I sat next to fat people and thin people and medium people and I never took the elbow rest even though I thought a few times that maybe I deserved it. I figured out a way to drink beer and not get sick. I saw the ocean and swam in a pool which is thoroughly the opposite of what I would expect of myself. I thought a lot about what makes me laugh, and I laughed over and over. I cried a fair bit, though less than usual. I lived in the moments I was in, mostly. I watched a goodly amount of excellent television and a little not so good television. I bought a coat and boots and sweaters and went to cold places twice, on purpose. I ate so many oysters — so much seafood in general, as if the ocean was working to delight me and it was my job to be delighted. I was. I ate in front of a fireplace and my face and my heart were equally warm. I spent a day in beautiful and strange places I hadn't been, dimly recalling a language I had once been fluent in. I drove past animals and listened to Christian music that I didn't immediately recognize, then turned the radio off in horror and sang all the words to the songs I can still remember from those stretches of California that don't have radio stations. Cole Porter. Eurythmics. I tried to talk to you but you had headphones on. I slept in rooms without curtains, rooms without windows, rooms without heat, rooms without beds. Mostly I slept under quilts. I interacted with pets and generally enjoyed it. I watched someone being eaten alive by a feeling and finally understood that I do the same thing: it's not eating until you're full but eating like a fire that will consume as long as you feed it. I rode back and forth on the ferry and bought neither apples nor pears but was perfectly happy. I saw people I have loved in various intensities and at a range of distances for decades, and loved them more purely and simply and closely than ever. I did so many of my favorite things. I drank up all your wine.
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
getting to the point
Sometimes you will not be the best, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes you will not be the most lovable.
Sometimes you will not be acknowledged as being the best, even if you were the best. Sometimes people will not tell you they love you, even if they do. Sometimes people just won't love you. Sometimes it is impossible to tell whether they don't feel it or they don't say it.
Sometimes you will do your best and it will not be good enough. Sometimes people will tell you this and their honesty will set you free. Sometimes people will tell you this and they will not mean to hurt you but they will. Sometimes they will mean to hurt you.
These are things that I know but sometimes have trouble remembering. Days when we all raise our hands and mine isn't picked. Even if my hand went up first, or fastest; even if I know the answer best. The moment when my eyes are met, held for a moment, dismissed. The moment when the eyes pass over me as if I'm not there. As if I'm not here. The right answer in my mouth, tears in my throat, all swallowed. Salt and vinegar.
What I wanted to tell you is that I remember when this was how I felt all the time. When I thought that dismissal was about me every time. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it is not. There are days now, even months, when I just do whatever I want to do and I don't think about how other people see it. I'm here now, most of the time, though it's work. Filling my mouth with the milk and honey of not worrying about making anybody other than myself happy.
That's not what I wanted to tell you. What I wanted to tell you was harder. But this is a start.
year in review
I joined a theater group that was run by a bully and then realized that I was not merely hungry for theater but starving for it, and yet unwilling to deal with bullies, so my friends and I started our own group and put on a play and that was great.
Someone I loved died and someone I did not love died and the ending of both of those chapters echoed in strange and sad ways throughout the year.
On a dare I did and then kept doing stand-up comedy and figuring out what I want to do with that and why. I started hosting an open mic night for other people with the same desire to perform in an fairly stress-free and friendly environment. I performed (briefly!) in Bratislava, Berlin, and Brno, and in Vienna, which does not start with a B.
I re-evaluated my need for love and approval and while I don't have it sorted I'm closer than I've been before to learning how to give as much of my own love and approval as I can without giving beyond my means and without expectations. I said "learning".
I turned 50.
I threw out/gave away several boxes of things and felt increasingly lighter, though still more burdened than I would like to be by things I can't let go of.
I am slowly coming to accept that I am an obsessive thinker, a picker of scabs and a terrier of thoughts, and that rather than trying to stop that what I can do is try to be more deliberate in what I obsess over.
I found several old friends and lost one.
