Ah, as I start in on this post, I'm already afraid of the consequences that might arise from failing to perfectly explain myself. Or from being misunderstood. I shall sally forth anyway, because this conversation is nipping at my heels.
A few posts back I mentioned very briefly my daughter's fencing teacher- a fabulously strict, bawdy broad who goes by the nickname of Nana. If she were a character in a 40's pulp fiction novel she'd be something like the "hooker with a heart." Happily, she's not a hooker- never has been as far as I know- though if she were, she'd definitely be the Madame of the place. She is however, Russian born, fiercely competitive and entrepreneurial, intense in all ways including the humorous one. She is the lady who so deftly (according to me) coined this benignly derogatory term that has been trying to birth itself in the corners of my brain for years. And that would be... no surprises here..."White people."
Nana rolled this out upon me one day when I was at the studio, waiting for Josephine to finish her group lesson, chatting with some of the various moms and dads in the room. I had to stop her in her speedy march down the tiny aisle stuffed with parents, bags, helmets, kids in various states of undress. I just had to tell her Jo would miss her upcoming Saturday private lesson because we, yet again, were going to Ojai to hang out in our house there for a weekend getaway with some friends. And that Josephine would be going to the upcoming tournament, but there was some additional family scheduling snaffoo which meant that only I would be there one day, Jeff, the other.. blah blah blah.
She looks at me in the unwavering glare of the stare you get whether she's miffed or marveling at you and sighs. Gives a little eye roll. "Ok." She says. Then she turns to my fellow parent (who's also caucasian, by the way, as is of course, Nana herself) points at me and says "White people." Rolls her eyes. Then turns to wink at me to let me know that I'm in on the joke. Which of course, unbeknownst to her, I already knew because I loved the whole teeny slice of life moment as it was squeezing itself upon me. The only sadness in it was that I also knew in that brief millisecond that Nana had sized me up perfectly. I wasn't aghast at all, though I concocted a mock jawdrop "I'm offended" face just to make her sweat a little. (I can't always show her how much she cows me....gotta show some backbone now and again...)
But really I was delighted. Because she had encapsulated perfectly this enormous amount of disdain I myself have been cultivating for the "White People" of America- perhaps specifically the ones in my own purview. Of which, of course, I am solidly a member. So it goes without saying that Nana beautifully identified for me in that minute my own specific guilt and tendency toward self loathing.
Now for the explaining. Because as much as "White People" sounds like a slam on color, it's not. It's not about necessarily being white at all. At least for me it's about other, deeper things. The primary of which is being privileged. Being supremely busy with all the spoils of your "white person" life. Being soft. Having no backbone because you haven't really had to foster one, and so -Being used to cush. So used to cush that you have to create things like anxiety and ennui to remind yourself that you are still here in the whole soup of the human race in which there exists quite a lot of suffering!
Tell you what- try the phrase on for size. You need to add a heap of disdain, and an eye-roll akin to what my (likely your own if you got one?) rapidly developing teenage daughter is so diligently cultivating.
"White people."
Make sure you're elongating the "i" in "white." Really punch that first "P." Be sure to say it like it's the PG version of what's most likely the real phrase which begins with a gerund word starting with F.
But now, here's the key. Make sure when you're saying this- your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek. (Which, by the way, is a hugely "White Person" kind of thing to say.) In other words, the Nana wink is included in the delivery.
See- because part of me identifies with the derision, as mentioned above. How could I not? I was lucky enough to be born to a family, not with proper "White Person" money or even what now passes for "status" in our 21st Century American milieu where most can still rise given enough pluck, luck and elan. But my family was midwestern and stubbornly driven to succeed. And so, I was too. I did well in school. I did well in extracurricular activities. I learned to care about myself and other people. I grew up in a relatively safe, loving environment despite the dissolution of my parents' marriage in my early teens.
And thusly even through all the crappity crap that ended up being my particularized dealt hand, I not only survived, but actually thrived and (though my neurosis would try to convince me otherwise) now enjoy a fairly cushy, easy, privileged lifestyle.
