Category: TODAY

brought to you by the letter b

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My friend is visiting and we are having adventures all over Europe. Bus from Berlin to Prague, its relentless beauty and complications. The exquisite detail in the stained glass window in St. Vitus representing the biblical disasters for which insurance can be purchased, turn of the century corporate sponsorship.

Train to the ghost town of Brno, stumbling over stepping stones and stopping at stumblestones. I love my town more than I've loved any place and it's a weird possessive feeling when I'm showing people around, but we spin in the square with our arms out and drink cocktails named Liza Doolittle, Mary Poppins, Alex Owens, and I think my love does not make mistakes.

In Budapest, I walk across Liberty Bridge and am unstuck in time. I am 26 after a night of hitchhiking and I am in my 30s, 40s, different visitors and reasons for coming to this diacritical city, but this is the first time I visit the thermal baths so it is new again, different, like every time you step in a river. Or walk over one.

And today, the view from an airplane window of clouds, fluffy and white, the blue horizon snapping in the distance. I experience the same irritations as anyone I guess, the man in line behind me kicking at my bag when the line moves forward, the rush and halt of travel. But here I am on a plane, going from one country to another, the beauty of waking up in Budapest, a cigarette on the balcony at sunrise overlooking the city, and knowing I will sleep in Berlin.

this town

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It rained last night, the kind of deafening, soul-clearing rain that I love the best. We watched the storm coming in from our bench outside the wine bar, the faraway blue sky gradually replaced by low gray clouds that grumbled at us and took flash photos. The waitress came out and set up an umbrella so we could continue drinking outside when the storm hit. Then the rain the rain the rain. When it stopped, it was past closing time and I wanted one more so we hopped across the street to the bar with more expensive wine and a later closing hour. The wine tasted like pear juice and after I spilled the first glass all over I felt like I could get pretty used to sweet wine after all.

I left the bread I bought for breakfast this morning in the first bar, apparently. Rice for breakfast, oh asagohan, how've you been.

Sometimes it takes a while to figure out how unpleasant someone is. It would be neat if I could spray people who come aggressively close to me, the way skunks can. Then other people would only need to be downwind of them and say, "Oh hey, this person gets aggressively into other people's spaces." Saves time. Once, I warned a woman when I saw her on a date with a skin-covered bag of excruciating boredom, and I have thought about getting cards printed that say RUN to hand to people on obviously toxic dates, but now what I really want is the ability to mark somehow, as a courtesy to the next passenger, the people who should be avoided.

Although of course then I want to code it, what kind of bad they are. Like my spray paint for cars — one color for people who get too close to bikes, one color for bad parking, one color for the ones who drive through crosswalks, my upcoming and certain demise. 

It's summertime officially now. One friend gone, another friend gone, and one more to go next week. Ghost town. I'm going to get my closet so organized. I might even learn to play The Specials on the ukulele. 

chafe. waif. strafe.

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When I was in fourth grade, I think it was fourth grade or maybe third, I wrote a poem about candy for a poetry contest in my school. My small town's poet laureate, possibly self-appointed, came to the school with much ceremony and we all recited her poem about the foundation of our town ("the first raw sight to meet their eyes was the head on the bloody spear"). She announced the winner of the poetry contest and I guess presented me with some kind of prize and I felt very proud. Afterwards the girl who hated me so much she spit on me told me that I had only gotten that prize because my mother worked at the school, which was probably not true but felt pretty bad. I had rhymed dandy and handy with candy and everything tasted like dust after that.

In junior high I wrote a poem about a father who had died as a soldier, the sad child narrator trying to comfort the grieving widow mother. "Love is like a passing song" I wrote and my teacher called my parents in with concern for my well-being, at least this is what I remember. I had rhymed song and along and strong and boy was I ever wrong, about what really hurt and what pain I was ready to experience.

In college I wrote a poem about my friend's grandfather, who was entirely insane and would sprinkle visitors with the ashes of his dead wife, which he said was fairy dust. At that time I was giving poetry readings for actual money from time to time and I thought very highly of myself for that. I wasn't even rhyming stuff because I was a Real Poet. A local magazine offered to publish the poem and changed some of the words around and I felt like someone had pierced my baby's ears without asking. Anyway that was the end of trying to get anybody to publish anything I wrote for a really long time. 

Last year I wrote a short piece for a small website and was again edited without consultation which is really not a nice thing to do to an editor. I was about to persuade myself that in terms of my own writing I really I need to stop dealing with other people all the time forever. But this year there's a short story contest and they want people to write about Brno and since I can barely stop talking about Brno it stands to reason that I find this irresistible. At this point it's not even about winning, it's just about not walking away feeling violated. There's no poetry in it this time so I hope I'll be safe. Maybe I'm a little naïf.

anyhow in a corner

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Some years ago I read (on one of my beloved ranting feminist blogs) a sentence that I can no longer find, which was basically: I will no longer waste my time faulting women for whatever they are doing to remain functional under the patriarchy. And I thought about that, and I thought: but lots of women do really crappy things, including to other women. They shouldn't get a pass because they are women. Which is absolutely true, but I kept coming back to that idea: how about if I excuse myself from spending my own time on that particular critique? And sometimes I fail, and sometimes my success involves some serious tongue mastication, but for the most part I'm successful at turning my time and attention away, and it has given me the opportunity to focus more on positive actions than on tearing people down and a greater ability to concentrate on my own actions.