We had the parquet floors sanded and refinished, during which time I got extremely squirrelly and realized how thin the line to being insane, and other than a joke that only works in Czech there is not much to say about the whole thing; the floors look almost exactly the same as they did and I look almost as sane as a regular person.
I ran for public office. I didn't think I had any chance of winning, but I tried and that felt good. I have felt so hopeless politically that doing anything, no matter how unlikely to succeed, feels like a step. I met some good people. I talk to my neighbors more than I used to.
I got a new tattoo and I love catching sight of it. I think I cried more this year for no especially compelling reason than I have in many years — today, for example, I cried over a commercial, a pop song (99 Red Balloons), a Kate Bush interview I read, three news articles. Sometimes it feels like everything is unbearably painful. On the other hand, I pushed myself a lot harder to be brave and open, so I may just be crying from exhaustion. I fell asleep while getting the tattoo.
I saw more concerts than usual (Tiger Lillies, Half Waif, Fink, Iron and Wine, Peter Hook, Rufus Wainwright, David Byrne, Raduza, Dessa, Abby Wolf, Vojtech Dyk, plus Ant Attack and the Ukulele Orchestra and another band I forgot about), and mostly enjoyed them, partly because they were mostly excellent and partly because even if I needed earplugs and even if I didn't have a good time I got to think about performance and purpose in ways that made me reflective and better as a performer and as an audience member, I think. I read less than I wanted to but I generally enjoyed what I read, which was pleasant. Similarly with movies. Maybe with most things: I did less than I wanted to, but I mostly enjoyed what I did.
I remained stunned and delighted by the people I love, by their kindness and brilliance and honesty and braveness.
I'm extremely curious about 2019.
blessed is the man who loves the lard
I went to a musical/opera thing last night. It was the Czech version of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass", performed in the DRFG arena. Here are my thoughts:
Good:
- The curtain speech was short, clear, and to the point. Some shows I've seen, these speeches last long enough for me to do my taxes, and are about as interesting, so this was nice. Like a good introduction at a party: Audience, meet play. Here's an interesting detail. I'm sure you two will hit it off.
- The songs were all in English. The subtitles were presented on screens behind the stage (functionally the backdrop) and the presentation of some of the subtitles was really fitting to the music — like watching a good sign language interpreter for music. I saw a presentation of "West Side Story" that projected the translation of song lyrics very creatively, and I'm happy to see this becoming a part of how English-language production is done here.
- I liked the simplicity of the costumes and the set.
- I liked, although I found it weird, that people seemed to wander off and back on the stage. It felt super casual and I liked that in some ways although I felt like where do they keep going, anyway? bathroom breaks?
- Gratuitous male nudity! I'm sorry no it was totally intrinsic to the story.
- The acapella songs were lovely.
- Some of the film clips projected on the screens were nice and seemed to complement/further the story, especially the ones that interlaid footage of the actors.
- The dialogue parts, which were in Czech, were mostly well-enunciated enough that I could understand them and follow along for those parts of the story.
Not Good:
- If there was a narrative to the pictures and film clips on the screen, they could have slowed it down so that uncultured people like me could understand it. It was incredibly fast and distracting from the action on the stage and it made me feel jumpy. They slowed it down for one whole song to focus on a woman's chest, with a crucifix. Sure.
- The orchestra was louder than the singers; as a person who cares about the words much more than the music, this was not ideal for me.
- The doors to the stadium don't close, so I got to watch the well-lit doorway across the way with ushers milling about, plus people walking out of the performance (sometimes in groups; sometimes I think these were just bathroom runs).
- The pronunciation on some songs was … poor.
- The number of things that were distracting to me were over the top, and left me thinking snarky Anne-narrative thoughts, like:
-
I have issues with children performing in any high-pressure situation (school groups on stage for concerts is fine, but "carry your country to the Olympics" is, in my opinion, a form of evil) and I felt.. problematic about how much of the turn of this story rested on a child under 10.
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This is a hockey stadium. Hockey players are well paid. I wonder if these performers are as well paid? Oh, are we doing sports vs. arts now? That always ends well.
