Author: tuckova

Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O'Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

“but monkeys are so ugly they’re cute”

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Jan 1995This picture was taken in January 1995, my first winter here. I was 26. I recently spoke to two friends that age, one visiting the Czech Republic for HER first winter, and the other working abroad for the first time.

Since I kept a diary back then, I was able to visit that younger Anne, to see how much of what I remember now was what I thought was important at the time and to ponder how much of who I was then informed who I am now. 

And mostly I'm the same. I wrote sentences like "I think sometimes people practice being unhappy to remind themselves they are still alive." I had a weakness for gimmick novels. I had a dream about a writer whose fingers turned to fountain pen nibs and she ripped apart a person she was trying to hug. 

But I was so fixated on how unattractive I was. For example, I wrote about the boy who took this picture, and how much it meant that he let his skin touch mine here, because it meant he wasn't afraid my ugliness would infect him. 

Now I look and I think — I was not ugly. How did I think I was ugly? Was it being female, was it the people I socialized with, was it how any insecurity I felt manifested, was it the hair (it's always the hair)? I wish that I had a time machine to go back and tell that girl she was okay. I would have told her she was fine, that there were so many other things worth having all those feelings about. I would have told her that her eyes were incredible and that she should learn to use them to see things more clearly, that her skin was lovely and doing a great job of holding her guts in so she could quit spilling them to dingbats who didn't deserve it, that her hair was perfectly fine and to hell with anybody who told her differently. I would have told her that her beautiful heart was the only thing that mattered but also that she had amazing bones. 

Of course I turned out okay; I'm 95% less likely to stay inside because I am too afraid of frightening people in the street with the horror of my face. So since I like who I am I probably wouldn't use the time machine to go back in time to change anything.* But I have decided to try to tell people a little more often how beautiful they are on the outside. Just in case they don't know.  

*Also if you have a time machine you go back and invest in Apple or something USEFUL, duh. TM MIG.

unutterably alone

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I went to a play in London earlier this month partly because I decided that I wanted to be the kind of person who could say "I went to a play in London earlier this month" and there was a really easy way to make that happen. Anyway: play in London. And this is on top of a music festival in Vienna the previous month (partly because pretty much the same reason). Plus going to an unprecedented number of live shows here in town. And what I have felt at all of these shows is really, really lonely. 

I've been thinking about it because on the one hand it makes no sense. I was with friends at both shows; both shows were crowded with people, it was not unfriendly, in fact in some ways I felt more unified with the audience than I often do (that is, I felt like we were enjoying the same show, for the same general reasons, which I don't always feel). And yet I just felt so lonely. I felt like I wanted to stop everything, turn to someone next to me, someone I liked, and say, "Hey, did you just see that?" and know before I even opened my mouth that they did, that they saw what I saw, and that their opinion would help inform mine. I don't mean they'd have to agree with me, but that we would have our experiences clarified and enhanced by each other's. 

But the trick here would be the moment of stopping everything. Because I hate to look away from a moment that is happening to observe it, whether that means taking a picture of it or turning to talk about it or even just smile — it feels like the moment gets changed irrevocably by the need to observe it, and the more I enjoy the moment, the less I want to turn from it… I want to be in the moment. And that means that I have to be alone in it, and so what I felt, what I've been feeling, from surrendering to being alone in intense moments (not turning away to look at my friend, not taking pictures, etc), is really lonely. And I've been thinking about how much of life is like that, the decision between living the moment and sharing the moment, and how hard it can be to do both, and how even if you do a really really good job of documenting what happened, you cannot really have someone in your experience, I mean no matter what you are alone, even if you could stop the moment you would still be alone. I would still be, I mean. I don't think it means that attempts at connection should not be made; in contrast, I think it's the most important thing to attempt. But it means I'm realizing it's even harder than I thought. 

and it’s been so long that I can’t explain

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It's December 2nd, the fourth birthday since you died. Sometimes I think about how when I am dead the entirety of our friendship will be dead, every experience we shared, every conversation, everything. We were the only witnesses. How we raced elevators, drank beer, tormented the people in the video store with our increasingly obscure requests; how hard we laughed. How much of my time was spent on thinking towards amusing you, just to hear your devil laugh, and even now whenever I find something funny half the time my mind races towards you and then stumbles around on itself, mouth gaping with the loss, fresh wound. I have other friends who have cut themselves off from me and my memories, people who want to pretend like we were never friends because it would mean living up to something they'd promised me, or actually I don't know what, I don't even get the Christmas cards. This time of year I feel all these absences. As good as dead, except you really are and I will never get over it. I miss you so much, I loved you so hard. 

