Grieving, Deferred

We gathered in the small hall of a church in Harlem, a room almost stark in its simplicity yet emanating a warmth that eludes the ostentatious bellies of Catholic churches, arcane and baroque. Inexperienced in these affairs, my friends and peers early on our crawl towards inevitable mortality, I wore all black. Glancing about the room, old friends and neighbors of his croaking introductions, shouting to acquaintances, I feel nervously conspicuous: my youth, my black jumpsuit. The room is full of aging hippies, musicians, and artists, gray hairs donning muted autumn tones, also stark and simple, that complement their sallow hair and skin, drained of color. Sweaters likely woven of alpaca. Soft brown clogs. Orthopedic shoes. His peers. Selfishly, I wonder if they, upon seeing me, wrack their brains to establish the potential connection between this man, now dead at sixty-six, and a woman in her late twenties. Illicit affair pounded at my brain, despite my grave attempts to banish such foolish thoughts, tainted by a culture that is quick to make that assumption when confronted with an older man and a younger woman.

This social anxiety is an unfounded one. His friends and family take no overt notice, or are kind, gentle, meet my gaze and give me a knowing and sad smile. He was beloved, by near strangers who spent a mere few hours with him and by close intimates who knew him for decades. He did not allow age or life experience or social convention bias his relationships. It was a quality that I admire deeply, and now seek to emulate: refusing to assess an individual by prescribed societal standards, instead seeing each new person as an opportunity to learn, grow, share. Every and all who wished to honor his memory were welcome to flood this simple room, to share their stories, to say good-bye, the young and old, friends, family, and lovers. 

This was the second time I was, ritualistically and communally, processing the sudden death of a friend this year. The first a tragic car crash, now a tragic brain aneurysm. Seeming nonchalance hung about the church room, and I felt the power of an additional four decades of life on shock and on mourning. Perhaps this assessment is rash, is unfair. After all, this Harlem memorial for Harry comes three months after his unsudden death, giving this group three months for tears and for anger and for bitterness and for happy laughter remembering a beautiful life fully lived. For my friend Phil, twenty-eight, crushed by a car, the memorial followed mere days after the devastation. Wounds were raw, the despair in the church heavy and palpable.

In both instances, time, its acuteness in relation to the death and its potential to buffer and attenuate feelings and memories in longer increments, was unable to assuage potent feelings of regret. Regret. One of the most miserable and desperate of feelings, which tears away violently at your innards, gnashes on one's heart with teeth dull and terrible. I regret not making that phone call to Phil, one that as months and years pass still looms and seems like something so easy to accomplish, is something so easy to accomplish, but remains an activity deferred. I regret relying so heavily on superficial and prosthetic modes of social engagement via digital media, not actively maintaining our friendship because of a false sense of being connected and caught up and present in someone's life. I regret missing what, at the time, I would have no way of knowing would be Harry's last show with his band, regret not squeezing one last time into the intimate space of that warm cafe, dancing and shaking as Harry wails on his guitar. I regret not learning until his memorial that Harry and I share a history of disappointing childhoods, regret not intuiting that he was someone I could share my fears and my sadness. I regret not being more effusive about how important each of these men were to me, are to me, and telling them how grateful I am for how our friendships shaped me.

(image taken from Huffington Post)    

Fragments

(one)

I brush aside a cascade of soft fabrics from the door, long silk dresses and kimonos of chiffon hung clumsily, and I find a small piece of him. This piece of him is a thin film of plastic, a work in progress forgotten, painted with ink, adhered to the wooden door of the bedroom and abandoned. I brush aside the fabrics, see his strong fingers wrapped around the cylinder body of the marker, eyes and lips silent in concentration. Rarely did I take the time to watch him work, admire his meticulous manner. At one point, the door was a mosaic of these creations, scraps of plastic with an alchemy of bizarre images printed: Michael Jordan and his infamous dunk, Oprah Winfrey laughing with a cavernous mouth, Kim Kardashian sobbing and eroding her mascara, an unnamed girl with a man in her mouth and a man in her behind like some roasting pig. These were ripped hurriedly, taken. This one piece remains, hidden now by the fabric flood, and I brush aside and see his hands.

(two)

Between the pages of an old notebook filled with scribbled poems, I find a small piece of him. This piece of him is a blind contour portrait, deep blue lines on a scrap of cream paper, drawn slowly and surely, without peeking, sitting on the floor of a friend's cramped apartment. I stare at this portrait, see the curve of his jaw, a sloping of shoulders, see how happy we were that evening, bemusedly buzzed with weed, passing a joint and taking turns, taking turns with deep drags and posing for portraits. The apartment, this living room, cluttered with books and voracious plants, cluttered with our bodies strewn on the sofa and floor. First, we clutter the air with stories and jokes, with deep gut laughter, then the words become sparse, as we sit and draw our faces.

(three)

Digging through a plastic storage bin, a coffin of wool and cashmere, rushing, late for some menial obligation, I find a small piece of him. This piece of him is a soft sweater of royal blue and navy. I fondle the soft weave, see his chest, his arms swathed in the striped pattern, driving us through winding roads, windows down, wind whipping our hair. We drove and drove, westward, did not stop until we reached another state, another town, clutched hands as we strolled into the unfamiliar.

(image taken from Huffington Post) 

I Wish You Were Here

(one)

It is almost impossible for me to write about this right now. It may never be possible for me to write about this, to write something coherent and cogent and meaningful. I have always been compelled to process my emotions on paper, with a pen, though sometimes they remain eternally a maelstrom of words, desperate or vengeful or livid or desolate or delirious. 

