Tolstoy’s Nephew

He sat across from me at the small table, his arm in a wide arc around his coffee cup as he spoke the words, “Marat shot a man last summer.”

We all looked at him for a moment, with mild disbelief. He pressed sparse details of the story into our palms, like a crisp bill to a valet. The body in the lake, a stone tied to the head.  The smile on his face should have been a tip off that it was all just some exaggeration of life behind the Iron Curtain, but instead it made what he said more real, more solid—as though he were sharing a great secret with us.    

Morning bled into afternoon, and someone suggested a drive through the desert.  Casinos have a way of flashing their neon invitations straight out across the Salt Flats, beckoning to the good people of Utah from all those miles of shared border, so we all tumbled into a car and headed into the sun.  Somewhere along the way there was a gas station with crunchy-gooey nachos and cold beer to soften the edges of the long ride on such a straight road.
I think that was the day he traced the length of my arm with his fingertips in long, slow strokes while we murmured under the spark and pop of conversation coming from the front seat.  He told me about home, as we sprawled across the seat, wedging a knee against a door, a foot against a console.  The tickle of his accent against my eardrums still resonates, but I can’t remember his words.  Most of them are lost in the dry air of the lumbering salt flats.  A few of them clung to the smooth surface of me long enough to work their way inside, where they slid neatly into the pile of thoughts he has planted in me. Thinking was one thing we did well together. Fucking was another, which is what started this whole crazy dream. No, I guess it’s not accurate to call it a dream…even if it feels like it was one.
He wasn’t actually Tolstoy’s nephew; he wasn’t even Russian anymore. 

--Salt Lake City, November, 2006

A Great, Salt Lake

Fifteen years I lived in Utah

and never visited the Great Salt Lake.

I saw it, smelled it, knew it--

it was unavoidable, its greatness unexaggerated.

But I never slipped into that thickly salted lake

to bob around like an apple or a bath toy.

When I returned to Utah last summer,

it occurred to me

that I had once wanted to know

how it felt.

The day was scorchingly hot,

with a clear, sapphire sky arching overhead,

met halfway by chalky peaks.

Antelope Island called to me,

boasting herds of its namesake

and imported buffalo.

I took my boys

on the blinding-bright walk across the muddy expanse,

through the wall of tiny insects that billowed to life as we breached it,

into the soft, warm water lapping at our ankles

Shins

Knees

Knees

Thighs--

we walked a mile ‘til we reached our waists,

so that we may lay back and giggle as the water held us too far aloft,

off-balance, unable to sink.

Brine shrimp infested our bathing suits,

filled our hair with their dull brown glitter.

Shimmering water spread out around us,

drowned by the salt of the desert.

We floated like angels

among the reflected mountains.

(Here is the blog post I wrote after a 2013 visit; this poem was written for my Fiction Writing Class at the University of Iowa the following year; the background of this blog is composed of a picture that I took on that visit to the Lake)

Poems, or the muck rattling around in my brain...

I wrote this on my original blog, in June 2011...I am leaden with the weight of all that has changed since then, sad for the lost opportunity to forgive my father, and for the magic that would have averted (could never have averted) the creeping autoimmune factors that caused O's pancreas to turn against him and saddle him with a lifetime of insulin shots; these losses were looming ahead in the near distance the whole time.

Because maybe
even though life is beautiful
sometimes there are things in it that aren’t.
Like being a child of divorce,
suddenly
and rather unexpectedly
at the age of 36.
Wondering if I’m as selfish as my
selfish
selfish
selfish
father
because I already know I’m like him
in some less-than-flattering ways
and I don’t
want
to be.
And maybe it's more fair to say,
also,
that he is kind and good-hearted,
but right now,
it's the selfish that really
sorta
stands out.

And maybe sometimes
it makes me too sad even to cry
if I think about my mother
left
alone
at her age.
73.
She should have been widowed, not abandoned.
but
of course
I don’t mean to say
that I would prefer my father had died,
But.
It would have been sad in very different ways.
And he has still left her.
Left all of us.
Because he’s not planning to come back
from California.
Who could blame him?
(Well, besides my sister and I?)

I am angry at him
and I am angry
and I am ANGRY!!!!!!!
The font doesn’t grow large or red enough for me to express the depth and breadth and inexplicable fieriness of my anger.
He
        could have stayed
should have left sooner
would not have made her happy if he had stayed, anyway...
But she was happy, is happy, will always be happy.
She is content and sure and grace-filled.
She didn’t need him, ever
and maybe that’s why...
He wasn’t able to stay.

***********************

Twin Fever

I am obsessed with
immersed in
riveted by—
the videos of my boys as toddlers.
I lose myself for long chunks of minutes
inside these scenes from my past.
I listen to myself narrate the video,
giggling at their antics,
(myself in stereo:
laughing then, laughing now),
the love I felt for them palpable,
visible in their shining dark eyes.
The love is still here, of course,
but it’s easier to gush over toddlers than tweeners.
They fight it far less.
Watching their first steps,
their first words,
their first, toddling wrestling match...
I want to live inside those moments,
indeed, it feels like time travel.
I want to bury my face in the soft skin between chubby cheeks and tender necks.
I want to lift them onto my hips,
two at a time, like I did then.
Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye;
those just-walking babies will be 11 next week.
Those 4-pound preemies are now each 5’ 1” tall.
They are smart and funny and are
just
about
to
turn into People.
It astounds me.
They astound me.
Those soft little cheeks and giggles and rounded words.
They are everything.

****************************

A seagull stole my mango yesterday
From the deck of my sailboat
as we rocked in the salty air.

I leapt to the dock
and chased him down.

I got my mango back.
--for Captain Chrissy, F/V Olad, Camden Maine

JPG

You're a digital image

seared into my mind,

burning through me

with the speed of light.

Past Life

I am Fitzgerald

and Bukowski,

with a dash of Hunter S.

thrown in for good measure.