 

solar rectal syndrome

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I don't remember who taught me about this very serious disease that parents get, whereby they believe that the sun shines from their child's ass, but I always try to keep it in mind when I'm on the verge of praising Squire. Everybody thinks their own kids are great, it's a good way to make sure we don't kill them when they're annoying. Also, if we didn't think our own kids were fantastic, who would? Like, this is the person who you are hormonally gifted to unconditionally love; if you can't do it, who will? 

 
And I do unconditionally love Squire. I only rarely look at him even now, nearly seventeen years on, without feeling a rush of pure love. I love the parts of him that are not like me (his love of video games and music without words, his neglectful hygiene, his preference for red meat and sugar, his patience with stupid people) and the parts that are me (blue eyes, giant ears, the need to rewind the funny parts so he can laugh harder the second time). I loved him when he was five and wouldn't put his damn shoes on when we were late and I wanted to squeeze his lazy head until it exploded but I was prevented from doing so because I loved him. And I loved him when he was nine and so unbelievably miserable and I had to be physically restrained from beating up his stupid teacher for saying he asked to be beaten up in class. And every step of the way I have looked at this love, this overwhelming heart exploding love and thought: Ok, that's it, can't love him more, this is the max, and then the next year comes and whoa, and now I am blown away to see that my grinchy heart has grown seventeen times its original size. 
 
THAT SAID, you guys, that said. He does stupid stuff. There are some things I should have taught him that I did not. I see these flaws in him, some flaws of habit and flaws of thought. None of them are evil, none of them will probably hurt anybody other than him. But I SEE them. And I keep wondering about parents who don't see the flaws in their children, wondering is it because they really think their child is perfect? Or is it because they're unwilling to admit there's something that they could have done differently to prevent that imperfection? Or do they love their children so much they are blind to these flaws?
 
If you know me, you likely know who I'm talking about in particular, though it is a general obsession of mine. I just can't stop thinking about it. Do you not see the flaw, are you unwilling to admit to others that there's a flaw, or are you afraid the flaw is your fault and that's more than you can handle? Is this unconditional love, should love have conditions under some circumstances, when does blindness excuse you from responsibility? Is this the result of the feel-good "raising confident children" style, do most or some people naturally love their children this way, are we all blind to our blindspots (i.e. am I also doing this and just don't see it?). I feel like I've spent more than the average amount of time dealing with people who love their adult children to a shit-don't-stink degree, and I keep coming back to it like a canker sore, and I am no closer to understanding.   

 

monster walks the winter lake

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Here is the mouth
to kiss and tell you lies
 
Here are the arms
to hold you and push you away
 
We can find you feet for dancing
Ears for music and late night phone calls
Hair to wrap like a scarf when your neck is cold
Hands to write you a story
Even someone to take the electric shock
of all the things you want and need
your long long list of longing
 
What's the matter dear doctor, 
did you leave out a heart?
 
Well we all knew who the real monster was, didn't we.

solitaire

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This game is about stacking. You start with the top priority which is pretty predictably a man but you cannot find him unless you get all the little numbers out of the way first. In that step you have to start small and work up; once you get into the steps with people you start big and work down. So you're stacking in two different directions, basically. Like work, as soon as you manage one thing you have a new thing to manage, over and over, but unlike work eventually you clean up everything right and then it is done and there is a moment of satisfaction before shuffling into the next round. You have to remember that when you're dealing with people the rule is that opposites attract but when you're dealing with the little things you have to put like with like, which reminds you both of feng-shui and your pointy-headed approach to legos. Work to work, money to money, the satisfying snap of one thing on top of another. Meanwhile the people: a space clears for a man and you slide the mismatched woman on top of him. In this game it is possible to cheat but you are only cheating yourself so it is not as satisfying as cheating can usually be though it has the same weight of guilt. You can play this game on the computer and then it even cleans itself up afterwards and disappears when you want it to, like when someone comes in the room and thinks you are working, click once to minimize or twice to make it disappear. Anyway this is not a game to play when you have other people around and interestingly if you play it long enough those people will magically appear, which is why it is also called patience.  

