Jeneane Sessum writes about Loss, Love, and Life, not necessarily in that order.
There's this little multi-instrumental ditty, from back in the day, called Melodious Funk, which played on my heartstrings when I heard it in 1985. An oldie but a goodie. Recording quality ain't great. Remember, I said back in the day. If you've ever heard him play, you'll be able to decipher it and see those fingers in action. Steve this one goes out to you. (It's all George on basses and drums/percussion).
George graced one cut on the latest Cabo Frio album (uh, that's CD, Jeneane) with a little bass. He would want me to state, for the record, I know, that he didn't write the tune; he just played on it a little bitz. Sample here. Jenna makes a cameo, we think, with her maniacal laugh toward the end of the cut. It was there last time we heard. But since b'ness relations broke off among the guys (again) before the CD found its final resting label, we're only assuming her cackle made it on. Fucking drummers, man.
And if you think they don't know, these children of the wind and rain, consider what she said to me as the thunder hit:
"Ugh oh mommy. I think I made it storm."
"What makes you think you made it storm, baby?"
"I think my screams make the storms come."
I should have known. There was a storm coming.
Always, afterward, I say, "No wonder."
The no wonder is that Miss Jenna goes completely and utterly manic for what at first glance is little-to-no reason, and then the storm comes. My little weather girl, our personal barometric pressure sensor, a chip off her daddy's block. Both of them climb and slide into another place just before a storm--brewing and stewing and growling, or reeling and squeeling--all before anyone except maybe Channel 2 has a notion that bad weather's on its way.
As soon as the storm hits outside our windows, the storm in them subsides. Sleep often follows, or peaceful play, which was the case today, when just after reaching the zenith of mad-kid antics, she was sitting quietly in her chair, imagining and pretending, with Barbie teaching Little Kellys how to write their names in her notebook. The yawning was unmistakable. It's always the storm before the calm here.
We made it out. After all that. Once the thunder passed.
Headed off to Big Lots, where I hauled home a week's worth of "the stuff no one carries anymore," frozen dinners, her favorite fruit loops, some Gino's Pizza Rolls, and various non sequiturs, which is what Big Lots is all about.
That and a trip through the dreaded McDonald's drive through for a number 9 and a kid's happy meal made the near-meaningless day complete. Got a glimpse of some road rage on the way home--a pickup truck full of hicks going at it with a car full of punks, flipping eachother off and racing down the road ahead of me. Somehow, it felt good. I wanted to follow them, but supressed the urge. Parked the minivan I hate in the comtemporary attached cedar-sided garage, hit the garage door opener to seal us in, threw some frozen stuff in the freezer that lives in our garage, and dragged the rest of it upstairs.
She's dancing now, in the cool new dress-up shoes courtesy of Big Lots, a deal at $4.99. They're all sparkley and plastic, three pairs in their own little cardboard dresser, fancy and loud, bows and flowers. She's off to her room to check herself out in the mirror her grandma bought for her. She walks with airs, clunkiness aside, eyes saying: Ain't I Something?
The hard, hollow, plastic soles clack against the wood floor just now, and I wonder if my head could feel any worse.
I'm pretty sure it can't.
that you just don't feel like leaving the house today. Can today be a rest day, sweetie? NO MAMA! I wanna do something. Weary, bleary, trying to keep up -- have you seen the pile of bills on my piano? Air conditioner almost toast, our electric bills have soared to $400 a month. Did I pay it? Who knows? Never mind the credit cards. I'm finding that if I wait long enough, they call me on the phone and take a check-by-phone. You can pay for two or three months at once that way--the current month and the two months previous bills, which are, as I said, sitting on the piano. This, I understand, does nothing for the old credit report. Don't much need one when you don't much leave the house. There's a bonus.
It's not that I don't want to go anyplace today. I spent all morning and lots of last night working on a really boring speech for a really important guy at a really big company. All the while, not caring. Get ready, get set, get numb. That kind of thing takes a lot out of me. Spoiled brat that I am. Thankful to have a job. Oh yes, I know, in this down economy. Mantra mantra, who's got my mantra?
So, what's wrong with not feeling like going outside? Nothing, I guess. Except I have a four year old tugging on my shorts--Mama, let's go to Big Lots. Please? No food in the fridge, I'd better decide to do something today. If someone I trusted would sit on the couch and play with her for five hours, I'd pay $100. Seriously. Just to be able to sleep. Not to go anywhere. Just upstairs, to bed. Send her up to kiss me on the cheek once in a while. Listen to her play cheerfully just outside my dreams. Charge my batteries.
Yes, well, no. Not happening. So I need to get in the frame of mind that says, Yahoo--let's head out into the 95-degree afternoon, open up the mess that is my car, hoist her into her booster seat, wish that the car had been in the garage so it wasn't 130 degrees, realizing, I can't park in the garage--all the stuff I was going to sell in the garage sale that hasn't happened yet is taking up one side.
My mother said to me last month, when my daughter's teacher talked to me about getting her to school late, "You'd better get yourself together. I think you're like a delinquent adult. You're rebelling or something."
Yes, or something.
soft wind blowing
my mind
fierce storm coming
from the east
settle in
find me
waiting
picture where
we were
or some other place
who am I
without you?
get off of me,
get out of me,
unstick yourself
fuck yourself
keep yourself
over there.
stop haunting
stop taunting
turn your eyes
the other way
take yourself
out of here.
Build me
break me
please don't
hate me.
And when
you're done,
Stay?
Pulled up in the driveway with some top-40 station playing this song--I don't claim to know Pink. Seen her. Don't have any of her CDs. In fact, don't know her from a bag of assholes. But I know I dug the lyrics to this song by Pink and Dallas Austin. Maybe I'm more connected to the Atlanta sound than I think. Oh, and (Halley, sorry 'bout the Brittney dissing. ;-)
Don't Let Me Get Me
-Pink & Dallas Austin
Never win first place,
I don't support the team
I can't take direction,
and my socks are never clean
Teachers dated me,
my parents hated me
I was always in a fight
cuz I can't do nothin' right
Everyday I fight a war against the mirror
I can't take the person starin' back at me
I'm a hazard to myself
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
Its bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't wanna be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else
I wanna be somebody else, yeah
LA told me, "You'll be a pop star,
All you have to change
is everything you are."
Tired of being compared
to damn Britney Spears
She's so pretty,
that just ain't me
Doctor, doctor won't you please prescribe me
somethin'
A day in the life of someone else?
Cuz I'm a hazard to myself
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
Its bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't wanna be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else.
mp3 sample
Tom "Insiteview" Shugart, who has credited me with single-handedly bringing him to blogging, just spoke to Frank "Interview" Paynter, who credits RageBoy and me with his blogging birth. My boys talked for the first time Friday via the telephone, the increasingly popular back-circuit-to-blogging, and have plans in the works to hook up in December in person.
It does a mother's heart good.
Right now, this very minute, I wish I were in Jamaica, 2 a.m. Nights there on the beach at runaway bay, the heat lifting just enough, and all-day swimming with a still-wet suit on, a welcoming cool breeze, open bar, smoking and talking and just listening to the waves crash. The Piano Bar's the only thing left open, and stays open until the last indulgent visitor is done indulging in the last drink of the night. Purple Rain anyone? It goes down smooth.
I never understood Reggae, never got into it before seeing for myself the enthralling beauty, the endless sky against the despair and poverty that is Jamaica. I would say to my husband, "It all sounds so much the same." Him telling me, "Listen closer."
This isn't one of those, "I go to Nashville and now I 'get' country music" things. It's much more primal, internal--has to do with waves, tide, moon.
It's the cadence of the waves; the sea is the context for reggae. Every break of every wave comes at just the right instant in every song, embellishing, making it so much more. I can still hear it; it goes like this, as I invoke Bob Marley (play the song in your head--not just the words):
Get up, stand up
(wave crash)
stand up for your right
(wave crash)
Get up stand up
(wave crash)
Don't give up the fight
(wave crash)
Preacher man don't tell me (wave crash) heaven is under the earth (wave crash)
I know you don't know (wave crash) what life is really worth
(wave crash)
Is not all that glitters in go--(wave crash)--ld and
Half the story has never been to--(wave crash)--ld
So now you see the light, (wave crash) aay
Stand up for your right. (wave crash) Come on.
