Gone But Not Forgotten

Hey there!

If you didn’t hear, this blog is no longer in operation…no more witty, poignant, absurd and sharply observed commentary. No more stories and angst about writing. Nada.

Here is where I hang out now: In the Chair 

Come visit me, follow me, give me a shout out, a thumbs up or down! I miss you and hope you join me on the next step of my blogging journey!

 

Holy Eraser, I’ve Moved….

If you read this blog, well, more accurately, considering I haven’t posted in ages, if you used to read this blog, I’ve started blogging again but at a new WordPress home called In the Chair.

Weird name, I know, but check it out when you get a chance and follow me there if you’d like. There will be the same kinds of posts and rants, but with photos of my dogs, a recipe or two, and a book list of monthly reading from yours truly.

I’m hoping the new site pushes me to a place where I am no longer Blocked for Now. Where I am actually writing, truly an out and proud writer. So jump down the rabbit hole with me and I promise you’ll find words, pictures, a quote or two and a place where you can cry or laugh or comment or share to your heart’s content.

XO

Love Hurts

Recently I was in a library. You know the scene. Paper rustling, old cushioned chairs, an indestructible rug, hushed voices, overhead air blowing, throats clearing, necks cracking, lots of wooden shelves and cubbies and tables, pale-faced librarians smiling shhhhh.

I was going to go to Starbucks but then the library beckoned. There wasn’t green iced tea there but I felt silent and hidden, as opposed to Starbucks where I feel obvious and judged.

I wanted to smell the books. Stick my nose in them and keep going down the rows sniffing and gulping the pages. I wanted to swallow stories whole.

I used to go to bookstores. Bookstores are bright and social and full of razzamatazz. They’re like eating a bag of Skittles – a zillion little pieces of candy so colorful and yummy and fruity and sweet and you just can’t stop. Until your tongue is purple-red and the sugar high jolts you and then crashes and you’re sick to your stomach. All those beautiful colorful books make me feel like I’ll never get the chance to join them. So lately I’ve crinkled the empty Skittles bag and raised my fists to the sky and shouted, “Curse you bookstores.” And I don’t go.

But libraries are so contained. They are William Blake’s world in a grain of sand. They are Stonehenge. The TARDIS. Out of place and time. But they can send me into a panic too. There’s an undertow. Something ancient and secret and predestined. Something a little sacred and scary.

Truth is, whether it’s a bookstore or the library, I go there because of the writing. And it’s the writing, even the hope of writing, that really frightens me.

Writing is a terrible beast. It makes me feel old and awkward and stupid and stuck. I feel vulnerable and exposed and never good enough. I feel defeated before even trying. Like I’m in an unrequited relationship that’s killing me.

I can’t stand loving something that makes me feel this way. It’s heartbreaking and nerve-wracking and depressing. But I can’t stop. Too much history and hope. Too many moments of joy when I produce something from thin air that sends a little quiver up my spine and into my soul. It feels like magic. It feels impossible and yet true.

So what’s a girl to do? Give up? Move forward blindly? Grasp at straws? Write?

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-ee cummings

Count the Headlights on the Highway

I lost Prince in the Berkshires. His voice became static, then disappeared. Beggers can’t be choosers on the Mass Pike. I drove the NY Thruway from Syracuse to get there and it wasn’t much better – a lot of hard rock, Jesus music, country western, and for some reason Adele and Hughie Lewis and the News. My car snaked into a single lane because of construction and came to a dead stop.

The search button brought me to Bon Jovi wailing, I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride. My girls were slumped over and sleeping. I was in my head, daydreaming about riding bareback on a horse through the mountains and forests. She was a spotted Appaloosa. I had windswept Pocahontas hair and bare feet. I walked stealth-like to bring the horse through rocky terrain.

The only song I could find next was You Should be Dancing. The Bee Gees sang in a nasal pitch as John Travolta spun me across the dancefloor. A white dress fluttered around my knees, and my feet, in gold high heels, were flying in perfect disco moves.

You would think I’d get my act together on these endless trips visiting my family and plug in a playlist or audiobook or find an interesting podcast. Instead, I listen to whatever the local stations throw at me and conjure up elaborate scenarios. In all of them, I am moving. Running, hiking, dancing, jumping. My feet are pain-free. My legs are strong.

Frida Kahlo said, “Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” I want to believe that. I want to feel that if I can write, there is nothing else I need. But I have memories of long walks along the beach, dancing in my parents’ basement to music from scratchy albums, running through the snow with a girlfriend, laughing, wrestling to the ground, looking up at silver stars. If I could grow wings I would fly up there on cold black winter nights and shine, my body a burning star.

What do you wish your body could do?