I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of politics, especially in the face of the recent surge in activism and the horrorshow that is the current US administration. Some of my friends are still barely out of bed, where they have been curled and weeping for three months. Some of my friends were writing letters and going to town hall meetings and putting their money where their mouths were since they were old enough to walk and they've stepped up their game. Some left Facebook for being a soul-sucking corporate tool that contributed to this mess; some became more active as it's a great tool for coordinating things and encouraging each other. Some are digging in their heels to fight, some are looking into getting out of the country. And some are posting cat videos and jokes about hangovers, turning away quite leisurely from the disaster. 

All those seem valid to me. What I'm doing: mourning the death of satire, reading the news as much as I can stand to, donating when I can afford to, intending to accomplish more than I actually do and berating myself for it. That seems okay to me too. I am trying to pay attention to the helpers (because Mister Rogers is my lifetime hero), to thank the people who are representing me and to not give any attention to the bad actors, and I am politely ignoring anything that is like, "marching doesn't work" or "you're wrong to pay attention to this, pay attention to that" or "you're expressing your feelings wrong!" because hey, if thinking that way, if shouting that from the rooftops makes you feel better, that's what you should be doing, but it makes me feel shitty so nope. I am trying to listen, but it's not a discussion I want to join.

Anyway. I promise to write a nice extended metaphor about a television show or something next. I just wanted to try to get this out first.

the storm we call progress

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I'll tell you what, it's hard to write about anything when what is uppermost in my mind most of the time is something I want to give as little time to as possible. 

In 1988, which was my first presidential election, I volunteered for Dukakis. I really liked him, he seemed reasonable, smart. Flawed, sure, but at least he seemed honest. I had hated the "folksy charm" of Reagan, and George Bush scared me — he'd been the head of the CIA, and I thought that seemed like an untrustworthy kind of smart. When he won, I cried so much and I felt like I didn't know America. If America wanted a sneaky manipulator, I didn't belong, and it is not my way to stay where I don't feel wanted. So I left.

You can maybe extrapolate from that how I am feeling now. On top of that, genuine fear for some of my friends for whom it is much more than their principled stance that is threatened. 

So that's what I don't want to think about. On Friday a couple friends came over and we ignored the inauguration, since that's the most hurtful thing to do to a narcissist: ignore them. We talked about anything else. We worked on a 3000 piece puzzle of the world; once that's solved everything else should be a breeze. Meanwhile I write letters and donate and try not to say his name, acid and bile in my mouth.

So other things. 
  • So much of the American hot sauce I've been brought lately tastes more like an endurance test than a flavor. I don't know whether I've lost my taste for that particular pain or whether they've upped the hot to a point beyond me. 
  • When I was 20 I had my first published poem, and the editor had changed some of it. And I was as upset as if someone had pierced my baby's ears without asking me. I have submitted very few things for publication since, and last week I was reminded that that was a good decision. 
  • Oliver Sacks is so so so good.
  • I really think we should be hibernating and I am trying to treat everybody as if they were small creatures recently jolted from hibernation, blinking tiny into the dim winter light, wondering what the hell just happened, wanting most of all in the world to go back to sleep. That's certainly how I feel. And I am so angry at being awake and not in my burrow or den or whatever, but I'm not the only one feeling this so I'm trying to remember to be kind even when I really want to give everybody who talks out of turn a big bite of rabies. 
  • I don't know why 5 is more satisfying than 4. 2+3 or fingers or avoiding death or who knows. It is, though. 

trepanning for gold

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I'll tell you exactly how it happened. The needle went in precisely where it was supposed to. We'd agreed in advance about how it would be and I wasn't frightened. This is what I was thinking: that I was hoping it would help, that I was ridiculous for thinking it would help, that hope and thought are different (hope being like faith rather medieval, thought being like science more 20th century). These thoughts, and the pinch of penetration through the skin, the pain and the recognition of pain, which, even dulled, is present. You'll  never think of things being boring in the same way again, I thought. And then. Then as the drill pierced the bone, then. Be here now, be in this moment. This is how it felt to me: it felt like the new pain was loud and insistent, but it also felt like the old pain, the curtain of pain that I had lived with for so long that I had ceased to notice it, was … gone. It felt like I might be able to complete a thought without wincing. It felt radiant; it felt divine. I wish it had really happened.

working on it

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You're working in a restaurant that closes at midnight, and at 11 a bunch of people arrive and want a table. And you say: We close at midnight, so you can obviously sit down now but I want to be clear that I would like you to be gone at closing time. They act offended that you would even imply that they might be planning to take advantage of you, like of course not, they're going to leave at midnight, they really mean it. Midnight strikes, 12:30, 1 a.m. and you're standing near the table with your eyebrows basically rolling off the top of your head and they're still there, ignoring you, nursing their last beers, laughing at their own witticisms. When they finally leave, they don't tip. 