Phil is my first friend to die. He was my age, give or take a few months, working hard, dreaming strong. He was killed. Saying the words, typing the words, is a surreal act, one that even with repetition has not made these past few days soak in yet. I have been to other funerals, though, the ones of vivid memory can be counted on a single hand. My first at the small age of three years old, accompanied by my favorite stuffed animals: my Polish great-grandmother. I remember the taste of homemade fried chicken, to this day, of simple white meat to sweet, coating so crisp, prepared with love from memory, hands automatically performing the actions, prepared by an army of old-guard Polish women from that corner of Baltimore. My paternal grandparents, in middle school. An acquaintance's mother, destroyed by breast cancer, whose service caused me to wail, thinking of my own mother's inevitable death.

He was a beautiful, beautiful person, and was a dear, loving friend to me during those most emotionally-fraught years, when all is raw and seemingly so unfettered, so impossible to control and to reign and to understand. I know I will never forget that type of warmth, that lust for love and life and true, deep friendships, that lust for mischievous fun, but I now, naturally, find myself struggling to grasp at memories, at snippets of conversations, of moments alone, together, wondering, joking, laughing. Our friendship was one built from the seeming mundane things of growing up: exasperation at strict teachers, worry over grades, worry over social acceptance, obsession with fledgling romantic entanglements and woesWe were together in happiness, and sometimes, in fear. I have never fully resolved those fears, not yet, but they were diminished in his presence. This effect he had, a certain self-assurance, a warm comfort, is unique, and he generously shared this gift with all his many friends. 

It is impossible for me to write about this now, to give this tragedy some meaning. Trying to speak with our mutual friends, friends who also grew up with us, I have only superficial words. I can only let myself feel the full brunt of the pain, feel its force, and try to take comfort in the memories, in the beauty and good that came from his too short life.

(two)

We get into the car and we begin to drive, aimless, anxious. Tall, tall cups of black espresso, made palatable with thick foam milk and too much sugar, warm our hands and as we sip, warm our blood, hasten that thump-thump of the heart. Eventually, we begin to head north, north, and just keep going. Laughing, we decide to drive to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with no sense of motive or purpose other than the beauty of that open highway, freckled with potholes, black gravel crumbling. A frivolous adventure. We crack the windows of the car and take long, shallow drags of cigarettes, nicotine consummating with caffeine to make us even more giddy.

Our parents call and we lie to them, pretend to be driving home from the mall near home. We keep driving north, unconcerned that as soon as we reach the small town, we will have to head back.

Every ten minutes or so, the same song blares from the speakers, the latest hit by Destiny's Child and we shout-sing along each time. As the song closes, we each take a long drag, exhale and listen, exhale and listen.

(three)

In the summers, my mother bakes peach pies, the fruit fresh and almost too-sweet from the spring months of hot sun. We come to my house and a newly-baked pie sits quiet on the counter, still warm, potent peach perfume permeating the kitchen. We begin to gingerly slice into the golden crust and my mother shrugs, hands us forks, and instead we get to work on the entire pie, devouring the sticky goodness, perfect chemistry of sugar, butter, cinnamon, fruit meat. In a matter of moments, quick maneuvers of the forks, the pie is gone. We have eaten it all. Just some crust crumbs and streaks of filling scatter the glass bottom of the dish.

(four)

The sky is near dark. We hide in a black night, the moon low and demure, waning, sit in a circle in a decrepit tennis court beside her house, green surface sadly sagging. Sipping from plastic cups of cheap alcohol, pale beer or maybe some concoction of blood red juice and astringent vodka, we swap jokes and stories. It is summer and the Future looms, a brilliant expanse of unknown potential, as distant and intangible to us as the specks of stars scattered in the black. In a few months, we, our bodies, here, concrete, able to touch and be touched, would scatter, to new towns and new states, unsure but excited. We sip and talk, divulge our secrets, sitting so close we are almost touching.

(image taken from A Well-Traveled Woman)

A Cinematic Tribute to Carver

Weaving a classic Raymond Carver story, Hollywood blockbuster action films, Broadway business, media politics, ever-evolving social marketing platforms, and an array of character psychoses from schizophrenic paranoia to delusional narcissism into a compelling tale is a tall order; Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers, and he delivers a beautifully and meticulously wrought tapestry. Birdman was much anticipated and upon release, was an immediate success among the masses and much lauded by film and cultural critics. The humming buzz is much deserved: well acted, well directed, well written. For me, much of the praise and the intrigue of the film is owed to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and his extended frenetic sweeping takes and camera movements, which lend the film its pulsing, sweating energy, its hallucinogenic effect, its pervasive improvisational sway. The choreography of the camera coalesces with the rapid, scat-style drumming score that hums, rapping and beating in a fever.

With moments of whim and fantasy, coupled with the visual and aural kinetics of the camera and drum, the film at first seems incongruous to the minimal style and subtle tone of the central piece of fiction, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," which washed-up and possibly deranged protagonist Riggan Thomson adapts for his precarious Broadway theater debut. After seeing the film a few weeks back, it took some marination time for the realization that the circuitous roving of the camera in Birdman, circling and bobbing through the long corridors and winding staircases of the back of the Broadway theater, mirrors the passing of the gin bottles between the two couples in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," around and around the table. The selection of story was precise and purposeful, from a character and symbolism perspective: both address the complexities of inadequacy, expectation combating with reality, the throes of addiction. While the thematic tie was immediately satisfying and realized, for me, the complementing geometry of each work, sweeping circles, from one character to the next, seems more than merely fortuitous.

As a vehement lover of books and the written word, I generally approach film adaptations of favorite novels and stories with ambivalence. The power, the beauty, the truth of language is not always possible to capture, and while a different medium can provoke other thoughts or emotions, I am more apt to disappointment if the effect is lackluster compared to the original. Here, I greatly admire the construct, the assimilation of such a powerful literary work, reappropriated and working within the confines of a separate but equally compelling narrative. Again, well tied into the film's commentary on the marketing power of viral social media content and our self-reappropriation in digital realms. A delightfully intricate film experience and certainly money well spent to view in the theaters.   

