The nurse yesterday was pale and overweight, hair pulled into a bun, scrub shirt falling around her like a tent. She turned you so that you were laying along the width of the examining table and folded your legs (from the knees down) over the edge of the table. With her stomach she held your legs firmly in place while her hands busied themselves over the vials and the needles. Your father and I bent over your screaming red face and tried to calm you. The circular beige bandages cover almost half of your thigh.
Then Amy placed you belly down on the table and you pushed yourself over onto your back. Amy startled backward a little, surprised and then laughing. "You're not supposed to be that strong yet!" she told you.
The sky is gray today but not uniformly gray. The clouds are bands of gray and between them lighter patches of white let a gauzed version of the sun through.
Carol laid on her back on the couch this morning with you on her chest. She pushed her glasses down to the tip of her nose and peered over them at you. You shook your head back and forth, rooting into her blouse. Alvin bought "Millions of Cats" for you at the bookshop where he works. He sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on knees, and talked about the memoir he is writing about Yugoslavia.
Here at Blue Monday I am reading David Foster Wallace's essay "Ticket to the Fair," making notes about declarative sentences and how to be funny without being condescending. Out the window in front of me a black lamppost sans hanging flower basket, a tree with half of its green leaves still shivering, the haunch of a dun colored brick building, and on the haunch three windows (two dark, one lit) and bricks where a fourth window should be. What room lives there, behind those bricks? I am late and should be home already. Sometimes it's hard to go.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
October 28, 2009
Great-Grandma Judy, age 87, holds you close to the robins stitched into her sweater and bounces your tears away on the exercise ball.
Grandma Gail, dressed in yellow corduroy pants, sweater, and fleece (to keep out the cold) touches your cheek with her finger. On the living room couch, you stretched beside her, she puts in one contact, squints at you, puts in the other, then touches your cheek again, tiny tears of contact solution in the arcs below her eyes.
Grandpa Michael sits at the dining room table, glass of lemon soda and caramel roll before him, and reads an old "Classic Toy Trains" magazine.
Upstairs, the sound of a razor whizzing over your father's face. You kept him awake last night for half an hour, not with your sobs but with your smiles. It is impossible to walk away from those smiles, even at 2:30am. Then, after half an hour, you kept him awake for another hour with your fussing.
I told your birth story to a room full of new mothers last night. My turn came just after a woman whose birth experience caused her post traumatic stress and dreams of cutting and blood. I hope we can end on a note of joy, she said, turning to me. And so we did. Your genesis story, Thisbe, is filled with humor and light.
Mia and Nico had their baby today. Her name is Lucy. I hope you will get to meet her one day.
Grandma Gail, dressed in yellow corduroy pants, sweater, and fleece (to keep out the cold) touches your cheek with her finger. On the living room couch, you stretched beside her, she puts in one contact, squints at you, puts in the other, then touches your cheek again, tiny tears of contact solution in the arcs below her eyes.
Grandpa Michael sits at the dining room table, glass of lemon soda and caramel roll before him, and reads an old "Classic Toy Trains" magazine.
Upstairs, the sound of a razor whizzing over your father's face. You kept him awake last night for half an hour, not with your sobs but with your smiles. It is impossible to walk away from those smiles, even at 2:30am. Then, after half an hour, you kept him awake for another hour with your fussing.
I told your birth story to a room full of new mothers last night. My turn came just after a woman whose birth experience caused her post traumatic stress and dreams of cutting and blood. I hope we can end on a note of joy, she said, turning to me. And so we did. Your genesis story, Thisbe, is filled with humor and light.
Mia and Nico had their baby today. Her name is Lucy. I hope you will get to meet her one day.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
October 27, 2009
Is it possible to write in a form that is both immersed and distant, farseeing and swallowed? I am thinking now that this is what women have been attempting in the last decades. Not simply to enter the world of masculine discourse but to transform it with another kind of knowledge.
--from The Red Shoes by Susan Griffin
I think of a stone with a thumb print worried into it, of a piece of green beach glass, the edges worn soft. I think of the divots trod into the the center of a marbles staircase, of mattresses that retain the press of the sleeping one's spine, long after the person has left the bed.
My beliefs and practices, my own sense of the severe line between the public and the private are similarly worn into me. I take containers of old milk, hummus, half and half, beans and rice, stew meat, plastic bags filled with a slice of cantaloupe or head of lettuce or onion, and I dump all these things into a larger white garbage bag and twist tie it shut and drop it into the maroon garbage can in the garage--all because your grandparents, my in-laws, arrive today and I do not want them to see what has gone bad inside our house.
As you grow, we keep trying to get you to make distinctions: day vs. night, mommy vs. daddy, sleep vs. wakefulness. Similarly, I want to be able to preen you into good behavior for the arrival of these relatives. I have already dressed you in a clean onesie and a sleeper with lavender and pink flowers knit together at the breastbone. When they walk in the door I want you alert and cooing and smiling. And partly this is because I want to show you off, I want them to see immediately how perfect you are. But partly it is because I am already trying to teach you a public persona: this is how you smile big when the in-laws arrive, this is how you cover your breast out of modesty, this is how you tie a scarf around your neck so you will be taken more seriously.
But you don't know the difference yet between public and private and though you will need to figure out this division to succeed in the world, part of me is jealous that you still exist in a world where "should" is never attached to the way that you behave.
This morning I walked by where you lay in the Moses basket, your eyes flickering open and shut. You focused on me, your eyes widened, you shrieked, you smiled. The sunlight fell across your face while you nursed, turning your skin pale and translucent. You are in love with light; at every opportunity you crane your neck backward to track the glowing bulbs or the reflection of the bulbs on the painting's glass.
Monday, October 26, 2009
October 26, 2009
Many people are naming their babies Henry. Sharma, Sarah, and Abbie all named their babies Henry. At Katie's motherhood celebration last night: a baby Henry. Today at Baby talk: a baby Henry. By the time you are grown you will have to date only men named Henry. And we will have to call them all Henry because Hank sounds like the name of a man who tucks a blue kerchief into his breast pocket and has black specks beneath his fingernails. Don't say I didn't warn you.
It was a busy weekend. We ate buttered bread and salami at the Cassons, hennaed Katie's belly into a radiating flower, wet our pant cuffs on a walk through the natural lands, and finally achieved a few moments of intimacy in the bedroom. You interrupted the intimacy halfway through, of course, and so we turned on the television to try to calm your sputtering fuss sounds. The only channels that did any good were two cable access stations, one broadcasting the Bethel church service we missed last Sunday and the other broadcasting octogenarians square dancing. Your father thought one of the square dancing women was dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween but on closer examination we found she was just fat. Before you were born there were spontaneous moments of grasping on the couch, there were foreign films we watched curled naked together in bed, there were fantasies about buxom brunettes and fitting room threesomes whispered into one another's ears in throaty voices. Now the sex happens in the midst of communion, square dancing, and baby sobs. And in the midst of our laughter. And I thank God for that.
