Elephants, the only big harmless thing

A few nights ago I had a vivid dream I was traveling in Thailand and went to an elephant sanctuary. The dream was so real, I could feel the heat of the sun on my face, the sweat on my lower back, the light stress headache from traveling alone in a strange, crowded place. Everything in orange and yellow and red, flickering like 35 millimeter film.

The guide told us a lot of interesting facts about elephants, and the creatures themselves blocked my path, in my way. It was some kind of message from the universe that I consider elephants.

I was sort of sad when I woke up and brushed my teeth in my bathroom, looking at my face in the mirror and getting ready for work-- everything so ordinary, every line on my face, every tooth as familiar as dreams are unfamiliar. I was vaguely irritated that I thought I had some kind of spiritually important dream and had practically forgotten it by the time I tried to summarize it to my husband (as you probably know, your dreams aren't that interesting when you relate them to others, although that's not stopping me from writing about it).

A couple of days after this dream I was walking around Target, filling up my cart as I distractedly talked on my cell phone. When I got to the checkout, I realized I had put an elephant ornament in it without really much thought.  I declared it a sign and set about trying to write a poem about elephants, but can't make much out of the random stuff I learned. But they are extraordinary.

Elephants have great memories, we were taught this at some point or another. The Buddhists and Hindus have noted this because of their huge ears-- great listeners. For this, they embody not only wisdom, but compassion, because their listening and observing brings empathy. That's why the Buddha has those fat, hanging earlobes.  Elephants and rats are often depicted together, the elephant being the ideal, the rat being the work needed to reach the ideal (that in itself I would need a MA in religion iconography to really interpret correctly, but I think that's the gist of it.)

When Siddhartha's mother Maya conceived her son, he came in the form of a white elephant with a lotus flower in his trunk, and the elephant entered her womb through in her side. She died three weeks later and Siddhartha was raised by her sister. The similarities to Christianity are interesting-- the immaculate conception, the savior of humanity, the divine feminine, even the names (Maya, Mary).

I also learned that elephants have a special birthing ritual where the laboring elephant brings a friend with her so she can have support and not eat her young in the confusion of labor.

But the sweetest thing about elephants is that when other elephants find the bones of another elephant, they stand around in a herd, and pay their respects by crying out. 

So after all that, I didn't figure out the significance of the dream or find any good poetic inspiration.  But the elephant ornament that lumbered into my cart has a broken tusk, so I took him to school and talked to the kids about him. We agreed the elephant is trying to tell us that life isn't perfect. And that there's magic everywhere. I think that's what we said (unlike the elephant, I have a spotty memory).

After some circumspection, here's the thing about elephants. They are, literally and figuratively, larger than life. In my dream, they are blocking the way, physically forcing me to look at them. The elephants are maybe questions, the big ones, threatening to swallow us up if we stand too close. The roadblocks. Should I do this? Should I do that? Am I going in the right direction?

The biggest question they ask: is this who you are? 

there is a season

I shouldn't really be stunned over the fact that funerals make me think about things, but nevertheless, I didn't sleep well for two nights thinking about a friend's mother who just died. It was just too sad to not give it proper internal recognition. Really, I was thinking about myself, and about my mother.

I saw her two weekends ago in Atlantic City and promptly told her, "don't ever die, just don't." It was in that weird, "I'm-trying-to-be-funny" way that really was a red flag of distress, and her response had the same strange matter of fact tone.

"It will happen probably soon," she said, "maybe ten more years."

This made me sick.
I drove home feeling like something was sitting on my chest.

Earlier this month my friend Jill had her second baby, which looks like a wonderful, pink little old man. He seemed to come into the world politely; being three weeks early, he only required a few pushes from his mother, and there he was.

And there it was: life, day one. He spent most it with his eyes closed, like we all did, I guess. Plenty of time later to look at his mother, her dark hair, her eyes. For a short time, I think it's the only thing he'll see. Of course he will watch his father's face, but it's not the same. She was the first thing he ever saw.