(image taken from Business Insider)  

Dreams Pass Into the Reality of Action

Since I was a very small girl, I have been haunted with recurring dreams, dreams so vivid and so repetitive, it is as though when my eyes close, my neurons slowly drift to sleep, I am forced to watch the same film, over and over. Rather than a passive watching though, I am moving, speaking, acting, and yet seem unable to act of my own volition, stuck in an unconscious track, following the script word for word.

In recent years, one of these dreams, transpiring every few months, is elegantly simple in its stress-inducing dilemma: I am still a student, it is exam week, and I have discovered that I have failed to attend two of my courses the entire semester. For some reason, it is nearly always a European history course of some sort and a class on differential equations. Panicked, I wrack my brain, I fret, how is it possible that I could neglect such a grave obligation for weeks, for months. What was I doing instead of attending class? Was something else more pressing? In this dream world, have I been shirking responsibility for leisure, for pleasure? In the dream, it is never obvious if, up until that realization of missing the classes, I was blissfully ignorant and happy. There is only a numbing stress, which persists, bleeds into my reality when I wake. My breath seems to take a moment to recover, my heart thumps in uneven patterns, gesticulating wildly. Once the dream-state blurs, it always seems silly, to have such a pronounced homeostatic response to something which, comparatively, is insignificant. Even if these events were true, I missed classes, failed miserably, this is hardly a tragedy. A challenge, a setback, but a course of events that could, with the proper amount of determination and spunk and intelligence, be easily overcome. Later to be attributed to something that builds character.

Metaphorically, there could be something deeper here, a profound fear that there is something going on, something looming, that I am ignoring until it is too late. Temporality here is cruel, my enemy. How will I react when the monster bares its teeth, gnashes its jaws in my face, after leaping out from what previously were a set of plush bushes. Will I have the strength and the courage to take action, or will I be a coward, allow myself to be eaten.

Last night, I lived this dream. This morning, as with most mornings, I stayed cowered under my thick, warm blankets, trying to hide from the cold air and the rising sun, light creeping stealthily between the cracks of my drapes hung at the tall windows.

(image taken from Fine Art America)

It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career

My fiction workshop is drawing to a close, this autumn moving past me, my world, with a celerity that was shocking, leaving me cold and alone in its wake. Though I have not quite completed my work and entered an appropriate phase to reflect, overall, my course has been a success. It was a fresh perspective, it was a plunging into something familiar yet still unknown, like diving into a new pool of water, a lake; I know how to swim, the maneuvers, the strokes, I know the feel of water rushing past my body as I break the surface with my hands, head, torso, but each body of water has its own mysteries beneath. Having studied fiction as an undergraduate, the workshop format was familiar, but the dynamics of the group, the instructor, as changing as an organic creature.

Ever the pessimist, ever my own critic, while I am pleased that this experience has been inspiring, I have been and continue to be a bit disappointed in my own performance. My own lack of discipline. While the spark, the desire, to write has been ignited, actual pen to paper, capturing the words that drift feverishly through my cortical corners, snippets, circumstances, has been substantially little. Still, despite this class, despite a welcome and encouraging community, I do not write, at least, not as much as one should. Should. Ever an amorphous concept, fluid, changeling, subject to my harsh biases. Afraid, or more accurately, lazy, I let the words, the stories, flounder listlessly in my mind. Working full time at a demanding career, while trying to pursue something more, something I feel I must, at least for my sanity, is beyond challenging, and I know, rationally, that I should be kinder to myself, be more forgiving.

While still a student, in middle school, in high school, in university, I received much praise, encouragement, pushing: this is what you should do. This is what you must do. When I was younger, this thrilled me, and convinced me. As I grew older, approached that age of metaphoric umbilical cord snapping, this burdened me. It seemed impossible, or perhaps to be lies, told for convenience, to placate. Doubting, I began to instead believe that, like for so many, there existed a palpable artistic sentiment, without the intuition, the genius, the dedication.

Refused to accept a notion of calling, refused to place a bet on talent. Instead, I stumbled forward, into accidental industry, found comfort, some challenges of a different ilk, found struggle.

Earlier in the semester, I read the first portion of a story in draft to my class; mulling over it these few weeks, I have mapped out the second portion, a sort of one-two punch of a structure. Now, to just write it.

(image taken from Vintage Everyday)

Homecoming Wedding

Drawn to my home town by a wedding, a friend from high school. Tender years of adolescence, of potential, that seemed so insufferable and tough at the time. From similar familial environments, more or less, we all studied diligently, discovered a love for vintage jewels, stole bouts of liquor from our parents to create some tame trouble for ourselves. Scattered to various geographies for university, unique coordinates, we kept in loose touch, more or less, reverting to old ways, old patterns, during holidays, summer vacation. Friendships not quite founded on tedium, but a sort of easy comfort, and familiarity.

I took the train south. I no longer own a car, able to commute, transmute, glide with ease from neighborhood to neighborhood, rattling with strangers underground. My parents retrieve me from the station, drive me to their new home, their retirement home, a handful of physical miles from, and great atmospheric distances from, the coddled suburban development of my youth. 

The night of the wedding, my mother drives us to the venue, a stiff country club. Polished, in sleek dresses, sparkling earrings, fancy. I forget that it has been more than a decade. Whisked back.

We would get ready for dances collectively, a gaggle of giggling girls, girls giggling from glugging clandestine vodka, drunk from cheap perfume. Piling into the back seat, squirming unnaturally to look natural. We wear brightly colored dresses, taunting polyester plumage.

 I forget that it has been more than a decade. What has happened in this time? Circling in some other city, occasionally called back, returning obediently like a falcon.

(image taken from Humble Pie Vintage)

Deep End

For our first class assignment, my first academic assignment in over five years, we are asked to bring three pages, three pages of exemplary work we admire, three pages of work that we are proud of, or three pages of work that we are struggling with. I chose the last, a struggle. The rest of the class clutches books by Dostoevsky, by Bernhard, by Walcott, by Sebald. Foolishly, wrongly, I assumed we would hand in our pages, silently. After the class shuffles in, young and old and somewhere between young and old, tired and carrying the weight of our days, some stooped slightly, others acutely, the instructor announces that we will take turns reading aloud the passage we selected. Trial by action. A toss into the pool.