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Uhm so all the characters were unhappy when they were wearing gray sweaters, and all they had to do was take the gray sweaters off and then they were happy? Seems like they could have thought of that a lot sooner. Those sweaters are pretty cool, though, I wonder if I could get one.
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Summary:
I personally felt like, between the rapid jumps on screen and the incredible loudness of the orchestra, that my eyes and ears were screamed at for 2.5 hours and I did not like that. I thought it was a bit expensive for what it was. I think it's cool that so many people went to see it. I loved seeing one of my friends on stage, and I felt so proud of her and I liked trying to single out her voice. I was glad to go with my friends and talk with them about it after.
red all over
Poor unloved one, I've been thinking about you this week. Red-headed and unwanted, or rather wanted until. Wanted until you weren't, until the golden child came along, relatively perfect, whereupon you were backstoried into a hatefulness or at least an unlikeableness that extended well before your decision-making ability. Kicking so hard in the womb, she said, as if you'd honestly known what was going on outside and had the agency to respond. She certainly didn't like you very much, did she? You hadn't done anything good or bad, it says so in the story, but still she was set against you. Over the years you learned somehow to forgive the one who took your place. Who wouldn't give you food because you were hungry but traded what you probably thought was hyperbole. A birthright for a bowl of beans, and not even magic beans. Of course you didn't mean it. Clutching at your heels from the start, that one, always trying to squeeze past you or to at least take whatever was rightfully yours from your hands before the shadow even crossed your palms. Not their doing, and so you forgive them. Her doing, you said for years, her justifications, her impersonations, her clever tricks. But in the end it was the loss of the love you thought was yours that stung the most. It should have been yours; the corn, the wine, the blessing, the love. Sorry, he said, I already gave it away. Nothing for me, you wailed, and the answer was nothing. Years of resentment for that, but then you went on to build your own kingdom, if only to prove that you never needed theirs. After all why should you ever have it easy? And this does seem to be the point, that you don't get given what you can get for yourself. My contemporary concept of fair was spun much later, from finer wool. I was telling your story to my friend who looked at me in disbelief. But surely no parent, she said, surely no loving parent. Surely not. I understand her disbelief; after all from such seeds sprang the roots of my own lack of faith. Surely no loving parent, and why be loyal to one who so clearly doesn't love us very much, if at all? Your story continues elsewhere; I hope you found a happier ending than a cave, or that before the cave there was a woman or two who nestled against the soft cushion of you, loved you for the man you became, and helped you put aside the people you were never going to be good enough for, anyway. I'd wish that for anyone.
the turning of the table
I've been thinking about politeness. I think the intended function is to make social interactions move more smoothly, I think we try to be polite because it's a busy planet and we're going to bam into each other and it's nice to try to not do that and to say "excuse me" when we do; we don't intentionally set out to hurt anyone, most of the time. And of course if you do hurt someone and don't say excuse me, that makes the hurt seem intentional.
Many years ago, I threw a party and some people didn't come and I was hurt that they didn't come and I was hurt by the alternate absence or flimsiness of some excuses to an extent that I ended some friendships over it. Because I felt like: those are people who are not interested in watching out for my feelings.
But generally speaking I understand that they weren't interested in the party, and they couldn't think of a way to say so directly without hurting my feelings and they didn't understand that the last minute sudden memory that they needed to wash their hair was actually much more hurtful. Unless the intention was to indirectly communicate that they didn't think that highly of me, in which case: mission accomplished, buddy.
Other times I've been scolded for not inviting people to do things and I think: but you regularly don't do those things when invited, so what could I do but assume that you didn't want to do them? So is their scolding (now that the event is past) a kind of politeness? Why does it seem to me that it hurts more than if they would just say "Oh, sorry I missed it" and move on?
Also of course why do I feel responsible for decoding other people's feelings? When I was younger and would ask people to do things with me and be refused I would agonize over why they didn't like me. Agonize. Now I just think I'm trying to spare everyone all this coded conversation and if you don't return a call or two I assume you're not interested and I move on. I mean it hurts but it's not agony. See, I'm working on it.
