Month: October 2015

Cow

I have a lot of work to do today but I feel impossibly tired, like I’ve been standing all night in a crowded stall. It’s 6:00 am and my brain is absent; my body moves in single file toward the day, following the slow herd of morning routine.

Determined to wake more fully, I head out for a walk and bring along my garden sheers; I’ll carry back a handful of something wild and green for my soul to chew on while I work. But instead of walking, I plod and stand and dumbly stare, and manage to make it only as far as a roadside patch at the end of the driveway. And now here I sit, slumped at my desk staring at a blank page and a dusty tangle of half-asters. I’m only part way to industry, and nowhere near inspiration.

My head hangs lower.

You know how you take a drive and see a hillside of cows and suddenly feel connected? You feel so lifted-up that you find yourself squealing and pointing and screaming COW! as if you are whale watching in a pasture? Well the last thing you want to think about just then is how all of their relatives are shuffling and chuting their way toward the end of the world in some slaughterhouse 3 exits down.

It’s hard to hold two opposing thoughts, and today I couldn’t do it. I woke both branded and free, both cattle and cow, and ended so exhausted by the struggle that I got nowhere, just stood stock still; squeezed between art and commerce like Temple Grandin in her hug box.

Oh low is me, I know. But there is only one way to wake, and it’s not in single file. We were made to thunder across plains. We were made to wake up, and be free.

Hungry

I dreamt all night of pancakes. In my dreams, my Dad rose from the dead to build his daughter endless golden towers. All night long he made pancakes, I ate them, and Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth wore tiny “black lives matter!” t-shirts.

He died 30 years ago, so I’m not sure why he dropped by after all this time to make me fat and sick with grief. I’m sure he meant well, but he stirred the batter of my discontent, flipped my mood, and stacked the day against me. Maybe he haunts me because it’s October, or maybe he knows I’m done with greek yogurt.

Either way, I shuffled out of bed this morning into an empty kitchen. I made myself coffee with tears on my face. I sat at a counter still sticky with I-had-a-dream, still wet with mourning breath.

After all these years, and all this time, some things never change; like being hungry for a dream to come true.

Addict

I smoked my first cigarette to fill the tiniest gap; a fragile moment where I couldn’t find a witty thing to say, where eye contact had been accidental and uncomfortable, where there was no distraction from the empty space between me and this strange man. My first cigarette was a cover story for my time away, but he didn’t even notice I was gone. And so I groped for a cigarette and he for a match, and we burned a bridge across our empty hearts.

It’s been a year since I quit smoking, 4 months since I gave up cake, 3 months since I was forced to break it off with Jon Stewart. And still sometimes my own breath feels too insubstantial; I inhale an emptiness, I grope for what used to be, I channel surf my way through time. I yearn for something solid to fasten myself to. And it’s not a goddamned carrot.

I don’t think it’s always the monumental losses that lead to addiction. One giant broken moment you can point to and say “ah HA! That’s why he’s a heroin addict, a smoker, an alcoholic. That’s why she sleeps with Little Debbie.” I think sometimes addiction sneaks into the second between things; between Jon and Trevor, you and a stranger, you and your own sadness.

Love is created in relationship. And so is grief. And in the heartbeat between the two, treacherous and glorious things can happen. Like bridges that last. Or bridges that burn.

Lost

In the light of the Target bathroom I am startled and gray and really old, as if all proof of life was lost in aisle 6. Somehow I pushed a cart right past my purpose, and in this fluorescence I am undone and un-intentional. In this god-awful mirror I can clearly see that I left myself behind this morning, perhaps sleeping in a patch of sun at the foot of the bed.

I need to leave and start the day over. I need to go where I will recognize myself.

I need to find an October field, a garden, an island. I look my best in bonfire light, (though the occasional firefly is also flattering). I need the black of the darkest night so my teeth will shine like stars. I need a sea-salty wind so my hair can remember its wave. I need a beach and a blizzard for my skin to glow; a bouquet of peonies to make me blush; a heat wave to pink me up.

I come to life where I learned it best. I am shaped by the earth of my 56 years; my legs first danced in the African dust, my hips first curved around a California coast, and my voice still carries a little banjo from the Shenandoah Valley. I first knew silence in the tall Maine pines; I first prayed there, too. I learned to mourn at the base of a tree, to love in a field of lupine, to persevere in a blueberry patch.

Yes, I know I learned to drive in the glare of a 6-lane highway, to spin in the halls of DC, to profit in corporate boardrooms. I know how to bend myself until I break; I sold my first lie in a fourth grade classroom and slipped my first broken law into the pocket of a Woolworth coat.

But I am made of the world and belong best within it; out in the wild without aisle or cart. So put me on a boat, send me out to sea, set me adrift if that’s what it takes. Whenever I am lost, whenever I am old and gray, put me out to pasture so I will know myself again.

 

Faith

Through my living room window, a tree stands spectacular. It’s luminous, like some yellow light shines from within. Even on this charcoal smudge of a morning it radiates gold, as if it spent the entire summer drinking sun and staggered to this day.

