every city intersection is a child's laboratory
two microscopic lenses and extrospective curiosity.
ordinary observation of magnetic behavior
the running late-ers, occasional hand hold-ers
the locked upon bicycle seat-ers, the repel-lers
traveling opposite of where they should.
most coming near or going away aware of
not much, least of which--awareness itself--
their specimen role in a naturally occurring
social experiment and the child, nature's greatest
scientist, without agenda, except to transmit
instinct, of how the tree above
has fingers reaching the sky. cars are music.
specimens transact exactly: rise, dress,
purpose to pavement.
behave knowing their elemental limits.
temporary scientist, his paradox awareness,
knows none.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Aw, Peanuts.
I opened a blank page to write at 12:34am. At 12:34am and a few seconds later I decided to make myself a big lazy ice cream sundae - vanilla ice cream three scoops, a wallop of chocolate syrup, and a handful of nuts shipped to our address from - the Virginia Peanut Company - sent in beautiful packaging to Mr. Zack Hickman who to my knowledge does not live with us, a company that would not provide me with the sender's contact information or contact him on my behalf so that I could return it or track Mr. Hickman myself, a company that told me "enjoy the nuts!" back in mid-December while I was still gung-ho on doing the right thing and not keeping a giant 3 pound canister of overpriced gourmet snack food that could've well been Planters in fancier casing. A company that I just said "oh screw it" to when I got back 10 days before February to an apartment with no food sans lots of packaged items like spanish rice and cannellini beans and a pristine box addressed to a man who's probably living in Sandusky, Ohio with a mysterious new woman who brought with her a suitcase, two chickens and a nut allergy.
You know, I'm kind of fed up feeling guilty all the time doing not-on-my-priority list things and skipping the higher-on-my-priority list things like writing, like reading the Bible, like praying, like playing, like writing a letter to Mr. Burkey to let him know that 11th grade AP government lit a small fire under my ass. Instead of the Bible I read three weeks ago a book called Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, an Irish immigrant who came to the U.S. with a speck of dirt and decided he didn't know what to do so why not become a teacher. He taught in six different schools in New York City - high schools, vocational schools, even a fashion institute (for a month). He wrote about students like they mattered, each searing a sort of identity into his skin - some deep, some deeper. Like they were part of his nature and composition even when he wished they weren't. He gave himself over. Stood up there, a victim of thousands of teenagers' surgical scrutiny, sometimes their adoration, always their mystery, six classes a day like clockwork.
Reading it reminded me that I felt guilty for not reading what I shoulda; reminded me that most teachers start idealists; reminded me about never writing that damn letter to Mr. Burkey, you know, the who's the teacher who made a difference in your life? letter that I've air-composed at least once a year since I graduated from high school, you know - writing it with my finger in the air like you do when you talk to someone who isn't there, when you imagine their responses, the small twitch when they see your name in the corner of the envelope, their eyes squinting to remember your face and who you are. It's undramatic, really. It's because I've never written it that I don't write it. It needs to be about six lines long. Hey Mr Burkey, remember me? Blah blah, blah, I really appreciated your passion for teaching, I wanted to let you know. Blah blah Boston blah blah kids blah blah. Best wishes, Stacey. No big deal. But 14 years later I'm writing a blog entry and not a letter. And eating ice cream with peanuts that technically don't belong to me.
McCourt was 66 years old when he wrote his first book, Angela's Ashes. It won a Pulitzer. He spent his Irish childhood suffering then took thirty adult years doing painful magic in a classroom. Learning all that reassured me that I have 3 more decades to wither away my own speck of dirt before I have to - in the words of Patti Digh - just sit the hell down and write. I wither on in glass and fog like time is mine to spare.
A quote from a famous author: "Publishing may be a Pulitzer but having written the book is the prize." Actually, that's just plain BS. I just made that up so I could segway into this: I love and loathe famous quotes. Some are amazing, said or scribed by famous people who are famous for lovely and heroic reasons. But some of the wisest and most beautiful things are unborrowed and said quietly to no one and I hear them when people think I'm not listening. Daughters hear them. Sons hear them. Spouses hear them and wish they could capture the air right then right there, before they melt away. Memory always does - but those are the imperceptible nothings, little splices of passing wisdom that, when added up over years and years become a feeling that can't be described except as maybe, "fondness." Because even when you can't remember whole years and whole decades you see their faces talking with words spilling out that you can't hear, like a silent movie, and you remember how you felt sitting near to them and you felt good. Their words didn't feel famous; they felt true.
