Anger breathes on me until sometimes all I feel is the heat of it on me; all of me not just my neck. All day today I have eaten spoonfuls of vinegar and salt on rice, on bread, on anything that would hold them until finally I was just pouring it into tablespoons and swallowing it whole. It is better than tears and pours easily. Still the breath of resentment is powerful and all my natural bitterness and dirt can hardly hold it back. I can only produce so much on my own. Hence the reinforcement tablespoons of today's premium aceto di vino it says. I am not well-equipped to do battle with this form of suffocation and know these tools are lacking but know no others. Certainly my sugar resolves were never up to snuff, I cannot fight this ill-will with anything heartwarming. For example let me tell you a story about a girl who went for a walk in a pretty summer dress inevitably winds up with her grubby at the well with her dress torn and hair arrack because she wanted to look at spiders and found a pile of dirty magazines instead; that and more than that. Arrack is sweet Indian booze; you learn a lot playing Scrabble is one thing I learned playing Scrabble. Surprisingly it is not the summer heat this time and in fact on the second tablespoon which I did or did not feel burn in my stomach I thought maybe I don't so much feel bad as I make myself feel bad but you know: what's bad, anyway. Coming down from a mountain however lovely the view however snowcapped the peaks however pure your intentions, however all that height does not lower the sea level of the actual ground and in time you learn that you could never have handled that lovely high thin pure etcetera air for very long as you well know, deep breather. Drinker of vinegar and salt. You were meant to live at sea level always.
back on in
Oh, hey! We had The Awesomest Visit from "Uncle Pumpkin" for a couple
weeks and I forgot to write about it. I dunno: there are pictures. I
sort of forgot to be all reflective and stuff and even sort of wondered
if I had anything interesting to write when I was in the process of
talking so much. Then Uncle Pumpkin left and I remembered that I Have
Words To Spend. So I'm back. Also, my friend called to tell me how her
son is watching…. well. Okay. We can skip the "my exiting visitor" recap
and go right off.
So the boys in Squire's class are all sophisticated and stuff. When
I went to pick him up from the "week in wilderness" thingie, I asked
one boy how it had been and he said it was "boring". I don't remember
finding things were "boring" until I was in high school at least. You
know that little window between when you find out how awesomely worldy
you are and how trivial the rest of that world is (high school, for me)
and when you find out that if life is boring, it's because you yourself
are boring (adulthood, for me)? I guess the window is wider now, if it
starts at age 11 and clearly being bored is a lifetime occupation for
some people.
And then this friend of mine was telling me how she caught her boy,
Squire's friend, surfing internet porn. And how she told him that porn
wasn't very artistic. To me this is like telling your child that
learning to drive a Trabant isn't a good idea because Trabants aren't
cool. Which first of all Trabants are awesome, but second of all: Are
you really going to judge joyriding on the basis of the car brand? No:
stay with me! This is true. We had a family friend who, upon
discovering that their child had been stealing Playboys, told the child
that if he wanted naughty magazines they would buy them for him,
because stealing is wrong. Stealing is wrong?! Here's what's wrong:
kids reading porn. Leave aside for the moment my own arguments against
porn (and/or cars): The problem with this particular argument is that
kids can't handle this thing, this thing that sometimes is useful but
causes damage that can't be underestimated; this thing that is
absolutely inappropriate for children even though it's legally and
perhaps morally approved for adults. I do tell Squire a lot of stuff
about sex (and about cars) because I don't want him going off of the
bad information he'll get from his peers, but it is made clear that
this is Future Stuff. I can't imagine finding him doing something
illegal and trying to reason with him about the quality of it.
It breaks my heart, these parents who give their kids so much
beyond them. Were their childhoods so miserable, and their adolescence
so marvelous, that they need to rush their kids through the one in an
effort to reach the other at top speed? It just seems so terribly sad.