I worry about the coming rain; the treetop sways and nods; the leaves may fall and leave a bare-branched view. And when my company arrives next week my living room will seem bleak. Without distraction, they may notice the stain on the white couch. Without leaf, I may have to justify why I live in New Hampshire. I worry there will be nothing for them to see but a litter of leaves, passed out in gutters.

I strain to see the sky, to count the number of leaves left, to know what’s coming, but I can’t see a thing but what I’ve seen before. I know for a fact the leaves will fall. It’s bound to be winter. I might as well drape a strategic throw over the couch right now. I might as well call ahead and apologize for miscalculating the autumn peak. I might as well check movie times, vacuum, find a job at Starbucks.

Oh, this fragile moment. Just me, hanging from a glowing tree staring at a blank page. Doubt tugs like rising wind. It rustles and scrapes, and threatens to pull me away. I could fall at any moment; topple over like a pile of bills, like I have before.

What do I trust? Where is my faith? It lives in this fragile moment right here. From this silent place, I return to that sun-drunk tree outside my window. I see it sway and sigh and I will wait right where I am, so the light knows where to find me.

Poverty

Yesterday I was asked what poverty looked like to me. It’s a great question, made greater by being asked at all, because there is relativity in the word. I know there is an official number that marks the line between “middle class” and “poor”, but as they are crumbling into one another faster than you can say “Dollar Store”, I can say with certainty that the face of poverty is changing, and may not look like what you think.

For me, the face of poverty is fear. It holds it’s breath at the grocery store checkout, in that endless moment after the card is swiped and before the word “approved” appears.

It wakes you in the middle of the night with thoughts of preventable colon cancer; it flinches when the phone rings, when the car doesn’t start right away, when you feel a cold coming on, when April comes.

The face of poverty mocks you with prescriptions you can’t get filled, the concert you can’t go to, the happy facebook post. It laughs at your annual haircut, your un-pedicured toes, the choices you’ve made along the way.

The face of poverty is pain. It throbs in the broken tooth; it aches to buy your son a gift; it cries for those who have so much less.

Maybe the face of poverty looks different to everyone. But please, let it not look like shame. It does not have to hide in the shadows, nor does it need to be defined in the same way by everyone. Poverty does not only belong to third world countries, or marginalized populations, or the homeless and the starving. It belongs to us. It’s in the face of the single mother, the artist, the aging; it is alive and well on the seacoast; it is everywhere.

When you see the face of poverty, may you look it in the eye with compassion and leave shame to some poor urchin in a Dickens novel. When you become the face of poverty, I hope it softens you enough to ask the question of others; what does poverty look like to you?

Indian Summer

I stand here between summer and sweater, unsure. I stand in bare feet while the wild geese fly, on empty beaches, on green lawns, in warm sun. I’m caught empty handed, without bug spray or boot, in this uncertain space between done and next. I see zinnias fade and woodpiles grow, and a bay without boat, and a day without name.

I hear both gull and goose; each calls their invitation. The gull cries “Come Back!” and I yearn to circle ‘round and sleep on a sunbaked rock, but time has told me I could get stuck in a June day waiting, while seasons pass and I grow older in place, having gone nowhere; just staring at a sky winged with wishes.

The goose calls, “Let’s go!” and I feel an anxious urge to join the great productive V toward a shared destination. What relief to hurl myself away from this unsure in-between; to migrate toward a certain purpose; to drift on the wing of another; to be carried away by the ancient instinct to belong.

I stand with nowhere to go but toward becoming. I was carried here by June days and dropped from the beak of a bird to arrive at the threshold of my own creation: in bare feet while the wild geese fly.

Death Defying

According to my age-defying eye cream, the 5 signs of aging are:

1) Puffiness

2) Crepiness

3) Under eye bags

4) Dark circles and

5) Crows feet

I don’t know if crepiness is even a word, but we must defy it. Anyway, those are just the signs of aging eyes. Faces have more signs than eyes, because my anti-aging FACE cream targets:

1) Fine lines and wrinkles

2) Uneven skin tone

3) Dullness

4) Visible pores

5) Age spots

6) Lack of firmness and

7) Dryness

If you add up all the signs, I’m pretty sure that’s a dozen lords a leapin’ away from your face, no matter how you look at it. Yet surely one of the signs of aging is not giving a damn about the signs of aging? Can we just stop with all the defying?  And what’s with that word, anyway? Defy this, señorita Olay: we are aging.

I do admit you lured me in, but I had recently suffered a brutal shock. I bought the age-defying duo the day after I had my eye exam and had to up my readers another notch. So I was in the kind of death defying spin that happens when you finally see yourself clearly, and ended up driving wildly to the nearest drugstore. It took a long time to choose how I would regain my youth because there were hundreds of anti-aging beauty products available. In the end, I chose the age defying cream over the night repair cream because I hated the idea of going to bed every night reminded that I had a broken face.

But hey, we all have our moments of weakness and other than those little gems, there’s only 1 bottle of shampoo and a bag of Epsom salts in my bathroom, and you have no idea what a relief that is.