The sea is missing in the recordings. But once you've been, you play it for yourself, bring yourself to the song, bring the sea with you.
Okay, it's kind of like the John Lennon "the beatles are as popular as Jesus Christ" thing, and, you know, so don't twist it like that, but for these last few posts I've felt like Doc or David, giving a rundown on current events (with a twist of lemon). Those guys are always so consice yet witty; I marvel at what they do. Doc's headlines alone are worth the price of admission. And David's unassuming humor shows through like a shiny golden nugget (or chicken mcnugget--I'm not sure yet). I admire their style every day. And now that I've tried it, lamely, I admire it even more.
And now, I will return to my former sad, lost, wanting blogger self.
Break it up. Nothing to see here. You can all go home now.
No one does it better than Satirewire, ever.
"ONE NATION, (SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE),
INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL."
thank God we live in a Demoncracy.
"demoncracy" -- she freudian slipped over here in the the blog sisters' comments box where the sisters are discussing patriarchy.
fitting? hee hee.
AKMA takes on the Pledge of Allegiance issue and says just what I was thinking over here, in Tom Matrullo's world, but AKMA says it whole lot better and smarter, which is why he runs that University of Blogaria thingy:
"....[S]wearing allegiance to a material representation of a secular institution amounts to idolatry; indeed, it’s hard to think of a clearer example of idolatry, and the ease with which this nationalist idolatry has saturated American Christianity underlines the danger of soft-pedalling the controversy at hand."
gosh, he's good.
Mary Wehmeier is keeping us in the know this week. Of special interest is this post, which features "coffee talk" where Mary chats up a storm on what's going down in the land of communities. She gives an interesting pointer to MeetUp, Scott Heiferman's new project mentioned by Doc.
MeetUp looks pretty cool. The idea is to connect in realtime with people who have shared interests--obviously net-savvy people with whom you might already share some little thing in common--like an obsession with blogging, for instance?--at coffee houses to chat face to face:
"MEETUPs are like book clubs, activist groups, shareholder meetings, user groups, fan clubs, car clubs, support groups, or study groups. Show off your dog, your car, or your handiwork. Maybe play a game or mobilize for a cause."
You do it first and report back on how it works.
Minus the numbers... Well, or something like that. Halley Suitt spills the beans about grown-up men and little boys, about girls maturing into women, and about lots of other interesting stuff in the latest Frank Paynter Interview with Blogging Greats and N'erdowells. I think Halley even made me respect Brittney Spears, a little, which is something only persuasive Halley with her energized take on life could make me do.
Another review of Gonzo Marketing today, this one at Roy Christopher's place:
"Locke evokes Esther Dyson's aphorism 'Always make new mistakes,' inviting corporate marketers and consumers alike to realize that markets aren't clean and tidy; they're messy and ugly - quick and dirty even."
And if you haven't heard Chris Locke's review on Marketplace Morning Report yet, click here to find out what advertising, patriarchy, and enforced gender roles have in common. (hint: institutions use them to fuck up young and old alike.)
You know how it is
when you're lights are low
you're thinking's slow
Got no spark,
no feeling but numb.
It's your imagination, really.
Just press on. What else
can you do?
Too much to fix.
Too much of nothing to do.
just under water
swimming not breathing.
It's really not good that you get
so unhappy. You have so much
to be thankful for:
great kid, great man, great job.
So why am I here alone on the couch,
feeling left, feeling like I'm six
alone in the house, waiting? There's
no energy coming towards me.
Nothing feels very real.
Spending too much time
with myself. But then again,
you have a point, don't you?
Actually, yah, you are right on.
I'm an asshole.
Feeling sorry for myself.
In fact, I should really thank you.
Thank you, thank you, and thanks
to the supreme diety
and the corporate lifesuckers
that are sucking my brain out
slowly with a straw.
No, really, I owe you my life.
I'm so sorry I'm sad.
oh god, i'm so so sorry
what's wrong with me?
I'll slap a smile on right now.
watch me do it.
[shit eating grin.]
Self pity isn't becoming.
And neither is sarcasm.
Not becoming for you maybe.
Feels pretty good to me.
Feels real good to get down in it
and look at the knotted parts
and wonder how they got
so knotted up
and work to untie
those knots, find a few answers
and then start to hurt
and feel what it's like
to chip away at the
red brick wall.
Um, huh?
Oh fuck you.
you don't even know me.
Why do I try to tell you anything?
It's like you've been someplace else
all my life. You want to know
what's wrong with me? Try asking
what's wrong with you,
you manipulative bitch.
You have some issues with anger then?
Is that the place we're coming to?
ISSUES? No, I have no issues
with anger. What I have is a fucking
switch blade in my pocket
calling your name next time
you try fucking with me.
I'm not afraid of you; I hope you understand that.
That's the problem with you.
You can't control your emotions.
You let your feelings control you.
That's why you get so anxious,
so panicy, so down.
You have no idea
how to handle it.
You know what?
You really ought
to schedule
an appointment
with your
shrink.
SHRINK THIS, BITCH!
[Scuffle ensues. Switch blade comes out, razor comes out, the fight is on. Hair pulled out by the root. Kicking, stomping, scratching. Cut! swipe! gouge! bleed!]
Oh, sweet lord, she slit my throat!! Oh.
god, I'm dying. Oh no please.
oh. hhh. e. l. p.
[gasp. silence.]
I'm fucking glad to be rid of her.
For today at least.
It feels so damn good to feel.
George Partington has a wonderful interview with Chris Locke on Gonzo Marketing, where Locke talks about (aha!) human beings on the net. A must read.
Gary BS Turner asks how many of us are offspring of the prolific RageBoy, and how many boggers were begotten during RB's challenge that went something like this: Start a fucking blog and send me the link; I'll blogroll you (gary's got the link to the exact words). I started allied around that time. Read Gary's comments to see who else is brave enough to trace their lineage back to the Ragester.
Is RageBoy your daddy?
Gary proposes a day to honor RB. Maybe we give him the key to Blogaria. That or a new lighter.
Tell the truth, the whole truth
as long as it shames and blames.
Close your eyes, bow your head
take a knife, plunge it deep
into your small tender chest
rip skin and muscle, split bone
stop your racing heart,
because guilt hurts
worse than this.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Wrap your own cold corpse
white lace neatly arranged
over pale blue skin,
you are my prize
for the world to see.
The bloody masacre
before your eyes
is broken children
breaking children.
Mea culpa, mother?
Light flight
sliding gliding,
there's a magic
in all of this.
I can't reach the place
where it makes sense,
in you, of you, from you
a soul wrapped
in so many layers,
who owns
her, me
he, you?
Out of time
cadence
Out of mind
peace
Out of bounds
borders.
Absorb, contain, release
this is where I find you.
Check out Frank Paynter's latest--an interview with Andrea Roceal James, who has me wondering, was I a blithering idiot at 24 or what? This woman has the wisdom of the ages in her pocket. Find out how she got it and what she does with it. Note--Frank's last two interview subjects--Andrea and me--both mention throwing up. Frank--you bring out the best in us!
He showed up on our porch three days ago. Well, not exactly. We don't have a porch really; what we have is a set of steps that go straight straight up to the front door. See if this gives you the picture. If you walk out the front door, there's three steps, then a landing, then five steps, then a landing, then maybe eight steps, then the ground.
I say this not to scare off the vertigo challenged, but to tell you that it isn't such an easy feat to "show up" on our porch. But he does it. Every time. I've started to go out looking for him, trying to decipher his origin. I scan the other yards, our front yard, our side yard, peer down under our steps from up high. And sometime during my obsessive scanning, he appears, always about half way up, bounding the rest of the way to say, "Hey, Beautiful."
He's a tom cat that doesn't belong here. He's not from these parts. I've asked my neighbors, and I know the neighborhood cats--five of them live next door, two across the street, one halfway up the block, and so on. No, this is not one of our street cats.
