It's been too long!  And yet, alas, I have no new material to share.  Well, I suppose technically that's true, that I have no "new" material to share, but I was cleaning out some drawers today and happened upon this little gem that I'd hastily jotted down some months ago and then immediately banished from my mind.  It's cute, in a dark sort of way, and it made me smile, though more urgently it made me question the mood I was in when I wrote it.  What had just happened?  What (on earth) was I thinking?  I cleaned it up a bit - behold, the PG-13 version!

--

If kissing leads to banging,
and drinking leads to drugs,
and most guys lie and cheat you,
and the rest are all thugs,

If daddy's little girl grows up
to turn tricks on the street,
and all the mamma's boys end up,
by life, just getting beat,

If puppies everywhere are put
to sleep or run away,
Then why would anybody bring
a kid into this fray?

--

Right?  What was I thinking! . . . Mighty catchy little sucker though, ain't she?

He thought you were quite attractive. He told Steve so. He wants to know, are you interested?

What a simple question... this would have been, in my early 20's. Of course! I'd answer, without a second thought, a backward glance, a single hesitation. Why not? Because "why not" was the prevailing logic of those days full of endless possibilities, where mystery and romance beckoned around every corner. When I luxuriated in time's inexhaustible supply. I'd never run out of it.

Now, I hesitate. I consider, balance, speculate. Sure, he's nice looking, but what are the odds we have anything in common? What's the chance this could go beyond a first date, a second, a third? What do I even know about him? He's a bartender. And?

What happened? Where did the time go? I used to think that I could stand still. I could move forward, by actively pursuing an agenda of personal growth and development, by working to enrich my mind and my soul. I could move backward, by engaging in all-too-familiar destructive behavioral patterns. Or, I could stand still. After all, what was the harm in acting a bit mindless and carefree from time to time? The bartender and I could have a few laughs, I could score a handful of free meals, and he would probably comp my friends' tabs whenever we came by for drinks. When the fling had run its course, we'd part ways amicably and I'd be available again to meet Mr. Right. But now I see the truth. There's no standing still. If I'm not moving forward, I'm falling desperately behind.

I remember my first semester of law school. I felt pretty good after my exams, and when I got my grades - two B's and one B+ - I breathed a contented sigh. I fell right in the middle of the curve, and that was alright by me. I thought, Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll be fine. But I was sorely mistaken. While I spent the next four months perpetuating the same study habits I'd employed first semester, my classmates took what they'd learned and improved upon their past behavior. My calculations were all wrong. I'd failed to account for other people. And I'd failed to account for time. So if I'm behaving like I'm 22 when I'm 22, and I'm still behaving like I'm 22 when I turn 28, I haven't stood still for 6 years. Time's marched on, and I have nothing to show for it. I have, in fact, regressed. So, while my classmates who'd earned A's first semester continued to earn A's, and those who'd earned C's now earned B's, my fellow B-earning comrades had moved up in the ranks, leaving me behind. I'd been overlooked, trampled upon, left for dead. I was a casualty of my own ignorance, my own arrogance, and my own indifference to the most valuable and irreplaceable commodity we're given. I'd underestimated the march of time.

I'm moving away, he's staying here. I'm an attorney, he's a bartender. Who knows how many patrons he hits on like this...

We could have a few laughs, but there's no standing still. And I should move forward. I think it's time.

There is so much goddamn beauty in this world. Some of it, much of it - all of it? - born of tremendous suffering and injustice. For instance, how does this strike you? But for the fact that a rapist was allowed to walk free, the stunning masterpiece that is The Pianist would not exist. It would never have been made. Polanski was looking, searching, combing for that story, and only he could unearth it and tell it as he did.

It's not just that. But for the Holocaust, too. Is that haunting? Certainly if we had the choice we would have selected a world devoid of both Pianist and Holocaust. But, at the risk of alienating somebody - everybody - might I posit:  Ought we to consider the cost? And what if we extrapolate? Follow this thread to its logical conclusion? The question, then, is this:  Would we - knowingly, consciously... contentedly? - eradicate the whole of evil at the cost of the whole of beauty? In the end, I suppose it comes down to who's being asked.

But that scene. Where the crippled old man is roused by German soldiers while eating dinner with his family. They order him to stand up. Gently at first. Then louder, brandishing their weapons. And suddenly, it's happening. We know what's coming but only intellectually, because our throbbing hearts won't be convinced by our calculating minds until we've actually seen it done. The soldiers kick away the surrounding furniture, lift the man by his wheelchair, and heave him over the balcony. He falls to his death, his family clinging, frozen, to utensils and mugs. It happened, you whisper, just to hear the words. You have to will yourself to believe it. It happened.

That scene. All at once you think, I can't go on, and then, inevitably, I must.

It was art, born of horror, made possible by a world in which not all men are created equal. In which bad things, permanent things, unspeakable things happen to good people, and riches are heaped upon men with blackened souls.

Yet somehow, it was beautiful. Despite all this? Because of it? Does it matter, in the end?

Say it. It's true. It was beautiful.

Everything always kind of worked out for me, until it didn't.  And that's when I realized that everything doesn't always kind of work out for anybody.  If it seems like everything is always kind of working out then you aren't even trying.  You haven't even started yet.  The real work's all ahead of you.

I have very few regrets in my life, but if I could do it all over again there are hundreds of things I'd do differently.  Some big, some small, some seemingly imperceptible at the time, but turning out to matter in very real ways I would have never - could have never? - then predicted.

Maybe it's tired, or maybe it's tried and true, but whatever it is, here's my version of the "what I wish I knew" existential epistle to my former self.

--

16 Things I Wish I'd Known at 16

16. You can't, in fact, do anything. Your life was never a clean slate. Myriad factors, many beyond your control, some determined before your birth, will limit your potential and determine the course of your future.

15. Time flies. Every year will feel shorter than the last.

14. Your life will become infinitely more complicated than you can imagine, and in ways for which the preparations you're attempting to make are futile.

13. It is necessary but not remotely sufficient simply to desire anything worth having. You will also need diligence, resilience, and patience in abundance.

