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.

I Ate You, California

My husband and I went to California for nine days; it seemed the most obvious choice with the impending costly rotation of home repairs/improvements and my biological clock and all that (that's said with playful irony meant to make you admire our hip disregard for playing by the rules! that's how we roll!)  Just when I thought I was the most financially foolhardy person in my relationship, Dan took me on a whirlwind tour of Central California and we literally ate our way down Coastal Highway 1.  No regrets! Here's the epicurean highlight list (strangely, I only gained like 3 pounds):

1.  Clams in San Francisco's Chinatown: "you can't order two. they're huge," said Dan. I showed him! I showed them all!
2.  Dark chocolate hot fudge sundae in Ghirandelli Square: to be fair, Dan had most of it. In fact, he suggested two separate tables so he could have alone time with his ice cream.
3.  Half Moon Bay: Lobster Roll at Sam's with views of the sea and attractive people. A few days and many miles later in Golden Gate Park, just when I was saddened at the cost of the Japanese Tea Garden, I spotted Sam's Mobile Food Truck and shrieked. I never thought I'd  see that lobster roll again. It was like the ending of The Color Purple when Celie finally sees her long lost sister and they sob in each other's arms.
4.  Cinnamon pull apart in Carmel-by-the-Sea-- the only thing we could afford there....it was hot and sweet and gooey (I'll let you insert a joke here like 'that's what she said' etc)
5.  Avocado and Asparagus Eggs Benedict at the Apple Farm Inn in San Luis Obispo
6.  Grilled Corn with Chili Powder at Farmer's Market, San Luis Obispo
7.  Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena: Artichoke with impressive garlic lemon aioli that changed Dan's feelings on spiky vegetables. I didn't have the heart (no pun intended) to tell him that aioli is just hot mayonnaise.
8. And finally...turkey and fig jam sandwich in Napa Valley at some fancy, beautiful winery...the taste of which was not spoiled by my tipsy fall down a four foot ditch. Damn you, peach tree. Damn you. I was just trying to take your picture.

the bubble game

Recently I went over to my friend Allison's and watched her daughter blow bubbles in the sun-dappled yard. The game, of course, is to run into the bubbles head-first to break them. She would express disappointment and then start to whine, then smile when Allison would blow another one for her and then she could do it all over again.  Promptly forgetting the irritation of the previous tragedy of the bubble that went before, she runs like around in the paradox of the bubble game: you can't love the bubble too long, you must rush to break it. 

Her joy/disappointment cycle is dizzying and remarkable. This is everything. Happiness in a flash, then it's gone, only to re-form, in a slightly different shape. Last spring we paid a hefty price to slash some tree branches that were dropping acorns on my roof and inchworms into my morning coffee on the deck; I'm irked at how soon those branches grow, marring the tidy bend of the tree with puffs of green. It's only another five years, I bet, before those branches are humping my roof again, making trouble. 
Until then, I'll enjoy this perfect moment on my deck, right now.  The sky is perfect. The coffee is perfect.

Here we go, chasing down those bubbles to break. The next one will be rise up like the moon, so beautiful.

Nesting

A family of not-so-cute birdies have made a home in a tiny hole where some siding of my house has disintegrated off. They built a sort of duplex-nest right on the other side of the wall where we sleep in our bedroom.

"I told you so," I said to Dan at the crack of dawn a few weeks ago when the birds heralded the 'morn with loud tweets (and I mean old-school-tweets, not Kanye tweets). These tweets were so raucous they sounded fake, like a gaggle of teenagers were standing outside my house, drunk and shouting.

"You NEED to destroy that nest," I cried for the umpteenth time. But I know why Dan won't do it:
A) It requires getting a ladder (and personnel) much taller than the ones we have; I'm not sure how to get up that high, actually.
B) Dan doesn't have the heart to pull the nest out and displace the baby birdies.
C) Awww! 

"I'm not a killer," he said, rolling over and blissfully going back to sleep, leaving me to ponder the metaphor (birds/nests/home/marriage) in my deep, time-wasting way.

I've been manic, getting my house in spring shape. I want a new kitchen, especially, but frak it, the cost. Better to hoard the nest egg for the great unknown future.

As I type this, this black-feathered, arrogant bird LITERALLY flew by my window and stopped for a second on the phone wire. She's looking at me. She has a huge twig in her mouth. She's heading to the hole. She's going to make that nest bigger. She's such a bitch!

