Month: April 2012

Eyes squinted against the morning sun, I totter into the kitchen and collapse at the table. Tea! My kingdom for my tea! A moment later, my brow wrinkles… there’s a smell I’m smelling, a prelude to a headache brewing. It’s green, peppery, fresh, a bit sweet. It’s forty stems crammed into a jam jar…

Who knew!? Daffodils
Not unscented as I’d thought.
*sinus tingling sneeze*

Fuzzy arms lifted
Life breathed in saffron-lined throat —
My lovely violet

(This one only scans if you’re from the West Coast of the US – to me, violet is two syllables, and not three. I always smile when I hear people pronounce the ‘o’ as they do here in Britain. Vi-o-let vs. Vi-let. Hm. Now I’m beginning to think pronouncing the ‘o’ is technically correct. [It is way too early for this.])

So, the whole thing, amended:

Fuzzy arms lifting
Inhale through saffron-lined throat
Sing, Saintpaulia.

A swirl of crème fraiche
Studded with tangy, sweet blue —
Break your fast with pie.

About a week ago now, I was talking with my Brain Trust about any number of things, and somehow or other I veered onto a digression about a show I hated, which I will leave nameless except that it featured a group of people who specified themselves as “The Fab Five.”

I refuse to argue the point as to whether or not this was a good show on other levels, but I will indulge in a little junior sociology talk and say that I believe it privileged a certain style and shallow substance of masculinity, and it failed, as all alleged “reality” television fails to do, to present anything real. It promoted hyperconsumerism, and a must-have-this-to-have-IT mentality, and I am too big of a not-IT to believe in the all-consuming importance of IT; I don’t have IT, and yet, here I am, getting along crookedly, but my crooked has a lively, working symmetry.

The problem with this show and with other shows which depict populations in stereotyped or generalized ways is that there are people who truly believe the message presented. I recall a conversation with an older friend – she is sixty-five – who, in passing, said, “Whatever would we do without them, to tell us how to dress?” To which I silently shrieked, “WHA????” And yet, she means no harm when she says this – she is at heart a very kind person. She isn’t “othering” deliberately, this is “Lil” being enlightened and tolerant and open and accepting.

And yet: this is also “Lil” having been fed and regurgitating a wholesale lie.

After the end of the television show Will & Grace, a gentleman wrote an essay which ended up on the “Best Of” list from Craigslist – I won’t link; it’s all kinds of NSFW and PG-17 – anyway, the writer wrote about all that the show did to promote misconceptions of various people – how it revived a caricature that is six parts generalization and four parts cliché. The letter was both kindly and kind of snarly, and it made me laugh and wince and cringe.

We are a society in search of an identity. Perhaps we think we need either a Will or a Grace. Maybe we aspire to have a Sassy Gay Sidekick. Real people struggle; struggle to mimic acceptable behavior, struggle to understand social mores, struggle to find a structure which will let them fit in and be accepted. And yet, the social perspective is that difference has some kind of weird cachet and a hipness factor. Think autism, “acceptable” mental illness like depression and alcoholism – these all SUCK. Yet somehow, it’s cool to flash a scars from cutting, talk up our days sober, or bandy about the names of medications. Not that we should be ashamed of our differences, no, but I object so strongly to other people’s realities achieving cult status, and being something to which the empty aspire – as long as they can have the identity badge without any undue suffering.

Western Civilization is, at times, freakishly incomprehensible. Human beings: surreally complicated.

And yet: I believe in the power and beauty of the individual. I know that generalizations exist, I know that people have relationships which are like and unlike anything we can see depicted in media, but every relationship and individual deserves the respect of being original. People are not collectibles, accessories, adjuncts or other add-ons to our own particular internal sitcom. There is no Sassy Gay Best Sidekick. Half the population was not put on earth to serve as your cheerleader, or your mirror.

That is all.

If you remember the rules of the form, it varies lines like a villanelle, and repeats everything twice in a pattern. Of course, every pattern has variations and every original has an exception:

Is Not

Not Girlfriend’s go-to for a “You go, girl!”
Not Hipster’s latest hip accessory,
No spinner in your diva-drama swirl,
Not personal couture advisory.

A Hipster’s latest hip accessory
(Like teacup dogs or black Tahitian pearls.)
Is personal couture advisory,
Applauding for your catwalk strut and twirl.

Like teacup dogs or black Tahitian pearls?
“Collectibles! Trés chic necessities,”
Applauding from the clotheshorse, swish and twirl
An audience: not in their own story.

Collectible – a chic necessity
who understands your inner diva, girl!
A spinner in your daily drama swirl —
No audience within our own story.