12. Nobody will ever love you as much as your mother, but she will never be the person you want her to be.

11. Bad people walk among us. Learning to spot them, without letting on that you've done so, is an invaluable skill.

10. You are entitled to nothing. Not even what you've earned.

9. Reputation is exponentially more important than you can now grasp, and keeping it intact is a daily and unceasing effort.

8. Never, ever convince yourself you have it all figured out.  You never, ever will.

7. The only universe you'll ever be the center of is your own.

6. Nobody gets everything they want, and some people get nothing. But the important distinction is between those who tried and those who never did.

5. Nothing will prove more difficult or more paramount than figuring out what makes you the unique being that you are, with the exception of accepting those inevitably difficult truths you will discover about yourself.

4. Even trees that fall in empty forests are heard.

3. When it comes to fulfillment, it's every man for himself.

2. Others will genuinely want what's best for you, but none of them can know what that is.

1. Life is infinitely more beautiful than you can imagine, and in very different ways than you anticipate.

And sometimes it's just darkness. Where do the children play? I can't be sure if it's Yusuf asking or if it's Cat, but it doesn't matter because I don't have an answer for either one. I think Yusuf was much more at peace so it doesn't seem right that such a thing would torment him but maybe he just put on a good face. Will you keep on building higher til there's no more room up there? I think Yusuf found the answers to the questions Cat asked over and over again before realizing that there weren't any. Answers, I mean. Until he realized that he had to be what he was not, he had to become the other, and only then could he breathe easy. In the end it was never about finding a hard-headed woman. Salvation lay, apparently, in an arranged marriage. Who would've thought? Certainly not Cat.

But I was talking about the darkness. In one quick motion the lights are shut off, the curtains are drawn, the sun sets and for a brief terrifying moment that drags for hours and hours it seems as if the darkness is forever. Is this self-indulgence or just simple truth? Is it just me, or is it all quite stultifying? Am I getting tired of the sound of my own voice? Are you?

Sometimes people take things you didn't give, and they just win, simple as that. It doesn't seem fair, but that's what happens when you're naïve, a bit reckless, and follow the rules. Cat knew this, and so he joined a different game. He didn't try to rewrite the rules, he just left. It's courageous as hell, if not revolutionary. Oooh baby baby it's a wild world, it's hard to get by just upon a smile. Ooh baby baby it's a wild world, and I'll always remember you like a child girl. But suddenly I'm offended because I never was a child and anyway it's all his fault.

How does it happen? One minute you're easing comfortably along, nodding in acknowledgement to the familiar boredom, and the next you hardly recognize your own reflection in the mirror. Was your mouth always so drawn, cheeks so sallow, eyes flecked with such dull gray tones?

And why do they dart, from left to right and back again, so many times in the course of such a short space, as if they know? As if they sense him? That intruder with thick eyebrows and shuffling feet, who just now raises his hand to the knocker before thinking better of it and throwing his shoulder with all his weight behind it against the door.

Longer boats are coming to win us, they're coming to win us. Longer boats are coming to win us. Hold on to the shore, they'll be taking the key from the door.

And never the twain shall meet

THE DREAM:  It's different each time.  This time we're in bed.  It's dark and he's lying next to me on his side, facing me.  I'm lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling, unable to believe he's actually here with me, in my apartment, in my bed.  I smile at nothing, at the walls, at the air.  I whisper, I love you.  He says nothing, but climbs over me and out of the bed and walks to the floor lamp and switches it on.  I don't dare look at him, I just lie there waiting for I don't know what.  He returns to me, to the bed, and sits on the edge of it.  He looks me dead in the eye and pushes the hair out of my face.  Say it again, he says, not yet smiling, but ready should I coax him into it.  I finally look up at him, my heart pounding.  I love you, I say again.  I love you, too, he responds, and before the elation swallows me whole I wake up.  I'm grinning, weightless, free.

THE REALITY:  You watch too many movies, he says.  I'm standing in his office, a few feet from his desk, facing him askew, arms crossed.  It's all wrong, I think.  We're both smiling, but for different reasons.  I'm just happy to be near him.  He, I imagine, is incredulous of my hyper-idealistic notions of romantic love.  I'm merely content to be talking to him about romantic love, about anything at all.  He looks at his watch.  I don't know, I say, desperately trying to buy some time, just a few moments more.  Relationships are hard.  He laughs.  You're telling me, he says, referring implicitly to his girlfriend of eight years, now his fiancee.  I watch him deftly switch off his computer monitor, gather his things.  But you're a veteran! I sputter.  Again, I get a laugh.  That laugh.  So goofy yet entirely self-assured.  I wake up mornings hearing it.  Hardly, he replies.  I'm still learning every day.  I follow him as he gets up, exits his office, walks into the hall.  The passing of time is palpable now.  I'm increasingly conscious that each moment brings me closer to the long stretch of evening I'll have to pass without him.  I fumble for a show-stopper.  So what keeps you there?  What makes you stay?  It's a bold query, but I think I've got him.  He stops.  Turns back to me.  Looks directly into my face.  That's a question without a single answer, he says, after a minute.  It's not one thing, it's several.  Little things.  A lot of them.  He turns back and ambles toward the exit.  I've lost him.  I stand paralyzed for a moment, unable to formulate a retort.  Wait, a retort?  When did this become an argument?  To be continued? I call airily after him, but he doesn't hear me.  The door's already shut behind him.  I stare after him, but not for long.  My feet feel rooted in the ground, and I'm forced to concentrate hard to return to my office.  I sink into my chair, glowering, weary, trapped.

On The End of the Affair, or "My Love Letter to Deborah Kerr"

I just love Deborah Kerr.  Her grace, her elegance.  She always plays a captivating sensual creature with a palpably guarded depth and a haltingly sarcastic wit, though we certainly see the latter more in An Affair to Remember.  There's a dream-like quality about her, and a dream-inducing quality to watching her.  She wears her sadness - or is it her religion? - like a heavy cloak, it envelops her, wraps neatly around her shoulders.  She is loveliness personified.