But hey, at least I've written something tonight, gotten something down. Hey soul! Look here! So I'm feeling mediocre and my stomach is full and my gut is saying go to bed and read the good book. I was at a friend's house on Wednesday and she was getting rid of a box of books so I nosed around and lifted out One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez thirdly because the title was luring and secondly because I had actually heard of it and firstly because the cover was pretty, a mosaic painting of greens and blues that made me feel something towards them. The book was thick and the cover was light so I took it to help shield me from my own to do list written in the tortured ink of my SOUL, tortured not because my soul is tortured but tortured because I'm so deliberately deflective of what I'm begging myself to do. Sure, soul, I'll do what you want me to do, but first let me get through my US Weekly. Foreign Policy better? How's about a novel? I once read a book on writing and it said that to be a writer you need to read, so I'm reading to write and not writing so I can read and feeling feeble and guilty when I do either since you can't do both at once, and that sounds about a nick below right and a hair above wrong which is fine by me because there's always middle-ground ambiguity and anyways that's the grey space I'm used to, and I fear, unfortunate for my grand dreams, where I most like to stay.
It's a funny thing, this writing thing. Because now it's 1:29am and I've done what I knew I should. But I think about that letter and how that's what I shoulda done. Shoulda done instead of clamoring inside these flat night margins like a fool, flapping wings over absolutely nothing except procrastination and are you serious? Peanuts? Peanuts!?
Aw, peanuts.
You know, I'm kind of fed up feeling guilty all the time doing not-on-my-priority list things and skipping the higher-on-my-priority list things like writing, like reading the Bible, like praying, like playing, like writing a letter to Mr. Burkey to let him know that 11th grade AP government lit a small fire under my ass. Instead of the Bible I read three weeks ago a book called Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, an Irish immigrant who came to the U.S. with a speck of dirt and decided he didn't know what to do so why not become a teacher. He taught in six different schools in New York City - high schools, vocational schools, even a fashion institute (for a month). He wrote about students like they mattered, each searing a sort of identity into his skin - some deep, some deeper. Like they were part of his nature and composition even when he wished they weren't. He gave himself over. Stood up there, a victim of thousands of teenagers' surgical scrutiny, sometimes their adoration, always their mystery, six classes a day like clockwork.
Reading it reminded me that I felt guilty for not reading what I shoulda; reminded me that most teachers start idealists; reminded me about never writing that damn letter to Mr. Burkey, you know, the who's the teacher who made a difference in your life? letter that I've air-composed at least once a year since I graduated from high school, you know - writing it with my finger in the air like you do when you talk to someone who isn't there, when you imagine their responses, the small twitch when they see your name in the corner of the envelope, their eyes squinting to remember your face and who you are. It's undramatic, really. It's because I've never written it that I don't write it. It needs to be about six lines long. Hey Mr Burkey, remember me? Blah blah, blah, I really appreciated your passion for teaching, I wanted to let you know. Blah blah Boston blah blah kids blah blah. Best wishes, Stacey. No big deal. But 14 years later I'm writing a blog entry and not a letter. And eating ice cream with peanuts that technically don't belong to me.
McCourt was 66 years old when he wrote his first book, Angela's Ashes. It won a Pulitzer. He spent his Irish childhood suffering then took thirty adult years doing painful magic in a classroom. Learning all that reassured me that I have 3 more decades to wither away my own speck of dirt before I have to - in the words of Patti Digh - just sit the hell down and write. I wither on in glass and fog like time is mine to spare.
A quote from a famous author: "Publishing may be a Pulitzer but having written the book is the prize." Actually, that's just plain BS. I just made that up so I could segway into this: I love and loathe famous quotes. Some are amazing, said or scribed by famous people who are famous for lovely and heroic reasons. But some of the wisest and most beautiful things are unborrowed and said quietly to no one and I hear them when people think I'm not listening. Daughters hear them. Sons hear them. Spouses hear them and wish they could capture the air right then right there, before they melt away. Memory always does - but those are the imperceptible nothings, little splices of passing wisdom that, when added up over years and years become a feeling that can't be described except as maybe, "fondness." Because even when you can't remember whole years and whole decades you see their faces talking with words spilling out that you can't hear, like a silent movie, and you remember how you felt sitting near to them and you felt good. Their words didn't feel famous; they felt true.
But hey, at least I've written something tonight, gotten something down. Hey soul! Look here! So I'm feeling mediocre and my stomach is full and my gut is saying go to bed and read the good book. I was at a friend's house on Wednesday and she was getting rid of a box of books so I nosed around and lifted out One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez thirdly because the title was luring and secondly because I had actually heard of it and firstly because the cover was pretty, a mosaic painting of greens and blues that made me feel something towards them. The book was thick and the cover was light so I took it to help shield me from my own to do list written in the tortured ink of my SOUL, tortured not because my soul is tortured but tortured because I'm so deliberately deflective of what I'm begging myself to do. Sure, soul, I'll do what you want me to do, but first let me get through my US Weekly. Foreign Policy better? How's about a novel? I once read a book on writing and it said that to be a writer you need to read, so I'm reading to write and not writing so I can read and feeling feeble and guilty when I do either since you can't do both at once, and that sounds about a nick below right and a hair above wrong which is fine by me because there's always middle-ground ambiguity and anyways that's the grey space I'm used to, and I fear, unfortunate for my grand dreams, where I most like to stay.