How many times do you let this happen with that group before you stop trusting them? How does it affect your attitude toward another group? At what point in your story do you refuse to let people drive over you? What if they personally haven't done anything to you yet? Why, in this story, does it feel to you like telling them to leave makes you the bad guy? Why, when telling this  story, do people act like if you fail to fight back there's something wrong with you? What about if this is not a job at a restaurant and customers and closing time, but your house, your friends, your bedtime? What if it's mine?

starý dobrý časy

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I'm remembering the feeling of Sunday mornings at the end of a long weekend at the cottage, anybody's cottage, the comfortable stupor of a three-day weekend of eating and drinking and eating and drinking, playing cards or watching old Czech movies until late at night. How as the slivovice bottle got emptier the jokes got funnier; the warmth of shared laughter. Or in other places, waiting for the children to go to bed, the hushed conversations in the dim light, secrets. How in the morning we would start making gestures towards packing up, going back to city life, and the inevitable scrap of paper with the train and bus schedules would emerge, or one of the teenagers or more overly energetic kids would be sent down to the station to write down the upcoming connections, always different on Sundays, sometimes extra different on the long weekends. Stealing a few cold potato wedges from the pot, still on the stove from last night's dinner. The sway of the bus on the ride home, the feeling of having been away for years. 

ew politics

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This election has me rattled and make no mistake. My normal policy is to get enough information to make up my mind and then move on; I don't have so much time in my life that I need to spend any of it learning anything about a candidate I've already decided against. I also don't watch "anti-hero" television shows or hang out with assholes. Still, there's a part of me that enjoys the delicious shiver of an insect in an unexpected place and so I have watched the debates. They give me nightmares. 

I sometimes feel like I should go around stating to people who I am that makes Trump personally repulsive to me and I've fought the urge because it goes beyond personal revulsion. I can say that as a woman I find his sexism disgusting; that as an atheist I find his leanings towards religious tests incredibly backwards and threatening; that as a queer person I hear his "traditional marriage" dogwhistles and shudder; and that as an immigrant, I find his stance on immigration to be ridiculous, even if just in empathy with immigrants to the US. But then the implication is that I'm only reacting in my own self-interest… which, though it seems to distinguish me from a number of his supporters, is not entirely the case. I'm slightly whiter than milk and his racism is still revolting to me.

And I guess maybe this is why it's scary? Because I feel like as a human being, sometimes at a disadvantage (though very often at an advantage), I am able to imagine how it might be for other human beings in different circumstances. So I have trouble understanding the stunning lack of empathy coming from the supporters of a racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc etc. horrorshow. They don't even seem to understand how much he disrespects them, so eager are they to be on his side disrespecting the other groups he scorns. How can women support him? Mexicans? Muslims? People with the ability to make complete sentences? Is it just the played up fear of coming in last that motivates people to perceive the world as a competition they can never win unless they step on the other competitors, rather than try to see themselves as being on a team where the shared strength of every team member means winning on a larger scale?

So I think about that, about how I can understand that. I think about the GOP and Frankenstein and who the monster really was. I think about the internet and how the very thing that has made life so glorious for me (the ability to know about and connect with a world beyond my immediate neighborhood) seems to make the world so terrifying for other people, and what that means. I think about these things and then I fall asleep to dreams of a house where I am always hiding behind a panel, holding my breath, waiting. I've saved space for you here if you want to come hide with me until November 9th. I'm not ready to entertain the idea that it might be necessary after. 

O Me! O Life!

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There are many plates spinning in the air which is sort of my usual except a little more than that. The cat died, we sold the cottage, I got dual citizenship. None of these things are bad but all of these things take extra time and attention.

My parents are coming for the party to celebrate my new Czech citizenship, and one of my oldest and dearest friends is here from California, too, which is great. Also people coming from Vienna, Prague, Berlin. And of course a lot of the people I love here in Brno. I've never thrown myself a party (I've thrown plenty of parties but never in honor of my own personal awesomeness) and it feels weird. A few days ago, I tried out the idea that this is not a party to celebrate my 22 years of living here, raising a child in a language I was just learning to speak, memorizing important facts like the birthplace of Mr. Cimrman, and generally just rocking the Czech life. I mean it IS but also this makes me feel wayyyy too self conscious. So actually this is a party to thank all the people, old and new, who have made my life here the amazing thing that it is, and that makes sense and felt better. People have been incredible to me and I am so ridiculously lucky it makes my head spin, so this is a good place to mark my gratitude. And buy the first round or so.

Sometimes I get really bogged in feeling sad because there is ugliness in the world, casual ugliness like selfishness all the way to downright brutality. Last week I was crying about it, about how hard it is to live in a world where we open ourselves every damn day to indifference, to egotism, to cruelty. Sitting in your little kitchen at night smoking down another cigarette, tears streaming down my face, because how can we go on in a world with so much horror, how can we tolerate it and push past it and keep our faces and hearts open to beauty and love, and if I, so honestly blessed and lucky, can barely do it, how can anyone who truly suffers manage? How can we keep going? 

The answer I remembered then is the same as it's ever been: Friendship. Good food. And poetry. Over and over again.

good old Uncle Walt