There are people whose company I don't enjoy, much in the way that I imagine these people who don't accept my invitations don't enjoy mine. And so based on having been on the receiving end I would like to be able to say: I like you but not that much. I'd like to give them the directness that I would like to receive.
The scene in Tootsie when Jessica Lange, having told Dustin Hoffman that she wishes a man would just say he wanted to have sex with her, throws her drink in his face when he says so.
Why is it hard to just be direct? Last night I spent the bulk of my evening at a party finding excuses to avoid a person I actively dislike and who doesn't take subtle hints. Why do I feel like the fact that I picked up my drink and moved multiple times was Real Progress for me? I felt like I was being polite and at the same time that I was doing a better job of expressing myself than usual. Me who usually freezes, hoping that they'll just go away eventually. The deer frozen in headlights, afraid of the damage it will do to the car. But honestly, why not throw my drink in their face, after all? So conditioned to season even my scorn with pity that I cannot imagine it.
And the times that I have said "I don't want to hear from you anymore" have … not ended well, generally. Could be part of it. I mean it's not just not wanting to hurt someone else; there is a fear of being hurt, myself.
Last night I dreamed I was trying to explain what it feels like to weigh my own discomfort in the moment against the discomfort that may occur if I express that. How it feels to sit very still flooded with a feeling and drowning in the fear of expressing it. Of making things worse. So partly it's a fear of hurting someone but let's be clear that there is in the background also the fear of getting hurt, a constant barely audible high-pitched whine. Even explaining it was too hard. I woke in tears and no clearer in purpose. Still not.
ten times removed
I've been thinking about forgiveness lately, partly because someone recently told me that I am not a very forgiving person. Well, nope. I can carry a grudge further than you can imagine; it's practically a point of pride. I understand that there's a school of thought out there that forgiving others is a way of setting ourselves free and I will say to disciples of that school that they are welcome to feel that way and I celebrate whatever sets you free from pain but I personally would prefer to be stung just the once, just one time with the shock and the rush of tears and the ridiculous ages spent mulling it over and trying to play it different ways to reach different potential endings. "If I had not put my heart out, perhaps it would not have been sliced open," you think, these three a.m. thoughts that can take hours from your sleep, the thoughts in which you try blaming yourself as that's easier than imagining that anybody else could be that cruel. They can be, my sweet, they can be. Sleep with one eye open.
My feeling is: once I've been hurt, I don't forgive, because I don't want to be hurt that way again. And I tell you what: people get in the habit of hurting other people in the same way over and over if they aren't careful. I of course never make mistakes but if I did, as sorry as I might be I would probably keep fucking up that way unless I really really really paid attention because I have been practicing that, whatever it is, for a long time. I am a person who strives on the daily to be better, specifically to be better to others, and I know I have blind spots, so it's no surprise that other people who maybe aren't trying as hard to tread gently around the emotional landmines of others will set things off time and again. So: Yes, people have hurt me. Why won't I forgive them? It's nothing personal, or almost nothing; I have seen that this is how they hurt people or at least how they hurt me and I'd prefer not to feel hurt so depending on the caliber of the hurt I will either avoid that person in certain circumstances or avoid them altogether and that's how it is.
It does not go without saying that one reason I am thinking about this so particularly is that I have just been hurt in the fucking exact identical way as I was before and the child I was more than half a lifetime ago has two faces: one grieving, tearstained, broken; the other haughty with all the righteous impatience of the young with the elderly and the sentimental: are you serious? no: seriously? again? you chose to do this again? Adult me rocks the child as she cries herself to sleep, which is to say I put my arms around my knees and try to pull myself together. I could have known better. And I hope I don't forgive myself.
Intrusion, by Denise Levertov
After I had cut off my hands
and grown new ones
something my former hands had longed for
came and asked to be rocked.
