This Voice

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People look at me funny when I say I’m not seeing Natalie this Friday. No Natalie? It doesn’t add up. You should see the looks I get! Consider the facts: my favorite “pop” star, playing a benefit, in my state. Normally, this would be a no-brainer. Nothing to consider. Nothing to debate. Except… Rebecca will be in town. Same night, different place.
So, consider the new facts: my favorite unsigned voice (soon to be famous, though), my friend, playing not only in my state but my town.

If I were playing a RockPaperScissors game there would be no competition whatsoever. Rebecca would be the Rock that smashes the Scissors, the Paper that covers the Rock, the Scissors that cuts the paper. Friends win out over celebrity every time. No contest. Speaking of friends, I’ll see you there! I’ll save you a seat.

I May Know

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There are those commercials that talk about depression. You know, the ones that describe days when you don’t want to do anything? You don’t feel like eating, there’s nothing good on television, no one you want to talk to (text maybe), no desires except maybe to sleep for days on end. I wondered aloud to my husband if maybe, just maybe, that was my problem. Maybe I was depressed. Or maybe just indifferent to my here and now. If I had to chose I would prefer indifference.
I have decided to let go of previous struggles. They just aren’t important anymore. Like hanging on to something under water. It grows heavier and heavier until finally I lose my grip. But. But, letting go is such sweet sorrow! The burden slowly sinks away, growing further and further out of reach. Couldn’t change my mind if I wanted to. Opportunity lost without caring. I think of Natalie’s “I May Know The Word” and how it is a song of indifference. She may know the word but not say it. I’m like that, turning my head, oblivious to what was once important to me. What was once sacred no longer sustains me. Does this scare me? A little.
I’m not heartbroken to let something in me die. Maybe it was beyond saving all along? Maybe it was so dysfunctional that dying is such sweet relief? When I told my husband I thought something in me just shriveled up and died, guess what he did. He smiled. Not caring is the equivalent of not hurting and that is a good thing.

This Peace

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Something I wrote almost 16 years ago:

Early, early in the morning and late, late at night I find peace walking. I don’t know what it is that makes me feel so okay, but I’m glad it’s there. It’s quiet. 4:30am and 11:30pm. just me and the stars…and the moon. This is the time I try to think of good things, and better things, and maybe the best things. I wonder what will happen to me. What happened to dad? What is he doing now? Is he in heaven? Does heaven even exist? I don’t know. For some reason at that time of day, walking all alone, it doesn’t hurt to think about things like that.

All’s Fair

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fight.jpg

I’m currently reading A Diary From Dixie and the narrator, Mrs. Mary Chestnut is a pretty funny lady. My standard way to “review” a book is to give a brief overview of the general plot, what I thought while I was reading it, some quotes that I found to my liking (for one reason or another) and finally, where in it belonged in the Book Lust Challenge. For A Diary from Dixie I have way too many quotes I will want to use. Really, what has been happening is Mrs. Chestnut’s comments are causing me to think about my life and how the quotes relate.  Two such quotes deserved their own blog.

“Only your own family, those nearest and dearest, can hurt you.” and, “They tell you all of your faults candidly because they love you so” (p 128).

There is a lot of truth tied to those two statements. Never mind that they were written in August 1861. Never mind that this country was at war with itself at the time. Mrs. Chestnut made comments about something so commonplace, so true, that it could have been written yesterday…by me.
What is it about hurting the ones you love? Where do you draw the line? You’ve heard it before – This Is For Your Own Good…This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You…I Did It Because I Love You…She’s Family (she won’t mind)…
It’s been almost a month since I first felt the sting of “my own good.” I haven’t had the forgiveness to really say much about it until now. I sat and stewed in my own juices for all this time. Friends, kisa, and even my own mother, have jumped in the soup and offered words of advice. I’m grateful for every kind word uttered. I’m thankful they (at least) aren’t telling me how to feel. They know that’s worse than giving me a hundred flat tires. Right, Scott? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when in doubt, ASK. When it doesn’t concern you, stay out. If you think it concerns you, converse with me, convince me. I’ll listen. It doesn’t matter what “right” you think you have, family or not, blood or water, I will listen.

Slipping Up Slowly

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I wish I could read and run at the same time. When I read I feel guilty that I’m not running. And when I’m running….who am I kidding? I haven’t been running! There’s no guilt there! I just want to be reading more than running. Period. Such a sad state of affairs.
I think I’m slipping up slowly. A few weeks ago I posted a review without my favorite quotes. I had to go back and add them in today. What was I thinking? After adding them I then had to double back to LibraryThing to make sure I had linked the review (I had). Phew.
In the meantime I’m supposed to be working with a personal trainer. I won’t even get into it because it’s just fodder for laughter at this time. I can’t even take myself seriously. Yet, I plan to blog about it because I’m a glutton for punishment (and ridicule).
I let three birthdays go by this week without acknowledgment. Not that I did it on purpose. Time got away from me and it was late before I knew it. Late is par for the course. I hope they understand. Like I said, slipping up slowly.