My friend Allison went with me to our friends' mother funeral service. When someone read to us from Proverbs about a woman's virtue ("for her price is far above rubies") I sat there pondering how lofty and impossible expectations are in the Catholic faith.

They want us to be everything, I thought. Virtuous, giving, believing, strong. Raise your children and be a good wife. Don't ask for anything in this life for yourself. The reward is to come. It sounds like a scam. 

Allison had a different take entirely.

She sat there crying softly, whispering she couldn't fathom leaving her little daughters behind without a mother. I watched her pray, almost stubbornly.  She might will herself to live forever. She has to live forever. She's a mother.

Who can find a virtuous woman?
For her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,
so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life[...]
She openeth her mouth with wisdom;
and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
She looketh well to the ways of her household,
and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Many daughters have done virtuously,
but thou excellest them all.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain:
but a woman that feareth the LORD,
she shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands;
and let her own works praise her in the gates."
(Proverbs 31:10-31, KJV)

Electric Surprise!!

"I don't want to read a poem. I don't want to read a short story. I want to read Chapter One. That's it," said my friend Allison cruelly.

"You should write your book this weekend," said Dan, as if writing a book and making a beef stew were one and the same (to be fair, he just means I should be writing on the weekend.)

"Why aren't you writing a book? Where's the book?" asked my Dad. "Your book should be about an electrical systems operator who accidentally teams up with terrorists by destroying the power grid."

"Dad...do you think I'm writing a book about you working at Con Ed?"

"It could be called Electric Surprise," he declared, a gleam in his eye. "And the guy...let's  say he has gambling debt, a working class Joe, like me..."

"Lord help us, " said Mom.

"And so he tells these guys for a certain amount of money...he'll shut off the power grid in New York for a little bit. And he doesn't realize they're terrorists."

"That's a great idea for a book," said Mom. "Like Dirk Pitt. Or that other guy. Those books make a lot of money."

"I don't know if I have the technical expertise to write that kind of book," I replied. "I usually write stories about unfulfilled middle class white women who long for adventure. Oprah type stuff. "

"You could have the guy's daughter be that character. She could, like, infiltrate the terrorist group and avenge her dad..."

"Sweet!" said my husband.

"Electric Surprise?" I repeated.

"You can change the title. It's a working title," said Dad, waving his fork dismissively. "Send me Chapter One."

Anyone know anything about the power grid?

Ocean Grove Woman's Club

We rented a beach house in Ocean Grove; I was tickled to see it was a former Woman's Club at the turn of the century into the 1930's, complete with framed receipts for three dollar rooms and an elegant back story. It was a place for single ladies to stay when traveling without the indecent dilemma of sharing a hotel with men.

I can imagine these women on a Methodist Camp pilgrimage-- and of course I thought I could feel their ghosts banging around the great old living room. My bed was actually on an enclosed portion of what used to be a twenty foot stage, and that was, well, quite sexy (lolling around in the place where some virgin stood announcing the day's agenda of beach strolling and prayer? It's a bit sexy, right?)

I wrote a sestina-- that's six ending words rotating around in a specific pattern. I did cheat a little, though. (Side note-- throbbing star is a Keats reference, I can't claim that one. Hot, hot, hot! You get the notion.)

The Women’s Club Hotel (est. 1870), Ocean Grove, NJ

   (Plaque reads: A Respectable Hotel for Chaperoned Single Gentlewomen)

I’m staying in a Victorian where women

once boarded with valises and maps alone,

long before my time. They must have burned

some bridges to gage that distance

from social rules. They couldn’t touch

any man besides their fathers; they might’ve fallen

prey to fortune hunters,  or fallen

into disgrace,  even from other women.

But surely they longed for the feather touch

of a lover’s glove on their arm, like a lone

blackbird dipping the distance

between valley and silt:  how he dives and burns.

I’ve seen their umbrellas: these girls didn’t burn

from cobwebs of late sun, they fell into

shaded flocks like flitting moths,  with distant

white smiles and white umbrellas teasing good men

with a lemonade stroll; but never with a man alone.

It must have been so hard not to touch.