Before my daughter left for college, stepping into the shower was like being blind in a Rite Aid. Every morning was a blurry fumble of lotions and potions that smelled like fruit salad, or ginger-honey, or lotus sun. I can’t count the number of times I groped for shampoo and ended up washing my hair with tea-blossom conditioner or coconut-bean body wash. There were sugar scrubs and salt scrubs, tiny soaps and round soaps, goat soaps, and lavender soaps, and god knows why, one giant slab of square hipster soap that, I kid you not, had seeds in it. I guess you never know when a goldfinch might need a shower.

I think I’m done with excessive beauty products. Or at least, I think I’m done defying. I’ll trade you 7 signs of aging for 1 bar of soap, and as for aging eyes? Someone really ought to invent shampoo & conditioner bottles with bigger fonts. All that squinting in the morning gives me the crepes.

match

Let me tell you about match.com. I joined because – well, I’m trying to figure that out, but in general I know I’m not going find what I’m looking for in the kitchen. Today’s matches include:

  • A slack-jawed man in a suspiciously stained t-shirt standing in front of his mother’s hutch.
  • A man with 18 pictures of himself, each one sporting a different variety of fish.
  • A man in a cubicle-suit that looks like he may have the flu.
  • A man with a 4-wheeler and a dead deer.
  • And … Oh wait! Here’s a cutie! Umm…. never mind, that’s my ex.

I have nothing against fish or your mother’s hutch. Who doesn’t like seafood and a good set of china? For me it’s all about the words anyway, so I move on to find a vast majority of profiles read like this:

“I’m a fit, active male who likes to workout and stay fit. I’m looking for a fit, slim lady who takes pride in her appearance but will not be afraid to get her hands dirty. NO DRAMA!”

(Really? I’ll give you drama. What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you more concerned about fitness than soul-ness? And don’t call me lady. I’m in a shit mood and for godsake I take total pride in my appearance even when I’m in sweats and a jam-stained t-shirt…. Wait, maybe I should revisit that first match photo…)

The reality is, online dating is a brutal process. It’s brutal to be so summarily judged. Did you know that the app shows you how many views you’ve had (1,532), and then how many people actually reached out? (7). And my profile is so well written!

But you know what’s more brutal than being rejected 1,525 times? Being forced to judge others based on a lonely selfie and poor writing skills. I can’t tell you how mean-spirited I feel after going through these profiles. How at the ready my brain is with a snide comment and a red pen. There is nothing funnier in the world than making fun of other people, and I get that. I’m a huge Louis C.K. fan. But it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? It becomes a sort of litmus test for what our own inflated egos judge to be an acceptable vs. unacceptable human being. So while I’m not finding match to be a great help in finding me a date, it’s been a terrific way to remind me of my own prejudices and small-minded notions. And I should know better.

A couple years of ago I walked into day 1 of a remarkable 5-week workshop. The room was full of powerful women with tumbled, arty hair. Yet because I was late I had to take the only empty seat, which happened to be next to a mousy woman with a perm, pleated khakis, and a sweater with pumpkins embroidered all over it. I instantly assumed she was a born again Christian with a hutch. Long story short? At the end of that 5-week session, we all agreed that one of the most brilliant minds and beautiful souls in our crowd was the pumpkin-sweater lady. Even more surprising? She WAS a born again Christian with a hutch.

I’m not going deer hunting anytime soon, and that’s okay. But light a match.com to this judging little monster inside me, will you? She still doesn’t know what she’s looking for.

 

Sneaky

When my son Owen was 4, we asked what he wanted to be for Halloween and he said “The Basement Door”. I think it was the scariest thing he could think of, and I rather agree with him. I become unhinged when confronted with the unknown. For instance I’ve always had a fear of scurrying, scuttling, unpredictable things. Mice, pigeons, unannounced guests.

This year, October was my unannounced guest. It crept up behind me and scared me right out of my flip-flops. As always it arrives in innocent costume, all blustery and bloated with sugar. But I’ve been trying to get in touch with my inner kale, so I’m not prepared for the terrifying onslaught of apple fritters, apple pie and apple crisp. And yesterday as I scurried past the fun sized Snickers display, I saw Christmas out of the corner of my eye and all hope was lost. I’m REALLY not prepared for figgy pudding.

October haunts me with the ghosts of things to come. It’s the spooky start to “lose all control” season that begins with one playful Kit Kat and ends one January day with a champagne flute full of regret and a wallet full of receipts. October is sneaky. The leaves drop silently and land without warning. The heat ticks on. A black cat may or may not cross your path. It starts with a pinecone, then a pumpkin, and soon the shelves fill with cranberry sauce and enough stuffing to sink the Mayflower, and the next thing you know you are dragging home bags of unnecessary plastic objects and gender-neutral toys to the frantic sound of sleigh bells.

I think I might have pre-traumatic stress syndrome. A fear of things about to happen, of what may happen, of what used to happen, but doesn’t have to anymore. Just because there’s one fritter, doesn’t mean there has to be more, right? I can imagine all kinds of frightful scenarios about what I can’t yet see, or I can relax and smell the cider. Because sometimes, Owen, a door is just a door.