He is maleness personified, perfect head and golden eyes, thick neck, big paws and strong claws, grey and big with a tail striped like a snake. And he knows he is "it," swaggers around the top landing, wagging that snake tail up in the air, ssssssssssssssssssssssss!
I've started to call him ashes. Partly because the ashes from my cigarette dapple him as he squirms around my calves. Partly because he is the color of ash.
Don't want a cat, don't need a cat, especially one who likes to bite my calves, this drifter turned possessive and jealous:
"Get back up on the step, woman!"
But there's something comforting about him for me, nearing my third month with my man gone to China. Ashes is fierce. The cats who used to eat my aloe plants and sneak in my garage to piss don't cross Ashes' boundaries. And when they do, they pay the price. Even our two dogs, on duty in the back yard, seem to have relaxed since he came around. They're off high alert. They're not barking, no more watching for any crackling branch or falling leaf to signify attack mode. Nope, they're hanging out on the deck, looking pleased as can be that Ashes has come by to pick up the slack.
So, last night I fed him. Now his infatuation with me has turned to obsession. And it's not just the food. He flops down half way up the stairs, crosswise, my feline gargoyle taking up an entire step, not letting me down, or anyone else up, he looks up at me and says:
"This is my place. I make the rules. Don't worry, baby, I'll take good care of you." blink. blink.
As I write this, he's outside, stretched out on the fourth step, on the night shift, making sure we're safe and sound.
Thanks, Ashes.
When we're each in our own skin, this mean even more to me. The time apart together, reaching across the bucket seats to place your hand on my thigh, what was that story you were telling me? Your hand rubs my knee, your eyes on the road, gleeful jabbering coming from the back seat.
Tell me the one again about how Buddy was staring at your cute butt that time, when we came back from our honeymoon early, so you could play that gig; tell me the one about Bridget, was that her name? your trouble-making loyal great dane who chased down one too many of the farmer's chickens; tell me again about the time your well-meaning rock found the prize rooster's head, after he clawed your shins for the last time, how you were bereft, laid his lifeless chicken corpse at the side of the road, because he had that reputation for truck chasing, and your mother would never know.
Love me pregnant, cherish me for growing your baby. Sit by my hospital bedside as I bleed, near death, hanging on, hold my hand, look into my eyes, tell me you love me, sleep there on that hard chair day and night, don't leave me. Make them bring me back; you don't give them a choice; you don't give me a choice, and that's why I'm still here. That is the you who loves me, the you I love so much.
It isn't just the sea, our bed, my warm body wrapping around you that makes us last; it's the in between, how we dance around the edges, the time after going, before coming, when you say I understand, you know how my mind tortures me, your smile eases sadness away like a sigh, touch, squeeze, and I remind and remember you in the quiet of your pain.
This is how we make love.
If you suffered through some early trauma--say your father's death when you were a kid--and at that moment they tell you he's dead you feel it alter who you are, who you will become, and at that moment it settles within you like some heavy suitcase you are assigned to carry around your whole life, well if you've ever felt something like that, then you know what I mean.
You know what I mean when I say it's there, it's always been there, will always be there. Sometimes you can put it down, like for a few minutes at a time--when you're riding your horse, when you fall in love, say "I Do." When the doctor's pulling your baby out of the hole in your abdomen, when you're making love. I can put it down then. I feel it slip off of me. I feel so light. Which makes picking it up again all that much more overwhelming. And when I don't feel the exhaustion, then I feel the anger. Why do I have to lug this stinking thing around everywhere I go, and look at her, she's not carrying one like mine. What'd I do, what am I being punished for? Why am I different?
But the real kicker is that sometimes the loss you have always believed was the biggest loss in your life, that heavy samsonite hardshell you take with you everywhere you go, wasn't the biggest after all. And sometimes you get flashes and glimpses that maybe the things that were there in your life--the things that you counted on--the things that should have helped you with that suitcase when you were just six, and then 12, and then 16, 18, 22, 38, well, they didn't. Maybe they even gave you theirs to carry too.
And then you start thinking, what is the source of my sadness? My anguish-turned-terror sometimes. Is its source that person you had for six years and didn't have for 34 years? That has been my journey--the journey of mourning "without." And maybe you ask yourself, is this kind of a heavy trip to lay on your Dad, and on yourself? Or is it, maybe a convenient one? Can't do anything about that one but deal with it. Can't bring him back. Can't change that six-year-old child's reaction. Job done. Pick up the samsonite and move on. Find a skycap if you're lucky. Get some good poetry out of it.
But, what about the other 34 years? Um. What happened? Who were the players? What were their roles? What was my role?
What the fuck, what the fucking fuck?
And now what?
My husband ate Hong Kong pigeon. Do I let him come home? Homecoming potentially July 2nd by the way. More on that to follow.
The Greenpeace folks have a weblog where Gillo, Trina, Brainfit and others talk about stuff stuff stuff. Like this from Trina:
"Check all headers and sub-heads for consistency. Finish off the About Us section. Check captions and add the final corrections to the press centre, god is that it? Hang on...check over the old archived sites for relative links, skim the news stories, ask Dan to show me how to fix the home page...there must be more but I am sure it will come to me on the way to the office. Oh yeah, buy champagne to pop when we press that magic online button. I wonder ... is there a bottle shop open on Sunday around here? Right go to bed, get some sleep."
Not as risky for them as it is for more conservative mainstream organizations, but cool nonetheless. They are apparently launching something big on Monday. Hints and whisps from the bloggers there. Well, why not--I'm going to check them out tomorrow. Thanks to Rebecca Blood for pointing us there.
David Weinberger is using his head and his hand today. In a mistaken beeping incident, which obviously left David guilt ridden way longer than it should have, he thinks up a new way to say, "um, sorry. my bad." Now known as the Unfuck sign, or by similar imaginative names thanks to Halley, David encourages us to use it accurately and often.
Joseph Duemer has been drawn into what I've come to understand, from my own experience, as pointless (and actually damaging) discussions with one senior member of the war blogging tribe. I give Joseph credit for keeping the conversation going with Mike--as AKMA has also managed to do. You are better men than me. Oh, wait, I'm a woman!
We won't touch it
can never touch it
so we leave it
sitting unsaid
on the soft pine table top
neatly packaged
arranged just so,
haunting in its beauty,
because unwrapping it
would unfurl misery
like the funeral dress
of a ghost child.
-me
Little Exercise at 4 in the Morning
(For Thomas Edwards Wanning)
-by Elizabeth Bishop
Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily
like a dog looking for a place to sleep in,
listen to it growling.
Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys
lying out there unresponsive to the lightning
in dark, coarse-fibred families,
where occasionally a heron may undo his head,
shake up his feathers, make an uncertain comment
when the surrounding water shines.
Think of the boulevard and the little palm trees
all stuck in rows, suddenly revealed
as fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons.
It is raining there. The boulevard
and its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack,
are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened.
Now the storm goes away again in a series
of small, badly lit battle-scenes,
each in "Another part of the field."
Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a row-boat
tied to a mangrove root or the pile of a bridge;
think of him as uninjured, barely disturbed. 
MORE
First four stanzas of Manuelzinho in her own voice
From this amazing page.
I'm not sure which. But the evidence is here. I think I speak for all of us--well maybe some of us--when I say, thank you for the advice, as always.
Anyone reading this blog already knows my vision for the perfect world for bloggers, even though, okay, I know it probably can't happen, not yet anyway, but Riley Dog pointed me to Apartment the Earth where it appears move in day has arrived! Nice, nice, nice. Shall we say my digital camera is charging up? Here's this from the "about" page:
"What is Apartment the earth? If it were not for the borders in this world, we could live close together and talk to each other very easily like neighbors of apartments. This is my ideal world. And we can realize this ideal world with the internet because there isn't any borders in there. We can live together here. In this apartment we are citizens of the wrold, we are residents of "apartment the earth."
Beautiful. Happening. Cool.
Halley and Elaine
Met in Maine
Out on the beach
No sign of rain
Walking in the sun
Playing in the dirt
Hey Ms. Crone,
Where'd ya get that shirt?