But I’m probably wrong about the need for touch,

especially back then.  Even the word “burn”

seems too sexy regarding my great grandmother, who alone

crossed the ocean, gave a strange man everything, falling

away from love like a fever. She was a woman

who knew marriage—a way to survive that distance.

All I really know about her is 2,756: the nautical distance

between Galway and New York (it was in my father’s papers. Don’t touch).

But, really, only longing measures the heart of a woman—

I can see everything in her signature.  Irish women didn’t burn;

they were fierce and hard. God forbid your husband fell

off his horse. The women might whisper you were better off alone.

Maybe that’s always the real fear: being alone.

Or being that woman who needs distance

from her house and parents or risk falling,

like a throbbing star, into the touch

of a stranger’s mouth and hands, burning

for some unnamed thing. That’s being a woman.

Madame Marie of Asbury Park Sent Me This Dream

Yesterday we strolled around Asbury Park. It rained heavily in the morning and when it lifted, the sun burned off the clouds and the boardwalk stretched like a splintered tongue towards packing crates-turned-crepe stands and slightly edgy, talkative surfers. The water (Florida hurricane coming?) was rip tide-churning and seemed to slap anyone who came too close.

Everything was fairly empty because of the earlier rain. I liked seeing the tourists from afar, dotted under the peeling Casino sign like roadside flowers.

My mother in law bought a silk tunic/sari thing for her daughter's wedding from a sassy lady selling penis shaped bottle openers.   I was in a pleasant fog all day.

I was disappointed to see that Madame Marie of the Bruce Springsteen song had died and supposedly her daughter works there instead. No one in my party seemed overly interested in getting a reading anyway.

But that purple hut and its third eye pyramid gifted me a wild dream. I was in a sort of nightclub, decorated like a garish carnival-- wheezing carousel, sing song-y men in purple tuxedos with tails, women in feathered leotards doing contortions, fire-eating girls and all the Hollywood hallmarks of a Great Depression traveling sideshow mish-mashed with me and my high school friends, dancing and talking about an upcoming blizzard.

My high school friend Dustin was there, who frequently appears in my dreams and has for years, despite the fact I haven't seen him in at least five years and we weren't especially close. He's become a symbol, maybe, synthesized energy of youth and maybe longing. There he was: drinking a beer on the side of the dance floor, watching me and my friends dance; it was all vaguely sexual and outside of time, like dreams always are. I'm me as an adult, but he's himself at nineteen, and some of the players on that dance floor are people I've met at various times of my life (one friend, Megan, is there, with green hair, inexplicably). The squeezebox music is out of time, like Dustin is.  Or maybe I'm out of time, stepping into the alternate world, the portal where Dustin and these people live, dancing and drinking outside boundaries of space. (I'm sure you've had a dream so vivid you had to wonder if the dream was real and the sleeping person you are is the illusion-- you know, those conversations you've had in college when you thought you were insanely deep).

But there's a blizzard coming, I told everyone, including Dustin, who can't hear me, because of the music.  He disappears, and I suddenly can't find anyone I know. Everyone is going home, and I don't have a ride. I am now crying and alone and can't find a coat. The coat check girl is screwing a guy right in front of me: she's probably on top of my coat.

I felt so alive in my desperation. This is the part of the dream that seems so real: the frantic need to say, a blizzard is coming everyone! I need to find Dustin! I don't have my coat! And the carnival churns on around me as if I'm not there.

When I woke up a few minutes ago, it felt like this dream was a burning prophecy from Madame Marie's shack. It felt that important.

Now that I typed it all out, it looks just like any dream I might have before the new school year starts up again. Pretty prosaic. You can break it down so easily, especially if you know me.

circus= life/summer/fun/anxiety to start school
Dustin= youth/longing/sexuality/the past
Dustin's disappearance= typical abandonment issues/fear of getting old
lack of coat= insecurity/exposure
slutty coat check girl= everyone is having fun but me
blizzard= baby/pregnancy procrastination

I'll set up a shack on that boardwalk: dream interpretation. And cheese fries.

the end of the summer

I wrote him a desperate, wordy letter that said, "the summer's almost over and I wanted to tell you I love you." It really didn't say that exactly-- I was around nineteen and not nearly articulate enough for that. I thought it said that, but really I probably wrote something like, "I just wanted to say I miss you and I hope that you don't hate me because of the bad way we split up" or something awkward/uncool to that effect (I probably should have apologized for the threatening Sharpie sign I put on his car that declared my hate-- that happened at the beginning of the summer, when such displays of crazy seem like a great idea).

