Transcendent Moments of One Kind and Another

A few nights ago I dreamed that I was starting college and the housing people had placed me in an ordinary-sized dorm room along with nine other people. It was one of those dreams where you find the phone number but lose the phone, then vice versa, and that was going on as I was trying to yell at anyone who would listen that this was really, really not going to work for me, that I need my space, etc. The guy on the phone, when I finally got through, recommended I take a course on how to get along with people, then hung up on me.

If you think this sounds like the dream of an introvert with too many social things going on, you are right. I’m sure that it also has something to do with the recent bad thing that happened at work, which I will break my vow about not posting about work to recount here, vaguely:

Two weeks ago, in a meeting meant to clarify our job responsibilities, a person at work accused me of habits and personal qualities so opposite my view of myself that all I could do in my own defense was eke out some incoherent protests and cry, more or less for the duration of our half-hour conversation. It was the kind of unladylike crying where there is a lot of snot and you can’t say more than three words at a time without becoming incomprehensible. This conversation took place in the presence of our boss, who defended me so calmly and thoroughly that if I hadn’t been so covered with snot I would have kissed her on the mouth right then.

Now things are at some kind of cold equilibrium with the coworker, but I had never been a part of anything even a little bit like that. I usually get along with people! It made the whole front half of my skull hurt for a week, and I’m embarrassed about the crying, and I still don’t really get what happened, or how on earth I am going to work effectively with this person in the long run.

I’m still behind on everything, although I guess less hopelessly so than before. We decided to put the girls in day care for an extra day per week (a total of three). They are happy there, sometimes happier and more engaged, I think, than in a day with me at home, and I have been floundering for too long to do all the work that’s coming my way without cutting too far into my sanity. And, ideally, this will also give A some more respite time, too, since he had been leaving work early one day each week so that I could work for a few hours.

It’s a relief to have that solution worked out, but we haven’t felt the full effect of it, because everyone has been sick with one thing and another for the past two weeks. August had a case of croup so bad no one slept well for a week and a half, and then the cure (prednisone) caused wacky behavior and awful night terror episodes that made me wish for the halcyon days of sitting on the toilet lid half the night with condensation running down the walls and a wheezing two year old in my arms. And May had an ongoing cold which has developed into an ear infection and “probable pneumonia.” She is feeling much better after two days on antibiotics, but is still draggy and hard of hearing.

One brilliant thing happened last week: May’s class at day care visits every week with what they call “the grandfriends,” who it turns out are not all grandparent-aged but are either elderly or disabled in one way or another, and who live at a long-term care facility near the girls’ school. The kids and the grandfriends have formed a jug band together and they performed at an educators’ conference last week.

Seeing them play was all manner of motley and weird, and simply beautiful. A guy in a wheelchair, with giant swollen ankles, sang extra loud and low and croaky. A very old, skinny lady wearing a leopard-print coat scraped the washboard. A man whose whole body had one spasm after another sucked on the harmonica. All the four year olds were wearing their favorite special outfits: dresses and shirts and pants in all colors, none of them matching, all of them bright. Half the kids were too nervous to venture onto the stage until several verses into the first song. When they did, most of them stood with their backs to the audience, facing the grandfriends, shaking their homemade shakers or beating their hand-decorated drum. The sound was extraordinary: syncopated, loud, wonky, and yet, somehow, still musical.

It was a short performance; four songs. And at no point during the show did everyone at once seem un-self-conscious and in the flow. But I saw it flicker through each of them, I think. Joy at the sound, at making it, and pride for each other. The audience clapped and sang along.

I’m behind on everything,

but I knit myself a hat, and here is a picture of me wearing it:

Next, I am knitting a sweater. If I can ever decide on the yarn. Or the pattern. Or catch up on the three jobs I’m behind on.

Still Afloat

January is dangerous. If I can float over the top of it, it’s ok. I’m a swimmer, sleek, rolling as I glide. The danger is getting pulled under. The danger is Look, Mama! and What, Mama? and Mama, look! The danger is suffocating in lost socks, in the hours that seem lost to hunting and helping with boots, snowpants, coats, hats (not that hat!), mittens, scarves. And Did we leave the snow boots at school again? And Where are your mittens? and Uh oh, do you need to pee now? The danger of January is that the day seems over by 4:30. The danger is starting to rant, starting to realize that I’m turning every conversation into a rant.

In January, even reading Laurie Moore is dangerous. She is so clever, so full of love for words, of smart observation and untouchable images, I start to hate myself. Let me say that again: She is so good I start to hate myself. In January. Some sane part of me, the little green part that weathers January whole, reads along entertained and thinks Yeah, but all her characters just sound like Lorrie Moore. Just. I read and admire and it keeps me from writing. This month it does.

In January, my mean college boyfriend appears to me in dreams. In the dreams, he has published brilliant books or is some type of literary hotshot, and I wait for his next glance in my direction. I court him. The other half of me squints at him and tries for aloofness. I am old enough now to know the apparition isn’t him, it’s me, the part of me that predicts failure, judges harshly, is mean and biting. In the dream, it comes wrapped in the best body-costume my sleeping mind knows how to give it, and the dreaming me does with it what I do while I’m awake: woo it, woo that terrifically exciting judgmental sonofabitch. And, alternately, realize it’s nothing, nothing real at all.