When was it that I had last read aloud, before a group? Definitively, I recall a time, a Sunday morning, possibly late spring, in church, reading a passage from the New Testament before my congregation, my voice clear and steadfast, despite, even then, a wavering, a skepticism, questioning the rhetorical argument, questioning the philosophical and scientific validity of organized religion, the cultural impact of such dogma. Afterwards, the people gathered in a large hall, the foyer to the house of worship, swallowing cheap sugar cookies and sticky lemonade like communion, swapping gossip about the achievements and failures of their children, the illnesses of their parents. They grasped my hand, expressed their gratitude, their compliments. I enjoyed standing before them, reading to an audience, even though it was not my words. My father smiled.

Now, I must read three pages and pretend not to struggle through it. The pits of my arms grow warm, palpitate with a new dew, as though my heart has split, a large cell at the end of mitosis, and migrated to live, one chunk under each shoulder, in the cave crevice. I try to read slowly, deliberately, though, I cannot gauge from the stares of the others whether my pace is appropriate, my words compelling. Sentences seem too long. This is always my tendency, in spoken and written word, to effuse, to string clause upon clause like copious beads, to qualify, to intersect a sentence with a related tangent, an aside. I try to read deliberately. I try not to slice my tongue along the long length of clauses, of sentences, of pages of woven words. Some of the imagery, inked in my memory like a tattoo, still seem strong, to me, and I desperately pray that the class agrees, finds some truth or some beauty or some something in them. 

When I finish, the instructor poses a question: why am I struggling with this piece? What am I struggling with? The question seems obvious, though, I do not answer this way: I struggle with all of my writing, always. When I write in my head, mentally, and when I take the dare to commit those words to paper, the struggle, the fear, tantalizing, persists. 

(image taken from This Recording)

Shifting Contents

(one)

It is an evening in early November, somewhere between chilled and frigid, and we are house sitting for a pilates instructor. Situated, snuggled, along a slope towards a gorge, geographically characteristic of this area in western New York, the house features an impressive yet unassuming tiered porch, complete with steaming hot tub. We sit together in the tub, sipping cheap red wine, swathed in steam and our sweat. Above our heads, the black quilt of night sky is dazzling with patchwork clusters of stars, constellations of our own imagining we draw with fingertips. We talk and laugh, slowly, lethargic from the effort of staying awake in the warm water, lethargic from our dinner of wicked and delicious frozen pizza. A girls only sleepover, a welcome respite from the typical weekend evening of too much plastic vodka, too much beer, dancing until the moon sets, cumbersome sexual stumblings with boys we do not like and will, more than likely, forget about, or have a hard time remembering names, fuzzy details, a year from now. Fights with friends, angst toward stubborn parents, stress over difficult classes, fear of never being noticed let alone loved by him, all slowly dissipates, becomes as ephemeral and intangible as the lazy paths of steam, winding and ambling, disappearing into the dark. The future as unreal and benign as the steam, rising from lapping water in the tub. We are comfortable, in this beautiful house, in beautiful woods, wrapped in dark warmth.

(two)

Although exploring the demise and the birth of two separate romantic relationships with two very different men, using a fascinating and fluid travel log structure, detailing accounts in various cities, crowded and remote, most compelling in Pam Houston's novel Contents May Have Shifted is the span and depth of the fierce bonds between the narrator and her female friends. The women spend weekends together, reunited, at hot springs spas in the west, write thoughtful letters to one another between visits, travel to the far reaches of southeast Asia to explore spiritual havens, untouched, together imbued with potent feelings of heritage and calm. They embark on adventures, gunning down water rapids in rushing rivers, coaxing teams of dogs to guide and glide them along snow-covered paths, trusting in the physicality, in the confidence, of the other. The narrator invites these women into her home, a secluded ranch in a small town, time passing, but not, between cups of tea, glasses of wine. Amidst constant change, shifting jobs and partners and cities, the women are true to one another; their love is admirable, and is enviable.

At the finish of this novel, I was inspired. Inspired to explore the unknown, inspired to confront my fear, fear of unknown in friendships, fear of unknown in strangers, fear of unknown in alien lands, majestic and mundane alike. Inspired to travel, beyond the comfort realm. Inspired to work harder to continue to forge deep, meaningful bonds with my female friends, to seek comfort in their strength, to be proud, internally but also vocally, of the beautiful and wonderful things they do. Inspired to write more, and specifically inspired by her fluid narrative structure, short vignettes passing through temporal and physical space, single molecules beautiful on their own, but organic and fascinating when woven together collectively.

(image taken from The Women's Eye)

Block

This evening I begin a writing workshop course, part of the adult continuing education offerings from The New School. It is listed as an advanced course, for more experienced writers, with the intent of polishing a particular piece. As time passes, noodling around at my desk with various bits and pieces of nothing, I grow increasingly nervous. I was extraordinarily nervous when I signed up for the course earlier in the summer, but the sharp anxiety dissipated, ebbed back like a slow tide to some inner, quiet, tranquil recess of myself. Now that performance is imminent, it roars. I have not been in a classroom since I graduated from university; it was only five years ago, but those five years seem so much longer, so much more, tedious and titillating, compressed in those times, compared to the four years spent on my campus. While the years since academic pursuits have been busy, a seeming constant hustled trajectory, always moving, moving, they have not been filled with much writing. Some poems, the preludes to longer works of fiction, or not, various journal entries, various online essays and jaunts, many superficial blog posts. Jotted down notes in blank sketch books, scrawled bits of prose on the backs of shopping receipts. Rare do I return to these bits, to edit and rework and shape, sculpt into something more. Nothing substantial. Nothing with real meat, nothing that involved strenuous coaxing and cajoling and metaphoric, or literal, tears bringing that meat to life, to something beautiful with, in a way, its own life beyond the realm of my mind.