A friend told me recently that my manners and passions resemble those of Mme Germaine de Stael, of whom this was said:
"Mme de Stael entertained in palatial surroundings the most distinguished personnages in the land. The guests discussed topics of current interest and they were entertained by music, poetry readings and plays. Mme de Stael was quite literally the toast of Europe. She has been described as the first female ambassador, an unofficial title conferred upon her for a legendary role as a hostess and writer."
Apparently she also gave Napolean some good hell. All the more reason to love her--I can't stand those little power-monger types.
And so, I am honored, because I do resemble her, in more ways than a couple.
They're busy tearing down the last big woods near my house. The petition signs gave way to lumber trucks. George, wait until you see it. Apparently an elementary school will be taking the place of the woods. The've blocked off what might be 3-4 city blocks if this were a city, but it's not. It's a town become suburb. And the logging trucks pull out all day long carrying tree rounds, now lumber, to wherever they take them.
The georgia red clay is bright, bare, lonely looking. I wonder what the school will look like. It will probably be my child's school. I wonder why the kids couldn't have just gone to school in those woods. You know? Set up a little building, some camp grounds, something. Made it a nature school. A park. Something to shield the children from the hot Georgia sun. Not now--it's pretty barren.
Every day up here in what used to be off the beaten path, the City of Atlana edges closer, and woods give way to complexes, plazas, and overdone houses. Now a new school. Why does it look so much like a crime scene? I saw a house way back, deep inside what used to be the denseness of the trees today. You couldn't see that house from the road before. It looked to be a very nice house, big, with a little barn next to it. I could tell by the gouges in the sides that they'll be knocking it down too. I don't know. Maybe it's the dark cherry colored glasses I've been wearing lately, but the world doesn't seem quite right.
Remember
Jimi Hendrix
Oh, remember the mocking bird, my baby bun
He used to sing for his supper, baby
Yes he used to sing for his supper, babe
He used to sing so sweet
Since my baby left me he ain't sang for two long days
Oh, remember the blue-birds and the honey bees,
They used to sing for sunshine
They used to sing for the flowers
They used to sing so sweet
But since my baby left me they ain't sang in two long days
Hey pretty baby, come on back to me
Make ev'ry body as happy as can be
So, baby, if you'll please come home again you know I'll
Kiss you for my supper,
You know I'll kiss you for my dinner, yeah!
But, ah, if you don't come back you know I'll have to
Starve to death
'Cus I ain't had one kiss all day now
Please remember
You've got to remember
You've got to remember our love
Come on back, baby, come on back in my arms,
I'll make ev'rything that better
Come on, baby, hurry up now
Can you hear me calling you back again now?
Come on, baby, stop jiving around, hurry home, hurry home.
more
Tuesday is the day we have everything to do. My work. Baby Blogger's school, then dance class, then piano lesson. It's a draining day, made more draining by the dead-stop traffic on the way back home at the end of it all, the lights and sirens up ahead indicating it might be a long wait. I inch forward, with all the other bumpers, in typical Atlanta fashion, waiting on line to get home.
When I'm finally close enough to see what all the fuss is about, I do the other Atlanta thing--the one I'm compelled to do every time I see an accident (which is too often)--and tell myself, "Quit your whining about the traffic and be glad you aren't the one they're shoving into the ambulance. Your big wreck is still ahead of you." It's a kind of metro "do unto others oath." We all take the pledge, this prayer to the jaws of life.
I remember when I was new to this town, how it would knock the air out of me the way people talked about wrecks (southern for car accidents). "I saw a good one on the way to work today." I heard that more than once. The news blink-blink-blinks these firey orange explosions on the traffic map every morning, not relaying that someone just lost a husband, wife, mother, father, friend, set of legs, but letting us know that taking an alternate route would be a good idea.
So as I pull up to the remnants of the wreck this Tuesday, I'm smack dab next to the paramedics working on one man, with a birdseye view into the ambulance. I notice someone's inside, being attended to by animated medics. I quickly turn my attention to the mangled truck and the small white sedan it ate. I edge past the scene and get the expected result that no one wants to admit is pure relief: traffic disolves instantly as you pass an accident--it's always a faster-than-usual drive from there onward.
Relieved to be past the mess, able to once again haul ass, I forget there's an innocent bystander in my back seat, until I hear:
"Mommy, was he dead?"
"Who honey--you mean at the accident?"
"Yes, was he dead?"
"No, I'm pretty sure he was alive. They're just taking him to the hospital to make sure he's okay."
"It was a boy."
"Well, it was probably a man. They had the stretcher on the grass. I think I saw a man."
"No, mommy, inside the ambulance."
"Oh. Yes there was someone inside. Probaby the man driving the other car."
"No, it was a boy," she insists.
"Well how do you know that?"
"Because his feet were very, very small."
I just discovered Ismat's Top ten things not to say to the judge while defending yourself in court for a traffic ticket post. It is a good giggle, and her blog is a good read. The post just below the Top Ten Things is ripe with voice:
"I cut through the construction-muddled street, my bag flapping against my side. I notice the 'I'd rather be in Ann Arbor' bumper sticker on a passing car, and smile at its irony since the little Honda is most definitely in its favorite city. I wonder for a moment if it's not referring to an Ann Arbor gone by, much like the one I want to grasp on now. The air is thick, replete with enveloping humidity, swirling dust and the sounds of hulkish machines stabbing through concrete. After safely crossing on to the paved pathways surrounded by grass, old buildings and tall trees, I wipe the dust from my eyes and continue on to the Diag."
Read her.
This is my 34th Fathers Day without my dad. It's not easy for me to believe that--that this is the 34th, I mean. Because the girl-child watching him play, sing, then die an excruciating death from pancreatic cancer, only 38 himself, lives at the surface of me. That little girl is my skin, I've never had the luxury of pushing her down, sending her back, taking her off. God knows I've tried, but she won't go.
She's the child who sits crying on her bed while classmates glide off to father-daughter dinner dances; she's the one who stammers when asked, "what does your father do?" thinking that "rot under the earth" isn't a great answer to give. She's the one who hates being told "I'm sorry" by people who don't have a clue what it is to have your father's hug disappear before you ever got used to it, being asked "Do you remember him," and wanting to strangle well-intentioned adults; she's the one who listens to the recordings alone trying to summon him back, imagining he didn't really die at all--maybe he left us--maybe he's playing music somewhere in Europe, coming back from the road any day now. She's the girl who got married with a brother, not a father, on her arm. She's the girl who got cheated out of an entire lifetime of love.
This day, 34 years later, I think of his grave in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, mourn for how far away I am from that place, that man, that grave, that faith, and I hug the little girl-child who doesn't leave me still.
This is the time of year we usually visit Jamaica, a place and people I've come to love, a music I understood only once I set it to the rhythm of the waves. But this year, we couldn't go, and it's left a longing in me that I wrote about yesterday. Figured I'd post it here:
Jamaica
Runaway Bay, my toes hit the water, I am home, cool Jamaican sea, salt smells comfort, a place I never want to leave. Quiet waves, I sink in, drifting, green-blue carries me far from shore. Sky sea horizon cools ancient fires, drifting still, on my back, bobbing, unnoticed, I do not exist: this is peace.
What brushes against my thigh? Bringing me back, it is slow and gentle, not a creature. I tread water, bring myself upright, as you emerge from under me. Splashes smiles welcoming arms, let's float together. I wrap around you, arms and legs, you hold me there, so you can swim us further out.
From the shore, children giggle and play, call "party wave!" and ride sea to sand. They are echos, distant songs, their cheering and laughter remembers us. I reach between my legs, slip my swimsuit to the side, dip under water long enough to pull your trunks down, take your sweetness out, you floating now, reaching for me as I re-emerge, wrap my arms around your neck, greet you eye to eye, tongue to tongue, we kiss long and slow.
Finally a place out of time to be just us, away from home, away from shore, weightless, no past/future, you probe for me, guide me onto you, bringing the cool sea water with you as I slide you deeper in.
Can we stay this way forever? Love locked. Even now. Still, floating, you inside me, me holding you with legs that wrap tight, breasts riding the water's surface, I feel your heat warm me, my wetness caress you, float with it, drink it in, this love sea.