Oh yeah, and I did also happen to be born white. Which in this day and age sadly, tragically, still really really matters in this world.
So I think it's important to identify and understand the validity of this phrase, "White People." I'm choosing to take it on and with zeal, apply it to those I see around me every day. Maybe in a weird way like the African American community boldly embraced the N word (I am a white person and therefore not allowed to even type it.) They turned the socialization and stigmatization around. You gonna call me that? Fuck you- I'M gonna call me and mine that with ENDEARMENT so you can't HURT me with it anymore!
Now, we whites taking on the low-racist-level version of "White People" as some sort of a burden really have no business comparing ourselves to this bold maneuver- but I'm using the comparison just to illustrate the point that it's similar from a sociological vantage point. I am attempting to turn around what I feel has been unfair and untrue underground socialized thinking as well. And that's namely that White People are Better. See- I think that's just simply not true. In any way. Though we certainly have been in charge of the better part of the Western world for a very very long time now, we are just no more deserving at all.
There's the heart of my highly-educated, white person guilt. I and mine don't necessarily deserve the keys to the kingdom any more than anyone else does, and yet- we've got em.
OK.
So- in case you're still a little fuzzy about what this is all about- I'm going to provide you with yet ANOTHER list. Because I think it might help. And please, feel free to add more in the comments section if you get it. And god help me, I hope some of you- white, black, yellow, red, green, puce- understand what I've been trying to get at here. Otherwise I perhaps come across like a horrible reverse racist. Well- perhaps that's true of me. Oh well. Just trying to work it out.
Here's a list of some shit that's really really "White People:" (And just to be clear, at least half of it applies to Yours Truly.)
1. Whole Foods
2. Second Homes (oddly, not third, or anything upwards. Because by the time you're there- you're possibly in the very most uppercrust of monied society which could mean you're a famous sports star, and you're most likely not white in color or in any other way. Or you're a sheik, and you have 15 domiciles. Not white either.)
3. Vitamixes
4. Private cooking classes
5. Colonoscopies
6. Ativan, Xanax and Klonopin
7. Malbec and Viognier
8. Luncheons
9. Hybrid vehicles
10. Organic everything
11. Cloth baby diapers
12. Hand sanitizer-- especially purse size
13. The Symphony
14. Espresso makers
15. Jimmy Buffett (**does NOT apply to me- I feel compelled to make note)
16. Smart phone headsets
17. Sur La Table
18. Naming your daughter Madeleine, Abigail, Emma or Kaitlyn. Especially if her middle name is Rose or Grace.
19. Pet spas
and perhaps the whitest of all white things-- with which I am very much enthralled--
20. Downton Abbey
And seeing as I just got home from a Ladies Luncheon today- replete with rented fine china service and 65% cacao chocolates dusted with curry and/or bacon bits- I am rather relieved to have written this blog today. Like a coming out for me. Not only is my name on the top 20 list of the Whitest Names in America (really? Holly? yep..) but I just might be for surely and for real be an actual "White Person." My music life, which maybe gives me a few points in the soul category, doesn't really even begin to balance out the White Personess I emit out of my very lavendar-lotioned pores.
I guess my kids really are right. I am not cool, and never will be.
Fuck it. Gotta run. Need to go shine up the stainless steel kitchen appliances with some metal polish. The Windex has been leaving streaks and I am NOT HAVING IT--
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Chapter 3: La Sagrada Familia
I wasn't positive my kids were going to love their spring break in Europe.
And now that we're two weeks away from it, I'm still not sure that either of them truly loved the trip. They both appeared to have a relatively good time most of the time and I do believe there were some A-ha moments for them both- surely many more for my 10-year-old daughter than for my 8-year-old son. The son who was visibly disgruntled at having to leave all electronic equipment behind each morning- forced away from the hotel room (read- a consistent Wi-Fi source) on a daily basis to go seeking tourist attractions. It put a real cramp into his All Minecraft/All The Time Especially On Vacations sort of personal manifesto.