It was a busy weekend. We ate buttered bread and salami at the Cassons, hennaed Katie's belly into a radiating flower, wet our pant cuffs on a walk through the natural lands, and finally achieved a few moments of intimacy in the bedroom. You interrupted the intimacy halfway through, of course, and so we turned on the television to try to calm your sputtering fuss sounds. The only channels that did any good were two cable access stations, one broadcasting the Bethel church service we missed last Sunday and the other broadcasting octogenarians square dancing. Your father thought one of the square dancing women was dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween but on closer examination we found she was just fat. Before you were born there were spontaneous moments of grasping on the couch, there were foreign films we watched curled naked together in bed, there were fantasies about buxom brunettes and fitting room threesomes whispered into one another's ears in throaty voices. Now the sex happens in the midst of communion, square dancing, and baby sobs. And in the midst of our laughter. And I thank God for that.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
October 24, 2009
Last night, around 10pm, you woke a little from your slumber and started to fuss. Not the full throaty cries of pure anguish but the chortles of dissatisfaction that often build up into a full force fuss. So I got out of bed and walked over to where you lay (in the Moses basket in the Pack N Play) and stood next to you. Your eyes had the look of someone who has been squinting through Venetian blinds too long, but you saw me. And you looked. And you grew quiet. And then slowly, slowly, you closed your eyes again. And you slept. And my heart broke.
To know that it is no longer just my breast that interests you, but my whole being, this whole human self, that it can bring comfort to you, dressed in fleece pants and an old marathon shirt, without speaking or touching you, just the sight of me, oh Thisbe, it broke my heart.
Meanwhile, the world is dying. Storms where there should be drought and drought where there should be storms. Leaves falling green before they're ready. Warmed water slowly licking back the ice. Snow dusting the pumpkins long before carving. Most of the time, I don't think about it. Not until it touches me. This is a horrible way to be. Your great-uncle Paul has dedicated all his time and energy to ending climate change. Well, that and frisbee-related activities. Anyway, today I contributed 3.5 lines of poetry to a project that is trying to post lines from 350 writers by midnight tonight (because today is the International Day of Climate Action). Here's what I wrote:
Today is sunny and the red leaves are wet. Luxy happy bounding through the tall brown grass, seeking pheasants to flush. You, pressed to me below Daddy's down coat, and he and me walking, not touching, but no callouses in the air between us.
To know that it is no longer just my breast that interests you, but my whole being, this whole human self, that it can bring comfort to you, dressed in fleece pants and an old marathon shirt, without speaking or touching you, just the sight of me, oh Thisbe, it broke my heart.
Meanwhile, the world is dying. Storms where there should be drought and drought where there should be storms. Leaves falling green before they're ready. Warmed water slowly licking back the ice. Snow dusting the pumpkins long before carving. Most of the time, I don't think about it. Not until it touches me. This is a horrible way to be. Your great-uncle Paul has dedicated all his time and energy to ending climate change. Well, that and frisbee-related activities. Anyway, today I contributed 3.5 lines of poetry to a project that is trying to post lines from 350 writers by midnight tonight (because today is the International Day of Climate Action). Here's what I wrote:
when you say body of water
you mean containment, here
we mean the way the groaning
breaks.
Today is sunny and the red leaves are wet. Luxy happy bounding through the tall brown grass, seeking pheasants to flush. You, pressed to me below Daddy's down coat, and he and me walking, not touching, but no callouses in the air between us.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
October 22, 2009
When I looked at the forecast on the computer this morning, I saw gray cloud piled on gray cloud piled on gray cloud. Attached to the bellies of a few of the clouds: drops of rain. Dotting the belly of Thursday's cloud: snowflakes. At 5am, the urine on the back of your white swaddle formed a little cloud.
When you woke at 1:30am, Daddy's eyes were open. He hadn't yet fallen asleep. He touched your black hair (fine and soft from your bath) while you nursed. He'd been reading Newsweek downstairs until 11pm. Now he was awake and (after a week of illness and 7 weeks of celibacy), feeling amorous. Meanwhile, I was massaging my breast to help the milk flow faster and watching the slow hand of the clock make it's way toward the 9 (if you've stopped sucking after 15 minutes, I remove you from my nipple).
In each day are certain slivers of time. The slivers are silver. When you sleep there is a sliver. When Ricki takes you walking in the Baby Bjorn there is a sliver. When Daddy feeds you your bottle there is a sliver. And then there are the things I long to do: read a novel, write a blog post, write a poem, prepare for my spring courses, cook a meal, undress and lay my skin against your father's skin, eat barbecue chicken pizza with friends, check my e-mail, fold the laundry, make a birthday CD for John, buy a dress that is soft and gray and loves the lines of my body. But there are never enough slivers and when I finally have time, I am sometimes so obsessed with the minutes that I cannot concentrate. I worry I am not using every second wisely.
And still, amongst these silver streaks of time, I think of you, cannot stop thinking of you. Your smiles are a drug now. You smell of Burt's Bees Baby Lotion, when I inhale the air near your head, I can taste the sweetness on my tongue. But it is so gray, Thisbe. And the gray shows no sign of ending.
When you woke at 1:30am, Daddy's eyes were open. He hadn't yet fallen asleep. He touched your black hair (fine and soft from your bath) while you nursed. He'd been reading Newsweek downstairs until 11pm. Now he was awake and (after a week of illness and 7 weeks of celibacy), feeling amorous. Meanwhile, I was massaging my breast to help the milk flow faster and watching the slow hand of the clock make it's way toward the 9 (if you've stopped sucking after 15 minutes, I remove you from my nipple).
In each day are certain slivers of time. The slivers are silver. When you sleep there is a sliver. When Ricki takes you walking in the Baby Bjorn there is a sliver. When Daddy feeds you your bottle there is a sliver. And then there are the things I long to do: read a novel, write a blog post, write a poem, prepare for my spring courses, cook a meal, undress and lay my skin against your father's skin, eat barbecue chicken pizza with friends, check my e-mail, fold the laundry, make a birthday CD for John, buy a dress that is soft and gray and loves the lines of my body. But there are never enough slivers and when I finally have time, I am sometimes so obsessed with the minutes that I cannot concentrate. I worry I am not using every second wisely.
And still, amongst these silver streaks of time, I think of you, cannot stop thinking of you. Your smiles are a drug now. You smell of Burt's Bees Baby Lotion, when I inhale the air near your head, I can taste the sweetness on my tongue. But it is so gray, Thisbe. And the gray shows no sign of ending.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
October 21, 2009
"Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. That's all I have to say."