Dinner with Norman Bates

I showed my "The Nature of Evil" classes the movie Psycho last week, hoping to finally win those frisky bastards over with my coolness and intelligence ("hey guys! I bet you didn't know that movies can be analyzed like books! this is going to be so fun! did you know that's chocolate syrup going down the drain in that scene?" to which some of them promptly replied, "I don't watch anything in black and white.").   I think the unit went quite well, actually. The kids had no idea that Norman and his mom were one and the same, and it was fun to watch them puzzle the whole thing out. A few kids ventured that the combination of implied violence with Norman's cross dressing was ten times more upsetting than any overt horror movie they've ever seen. And the archetype of "Mother/Monster" in this age of helicopter parenting...dare I say...hit home for some of them.

The thing about Psycho that's apparently all-the-rage in the psychoanalytic film community (one step above the Shipwreck-exploration community in terms of coolness) is to look at the house and Bates Motel as representations of Norman's mind: the basement, where he stashes his mom's corpse at one point, as the darkest, most secret/carnal place (the ID?); the ground floor, where he lives as normal and quiet man who eats candy a lot (superego); and the top floor/bedroom, where he internally battles/argues externally and internally at the same time with his mom's corpse (ego?).  Something like that. You could rearrange all that and still be right. It gets so confusing.

 Anyway, it made me think about my own basement, which, according to the metaphor, represents some savage and hidden part of myself. So, I'll tell you something. I have not been in my own basement for at least a year. I quickly ran down there when Dan was in Chicago to make sure there was no flooding during some rain (and to assure myself there was no chupacabra waiting down there to eat me. hey, you never know). But I hate my basement and part of my psychic/spiritual healing project for this summer is to confront this basement head on.

Thus, according to Freud, my refusal/fear to spend time "in my basement" means I've been avoiding the dark side of myself. I'm experiencing shame. I'm afraid of conflict. Have you been in my basement? It's really yucky. I'm so lucky Dan does the laundry. The basement is everything I'm insecure about regarding my house all consolidated into one space: all mess, all wrong.

When we bought the house, that basement was dry as a bone, and tidy. I fantasized about making one of those charming "laundry stations" that they show in Good Housekeeping with the blue appliances, tiled folding tables, adorable baskets, etc. (Dan deserves the best).  The day we moved in, I kid you not, a friggin' MONSOON came in and filled that damn basement with puddles and a family of fat, selfish mice with old school politically incorrect Mexican sombreros saying "hey Gringo, you got some cheese???" (Dan said that once. That wasn't me) and mildew. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS.  We left our apartment in West Orange to get away from mice, now I have them here? When our sump pump malfunctioned later on that year and Dan tore up the carpet revealing a dingy concrete floor, I promptly decided never to go down there again.

Is this whole thing a metaphor, Norman?

Like certain aspects of my psyche, there are some places I don't like to go. It seems like a  cliche, though, the fear of the underworld/Basement Monster, that's really just a fear of me.

Side note: if I were to kill people, I would do it dressed as Norman dressed as his Mother, just to stump/challenge the detectives. I would like to be played by Salma Hayek in the movie.

the swimsuit part of the pageant

I don't know why, but last night I went to Marshall's with Dan and my inclination was to purchase two bikinis (one cutesy, one sexy)  that were somewhat inappropriate for my body type.  I get this strange rebellious streak when it comes to bathing suits. It feels natural and right for me to be as bare as possible at the beach without causing too much attention on myself. In other words, after carefully combing my subconscious and my conscious mind I decided that I really don't want the world to think I'm grossly misinformed over my own body's limitations. There are women on the beach that I see, full figured and sloppy in their postage stamp bathing suits, and think: what is she thinking??  I can be just as snotty and judgmental as the rest of them. Ninety percent of the time, you'll see me stretched out on my towel, all classy in my navy blue one piece with the tummy-slimming panel. Or in my elegant strapless brown one that says to the world.....well nothing. It says nothing. It says, "don't look over here. I'm plump. I'm not here to be hot. I'm here to swim." (that's a low blow regarding the brown suit. It's actually pretty cute. It's just sometimes I want to be the girl in the bikini even though my body isn't quite on board).

Enter the scandalous scraps of bargain store sexiness.