My writing has been haphazard, a dalliance, rather than something to which I am dedicated, for which I am proud.

I, like many, have always had a fear of rejection. Now, I am worried, I am starting to realize that I have developed a fear for effort. For the unknown risk.

The nerves are simultaneously hideous and lovely, evil and good; I can hardly wait.

(image taken from From Your Desks)

Unsettled

(one)

In the corner of the living room, a Christmas tree rots. It is not dried, crisp, brown, wizened, naked from shedding rains of sharp delicate needles, as would be expected. It is more akin to rotting flesh, a trophy carcass mounted, natural, leaving the innards as is, allowed to decompose and perfume the air. The glass ornament bulbs shine, glare, bouncing bands of light back and forth between them amidst the sea of dead branches. Underneath a scattering of wrapped presents, metallic bows and sheen paper glistening, pristine and ghastly against the backdrop of the rotting tree. 

It is April, we tell our father, and he seems confused by this, or maybe, more accurately, unconcerned. We have come to help clean, to expunge years of clutter and memories, and we have found the tree, unmoved since the death of our mother. She must have died, in this world, sometime around Christmas, or perhaps even before, the tree displayed as ritual routine, but the final step of discard too final, too difficult. Three adult children, musing on our mother, in this world, a victim who has succumbed to some unknown and looming cancer, that omnipotent sense of unstoppable dread and death. Maligned growth, badness propagated, until the good, the healthy, is just engulfed and pushed out. A sort of suffocation.

Someone tries to explain to our father the importance of moving forward. She is gone to us all. We receive no response, he sits silent in a chair, watching as we dismantle the tree-meat into pieces, to toss. Glass globes shatter, the shards piercing every corner of the room, pricking the tips of our fingers as we attempt to clean, coaxing blood and more to come to the surface.

(two)

I woke, disoriented, sweating, more tired, with the cheerful morning light cascading into my bedroom, than I had been last night, in the dark night. It takes a moment or two or more to distinguish in my mind the areas of separation and the areas of verisimilitude between that world and this one. Work drags. That evening, I call her, wanting to, irrationally, confirm she is still alive.

We talk about visiting friends; they arrived on a Wednesday, left on a Tuesday morning, flew into and out of this airport. Gate number, terminal. At the end of month, I will travel to Texas, visit my brother in his new city. We discuss dates, time of flights. I forget my words as I speak them.

I want to share with her my dream, my fears. I keep my mouth shut.

(image taken from Bert Stern)

Man on Wire

(one)

Spit through the mouth onto the concrete, from the belly of the meandering subway underground, I walk to work each day, head down, idly concentrating on the steps, avoiding the traps of laid by open grates, sidewalk cracks. Eyes blurred, oblivious to the squirming mass of bodies passing, others, walking to work, exploring, running, shouting, silent, heads down in camaraderie. Head down, dodging between mothers carting children, between European and Asian tourists posing for photographs in front of Madison Square Garden, posing beside crumpled fast food wrappers and homeless men with bloated feet, shaking their cans, shaking their heads. A familiar trajectory, a few blocks along the avenue, to a dusty building tucked just inside of the corner.

Did you see that restored Rolls Royce, slow rolling along?

Did you see that artist, releasing small balloons into the sky, bits of poems attached to scatter for the world?

Did you see that chimpanzee, in a tuxedo, a monkey suit?

My eyes seem shut, like I want to pass through the world untouched, forgotten, blind.

(two)

A few years ago, I watched Man on Wire, the absolutely stunning documentary revealing the story behind Philippe Petit and his awesome, magnificent feat, tight-rope walking between the Twin Towers. Today is the fortieth anniversary of his feat, that testament to the power of the artistic spirit, the power for the romantic to prevail over the pragmatic and the bureaucratic, the feat that reminded the world that sometimes, life is simple, pure, a walk across a bit of taut rope, a commune with the air. As the film illustrates, this beautiful story is also a testament to the power of trust and confidence; Petit would never have been able to accomplish his acrobatic poem without the love, trust, support, encouragement of others, friends, family, lover, strangers. People who helped him arduously train. People who simply looked the other way, let the experiment play out. Some of these people, after the success of the mission, Petit never speaks to again, his relationships clouded with his artistic narcissism. Like so many of the glorious feats of man, this one, watching it replayed, with a cushion of time and subjective documentary lens between us, incited that odd simultaneous conflict of sadness and of inspiration. Anything is possible. Look at the perseverance, amid a backdrop of uncertainty. From our perspective, on the ground, how tiny he was. And from his perspective, we, on the ground, how small, how insignificant.

The Twin Towers have been destroyed for over a decade now, but that fact is eclipsed by so many other reasons this type of stunt seems impossible to replicate. It seems impossible to imagine that morning commute in the city, sipping on scalding coffee, looking up to see some miniscule figure, appearing to walk amongst the clouds, above the towers of the buildings, to flit and dance in the sky. An individual with the fortitude, the vision, the passion, the selfishness, is rare, rare among the grains of sands of people across countries and generations. Petit was, truly, unique.  

(image taken from ABC Australia)

Walking the Right of Way

A number of weeks ago, our table flooded with red wine and remnants of local meat, some friends of mine and I discussed the vehement trend in contemporary independent films: reaching so hard for subdued, quiet moments with emotionally violent characters where nothing is at stake. These films reek in their efforts for subtlety, for sympathy, for connectivity, for that actually quite challenging balance of celebration of the banal and the unique but universal feeling of daily human interaction. We laughed and joked, disinterested with the romantic entanglements and affairs of the bored housewife, the pathetic attempts of the dead-beat father to reach his angst-fueled son. Many of these films are attempting to penetrate a realm where some of my favorite and most beloved literature holds reign: the short fiction of Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Lydia Davis. Precise and concise, with purposeful and profound small moments, magnificent in the way they touch you, course through like a sharp synapse. 