Or,

I used to be,

back when I was unhappily married—

oh, what a thrill that was!

To live in a world I could reject

(with some measure of impunity)

and in which I felt trapped

and compelled to dream my way free

of my white-picket-fence prison.

The need to purge my soul

Ok, maybe that is a little bit...dramatic.
But.
The thing is,
I should be writing.
Like, at least once a day.
I should be here,
dumping out my mind and my heart.
But I remember what happened the last time I lived through a keyboard
the last time my mind hovered just outside my body -
holding a vigil for my far-roving heart.
But now...
my heart sits nearby,
beating a soft steady rhythm
in the chest of the dearest man on earth.
And my mind is mostly my own again,
not sick with an unfed addiction to affection,
instead,
curled up like a cat in front of the fire...
purring, content.
And so, I find myself wrestling
with how to feel both fulfilled and hungry,
both content and restless.
The little pains of life are what drive a soul to crave,
and craving is my fav-
orite catalyst.

I somehow feel like I don't deserve to create,
to write,
to feel
anything but the love I sought for all of my concious days,
because of the deep gratitude I feel for having that love.

So I punish myseslf by withholding this pleasure,
this passion,
this greatest of thrills -
fingers on a keyboard,
words on a page.

Just writing these few lines has felt like prayer.
The knots in my chest have unwound,
and lay loose within me.
Now I could find a story to tell, perhaps, but...
it is time to cook dinner.

It's ok. I love this life.
I just need to remember that I still deserve to write.
And that I don't need to fear what it will conjure up inside me.

Rockland, Maine. Art Walk, July, 2013.

                                                Gallery Night

I tumbled through the door—

a force field between the heavy, wet heat of that July evening

and the cool, jazz-filled art space.

It used to be a high-end stationery and art supply store;

now, all dressed up.

I shook off the heat and breathed in the cool air,

looking around to choose a direction to begin my inspection.

The vast oil painting to my left sucked that deep breath right back out of my chest—

I stumbled toward it,

tripping on a fellow gallery hopper,

and forgetting my companions.
It filled the wall, and my heart.

This is art.

This is art!

The joy welled up within as though I had found a long lost question,

One with no answer, and limitless answers.

I breathed again, softly, reverently.

The light, the forms—

the eyes!

I stood so long, my friends moved on,

tucked into the flow of patrons consuming the rest of the images.

Unwillingly,

I stepped away from that beautiful pair of women

dancing on a wide, flat rock by my beloved sea.

I stepped up carefully (wide-eyed) to the next piece,

and the next—

each one more plainly portraying love between the women

caught by the paintbrush of this marvelous man.

Their eyes glowing with life,

their hearts on their proverbial sleeves.

My friend's friend circled back to me at one point 

and asked if I liked them.

I breathed out a mumble of affirmations, unwilling to look away.

The androgyny is captivating, I said.

The way some of the women seem to have a whisper of a five o'clock shadow, a masculine jaw and eyebrows…

No, she said, pressing her authority as an art professor down hard upon me.

They're women, she said, like a door slamming.

I thought art was the beginning, not the end,

The question, not the answer.