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today

— Elton John

Thanks a Lot

There is a mountain of research that correlates the practice of gratitude with mental an physical health benefits – everything from better mood, less anger, positive outlook, happiness and lower blood pressure. Of course, this is just correlation, not cause and effect. These outcomes could be caused by any number of other things the subjects share like eating a lot of artichokes or flossing three times a day.

But it is Thanksgiving and it’s possible all those research studies have some truth. Plus, my blood pressure has been running high lately so what the hell, here goes.

I’m grateful for:

Family

Books – so many, so little time

Costco, because it gives my dad somewhere to go and something to talk about (you should see the size of the shrimp!)

The Food Network, for cooking shows that inspire in the moment (not so much when I should actually be cooking) and for a second fantasy family of amazing chefs.

Everyday when I can get out of bed and put my feet on the floor and walk.

My mom, who died of pancreatic cancer 7 years ago, and who still lives on in me – the good and the bad. Her unforgiving metabolism and complex relationship with food, her dreams of travel even when it wasn’t possible, her love of reading and learning, her tendency towards judgement, her ability to make and keep friends, her greatest enjoyment a table loaded with food and her family sitting around it joking and snarking and loving her stuffed shells, her ability to cover up fear and insecurity, her desire to create beauty, her care taking, her obsession with dishes.

Seeing my girls – now 18 and 22- sharing a memory and hearing them laugh together

Writing, even when I don’t actually write, it is always there. In my head, my hands, my heart

Bright red cardinals against snow

Target

Anyone who is reading this blog after all this time

So now I will go check my blood pressure and see if this gratitude stuff really works. I’m skeptical, but I’m always skeptical – I think I get that from my dad. Currently he is trying to peel a dozen hard boiled eggs and swearing because the shells are sticking. It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.

Eat, drink, be merry and grateful. It’s worth a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s Always One

Today in the car I was behind a school bus. The kids looked young – maybe 4th graders – probably off to day camp. A bunch of boys were in the back seats. Aren’t they always? These are the kids that want to feel older, cooler. At the stop light one of them peeked around his seat and waved at me. I smiled back and they all started elbowing each other and laughing and pointing to him and who knows what they were saying.

This reminded me of a time when I was in grad school in the 80s and I was walking towards a pack of middle school boys who were murmuring and kind of circling and then one of them pulled away from the group and came walking towards me with a wrench fastened onto his crotch. He was swaggering and thrusting his hips out and the rest of the bunch were laughing and saying things like, Oh man and Holy shit! And when we got close to each other I looked at the kid and without batting an eyelash said, If you ever want to have children you might not want to do that. He look shocked and thrilled and embarrassed and in love. And he swaggered back to his posse and they were grunting and hooting and shuffling around like a herd of buffalo.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of time around adolescent boys. I worked in a residential treatment center for emotionally troubled youth ages 12-16. I taught at an all boys high school. I grew up with 3 brothers. Boys individually are completely different than boys in a group. And in a group there is always one kid who will do the ridiculous or stupid or scary thing that all the rest of them may want to do or not want to do or hope no one does.

I wonder about those kids. Do they grow up to be CEOs or bank robbers? Rebels just for kicks? Are they dads with boys just like them? Do they become the ones who make all the social plans? Or do they get tired of being The One. Do they become quiet and drink a lot? Are they just average, rarely noticed, unrecognizable at class reunions?

I know there are girls like this too, but it’s more obvious with boys. I was never The One. But I remember in Middle School a girl who was in a much cooler crowd than me wrote in my autograph book (yes, we had autograph books – why I don’t know – maybe I’m so old the Yearbook hadn’t been invented), you are a blast at sleepovers.

Why in the world would she write that? First, I think I went to one sleepover that she was at and I can’t imagine how I even got invited. And secondly, I was not a risk taker, wore ugly glasses, had old lady pajamas, and never made it up past 11:00. If anything, I was the one trying to fly under the radar. Just smart enough, just funny enough, just enough friends, without being noticed too much. Certainly not The One and not even The Two or The Three.

And that hasn’t changed much. It’s probably why this writing thing is so damn hard. Those of you flying under the radar for a lifetime know what I mean. You have to be The One when you write. And when you publish, you have to come out of hiding (and by this I mean hiding in plain sight as in your day job or family  or common citizen type-stuff) and move your plane right into the line of fire.

This is the struggle – part of it at least. The other part, well that’s just getting my butt in the chair and doing the daily work. Maybe after enough days at it, enough hard work, you just morph into The One. I should try to find out.

Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now
I been feeling it since 1966, now
Might’ve had your fill, but you feel it still
Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now
Let me kick it like it’s 1986, now
Might be over now, but I feel it still
-Portugal the Man

Road Trip

We left on a Saturday morning, the traffic light and the clouds dark. My 17-year old daughter rode shot-gun with the snack bag standing ready and a few CDs she recently uncovered like artifacts from my past, Billy Joel, The Stranger and David Gray, White Ladder. We were leaving Rhode Island up 146 North to cross a few state lines and visit my father and brothers in Syracuse. Barely 30 minutes into the trip the wind kicked up and shook the car like a dryer filled with sneakers, and a dense unforgiving rain began.