It's that fine line between trying too hard and giving up

There's a difference.  There's always a difference.  Inexplicably I strive daily to be what I'm not, and inevitably crash back to earth with the feeling that I'm settling for what I am.  Why can't I get comfortable in a suit?  Why do I squirm discussing the law with colleagues?  Why do I secretly roll my eyes gossiping with other women?  When will I stop SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE when family insists on talking politics as if it touches them, friends insist on talking fashion as if it moves them, media insists on talking trash as if nobly pursuing its destiny.

I can't help but sense the difference.  When I listen to NPR or read the Post, I let the news of the world wash over me like a current.  Particles of sediment stick in my hair and graze my cheek.  I shake my head and they're gone.  I feel little more than a temporary high at being connected to the world for a brief moment in some small way.  A tinge of pride knowing I'll have something to say at the water cooler tomorrow.  Knowing I'll feel like I fit in, if just for a little while.  That Facebook IPO was certainly a disappointment, it's really too bad about those Nasdaq glitches, huh?  Sure.  Kind of a nail-biter waiting for that jury in the Edwards trial, no?  Alright.  (What an ass.)  Yes, but the labor market's a lagging indicator of economic growth, so...  WHAT?  Right, those anti-NATO protests in Chicago, what a mess...

There's a difference.  When I read fiction, when I read poetry, it seeps into me.  The words carve grooves into my organs and lodge themselves there until I don't remember where I end and where they begin.  I gather words, phrases, sentiments and store them in my figurative knapsack because they feed me, nourish me, sustain me.  When good writing enters my consciousness through eyes and ears, I feel changed.  I feel more myself.  I feel hopeful, validated, energized.  I think, Yes, there is a purpose, and this is it.  Here is the reason for being.  This matters, and therefore, I matter.  I often wonder what would be the point, in its absence.  In art's absence.  To live, for what?  To make money, but why?  To what source would I turn for pleasure, for fulfillment, for meaning?

I enter Tolkein's world and my heart skips a beat.  Far over the misty mountains cold / To dungeons deep and caverns old / We must away ere break of day / To seek the pale enchanted gold.  Song, beautiful song!  Tolkein's genius courses through my veins and I'm weightless, taking flight.  As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves.  Translation: I am home.

Dave Eggers' open wounds and aching honesty are like a one-two punch to the gut.  But there was intelligence in that breathing, and passion in that breathing, everything there, we could take that breathing and hold its hand, sit on its lap while watching TV, the breaths were quicker and shorter and quicker and shorter and then shallow, shallow and that's when I loved her as much as any other time, when I knew her as I thought I knew her . . . .  It's close, I can feel it.  If I reach out I can touch his heart, feel it beating, pulsing in my palm.

Stephen Elliott floors me every single time.  He sends me reeling, spinning, staggering for balance, gasping for air.  He plucks each word from the sulci of my brain and lays them carefully out in immaculate order on the page, as innocently as if he had written them himself.  He did write them, though.  That's the stunning, heart-stopping, breathtaking truth.  I felt dizzy and I told [her] that when you're an artist you're trading on that sliver of intellect that allows a slightly different lens onto the problems of humanity, or even something less. I couldn't quite describe it properly but I could see what it looked like. It's a thin membrane, I said. I was talking about insight, kind of, and imagined a bar graph with different colored zones and this one particular fragile spike in your chart. I wasn't talking about beautiful sentences; you can learn, over time, to write good sentences. I was talking about that other thing that disappears when you don't get enough sleep, or when you're sick, or when you wear out and cease engaging with the world, or when you fall back on your own cliches.

Did I think that first, or did he?  I wonder this as I gaze at my reflection in the mirror.  I look tired.  My shirt is wrinkled and there are bags under my eyes.  I think to myself that I should eat better, I should go for a run.  I should make a trip to the grocery store and buy the ingredients for that mushroom risotto I've been meaning to try.  I should blend myself a fruit smoothie and watch the news.  Perhaps I'll learn something, and I can walk into work tomorrow with my head held high instead of slinking past the water cooler and ducking into my office.  I should.  I should.  I should.

I sigh, and walk slowly and resignedly to my room.  I crawl into bed and fluff the covers up around me.  I stare at the cover of my new book like an eight-year-old with a brightly-colored package on Christmas morning.  I open to the first page, smoothing the paper and gently creasing the spine.  I sigh deeply, and begin.  No road offers more mystery than that first one you mount from the town you were born to, the first time you mount it of your own volition, on a trip funded by your own coffee tin of wrinkled up dollars--bills you've saved and scrounged for, worked the all-night switchboard for, missed the Rolling Stones for, sold fragrant pot with smashed flowers going brown inside twist-tie plastic baggies for.  It's Mary Karr, a memoir.  I can't help it.  I'm already head over heels in love.

WRITER'S BLOCK

Happiness
Giddiness
Laziness
Busy-ness

Friends all around
New must-see shows
Out on the town
Chores 'round the home

These are the things that block paper from pen
Keeping me wond'ring when I'll write again

Something about imagination, or creativity, or the beat of my heart

The characters, they come to me in fits and starts.  I get a glimpse of a face, the dart of an eye.  Sometimes I know what they're thinking, though I often disagree.  Occasionally a mannerism will come to me, and I will say, Yes.  Yes, that is exactly right.

Some days the words don't flow, the thoughts don't come.  I sit in a crowded place, staring at passing strangers, willing them to tell me their story.  When nothing happens, irritation seeps into my bones.  We are all human, I think, All in this together.  Why won't you help me?  But they continue on, unconcerned by my plight.  I think, I'd do it for any of you, if you asked me to.  But then I think, Would I?, and I turn my face from them in shame and despair and a sharp loneliness pierces me and suddenly all seems lost.

And then I spot a child.  He has fallen.  He is teetering on his heels, trying to right himself.  And that's when it comes to me.  It's true.  I've remembered something I must have forgotten along the way.  I internalize it, accept it, name it.  I think, It's true:  there's always hope.

I wrote this yesterday.  Sometimes, the words, they do come.