I've been on steroids for two weeks (two rounds) to knock his bronchitis out of my tired lungs. Came off two days ago. Have you ever come off of steroids? They are wonderful drugs which remove every bit of inflamation from your body. With steroids, you can breathe, you can soar, you can clean your house at 3:00 a.m. And then you finish your course of meds. And you feel precisely like cotton, from your brain to your feet, tired old cotton, wet even. And so tired. Jenna went off with family today. I closed my eyes at 1:00 and opened them six hours later. I could sleep for three days if someone would just give me the chance... If someone were here to help me. If George were home.
But George can't come home yet. And so I think of Elaine and if she were here I know I could clean my house, I could tackle the seven baskets of laundry waiting in the basement, I could register both of our cars, which are now two-weeks illegal, I could get the dogs to the vet to get their shots that are three months overdue, I could bother to go food shopping, bother to call the doctor about the yeast infection on my tongue thanks to the steroids, I could remember to take the overflowing garbage to the curb that I forgot about last week... But Elaine isn't here; she is taking some time for her, because I'm sure there are days, taking care of her mom, where she feels like cotton too.
So here I am alone, off to get my sweet sunshine, handle her energy one way or the other, and that's why no new blogging. Because more than any of these tasks awaiting me, I want to sleep. Deep sleep. No-Dream sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
If you want a look at the best of generosity blogging, look here at the comment discussion happening in response to this honest post on alcoholism vs drinking by stavrosthewonderchicken. I learned more here than from all the little alanon pamphlets I ordered online.
Asking for it, I was. I say, "Give me a topic, I'll blog it." Before I finish Gary's "what if you weren't allowed to blog" question, I thought I'd tackle RageBoy's puzzle:
"Privacy is to generosity as iceboxes are to Eskimos. True or false."
I stunk at word problems in school. It may become very clear that I still suck at them. But, not doing something well never stopped me from doing it anyway. Iceboxes and Eskimos. Here I assume one thing, but remember I'm in atlanta where it's like 90 degrees right now: Eskimos don't need iceboxes. Refrigeration is useless. Do I have it right so far?
What about privacy and generosity, and let's stick within the realm of blogging here. Privacy in blogging means what? It means keeping yourself to yourself. It means keeping the personal out of your writing, keeping your family jewels safely within your briefs, quite literallly.
Privacy is something I don't do so well, evidenced by the fact that my kid's face is plastered all over my blog (and her own), as are my loving and sexual longings for my husband, my feelings of horror and disgust toward sex abusing catholics (small c), my childhood career as a shoplifter, my experiences as a kid with a dying father. Little private jewels like that--the experiences I share, those pieces of me I feel compelled to give you.
Does that mean I'm generous? I don't know. I'm sharing huge pieces of my self, for sure. But, I'm sure you can also argue that there's a hint (maybe more) of exhibitionism in it all. Although there is a generosity inherent in all sharing/giving, I get something from it too. It ain't all charity here on allied. I get the release. I get the opening up, the laying out, the eyes, the ears, the souls, and I get the conversation that follows, you telling me you love me "even though."
But let's get away from me for a minute. When you think of bloggers you would describe as "generous," several come to mind--to my mind anyway. They are the bloggers who dare to get personal: Golby, Halley, Marek, Locke, Shelley. They are generous because they dare to lay themselves down naked in front of us: "Here I am. Fuck with me if you want. Or decide you love me. I'm laying down either way."
So cool. So brave. So not private.
But there are generous bloggers who don't push the envelope on privacy to the max too. In this category I'd put Tom Matrullo and AKMA. Theirs is a generosity of spirit and prose and thought. Eloquent, winding prose and voice. Even if they don't always open their chests and show us their beating hearts, they opens our minds just the same. They give us glimpses of their families, their children, the ideas that matter most, but they pull up on the laying down naked thing. Who can blame them.
Then you have the disingenuous, the ungenerous, the very private, the antibloggers. The guy I reference near the top on the right of this page is one of those. I'm afraid they may be growing in number--but I think they'll fall by the wayside eventually.
These are the bloggers who refuse to give any hint of who they are. They remain wrapped and cloaked and yet afford no one that same opportunity. They are all about exposing others without daring to expose themselves. Here the disconnect between privacy and generosity is most clear. They give away nothing. They share nothing. They are absolute privacy. And they are reaaaallly boring. I would like to send them to live with the Eskimos for a month. Maybe then they would have something to say, some genuine experiences to share. But alas...
I must now go be mom, maker of dinner, bather of daughter, feeder of dogs, those other generous roles I play every single day.
So, my answer, I think, is "False."
Discuss.
Where was Tom Matrullo when I was trying to explain to anyone who would listen why I thought Napster was such a good idea--why it blew my mind to pieces, why sitting at the PC with my husband saying, "how did that chord progression go?" and tapping into that vast online living room of like-minded music freaks called Napster was so wonderful. Where was Tom when we were downloading "with love" pieces and parcels of music and sounds that were right on the tip of our tongues, sparking the next wave of creativity, "yeh, that's right, and remember?"
Tom was here being brilliant, and I didn't know. Although I didn't have the chance to read his 24 Notes on Napster then, I just took a joy ride back in time, some George Clinton funk blastin' from my radiadio, tearin the roof off the mothersucker, reliving the love that was Napster in this most exquisite article.
If only...
On this Open Line Thursday, we pause for this important commercial message:
Marek's looking for a job. Craig's looking for a job. Starting salary for Craig is 17 gazilion dollars, while Marek will do just about anything for 4 gazillion dollars.
TODAY ONLY we're offering a two-fer-one!!! Hire one bookworthy genius, get a funny brilliant Pole for free!
[Offer valid only while supplies last. Not valid in all states. 46-percent sales tax applies for purchaes made in Georgia.]
Gary Turner took the bait but fast on my Open Line Thursday, giving me an interesting question to blog about. Gary asks:
"What if you lost your blog and were not allowed to start another one?"
You've been hanging out with Frank Paynter, haven't you Gary? Lots of dynamite packed into this question.
First, I think about losing my blog, and assume you mean LOSING it, as in, gone, bye, finis. All the writing disappears, all the sweat and hard work down the drain. I'm left with two strong emotions: Terror and Despair. Terror: It could happen, couldn't it? My words don't live on my own server. What if, what if, what if it all disappeared tomorrow?
I remember getting the call from George a dozen years ago, him in New York, me at home in Rochester, him saying all that was left was the rock they used to bash the van window in. Everything was gone. The upright bass he'd had all his adult life, the Guild fretless he'd had since he was 16, the one he played with Jaco. His amps, too, everything gone.
Welcome to New York, Motherfucker.
What I heard on the phone was pure anguish.
"Honey everything's gone."
"What everything--what do you mean?"
"Everything. They got everything."
"The upright? They took the fucking upright?"
"That, the Guilds. Everything."
"Oh my god."
That was a day out of time, the room spun. He would later refer to that loss this way: "I lost my sound. My sound is gone." Those instruments were a second skin for him--they were his voice, and they were gone forever. The depression that followed lasted a good long time. Financially, the loss of the basses and equipment represented the loss of our only real assets. And even though other instruments would come along--the Sadowsky, the Padulla, even the 100+ year-old upright--well, even I knew, I know still. Beautiful, inspiring, lively, exotic, but not the sound of the man I met. Not worse, not better. But not the sound. One instrument meets two hands makes one sound. World without end, amen.
So how does this relate? In many ways. If words are our songs, then blogs are our instruments--carriers of voice. If I had been blogging here for 15 years, and all of my collective songs and voice suddenly vanished, I think I would feel much the same pain, dismay, drifting. Voice, place, song, home, center--to lose it then would be horrible. But the blog isn't my only instrument, and this day it's not my most "important" instrument. Blogging is my love, my hobby, but it's not my life. I will not die if I do not blog. I can write on paper if I have to. I can start an e-zine if the mood strikes me. One thing I've learned from that little PR gig that pays the bills is how to adapt. Adapt my voice, adapt my attitude, adapt adapt adapt.
The truth is, I have less than a year's worth of "me" here. It's important, yes, but it wouldn't kill me to lose it. Hurt? Yes. Badly. But, I would understand, at the same time, that it could be much, much worse. Like if it happened a dozen years down the road.