Diary From Dixie

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Diary from DixieChestnut, Mary Boykin. A Diary from Dixie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949.

From the moment I started reading Mrs. Chestnut’s diary I felt I was in for gossip, gossip, gossip. While this is a great first hand account of life during the Civil War, I couldn’t get over how much of a name-dropping, political hob-nobbing, party-going Southerner she was! Another thing I noticed  was how humorous Mrs. Chestnut was! Here are a few of her more comical entries:

“There Mrs. Hunter told us a joke that made me sorry I had come” (p 8). But, she never does explain the joke was! Too bad!
“At camp meeting he got religion, handed round the hat, took the offering to the Lord down into the swamp to pray over it, untied his horse and fled with it, hat, contribution and all” (p 13).
“I think this journal will be disadvantageous for me, for I spend my time now like a spider, spinning my own entrails, instead of reading as my habit in all my spare moments” (p 22). See, gossip, gossip!
“Every woman in the house is ready to rush into the Florence Nightingale business” (p 70). Good ole fashion jealousy, perhaps?

I think the only quote to get to me showed the attitudes of the time, “Women need maternity to bring out their best and true loveliness” (p 86). We’ve been here before.

All in all, Mary Chestnut’s diary was a delight to read. I fell in love with some of the language: flinders, rataplan, brickbat, and best of all, envenom. Love that word! Witty and humorous, it didn’t read like a history textbook. Instead, it gave texture to the sounds and sights and warmth to the personalities from the Civil War. More importantly, it gave a sense of what it was like to be a woman during that time.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust and the chapter called “Civil War Nonfiction” (p 58).

If I Ever Write

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For the past week I have been scrutinizing you, writing about you. Sizing you up, cutting you down only to build you back up again. I look at both sides of what you deserve and what you’ll get and wonder if I am being fair. Is it about being fair? Is what you do reason enough for the numbers I give you, assign you, tell you to live with? Until next year. When we’ll do it again. Will you learn from my scrutiny, my cutting and building? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Learn the rules of the game in order to play. Learn the tricks of the game to win. And so I write.

Game on.

This Old Post 11/8/05 10:13am

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Remember When?

My childhood has crept up on me. Daily, I think about my younger days. A psychic once told me that to ponder my past meant an imponderable future…an impending death. Interesting. I just think it means I’ve been reminded of when I was a kid so it’s been on my mind more than a lot lately.
My husband and I watched a program about the strangest creatures to roam the eather (BTW: the male angler was number one because he attaches himself to the female and becomes part of her body; an odd appendage of sorts). Anyway, horseshoe crabs made the list. I forgot where on the list they ranked. They are not crabs at all, but rather relatives of the spider with 12 legs and ten eyes. I used to find horseshoe crabs stranded on the beaches of Quogue. Thanksgiving. Visiting my wealthy grandmother on Long Island. I remember a picture of me bravely holding up the tail of a beached and decided dead one. I wore a Dorothy Hamill haircut and a big cheesy grin. I was fascinated with the creatures.
S and I went to dinner tonight and I saw the dreaded whoopie pie. I’ve sworn off them, by the way! I still say my mother’s whopper of a whoopie is still my ultimate favorite. Standing at least 4″ high and easily a hefty pound I won’t be able to resist. I long to stand at her side, frosting spoon in hand.
This weekend I skimmed through the books I bought my nephew. The Lorax, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, The Five Chinese Brothers, Blueberries for Sal, Goodnight Moon, Tiki Tiki Tembo, Ferdinand the Bull…all the stories from when I was a kid. I still read them as an adult. I have Shel Silverstein poems solid like cement in my head….memorized for life. “I cannot go to school today said little Peggy Anne McKay…”, “The crocodile went to the dentist and he sat down in the chair…”, “Enter this deserted house, but walk softly if you do…”
I have no idea why we attach ourselves to the childhood things and think they are the greatest. Batman, Lincoln Logs, Nancy Drew. Flour, salt and water. 64 colors and the built-in sharpener. I still love the smell of grape bazooka bumble gum and drinking Sprite through a Twizzler is still one of the coolest things to do.

Crossley Baby (with spoiler)

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Crossley BabyCarey, Jacqueline. The Crossley Baby. New York: Ballantine, 2003.