When I put those bathing suits on in the safety of my dimly lit bedroom last night, I know what I'm thinking. I'm thinking I'm practically naked and I like it. I felt sexy: how bizarre. I loathe my body most days. I have issues, believe me. Why did I feel so awesome strutting around in a bikini, with my soft belly gently dipping over the ridge of the bikini bottom? (I originally typed "flopping" but decided that was too mean). I know I look like the "before" picture in one of those diet pill ads. It's really just my stomach that's the technical problem. Call it genetics, call it candy. I have a really soft, protruding stomach. And no kids yet. I don't even want to think about what will happen when I have a baby. I have a few spidery stretch marks on my hips and on the side of my breasts but those are actually not so bad. They are in the exact place where the side straps of the bottom usually cover. My arms and legs are passable. My belly button is a tragedy, though.

One suit is from Jessica Simpson and it's actually pretty modest: a bandeau top with cute buttons, and a sort of boy short bottom. The problem is the short cuts a bit too much into my hip, leaving a slight indentation. You wouldn't notice it unless I told you to look, because there's a pretty busy pattern going on there. I'm pondering buying a different bottom to go with the top if I can't lose the magical 10 pounds likely required to make the shorts fit better.

The second suit is a Tommy Hilfiger bikini with polka dots. A flimsy triangle bikini top and an adjustable bottom with side bows. Very skimpy. It requires a tan, some Xanex, and a truck load of sass. Even my husband, who would support me if I suddenly decided to assassinate a world leader, said carefully, "that bathing suit is definitely making a statement. People will be looking at you."

The villagers are watching, said Foucault. Or was that someone else? I wonder what kind of swimsuit Foucault would wear. Probably something really small. He was French.

I go through life, like most women, wanting to be seen and un-seen at the same time.  I want to be the woman on the boardwalk with the ice cream cone and the maxi dress, leaving no doubt to the world of my charm, wit, education. That woman needs no validation. But I also want to be that girl in the tiny swimsuit, standing at the water's edge, brown and soft and womanly.

She's full of mischief. She's a little bit inappropriate. She's making you say: what is she thinking?

natural beauty

What would I have looked like if I lived in the 1800's...before the invention of contact lenses, professional hair straightening, eyebrow waxing, anti-aging cosmetics?  I would have been not so cute, me thinks.

I suppose by age 33 I'd already have nearly grown kids...I could even be a grandma....so I'm attractive for an early elderly woman. I'm an 8 out of 10 in the Gold Rush Grandma circuit.

If I think about how I looked at age 15, which is sort of a poor-girl married age for the early 1800's (I'm thinking Jane Austen's times, maybe), I would not have married with any land holding aristocrat. I'd be Charlotte Lucas, begging the weird guy to take me off my parents' hands. Ouch! Maybe not so bad. I'd probably be the governess falling in love with all the mysterious, emo older men. I'd end up in unmarried, spinster disgrace, selling apples to sailors on the wharf and coughing. Or maybe I'd be the clever, non conformist political suffragette type. It wouldn't be a bad life.

I don't mean to berate my looks. I'm just saying that much of my cuteness is strictly 21st century. In the future, will everyone be very cute, making cute...well...ordinary?

It's all relative. I mean, obviously beauty standards are constructed by the times (ie, no one is Jane Austen's England tweezed their brows even if they looked like chubby inchworms; my ridiculous hair was perhaps made for the ten thousand hairpins required for a Victorian pompadour thing.)

I can't shake the notion that it just plain sucked for women before the invention of modern beauty products like clever razors with shaving soap stuck to it. I know, I know: they had much more important things to do then worry about their legs and hairy legs probably were just as natural as unpainted toes.  Their lives were an endless rotation of labor and children and keeping the house together and pleasing their husbands and, most likely, had few pleasures besides needlepoint, reading, and family. When they washed their hair on Saturday nights in preparation for church the next day, did they think, "aaaaaah, finally some 'me' time!" or did they simply not think of themselves at all? 

Their world was small, but it's not like they thought of it like that. Did they?

Into the Garden, Out of Africa

Stanley Kunitz writes in one of my favorite poems, "the longing for the dance stirs the buried life/one season only, and it's gone." He's standing in his garden staking down plants, admiring the intricate world of crickets.  He's thinking about getting old and how fast time goes: the first lines are summer is late/ my heart. 

Simple ideas stated with such magnificence.  As we tie down delicate things for the certainty of storms, it's hard not to think on the metaphor of the garden and the life.  My husband noted the timid blooms of our flowers this week in the unseasonable warmth; he had to say it three times because my head was a jumble of details like calls I needed to return and things I needed to buy at the store. And those pesky birds are back, poking, talking, foraging in the dawn outside my bedroom window, waking me up a bit too early.