And yet despite that- Truman loved Barcelona. At least, he says he did. Josephine was happy in both cities, Paris having already enthralled her before she ever stepped foot on an international bound flight for Charles De Gaulle. In fact, she informed me sometime late in her fourth grade year that she wanted to live in Paris when she grew up- perhaps go to college there. "Hm.." I responded, a bemused grin trying not to launch itself rampantly across my face thereby causing Josephine to (rightfully) retort that I wasn't taking her seriously and why she ever tells me anything, she doesn't know?! Instead, I calmly asked her "Why, Jo? Why Paris?" "Well mom," she says completely seriously, "Probably because of the fashion there. You know- the Fashion. And the art."
For any of you who may know my daughter Josephine, perhaps you've already chortled in disbelief to yourself. Because up until VERY recently, Josephine Adele Petunia Lieber, a young woman endowed with many wonderful traits, including a consistently upbeat demeanor and flawless lust for life, has not reflected ANY of her mother's penchant to cultivate any sort of fashion sense whatsoever. She has been surrounded by friends who do, however, and so I assumed that her comment about wanting to "live in Paris someday" was likely prompted by some playdate flop-on-the-bed talk with her girlfriends- at least one of the friends who has a penchant for magazines, shopping, accessorizing. Or one whom at least seems to have mastered the ability to wear a pair of pants for longer than one day before holes at the knees and/or indelible Sharpee marker slash dirt slash motor oil stains renders them unwearable.
So when we arrived in Paris- all 38 degrees of it- she was undeterred by the chill and wind. She saw the Paris that I see, and giddily fell in love. She was, of course, ready to.
Truman on the other hand. Paris was "ok." And that's a direct quote. Perhaps the only soul alive on this earth today who's been to the jewel of France and still believes that Paris is "just ok." But Barcelona on the other hand-- ahh-- well, he's always been a sucker for the beauteous darker-skinned ladies. Barcelona was great, according to Truman Lieber. Namely, he says, because of one man actually-- because of the great architect Antonin Gaudi.
Now I can't really choose favorites between the two cities- they both enthrall and delight me. And I have a tough time choosing which of our many tourist stops were my favorite among them all (of course, Montmartre now begs to be at the top of that list, considering m'last blog entry.) Though there was the Montjuic Park, and Park Guell and Notre Dame and La Tour Eiffel and the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona and shopping in St. Germaine and every Gaudi structure we encountered and and and---
But I do choose the Sagrada Familia as perhaps the only monument we encountered on our vacation that I will probably devote a blog entry to. One might argue this cathedral- easily the largest tourist attraction we visited- definitely deserves the attention. But mostly it's because this particular holy structure captured not only my attention (like shooting fish in a barrel really,) but captured the heart and imagination of my 8 year old Minecraft obsessed Truman. He was oddly like a kid in a candy store inside this huge unfamiliar church. "Look mom- you look up and it really does look like a forest. Like he wanted it to." (um- oh yeah! I'm thinking. We watched that 60 Minutes segment about the Sagrada Familia that my mother in law turned me onto 10 days ago or so before leaving for Spain.) "Mom- mom- remember how they said that each column of stone was stronger than the one next to it moving up toward the front of the church? Because the stronger ones needed to be close to that statue of Jesus over there? So, those big pink ones there are the strongest, Mom. They're from Persia. Persian marble."
Now here I must pause a bit. Because I have not painted a fair and well- rounded picture of my kid. Yes, my flopsy mopsy beautiful toe-headed Venice surfer boy of a son is stubborn. And video-game obsessed like almost all his peers. And loose of limb and good at most sports that he seems to lack any real competitive nature to excel in. And really funny- almost always getting the joke- meaning also the adult ones- and delivering his own comedic gems with impeccable timing. (If only he could really understand that yes, comedy comes in threes, but once you've made someone laugh once with the thing... you don't trot the same thing out 3 seconds later and expect the same reaction. Or 10 seconds later. Or 30 seconds later. Or even later on that night. Yeah- just not gonna happen, kid.)