I thought art was supposed to be whatever the viewer takes from it.

~~~~~

The paintings are here, if you're interested in seeing for yourself (and I hope you see whatever you see, and that I haven't influenced you unduly).

The artist was interviewed for a Huff Po article and its author nailed my reaction exactly (emphasis added): "If you don't "get" Bartlett you may find his work excessively earnest, but if his paintings pull you in there is a chance you may find yourself wordless and gaping in their presence. That would please the artist very much." 

The Golden (blogging) Years

I remember the days
when I was a blogger,
taking empty nourishment
from the instant feedback,
chasing the highs of new connections,
devouring the words of some of the best writers I've ever known.
All I wanted in those days

Was a muse

And I found some... 

But what I didn't see

Was that I also inspired - 

One song was directly created from my words,
and others were pulled from the air around me;
I inspired a painting, a cartoon, even some graffiti
and countless
secret
dreams... 

Moody

No, not Hank Moody

(although, I've always wanted to BE HIM)
and not the Moody Blues -
and actually not the blues, at all.
Just grumbly, growly, orneriness.
It rolls through me on occasion,
usually for no easily apparent reason.
Today we could blame the heat
(I've done it before)
or the fact that it's Monday
in my world of 9-to-5-ing,
or maybe we could blame
hormones or sleep cycle or --
any number of other minor details,
but the cause doesn't really matter today.
Just the roar.
The silent roar of the giant silver lion pacing back and forth within my chest.

I choose stasis over glory,
and I don't know how to have both.
Can I have both?
Can I feel the thrill of trying to impress this dear man who loves me unconditionally?
It is a living oxymoron--
the two states are mutually exclusive.

I dunno.
But I hate when I feel grouchy
and I hate it that I can't seem to find that part of me that receives inspiration;
and either way,
I just want to go take a long bath,
and read some literary perfection...
(Toni Morrison, maybe, or John Irving)
and maybe dream of Quantum Leap-ing through all the marvelous books I haven't yet written...

Gnawing Hunger

I crave great books,
and minds to woo and be wooed by,
with which to devour them.
I miss the feeling of trying to win affection -
it was a mighty propeller,
the search for my Soul Mate,
my World's Biggest Groupie,
my deepest addiction...
But I found him,
and the world went quiet around me.
Stillness settled upon and bled through me.
I didn't need anymore.
I didn't ache and yearn and pine and keen.
I embodied Zen calm, able to just be...
Every nerve grew languid and lazy and hazy...
All others fell away like shadows,
holograms of handsomeness,
without any magnetic pull,
just scenery,
the background of my sunburst-rainbow-tidal wave of love.
If there is such a thing as a purely positive psychotic break, I'm pretty sure I had one.
One day I was the Me I'd always been:
dreaming, drooling, flirting, seeking,
searching by leaping out into the world,
connecting and connecting and connecting, in so many ways...
The next day, I was Me but
surrounded by the quietude of having my keening,
howling cavernous emptiness filled with the sunshine of a summer day, forever...
But once in a while,
I miss how it feels to banter with someone,
almost flirting,
pleasure in each others' wit,
swapping stories and connecting again,
but in a gentle, measured way.

Bang Bang

 As I pulled the shower curtain aside and reached for my towel, the first thing I noticed was the heavy black gun lying next to the sink. My heart did the expected racing, as I wrapped the towel around my wet torso while diving for the gun. It hadn’t been there when I got in to the shower. This could only mean one thing.

He was back.

I slid back the safety and checked: loaded. How had I not heard him enter the bathroom? Had I really been so lost in thought as to dismiss the sounds of an opening door? I stood completely still, the silence rushing up against me with a sharp smack.

Johnny was smarter than that. Johnny wouldn’t have left the gun on the sink unless…unless… Unless he wanted it to be a fair fight. He was twisted like that. I sighed and sat down on the edge of the tub. I was terrible at games like this.

My hand was steady on the weapon as I moved silently toward the door. I knew at least this much: whoever was waiting for me out there would only get impatient now that the water had stopped running.

“Johnny? Baby is that you?” I was reasonably satisfied with the calm I affected, the casual, happy tone I projected.

I held my breath, thinking it had been a good life as I pulled the door open and stepped through it.

It wasn’t Johnny sitting on my couch, smoking a cigar.

It wasn’t him, pointing a gun at me, behind the sweet smelling cloud of smoke.

But that didn’t make me hesitate to lift my gun and aim back, towel be damned.

“You dropped something,” she said, as dry as the desert.

“You like the view?”

“Where the fuck is Johnny?” She looked me up and down and smirked; bad move on her part, since that told me that she was not here on business. This was personal.

Belly laughs

I need to let go,
and let all the fear uncoil
inside the great cavern of my belly...
My great belly - great like the lakes,
not like something that you love the way it is,
or something that makes you smile when you look at it.
No, this belly is far too big to inspire mirth,
and is far too scarred to be mistaken for the skin of a person who might have once been beautiful...
This belly is the belly that acts like a shield against past mistakes,
past grief, caused.
This belly will keep me from moving through this world
as a flower that needs only adoration to flourish...

Axl Rose and Me

The story of how a 50-year-old Axl Rose brought back my mojo one steamy night in the Meadowlands

We have a lot in common, Axl and I.
We both were once wild and sexy and full of potential...
and now we are both chubby and wistful, but powerful,
reaching out to reclaim what we abandoned.

Ok, so maybe we are nothing alike--
he was an internationally known rock musician,
for years,
while I was simply a writer on the cusp of success,
for a moment.
But I think we both handled it poorly
and I think we've both aged,
and bulked up a bit in our midsections,
our faces puffy and blurring out the beauty that may have once existed.
And I know that I felt alive in a way I haven't for so long,
alive like the fireworks exploding over the stage
as he wailed into the microphone,
alive with the muscle memory of
how
fucking
badass
I once was.

I stood there, hedged in by rows of flimsy folding chairs,
trying not to dwell on the fact that we paid as much as a pair of plane tickets
to be 20 yards from the stage
or the fact that despite the solidity of the Dansko construction,
they were still heels, so I felt an intense desire to chop off my own feet.
But when “Mr. Brownstone” charged through the amplifiers
filling the stadium and my every pore,
nothing mattered but how loudly I could scream.
I let him welcome me to the jungle as visions of power and beauty filled the stage of my mind:
I felt the old me surge to life,
emerging from a dusty corner on atrophied and forgotten muscles.
I felt like somehow he had opened a door for me
a door leading me down a path I've been too afraid to search for,
the path toward the life I forgot to create.

And when the lights came up on Axl sitting at the piano,
playing us in on the opening of Layla,
I thought I'd slipped through the fabric of space-time
and had landed in an alternate reality,