This January, the trap is, I’m about to be 36. At work I filled out an application to hire a summer intern, a high school student, and I needed to describe my experience working with youth. Working with youth? Youth? The last time I checked, I was youth, and oops. Now I am not only not youth, I have no experience working with youth. I had to ask all of my coworkers the same question, and every one of them looked at me like, Huh, I haven’t thought about this in a while, but: none.

I am going to be 36 and my name, the one I use in real life, still ends in ie, and that seems a bit young. My husband’s uncle’s 60-year-old girlfriend’s name is Betsy, and I don’t know. Betsy is eight, you know? I need to head that off.

Did I mention I feel myself turning every conversation into a rant? Calm down, I tell myself. Calm down and listen. Ask questions and listen. Remember? That’s what you were going to do. Listen.

It’s January. I say things, then I think: Ooh, I said way too much. Again.

One day last week I did let it all suck me under: boots, age, doubt, Mama Mama Mama. I was pissy and unreasonable and ranty and unsmiling.

At the Y I am teaching the girls to swim. They get water in their faces and I teach them to blow it off—literally, figuratively—shake their faces and blow bubbles in the air like cartoon creatures with slack lips and blinking eyes. Let the drops fly off of them and move on with their fun. Nothing about getting water up your nose will hurt you, it just feels weird for a minute. Make that silly face and move on, I say. Make that silly face and move on.

My new favorite thing on the internet…

…is How a Poem Happens. Each post is a short interview with a poet about how a specific poem was written, how they see it, etc. Reading it is like getting to peek behind the curtain. If you’re into poetry, or if you don’t think you’re into poetry but could be persuaded to be, it’s really worth a read.

InSoWriMo, 4th and Final Edition *With Bonus Stanza!*

I realize the idea of “catching up” is actually a social construct (or a spiritual one) created by hegemonic powers (or the devil, or the samsaric forces of the universe) to keep the subaltern quiet (or to drive us away from God, or to mask the real nature of existence in a benign sort of way). A and I have a running joke where we look at our bank account balance and I say, “But this doesn’t include the credit card payment we’re about to make! Or our car insurance that’s due next week!” and he, having given up long, long ago on asking me to just look at how it is right now and assume that future cash flow events will average themselves out in an average sort of way, says, “It also doesn’t include your pay check next week, or mine.” Then we both laugh our heads off. That is our running joke. Now don’t you wish you lived here, just for the superb entertainment?

Anyway. Even though it may not ever bring me to the actual state of being “caught up,” I am taking huge pleasure this weekend in doing things like: responding to emails sent by friends back in the pre-H1N1 days of October, throwing out to do lists that no longer have any discernible meaning, deleting all 475 messages from my email inbox, etc. Oh, and writing the last of the four sonnets I promised at the beginning of December.

Did you see that Emmie also took up the sonnet fun with a special, non-password-protected post? (At least I think it is.) Go and read hers first. My favorite line, “We leave what was, was old, was always known.”

This sonnet thing has been a great exercise, and I think I’ll do it again. (Next December? Anyone?) It doesn’t exactly turn out the kind of poems that I consider my best (though I did like that third, more evocative one, in the end, and may tweak it a bit into something I can use), but I feel like it’s really tuned my brain to notice rhythm in a different way. A good thing. And fun.

Anyway, here is the fourth. It’s a reworking of something I wrote a couple of years ago in free verse that never quite worked. I listened yesterday to a recording of Richard Wilbur reading at the 92nd Street Y, and he was all apologetic about a sonnet that had the right rhythm and rhyme but “didn’t quite properly follow the logic of a sonnet.” To him I say, eat your heart out, Richard Wilbur. This one has a whole extra stanza, and look, the sky has not fallen! Here it is:

His Grandson’s Coastal Wife, After Her First Stay in South Dakota

When Erling died, those ladies made of wheat
and dairy cooked, and we, the grandkids, wheeled
across the plains to say goodbye and eat
a day of cookies, then the final meal.

My God, the salads: Jello like the seeds
of pomegranates, only sweet. Whipped cream,
pimientos, chocolate, walnuts, mayo, cheese.
Two dozen salad bowls, and nothing green!

That Monday, finally home, we gobbled whole
wheat pasta, broccoli, and beans, so glad
for our own food, we laughed. But even so,
I hope for friends who’ll stuff fresh dates and wrap

them up in bacon, pour Shiraz, and ladle
soups with mushrooms caramelized in wine.
I hope my daughters’ kids will see the table,
taste politely, then go home to dine.

And who will cook for me like that? Who’ll burp
the Tupperware and walk the block to church?

Elflike

December 27, 2009? Seriously?