It's not like I want to bubble my child out of his teen years
altogether. But in my mind, adolescence is the time that you start
taking personal responsibility for your actions, when you start to
realize you can choose something different from what your parents might
have wanted, and when you step up to the consequences of those
choices. It's when you start to understand the relationship between
privilege and responsibility, where the former is conferred in
correlation to the latter. And it's when you learn what happens when
you totally screw up, in the period in which you still have a safety
net under the risk of your fall. But what I'm seeing increasingly is a
lot of the privilege and a little of the responsibility: I'm seeing a
big safety net and a very low high wire. Kids have mobile phones for
what? For the awesomeness of sending each other snuff videos (I wish, I
wish I were making this up.). We knew to hide what we were doing if it
was wrong; these kids seem to know that if they're open about it
they'll be forgiven for the virtue of their honesty, as if that were
all that mattered.
Without wishing to be all "I walked uphill through 10 feet of snow
to get to school" — because actually, I walked uphill to get home, and
also because there was never so much snow — or all "Damn kids on my
lawn" –because I don't even have a lawn– nevertheless. Nevertheless
and still. Kids are human beings, and I tend to find them absolutely as
annoying as I find all other human beings, but in this case I can see
how they got to be that way, and there are some parents I really want
to punch in the face.
pared, boiled, distilled
I dreamed I told you everything, that I laid it out in logic and compassion. In my dream you understood me perfectly. When I woke up, though, I was alone. And I had not yet said a word of what I meant.
how does your garden grow
So I had over two weeks of feeling like the saddest bag of mostly salt water ever, convinced that I was entirely alone behind a wall of sorrow, or alternately convinced that I was within a web of equally inarticulately tormented people and the whole world was going to hell. I felt like a mouse running uphill on metal, scrabbling and desperate and hopeless. I was somewhat less than delightful to be around, I expect. Then I remembered that feeling that way is really, really boring, and I slept for about 14 hours and then I forced myself through some steps on a "to do" list and then I felt better; it was just in time for my birthday and I’m sure we’re all very grateful that I managed to ring in a decade with a modicum of self-respect. Now I’m feeling quite nearly chipper, all things considered, and they have been.
So, hm. We went to the cottage. Some photos are here. I pulled up about 200 dandelions because I don’t want the neighbors to entirely hate us but otherwise we’re letting the garden go a little wild to see what all will grow, instead of trying to cut it into some shape when we don’t know what shape it might already want to be. First of all, it keeps us from being robbed like the neighbors on both sides of us. Secondly, we may have some beauty already there that we’ve overlooked. Like: we just realized we have tulips. Everything is a metaphor for something.
cup your hands
This cup with its damage. Knocked down, swept off the table; it was
probably an accident. I don’t remember the noise it made when it fell, when it
shattered, though I know how it sounded because I hear it in the silence when I
can’t sleep. The frowny mouth open in its "oh no" shock and the cup falls,
bounces, and then kkkksssssh.
probably an accident. I don’t remember the noise it made when it fell, when it
shattered, though I know how it sounded because I hear it in the silence when I
can’t sleep. The frowny mouth open in its "oh no" shock and the cup falls,
bounces, and then kkkksssssh.
The only cup I had, the only vessel, coffee and tea and juice oh my love.
Damaged and irreplaceable. I set the pieces out and numbered,
accounted. Step one, step two, and glue and glue. Pieces of the handle never to
be seen again but I glued what I could and held it together. The glue dried. It
held water. I wrap my hands around it now and it feels like more of a gift for
having nearly lost it, hold it tight, precious.
Damaged and irreplaceable. I set the pieces out and numbered,
accounted. Step one, step two, and glue and glue. Pieces of the handle never to
be seen again but I glued what I could and held it together. The glue dried. It
held water. I wrap my hands around it now and it feels like more of a gift for
having nearly lost it, hold it tight, precious.