--Grandma Ricki, when asked to contribute a line for today's blog.
"Just a reminder: there's no crying in baseball."
--Daddy, when asked to contribute a line for today's blog.
"A weekend in Florida without my daughter."
--Mommy, when asked by Daddy what would make her feel better as she cried on the couch at 11:30am.
The closest we came to the weekend in Florida was Maui Wowi at the mall. They were selling a "soup and smoothie" special. For the toothless crowd perhaps? We bought an XS dog Halloween costume at Old Navy and dressed you in it when we arrived home. You were not pleased.
The sky continues to be the color of a cave. In the upstairs bathroom, the shower curtain is covered with fish and wrinkled with a recent washing. Daddy is your new favorite person. You are content to lay in the crook of his bent leg while he reads "Sports Illustrated." Grandma Ricki is busy in the kitchen, preparing stew in an old orange crock pot. Now Daddy has switched to reading "God and Empire" and you are not particularly pleased.
I try to enjoy my glass of chardonnay while you cry.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
October 20, 2009
Since last I wrote...
1. Daddy lays you down the length of his knees and cups the back of your head in his left palm. With the right hand he teases the nipple of a bottle over your lips. You shake your head side to side and fuss. Finally, you take it. A white washcloth hangs over the wooden arm of the IKEA chair for Daddy to use after you drink too fast and the milk spills down the sides of your cheeks. I am upstairs sitting on the floor of our bedroom, trying to watch television, Luxy curled between my legs. But really I am listening to your sounds and gurgles below, trying to figure out if you are taking the bottle. Finally I go and lean over the ledge at the top of the stairs. I hear Daddy singing his invented songs to you. Later, when he sings "You are a pooping machine," you cannot stop smiling.
2. At the Ole Cafe, Martha leans back against the couch and you lean against her, your head snuggled just below her chin. She strokes your bundled body and talks about the possibility of working for the Marty campaign, of what it's like to sit at the LVC informational table while students walk by and walk by, of saying finally, to her mother, "if I want your advice I will ask for it." On the table, her cup of chai grows cold. Outside, sunshine and a mess of leaves.
3.In a re-used yellow envelope we receive a blue baby "Holden Village" hat from John and Anna. With it, a letter typewritten on blue Holden stationary: "hold this letter up in front of Thisbe and explain that she has an uncle who lives in a mountain village who loves her very much."
4. A picture of you, smiling, in your "Little Punpkin" fleece sleeper. I make copies and buy plastic picture frames and write "Happy Halloween! Love, the littlest pumpkin" on the front with a black Sharpie marker.
5. You go to bed between 8 and 9. Then wake at 12 or 1 and again at 5 or 6. You are alert for good by 8:30 or 9. I am glad for the sleep. All the books say that at night the parents are supposed to resist talking to the child, are supposed to keep the lights off, are supposed to act like uninteresting versions of their daytime selves. Sometimes I am good at this. But for some reason I think you look most beautiful in the lamplight. Your blue eyes take over your face, two blue planets frozen in orbit but animated with the potential for motion. And when you smile, oh Thisbe when you smile at 5am, then the rest of the world goes away and there is a plain white thread of joy between us.
Friday, October 16, 2009
October 16, 2009
Last night you were awake from 11:30pm-3:30am. We rocked you and bounced you and snuggled you and swaddled you and let you suck on fingers and nipples; we sang you and cajoled you and shushed you and snapped at you. At 3:25am you smiled at me, big, and fell asleep.
You woke again at 6:30, nursed halfheartedly (tiredly) until 7:30 and then wouldn't fall asleep. I wrapped the Moby around my running shirt and gray sweatpants and put you inside. Hats on both our heads and Peder's lime green down jacket around us both and then we were outside in the parking lot. Fog over everything, dim morning light, back and forth over the black asphalt. I stumbled in my clogs but caught myself; Luxy watched from inside, front paws on the windowsill. After half an hour I took you back inside and we fell asleep together on the couch, still dressed in the Moby and the coat and our hats.
Later in the morning, on the changing table, you smiled big again and again. Is that why you couldn't sleep last night? Were you learning how to smile?
Later in the morning I read to you from "A Visit to William Blake's Inn." Then at Blue Monday, I wrote you this (very rough!) poem:
Rapunzel licked her net of hair
and found a lobster hiding there.
The lobster cooled his claw in fire
where swam a satyr and a lyre.
The lyre found a Liar's hands
and with Contentment formed a band.
Contentment played the upright bass;
the half-notes zoomed to outer space.
In outer space the notes unglued
every myth they found untrue
and all the creatures, from those myths,
took off their bedclothes, pled the Fifth.
The Fifth Amendment scoffed at them:
"Your naked butts are made of tin!"
And so they were! And so their gleams
reflected in the lobster's dreams
until the gleaming woke the Sun
who said, "My beams are number one!
You'll have to take your butts inside
and mute them down with oxen hide."
The mythic creatures shook their heads,
"Our rears will shimmer 'til we're dead."
And so they did and so they are,
we call them comets, moons, and stars.
You woke again at 6:30, nursed halfheartedly (tiredly) until 7:30 and then wouldn't fall asleep. I wrapped the Moby around my running shirt and gray sweatpants and put you inside. Hats on both our heads and Peder's lime green down jacket around us both and then we were outside in the parking lot. Fog over everything, dim morning light, back and forth over the black asphalt. I stumbled in my clogs but caught myself; Luxy watched from inside, front paws on the windowsill. After half an hour I took you back inside and we fell asleep together on the couch, still dressed in the Moby and the coat and our hats.
Later in the morning, on the changing table, you smiled big again and again. Is that why you couldn't sleep last night? Were you learning how to smile?
Later in the morning I read to you from "A Visit to William Blake's Inn." Then at Blue Monday, I wrote you this (very rough!) poem:
Rapunzel licked her net of hair
and found a lobster hiding there.
The lobster cooled his claw in fire
where swam a satyr and a lyre.
The lyre found a Liar's hands
and with Contentment formed a band.
Contentment played the upright bass;
the half-notes zoomed to outer space.
In outer space the notes unglued
every myth they found untrue
and all the creatures, from those myths,
took off their bedclothes, pled the Fifth.
The Fifth Amendment scoffed at them:
"Your naked butts are made of tin!"
And so they were! And so their gleams
reflected in the lobster's dreams
until the gleaming woke the Sun
who said, "My beams are number one!
You'll have to take your butts inside
and mute them down with oxen hide."
The mythic creatures shook their heads,
"Our rears will shimmer 'til we're dead."
And so they did and so they are,
we call them comets, moons, and stars.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
October 15, 2009
Rain to snow to rain again. Slush on the windshield. Everything heavy with wet. And you are cranky along with the weather. I hope because this is your 6 week growth spurt. After being fed, burped, and changed, you seem happy with life for about 15 minutes. Then you are back to crying again.