one in which I'd continued writing, and was vibrant and confident, fierce.
I blinked as he transitioned to “Patience,”
still sitting at the piano, his face a blend of serenity and satisfaction.
He looked so comfortable with his fingers on the keys, like he belonged there,
like maybe he was still a little boy taking piano lessons with a prim old lady down the street; that maybe his life had been full of joy and peace instead of drugs and disappointment.

Through it all, I kept marveling that he was there.
That his voice was the voice I'd rocked out with for decades...
He was still the same, even though his sexy elvish face was hard to detect;
he still had the gift that drew him into the vortex of fame. 
And maybe,
even I could find my way back to the fire in me,faded sexiness be damned.

10 Years Gone

Every year, I spend some time thinking of the loss this day once brought to my family.

I try to  make time for a screening of The Big Lebowski, and a glass of Hefeweizen.

I always touch base with his daughter's mother.

Maybe some day soon, I will share some of these posts with his daughter; she's 15 now.

These are the posts I wrote in the aftermath of that horrific night...

and not one of them captures the pain of it all.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Loss for words

I'm still in the denial phase, I guess.

The police came to my door last night and told me that my brother-in-law had been killed.

The one who's been living at my house for the past year.

I haven't slept much, nor stopped crying much, but as always I felt the need to put something into words.

I keep seeing his smiling face and everytime I do, I shake my head a little--

cuz it's NOT true.

It can't be, it shouldn't be.

I will not be around much for a few days, obviously.

I am ok.

But he shouldn't be gone. He just shouldn't.

He was here.

I heard him come in and thought fleetingly of going upstairs to chit-chat a bit;

my usual thought.

But, I didn't.

No, I won't beat myself up with the "what if"s, but jesus.

Another fantastic "what if" concerns the police themselves.

He had been riding his bullet bike fast, up and down our small street and there had been complaints called in by a neighbor or neighbors (we're assuming).

They were on the scene one minute from when they were dispatched, so they were obviously already on their way.

So...what if they had made it there sooner?

He would have had a ticket, possibly an arrest for mouthing off or something stupid like that.

No helmet.

There are 5 brothers where there were 6.

There are people who don't know yet; friends of his that we don't know how to contact without his cell phone, which is at the Medical Examiner's office with him.

So we all sat up last night planning things and his poor mother is such a Mormon and he was just not, but we are all making sure he gets his wishes.

She wants to cut his hair.

We will not let that happen, and she will as always, refuse to accept that her wishes are not the only ones in existence.

She is doing well, though.

If I don't believe it, will it be untrue?

yeah. I know it won't.

Monday, August 14, 2006

How do I begin?

First, thank you all so much for your kind words.

It means so much to me.

I just need to pour out some of my thoughts, so please, please don't feel like you have to comment; grief is awkward for those around the griever and I understand that very well myself.

I guess I'm putting some thoughts here because I feel like you should know more about what happened and who he was.

First of all, he always wore a helmet.

He also knew how to handle a bike better than anyone.

He pulled that thing out of skids a bunch of times.

I was writing a post when I heard him come into the house, and I sort of assumed he was still here.

When the doorbell rang, 15 or 20 minutes later I assumed it was my husband returning from a client site and he'd forgotten his keys or something.

Before I reached the door I realized that was a stupid thought.

There were 4 uniformed officers standing there and I knew it was something bad.

My thoughts leapt to the stupid things G. could have done.

He has a concealed weapons permit and my thoughts jumped there.

They asked if my husband was home.

They then asked my relationship to G.

They again insisted that they needed to speak to my husband, and I said, "Oh no...What did he (G) do?"

They said, "He passed away."

The previous interactions had been like lapping little waves and that was a tsunami.

So unexpected, so wrong.

Then they came in and we sat down and they told me a little bit about it and gave me a card and collected information about other immediate family.

They didn't do the greatest job.

They need a better set of questions.

They never asked how many brothers he had, and whether they should send an officer to tell his ex-wife (as it turns out, they should have; she thought the phone call was a practical joke), and hesitated over sending one to his mother because she lives so far away.

Um, DUH, fuckers, you can call one of the cops in HER town and send him.

Hello??

I was coherant enough to come up with that suggestion, but I feel bad I didn't think of telling them to send someone to his ex-wife.

When they told her, they said he had had an accident on his bike, and she said, "ok, which hospital is he at?"

When they told her that he was dead she said, "oh, then you must have the wrong guy. He wouldn't have crashed his motorcycle."

And she truly beleived what she was saying.

The cop insisted that it was him and it was then that she joined the rest of us in hysterical crying.

Super.

That was when she explained how great he was on his bike--I never knew that he was that good.

So what the fuck happened?

Anyway.

I had to personally tell 3 of the 5 brothers.

And his girlfriend--

the girlfriend he told all of us he had broken up with a year ago.

The girlfriend I knew he was still seeing.

The girlfriend who...is such a fragile creature that I can't stop worrying about her.

My husband didn't get it; no one did.

But I had to find her.

She didn't know yet and I couldn't let her see it on the news.

We had no way of reaching her Saturday night, but yesterday I went to her parent's house and took her mother with me to tell her (I didn't know where she lived or have a phone number).

That.

Was probably the worst thing I've ever had to do.

She needed him more than any of us can comprehend.

I can't think about it right now.

I'm going to go down later and take her into the funeral home so she can see him.

She's not family so they won't let her in...it's so unfair.

So.

As for what happened.

I guess he was racing up and down the street, without his helmet.

So very uncharacteristic of him.

He was popping little wheelies, and just showing off or something.

He lost control and flew from the bike, into a tree.

A tiny fucking tree, like 4 inches thick.

That tree is coming DOWN, by the way. That goddamned tree.

It was the only thing he could have hit and he did.

A few inches to the side and we'd have a whole different story.

He was a big man, 6' 8".

How can he not be indestructible?

So. He died on impact.

I hate that the news story plays up the fact that he was speeding and not wearing a helmet--

I know those things caused his death, but that's not who he was.

He wasn't that guy who plows through life without regard to others (or of his own safety).

He was so considerate, so aware of other people.

He was aware of how hard my husband's constant business travel was on me; he was so kind to me.

We never talked about it or anything, but the softness in his voice, the compassion when he said, "Cameron's gone again? Wow..."