It's a funny thing, this writing thing. Because now it's 1:29am and I've done what I knew I should. But I think about that letter and how that's what I shoulda done. Shoulda done instead of clamoring inside these flat night margins like a fool, flapping wings over absolutely nothing except procrastination and are you serious? Peanuts? Peanuts!?
Aw, peanuts.
Monday, January 30, 2012
on not writing
Finding time is a carving knife: hack deep and away at meat corners. Pull delicate skin from fat and cut. Five trim minutes here. Eighteen minutes there. One straight thinking hour is ripping up, close to bone. Into cavernous ribs. Snap them apart one by one or all at once, long curved keys flying off a broke piano. One that is wrong or refuses sound. Crack down anyway, you try and try your slippery tries to grasp odd calcified shapes. They aren't good; at times awful: thick buried noises, rambling trauma. Fling them to walls, heaped membrane and mess.
There was one uncomfortable instant between gluttony and pride when I just did it. Struck straight down into muscle and tore something out. Twisted my brain into the cage, the inhale crushing, and wrote up. It beat beat beat, weak thing bled beet red.
There was one uncomfortable instant between gluttony and pride when I just did it. Struck straight down into muscle and tore something out. Twisted my brain into the cage, the inhale crushing, and wrote up. It beat beat beat, weak thing bled beet red.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
3:14 life
there's something about 3:14 life
when your small children breathe by your side
in a dark room
when, you are the only soul on earth awake
to coax the rattling in their lungs quiet
distress of their dreams
asleep by the skin of your light fingers
along the hair of their brows
down the softness of their chins
you feel special magic to heal them
for the time being and also for the times
when their warm bodies are long and you reach
and they reach but do not meet
when your small children breathe by your side
in a dark room
when, you are the only soul on earth awake
to coax the rattling in their lungs quiet
distress of their dreams
asleep by the skin of your light fingers
along the hair of their brows
down the softness of their chins
you feel special magic to heal them
for the time being and also for the times
when their warm bodies are long and you reach
and they reach but do not meet
Thursday, December 22, 2011
either or
that is a funny place in life
when you hold yourself out
in front of you
and either
what you see is strangely
unrecognizable
or
you recognize yourself
for what feels like
the very first time
when you hold yourself out
in front of you
and either
what you see is strangely
unrecognizable
or
you recognize yourself
for what feels like
the very first time
Friday, December 9, 2011
Walking tonight
Bundled to the brim and adorned with
popcorn and hot cocoa my kids and I
left the warm of our evening home
to see lights light the streets like night on
Christmas fire. The spectacular feeling
it sparks like childhood and leaping out
to do something silly and free like laughing.
I knew Joey never felt it and Addy didn't
remember it so we went in case they might.
And in case they don't it's just as fine.
So we walked cold blocks to see big homes
in little rows together like friends sharing
silent night and themes in twinkling unison.
And along our rather quiet walk alone us three
I saw a car roll slowly past and at the wheel
a small white-haired woman in glasses all alone
peering up and out her rolled down window to marvel
at our same sight. I couldn't help but notice
the look held on her so silly and free looked
just like the one on the faces of my children
and I imagine--rather, hope--on mine as well.
popcorn and hot cocoa my kids and I
left the warm of our evening home
to see lights light the streets like night on
Christmas fire. The spectacular feeling
it sparks like childhood and leaping out
to do something silly and free like laughing.
I knew Joey never felt it and Addy didn't
remember it so we went in case they might.
And in case they don't it's just as fine.
So we walked cold blocks to see big homes
in little rows together like friends sharing
silent night and themes in twinkling unison.
And along our rather quiet walk alone us three
I saw a car roll slowly past and at the wheel
a small white-haired woman in glasses all alone
peering up and out her rolled down window to marvel
at our same sight. I couldn't help but notice
the look held on her so silly and free looked
just like the one on the faces of my children
and I imagine--rather, hope--on mine as well.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
December
if these twinkling merry nights slip through their fingers
long silk navy ribbons round evergreen
less than starry memories can hold in
or hold alive
it will be alright
tiny December palms hold fast
one hand at a time
to let go means just
letting go
will you remember? I beg will you
remember? but others hold memories in
places we cannot keep for ourselves
without wondering they are
too cinnamon steamed and warm bodied
to know why it matters to hold anything at all
why would they when
loss has never knotted them
it is alright
to stay right here instead of
retracing circles round faint
shadows stretching thinner
I hope they skate across many twilights
until a warm scent
a feeling unties
starry dreams
long silk ribbons round evergreen
just like December
long silk navy ribbons round evergreen
less than starry memories can hold in
or hold alive
it will be alright
tiny December palms hold fast
one hand at a time
to let go means just
letting go
will you remember? I beg will you
remember? but others hold memories in
places we cannot keep for ourselves
without wondering they are
too cinnamon steamed and warm bodied
to know why it matters to hold anything at all
why would they when
loss has never knotted them
it is alright
to stay right here instead of
retracing circles round faint
shadows stretching thinner
I hope they skate across many twilights
until a warm scent
a feeling unties
starry dreams
long silk ribbons round evergreen
just like December
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