Two evenings ago we lay you down on a play mat on the floor. You kicked your legs and swung your fists and gurgled to yourself for a good ten minutes. Daddy and Ricki and I sat on the couch and ate wild rice soup and kale and bread and tried not to interfere. Ricki says the hardest thing is not to play with you during these sorts of moments, that I have to learn not to engage so that you learn independence. So I sat with the warm bowl in my lap and I tried to enjoy the taste of balsamic vinegar on the dark green leaves of kale while you smiled and cooed without me. Then last night you made it through your bath without weeping--at least until I set your wet, red body on the yellow bath towel. Then you howled.
I think I will always be bad at letting you go, Thisbe. Your Daddy will be better, which is why it's good that you have two parents.
Today I keep thinking of lines from a Tony Hoagland poem: "I've seen rain turn into snow then back to rain / and I've seen making love turn into fucking / then back to making love, / and no one covered up their faces out of shame, / no one rose and walked into the lonely maw of night." Your face tells this story most honestly, Thiz. You smooth from one emotion into the next and then back again. I've explained this before. The poem ends: "Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness / As long as there is desire, we will not be safe."
Saying the truth, however, can be both painful and scary. "Where the Wild Things Are" premieres this week, the movie version that is. And parents are up in arms about whether the film is too scary for their children. Maurice Sendak says it shouldn't matter; life is scary, we're all scared, there's nothing to be done but tell the truth. When I was six, and Ben and Dave were 10 and 12 respectively, Ricki and Peter took all of us in the Volvo station wagon to a drive-in movie called "Gremlins." My mother thought it was supposed to be a cute film about imaginary creatures. It soon became clear that this was not the case. Gremlins threw other gremlins into microwaves, swimming pools, below lawn mowers and car wheels. Blood splattered across mirrors and windows. One Gremlin cackled and reached for a set of kitchen knives. My mother put a blanket over my head. I shrieked and cried because I wanted to see the movie, but to no avail. A few months later, at my father's house, I watched "Jaws" with my cousin Emily. And no one turned the movie off or fast-forwarded through the bloody bits. No one put a blanket on my head. I slept that night, finally, but sharks circled below my upper bunk. When we arrived at the ocean next summer, I refused to go in above my knees. Even Lake Harriet posed a threat though at 6 I knew that sharks did not live in lakes. Still, I couldn't get the image of an innocent swimmer's body--seen from below, outlined by rays of sunlight--out of my head.
Lies don't make us safe, but sometimes they make us feel safe, and I'm not sure that's always a bad thing. I don't remember being very happy at age 6. My stepbrothers told me they hated my mother while we waited for the school bus in the morning. Peter, in an attempt to draw me closer, demanded signs of affection from me, kisses and hugs, and I hated him for it. My mother, always my greatest confidant, could not be trusted not to repeat my words back to Peter, even when I expressly forbid her to do so. My favorite game to play was "Anne Frank." I made a nest of blankets and dolls below the old sink in the mud room. I waited for the imagined sirens to go off and when they did, I moved all of the belongings to a new enclosed space (behind a couch, inside a closet, under a bed). By that time I was flying once a month, alone, between my two families. No place was entirely safe. I was good at packing a suitcase.
I wonder what lies I will tell to you and which, of the many, will be justified. Forgive me for the rest.
Two evenings ago we lay you down on a play mat on the floor. You kicked your legs and swung your fists and gurgled to yourself for a good ten minutes. Daddy and Ricki and I sat on the couch and ate wild rice soup and kale and bread and tried not to interfere. Ricki says the hardest thing is not to play with you during these sorts of moments, that I have to learn not to engage so that you learn independence. So I sat with the warm bowl in my lap and I tried to enjoy the taste of balsamic vinegar on the dark green leaves of kale while you smiled and cooed without me. Then last night you made it through your bath without weeping--at least until I set your wet, red body on the yellow bath towel. Then you howled.
I think I will always be bad at letting you go, Thisbe. Your Daddy will be better, which is why it's good that you have two parents.
Today I keep thinking of lines from a Tony Hoagland poem: "I've seen rain turn into snow then back to rain / and I've seen making love turn into fucking / then back to making love, / and no one covered up their faces out of shame, / no one rose and walked into the lonely maw of night." Your face tells this story most honestly, Thiz. You smooth from one emotion into the next and then back again. I've explained this before. The poem ends: "Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness / As long as there is desire, we will not be safe."
Saying the truth, however, can be both painful and scary. "Where the Wild Things Are" premieres this week, the movie version that is. And parents are up in arms about whether the film is too scary for their children. Maurice Sendak says it shouldn't matter; life is scary, we're all scared, there's nothing to be done but tell the truth. When I was six, and Ben and Dave were 10 and 12 respectively, Ricki and Peter took all of us in the Volvo station wagon to a drive-in movie called "Gremlins." My mother thought it was supposed to be a cute film about imaginary creatures. It soon became clear that this was not the case. Gremlins threw other gremlins into microwaves, swimming pools, below lawn mowers and car wheels. Blood splattered across mirrors and windows. One Gremlin cackled and reached for a set of kitchen knives. My mother put a blanket over my head. I shrieked and cried because I wanted to see the movie, but to no avail. A few months later, at my father's house, I watched "Jaws" with my cousin Emily. And no one turned the movie off or fast-forwarded through the bloody bits. No one put a blanket on my head. I slept that night, finally, but sharks circled below my upper bunk. When we arrived at the ocean next summer, I refused to go in above my knees. Even Lake Harriet posed a threat though at 6 I knew that sharks did not live in lakes. Still, I couldn't get the image of an innocent swimmer's body--seen from below, outlined by rays of sunlight--out of my head.
Lies don't make us safe, but sometimes they make us feel safe, and I'm not sure that's always a bad thing. I don't remember being very happy at age 6. My stepbrothers told me they hated my mother while we waited for the school bus in the morning. Peter, in an attempt to draw me closer, demanded signs of affection from me, kisses and hugs, and I hated him for it. My mother, always my greatest confidant, could not be trusted not to repeat my words back to Peter, even when I expressly forbid her to do so. My favorite game to play was "Anne Frank." I made a nest of blankets and dolls below the old sink in the mud room. I waited for the imagined sirens to go off and when they did, I moved all of the belongings to a new enclosed space (behind a couch, inside a closet, under a bed). By that time I was flying once a month, alone, between my two families. No place was entirely safe. I was good at packing a suitcase.
I wonder what lies I will tell to you and which, of the many, will be justified. Forgive me for the rest.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
October 14, 2009
On The Day You Were Born
The sunlight was thick.
We stood at the hospital window and observed
long tables covered in paper tablecloths set out below.