I should have

--ah, but that list could go on forever and it's pointless, anyway.

I know that he felt loved here, I know that he felt peaceful being part of our family and that is worth a lot now.

We gave him stability.

He wasn't home a lot, but we always had some good conversations when he was.

And I am so, so glad I got the chance to know him.

It's so weird. I go from being matter-of-fact and telling the story to feeling it and just sobbing again.

I didn't know this brother very well before he moved in here a year ago.

With 5 of them, I am closer to some and less so to others.

He had the reputation of sort of being the Asshole--

an ego as tall as he was.

He was Mr. Always-Right.

But he had begun to soften over the past few years and people closer to him had always said he had a soft core.

They were right.

He was an amazing father and a good person.

He really was smarter than most people, which is where the ego came from.

He was taller than most, too.

Got a basketball scholarship, so he obviously excelled there.

My kids were as curious as ever when I told them about what happened, full of a million questions.

They don't quite get it, but that's ok.

I had mentioned reincarnation to them a few days ago (as I tried to counteract mother-in-law's Mormon Resurrection speech...ugh) and so one of them said, "Maybe he'll come back as a bird." The other chimed in, "Yeah, if you see the giantest bird, it's him."

(oops. I kind of posted that mid-thought. J was here with french pastries--sorry, she wins the prize for best friend! Oh, and wine...I forgot the wine. That was more of a thank-you present for watching her dog, though.)

I guess I was nearly done.

I could go on and on.

I have been talking and crying non-stop since it happened, so the healing process feels like it's on target.

My eyes are still very puffy, and I keep forgetting to eat,

and I have to keep busy or I just cry.

There was something else I wanted to say about him, though.

I can't remember it right now.

I keep thinking he's just not here right now and then I remember.

Jesus.

Oh, I remembered the thing I was going to say!

Yes, saying "Jesus" reminded me, actually.

He was staunchly opposed to organized religion, and had often said, "If God himself showed up and told me the Mormons were right, I would still not believe it."

So.

As a person who hasn't lost someone since she herself was a staunch mormon...

it is interesting to wonder what he's experiencing right now.

I still firmly believe in an after-life, and I know he at least recognized it as a possibility.

I found myself, in the first hours after the accident, with this sense of excitement or anticipation--

I don't know quite how to describe it, but I was feeling eager for him to see what's on the other side.

Sounds kooooky, I know.

But I know he was curious, and I know he was skeptical.

But I also know that he was pleasantly surprised.

I better go round up the kids and feed them.

Just because I'm not hungry doesn't mean they aren't, right?

Again, thank you for all your virtual hugs.

I really am sorry for making you feel my sadness no matter how briefly.

But I guess that's how friendship works...we share each other's highs and lows, don't we?

Well.

I'll call ya when it's time to get high.

I mean...be high?

heh.

August 16, 2006

So last night one of the brothers left his Audi here,

and he always lets me drive his cars, so I took it when I ran out to get Arby's at 10.

(I had realized that I hadn't eaten any meals and very few snacks all day, so it was time.)

La la la, fun to drive a different car, etc.

And then I gave it some gas and the pedal stuck to the floor.

It freaked me the hell out at first because I didn't know what was happening.

Fortunately, the brakes still worked and I made it to the side of the road and put the car in Park and turned it off.

I was only out of control for probably 10 seconds (it sped up, I braked, then let off the brakes and it sped up again, so I braked again and got off the road), but it was enough to shake me up.

So that was pretty sweet.

Before that I had a cool chat with a convenience store clerk as she rang up my husband's cigarettes.

There was a rainstorm starting and she commented on it.

I mentioned how much I love watching the lightening with my kids and she agreed.

Then she told me about her uncle who has been hit 3 times!

Crazy.

I have things I should be doing, so I think I'll end this.

Just wanted to pop in and let you all know I'm doing a bit better.

Viewing tomorrow night, funeral Friday.

Ack.

Thank you all again for being here with me.

The obituary's at harktheherald.com, if anyone's interested.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

today I feel oddly at peace.

I don't know if it's because funerals really do offer closure,

or if it's because I am so tired that nothing seems real, let alone the thing I don't want to think about anymore.

I would say I've grieved well.

But this new feeling is odd.

It's like he's still here, just somewhere else right now.

The shock has worn off; I'm accustomed to this new and ugly information which has settled in the folds of my brain, rather stubbornly.

I cried so often and so hard that I guess maybe I'm out of tears for a while.

I'm not trying to get ahead of myself, but I have pretty tangible hope that my life will wend its way back to a pattern of normalcy soon.

The service was perfect.

Each brother spoke for a few minutes.

The oldest went first and was amazing.

I want a copy of his speech.

He is like his mother and I--a lover of words, both writing and reading.

I made a CD to play as background music during the one hour viewing before the service....

I carefully selected some of the somber tunes from among his favorite heavy metal CDs.

No Leaf Clover-Metallica

Mama Said-Metallica

Silent Lucidity-Queensryche

When the Children Cry--White Snake (or Lion?) because it was a song his daughter loved to listen to with him. She calls it "The guitar song" because of the opening.

Anyway...

I somehow included a Quiet Riot track!

The one that starts out, "Come on feel the noise! Girls rock your boys!"

jeeeeezus.

I felt like such an idiot.

The place was packed.

They had to add more seating and open an extra little room.

Beautiful speeches by everyone.

My husband even managed to restrain himself from chewing out the Assholes.

These are people who took the two boys just older than Cameron as foster children when they were in high school.

They have remained important to each other, but when Galen got divorced they took his wife's side and turned their backs on him.

It hurt him so much.

So...Cam thought he would bring that up.

Fortunately he mentioned it to me and I gently suggested that it would be more appropriate to speak to them privately.

Galen would have HATED for him to make a scene.

The mother in question attempted to give Cameron a hug during the viewing and he looked her in the eye and said, "No, I don't think so," but that's as far as he went.

Praise the jeebus.

I mean, hell.

I'd like to tear those pricks a couple of new assholes, too, but that wasn't the time or place.

Not only did they disown him because of the divorce, but they also were just plain asshats to my mother-in-law back in the foster care days.

They took all the credit for the successes of the two boys and treated her like dirt in general.

Fuckers.

And the interment was almost more than I could bear, but then everything sort of went into peaceful mode.

It was a gorgeous day and an absolutely stunning cemetery.