Consider then the Sessum's thoughts at the time of the great instrument hoist--if we can find the fuckers who took the stuff, and if we didn't slit their throats, how much would we be willing to give them to get it back? How much, then, is your sound worth? How much can you afford to protect that sound, or to get it back if someone takes it? All serious, relative things we should be thinking about in Blogaria. As it stands right now, if my blog disappeared and Blogger/Blogspot said we need $500 to get it back for you, I'd say, okay; here's a check. If they said, it will cost you $1,000 to get it back, would I? hmmmm. Ouch. I dunno. $10,000? No way. I can recreate. I will live to spew another day. So long, bye bye, what a shame. I can take a nice vacation with that money and drink my tears away.
Still, it may be time that we start putting a personal value on what we're doing here, just to level set a little bit.
In George's case, if we could have found the instruments--and we did check stores and pawnshops for years, STILL do--we would have easily anted up a few grand. (This is me talking, not him. Hypothetically. George can explore this on his blog if he wants to.) If we had $20,000, it wouldn't have been too much to pay to have those instruments back. $70,000? hmmmm. Feet are getting colder. $100,000? Het-hem. You can get lots of pretty sounds for $100,000.
But I digress...
The second part of Gary's question is just as loaded. Having lost my blog, what would I do if I was not allowed to start another one? Oooooh. Allowed. Interesting word. Who would be doing the disallowing? Work? Blogger? Spouse? The whole notion of "permission" is wrapped in here--a quagmire of its own. In fact, it deserves another post.... Stay tuned.
NOW--THROUGH TODAY ONLY! The Request Line is OPEN.
What do YOU want me to blog about? Screw this "My Blog, I Say" concept. Nuh-uh. Today is your day on allied. Gimme a topic, I'll blog it. It may not be good, but it might be interesting....
C'mon. What is it? Whatcha want to know about? Death? Love? Sex? Integrity? Loss? Lies? K-Mart? More about cats? (don't have one--it disappeared two years ago--ooops, more on that loss topic again---why does it always go back to that?)
You gotta topic, I gotta blogit.
Leave me a comment.
Excuse me while I take time out to enjoy my ride on daypop just now courtesy of my interview with Frank Paynter. At number 20, I have hurdled my husband, who rode into the 30s earlier this week. Sessum double hit--Outrageous!
George has been quiet the last couple of days because he's been rushing around Hong Kong trying to undo some big bass damage. But he's back. Some of my favorite bits from this morning:
"The begining of the week. Hands are rested but stiff. The club is empty except for some early week die-hard partiers and the working girls who got wind that it's the bands payday."
"Last song of the set.They want an encore [I've learned this much in all my years of performing; Every band in the world becomes the best band in the world after the last note is played. You can quote me on that."
I just did.
It's funny, reading something you said/wrote in pieces. Well, I've had time to digest my interview with Frank Paynter now. As a whole. I think I'm pretty happy with it. Among other things, I confess that I dropped Robert Creeley's poetry class after attending stoned five times, that my husband is my first and only love, and that I can still throw up when I think about him. Allow me to tap some other highlights for you:
"To have as a mate one who is OF art and music, that is, one who has that art in the core of their being, in their DNA, that is a wonderful match for both people--to have an inborn understanding of what it is to love art as to love one's parent, one's lover, oneself..."
"And so we come to weblogging. Here is where everything converges--poetry, music, humanity, worlds, prose, journalism, literature, philosophy. Blogging is everything we want it to be."
"Even more reticent women can start out tentatively with blogging, testing their voices, then connecting with others, gaining power as they embrace and are embraced, achieving respect and acceptance-all within a very short period of time, especially compared to our same quest within the confines of the corporate world. What it has taken me 18 years to achieve in my realworld career in terms of respect, readership, and credibility, I have achieved in 8 months as a blogger."
"As to where we've made love, hmmm. Park, check. Bowling alley, check. Nightclub, check. Beach, oh yes, honey, remember Jamaica in the sea?"
"It isn't all slime and sweat and goo and moans. It's the space in between those things. What you do with it."
"Yes, low-end is my preferred frequency, more so as I age. The boomier the better, which is what's nice about living in the south. They appreciate the low end down here."
"Everything you're learning from these souls you connect with begins to inform you, your thinking. Your being. It feeds back into your blog, your job, your family, your relationships within the realworld. The spark-to-flame ratio is staggering."
"Yes, I think Chris Locke is a genius. He's also a real person, brave, willing to live in public, show us how he loves, how he cares, how far the knife has to go in before he bleeds."
"But then you grow up. And doesn't that suck. And you realize some things *you* can't fix quick--somethings you can never fix. You can do yourself some real damage by beating your head against the wall trying."
"Blogging and the blogging community have changed me as a women in so many ways, giving me permission to speak, to think, to experiment, to fail, to stop, to start again, to become something 'more than.' "
"If you have ever suffered -- felt pain to the point where you thought (a) I cannot stand this for another milisecond, never mind another fifteen minutes or hour, OR (b) I cannot stand my life laid open in front of me, the expanse of years I have yet to endure -- then Cixous' words will resound in you as they have in me."
Well, my fifteen minutes of fame are HERE. Frank Paynter of Sandhill Tech added me to his illustrious list of interviewees, and the results are in:
Gosh, I'm long winded.
Frank, I am truly honored. And now hurry up with Golby before everyone sees the steamy erotica I wrote. ;-)
Well well, it helps to have a wife who loves and supports you. It also helps to have a strong voice and something to say. Evidence: George Sessum is number 32 on Daypop as I blog this. Wait until George sees. As I write this he should be finishing up the last set of the night, wrecking his hands and wrenching his neck playing for the ladies of the evening in far away Hong Kong. Ah the stories he has to tell--he just has to find a computer to tell them from. Hopefully tonight we'll hear more. As always, links and nepotistic recognition are appreciated!
By the way, a photo-chronology of the man who swept me off my feet in 1982 (though we didn't officially "meet" until 84) is here. Dare I show the ladies? Yeh, he's the cute one. Still is.
Thanks to RageBoy for letting me know and for linking to George early on.
And what would you do if they did?
Over the last month, I've become more and more convinced that we're writing for each other. Which means, if you are not a blogger, or a blog reader at least, I’m not writing for you. Which means, I'm not writing for my family or three dozen of my closest friends.
Are they missing the core of who I am? Probably. But perhaps some people don't need to know my core. That not knowing gives me a certain amount of freedom. And I think I like it.
You and I, we've been together a while now. I know what it takes to surprise all of you--something like homicide at this point, or at least conspiracy to commit murder. You might say, "Gee, I didn't know Jeneane was that far gone." Aside from some gruesome revelation like that, I'm not sure I could surprise any of you--disappoint any of you--with prose and poetry that tells you "who I am." I continue to try to titilate you (breast feeding post, exhibit A), but beyond that, it's just me out here saying, "Hey."
For those who know me in the realworld, though, you know, parents, siblings, aunts, old-school friends, it's a different story. The fact is, they would be very surprised by just about everything I've written here. Like the last post. And the one before that. And probably the one before that. Yikes. Surprised may be the wrong word. Disturbed might be closer.
What does this mean? It means that I ask myself, once every few days, what would I do if Aunt Marian wrote and said, "I saw your website." (She's a nun and my aunt.) Or, what if my brother's wife, who is quite net savvy, found me here and said, "Hey, I saw that weblog you have…" Or worse yet, my boss: "What's this site you have? I've been looking at it but can't really make sense of it--what is this thing?"
I don't want that. I don't want them to know because I love the freedom of having NO ONE on my shoulder. No one checking my posts from inside my head before I press publish.
My husband, sure, he's there, but he really does live on my shoulder and that means nothing here much surprises him. And if it does, he will most likely ask me, "Hey, what was that post about?" And we'll talk about it. Besides, he's blogging himself now, so he falls into *our* camp.
But it does raise certain questions for all of us: Who doesn't know you blog and would it change how you blog--what you write, whether or not you self-censor--if they did?