Reflective surface to your vanity?
Not. Girlfriend’s go-to? Please. Just you go, girl.

Lately I spend a lot of time asking myself, “How can I write, when ______?” There is ALWAYS something, always x, y, or z curdling my guts, dividing my brain, taking my time. I am pulling on the reins and curbing my tongue. I am moving, I am packing, I am overloaded, I am stressed. I am also refusing to allow myself to be snotty, snappish, nobby, lazy, lax, or indolent. Believe me, it’s a full-time job.

This Is Reality

ONLY when juicy
prose rolls do leaf-blowers come.
(darned sapless foliage)

Better Answer That

*doorbell* Oh, who now!?
Virtues: Patience, Kindness, Peace.
Sanity returns.

And Stop Whining

Dear Wisher, Writers
Write. Are you a dreamer, or
Selling Magic Beans?

And finally, this is for the mower who even now is MOWING UP my precious lawn daisies! Oh, the humanity! Or something like that:

My Daisies!

The growl of diesel
Confetti colors scatter —
A farewell to lawns.

Pilot gutters, then
blows out. Solitude, the spark
that quickens me.

A little surprised at how long it’s taking me to come back to center after a weekend full of company. Either I am so often alone that I’ve lost the ability to have groups around me, or I’m just so often calm that the hyped up emotions of wanting to make sure that Everything Is Perfect have just wrung me out. A combination of both, plus being on my feet for most of twelve hours, cooking like a fiend. Oh, well, at least my brain is still plugged in.

This month a group of reporters and therapists are coming to our chorus to interview various members and ask why they sing… the idea being that they know it’s good for us, but want specifics on individual hows/whys. I hope they don’t ask me, but I can say that singing always puts me in a good mood. Unless our Dictator Director harangues us too much, chorus is a joy. But, even then:

Savagery soothed, Beasts,
civil, sup upon love’s food.
Play it again, Sam.

And to those who have listened to my flailing and wailing this past week on the bewildering question of screenplays and tokens and other such randomness, thank you. You are my Brain Trust, and my pull-it-over-my-head-and-shut-it-all-out blanket, and apparently also the rest of my naptime set…

A firm pillow, they
Let me rest, but not slouch down.
My best self forward.

I keep meaning to get better about posting these things on a daily basis, but that doesn’t happen. A si es la vida. I’m pleased to be writing daily – not necessarily well, but daily. The haiku thing is catching; I find myself turning over syllables in my head about the smallest things: my violet is blooming (happy dance, happy dance), an ink scribble over the shape of a dragon from my two-year-old Japanese correspondent, Sora (the child of friends, obviously; he’s not up to reaching the post office on his own just yet), the surprising discovery of raisins in the gigantic chocolate egg our friend Thing 1 brought us. (Tech Boy is Thing 2… never mind.) Everything is a song, a poem, a symphony.

And it is all waiting to be written. Like my novels. So, back to it.

I am exhausted and for some odd reason, sore. We had overnight guests and ten hours of folks ’round the table, laughing and talking, and the volume went up, and up, and up. I escaped frequently to the kitchen to wash dishes and — after it appeared that the brunch crowd hadn’t budged by dinner — to cook an entirely new and unexpected meal! I need to grocery shop now, but as my bestie Farida reminded me, it’s the Hobbit’s Way to feed those in the house when it’s time to eat. I was just grateful that everyone ate what was put in front of them happily.

Sometimes I have a bit of quiet amusement at how opinionated the people who gather in my house tend to be. We are a mouthy lot! And the volume climbed and there was arguing and finger shaking and howls of laughter (with the occasional snort) and opinions waging war through the air. And there was no awkwardness, no one was truly peeved – everyone went home with their pride intact. A good day, a perfect Easter: we celebrated renewal and reaffirmed what joy we had that we perhaps hadn’t yet known.

These poems rattled through me throughout the day: one revolving on the idea of apnea, which is interrupted breathing, and the memory of Adam’s first breath; the other referencing the number of windows I opened in the house, and how many times I had to splash water on my face and dab a wet cloth over my neck. Who knew it would get this hot in my house without the heat on!? An additional six people moving and pacing and reaching and eating and laughing and candles lit and voices raised and baking done — will do that.

Alight

Extinguished. Wicks cold.
Wax brittle. Light long gone as life.
— then! Flame, Spirit, breathes.

Excitement

Guests laugh, argue, eat:
Friction makes heat, opens
Minds. Ions dance.

Hard to believe, with the rain today, that we had sun yesterday. Hard to believe with the quiet – that the house was full of noise. Hard to resist a nap. I don’t think I will…