Nurses in striped scrubs picked their nails while waiting
for fried chicken. Behind them a man led a black horse
out of a trailer. You were getting hotter.
I leaned against a wall covered in white paint.
I leaned against a rail that ran the length of the hospital hall.
I leaned against a Coke machine and felt the hum in my cheek.
I leaned against your father and he did not fall down.
I leaned against a pillar in the cafeteria.
While they strapped the monitor to my belly I ate
a bite of white bread soaked in gravy. I drank
orange Gatorade from a white styrofoam cup. Meanwhile
the monitor wrote your heart down onto paper.
Behind the black horse was corn and behind the corn
was wild grass and behind the wild grass was a windmill
and behind the windmill were dorms on a hillside.
Meanwhile you were dreaming of juniper berries and a man
with a billy club. Webbing stretched from under his arms
to the sides of his ribs. A sweet phosphorescent glow
prickled his veins and he smelled like just
browned meringue. Would you like to stay?
My thighs opened wide, pantomiming galaxies.
Your soul crashed into the air.
Monday, October 12, 2009
October 12, 2009
4:30am
Pinched face red and screaming, you are wrapped in a blanket that has velcro tabs stitched throughout for airtight swaddling. Your father holds you on the length of his left forearm, moving you up and down while he hands my two Tylenol with the other.
5:30am
You are pacified but fully alert and nestled on your white foam pad between us in bed. We are exhausted but you are wide eyed and cooing and we cannot resist you. I use my index finger to manipulate your gaze...to Daddy...then back to me...then back to Daddy. Your head moves back and forth, a slow shaking of "no."
10:35am
You scream in the car all the way to Baby Talk but quiet when I take you out into the cold air. Snowflakes on your face for the first time. Your dried tears leave a white residue at the corners of your eyes.
1:12pm
When I left the house you were snuggled close to Daddy in the Moby Wrap, screaming while he flipped through a book. Now I am at Blue Monday, eating a bagel, drinking a latte and reading "The Soul Thief" by Charles Baxter. His writing is laced with intelligence, but the kind that glitters and calls attention to itself rather than the kind that is simple and honest and rooted below the surface of things.
There is a certain quiet that falls along with snow. Everyone looks tired but also more patient. It is the season of making sure blankets are tucked under, the season of saran wrap around the doors and cardboard in the crevices. The sky is so uniformly white it erases itself. Meanwhile, I will spend the winter trying not to be erased: a new battery in the car, a freezer full of food, lime stationary with a gilt border so that I can write. "I was here, this is what happened, remember me."
Pinched face red and screaming, you are wrapped in a blanket that has velcro tabs stitched throughout for airtight swaddling. Your father holds you on the length of his left forearm, moving you up and down while he hands my two Tylenol with the other.
5:30am
You are pacified but fully alert and nestled on your white foam pad between us in bed. We are exhausted but you are wide eyed and cooing and we cannot resist you. I use my index finger to manipulate your gaze...to Daddy...then back to me...then back to Daddy. Your head moves back and forth, a slow shaking of "no."
10:35am
You scream in the car all the way to Baby Talk but quiet when I take you out into the cold air. Snowflakes on your face for the first time. Your dried tears leave a white residue at the corners of your eyes.
1:12pm
When I left the house you were snuggled close to Daddy in the Moby Wrap, screaming while he flipped through a book. Now I am at Blue Monday, eating a bagel, drinking a latte and reading "The Soul Thief" by Charles Baxter. His writing is laced with intelligence, but the kind that glitters and calls attention to itself rather than the kind that is simple and honest and rooted below the surface of things.
There is a certain quiet that falls along with snow. Everyone looks tired but also more patient. It is the season of making sure blankets are tucked under, the season of saran wrap around the doors and cardboard in the crevices. The sky is so uniformly white it erases itself. Meanwhile, I will spend the winter trying not to be erased: a new battery in the car, a freezer full of food, lime stationary with a gilt border so that I can write. "I was here, this is what happened, remember me."
October 11, 2009
3:42pm. Dunn Brothers on Upton in Minneapolis. Cold enough for a navy scoop neck shirt and wool cardigan and fleece jacket and Peruvian hat for me; onesie and foot pajamas and swaddle blanket and crocheted hat for you. At the bottom of Ricki and Peter’s driveway, a gang of ducks waddled through the fallen green leaves. The cold blew in two nights ago and when we woke up there was a sheen of snow on the deck, the earliest October snow in 24 years. Another storm is supposed to move in this afternoon.
Your eyes are beginning to connect to your mind and your ears. If I move the rattle across your line of vision, you follow it, not smoothly, but in little jerks, as though you are looking at paintings on a wall, set frames rather than one object in motion. You are cooing and squeaking too, kicking and moving your arms of your own volition rather than reflexively.
Ricki and Peter’s neighbor, David Grube, is in the hospital with Lymphoma and pneumonia. He and his wife, Nan, always leave soup in the refrigerator and bread on the counter on the evening Peter and Ricki return from a trip. Nan has a soft, round face and nods her head affirmatively whenever anyone is talking, a slight supportive movement, soothing and knowing. Five years ago, David developed a speech impediment. When he talks, I sometimes don’t know where to rest my eyes. In the summer, their yard is always filled with flowers and grandchildren carrying plastic trowels or laid out on blankets in the sun. I haven’t actually been inside Nan and David’s house too many times. Once to help Ricki water the plants. Another time to look after the dog. A few times I stood in the doorway while Nan dug around in her cabinets for the can of cream of mushroom soup or box of gelatin my mother needed to finish a recipe. Once they invited us over to make ice cream on their porch. Ben and Dave (your uncles) and I took turns cranking the handle on the ice cream maker; we didn’t talk to each other but we were polite enough not to argue in front of Nan and David.
I tell you this because the Grubes have defined, for me, what neighbors should be. Also because I am beginning to realize that there are many people, of my parents’ generation, who you may never know. This is startling and sad; the Grubes have been such a presence in my life, albeit peripherally, that it’s difficult to understand they will not be a part of your life too. I want to transfer everything that has been good about my life—the places, the people—directly into yours. This will not always be possible.
Ricki is walking back to the house now; you are cuddled close to her in the Ergo backpack, a blue hand towel stuffed in beside you because you are still too small to fill it out completely. Dorothy visited yesterday and brought olive-thyme bread from the monestary in Collegeville. Also an adorable bunny that she knit for you, its eyes little “x”s of blue thread. “Thisbe is so much bigger!” she cooed as soon as she saw you. We laid you on her chest and you raised your head up to look her in the eye.
I dread your growth as much as I rejoice in it. Never have I been so completely aware of the passage of time. Now it feels as palpable a dwelling as your nursery.