You who want to talk about how it broke and when; you who want to talk
about why I used the glue I did; you who wonder why I didn’t throw it out; you
who think I could learn pottery and make a new cup; you who, yoo-hoo. You call me
and I can hear you but I am disinclined to listen, with my hands around my cup,
its lacework of cracks are a map of my history now, and the steam rises from the
tea in a beautiful cloud through which I imagine I can see the future.
about why I used the glue I did; you who wonder why I didn’t throw it out; you
who think I could learn pottery and make a new cup; you who, yoo-hoo. You call me
and I can hear you but I am disinclined to listen, with my hands around my cup,
its lacework of cracks are a map of my history now, and the steam rises from the
tea in a beautiful cloud through which I imagine I can see the future.
one problem
One problem with thinking about doing something is that even if later
you decide that you’re not going to do it, even if later you decide it
would be a bad thing or even a Very Bad thing, even if you’re totally
convinced that you ought not do that thing, the problem is: you already
thought about it. You put it on the table at some point and there it is
on the table forever and always and even if some part of your brain
knows it’s total poison that part of your brain has to constantly be
informing your hands that just because it’s on the table doesn’t make
it potato chips and you cannot either eat just one so just don’t even
start. Don’t even. But you put it on the table once. But it’s still a
really bad idea. No, really it is.
mostly true
I was nice to him because he was with you, liked him because you liked him. When you broke up I lost you both.
***
While you were feeding quarters to the jukebox so you could dance with
her like you used to, she asked if she could sleep at my place, just
for a week or so.
***
Watching him wave and make monkey faces as the train pulled away, and
then listening for two hours about how handsome he was, how much you
loved him. Eating a sandwich and listening, listening, listening.
***
When you went to get the drinks, he said I was a witch for what I did to him. He said when he touched your hair he pretended it was mine.
***
I was talking about how much I hate your wife, the things you say she does to you. When I looked up your daughter was sitting across from me.
***
When you left the room. The things I heard. The things I learned. I am tired of being another woman.
school in nature and books
Pretty much every year the elementary grades spend one week of school
out "in the nature"– it’s camp, basically. Squire’s first grade
teacher didn’t take them because she was afraid they’d all drown in the
lake or get eaten by bears (that one did wonder for the fears of a
number of students, I am sure, since she saw no situation without
seeing a positively Gothic ending). But anyway, Squire’s enjoyed the
camps he’s been to: he comes home with a dozen adventure stories, rich
with the smell of campfires and unwashed boy.
He decided he didn’t want to go this year because they’re combining
the two fifth grades and he doesn’t like the other fifth graders and he
particularly dislikes their teacher. He decided so firmly that he
didn’t even bring the forms home, so the first I heard of it was at the
parent/teacher meeting when everybody was talking like they knew all
about it. Awhoops: CAUGHT.
So anyway. The last week has been kind of a battle of him trying to
put his foot down and me insisting that he doesn’t have a leg to stand
on. It is school. If he doesn’t go there, I still have to send him to
school every day to be babysat by the fourth grade teacher, and he
still has to do the work. So. I’ve told him if he has a compelling
reason, a logical articulated reason, then I will consider his REQUEST
to not go, but he cannot REFUSE to go on the basis of "don’t feel like
it". We’ve gone rounds.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not unsympathetic to disliking people. I
myself dislike wide swaths of humanity. It’s just, I ground my dislike
in actions and outcomes. I dislike people who drive through crosswalks
without checking for pedestrians because they hit me. I dislike people
who are sloppy because other people have to clean up after them. I
dislike teachers who talk about everything in terms of fear and danger
because they frighten children into paralysis. So if he can say he
dislikes this other teacher because of some action that has affected
him in some way, I am behind him. But I suspect that the reason he
doesn’t like her is because she is the teacher of the rival class,
which is the elementary school equivalent of being the coach of the
opposing team: they make good lightning rods.
Since the classes will be combined next year, the sooner the two
groups of students get over this rivalry and start learning to exist in
each other’s spheres (and respect each other’s teachers) the better. I
wish I knew more sports cause I bet there’s a handy metaphor in their
lexicon somewhere. Here: Imagine an apt sports metaphor for me, and
I’ll meet you in the next paragraph.