Here comes another settled season. What stirs in the buried life?

I'm laid up this weekend with a neck sprain. Trying not to be crabby about it.  It was at least a good opportunity to curl up with a heating pack and painkillers and Out of Africa, a movie I never saw until today.

It's an epic tome, totally in my wheelhouse. Loosely based on the life and stories of Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen, played by Meryl Streep),  it's all sweeping landscapes of Africa. Mountains, veldts, waterfalls, picnics with camp chairs and wine and marauding lions, Masai warriors. Rugged, poetry-reciting Hemingway hunter Robert Redford sensuously washes Meryl Streep's hair with river water and a jug. Love found. Love lost. The inevitable destiny of colonialization ruining everyone's fun. The protagonist learns that her deep passion for free spirited Robert Redford and desire to claim him is, predictably, about as easy as taming Africa herself. 

Of course movies, like books and poetry, stir that buried life. I find myself thinking, why can't I have a coffee plantation in Africa and go hunting with Robert Redford?  Where's my safari picnic?  I find myself Googling "teacher trips to Africa" and "scholarships for teachers, international travel." Uh-oh. I'm supposed to be saving money for a new kitchen. Because, you know, my kitchen is old and creepy.

Feeling the same sort of ennui, Dan has been scouring the internet looking for reasonable ways to road trip out west.

Kunitz asks, What is it that makes the engine go?  He answers it:
Desire, desire, desire. 


 
 

hoarders

I listened to a surprisingly touching radio interview with one of the guys who works for the show Hoarders, Matt Paxton. He heads a special clean-up crew who go into those horror show homes and rake through nests of rats to find things like dead cats and pristine newspapers lamenting JFK's death.  I was struck by his rather kindhearted desire to help people by mucking out their homes.

What was especially fascinating was his revelation that doing this work suited him nicely, since he's a recovering addict and perhaps isn't easy to shock and unlikely  to judge anyone. Even more interesting: he prefers to work with recovering addicts and people fresh from jail, out on parole. He said some of his crew are convicted murderers.

It makes sense, what they have in common: people on the fringes, people who've hit near-bottom, etc., have strong stomachs and are hard to disturb (more practically, hard to employ in other professions perhaps). Also, as these guys stand in these terrible houses and fill up trash bags with moldy dishes and roach-eaten pillowcases, they seem close to a sense of redemption. In that one specific space of their rebuilt lives, they are practically saintly. 

 

little things

Little Things 

Little things in my coat pocket. detached purple button from the Union Square farmer's market where it popped off. How I wanted to buy flowers but couldn't. They will wilt on the train, lose their remarkable ballet necks, shed petals underfoot.

Some little things make me nervous.  I can't swallow sometimes. Driving alone on a road with no shoulder. Crying babies, long awkward silences at dinner parties when everyone looks at me for help.

Little things, such quick happiness, like flickering rainbows gone before you can call someone to say you saw a rainbow. How it lit up the sky and no one saw it except you and some guy at the softball field who barely cared. 

A little foolish thing: a blouse from Anthropologie that costs $128.  If I buy this blouse I will look so thin, so put together. Everything will fall into place like fingers flying through stacks of paper.

A stone is a little thing. Everyone knows women who fill up glass jars with shells and things. They seem to say, "I'm putting a stone in here, for no reason, just because it's so lovely and quirky." If only it was that easy, a stone in a jar.

Date Night

I impulsively bought a Groupon last weekend for a "chocolate making course" for two at an Italian heritage center in Scotch Plains. I thought it would be a sexy and romantic couples thing for me and Dan. You know, licking chocolate off each other's faces etc. and maybe having impulsive, sensual encounters on a private kitchen counter in a restaurant kitchen. Like that scene in Ghost with the clay only with fudge.

We ended up in an Episcopal church hall with about 100 other people, carefully chopping up marshmallows and sticking red sugar on each bit, then squishing it into frosting for a rose-petal themed cupcake. I was immediately impressed with Dan's skill with candy making, and felt the spark of love ignite when I licked each marshmallow so the candy would stick to it.

"I am going to do such naughty things to you later," I declared.

"Oooh, I can't wait!" said Dan.

"I was talking to the cupcake," I replied. (insert sitcom laughter here).