Friday, October 9, 2009
October 9, 2009
More and more you are managing to poop through not one layer of fabric, but many. Yesterday you pooped through your onesie, your star sleeper, and two layers of the Moby wrap. One poop, four layers. Downstairs, we change you on Luxy's dog kennel. We lay down cloth diapers below your bottom before taking off the disposable one since your other favorite pastime is to pee while being changed. Also on the changing table: two baby hats, a tupperware container filled with miniature headbands, pink bows, and pacifiers, folded receiving blankets (ladybugs and roses) and wipes.
Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today. The Republicans think this is just another sign that he cares more about the rest of the world than about America: “One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.” Personally, I think it's a poor idea to criticize someone who has just won the Nobel Peace Prize for not caring enough about the "right" people. Why do we continue to think that our fates are separate from the fates of the rest of the world? Why do we continue to believe that we can be truly free or happy if millions of others are not? To see helping the rest of the world as somehow in opposition to helping America is both selfish and ignorant.
And yet, I have been finding a huge amount of joy in you, Thisbe. Am I not truly happy? And what is happiness to you? You snort and almost snarl as you open your mouth for my nipple. Sometimes, the entire time you nurse, I watch the one small tear that has formed in the corner of your eye. It sits there while your snorts turn into sucks of contentment. The lashes on your closed lids stick together because of the tears. Do you experience happiness or simply the absence of hunger and pain?
Snow showers are possible tonight. The cold will soon be embedded everywhere: sidewalks, metal railings, toes, teeth. This morning, when I touch your hands, they are white and cool. A green vine with a thousand leaves climbs up our comforter. The sunlight falls in stripes across it. Your father gets out of bed first, to feed Luxy and start the coffee. Although I'm a writer it's sometimes difficult to know which bits of this life to give you, what mundane details you might want to know.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
October 8, 2009
So on a foreign shore where you came to understand
Joy--your arms full of gladness, it streamed, a fountain--did you,
Reluctantly but choosing it: get up and turn back home.
from "Self-Story as Spheres of Egyptian Industry" by Monica Ferrell
1.
On the foreign shore, rocks are not brutalized.
Seething beasts are quieted with the raising of a brow.
On every continent of skin, a pond of melted bone. You
scoop it up and press it to your eyes. A hurting flush.
2.
At a bus stop, a woman with a peacock feather in a zip lock bag
smiles for the very first time. It streams, a fountain.
3.
Cerulean tiles in a box waiting to be sealed to a church wall.
Sunlight, tinted ruby, glints off the right clasp of the tiler's overalls.
He touches the clasp without looking. The metal is warm.
4.
Turning away from sour breath
into a wind of candied orange.
5.
An Amish man, pant cuffs rolled, knee deep
in Caribbean blue, watching jellyfish smooth
through the sweet plain of water. His hat
makes a shadow on the water; the water
loves the shadow on her back.
6.
One day, the bathtub is filled with razored whiskers
as if a "Complete Works of Dickinson" had come unglued
and all the dashes fell there. And somewhere
in a wicker basket lined with polar bear fuzz
are all the letters, jumbled. So you
straighten your bow tie and dip your hand in.
The letters feel like peeled grapes. You take
enough to write gold and home
and bird and fable. You heart begins to ache
like hers but you are glad to be of use.
Blight, sound, wild, slant.
7.
A herd, galloping. One breaks ahead.
A league away, lit by a largess of sun
you can feel the hoof beats of that one, distinct
from the others. The sound enters
through your feet and fires higher, up
through legs, liver, lungs
until it has plugged into your heart, until
you go where this animal goes, Joy
and a herd of others at your heels.
Joy--your arms full of gladness, it streamed, a fountain--did you,
Reluctantly but choosing it: get up and turn back home.
from "Self-Story as Spheres of Egyptian Industry" by Monica Ferrell
1.
On the foreign shore, rocks are not brutalized.
Seething beasts are quieted with the raising of a brow.
On every continent of skin, a pond of melted bone. You
scoop it up and press it to your eyes. A hurting flush.
2.
At a bus stop, a woman with a peacock feather in a zip lock bag
smiles for the very first time. It streams, a fountain.
3.
Cerulean tiles in a box waiting to be sealed to a church wall.
Sunlight, tinted ruby, glints off the right clasp of the tiler's overalls.
He touches the clasp without looking. The metal is warm.
4.
Turning away from sour breath
into a wind of candied orange.
5.
An Amish man, pant cuffs rolled, knee deep
in Caribbean blue, watching jellyfish smooth
through the sweet plain of water. His hat
makes a shadow on the water; the water
loves the shadow on her back.
6.
One day, the bathtub is filled with razored whiskers
as if a "Complete Works of Dickinson" had come unglued
and all the dashes fell there. And somewhere
in a wicker basket lined with polar bear fuzz
are all the letters, jumbled. So you
straighten your bow tie and dip your hand in.
The letters feel like peeled grapes. You take
enough to write gold and home
and bird and fable. You heart begins to ache
like hers but you are glad to be of use.
Blight, sound, wild, slant.
7.
A herd, galloping. One breaks ahead.
A league away, lit by a largess of sun
you can feel the hoof beats of that one, distinct
from the others. The sound enters
through your feet and fires higher, up
through legs, liver, lungs
until it has plugged into your heart, until
you go where this animal goes, Joy
and a herd of others at your heels.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
October 7, 2009
Sunshine today and everyone looking radiant. I met the women from the book group at James Gang Coffee Shop and two of them were wearing cranberry colored shirts. Sheri's daughter, Lauren, had her senior pictures taken today, first on a bridge and then in the tall grass behind their house. In one photo, Lauren held the guitar from the Guitar Hero video game. In another she posed with Crackerjack, her overenthusiastic terrier. "My arms are exhausted," said Sheri, "from holding up the filter. I spent all day getting ready for the shoot. I made my husband spread mulch all over the backyard. I was going to have him put the rowboat in our pond but he drew the line at that." I imagined having a yard big enough to hold a pond. What is involved in pond upkeep? This summer, near Pepin, Wisconsin, your father and I watched a woman cleaning the pond beside her house. The algae was thick and green and her net hung on the end of a long stick. According to the owner of the B and B where we were staying, it took the woman all day long, every day, to clean the pond. But she was retired and this was what she wanted to do.
Yesterday I dressed you in the shirt Katie Sexe bought for you at the Galleria when you were only 8 weeks old...in the womb. There is a fuzzy pale green hippo on the front that you can't yet appreciate. Nevertheless, in the faculty lounge at St. Olaf yesterday, laying on my lap, with Grandma Ricki and I peering over you, you smiled. You don't know what you are doing yet, but you are certainly trying. Your mouth opens wide and the corners of your lips turn upward just slightly. Then they pull back into a grimace that shows off your gums and your eyes squish shut. You stay frozen in this expression for three seconds and then either your face melts back into softness and you open your eyes or you begin to scream. I wonder what it is that shifts (or doesn't shift) inside of you at these moments.