His little spot is behind a grassy knoll...that would make him chuckle...with gorgeous, huge trees around it--very private and with a view of the whole valley.

It is just above his high school and only a mile or so from where his daughter lives.

She will visit him often.

There are bunnies there, and squirrels, which I think will make her visits especially nice.

They just scamper around, cuz it's kind of tucked away in the foothills.

She is so precious.

Her mother is amazing with her.

I hope I never lose anyone this close to me again.

Well, since that's not possible, I'll just hope for it to be a really long time.

Friday, September 1, 2006

I am finally letting myself cry again...a little at a time.

It feels like months have passed since August 12, 10:30pm.

Not so.

Only 19 days.

That BareNakedLadies song reminds me of it...the way they count how long it's been since different things happened.

It's been 17 days since his room looked like his room.

It's been 13 days since they put him in the ground.

It's been 19 days since he sat on my couch and we discussed his friend's penis. hee...fairly large, so they say.

The crazy part is it really feels like he's still here.

It's been 4 hours since I told the kids to get the hell out of the bed of his truck.

It's been 10 hours since the sheriff's office called to tell us they won't be able to helps us find his other truck.

Big penis-friend has been driving it for a year or so and he hasn't been reachable since...19 days ago.

Saturday, September 9, 2006

I got home yesterday and the truck was not in the driveway.

I was slammed in the gut with a brief urge to puke, but it passed as soon as I realized hubby had probably just taken it for some cargo-related errand, but...

gah.

This morning we were watching VH1 Classic and Quiet Riot, "Cum on Feel the Noise" came on.

I didn't cry, but I was sucked into reminiscing about the funeral.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I am so emotional about this...

I'm a deep-feeler.

And it's strange but I really like crying.

It's when I think about him without feeling sad that I get freaked out.

I panic--"why doesn't it feel like he's gone?"

Oh, I also took the opportunity of a long drive last night to cry loudly.

Hadn't done that before.

It felt good to let out the barking sobs and suspiciously wail-like sounds.

And meanwhile I keep putting off sending an email to all the brothers to ask them for (content) contributions to the book I'm making.

Purple Rein

I'm obsessed with Prince right now. His untimely passing has brought him back into the forefront of my mind, and Facebook feed. His music surrounds me, and fills my mind, articles about him and videos of him are all I've been reading. I'm learning more about him than I ever bothered to know before, back when I still hoped for the chance to see him perform live. I'm in awe of his talent, especially when reminded of his size--5' 2" tall and every cell of the man was creativity incarnate. I heard that he usually played all the instruments on the recordings of his albums, which is astounding in and of itself. His huge voice, his huge spirit, packed into that tiny man. I read today that he had epilepsy, but I'd forgotten that. I don't think it was a much talked-about part of his life. I also keep hearing that he was a Jehovah's Witness, which seems jarringly impossible. How could he be part of such an uncelebratory religion when he was so full of celebration and sexuality? It doesn't jive. Maybe I'm jealous that he was able to keep his faith while expressing the depth of his artistic nature (which is not to say that I miss the restrictions and oppression of religion, but the division from my family has caused me pain). 

I remember the first time I really listened to Prince. I was a kid, probably six years old, in the oh-so-purple bedroom of my older, oh-so-cool cousins. Thick, deep forest of purple carpet, and matching purple and lavender bedspreads, and lavender walls all around. It was utterly perfect! On the tape player was Prince. The organ music played and, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..." was intoned by an authoritative voice, and I felt like I was in church--but TV church, not my own congregation, which was so different from the churches on TV (the crosses, the stained glass, the glorious white-clad brides marching down flower-filled aisles were what NORMAL PEOPLE had, not us). It was obvious that this song was referencing something from this TV-style of church that I saw as the standard, like neighborhoods with sidewalks and matching architecture. My own life did not measure up to these standards: I lived on a dirt road in rural, coastal Maine, with my nearest neighbors my grandmother and my aunt and uncle (and their kids, the aforementioned cool cousins), whose houses had been built by the men who lived there. There were weeping willows and apple trees and wild berry patches, and creeks and honey pots; the closest place to go for candy was the vending machine at the tiny municipal airport a couple of miles by bicycle. We did not live in TV Land, and I felt like we were the only ones who didn't. So, there was Prince, in all his purple splendor, who would have been camouflaged by my cousins' room, speaking out from the tinny speaker, telling me that life is just a party and parties aren't meant to last, but that there is a party in the afterlife, and that we should just "go crazy." I take comfort in those words. This man meant a lot of things to a lot of people. Maybe to me, the most meaningful connection I had to him was the intersection of religion and freedom, of being different--but he owned it. He showed us all how it was done. He moved with grace and ease through a world that was not designed with him in mind--he was his own size, gender, race, religion...he was comfortable being himself, maybe. It's easy for me to say that with so much talent it must have been easier for him to find his confidence, but he had hurdles to clear that many people don't. I just can't let go of him yet. It seems like he should still be here, dancing and composing and being beautiful.

I wonder

There are so many ways to tell a story. Where does one begin?

I wonder if I'll ever actually write a book, or if my personal hell will be to start and stop and worry and wonder for so long that I just burn myself out? I feel like I need an audience (case in point: choosing to write here instead of in a silent, barren Word doc), and yet...I have no audience anymore. And no real will to conjure one. Probably I just need Valium or Xanax or lovely little bursts of beer. Something to untangle my bundles of nerves, something to melt the stress off the inside of my skin like candle wax......Not that there's not plenty to worry about, but just that I shouldn't. Instead, I should write. For no one, for anyone, for ME. It helps my brain to function properly when I put fingers to QWERTY and let them tap out the thoughts I can't seem to hold onto. I need a little less conversation and a little more action, but replace "little" with "hell of a lot" and we have a good start. I miss this. This...talking to myself. This stream-of-consciousness blurted onto the page. 