After my plucked out eyes
had withered, and new ones grown
something my former eyes had wept for
came asking to be pitied.
times, tables
She asked what it would feel like to me to be stable, and perhaps because of the word itself I saw a table in my head, in fact the table we had just moved back into the room, careful so as not to scuff the new floor. We lowered the four walnut legs carefully into the space where they will live now, with small pieces of felt under each one to keep it from damaging the floor. The table wobbled a bit and I found another piece of felt to put under one leg, to steady the whole. Felt is a considerably better brace than a beer coaster in that it can be cut to fit exactly, plus it comes with adhesive that keeps it stuck in place. I tried to lift the table by myself, bracing my shoulder against the underside of the table and thinking of Allen Ginsburg putting his queer shoulder to the wheel. I couldn't quite reach the bottom of the leg at that angle, though; I needed help. But with four hands, four shoulders, the work was easy enough. We leaned against the different parts of the table, but nothing wobbled, checked it with the level and it was perfect. Now it's where it belongs and it's steady and reliable, a stable table. I guess that some people think of themselves being stable and think of mountains, or anyway of things that cannot be moved. I had imagined for years that I would be stable when I could get my feelings under control, like how a rock feels no pain, but now I know that even a rock can crumble under pressure. Still, why didn't I think of something more sturdy than a wobbly table? I immediately thought of something with potential to be stable, if I was ready to put in a bit of work, rather than something that already was. Later I remembered the house I used to dream that was built on a broken foundation, creaking in the night. I understand very well that stable is not something that comes easy to me, definitely not through nature and maybe not even through a combination of chemicals, but it doesn't feel impossible most days, so that's progress. And I thought: I would feel stable if I had under me things that were felt. And then I thought my metaphor-hungry brain is probably the happiest little brain in the world today.
for Warren Beatty
This is the one about you, finally, the one you keep waiting for me to write. The one in which I lay bare my heart, the whole story. I begin at the beginning with the richness of detail you've come to expect when wading through all the words that are not about you, and finally the details are delicious to you because finally they are about you, finally you see yourself reflected in the mirror I am holding up to you, again, the mirror of me. And I am invisible when I'm looking at you, which is how you prefer me, as it affords a better view of you. From the beginning we progress forward, chronologically and logically and I'd make a pun about crones but I know this doesn't interest you so never mind. Never never mind. How I do keep creeping in but yes, this is the one about you that you've clearly been so impatiently waiting for. The one where I reveal all the secrets about you, and though the secrets are in my heart which I think makes them mine they are of course yours, about you, these tender dears. Are you paying attention? It's okay, you don't have to pay attention to me, but this is the one I am writing about you, so you should pay attention to this. You should feel like you're going to be rewarded. For all the times I spoke and you listened in the hopes of hearing your own name come from my mouth, all the times I wrote and you read it and hoped to see your name, here it is: your name. A description of your face, your eyes, how the vulnerable spaces near the bone hold the light and naturally my attention. There, doesn't that feel nice. I expect it feels nice to have someone's attention entirely directed at you, their words repeating back what you've said so that you know they were listening, their eyes reflecting back what they see so that you know you've been seen, their hands touching the parts of you that most wish to be touched and asking nothing in return so that you know they were only ever thinking about you. Listen I get greedy too sometimes, I'm not saying it's wrong. I will talk about your skin, the alignment of limbs, the sinew and muscle, the beauty of you, I will even tell the story of how it felt to touch you even if that only or mostly occurred in my imagination. This is the one about you and I want you to have the full experience. I am telling it all, about the nights I woke up weeping or sometimes though less frequently laughing from the middle of dream about you. This is the one where I tell you what that dream was about, how the tears (or, albeit less frequently, the laughs) pulled me from that dream and caught the glinting light of the whole day. In this one, the one you've been waiting for, the one that is all about you, I tell my version of the story of us except it is the story of you to you, and you rest your finger against your chin and read each word and continue to wait to see the whole truth and feel whatever it is you expect to feel when I finally stop fucking around in my own feelings and reflections and get to the very important part that is all about you. That part is coming. It's here. That was it.
tuckova 