I’ve only posted sonnets this month, haven’t I? You should have seen what I was doing instead of writing here. I was making almond roca. Also, caramel brownies, Nanaimo bars, four loaves of stollen that had to be kneaded all in one burgeoning lump of dough, sugar cookies, gingerbread, and most of a completely lovely lamb dinner (A did the actual deboning, trussing, roasting, etc. of the lamb, complete with accidentally melting the crap out of two instant-read thermometers; I did the sides and the miraculous gravy, set the table, and then beckoned everyone in from the living room by calling out, “Behold the lamb!”)

That was Christmas eve dinner. Before that there was the aforementioned baking and a ton of shopping—some of it earth friendly and crafty (handmade mittens! trivets woven from discarded newspaper scraps by homeless women in Haiti! sustainably harvested wooden blocks!), and some of which (glitter-coated magic fairy wands, sequined shoes, yet more stuffed animals, etc., etc., etc.) decidedly was not. I bought the girls unfashionably many presents, and so did my parents, and so did A’s parents, and it was a blast. A bit environmentally and socially and economically wrong, but so much FUN.

Now my parents are about to arrive for a three-day visit. A has taken the girls to the airport to meet them, since we don’t all fit in one car, and I am here brewing up lamb curry and waiting. I feel like I’ve used up all my creative energy making Christmas, but at the moment it feels like it was mostly worth it.

They are home and I have no good reason for elflike. Wasn’t there an elf called Sleepy? Or were those gnomes?

InSoWriMo, Week 3: Obtuse Edition

First of all, folks, I found my keys. They were (drum roll) under the couch. Please see sonnet 2, line 10. Ahem.

In other news, A has been gone since Sunday and, while I’m pretty sick of the solo thing, it’s going fine.  I’ve even been baking Christmas cookies and wrapping stuff and, um, writing sonnets.

This week’s was almost another in-law thing about hosting Christmas, but then that got too fraught. I’m not so sure about this one, and it’s possible the person I am thinking of may be reading this secretly. If so she ought to declare herself and it serves her right to recognize herself in a possibly overpreachy if even comprehensible poem on the internet without her permission. Here goes:

For A Friend Who’s Sad & Wants This Life

There’s yarn, of course, & food, but also dust,
a clap of lightning three miles long; a pill,
their tiny shoes, my stretched-out heart, no rest.
I’ll say it like the rest of them: You will.

But even then, don’t think you’re done. Don’t think
you’re done. It’s rich—a sturdy thing, and yet
the toilet starts to run, that wall needs paint.
I used to dream of wool. It’s all been said:

You’ll leave outgrown pajamas by the road;
the thickness of your tongue will never change;
November’s like that anywhere it’s cold;
you’ll never lose the cloth that lines your brain.

But either way we knit, & either way
we run, and either way, you know, we cry.

InSoWriMo, Week 2

Sonnet for My Husband Upon Losing My Keys Again,
And This Time They Are Really, Really, Really Lost

I know you never, ever lose your keys.
I’m grateful for your help when I’ve lost mine.
I’m sorry that I’m not the type to leave
them in the same place every single time.
I know this happens more than once a week:
before I leave, I’ve got to find my warm
wool sock, my favorite glasses, or my book,
and while I search, I raise a loud alarm.
You’re game, and usually find it on the desk
or underneath the couch, or somewhere else
a woman more collected might have guessed.
Today, to no avail—you are the best—
You sifted through the snow from last night’s storm.
I’m telling you, this time they’re really gone.

Happy InSoWriMo!

Shannon has proclaimed this month InSoWriMo—International Sonnet-Writing Month: write a sonnet every week in December. I’m going to give it a whirl. Will you join us? Come on…it will be fun.

Here is my first contribution—my first try at a sonnet since about 1991 and a rare breach of my rule against ever writing anything on-line about my in-laws.

Thanksgiving With the In-Laws

My husband’s mother’s generous with salt
and family stories, bacon grease, and cheese.
While mixing this year’s stuffing, she recalled
Thanksgiving at her ex’s sister’s. She

wouldn’t put in any salt or butter
There was no fat, and everything was steamed.
Before we went, I planned it with her mother—
she brought the salt; I smuggled in the cream.

But, while she talked and worked the stuffing bowl,
I heard my husband’s brother’s girlfriend laugh
as, cooking up the green bean casserole,
she cut the called-for butter slab in half.

We families need our secret recipes
if we’re to cook and share a meal in peace.

Why I’m Thinking it Might be Time to Wean

1. August, at age two years, three months, has started calling them “the big one” and “the little one.”

2. A guy on Sesame Street was listing words that end with Z: jazz, glitz, fizz. “And,” August added with conviction, “bubz!” It’s a little eerie nursing someone who knows so much about phonics.

3. This is a detail from May’s latest family portrait:

That scribble above the word mama might very well be an attempt at sounding out boobs. May has been copying a lot of words down and spelling with help, but this would be the first time she’s tackled deciding what letters to use on her own.

So: nutrition, comfort, linguistic fodder, artistic inspiration…I’ve got it all, here. It does seem like it’s gone on a bit long, though. And do I hope they even out a bit after we stop nursing.