--

In the wonted gaze of a comfortable lover
we take solace
though the urge for what we know must be yet to come
tugs and claws at the tenuous fibers
stitching us whole.
A raw need we choose to ignore, in favor of--

Well excuse me for preferring my security blanket tucked
snugly around me
the way only one used to doing so night after night
can manage.

After all, what is so wrong with peace?
with tranquility?
Am I not like you?
Am I not to feel the warm presence
of all I have worked for and hold dear
by my side
through the long nights?

I think I'm entitled, too,
to a little contentedness.

To a small space inside each day
Wherein I can close my eyes
And breathe.

Not for you
not for me
not for--

Just the air
in, and out
the way it was meant to be.

An Ode to Panic Attacks* (*music not included) & a poem

I have on average one panic attack per day now.  Sometimes they come on gradually, like a rainstorm that builds over the course of an entire afternoon.  First, the air will go still and quiet ("That's weird, I was pretty happy a second ago and now shit feels kind of ominous...").  Then, the sky darkens as the clouds gather and build ("I mean, I could keep my day job, right?  It wouldn't be so bad, would it?  I was just overreacting - I don't have to make such a drastic life change - do I?!").  The temperature beings to drop and the winds pick up, blowing dust and trash and hay bales all over the--WHOA, wait a minute.  I apologize.  I assure you that wasn't me getting overly corny:  I watched R&H's State Fair (1945 musical remake) for the first time last night and I think the imagery just stuck.  (BTW:  If you haven't already, give it a watch!  It's charming, and not only if you have a painfully unrequited girl crush on Jeanne Crain like I do.  Unless, of course, you hate R&H, in which case this musical will literally make you suicidal.  I mean it.  LITERALLY.)  *Ahem*, ANYWAY:  the wind!  ("MY LIFE IS OVER!")

Sometimes, the panic attacks come on like one of those freak thunderstorms, where one moment the birds are singing and the next you're drenched.  And that one goes something like this:  "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

And now, a poem.  I wrote this about ten months ago, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I re-read it today, knowing how true it's become.  When I wrote it, I don't think I had any clue that it would one day become autobiographical.  Of course, I still have to live through the most painful part - telling most of my family, and listening to the disappointment, the fear, the anger, the confusion, the hurt in their voices.  I'm incredibly lucky that the few people thus far privy to my plans have been overwhelmingly supportive; or, at the very least, haven't attempted to dissuade me.

Without further ado, I give you:

-- 

Selfless

If I live twice, how can it be

That I live not at all? You see

I live a double life, which means

Each life only half lived must be.

My body forty hours sits

Inside an office, windowless

I read, I think, I read, I write

And I make smalltalk, ever-trite.

And yet my mind, consistently

Imagines where I'd rather be

What I would do if I could choose –

What I must risk, what I might lose.

I often wander, mentally

To coffee shops, towns by the sea

To old theátres, used bookstores

To windows on the thirtieth floor.

I'd quit my job, I'd pack my things,

I'd leave this place, see what life brings—

I'd take up with a whole new set

With artists, writers, dancers, chefs.

My friends, on the one hand, concerned

Would sit me down, would take their turn

To spout the error of my ways

To point out how much working pays

They would lament how rash I'd been

They'd espouse patience, calmness, Zen

They'd recommend I contemplate,

I reconsider my hasty fate.

My family would be shocked, appalled

They'd scream, they'd wring their hands

They'd bawl, they'd ask me why, repeatedly,

And yet with no retort agree.

At first I'd stoically reply,

Patiently sitting, hands at my sides,

That this was my decision to make

That it concerned my life, my fate.

I'd say to them, I want your love

But not if with conditions it comes

You must simply love me for me

And that includes this long journey.

This journey will change me head to toe

I may become one you'll not know

We may have to start over again

Relearning how to be family, friends

Then sleep on it, they'd all implore

For goodness' sake, whatever more

You ask of us, give this one thing:

That you will wait until morning.

And that, the moment I relent

Will mean more than each hour I'd spent

Planning, plotting, building up

The dream is over, the jig is up.

--

If I had any foolish notions that this journey would be easy.  If I at all imagined it paralleling a heroine's journey in a Hollywood movie.  If I believed I'd start with resolve, and then after a two-and-a-half minute montage consisting of alternating twenty-second shots of me bent laboriously over a stack of books in the library, pounding away furiously on the keys of my laptop with a determined and focused grimace, smiling wearily and wiping beads of sweat from my brow as I serve a boisterous family of four their mediocre dinner, and gratefully falling into the welcoming folds of the comforter atop my modest twin-sized bed, I'd hold up to the light the most glorious novel/play/novella/collection of short stories/screenplay/compilation of poetry ever to present itself before readers' awestruck eyes... well, I WAS WRONG.

Writing is hard.  There's no eloquent or articulate or noble way to phrase that to alter the fact in any way.  WRITING IS HARD.  Even when you're good, and I've got no delusions of grandeur on that score.  I have no idea if I'm good.  I don't even have a clue if I'm good enough to validate this experiment!  I've never received encouragement regarding my writing to justify this sabbatical.  All I know is I've got a building body of work roiling my insides and I won't be at peace until I try my best to get it all on paper and nudge the fledgling drafts into the world to the best of my ability.

Today, a To Do list.

--

-Strengthen vocabulary
-Improve grammar
-Learn to spell
-While you're at it, learn to write
-Attain bravery
-Develop courage
-Have fewer panic attacks
-Tell Mom

--

I mean, that was mostly a joke.  ... Right?

In August I'm leaving my job to write full-time.  I have nothing lined up.  I'll be selling my larger possessions and moving in with a friend who has graciously offered to let me crash with her while I "figure things out."  I haven't exactly told her that my idea of things being figured out is basically being unemployed while I pursue the only thing I've ever loved doing as best I can.  I'm hoping against hope that when she realizes what a great roommate I am - and gets used to living in a clean apartment with home-cooked meals - she'll never let me leave.  We'll see.  Who knows, maybe I'll hate it.  Maybe I'll rue the day I ever decided I wanted something different (more?) out of life.  Maybe it will turn out that I wasn't unique after all, I was just lazy or selfish or unwilling to face reality or just plain terrified of growing up.