My daughter sat upright, ignoring the pillow and blanket in her lap she was hoping to use. Cars slowed and a siren screamed and we pulled over and back into the lane again while Billy Joel sang about Brenda and Eddie. We moved slowly and talked about possible colleges, ice cream, our dogs, and a little family dirt on my mother’s side. When we got to the firetrucks and police and the flashing lights, there was someone on a gurney getting wheeled into a rescue, and a vehicle, not unlike our own dark grey SUV, was upside down and rocking slightly, debris circling it like an ancient ruin.

In Syracuse we took my niece (5 years-old) and nephew (almost 10 years-old) to the Wild Kingdom, an odd zoo housing alligators and a white tiger and a giraffe and goats. In a glass room I watched my daughter and niece attract small parrots with peanut butter and seeds on popsicle sticks, their arms and shoulders covered with birds – powder blue, yellow, green and white – a feathery blur. Then this – a baby kangaroo wearing a child’s pull-up, left alone in a small caged area with a sign out front saying $10 for a photo with a baby kangaroo. I wanted to set it free, complain to the owner, write an op ed piece, tell the two college-age students in their Wild Kingdom shirts and badges to stop flirting and pay attention to that  poor kangaroo. But I didn’t. I walked past with my mouth slightly open and my heart jittery and caged.

On the way back to my brother’s house, I saw a dead deer on the side of the road, her head twisted, her eyes unforgiving. My daughter in the back seat was keeping her cousins entertained and I was relieved she didn’t see the doe. At least this one thing she didn’t have to see.

Then was my father, his thick fingers curled like a crustacean, his crystal blue eyes bloodshot without sleep, his gate slow and sloped. He won’t see a doctor, won’t have any blood work done, won’t take any medicine because he thinks all the medicine my mother took gave her the cancer that killed her. So he eats potato chips and cookies from Costco’s and waits to die.

On the drive home my daughter told me she had a boyfriend. Her first. It started raining again. Black clouds entwined with silvery sunshine threw shadows on trees and bridges and jagged rock that had been blasted open for the road. I knew the boyfriend, a kid among her gaggle of friends I had chauffeured around to parties, movies, Gregg’s Restaurant for chocolate cake, school stuff. Now she has her license so those day are waning. On to different days. Is she ready? Are any of us ready?

We are talking about the boyfriend and she sees a rainbow up ahead. It grows larger as we twist around the highway and move into a range of hills and spotty rain and then she says, It’s on the road, It’s right in front of us. We’re driving through a rainbow.

And we were. The colors came out of the sky, bounced on the road and up to the windshield and followed us along for a mile or two. Water splashed from under the tires catching iridescent colors. We were laughing and shouting and repeating madly, we’re driving in a rainbow. And for a moment we shared something pure and real and almost miraculous. On the road again.

Window
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
                               Carl Sandberg

Babel

This happens to me now and then. Instead of writers block I get readers block. There are a million beach reading lists out there and I blink at them and don’t know where to start. I read the NY Times Book Review and wonder, who are all these people writing? I look through books on my bookshelf and feel overwhelmed by them. Which ones did I read? Which one should I pick?

When I’m on a roll there’s no stopping me. I am in love with reading and will go through stacks of books. But when I sputter and stall out and find myself circling the bookstore in a daze, well it’s bad.

Maybe I’m trying to tell myself something. Doesn’t our behavior often proceed our cognition? Maybe I’m trying to say, self, you should be writing – you should get your name on one of these books, in one of these book stores, on one of these lists. That would certainly cause paralysis.

You have to work hard at anything you want. You have to pay attention. You have to make mistakes and face rejection and not care about things you might normally care about.

I had to give up alcohol because of my RA meds. I miss it once in awhile when I’m out for dinner or cooking at home, but not enough to really bother me. I had to give up coffee because it gave me horrible heartburn. That was harder, but I drink tea. I manage. I smell good coffee and feel longing and regret and I salivate unconditionally. But I don’t go back. I can manage. I have to give up cheese and ice cream and most dairy because my RA meds sent my cholesterol into orbit. But I can’t do it. I’m eating even more than usual. Out of spite? In fear it will be gone? To give myself a heart attack?

To write I have to give up time and get organized. I have to stop watching stupid TV and looking up recipes and reading Real Simple magazines. I have to feel crappy and stupid facing the blank page day after day. I have to feel worthy of finishing something good, something people will want to read. I have to open up this calcified area inside where I store all the ugly, tender, raw, dangerous memories and feelings.