The room was filled with quite a few other random couples of various ages, undoubtedly lured to this strange night out by the Groupon. I tried not be to overly threatened by the very sexy, thin young Italian woman, Francesca, who circulated around, offering frosting-piping advice with a caramel accent.

No worries on that front; my husband was focused on the candy workshop with the same precision and attention to direction that he probably has doing client service support at work. I also disturbed him by eating sprinkles off the table.

Still, it was a good time. I was thinking about The Bachelor and how the whole premise of the show is adrenaline and novelty; the contestants participate in ropes courses, bungee jumping, and African safaris together...no wonder they fancy themselves in love after one day. Then they come back to reality, back to work, back to the United States, marooned together in normalcy. No wonder they never stay together. I could find myself loving even the most ordinary moron if we'd spent two days tribal dancing in the Brazilian rain forest.

So it's better to work backwards. Shipwrecked together in real life where sometimes the most interesting thing we have going on is Battlestar Galactica coming in the Netflix queue, we have to inflate the ole life raft and sail away.

I think I'm too hard on myself, too hard on life and what it should be. It's probably enough to sneak away every now and then and see yourself and your mate in a new context. It's not an African safari; it doesn't even make a great blog posting, really. It's just life. A little messy and a little sweet and little random. Sometimes I get rebellious and try to lick the table. And there's always my husband, shaking his head and handing me the most impressively imperfect truffle he rolled himself in cocoa powder.

shame

Something weird happened in school yesterday that I only thought about when I crawled into bed late last night.

In class, we were talking about a segment from Primetime Live, which I showed in the context of helping the kids understand the Milgram experiments. The series showcased a recent news story in which a McDonald's employee, a female high school student, was cruelly tricked into being strip-searched by her manager and the manager's security guard boyfriend because the girl thought a cop on the telephone was ordering her to do it by proxy.

As it turns out, it was a scam perpetuated by the security guard, who wanted to humiliate the girl and intimidate her into giving him oral sex, which she did, because she terrified and thought it might get her out of trouble. The "cop" on the phone was some kind of accomplice; the manager, who was a woman, claimed to not know it wasn't a real cop and got fired. The security guard got five years in prison.

The angle of the story was an exploration of how people are so afraid of authority, they find themselves doing all kinds of things they wouldn't "normally" do...that even the idea of a cop, not even in the room, could have a girl disrobe and do a degrading act without even questioning it. It's very disturbing.

At first, a lot of the kids dismissed the story, saying the girl was abnormally stupid, that no one of average intelligence would tolerate those outrageous orders. "It's just McDonald's. She could just say, I'm leaving, I quit," they all said. That led the discussion towards the idea that our fear of authority is so deeply ingrained it overrides those logical notions, that maybe this girl decided at one point she'd do anything to not lose her job for whatever psychological or economic reasons, etc. Typical class discussion pattern, but a few levels up in intensity.

It got interesting when one very bright girl pointed out that girls do all kinds of crazy things to keep the attention and approval of boys, and that men don't understand that women spend their whole lives in fear of them, because women can be raped by men (they have that one crucial thing to lord over us, their physical strength which can come out of nowhere and hurt us). In other words, for women, men have a kind of institutional "authority" that somehow enables them to issue orders that even the most intelligent women find themselves following.

It kind of blew everyone's minds, and everyone started talking at once. Everyone resisted her at first-- typical "I-don't-want-to-believe-the-world-is-like-that" denial. But I was pleased at the level of discussion.

So pleased, I found my tongue loosening, and confessed something to the class I never shared before with anyone, with the exception of my husband. Even with him, I hadn't really touched upon the long lasting and complicated effects of the experience.

I found myself telling the class a very general version of this story:

There was this guy I used to sometimes date; I was so enamored of the idea of having a boyfriend and keeping him as my boyfriend, that is, keeping his approval of me, that I tolerated certain behaviors there is no way in hell I would tolerate now. Not "abuse" in the very obvious, after-school special way, but the other kind of abuse, the subtle kind, the most scary kind, because they don't really know how to teach girls how to detect it, because it oddly overlaps with behaviors that don't seem, on the surface, to be abusive. He used to pinch me, for example, and when I would tell him to stop, he would keep doing it, and call me a baby, suggesting that it was my problem and not his. He used to hold me down and tickle me, which I always hated, and seemed to take pleasure in it. I look back on myself back then, and I'm ashamed that it went on too long before I broke up with him, that I wasn't self-actualized enough to understand that I don't have to be treated that way, that I own my body, and that I don't have to submit to anything that violates my own code of how I should be treated.