Or maybe this is the best decision I ever made.



Oh man, she doesn't even know I have a cat.

I almost forgot.

Sitting in on a long Thursday morning meeting last week I went a little haiku crazy.  I shoved the handwritten buggers into my purse for later perusal.  It was fun to re-read them and to note my progression from slightly bored/contemplative to playful to self-loathing to despondent/despairing to the last one, which might give a slight hint as to my profession.  Or maybe not.  Also, it's possible I have a crush on somebody in the meeting.

Enjoy.

--

Your shyness pierces
My soul to its deepest core
I want you fiercely

-

Pierced by your shyness
I wallow in deep desire
Your soul has stamped mine

-

The haiku is new
I tiptoe nervously up
Soon I will dive in

-

The soul is cheesy
So sick of conjuring it,
Happy to have one

-

Hard cringing torture
Crush joy kill all happiness
Pride self-righteousness

-

Deny it as moot
Dismiss for failure to plead
Refuse, not preserved

--

I love this quote by Stephen Elliott.

He said, Do it for awhile and make enough money then you can do whatever you want. I already do whatever I want, I said. It's just [money].

 What Elliott actually said was [healthcare], but that only makes sense in the larger context of the quote and I think it's effective enough on its own with that tiny bit of tweaking.  The point's the same.  It's really interesting to me how much time most people spend doing something merely for the sake of making money, so that eventually they can hopefully pursue their dreams.  Or at least their favorite leisure activities.  Don't get me wrong, I'm part of the culture of which I speak, and I certainly haven't yet developed sufficient talent/guts/whatever it takes to break the mold.  Instead, I do something I like during the day, and hope for the magical combination of energy + free time to do what I love.  I don't even really need the money.  For me, it's more about living up to other people's expectations of me.  I could quit my job today and live comfortably for two years, but I don't.  Because how would I explain it to anybody?  They'd never believed I'd chosen that life.  Not at my age when I'm just starting out.  But starting what?  My career?  Doing something I know I'll never love as much as writing?  Because I don't think I have the talent to write?  The drive?  The dedication?  I'd rather surreptitiously scribble than proudly pen?

I wrote this today.  My Thursday night got a bit out of control, and when I awoke Friday morning I was instantly and quite painfully reminded that I'm no longer in college.  That my body's older, that it doesn't bounce back quite so quickly or deftly from certain things, such as massive alcohol consumption and a couple short hours of sleep.  Work yesterday was an uncomfortable nauseated daze.  Then, for the 79th time since it started getting airplay, I heard Fun's hit song We Are Young.  My first thought?  No.  We're really not.  Then I started drafting "We're Not Young" in my head.  This morning, I finished it.  It's definitely a bit more on the morbid side than I originally intended.  I meant it to apply to those my age who were starting to realize their post-college physical limitations, but instead it turned into We're Not Young:  The Geriatric Edit.  And of course what makes it to paper is never as good as what lives in your head.

Also.  No disrespect to anybody who needs the money they work for, I just happen not to.  So really, the joke's on me.

--

Give me a second I,                                            Give me a second I,
I need to get my story straight                            I need you all to stop and wait
My friends are in the bathroom getting              My friends are in the bathroom stealing

higher than the Empire State                              Mints and ruing what they ate
My lover she’s waiting for me                           My husband he is waiting for me

just across the bar                                               Heating up the car
My seat’s been taken by some sunglasses         My seat's been chilly lately and regardless

asking bout a scar, and                                       I can't see that far, and
I know I gave it to you months ago                   I know my license 'xpired months ago
I know you’re trying to forget                           I know you think that I forget
But between the drinks and subtle things          But between the trifocals and things
The holes in my apologies, you know               That help me so that I can see, you know
I’m trying hard to take it back                           I'm trying hard to get it back
So if by the time the bar closes                         So if everything's not roses
And you feel like falling down                         And your hair is falling out
I’ll carry you home                                           I'll lend you my comb

Tonight                                                              Alright
We are young                                                    We're not young
So let’s set the world on fire                             Will someone stoke the hearth fire?
We can burn brighter than the sun                    I am so tired; this night's done

Tonight                                                             Alright
We are young                                                   We're not young
So let’s set the world on fire                            Will someone stoke the hearth fire?
We can burn brighter than the sun                    I am so tired; this night's done

Now I know that I’m not                                 Now it's clear that I've got
All that you got                                                Extreme gut rot
I guess that I, I just thought                             I guess that I, I just thought
Maybe we could find new ways to fall apart   Maybe I could eat a hot dog from the minimart
But our friends are back                                  But the pains are back
So let’s raise a glass                                         I've got so much gas
‘Cause I found someone to carry me home     It's a good thing that I ate this at home

Tonight                                                            Alright
We are young                                                  We're not young
So let’s set the world on fire                            I feel like my heart's on fire
We can burn brighter than the sun                   I am so tired; get my Tums

Tonight                                                            Alright
We are young                                                  We're not young
So let’s set the world on fire                            I feel like my heart's on fire
We can burn brighter than the sun                   I am so tired; get my Tums

Carry me home tonight (Nananana)                Let me get through the night (Nananana)
Just carry me home tonight (Nananana)          I really want one more bite (Nananana)
Carry me home tonight (Nananana)                Though that hotdog made my insides fight (Nananana)
Just carry me home tonight (Nananana)         And my pants are already too tight (Nananana)

The moon is on my side                                  Your pillow's on my side
I have no reason to run                                    These covers weigh a ton
So will someone come and                              So will you get up and

carry me home tonight                                    Help me to the bathroom tonight
The angels never arrived                                 But you never arrived
But I can hear the choir                                   And now I'm laying in mire
So will someone come and                             When will someone please just

carry me home                                                 Throw me a bone

Tonight                                                           Alright
We are young                                                 We're not young
So let’s set the world on fire                           The situation's pretty dire
We can burn brighter than the sun                  I am so tired; too much sun

Tonight                                                           Alright
We are young                                                 We're not young
So let’s set the world on fire                           The situation's pretty dire
We can burn brighter than the sun                  I am so tired; too much sun

So if by the time the bar closes                      So if by the time the mall closes
And you feel like falling down                      The elevator's down
I’ll carry you home tonight                            Who'll carry us home tonight?