Mommy, did I ever tell you I used to be a really good shoplifter? How about that I wish I would have tasted George all up and down his body after he fell through the ceiling instead of being so practical and worrying about the repair bills? You taught me that stuff, you know?
See what I mean?
But still, as I grow more confident in my voice, in how I say what I have to say, and in the power of what I'm saying, I'd like to think I wouldn't change much. Not anymore. Well, maybe the "tasting" part. Well, okay, I might not want to talk about the alcoholism thing either.
So you see, the truth for me is that I really don't know. Because it hasn't happened. Yet.
And you?
Let's talk turkey. Cold turkey. Our lovely Baby Blogger has given me a gift for my 40th birthday -- for her, the most serious and significant gift she could muster. And although she will want to kill me one day for telling you what that gift is, I'm doing it anyway: she has finally gone cold turkey and quit the pacifier she has, until now, relished sucking at night (and any other time she could find it laying around the house). She'll be 5 in September.
Two weeks ago we went to the doctor with this bronchitis plague we've had in our house. The doctor mentioned her overbite--to me it's slight; to the doctor it isn't. The doctor told me that the pacifier had better be gone in a week because we were heading for big orthadontist bills...and pain for her. I scoffed. I have been scoffing for years.
And I have stood mostly alone in my support for her "ta ta"--that's what she has always called it. "Nonesense," I've said. "I sucked my thumb til I was 6 and I never needed braces." My husband has tried to hide the things, has always dared to take her on outings without it. Me on the other hand, I make sure I have two in my purse. Just in case. Not so much recently, but up until pretty darn recently.
When my friends arrived for my birthday weekend on Thursday, they asked her, sweetie, why do you still want that thing? She explained it so well:
"Well, I really like to use it when I twirl my hair and sleep,
and I really do love it, because it tastes so sweet."
And yet, somehow they convinced her (and me?) that it was indeed time to toss the ta-ta (or ta-tee for short). And for the last three mornings she's awoken with a jolt--bolting upright from a sound sleep: "I DID IT!!! I SLEPT WITHOUT TA-TEE AGAIN!" And I've hooped and hollered HURRAY! And have bought her treats and told her how big she is and all of that. And still...
Tonight when she went to sleep, I understood the significance, for her and for me, of this surrogate nipple that has been so important to us all of these years--since I stopped breast feeding her at three months of age (after the hospital adventure that nearly killed me).
Because tonight when she went to sleep, she could not get close enough to my breasts. "OOO mama, your potatoes got bigger," she tells me, sleep catching up with her, making her giddy and giggly, until she curls up against my tie-dye t-shirt, her little face burried as close as she can get to where she feels most at home, each hand holding a fold of cloth, her hot breath warming my skin through the cotton.
As she starts that raspy snore, my chin is resting on her head, and I'm holding her tight, wishing I could turn back the clock, just long enough for her to drink from me one more time. I summon that heady feeling that I've never heard described just right--that place without consciousness or conscience, without mores or shame, that single-minded place where you demonstrate your power to nurish the world, or at least your piece of it. Let down. I remember it so well, the letting down. No words to describe the sensation, but I'm there now, feeling the tingling and the filling up, closing my eyes, massaging, Helene Cixous where are you? We need to talk.
Put your baby to your breast and you must accept that someone needs you just *this* badly, and you accept that you are the only one who can give what's required. It is a mighty thing. It is a miracle. Changing baby changing you. A loss and a gain, I grieve and I celebrate.
"Because it tastes so sweet."
Gary Turner has "southparked" me for my 40th:
Be sure to click on my little GIFt to hear Gary's advice for 40 year olds everywhere.
THANK YOU one and all for the amazing birthday wishes. I think a dozen bloggers remembered my 40th in incredible ways--book, amulet, pictures, cards, e-cards, and a wonderful song in Polish (who could that be?)--fully 75% more remembrances than from my realworld friends, which is rather staggering. To me at least. And humbling. And heartwarming, scary, profound, telling, all of those things and more.
Company is still here, though off to bed. Which is where I need to go. I'll blog on the other side of 40 tomorrow.
Just had to take a second to say, you guys are the best.
THANK YOU!
"The Management"
Two friends from college are here visiting for my birthday. I've known them 20 years now--it seems like that can't possibly be so. I look at their faces, and yes they have lines I don't remember being there. Voices are more tired. But, not 20 years' worth. They are upstairs, still sleeping. Jenna's bouncing around getting ready for school--we're late as usual. And I'm thinking about roots.
Last night we sat on the floor eating sticks of pepperoni, hunks of italian bread (ripped, not sliced), and crumbled Fontinella cheese, all hand carried from Rochester and Utica with love, understanding--you can't get that here. (Did I mention the hard lemonade?). There were moments when it seemed otherworldly--the tastes so familiar and warm and my own. Intoxicating.
These friends aren't bloggers. They don't even know I blog. Between trips to the kitchen, I perch in my spot on the couch, flip my laptop open to see if George has blogged anything new, what Elaine is up to, what's new with RageBoy. I read posts as I talk, sneaking back into Blogaria just to make sure. Ah, new email. Good. Yes. Of course. Me too, sweet friend. I open and close my laptop, punctuating laughs about the past with the huge piece of me that lives here, my present and future.
These friends don't live on the net. They don't breathe the same words as I do. And still. They know me too--that other me, the one who used her bed as a desk, who always forgot to close her dorm window when the rain came, who couldn't go to the record store and come out without an armful, who spun and danced to imagined songs, who wrote at night and slept during the day, who laid down in the middle of East Ave one night, drunk as a skunk, daring the cars.
Curious. The things I tell you about that me, that me then, you buy, accept. Easy enough to imagine me doing them. ME is the person I bring here with me. But this me, who's here, now, these friends don't know. They would wonder, if they came here, "Why do you do it?"
And I would say, because I have to. You should do it too.
And they would say no, I would never do that.
And I would say, it's so wonderful.
And they would say, see you're still crazy.
And I would say no, it's okay here.
And they would say, but why did you write *that*? It's so personal.
And I would say, because I wanted to.
And they would say, Oh. Well, you're *still* still crazy.
And I would say, not here I'm not.
And they would love me still, shaking their heads, wondering if I'll ever change.
And here I don't have to.
When you meet my husband, and you may one day, you'll be saying to yourself what everyone says... "He's so soft spoken, such a gentleman, such a sensitive man..." (and then there's his business side... and there's his artist side... but I too digress...) Part of me thinks, gee, it would be better if you were reading his blogging adventures after you met him... BUT... that isn't how this works, is it? We all know that.
Earlier this month, I wrote this loving tribute to my first encounter with my George (scroll down to "I've been waiting so long"). Interestingly, I was sober at the time of that writing. My husband of almost-16 years, on the other hand, has taken to Scotch to get through the wasted days and wasted nights away from home, playing not-even jazz in Hong Kong.
Earlier today, he and I were exchanging emails, and he told me, among many other things I won't share here, that he was going to start blogging his way through the rest of what has turned out to be a nearly-crappy adventure playing overseas. I'm thinking, sure, he might blog something. And part of me is like, well, you're a wee bit intoxicated--what might you write? Well, HE'S BLOGGING. Stunning. Just wait til he has all of his faculties about him. This could be a dicey and interesting journey, husband and wife parallel blogging about REAL stuff. Hmmm. Deserves some thought. (deeep thought.)
If it's amazing to you to compare our versions of our early encounter now that I pointed you there, imagine my surprise to hop over to George's blog and see it. Yep. He knew me. And look at this honesty:
Wonderful blogger and fellow Blog Sister Tish of Fatshadow let me know that today is Helene Cixous' birthday. As I may have mentioned a dozen times, I am in love with Cixous' writing, and as I may have mentioned several dozen times, my birthday is Sunday. So today, I think of Helene and the gifts she has already given me, and I wish I could connect with her and give her something back, fellow Gemini, twins to twins, but maybe I have, somehow, in this weblog, and maybe she'll see it if she one day stumbles across this place. That image is good enough for me. In the mean time I wonder if google will ever boost me up in the Cixous standings, so she might one day happen upon me. And it would be so nice for her to find me that way, instead of coming upon me by searching up "shoplifting."
until later.