Like the McDonald's girl in the news story looking back on herself on the security tape--later used to convict the security guard-- I can't believe what I did (or didn't do) because I was...intimidated? Afraid? Weak? Vulnerable? I am in awe at her courage in the sense that she spoke openly to the media about her ordeal. She knew people would say, "that wouldn't be me, I would never be that dumb."

I told the class, looking back on my own experience, I wish I could go back and be stronger then, but I think all of us of capable of disappointing ourselves in that regard. The power dynamic of authority and submission is very complicated, but of course, being educated about it ensures that we can break out the pattern.

When the bell rang, I felt totally nervous. Had I gone far, gotten too personal? It just happened. Sometimes when you're teaching, you forget about the persona and become your "real" self, for better or worse. That story is something I think I sort of buried. How strange it should get unearthed in the classroom where I typically construct my identity in a very specific way: knowledgeable (hopefully), understanding, sometimes zany...but never the 'real' me.

I'm calling this posting "shame" because I think shame is what informs every source of angst I've ever had: the long and twisted history of my body, and how I usually loathe it. My stubborn refusal to believe my husband when he says I'm pretty. And always...the distrust and dismissal of men, whom I sometimes find, unfairly, to be sources of the world's injustices.

Last night, I had an allergic reaction of some kind. I got these irritating little hives and started scratching. Dan applied cortisone cream to my back with this wonderful, feather-light touch. With this tenderness so much a part of his nature, it was like his wife was made of paper.

Things We Find in Shopping Carts

My friend Tim found this in a shopping cart at Garwood Shoprite.
It is quite frankly the saddest little list I've ever seen. It says, "Metamusil, eggs, cat food."

Somewhere, a constipated cat lady is making an omelette and I hope she isn't as lonely as her list makes her seem.

The grocery list could be a man's, although I doubt it.

There is something oddly touching about how the 't' in cat and the 'f' in food are darker and outlined several times over. I can picture her on the phone with someone, idly tracing her list, maybe wishing she could buy Vodka and chocolate but knowing it's not good for her stomach.

Is it possible she really only bought those two things? Or are those the three things she was afraid she'd forget?

Sometimes when I'm food shopping I remember my mom practically crying in frustration while standing on a long line at the Matawan Foodtown. She said, "I feel like I've spent my whole life in this stupid store," with a subtle introspection she always surprises me with during ordinary moments. Isn't that a common fear...to be swallowed whole by the suburbs, your whole life swirling around displays of Cheerios and toilet paper?

What is worse, shopping alone for yourself and your cat, or shopping for your family, and going home, and thinking about the lady and her cat?

Right now I'm making chicken dipped in cornflakes and sweet potatoes for Dan. He bought the stuff on Sunday from our Shop-rite up the block where we both have probably logged already over five hundred hours of our lives so far. But everyone needs groceries, right?

I'm thinking about you, lady-list-leaver. All the people and things I can't know in the aisles of the world.

friday, friday

Sometimes, I know it's counterintuitive, I get oddly sad on Fridays. Something about leaving the fixed certainty of the workweek, where I know who I am and what my limitations are, for the weekend version of myself. The "me" that makes dentist appointments, organizes my clothes, hand washes pantyhose,returns pants to Kohl's, tries to makes grocery lists, makes social plans so I don't feel like life is boring and predictable, calls my parents, catches up on emails, looks for a cheap coffee table, worries about the mini-lakes in my backyard, frets about my lack of dishwasher, ponders washing the kitchen floor, shops for shoes, vacuums, and sometimes sits vapidly with a plate of French Toast and watches a lot of TV.

It's randomly stressful. Weekend life seems daunting on that drive home from happy hour on Friday. All the chores...the paper grading and planning...and the keen desire to do something fun, have fun! It's all too much sometimes.

Friday I got home at 5 and flopped in front of the TV in bed. Dirty Dancing was on, thank god! Underdog girl with pointy nose lands smokin' hot dance instructor. It was enough to quell that icky Friday feeling.

Looking back on the weekend (it being Sunday morning now) I feel so happy and relaxed now, I don't know how to account for the Friday ickiness except to say I'm going to consciously work on enjoying the weekend more and not angsting over my to-do list. By the way, I still haven't graded one essay.