Weary from an exhausting day of cubicle-languishing and computer screen glare, the other evening I relaxed with The Station Agent, about a decade old but recently lauded by friends and family. A beautiful story softly unfurls, three unlikely strangers, each with diverse burdens to bear and accompanying defense mechanisms to cope, forge a compelling and believable friendship. The protagonist, Fin, a dwarf, dons a misanthropic cloak, a hardened shell he thinks will protect him from what he perceives to be the innate cruelty. He seeks solitude in an abandoned train station property inherited from his sole friend, who dies within the first minutes of the film, proclaims himself a pariah, and greets those around him with a brusque demeanor  and incredulity. His becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: he expects meanness, acts mean to others, and so many people often reciprocate. That being said, he is not completely foolish and unjustified in his expectations; scenes of mild humiliation, from the obvious long stare of a passerby to the snap of a photograph by a store proprietor, to scenes of greater tumbles with flagrant ignorant threats and stupidity serve as a foundation and a reminder to the viewer that despite the displays of kindness and of generosity by some, Fin's life is one fettered with prejudice and adversity. These moments are not bombastic or overly wrought, and as they are interspersed with times when Fin meets others with insensitivities, they are realistic in their portrayal. Olivia, the second in the trio of misfits, is a middle-aged woman, separated from her typically bland wealthy husband, and is equally cloaked in an intense grief over the sudden death of her young son. Similar to Fin, Olivia seeks solitude in her empty and impressive vacation home in this remote rural town, paints large canvases, avoids telephone calls and visitors. Joe, the gregarious son of local coffee and food truck vendor, tempers the group and the tone of the film, but is not without his own struggles; his father, local celebrity who we never meet, is ill and he has abandoned his busy urban life to care for him. In a way, the lack of background for Joe, the sense that coming to this small town was obligation, rather than choice as it was for Fin and Olivia, earn his character a similar sense of pathos; he, too, exhibits emotional fortitude in the face of mountainous problems, but in choosing to do so with a grin and a healthy dose of confidence, he helps save the film from the realm of doldrums, steers the film away from trite. 

Despite their occasionally successful efforts to alienate the others, Fin, Olivia, and Joe connect, surprise themselves even at how easy it can be, despite ostensible differences, to laugh with one another, to get drunk with one another, to speak about life, or not speak about life, until late in the night with one another. Fin's passion for and knowledge of trains, an interest that has escalated to obsession and a mechanism for alienation, infects both Olivia and Joe. As they accompany Fin on his excursions walking the right of way, the train fascination framework fades, is a device that becomes less important, merely a vehicle for their growing bonds. An interest in bird watching, or old model cars, or baking, or ceramics, all also activities fit for those with a proclivity for solace, could have been substituted. For each, in their own way grappling with grief, wanting to sink into a familiar sludge of loneliness and self-pity, life unveils wonder again, adventure again, as they trudge along the train tracks, passing bucolic views, abandoned stations. Thankfully, this is all accomplished with a delicate directorial hand, astute writing, and beautiful acting. I truly believed in this troupe, in their genuine affections and respect for one another.

In some ways, Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, and Bobby Cannavale play familiar variations of other characters they have played before or since, familiar tropes: the sage misanthrope who is misunderstood and also gets trapped by his own myopic views, the grieving mother who can barely survive after the death of her child and marriage, the buffon who offers comedic relief but wants also to be heard and taken seriously. Each actor is magnificent, well directed, and avoids maneuvering into a realm of caricature. 

While this is certainly a film on friendship, on unlikely meetings and surprise relationships despite the best attempts at misanthropy, romantic tension, a sense of yearning is inherent to these relationships, among Fin, Olivia, and Joe, as well as some of the other side characters. I am sure for many, the flirtatious back and forth, the sort of tenuous attraction, between Fin and local librarian, Emily, is a central point of interest in the trajectory of the film. I was ensnared by more subdued, and I think poignant moments: the interactions between Fin and a chubby, African-American grade school girl, Cleo. She is naturally curious about Fin, about his love for trains, his life in the old abandoned station, and he, failing to see the innocence of her curiosity, is frustrated and wary, spurning her friendly advances, her earnest questions. Throughout the course of the story, Cleo adamant in her decision to cultivate an interest in trains as well, Fin eventually comes to realize that she, as a fat girl with darker skin than most of her peers, may be subject to similar stares, similar ostracism. With her persistent attempts to befriend him, to show she cares, through exploring old rail cars, walking the tracks, and, ultimately, inviting Fin to speak about trains to her class, Cleo coaxes Fin out of his proverbial pity shell.

"Walking the right of way" has its colloquial grounding in the times of governmental imminent domain during the epoch of burgeoning industries; as the railroads were built, for transport and commerce, private property was seized. The rails had the right of way, to build bridges between cities, across the land. As the characters trek along the tracks, walking the right of way reveals itself as a grander metaphor: moving forward through life, persevering, thriving, even against some inexplicable power of fate, some authority. There is challenge we can alter, change, and challenge that we cannot, but with the solace of others, we can endure.

(image taken from Superior Pics)    

We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful

A few months after my move to New York, adjusting and calibrating to life at my new company, in my new neighborhood, I began an informal book club at work. I had connected with a colleague, in another department, on reading, on writing; she used to live in Crown Heights and we cemented our literary friendship over cheap wine at a monthly reading, hosted by a local bar. The book club was essentially the two of us, joined by another colleague and dear friend, discussing the text in tangents, always ready and willing to be distracted with other nuggets, cultural, professional. She and I, outside of the club meetings, began to discuss our work, workshop structures, frustrations, triumphs. We never consummated any discussion by swapping stories, poems, offering our services in polite but constructive criticism. Ultimately, I am both glad for this, and regret it deeply. For me, writing, technically something I do for a living, is a struggle, at best, a distant memory, at worst. Something I clung to, spoke of like an aging cheerleader, grasping desperately for those four years from the past, pretending nothing has changed, time has stopped. I identify with being a writer, no matter how many days, weeks, months, years have marched along, a ravine between me and the last time I sat, diligent, focused on this vocation.