November is National Adoption Month. Out of everything I am currently reading, I thought this would be my favorite. I’m sorry to say I was a little disappointed. The Crossley Baby is the story of two sisters (Sunny & Jean) battling for their dead sister (Bridget)’s baby. Well, that’s what it’s supposed to be about. Instead, it’s more of a commentary on wealth (Jean has it, Sunny does not), parenting (Sunny is a mother of two, Jean is not) and manipulation (they both do it, for one reason or another). More time is spent setting up where Jean, Sunny and Bridget came from than the actual adoption process. More time is spent on describing the vast financial differences between Sunny and Jean than on their personalities. By the end of the book I didn’t know Jean or Sunny any better so I didn’t care who got the baby. I was completely indifferent to their struggle for baby Jade. Probably what bothered me most was the lack of real grief shown by either sister over the death of their elder sister. Crossley adds flickers of sadness, glimpses of sorrow, but for the most part Bridget’s death goes mostly unmourned. Possibly that is because they never got along. If there is one thing the three sisters did really well it was avoiding closeness.
In the end, Sunny wins custody. Everything points in the direction of Jean winning – money, power, people in her corner – while Sunny’s husband is filing for bankruptcy, old favors aren’t worth cashing in, and they have to sell their home. In a last minute surprise ending Jean withdraws her application for adoption and doesn’t contest the award going to Sunny. No one from Bridget’s life is there to put in a word edgewise.
Ironically enough, it was Bridget who was my favorite character because of this one line, “Bridget tasted her words before she spoke…” (p 112).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the very first chapter called “Adapting to Adoption” (p 1).

Is It Any Wonder?

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We’ve started to talk about Thanksgiving. They talk. I listen. I find this time of year tiresome. Who goes where and for how long? Can we split up the time? Can we avoid the time? What is the time? My mother-in-law is stressing about keeping the kid. Defiantly announcing, “I get the kid.” Okay. Definitely. Two years ago I brought up having a “schedule,” some sort of flow chart to keep our obligations straight. Somehow it became a discussion about something else entirely.
We have never had a holiday, just the two of us. I’ve never cooked a twelve part meal with only him in mind. Turkey, (garlic) mashed potatoes, cajun sweet potatoes (with pecans), that green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (homemade), creamy pearl onions, stuffing (two kinds), honey wheat rolls, the gravy I don’t touch, three kinds of pies… There’s always been someone else. Or a few someone elses. Not that I don’t mind family. I just miss him.

It’s insane how much we try to divvy up family time. Time with his family – both sides- time with mine. What about the other in-laws? Where’s their time? Everyone wants a piece. Who gets the turn this year? Well, where were we last year? We’ve never hosted Christmas, nor have we started our own (private) traditions because we haven’t been here. My kitchen remains cold because we’re always cooking somewhere else. I’m about ready to sell my serving ware.
This year I may not even bother with the ornaments, the decorations, or even the tree since we won’t be here…again. I was in such the spirit last year that I put everything up….only to have it sit silent while we went somewhere else.

Here’s my wish for the holidays. I want my home away from home to be so warm that I feel like I’m where the heart is and I’m happy to be there. Regardless of where that is.
 

Bad Land: An American Romance

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Bad LandRaban, Jonathan. The Bad Land: an American Romance.

In honor of both the month Montana became a state and National Train Month I put Bad Land  on my list. It reads like a river. Some parts read like racing rapids while others slow to languid pools of near stillness. Then there are the waterfalls, where the language is cascading awe-inspiring. It was during these “waterfall” sections that I wanted to pack a bag and head west, just to see it for myself.

Raban helps you look at Montana from the point of view of the immigrant (emigrant), the artist, the ancestor, the traveler, the naturalist. Like standing back from a canvas to discover hidden colors. It’s a historical story, lyrically descriptive and informative. It’s a biography of the landscape as well as the people settled there at the turn of the century.
Favorite lines:”…mouth like a mailbox” (p 67).
“Mrs. Nemitz, scenting sarcasm, put his face on trial for a split second, but found it not guilty” (p 104).
“It’s exhilarating and scary, to lighten ship every so often, to kiss goodbye to the accumulated tonnage of ones life so far” (p 114)
“now the book is full of brittle ghosts” (p 136).

BookLust Twist: Mentioned twice in Book Lust. Once in the chapter called “Montana: In Big Sky Country” (p 156)…in which Pearl calls Bad Land  “the best book about Montana by a non-Montanan” (p 157); and “Riding the Rails: Railroad History” (p 201).