Well, I thought my little K-Mart post (Bluelight Special) went mostly unnoticed. I guess it did, except for AKMA. On the topic of forgiveness, of which he has become the inspired master, AKMA uses my sins of the past as a jumping off point to discuss whether or not we are better off for having gone wrong in our early days, or whether maybe we just *are.* Would we change the course of events if we could? Would we erase certain experiences--ones we're not the proudest of? Or are they woven into our fabric in such a way that we wouldn't have become the same people if we hadn't run on the bad side for a time? All good questions. I'm not sure I have answers--at least not ones as good as AKMA's.
But I will say this--while I felt guilty for some time about shoplifting during my teen years, some of my best memories are those that resulted from a particularly good day on the prowl. Sitting with my best friend, behind Sibley's deparment store, sharing a can of Betty Crocker vanilla frosting, talking about things that mattered, why we wanted to run away, we'd make our plans, we'd pack our clothes in our minds, we'd grab a train, head south, who knows, but we'd make it. All the while, we're licking finger-full after finger-full of Betty Crocker until the sugar high kicks in just right, taking us to that place where 12 year olds shouldn't have to go, but if we had to go, vanilla frosting wasn't such a bad way to get there.
As a consumer and worker, I think I've made my amends. Would I recommend this abnoxious diversion to kids or anyone else? NO. (Wynona, are you listening?) Would I be plenty pissed if my child did what I did? YES. But I'd like to think I'd know if she were doing it. No one knew that I was. Therein, perhaps, lies the difference.
But, AKMA forgive me, I wouldn't take an eraser to those times either--I mean, if I could. Those were days of friendship and early bonds, we had a power out there that we didn't have at home. We were, for a few minutes every couple of days, in charge of our own destiny. Those were my days. Our days. And we did have our day, oh yes. We did.
He's George Sessum, and he's here talking about musical improvisation, and here talking about the glamour of the music biz. See why we're quite a pair? He'll be blogging more. I made him promise. So link to his ass.
I'm sorry about the hole. I was looking up at it just now, up above the dresser, the shape of your thigh outlined in white plaster by the ceiling guy who never came back, never charged us, never finished the job. A half-broken reminder of that day, you walking carefully across the attic beams to get that box I wanted, me downstairs boiling water for spaghetti, then the crash. I remember rushing up, looking up, there was part of you--just a leg, just a shoe, a sock, a calf, a thigh, one leg of your denim shorts. You had become part of the ceiling and the ceiling was of you. "OH NO! OH SHIT!" I said. And you nailed it that very moment. I was moaning for the ceiling, the money it would take to fix it, the gaping hole up into the dusty attic, the insulation debris raining down into our bedroom. My words were not for your thigh, for your already aching back, for the cut sending blood down your shin.
This was the very worst of me.
If I could take it back, trade it, I would. I would forget about the house, the money, the insulation storm, the ugly gaping hole just above the dresser. Instead I would run to you, up the attic steps, pull you free, hold you, rub your thigh, help you downstairs, carefully, one step at a time until we're both safe, lay you on the bed, gently roll up the leg of your shorts, just to see if there are wounds to tend to, and sure enough you are bleeding, and I get a warm washcloth and bathe your sore leg, start with the ankle, maybe the toes, work up, shins and thighs, roll up the leg of your shorts some more, just to check, to make sure you're not hurt there, and I swab as I go, until the washcloth falls to the floor and its my tongue, just making sure you are fine, up here on your thigh, and there, and there, zipper has to go, and shorts, sure I have to check around there too, and did you hurt your stomach just there, look another hole, I should check. And you are so fine, but what about your chest where you grabbed the beam, here let me see, and I'm checking between the hairs with my tongue, and up your neck, and there are your lips, amazing full lips, and we're kissing now, your tongue so deep, and there is no more house, no more gaping hole in the ceiling, no more dusty attic air still spilling out onto our floor. There is only us, and sky not ceiling, and beach not bed, and all of your hurt is in me and I love it away, and all of my hurt is on you and you wash it away, tears absolve us, and it takes a long, long time to rub away all the hurt, and I'm riding and loving and screaming, and I'm with you. I'm of you.
And we don't finish until you come home, where I'm waiting, looking up at the plaster, the hole outlining your thigh, promising to make it up to you.
...bloggers that is. Frank's adding me to his list of upcoming blogger interviews. The Barbara Walters of blog interviews, Frank prys and goads you into telling all. His job ain't over til you're crying and talking about potty training and puppy love. Just look at Elaine's interview. I hear Denise the Cyberlawyer Howell's interview is forthcoming. Followed by yours truly. And Mike Golby.
Will I spill the beans? You'll have to wait and see!
Here are my nominees for upcoming interviews:
Shelley Powers
Halley Suitt
Anita Bora
Gary Turner
Of course, any and all of the blog sisters would make great interviews too, Frank. I told Frank I wasn't very interesting. He said he knows horndogs on four continents who want the goods on me. My husband will be so proud!!!
Alright, I'm gonna say it and I expect you to remember it. June 9th. Got it? June 9th I turn 40. That would be a milestone, bob. Two friends are coming down from Rochester to pamper me on the 6th. They'll be leaving to go back on my birthday evening. It will be the first birthdays my husband and I have spent apart since we've been married. His is June 14th. But he's WAY older than me. ;-) (okay, three years.) Yes we're both Geminis. That makes four, and baby makes five.
Halley tells me that your 40s are an amazing and wonderful time--an energized, sexy, mature, knowing decade. So why am I thinking, "yikes"? The friends coming to visit me are friends from college, which feels like it was five or six years ago. But, it was 20 years ago. Holy cow--I've lived almost two college lifetimes already, and I feel like I just graduated a few years ago. Time continues to play tricks on me.
To me, aging is this mysterious thing, scary too. My own father didn't live as long as I have lived already. Maybe that's why I feel like I'm living on borrowed time. Or maybe it's because I almost died after having Jenna. Scooting by within an inch of my life. Leaves a nagging feeling that tells me I'm not supposed to be here, left over by chance, squatter's rights on a bizarre life. That's part of the power in Helene Cixous for me. She writes much on the feeling of exile, of having no country, of being at home abroad. These are things I feel every day. Feeling like I should have already died, and with that, feeling very much alive.
In the aftermath of a death that didn't happen, you are more aware, in tune, intuitive, open, electric. I tend to tune into things that I have no business tuning into, in people, in friends, in strangers. Ghostlike, I walk along observing, from here, but from the other side too, a little bit of both. Cixous would understand.
And so, 40 will come, a week from today. Whether I'm ready or not.
Get your party hats out.
If I can stop coughing long enough, I'm taking Jenna to the pool today. It's hot here now--Georgia hot. The hot that makes northern transplants wonder: why did we come here again? So, to the pool to watch my golden girl flounder and splash her floaties with delight. And me? I love water.
I mean, I really LOVE the water, to be in water, of water. When I was 12, I'd spend the night on a rubber raft drifting about my grandmother's pool, star gazing, shivering, water temperature just 65, wrapped in a beach towel to keep me warm. I just wanted to float. As a teenager, I spent summers swimming my horse in Lake Ontario. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, like swimming with your horse, all power and snorting, reaching and floating. Aloft. adrift. apart from the earth.
When I was pregnant, I sometimes took 6 baths a day. Friends and family wondered if this might be obsessive, unhealthy. I didn't bother telling the doctors. It seemed every bit normal to me. My husband would watch the t-shirt come off, smiling, "Off to the bath again?" Belly full of stone-hard fibroids, some bigger than Jenna, it was like carrying twins, triplets. The dead and undead growing inside. All I wanted to do was float. And I did. And she would come alive in that tub, making waves with me, an elbow emerging from between two rock-hard tumorous lumps. The beauty and the horror. In my own little tub in my own little house in my own little world. Safe.
So today, the pool is calling. Healing? I hope so. I'm still not well. And so, I go back, give in to my need to float, to drift. To go home.
Halley, that is. After dimming the lights on her own blog for a time, she's over on Blog Sisters now, exploring connotations and intuitions, language and life. Cool! We'll keep the light on for you, Halley.