Anyway, so today he came home and said he’d decided to go because
however bad the other kids would be, it wouldn’t be as tedious as my
constant harping on logic and reason, and the kids from his class would
probably be enough fun to balance it out, and resisting it was taking
the opportunity for fun out of it. He is smart, no?
So.
In other news, we’re reading "To Kill a Mockingbird"
which is just a great book to begin with and is enhanced now because
I’m really enjoying Squire’s interpretations of it as we go.
Understand: this is a child who has not lived in the States, so on the
one hand he’s reading it as a foreigner would: it describes a past
world that is not the world he knows or even an ancestor of a daily
world he knows. On the other hand, he goes to school with a bunch of
Roma kids, so he does understand what racism looks like (and xenophobia
too of course) and the amount of sense it makes and what it’s like to
batter your head against it. And then plus there’s sentences that are
so simple and delightful, and the secondary characters (especially
Calpurnia and Miss Maudie, who I would like to have run my house and
garden respectively)– they’re like snapshots of a person you know or
you’d like to know better, and it’s a pleasure to read a book like
this, that makes my head hum.
listening to Regina Spector
hey remember that time when I left flowers on his doorstep
hey remember that time when I skipped over every crack
hey remember that time when I only slept 3 hours a day
hey remember that time when
No,
nobody remembers that time, so I can reframe it any way I want. It’s
not like "no witnesses" was my policy; more like my default position. I
mean, here’s the thing: if you start re-inventing yourself at age 12
and manage to do it consistently every 5 years or so, by the time
you’re 40 it’s like nothing matters anymore because nobody remembers
anything. It’s like reverse vampires: you grow old and everybody else
is young and you have more and more memories and more wrinkles to match
and everybody around you is young and idealistic and you feel like you
except nobody knows the stories. Remember how you linked arms and sang
Gilligan’s Island to drown out stupidity. Hey remember that time when
they almost got off the island. Nobody remembers that anymore. Nobody
remembers that you once wrote letters, nobody remembers what postage
stamps look like, nobody remembers how you put your scent on the paper,
as a clue.
And nobody remembers who you were except every few years one of
them writes to apologize for not treating you better when they were
only treating you how you deserved, oh misery are you so sad tonight.
Nobody remembers but they remember bad, by which I don’t mean badly;
remember how it felt when you thought things mattered, oh those were
the days. My friend.
Remember when you liked people without wondering if you’d miss them when they died. Remember when you met people for a minute. Remember when
watching shit unfold was mysterious, when you couldn’t see where the
story was going before it started. Remember when you thought it would
go on forever.
No, but see, what I said was…
So I decided to start writing to businesses that annoy and please me, instead of just being annoyed and pleased all on my own. I was unaware that instead of resolving the issue, it would ratchet up the level of annoyance.
Dear ProFlowers customer service,
I appreciate updates about specials and seasonal offers and I would prefer not to cancel the e-mail update option. However, I object to the use of my first name in these promotions. You aren’t talking to me, but to a mass mailing list, and in no case are we friendly enough that you should use my first name; similarly, I don’t like the automatic first-name referral to the person for whom I’ve purchased flowers. It isn’t impressive that you have the technology to plug in the names of users that have accessed your services before: it’s distressing that you think that inserting a name makes a more effective pitch when you can’t be bothered to address the target with respect. It doesn’t seem like it would be that much more difficult to use first and last names for both the purchaser and the recipient.
I appreciate the ability to order via the internet and I appreciate the quality of your product. I do wish I didn’t wince at the e-mails; it creates an unpleasant association in my mind for what is otherwise a reliable service and a fine product.
–Anne Tuckova
Dear Anne,
Thank you for contacting ProFlowers. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience our mailings have caused you.
Thank you for your suggestion. I will forward this immediately to the
appropriate department for further review. We appreciate your feedback
as it helps us to provide better service and more options for our
customers.
Again, we are sorry for this inconvenience.
tuckova 