia
India
Ukraine
Argentina
Thailand
Vietnam
Poland
Lebanon
Austria

places that I have no real desire to see...

Saudi Arabia
Algeria
Greenland
China
Russia
either Korea
Pakistan
Chad (I hate the name Chad)]
United Arab Emirates
Germany
Kansas (did you SEE Jesus Camp?)

Summer's lease hath all too short a date

I'm trying to find out if my insurance will pay for the Gardasil vaccine. Seems like something it would make sense to have. But I always feel kinda iffy about new medicine. I was on the OrthoEvra patch for a while and Serevent for my asthma, both of which ended up killing people. Maybe I should talk to my obgyn...oh wait...I don't have one anymore.

Speaking of which, my cycles have been abnormally consistent. 31 days on the money. Aunt Flo comes about 3 days after the full moon, and for the past three months, it has also been when my student loan payment is due. I blame it on J. When she fired me back in January, I started my period almost two weeks early. I thought maybe that my heart had actually broken and was bleeding out, you know, hemorrhaging. It was more of a metaphorical thing, but I still wondered what it would be like to be the first person to die of a broken heart via profuse bleeding.

It's not that I mind really, but it is a nuisance. I was getting used to my 45 day cycles. It was kinda nice.

I finished Angels in America a few days ago. I can't even really process it, and I feel like I would need to read the screenplay or watch it over and over again to really get the full effect...it was so verbose, and sometimes you miss out on the poetry just caught up in the emotion. I was slightly disappointed in the ending. I don't know what I was expecting, but that kind of resolution wasn't it. And I want to know what happened to Joe. I'm not sure that I like the way that Kushner abandons him in the end. He has an opposite trajectory from Prior, and I can sort of appreciate that as Prior reclaims life Joe abandons his, but I was dissatisfied. I thought Meryl Streep was just phenomenal (surprise, surprise) and Al Pacino easily gave her a run for her money.

I interviewed at GS yesterday. It is hard to tell how things went. It was like a tribunal hearing, six of them and one of me. They all read off these silly questions that came straight out of the "Interviewing Candidates for Dummies" book. But luckily, I know how to tell a good story. I refrained from using the word "like" (thanks Marina Van Zuylen!) and was very articulate and coherent. I'm really really good at bullshit, but I didn't really have to do that here, and hopefully it showed. When I interview, I try to pick out the person or persons who appear to be the hardest won. In this case, it was the HR lady and the one RLC that I didn't know already. I couldn't get a good read on the RLC, but I had the HR lady hook, line, and sink. What sucks is that I could possibly not know anything until the end of June. I need to get a self-help book on developing patience, because I am just terrible at patience.