And so, I have stories to tell. Many, many, many of them. And I should be chronicling my life in some simple way--so that when I look back I have a story to follow, and I am reminded of nuances of my daily life that may have slipped my mind by then. I love the ten years-worth from teenagerhood through young adulthood that I do have, but I've missed the most important parts of my life--marriage, childbirth, divorce, remarriage, deaths, moving........I should have captured those things in real time. But I guess It's not too late. I can capture what I do remember. And maybe bring back some of my writerly skills and instincts. I need a mentor, a guide. Someone to encourage me and to provide focus for me. But, I guess I could just do that for myself :)

The Long Walk Home

(What follows is mostly fiction)

                                               The Long Walk Home

I'll tell you right up front: I blame the heat.

It was one of Maine’s rare heat waves that year, temperatures in the 90s with heavy humidity. To people in some climates, that may not seem like much, but in Maine, we just aren’t wired for it—not our bodies, not our minds, and certainly not our homes. Air-conditioning is a refuge only offered in grocery stores (or your own car).

The heat started on a Wednesday, the day before Independence Day, and it still seemed exciting—new and interesting—after the week or so of drizzly, 60-degree weather preceding. Trekking inland, to meet with my best friend and her huge family of siblings to grill pizza, laughing, wondering if the heat was a fluke, nobody bothering to check the weather report.

When he walked in, he swallowed me in that familiar bear hug—nearly crushing the oxygen from my entire body, and we caught up a little, in short bursts; not enough. He charged off with the men to chop wood or build something; I soaked up the ladies’ chatter in that happy kitchen I’ve known all my life, making plans for the next day, the holiday.

The heat was still in its infancy; a nuisance, but a novelty.

After dinner was cleaned up and plans made, I wandered back to the coast, finding temporary relief in my blissfully cool vehicle, driving slowly (for once) to savor the reprieve from my own flushed and sticky skin.

The heat crushed onward through the night, and in the morning we all struggled forth from sweaty sheets and ominous, shadowy dreams, feeling hung over despite a lack of alcohol.

The Fourth brought another trek inland, this time against the receding tide of parade-goers, but I was happy in my nest of cool air. Beside me sat a cooler full of humus and tidy little boxes of berries, bound for the Great 4^th of July Hippy Party I’d heard about for years.  

We tumbled carload after carload of children and food and drinks down the winding-weaving, twisting-turning road, slipping past trees and along rivers, as the heat pressed against our windows, clawing to get in and escape from itself.

When we arrived, it seemed that all the food and people had been there for at least a week, wilting in the sunshine, so I didn’t eat anything I hadn’t brought (which will explain how I managed to accidentally become a bit drunk, but we’ll get to that later). I met the hosts (friends of my best friend’s parents) and various musicians and artists and quickly lost sight of my best friend and her gaggle of small kids.

It was hot, heavy, mind-frying. It was getting harder to talk as the hours wore on, and harder to remember…anything. (Like who I was, in real life, or who else I was connected to out in the real world, away from this summertime haven of disjointed, alternate-reality-lined worlds I was inhabiting, as I traveled the country).

Gin and tonic? He said.

Any other day I would have likely declined, but this day, the thought of a clear, cool glass of anything sounded almost as perfect as it ended up being.

With a laugh and a flourish he handed me the plastic cup, already dripping with the sweat of evaporative cooling.

The dry taste of gin, the tang of the lime, the chilliness of the cup as I pressed it against my neck, rolling it across the skin—almost brought me back, but I was too far gone.

Chairs and blankets scattered themselves across the sharply sloping grassy hill (I hesitate to call it a lawn; Maine’s landscape is too wild and relentlessly fertile for such a tidy word), facing the field.

They made their own crop circle, I giggled, sipping gin and watching the men set up fireworks in the wide space they had cleared.

Something caught my eye, on the edge of the clearing. A teenager had climbed an unbelievably tall pine tree, and sat playing his guitar, long hair in his eyes, bare feet propped on the branch above. Maybe that’s when the day started to feel like a dream.

I haven’t been drunk in a long time, I said.

Oh, I remember you drunk… he said.

And then another gin, another tonic, another lime.

I heard “La Vie En Rose,” filtering out from some distant speaker and I knew that if I closed my eyes, I would open them on the same scene, but 30 years would have slipped through my fingers and instead of this crowd of happy strangers I would see my parents, young and dancing, laughing…together, alive. So I didn’t. I kept my eyes wide open, taking in my surroundings: trees crawling with moss, willows weeping over us (tears of joy, surely), and the green hills rolling away toward the setting sun, as I laughed and touched his arm, not wanting to miss a single twinkle of his eye.

This—all of it—I had not felt in years…too many to count. The blush of flirtation, the flush of libation; I was drifting away from my happy life, my good life, and existing only in that warped and delicious present. The heat was cooking my soul—like heroin in a spoon.

We danced to the Marvin Gaye song floating through the tree branches, swirling, twirling in wide circles, around and between all the tie-dyed and patchouli’ed guests who sat strumming guitars on couches dragged onto the wide porch, or stood talking in the shade (deepening into evening, is it evening yet?). We smiled more than we talked, so happy to be in the same place at the same time.

I wanted to press my hand against his cheek and remember, remember…

But the fireworks had started, so we ambled back to the hilltop facing the crop circle and the pyro technicians and the tottering children and the tired Moms. When the sun left, it took some of the heat with it, but not enough.

I was drifting in the muffled quiet of a mind slightly drunk, smiling up at the colors, almost-thinking, almost not-hot, enjoying the limbo of this place and its blurry lines. I was just getting comfortable in this semi-reality, ready to see where else it could lead, when the fireworks ended. The sudden transformation around me was jarring: from the quiet hum of a gently relaxing evening to the impatient hustle and bustle of parents lugging sleepy children and empty coolers back along the road to the cars lining it for a hundred yards.

I rode along in my best friend’s back seat, surrounded by her sleeping children, deposited safe and sound to my bed.

I slept fitfully, alive with this newly remembered vitality, dreaming of him in vibrant colors with undertones of guilt.

So maybe I shouldn’t have texted him when I woke up, to see what he was doing that night, but our friendship had lasted long enough that it seemed safe.

The heat dragged us down Main Street, rubbing elbows with artists and their patrons, from gallery to gallery to gallery. I should have been accustomed to the heat by now but instead, it was making me delirious—skin permanently damp, sticky; hair wild, eyes wilder.

I do blame the heat, but…I still ordered gin and tonics, well aware of the time machine they created.

As we waded through the exhibits and the waves of heat, we folded deep, earnest conversations between it all. There was an exuberant reunion around every corner, small town, hometown summer night; and paintings to inspire, sculptures to mock (they really did look like penises!), and live music. Music, music…it seemed like it was everywhere, but looking back, most of it was just in my head.