--

Alright, a haiku, after all.

--

Ephemeral love
Offends bucolic ideals,
The herdsman's wisdom

And sometimes it becomes all about appearance, because we have nothing else.  She said to me, "You're so tiny."  But what does it matter?  Life is what you make of it and in the end she's the one who's a marathon-running ballerina, so who cares if she's twenty pounds heavier than I am?  What did I ever do to earn being skinny, or to enhance it?

I didn't say that right, but what I meant was that sometimes I get credit for things for which, depending on your belief system, either God or nobody at all can rightfully claim credit.  I didn't roll up my sleeves and shed pounds.  I was born with a healthy metabolism and a delicate frame.  Twenty-odd years later, I look like this.  That's really all there is to it.  Luck and the passage of time.

I don't want to write a haiku today.  I want to write a paragraph, one that might function in a novel or short story.  I don't know these characters; whoever they are they will come to me in the next 6 seconds or so.

--

Donald couldn't fathom what Clare meant by leaving the room before he was done explaining about the accident, but it didn't seem to him a particularly promising development.  After all, hadn't she been the one to insist that he take the back roads and avoid the highway?  Wasn't she then at least partly responsible for his dented bumper and his broken taillight?  Perhaps it was guilt, he thought, that made her turn her head and tread with great focus down the hall as if she were navigating a minefield.  But had she even heard what he was saying?  He continued to speak, hesitating only slightly and for just a moment, as if she had merely stepped out to wash her hands in the bathroom down the hall and was keeping an ear trained on the sound of his voice.  But when, moments later, he heard the familiar creak of the third stair above the landing, he knew that she had gone.  He stood in silent disbelief, mouth agape, eyes wide.  He wouldn't see her again until morning.

Sometimes people, for lack of a better word, suck.  But then I think, well, what else is there?  Nothing - there are only people.  There's meaning in their absence, but who would I share it with?  Speaking of meaning, life craves it, but meaning is not a quality inherent to life.  We have to inject our lives with meaning.  Incidentally, meaning is meaningless.  We have to inject the word "meaning" with meaning, too.  What's meaningful to you might bore me to tears.  What's meaningful to me might seem to you to be trivial, laughable... meaningless.

Daily haiku.

--

Meaning is a light rain
A cat's soft wonted purring
A glimpse of sunrise

--

And it was back to work today.  The daily grind.  Did I miss it?  No.  Have I come to depend a bit upon the jarring reality of routine to wake me from my unavoidable weekend stupor?  Absolutely.  My ideal existence would consist almost exclusively of reading, writing, cinema, theatre, and some TV for a bit of palate-cleansing.  Essentially, all art all the time.  If I weren't required to interact with many and various other humans in order to exist on this planet (i.e., work, have neighbors, frequent the dry cleaners), I'd probably go days (weeks?) without speaking to another living thing.

On that note, I jotted this down at work today in the middle of the day.  Daily haiku, continued.

Goodnight, moon.

--

I can feel you near
I know your embrace is warm
We have met before

I just discovered Frightened Rabbit, a Scottish indie rock band with which I'm quickly falling in love.  Or, more accurately:  I've fallen, and now I'm listening to their soul-invading music on repeat and soaking up the nuances and luxuriating in the mild but insistent melodies and the heart-stopping lyrics.  Jesus is just a Spanish boy's name, how come one man got so much fame?  The opening line of Head Rolls Off (off their sophomore album The Midnight Organ Flight from 2008) makes you sit up and simultaneously settle back into your chair.  So much beauty.

That was never my worry.  I'm working on my backwards walk, walking with no shoes or socks, and the time rewinds to the end of May, I wish we'd never met that met that day.  I was never concerned that there wasn't enough beauty in the world.  If anything, I haven't the time to devote enough attention to each beautiful thing I discover.  Often I purposefully close my eyes to a potentially beautiful new experience because I'm overwhelmed by the bounty by which I'm already surrounded.  Is that sad, or is it exquisite?

The thing about life that you don't realize in your youth - even if you didn't have a blissful childhood - is that some things can't be taken back.  Some things, once done, are done forever.  Friendships end.  Relationships fail.  Words are spoken.  Actions are taken.  Oh you won't find love in a, won't find love in a hole.  It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm.  There are mistakes that can't be unmade, and that's certainly a truth whose unmistakable veracity it's taken me years to acknowledge.  People aren't dispensable.  They're not.  No matter how personable, witty, beautiful, intelligent, special, unique, or talented you are, there will come a day when you'll walk into a room and nobody will want to talk to you.  Everybody will be paired, or you'll remind them of their ex.  We can change our partners, this is a progressive dance, but remember it was me who dragged you up to the sweaty floor.  Sometimes it turns out you've snubbed the one with whom you're meant to grow old.  But what does that mean?  That you were never in fact meant to grow old with him or her after all?  Or - more likely, and enough to send small chills up and down your spine for days - that you'll never live the life you were born to live?

I think I'll write another haiku.

--

I think of you each day
You've chosen life without me
We could be happy

--

I wrote this one four days after I wrote the previous one.  Again, Stephen Elliott, though this one pertains much more to the tangible, though it's also quite visceral.  Nothing I write could ever approach Elliott's brilliance or wit, but I try.  I try, and I don't.  I don't want to be him, I want to be me.  But the best version of me.  So, I try, and I try.

--

This is going to be about flow. Not rhythm; more like time, chronology. How you get from point A to point B. Or rather, how I got from point A to point B. Two very different times.