Last night the Twins beat the Tigers in a regular season playoff game. One of the last that will be played in the Metrodome. Minnesotans have decided that we prefer to watch baseball outdoors, ironic considering that last night was 45 degrees and rain. Today also I received an e-mail from Tupelo Press saying that they are not interested in my manuscript, though it is "quite riveting, and never less than rewarding." Clearly, the e-mail is a mass e-mail and it is somehow more insulting to receive a compliment that is not truly meant for me than to receive no compliment at all. I would prefer that these sorts of rejections not affect me but already I have considered numerous times how boring this particular post is, already I am thinking that my one audience member (your father) is bored to tears and has stopped reading, already I am thinking it was a huge mistake to have an actual reader for this blog, already I am contemplating taking up pond cleaning as my vocation, already I am doubting whether I could truly consider it my vocation if I only took it up as a result of my failure as a writer. But how satisfying to see the green growth disappear from the surface, to have left, at the end of the day, your own reflection wavering back at you.
The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.
from "The World Doesn't End" by Charles Simic
I call you baby duck, love duck, little bug. Today I will call you cricket. I love you, cricket.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
October 6, 2009
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between tress, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
"Beginning" by James Wright
Late June, 2009. Iowa City. Anjali drives Dan and Rebecca and I out to where the farmhouse used to be. The farmhouse where Anjali and I lived during our first year in the Workshop. Now there is no house, no hole, no outline of a foundation even. There is corn and there is grass. Anjali parks on the grass and we cross the dirt road to stand at the edge of a field of soybeans. Rationally, I know they are fireflies, but if I was a six-year-old girl I would be certain it was fairy dust, hovering and shimmering in the twilight. Across the tops of the darkening plants, moving into and out of their own light, millions and millions of them. As though the stars, come down to rest awhile, could not stop from yawning. Thisbe, it was beautiful. You were inside me.
Today I look through "The Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry" to find a line to give you and it all seems dunked in gray. Age, loneliness, closed mill towns and loose floor boards; a sullen wife and panic rules. I do not want to give you any of this.
But each day you are getting closer to all of this. It is horrible and beautiful to watch knowledge come into you. Today, in the gray and rainy light of 8am, you reached with your small fist toward your father's face. You lay beside one another in bed; you touched his eyebrow, his cheek, his hair. You are most interested in borders, the place where one thing ends and another begins. When you see me your cry quiets slightly. You know me (the scent of my breasts, the timbre of my voice, the outline of my jaw) in ways that I do not know myself.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between tress, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
"Beginning" by James Wright
Late June, 2009. Iowa City. Anjali drives Dan and Rebecca and I out to where the farmhouse used to be. The farmhouse where Anjali and I lived during our first year in the Workshop. Now there is no house, no hole, no outline of a foundation even. There is corn and there is grass. Anjali parks on the grass and we cross the dirt road to stand at the edge of a field of soybeans. Rationally, I know they are fireflies, but if I was a six-year-old girl I would be certain it was fairy dust, hovering and shimmering in the twilight. Across the tops of the darkening plants, moving into and out of their own light, millions and millions of them. As though the stars, come down to rest awhile, could not stop from yawning. Thisbe, it was beautiful. You were inside me.
Today I look through "The Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry" to find a line to give you and it all seems dunked in gray. Age, loneliness, closed mill towns and loose floor boards; a sullen wife and panic rules. I do not want to give you any of this.
But each day you are getting closer to all of this. It is horrible and beautiful to watch knowledge come into you. Today, in the gray and rainy light of 8am, you reached with your small fist toward your father's face. You lay beside one another in bed; you touched his eyebrow, his cheek, his hair. You are most interested in borders, the place where one thing ends and another begins. When you see me your cry quiets slightly. You know me (the scent of my breasts, the timbre of my voice, the outline of my jaw) in ways that I do not know myself.
Monday, October 5, 2009
October 5, 2009
Each time I am dunked in the green, green
sacramental water, I glare shamelessly
as she shrieks and kisses me, gripped in air;
I do not know if she loves me or cares,
if it's suffering or joy behind her tears.
from "Chiffon Morning" by Henri Cole
Your baptism is scheduled for Sunday, November 29. Your father wants the font moved to a different spot in the church, wants the whole congregation to gather around you, wants to lead them there by singing "Shall We Gather at the River."
Meanwhile, I worry about what we will do with so many relatives circling around on Thanksgiving weekend, how our oven never cooks at the right temperature, how our kitchen is too small to hold an entire Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile, I worry about what I will wear to the baptism. I want soft gray tights, three shades darker than the fall sky. Grandma Ricki wants you in the Christening gown she wore and I wore. Grandma Dorothy wants you baptized the first Sunday of advent so when we light the first candle every year we can remember your entrance into the Christian community.
You were born to "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom," a Taize chant that was part of our birthing mix. And though I have always loved baptisms, it now seems to me false somehow to do the ritual so many months after your birth.
I wonder why the water in Cole's poem is green. Green, green actually. You hate having water poured over your head; I worry that you will scream through the baptism and that this will somehow reflect poorly on me. As though I have already failed to raise you properly. And I am embarrassed to feel this way. Another part of me thinks "scream in public while you can, ratchet the air with the honesty of your voice, you will know the burden of docile politeness soon enough."
Sunday, October 4, 2009
October 4, 2009
Clothing is darkening along with the leaves. Forest green sweaters and navy sweatshirts and gray V-neck sweaters. Beside me in the coffee shop, a man meditates (eyes closed, forefinger and thumb touching forefinger and thumb, deep breaths) until his cell phone rings, at which point he bends forward at the waist, eyes still closed, while the Carleton students at the next table look at him and then at one another with raised brows.
In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat I read about two patients who, in the late stages of syphilis, are awakened. They become "frisky" and imaginative, full of vitality. One of the patients, asked to imitate a drawing of a square with a circle inside of it instead draws a three dimensional carton with the lid wide open. When asked to do it again he draws a man holding a kite. When given medication and then asked to draw it again he does it correctly, although his drawing is smaller in scale then the original and the lines are more shaky, less sure of themselves. Sacks writes:
What a paradox, what a cruelty, what an irony, there is here--that inner life and imagination may lie dull and dormant unless released, awakened, by an intoxication or disease!
Of course, what I wish for you, dear Thisbe, is that you continue to draw cartons and kites for a long time. As a poet, I feel like I am constantly trying to return to that state, the one where, when told to draw a tree, I draw my own vision, complete with lightning bolts flying from the branches and the bark curling into 43 moustaches. [Tree example also taken from Sacks--lest you think I delight in plagiarism]. It is difficult in this world to trust the truth of the carton and the kite, for me this is the greatest difficulty. That should be the end of my diatribe for today but...