We talked about motorcycles and first marriages; we talked about mutual friends and Russian punk ska bands and sailing…but the conversation kept taking detours down memory lane.

Why didn’t you tell me what a psycho she was?? he asked.

Would that have made a difference? I knew it wouldn't have.

We laughed some more, and I leaned into him, looking up into his eyes, and falling back in time, to that other night…the opposite end of the spectrum: 60 below zero, winds slicing through parkas, as we walked the streets of Portland, New Year’s Eve, relentlessly seeking…

Here, in the heat, we stood in the dark, at the back of the crowd in the old movie theatre-cum-concert hall, remodeled to its sumptuous Prohibition-Era style, and moved to the unfamiliar beauty of Mexo-Americana melodies, while almost holding hands.

But it was under the trees, on the brick patio of the Mediterranean bistro, with the guy from the Les Claypool Band JAMMING-THE-FUCK-OUT, that I let the heat (and intensity of music) push reality from my mind and I reached out to cup his neck, drawing him down so I could shout into his ear that it was time to go.

We walked, slowly, but not because of the heat (the culpable, dirty heat). I swayed a little, and reached out to steady myself, but he was already reaching for me. The heat didn’t leave room for thinking (his girlfriend was in Europe, my husband on the other coast), so his lips found mine and we were flying through a wormhole, the years a jumble of mixed-up numbers—we were at a Blues Traveler concert, and 4-wheeling with our Subarus, and at each other’s weddings and his college graduation and my Dad’s funeral, and in my front yard, and in that bar (I’ll marry you, just move back here…). We kissed and groped, and whispered aching, broken words, and his hands fumbled with the keys and we stumbled into the backseat.

The next morning, the heat had lifted and we dressed and parted, leaking slowly back into the real world.

I blame the heat.

Driving with Dad

"I wish my Dad could teach the boys to drive in the snow..."

The words were lost in the competing sounds of the busy conversation,

but I faded away with them,

staring out the window as the boathouses on the Schuylkill blurred past.

I was no longer in Philadelphia on a warm September day,

but on I-95 in the middle of 

a blizzard, 

the night, 

and New England.

That is the last solid memory I have 

of my Dad's incredible snow-driving prowess.

He was spectacular that night,

captaining the Cadillac that sailed through knee-deep powder

all the way up the coast,

ferrying my tiny babies and I 

(but not our luggage)

from the airport in Boston

to his and my mother's snug little home in mid-coast Maine.

That was a good one.

And I choke up a bit, from the backseat of my own car,

as my husband manuevers Philadelphia traffic,

so much more deftly than my Dad probably would have...

because I realize this might be the first time I've missed him

in the 2? 

3?

FOUR

years since he shuffled away from this page of his story

and onto the next.

Which is not to say I haven't grieved, 

haven't sobbed,

haven't wrestled with how it all 

went so wrong.

But today, 

I casually mentioned 

(like he was somewhere nearby,

like there was a chance)

that it would be great if he could teach my kids to drive in the snow.

Those tiny babies from all those years ago,

would dwarf him now.

They could have learned so much from him.

I could have...

But here we are.

And maybe I did.

And maybe I can teach, 

or have already taught, 

what I learned from him.

But not how to drive in the snow like a pro.

Not how to haul lobster traps from the ocean

or change oil - spark plugs - belts

or chop wood efficiently

or savor the taste of Postum...

I remember tracking some down on the internet,

several years after they quit making it.

I guess I showed him I loved him once, at least.

Golden Haze of Youth

I wouldn’t exactly herald them as “The Good Ole Days,” but there is a golden quality to them, in retrospect, all the same. They are rich and gritty, dazzling and dark. That hazy era between naïve, lovingly protected childhood and the misunderstood certainty of the first marriage. Those years were sprinkled with tentative leaps out into worldliness and heartache (just as predicted), then huddling back under the shield of the great Man in the Sky—so safe and quiet here, so dull and formless. Still, a good place to lick wounds (self-inflicted lashings-out, a poor attempt at healing a broken heart by trying to stuff another into the festering gouges left by First Love’s abrupt absence). But then, still injured, badly scarred, to step cleanly from within that shelter out into the brazen world of delicious cocktails and daring sexuality—of bouncing over rutted backroads in a rusted out vintage Camaro, or relentlessly pressing out into the mountains in search of the peace and love so thinly promised by the hippies I wanted to be, or inhaling deeply of life, of lust, of incense and the smoke it was meant to disguise.

Facebook spillover

I was writing a status update, but I started to run long, so I decided to move things over here to finish up...

So, like, one week from tomorrow is MARCH. The month of March. WHAAAAAAT??? How is it possible that yesterday was Christmas, and now it's summer and I just want this ride to slow down a little bit because I have too many unread books spilling off my shelves and too many unwritten books spinning around in my head and--mostly I'm just trying not to think about how soon my little tiny (4-pound premie) boys will be starting high school/finishing high school and going away to college and...ok, who has a spare Zanax?? That is FREAKING ME OUT. I have enjoyed the unique ride that is "raising twins," but I do NOT approve of having my oldest and youngest children graduate at the same time. Panic. Big time.

Don't get me wrong--I am looking forward to some aspects of the "empty nest" situation. Like fewer loads of laundry and less general crap to pick up, plus less cooking, and more traveling, but........I guess I just can't believe this part is really almost over. And it makes me sad. I love them so much it hurts, and I always feel like I'm letting them down. Recently I have put my finger on that issue, and I believe it stems from the ultra-high esteem in which I hold my own mother. This causes me to always feel like I'm not doing nearly enough, because she was (and still is) utter perfection: kind, calm, patient, careful, caring--uncomplaining, unruffled. She just seemed to know exactly the right thing to say or do in any and every childrearing situation. She was serenly confident--no hubris or arrogance, just a gentle knowing. And I may be a lot of things, but I am not THAT. I am not HER. I wish, more than anything, that I would have turned out just like her. But I didn't. I am feisty and feminist-y and dreamy and irreverant. I just know how hard life is, how hard it has been for me to always feel loved or happy or whatever, even though I had The Perfect Mother, and it terrifies me to think I'm sending my little boys out into the world with way less armor than I had. But...oh! They're boys, and so maybe, maybe, please-please, MAYBE they will still be ok??? Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. I guess I just need to focus on being Me and try to whisper to my subconscious that just because I don't match up, like a row of paper dolls, with my own experience of being mothered, that I am still doing a good job.