I guess it’s time to cut the crap and get over whatever it is I have to get over. Do what the doctor says. Put my ass in the chair and write. Stop whining. Start listening. Get reading.

Growing up is hard.

‘Cause I know my weakness, know my voice,
And I’ll believe in grace and choice
And I know perhaps my heart is farce,
But I’ll be born without a mask

Mumford & Sons

 

 

Decisions Decisions

Every day there are thousands of decisions to make. Do I pick through these old blueberries for breakfast or get a greasy egg sandwich from Dunkin Donuts? Do I bend down and pick up that ball of dog fur or walk past it again? Do I write to my Congressman or watch reruns of Parks and Recreation? Do I sort through this Mount Washington pile of mail or stuff it in an old shopping bag for later? Should I let my 17 year-old newly licensed daughter take the car tonight to see a movie with her friends -because there is construction around the theater and it might rain and it will definitely get dark and it’s a 10:00 PM movie so I’ll have to stay up way past my bedtime until she gets home and if she’s late it will take at least 2 weeks off my life from the stress and terror.

A lot of decision making is automatic (I just keep walking past that dog fur), and a lot of it seems small but is big (that damn movie), but a lot of it also takes energy and focus and time. And I am not always great with this. I get distracted or I use up all my decision making powers at work so I make poor decisions at home (pizza again for dinner) or none at all (let me just sit on this couch for 20 minutes in a fugue state). You have to decide what to eat and wear and buy and say. You have to decide whether to cook or clean or get an oil change or go for a walk or call a friend. You have to decide how to parent and treat colleagues and support your spouse.

You have to decide whether to write.

Perhaps I could be the person I want to be if I was better at decisions. Perhaps I could take greater risks and do the things that would ultimately, to use a horrid self-help statement, bring me joy. There are multitudes of books on how to do the things I want to do. How to magically change my life by tidying up or create 7 habits for myself to be highly successful or dare greatly or rise strongly or master self-love. How to write a novel in 90 days or loose weight, gain more energy and never diet again, or have pain free posture, or do the ultimate memory exercises to keep my brain from crapping out. But these books aren’t magic. You have to decide to do the things they talk about. You can’t take action until you decide to take action. You can’t change until you – uhg – decide.

And thus the rub. How do I get better at deciding? I’ve had a lot of therapy and that hasn’t worked. I’ve made plenty of bad decisions and didn’t learn enough from them to make me a better decider. I’ve certainly aged a lot, and that doesn’t seem to be helping.

There’s a tiny voice inside me that’s reacting to all of this as I’m writing it. A whisper of a voice I can barely hear. She’s saying, you have to be worthy. You have to feel you are worthy of these decisions.

And I must be listening to her today because I’m writing. But if this is going to last she’s going to have to speak up. Shout even. And then I have to decide to listen.

I am learning a little—never to be sure—
To be positive only with what is past,
And to peer sometimes at the things to come
As a wanderer treading the night
When the mazy stars neither point nor beckon,
And of all the roads, no road is sure.
Carl Sandburg

And It Stoned Me To My Soul

Today I have a day off and I want to write.

So I emptied and loaded the dishwasher, watched 2 cooking shows, finished the last chapter of Trans Atlantic, looked up recipes for vegan caesar salad dressing which led to trying to find recipes for inspiring lentil casseroles (an oxymoron?), which took me to to a bookcase near the CDs and I wonder how did Van Morrison wind up next to the High School Musical soundtrack? Now I’m thinking about picking up a pair of winter pants that have been at the dry cleaners since January and taking 2 epic fail bras back to the store or buying some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

I’ve been wanting to start a puzzle and I need to find some paperwork for my Flexible Spending Account and I have a couple loads of dirty clothes that are going to solidify into the shape of the laundry basket if I don’t do them soon. Plus, the dogs haven’t barked in over an hour so I should probably put a mirror in front of their muzzles to make sure it fogs up. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and a telemarketer will call.

It’s brutal. The blank page.

Divine inspiration is scarce.  And no matter what they say, just showing up is not 80% of the work. Because you can show up and just stare at that white empty space and feel like you’re going to choke on the saliva that’s turning to dust in your throat. Or you can pull up an old half-started manuscript and watch the words start to cyclone into something indecipherable and you know you are faking this as clearly and truly as you know you will never sky dive or eat a bug. You will be voted off the island before you even get there.

And then after a lot of angst and decay of the soul you just write something. Even if it sucks. Even it it’s offensive or a lie or barely makes sense. You just stop snarling and spitting into the wind and put your gory beat up self out there. It’s not pretty. It’s not as satisfying as Ben & Jerry’s. But it plugs up a hole or two. It makes the day feel like it’s your day. And then you can listen to Van Morrison with a clear heart.

And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they’ll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow’s sky
And I will never grow so old again
-Van Morrison