I may or may not have included bad poetry about how I hate/the sound/ of crickets/because now/ when I hear their August moan/I'm not kissing you/I'm all alone. (Will someone invent a special time machine that transports us to these moments of abysmal, naked longing so we can edit them and make ourselves...well...less abysmally naked?)

This time of year, when it's hot and bright and I'm tan and busy, I think about July romances and the cliche of the weepy goodbye: teenagers leaving summer camp boyfriends behind, the kisses wet on their memories like grass; people breaking up before going to college; the crackly burn of a vacation hook-up soon fizzling to a hazy flashback-- an anecdote told to a friend over melting ice cream.

I walked with my friend Allison around her neighborhood last night. It was so steamy out, you could see the moisture rising off the grass, and our quiet chit chat in the little parking lot behind the bank somehow sent us both back, reeling, to that age where the summer and all its promises and drama was all that was going on.  She said that she felt just like she did when she was a kid, and she would go swimming all day in someone's pool, and then go back to someone's house for a sleepover, all tired from the sun yet ready to disclose the deepest recesses of her soul to whatever best friend of the moment was with her.

It's just that muggy, distinct summer air: so August. 

So today I'm remembering that first real broken heart. How it got wound up like a wristwatch, beating with love, how he pulled the pin, stopping time, or so it seemed. 

A few nights after I sent that ill-advised letter, I sat on my back porch and tried to explain to my father: I hate the end of the summer.

I had that veneer of bitterness and resolve. But I knew it would happen all over again, probably the next summer.

the bluejay

I went for a jog a few weeks ago and met a jarringly beautiful blue jay huddled next to the Livingston High School air conditioner, the latter which rumbled and rattled as cheerleaders and soccer players waited in droves to get picked up by their parents.

"Wow, look at that!" I couldn't help but stop and watch. He was bright and chubby and about the size of my hand; he looked almost like a fake, a beady eyed plush toy left behind by some dog or toddler. But when he shook his head a tiny bit at the commotion around him his real-ness was confirmed.

The kids around me were unimpressed and soon scattered. Tired from trying to jog in the heat, I took a break on the cement stairs outside the high school gym, where I could catch my breath and observe the endearingly plump little guy, now on my immediate and intimate line of vision.

He was so still for so long I started to think that I imagined that he moved and that he's actually dead, propped up against the air conditioner as his final resting place.  With my foot, I nudged a piece of popcorn his way (high school kids always leave bird-friendly litter around). He sat stoically.

I thought, is this bird dead? If so, it just happened; he's about as alive-looking and fresh as I've ever seen. What kind of bird doesn't want popcorn, right under his beak?

I must have sat for a solid fifteen minutes in that sunshine, trying to figure out if he was alive or not. Every jogger and person with a stroller that went by, I wanted to say, there's a dead or dying bird here, I think. We have to do something. We have to call someone.  But of course I didn't. I mean, what could I do? What could anyone do? That's just life.

The whole thing was so strange. Eventually I went back to my jog, thinking I'd check that spot again on my way back. But I ran home a different way and eventually forgot, until about three days later when my husband and I shared a bottle of wine and I told him about it. I felt bad about the whole thing for some reason-- maybe the notion that I can be moved by a certain moment of connection and then just forget about it. I guess that everyone, everything has a right to die with dignity and privacy-- but also to be recognized, to be seen. It just seems sad that the whole world passed this bird by at the most important moment of its existence, maybe not including its own birth from the egg or its first flight.

I went for a walk the next morning and sure enough, there was a little pile of bones and some feathers where my friend stood four days before. 

As I passed by, I thought: what a brave little thing. I saw you. I saw.