After applying for a position at a renowned writing camp workshop, this year, she was finally rewarded a spot. I said my congratulations, mediated by my phone and social media, teeth gnashed and feeling desperate. I have been moving without purpose, without focus, and thus without challenge and satisfaction, for quite some time, with no one really to blame other than myself. It has been said before, and will be said again, that one of the most insidious effects of evolving social media platforms is the incitement of furious envy, of fear. Either that fear of potential, of what could be, measured by the curated lives of others, or the fear of lacking, of not accomplishing, not experiencing. Such meditations, such wallowing, is nearly always, always defeatist. To sit and compare, the truth of my life, with the shallow facade of the other, is peel away the skin, be disappointed with the striations beneath, to be angered at the pain and the blood. Successes are not finite. Enrichment is not finite; if you indulge, gorge, I can have my share as well.

To write, be a writer, is not merely to think, to feel, there is effort, so much trying and failing and trying again, defiant or maybe stupid in the face of it all. Angst and sadness and joy and contemplation and love must coalesce, take shape, be shaped. This is an important lesson. Toiling for hours in my cubicle, pushing my boulder to the top, dropping it on the ground and kicking it to the bottom for another pass, hard work after hours, in my house, repulses me. Hard work used to thrill me; I was motivated, craving more, knowledge, experience. Now, I feel perpetually exhausted, and need to pull my own body up and out of the tar trap that a steady corporate job sets. But I feel so hungry.  

(image taken from Poetry Dispatch)

Packing Up

I am on the train south, to Baltimore. My parents have moved from my childhood home, the home where I grew up, lost my first tooth, had my first drink, the home were I marked my height along the edge of my bedroom door each birthday, their home for over twenty-five years. A quarter of a century in a single place seems impossible, a sort of bygone and arcane approach to living life. For me, though, it still seems bizarre, untrue, surreal, that I, my body, my being, my mind, has been in existence for over a quarter of a century, smelling, tasting, feeling, speaking, thinking. I travel down to see the new house, only a handful of miles away from the suburban community that was my playground for those years. In that enclave of typical housewife ennui and over-achievement, I forged my first friendships, other girls who were curious and afraid and confident and unsure; some of these friendships I still nurture, still cherish. My friends, my foes, from years of lanky proto-adolescence, from the high school war zone of hormones and emotions brilliant and sharp like diamonds, some have never left this place. Have they found solace, satisfaction, challenge in the pattern, the smooth continual oscillation in the same trajectory of their parents?

My brother sends me a photograph of the old house, now empty. It is a classic Dutch colonial, one of the first built in the development, wise and proud. I have not been back since the Christmas holidays; I did not enter the threshold for a final time, for that last walk through familiar halls and familiar rooms, a suckling of nostalgia, of tastes both bitter and sweet. Certainly, by this point, pieces of our childhood, now forgotten, by me, by him, by our parents, have been discarded; donated to those less fortunate, hauled off to the local dump by a blue-collar stranger with a big truck looking for some extra cash. The rest is packed, organized, compartmentalized, the physical mirroring our memories. Plastic Barbie dolls intertwined in a dark cardboard casket, shards of rainbow Legos rattling, game boards, old books.

I have not cried, at least, not yet, not over this. Uncharacteristic. 

The new house is stone, steadfast. Out back, behind, a grass meadow stretches; from recent violent storms, it is lush and green, verdant victory. The sun sets, dark descends, and the lightning bugs emerge, just like they did years ago, when we were small, our hands folding to make tiny fists, when we chased them in crazed vector paths, hoping to capture their brilliance in old glass jar, contain it forever.

(image taken from 16 Sparrows)

Gentrification and Grilled Cheese

(one)

I saunter up north along Franklin Avenue to meet the boys at Doris, a relatively new bar, according to hip Brooklyn standards, snug between laundromats and bodegas along Fulton. Walk slow, bask in that ephemeral late afternoon lazy sun. A wide, airy, and tranquil open patio space stretches out across the back; here, they are drinking beers, celebrating a new job. He has never held a steady full-time gig before, the cyclic nine-to-five rhythm, cultural circadian paces; a final toast to freelance freedom. Mismatched picnic tables and white chairs in an askew arc, each emblazoned with a printed page, requesting that patrons keep voices low and conversations quiet and merriment calm, so as to avoid any complaints from neighbors, who want the establishment gone. Inside, we chat with the server, his hair long and knotted in a high bun; he describes in sage detail the process of building the brass bar, long sheets measured and cut and meticulously shaved down to create a sharp, pristine seam. Glass and brass lighting fixtures resembling lantern-prisms, also assuredly handmade, an amalgamation of passion and precision. Donald Fagen croons in the back, emanating vibes from vinyl. The server selects the next record between pouring beer and shaking margaritas. Only cash is accepted. With a clang, with a cling, a drawer swings forward, crumpled bills splayed, splattered with bits of dryingbooze.

Please be quiet, keep voices low; respect the neighbors. This bar is an omen, for some, portending things to come; for others, an oasis. 

After sipping some cocktails, gulping beers, we feast on grilled cheese sandwiches; fontina with truffle oil, braised kale and fennel, chicken chorizo, classic cheddar. Bread perfectly crusted with a healthy dose of butter. I am thankful for my loose black dress, resolve myself to stopping and being comfortably sated, take more bites and become uncomfortable. I could burst, but the night air is a soft, cool tongue, lapping and lapping sweetly, so we drink more, slowly, unwilling to move.

Near midnight, I glide home, coast along astride his ludicrously minute children's bicycle, legs upright and pointed in loose angles to avoid scraping along the pavement. It has been years since I have sat on a bicycle, even more years since that bicycle has been near-minute, one of those where to back-pedal is to brake. We pass a group of old men, waiting idly, perhaps for a local bus, perhaps not. 