In the next chapter, a man called Mr. Thompson whirls though continual amnesia, remembering nothing for more than a few seconds at a time. Sacks observes that in order to construct our own identities we need narrative; that is, we are always placing the events of our lives into a story that ultimately defines who we are. Mr. Thompson becomes something of a creative genius because he needs to create this story of himself at each and every moment in time. Sacks writes:
For here is a man who, in some sense, is desperate, in a frenzy. The world keeps disappearing, losing meaning, vanishing--and he must seek meaning, make meaning, in a desperate way, continually inventing, throwing bridges of meaning over abysses of meaninglessness, the chaos that yawns continually beneath him.
So Mr. Thompson constructs a world filled with details that delight people, that make him call him "a riot" but "what comes out, torrentially, in his ceaseless confabulation, has, finally, a peculiar quality of indifference...as if it didn't really matter what he said, or what anyone else did or said; as if nothing really mattered any more." Reading that passage made me think of a certain kind of poetry, a kind I have most certainly written, in which the writer leaps from image to image, from world to world or notion to notion but without any real stakes. Sacks talks about bridges over the abyss. This poetry is like bridges over the abyss but without the threat of the abyss...and the truth is that a bridge ceases to maintain its beauty when it is no longer rendered fragile and vulnerable by the water or canyon or riverbed below it. And this whole idea runs counter to the advice I gave you only paragraphs before. Which is to say: imagination only gets you so far. An image must be placed in a precarious situation in order for it to become art. By precarious I simply mean that it has to matter.
Hmmm...my hour is almost up, Thisbe, and you need to be fed.
In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat I read about two patients who, in the late stages of syphilis, are awakened. They become "frisky" and imaginative, full of vitality. One of the patients, asked to imitate a drawing of a square with a circle inside of it instead draws a three dimensional carton with the lid wide open. When asked to do it again he draws a man holding a kite. When given medication and then asked to draw it again he does it correctly, although his drawing is smaller in scale then the original and the lines are more shaky, less sure of themselves. Sacks writes:
What a paradox, what a cruelty, what an irony, there is here--that inner life and imagination may lie dull and dormant unless released, awakened, by an intoxication or disease!
Of course, what I wish for you, dear Thisbe, is that you continue to draw cartons and kites for a long time. As a poet, I feel like I am constantly trying to return to that state, the one where, when told to draw a tree, I draw my own vision, complete with lightning bolts flying from the branches and the bark curling into 43 moustaches. [Tree example also taken from Sacks--lest you think I delight in plagiarism]. It is difficult in this world to trust the truth of the carton and the kite, for me this is the greatest difficulty. That should be the end of my diatribe for today but...
In the next chapter, a man called Mr. Thompson whirls though continual amnesia, remembering nothing for more than a few seconds at a time. Sacks observes that in order to construct our own identities we need narrative; that is, we are always placing the events of our lives into a story that ultimately defines who we are. Mr. Thompson becomes something of a creative genius because he needs to create this story of himself at each and every moment in time. Sacks writes:
For here is a man who, in some sense, is desperate, in a frenzy. The world keeps disappearing, losing meaning, vanishing--and he must seek meaning, make meaning, in a desperate way, continually inventing, throwing bridges of meaning over abysses of meaninglessness, the chaos that yawns continually beneath him.
So Mr. Thompson constructs a world filled with details that delight people, that make him call him "a riot" but "what comes out, torrentially, in his ceaseless confabulation, has, finally, a peculiar quality of indifference...as if it didn't really matter what he said, or what anyone else did or said; as if nothing really mattered any more." Reading that passage made me think of a certain kind of poetry, a kind I have most certainly written, in which the writer leaps from image to image, from world to world or notion to notion but without any real stakes. Sacks talks about bridges over the abyss. This poetry is like bridges over the abyss but without the threat of the abyss...and the truth is that a bridge ceases to maintain its beauty when it is no longer rendered fragile and vulnerable by the water or canyon or riverbed below it. And this whole idea runs counter to the advice I gave you only paragraphs before. Which is to say: imagination only gets you so far. An image must be placed in a precarious situation in order for it to become art. By precarious I simply mean that it has to matter.
Hmmm...my hour is almost up, Thisbe, and you need to be fed.
Friday, October 2, 2009
October 2, 2009
It is raining and at home you are crying. I came to the coffee shop because I was reaching the end of my rope and now all I can do is think of you crying and Daddy moving you up and down through the air on his forearm and growing steadily more impatient.
I am tired. My breasts are huge and none of my shirts fit. My pants also do not fit. Two days ago I cut off 10 inches of my hair. I am not positive the new haircut fits either.
We moved so quickly from weeks of mid-70's weather following your birth to this evil stepchild version of fall: 50 degrees and rain and gray. This is the second day where the light is the same at 8am as at 1pm as at 5pm. Then finally there is a darkening and the rain is light enough that we cannot hear it if the windows are closed. And the windows are closed.
Yesterday, after I snuggled you into the Moby Wrap, you pulled your head out and looked around. I took picture after picture as you used your neck muscles for the very first time. You looked like a heron or a crane, a bird whose neck is long enough that the head seems somehow separate from it. After a few minutes, your head grew too heavy and you had to plant your cheek against my chest again, where you immediately commenced gnawing on my collarbone.
I can hear you crying. I can see Daddy's patience wearing thin.
What else? You will be one month old tomorrow. One month already. And truly it seems like we brought you home yesterday. Dear Thisbe, I see now how quickly the rest of my life will go now that I am consumed with watching you grow. I worry that I will die and you will lose your supply of breast milk. In the car I contemplate whether they could keep me alive just to pump the milk. I contemplate whether I should write a living will with that stipulation in it. I imagine myself laying in a hospital bed, numerous wires hooked to my chest, an intubation tube in my mouth, and a stalwart nurse holding the two suction cups to my breasts while milk drips into the tiny bottles below. Then I worry that I will die and thus never get to see you grow older. This terrifies me more than anything else I can think of. Besides, of course, the fear that trumps all fears: that you will die and I will have to grow old without you.
I can hear you crying. And so it's on with the raincoat and into the old Honda. Wipers on low. Ricki's leftover pot roast for dinner. We will snuggle on the couch to eat, Daddy's computer on the coffee table, "Revolutionary Road" playing, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio and their unhappy marriage filling the screen. This afternoon we put you in your boppy and placed the boppy in the easy chair in the corner of the bedroom. Then we undressed. Over Daddy's shoulder I watched your open mouth. Afterward, I lay in bed with you, our heads bent together. Your tiny nose was cold. I pressed my nose against it and you slept. How many more days of this will I be given?
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