cool and smooth and curious

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This metaphor likes to go for walks on the beach. He probably likes sunsets, too, and holding hands. Long slow kisses. But anyway the beach. Walking along collecting pebbles and looking for precious stones, maybe something somebody else threw away. Every step there are more pebbles and he turns them all over, it's a slow walk is what it is, so much attention to be paid, and he's trying to pay attention, although it's hard with so many things to look at. Not this one not that one not the other. In the morning light the water on the pebbles makes so many glint with promise and he picks several, dries them on his sleeve, throws some back, puts others in his pockets. His pockets now heavy with stones he's collected, thumping comfortingly against his legs as he walks, honestly he can barely keep his pants up but he keeps walking, turning, tossing, collecting. He's not even sure what he's doing any more; his attention now entirely on collection rather than on possession. The bowls in his house fill with pebbles, stones, gems too, all neglected, and the beach empties, and he cannot stop looking for what he might already have. 

 

breaking the girl

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In search of a poem that I had mostly memorized in 1990 but was a little hazy on, lo! these many (23? sheesh) years later, I went digging through a box of paper that will either fascinate or terrify whoever goes through my stuff after I die. Here are poems I liked, torn out of the New Yorker in this case, or often photocopied or even copied by hand from books. Notes I took during poetry readings when I used to go, and even some fliers I made for readings of my own. The best reading I ever did was with Scott Soriano, who put a steak on his face and squirted blood out of it while reciting a poem that was a revision of Howl, but about Carls Jr., this was 1989 I guess. Most performance art seems kind of a disappointment to me after that. 

What else was in that box, Anne? Oh, children, gather round and see. Here are poems that a friend wrote, and songs. I haven't talked to him since he left Prague, that was 1995 I guess, but I can still sing one of the songs and every year I tell the joke I first heard from him, that Jan Hus was a man with a lot at stake. Also poems by my former insane roommate, no longer my roommate and probably even no longer insane. Poems by people I took classes with. No letters, because those are in another box around here somewhere. 

So many things by other people. I can't bear to toss it (and anyway it's just this one box) because even though the smell of the mimeograph machine has faded from them, my memory of exactly how I felt the first time I read some of these poems stays fresh, and I am transported back to sixteen, or twenty-six. 

And things I wrote as well. Mostly poetry. Oh, so young and earnest! My love was a tree, you guys, and also a glass of water. Already with the metaphors, and THAT earnest. And also one letter I wrote that I made a copy of for myself, stored separately from the other letters. It is three pages long, and tearstained, and so absolutely naked with pain that I want to get that girl a blanket and cover her. It has the range of a great battle, from the personal to the general, from Greek mythology to Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics, except it is clear that I was mostly fighting with myself, as the object of my affection had long since left me. I sat there this afternoon, with these pages in my hands, thinking: should I throw this out? Because this does not really go with how I see myself now, and it is so painful to remember this that it is almost embarrassing. Back when I used to find it easier to tell the whole truth than to hold it in, even if it sliced me open on the way out. 

I mean: now, I want to finish something, and I know I can just just sit very still until you go. It's to the point where sometimes I hear the words before you say them, and I smile and say lightly that it was my fault anyway, sorry, and my teeth clamp over my tongue before I can say another word, and I wave goodbye and I don't look back until I know you're not looking. No more tearstained outpourings from this corner, no more bleeding the truth. So now I remember why I keep the letter, and fold it back into the box, as gently as I wish someone had been with me, put a lid on it, put it back in a quiet safe place. 

momentary pastures

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Walking through the park at night with the mist gently folding over everything, thick at the river and the deeper trees, thin along the path we stepped off. Disembodied voices calling to wandering dogs, lost friends, missed connections. Teenagers entwined on a bench, and further on two scruffy men with a paper bag of something fiery between them, the shared communion of their downfall. Everything is about undoing, belts and buttons and lives; about breaking, hearts and bottles and promises. I wanted to whisper into your ear that you didn't have to lie to me, wishing to set you free of the habit. But once one lie is out the rest come so much easier, don't they, and you've already told the first one.