"Just let go, girl, let go, you're really flying," they laugh and shout as I pass.

(two)

We walk to the farmer's market, along a side street, and stumble upon a pick-up game of stickball, the players a group of old Italian men, a gaggle of small boys, these teams obviously playing this game on this street for decades. Meeting up on the sidewalk, dividing into two teams, just like they did when they were seven years old, limbs gangly, knees scraped, eyes fresh and skin taut. We stand to one side for a moment, watch a few pitches. One old man strikes out, swinging the long, thin wooden bat into the air at each pitched ball with abandon. The next makes contact, the rubber ball flies out into the paved street field, he begins to slowly run the bases.

(image taken from Ephemeral New York)   

Executive Power

Over the last few weeks, I have fallen prey to the talons of instant-streaming-induced binge-watching, in particular, becoming a living stereotype of the so honest it is hilarious Portlandia sketch: I am addicted to popular science-fiction drama Battlestar Galactica. Literature, film, television with a streak of fantasy, of futuristic speculation, has always interested me; from my first foray into dystopian possibilities with The Giver to the mesmerizing tales from the Tripod trilogy, a fundamental reading assignment for my fifth grade class that really captured a similar mankind will to survive and thrive. While humanity battling against machines, while hurtling through the far reaches of space, is an immediate draw to me, Battlestar Galactica has also garnered the love and respect of those who would never admit, or never even though, speculative fiction would appeal to them. In parallel to the war against morally ambiguous, and conscience-ambiguous, super-cybernetic-robots, the show hinges on political and military conflicts and intrigues, as the few thousand remaining humans attempt to maintain some semblance of their former civilization, culturally and sociopolitically. So, the show has been a favorite among those who relish in the narrative trajectories of the triumphs, weaknesses, failures, and betrayals of our leaders.

In the first season, President Laura Roslin, executive leader of the roaming colonies, banished from their home planets, discusses with the commander of their military ship, the Battlestar Galactica, the difficult decisions the fleet has made, and particularly the burden of the decisions she, as president, has made. Decisions to attack, to retreat. Decisions to defuse and disable opponents, machine and man alike. A lower government official before the watershed nuclear attack that destroys most of humanity, the government included, she recounts a bit of counsel the late President Adar imparted: "One of the most interesting things about being president is you don't have to explain yourself, to anyone." Maybe more so than any other situation so far presented on the show, this encapsulates so accurately our current milieu. 

Earlier this week, President Obama deployed more troops in Iraq, to support the Iraqi military in suppressing rebel groups who have taken control of territory in the north of the country. Continuing in the rich heritage of other former United States presidents to directly and physically intervene, with vehement and powerful military force and resources, in the politics of the Middle East, this comes on the end of the interesting, debated prisoner swap, a seemingly unilateral command that leaves many here and abroad confused about the implications on duty to fellow citizens as well as on the elegant checks-and-balances of our democratic system. When he was first elected, I was elated; after enduring eight years of unnecessary war during the Bush era, propagated by contorted patriotic propaganda and the vested interests of various corporations, globally, the de-militarize, dis-engage platform promoted by President Obama was hopeful. It was, or could have been, true change. Throughout his first term, and now consistent into the second, I have hardened to disappointment.

Perhaps the evolution of an instant and, hopefully, transparent global communication environment, fueled by a vibrant, ever-churning behemoth media industry and the technological-social platforms to facilitate these transactions on a massive scale, has fostered a sense among the public that, indeed, explanation and justification and rationale is required, is demanded, for the choices and behaviors of our political and economic leaders. In recent decades, scrutiny has heightened and the details surrounding even sensitive decisions can, and often does, become available for broad consumption, interpretation, manipulation, and, ultimately, propagation. In tandem to this path, the desire to side-step accountability, to act unilaterally, to adopt that attitude summarized by the fictional President Adar, seems to also grow in potency. There could be a pretense that restraining from public discourse for certain situations is protection. A sort of paternal authority: I know best. These repelling movements seem at such odds, seem that they would oppose one another, cause a system to collapse. 

It would be silly to assume that the Founding Fathers, that every president from Washington on, did not adopt a similar stance. Memory is always flawed, subjective; the history books have a funny way of capturing details, choosing their portraits.  

(image taken from National Park Service)

Coco Chanel and Change

"A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life." 

-- Coco Chanel

We took our project into the living room, among the cheap vinyl and faux-wood couches of our pre-furnished apartment; the light here was stronger than that in the cavern bathroom. My hair was dry, which probably made some type of difference. We decided on a thick, straight, blunt bang, solid hair across my forehead, above my eyes. Scrunching my eyes shut tight, for protection, she slowly snipped the strands of hair, hands and fingers manipulating the scissors in an unsure but steady confidence. Occasionally growing long and cumbersome from my delinquency in grooming, the bangs have, essentially, been my staple style ever since that evening at university, mildly bored with one of my best friends, when an idle discussion about a new hair cut turned into action. I have not changed since; sometimes, the hair is longer, the layers or the angles more dramatically trimmed, but the same general shape, same feel, ultimately maintained. 

I have never taken a true risk, a risk of the magnitude that create icons, whether heroic or tragic, a risk where success means an empire, a legacy, when coupled with a healthy dose of chance and hard work, a heavy dose of passion and dedication. A woman, like Coco, does not become a bit of history, without such willingness and openness to catalyzing her own change. I am not seeking to become a grand historical figure, but to make impact, to build something beyond the ordinary, against the grain, to instigate some greater downstream effect from one's own contained sense of self, there must be some risk, some impetus for uncertainty. Despite an intellectual and philosophical curiosity, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, of some crash and burn from which I cannot recover, keep me fettered to a known and tried path, to habit and comfort. This quality in myself, this fear or lack of courage, as a type of meta-problem, is a quality I want to change and cannot seem to.

(image taken from Visionary Artistry Magazine)