The first is a happy story. It's happy because point B was very clearly an improvement over point A. I went from ignorance to knowledge, and what I gained was fruitful and good. At point A, I was disappointed because I had finished watching the last episode of an amazing TV series: Coupling. Really witty British sit-com about three men and three women in their late twenties/early thirties (I know what you're thinking, and while teenage-me would be appalled by the words I'm about to type, it is worlds more sophisticated and entertaining than Friends). I was in my pajamas but it didn't matter. The point was that I was happy, but not happiest. The show enriched my recreational life, but then it went the way of all great art, and ended. In my search for MORE, I stumbled upon an internet discussion thread where users went to mourn the end of Coupling and find an antidote to fill the gaping void. The IT Crowd was suggested, seconded... I watched it. Bingo! I recognized Chris O'Dowd from his role as the goofy but charming cop in Bridesmaids. Here he played a geeky and bumbling IT worker for a large soulless corporation. His wacky facial contortions and comedic timing were superb, but the real show-stealer in my opinion was his clueless sidekick, Maurice Moss. Played flawlessly by a poker-faced Richard Ayoade, “Moss” is a socially awkward nerd of epic proportions who totes a backpack to work, enjoys role-playing games a la Dungeons & Dragons, and still gets beat up as if he were an easy grade school target. Suffice it to say, I was in love. When I'd finished The IT Crowd, I knew exactly from where my next fix would come: Ayoade. I was dismayed to discover, however, that he hasn't exactly had the most prolific acting career. Read: I'd just watched about 92% of it. He had written and directed a movie called Submarine; an indie coming-of-age flick. It looked hit-or-miss, but I just flipped over it. Subtle but forceful, with detestable yet sympathetic characters brilliantly portrayed by British no-name child actors, I couldn't get enough. The soundtrack was incredible, too. Soulful folk rock guitar tunes with a soothing male tenor. Turns out, it was Alex Turner, a British musician with a solo album (the movie soundtrack) and a band called the Arctic Monkeys. Well, I was hooked. On both. On all of it. On all of this. On the beauty of the process. From point A to point B. One day I'm watching Coupling, the next I'm rocking out to the Arctic Monkeys. Life. Sweet stuff.

This next story is a sad one. It's the age-old story of unrequited love and the poor choices we make in the name of dulling the pain. In fact, the more I think about it, the less interesting and noteworthy this story becomes. I like a guy. He's (basically) married. I got drunk, because, well, why not? Now I sit at my computer, hung-over, writing this discourse about my course and the blood courses coarse from a night of drinking and as a matter of course I tell myself I'll never drink again and of course it's a lie and the course of life and love never did run smooth of course it always seems so simple when you think you're at rock bottom but the twists and turns are of course inevitable and not only that they're the best part. But of course you don't know that yet. Maybe you never will.

And of course, time marches on.

Love & peace,

"Mary"

PS My Dad was the one who called me that. There's a real sadness there. Of course, there always will be.

I wrote this on January 17 of this year.  It was my feeble attempt to emulate Stephen Elliott, a writer with whose words I've become unable to live without.  I'd breathe them in, let them soak into my skin, inhale them, snort them, shoot them up, jump in a bathtub filled with them - anything to have them with me always.  Ever accessible.  He's such a brilliant, feeling, perceptive, sensitive soul.  I've heard he's so much different in person, almost unrecognizable to those who've only been exposed to his writing.

I subscribe to his daily emails, which he uses as a forum to promote his online culture mag, TheRumpus.net, but more importantly (or, more interestingly, at least to me) he uses them as a medium for dumping his thoughts.  Any and all of them.  His emails are gems of stream-of-consciousness that are about everything and nothing and meaning and life and loss and truth, and usually friends, girlfriends, writing projects, movies, literature, California, and/or New York.  His writing is highly addictive.  I'd also highly recommend his newest book, a memoir, entitled The Adderall Diaries.  Just... read it.  Seriously.  You'll thank me.

FYI - I've changed all the names below.

--

Today I was thinking about North Korea. But that was because Stephen Elliott told me to. After that, I thought about France. My brother passed the Bar last summer and trekked to France and about seven other countries with five other guys. “Go to the Lake,” I told him, meaning Lake Michigan, where our grandparents had a modest McMansion in Harbor Springs. “That's what I did when I passed the Bar, and it was great. Low key. Cheap.” “Sounds fun,” he said. He paused. “I think we're going to Europe.” I swallowed. “That's cool,” I said. I thought, “I hate you.” And then, “Why didn't I think of that?” But I was dating the wrong guy at the time and it never would have worked. Steven and I were both too risk-averse. That's not true. I'm the one who's terrified of taking leaps. If I'd said “jump” Steven would've said “yes, dear.” But I never would have said that. I said things like, “Why don't people like me?” And he said things like, “Why do you care so much what other people think?” I didn't really care what Steven thought. Not in that way. It just took me a while to figure that out.

When did this become a conversation? Or several conversations. I don't think about Steven much. Not in that way. When I think about a man in that way these days it's usually Scott. When I'm thinking more about sex and less about love I fantasize about Brad, and when I'm thinking less about sex and more about love I remember Jordan. The one that got away. The one I shoved away, and then when he didn't immediately leave I kicked him in the nuts. Weird how that didn't work out.

I need a theme. Can music be a theme? Look inside, look inside your tiny mind and look harder. Lily Allen is trying to tell me something. It's blasting in my ears and I think she must be talking to me because all I've ever wanted to do was write but I never actually write and when I do it's neat and tidy and boring. Nothing inspired or brilliant or evolved. It's mundane. Quotidian. Vanilla. Do you get a kick out of being small-minded? You want the approval of your father, well that's not how you'll get it. What is she punishing me for?

I feel like this essay is getting away from me. I want to take a deep breath and regain control. I meant to have a smoothie with dinner tonight and instead I had a beer. I opened the fridge and the beer was right there, and I didn't feel like cleaning the blender again. I've had a headache all day and I kept thinking how a smoothie would make me feel at peace. I should take an aspirin.

Who'd have known, who'd have known, when you flash up on my phone, I no longer feel alone. I wonder if she's talking about an ex-boyfriend. Reconnecting with people from the past is at once weightless and oppressive. It's lonely, the re-kindling. It makes you realize you missed something you forgot you missed. You were too busy to notice the loss. What's lonelier than realizing you've gotten too busy to miss your friends? No, I've decided Lily's talking about a new crush. What made me think ex-boyfriend? Nostalgia is my caffeine. My upper. It reminds me how bad things can get. What about you?