Cleaning Out

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Sometimes I get beyond frustrated with my way too much stuff. I have one of those lives where even the paperclips have a home, yet you wouldn’t know it with all the junk I have around. Junk junk junk. It feels excessive, stupid and indulgent to have so much. Kisa and I have two full sets of dishes. One from my life without him (from 1990), and one from our humble beginning together. Do we really need 20 mugs for a two person household? I don’t think so.

So today….today kisa and I are cleaning. The in-laws announced the arrival of a huge dumpster and a whole week to fill it. I hear it’s the walk-in kind. How cool is that. I can imagine it like a gaping mouth that will accept only garbage, trash and unwanted junk. I can’t wait to feed it. Cookbooks without a single diary entry…mattresses tired of waiting for guests…posters from high school…stuffed animals from old boyfriends…lying letters…anything related to broken promises or unfulfilled good intentions. I hope it’s really, really hungry.

I want a lighter life. I want to be stark like the mountain range, not cluttered with clusters of trees and debris. I want more of a mis en place existence. I can’t explain it more than that.
Stay tuned.

Limbo

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My favorite time of day isn’t really when the sun is shining. Driving home the other night I tried to capture the light in my mind- pin it down to describe it. It’s that time of day when it’s light enough to see the shape of clouds in the sky, but dark enough that streetlights start to flicker on. Dusk. Twilight. The time when, looking at the horizon, you see the fading color of the sun: the color of old bruised skin yellow. Straight up above, the darkened sky of almost black. A dark so dark that strong, bright stars twinkle bravely. Firstcomers to the party. It’s like seeing night and day at the same time and time itself is caught in limbo between. There is a magic to that space-between light. I see things with clarity in that light. I am happy to be alive in that light. I can’t explain it anymore than that.

Happiness Is…Me

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Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall a book. Something in my childhood that I held dear. I’m thinking it had to have been written by Charles Schultz because I distinctly remember Snoopy and the gang. It was called “Happiness Is…” and within its pages were pictures and proclamations of what made someone happy. “Happiness is…a warm blanket” with a picture of Linus or something like that. I’m guessing. It’s a murky memory at best.
Throughout the years I have played the “Happiness Is…” game, filling in the blanks whenever something made me happy. Happiness is…whoopie pies fresh from Moody’s Diner. Happiness is…my husband massaging my feet. Happiness is…finding a great pair of shoes…chai tea…nanook slippers…You get the point.
Lately, I’ve been playing the game a lot. Happiness is talking to a friend for four hours and not noticing a single second. Happiness is hearing from Ohio and talking about the talkative. Happiness is two pumpkins, one smiling, one frowning, on my doorstep. Happiness is Halloween and everything it brings. But, most of all…last but nowhere near least, happiness is…acceptance when you least expect it.
I talked to my mother on Halloween night for two hours, 20 minutes and 19 seconds. While I struggled with hurt, she helped. While I struggled with disappointment, she didn’t try to tell me differently. She let me feel everything I needed to and thensome. I’m not saying things are perfect. Things rarely are. But. But, I’m on the road to good and that makes me happy.

This Old Post 11/2/05 6:46am

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Note: It’s funny. I didn’t write on 11/1/05 either. What’s even funnier is this post – from two years ago. I could have written it today.

What You Want to Hear
When does the game of he-said/she-said go from conversation to complication? When your heart is too involved…or not enough? When you are close to the subject or you can’t get away from it fast enough?
We played an intricate game of telephone and I’m still trying to sort out the winners and losers. What kind of game are you playing when you don’t have all the facts yet you are pressed for something? You keep saying “I don’t want to get into this” but yet, you do because you picked up the phone in the first place. An active participant without all the answers. Don’t they call that “not playing with a full deck, but playing nonetheless”? The sad thing is, my lack of facts gave someone else the excuse to only hear what he wanted to hear. I’m still trying to sort out if that was a good thing.
My husband is not letting someone else hear what he wants to hear. I admire my man for not giving in to apologies and rug sweeping. He’s smart enough to know this thing is too big to get under there anyway. I applaud him for his decision to confront because he’s not only trying to save a friendship, he’s trying to save a life. My only hope is that he won’t be told “it’s none of your business” because that’s not what he wants to hear.
Seriously, when is it okay to get involved? When is it okay to turn a blind eye? Is it ever okay to simply say I don’t care anymore and walk away? How can you catch yourself before you care too much and it’s beyond too late? How can you act of out love and hate at the same time? My answer would be you can’t but still, I wish I could battle through the pernicious and arrive at sanity’s doorstep unscathed. “We are the roses in the garden, beauty with thorns among the leaves. To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed.” ~10,000 Maniacs.
Take the good with the bad. Suffer the pain with pleasure. Without one you simply cannot have the other. The trick is to know when to answer the phone…and hear what you want to hear.