Love,

Me

PS This was supposed to be something about meaning, but it got away from me somehow.

--

Writing helps me bear things.  Difficult things, emotionally sticky things, things that go bump in the night.  I'm shamefully poor at speaking my feelings to others, but I can write just about anything.  I just wrote this, below.

--

You're a Picasso, she said,
in not so many words.

She said, I love your outfit.
Then, a step closer.
Are those stripes - blue?
And those pants - black?
She wrinkled her nose.

And then, the familiar inner monologue.

It's me, I thought.
It's got to be.
Everyone else
finds her charming.
Her blinding smile
infectious laugh
So lovely, she
from first to last.
Always the right thing
said or done
Not finding fault
with anyone.
Nothing but praise
escapes her lips
To hear you'd think
All she worships.


But then why do
I always feel
That I to her
do not appeal.
Why does it seem
her eyes grow dim
her smile wanes
her praises thin
Whenever I
enter the room?
Why do I cause
Relative gloom?


Could it be
all's in my head?
A self-fulfilling
source of dread?

But no!
But no.


If I let myself think like this
What will become of my small bliss?
The part of me that knows I'm right
Will disappear into the night
I'll wake one day to find myself
Dusted, folded, and on the shelf
But I'm not done
Just starting out!
I won't go down
Without a SHOUT
I'll hold head high
And carry on
I'll stand up straight
A smile I'll don


And when the guests have left tonight
And her own smile is not so bright
I'll hide away up in my room
To unburden all with a poem.

Happy Easter!  Kristen Lindquist of Camden, Maine, a full-time Coastal Mountains Land Trust development director and part-time poet, keeps a blog wherein she pens a haiku per day.  In celebration of her awesome project, here's my bit of creation for the day.

--

A joyous Easter
To family and friends so dear
May you all be blessed

--

I composed this two days ago, scribbling it hurriedly and surreptitiously into my notebook while glancing up at intervals to ensure no co-worker was on the brink of emerging in my office doorway.  It came to me suddenly, as most things do, and as it materialized in my mind it was accompanied by that familiar panicky feeling that if I did not pen it immediately I would lose it forever.  Too much has been lost in such a way.

--

I think in order to be a writer - a good writer, a relatable writer, a writer of accurate or believable things - one must be courageous enough to admit the truth of truth.  The realness of undeniability.  That is, some things just are, and pleasant or not, they shape our convictions, mold our beliefs, and determine our destinies.  We can alter our attitudes, yes, that can be a brave act and a thorny task.  But we cannot deny what is.  We must not run from truth.  We need not cheerily embrace it, but what it is our lot to do, as intelligent self-preserving beings, is to sit down with it, across an intimate space, and look it in the eye.  We must say to it, "You are here, and I am here, and this journey belongs to both of us now."  And then we must take a deep breath.  And then, a step forward.  The first of many along a path we never thought we'd travel, but would now be dishonest to call anything but our own.

--

I put down Cheryl Strayed's debut novel Torch for a moment to indulge some existential wandering my mind was tugging at me to explore, and pondered for a bit the state of being and the oddity of physical existence.  Somehow (inexplicably?), the following was the result.

--

The idea of flying was always so fascinating to Jonathan.  He felt so grounded in Virginia, so physically connected to the earth and the soil.  Michigan seemed like a place that existed only in his mind.  Like a collection of sensory-rich memories that were no more tangible than an email.  And yet he knew that he would be there tonight.  That he would drive seven miles to the airport, walk a couple hundred yards to his gate, step onto a plane, and not two hours later step off onto the soil of an entirely different place.  He knew when he landed that the realness of Michigan would descend upon him like a rush of cold water.  He knew too that the more immersed he became in the sights and sounds of Michigan the further Virginia would slip from his immediate consciousness until it was no more real to him than a place he had imagined once but never visited.  A place born entirely of his fancy.  Reality is fickle, he thought, as he made his way to his father's waiting car.

--

This blog is for me.  If You stumble upon it & determine You can't live without it, well, that's just a welcome surprise.  I write for me.  Not because I enjoy it.  Not because I'm especially talented.  I write because I can't not write.  I write because it builds inside of me and if I don't let it out I'll explode.  I write because when I don't write I'm pretending to be somebody I'm not.  I write, because.

And so, I will write.

I wrote this tonight after a particularly emotionally charged (for me) interaction with someone close to me.

--

One step forward, two vaulting leaps back.

“You're sensitive,” you say.

Not overly sensitive or unnaturally so.

Just, sensitive.

As if the quality itself is distasteful, irrespective of degree.

Well, maybe you're right.

But is that my burden?

Am I to sift your actions through the sieve of my insecurities

before pronouncing judgment on the interactions we share?

Somehow I feel that to be unfair.

It's the eggshell plaintiff doctrine, sister, that age-old bedrock of tort law –

treat me with kid gloves or beware.

I might break.

I'm not litigious, but is that the only consequence you have to fear?

I might smile at you forever while resenting you behind my eyes.

You don't like me. Why?

You love me, respect me, take pride in my accomplishments –

But you'd dread getting stranded with me at the airport overnight

Getting stuck in an elevator with me for hours

Going camping with me

Hiking

To brunch.

Nice to my face, relieved when I leave.

The crushing truth is that

I've come to accept this superficiality from everybody.

And the truth behind the truth? Is

I'm disappointed in the person you've become.

For years your indifference infuriated me, until

I looked into your eyes and saw it wasn't indifference after all.

It was fear.

You're desperate to fix this, to fix us – but terrified to try.

You'd prefer to keep pretending than

to roll up your sleeves and

dig your fingers into

the dirty earth of

the chasm between

your soul and

mine.

You're beyond saving.

There, I said it.

YOU'RE BEYOND SAVING.

But what about me?

Can I be whole again?

Was I ever?

Did you rip me apart before I'd attained

the muscle memory associated with

completeness of being?

This is what I have to do.

What I'm destined to do.

What I've no choice but to do.

I have to write it.

I have to write it.

I have to write it.

I will write it.

--