I guess what I'm trying to get at is, Truman is usually pretty damn smart for an 8 year old. And I forget this because, like many boys I know, he comes off like all the others: vaguely smelly, cute, and distracted. Truman just wants to hang with his peers- watch his Comedy Central TV shows- build his many various minecraft structures on the various servers he's connected to, or play with his pet rat. He doesn't so much want to read, or even talk much to other adults. But he has a memory like an elephant. And so, while he's regaling me with the Persian Marble thing, I'm thinking, ok, well that DEFINITELY must have been a 60 Minutes factoid because God knows, I never told him that. I don't even remember hearing it. But of course, Truman does. Truman remembers everything. (Maybe one day he'll be a very effective politician. Or lawyer. Yeesh.)
Now- La Sagrada Familia translates to The Sacred Family. And this huge mammoth church is clearly Antonin Gaudi's greatest work among a portfolio of groundbreaking stunners- though he only lived to see a fraction of it actually built. It's still not entirely constructed- they suspect it will be finished somewhere around 2025, I believe. But over the decades since the beginning of its construction at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, this building has been faithfully, painstakingly attended to. Well, really like all other massive, major and minor historical European cathedrals predating this one- it has been sweated over and brought into existence chunk by chunk by a huge posse of dedicated stone masons, artists, architects, engineers and the like. For years upon years. Hell, Notre Dame took over 250 years to build, so this house of God is moving along rather quickly in the grand scheme of things! Point of interest via 60 Minutes: There's one stone carver born in Japan, who moved to Barcelona in his early twenties to meet the aging Gaudi and throw in his talents on this work, and he has ever since been helping to sculpt the Sagrada Familia's famous outdoor facades for almost his entire 75 years of life.
But back to the title of the thing. Sagrada Familia- Sacred Family. I find this interesting- not as a Christian, because I am not a Christian. (Though I grew up in the church and was baptized at 13 in the holy waters of Lake Michigan.) But this title reaches out to me as a human, and a soul who though she's roundly denounced all religion as sorely lacking, cherishes her very personal connection with the Divine Spirit (or God, as others might say.) And this enormous chamber that Gaudi, the very devout Christian that he was, conceived of to celebrate his God and his Son did feel like a holy place. Not only is the actual physical surrounding of the cathedral monstrous and unlike any church you've ever been inside of, but the space itself, the very air seems charged with - for lack of a slew of specifics- love. This church celebrating not only God, not only Jesus, not even really only Mary, but celebrating the WHOLE story of Jesus from birth to death is most clearly, most palpably a holy place. And this is coming from a gal who truly thinks Jesus was an amazing guy, with some absolutely right on ideas, but not at all the son of God.
(If you care, if you're interested, in short- I believe we're all sons and daughters of it all. That's right- you, me, the neighbor's annoying cat perched on the fence just outside your home office window, the little eight legged tannish spider you keep meaning to squish in the kitchen ceiling corner because you're not sure if it's poisonous or not... we're all sacred. All of life on earth- all of everything outside of earth- all of it all.)
But my views aside- this church and its architect, Antonin Gaudi, is really so very special. Even (I might almost be tempted to say especially) eight-year-old Truman Lieber could see this. Truman with his penchant for building things in cyberspace and being just as mesmerized by train and ship models as were his Grandfathers before him. (One grandfather is an architect. The other is a structural engineer. Another great-grandfather was both...) I don't know if it was traveling up into the towers and walking the myriad of steps that comprise the nautilus-like spiral staircases, or leaning out the windows spaced at intervals along the way- frightfully high- so overtly higher than anything else for miles and miles and miles around that you feel like you really might be touching heaven if there were such a thing. But I believe my son was truly moved by the spirit that day- moved by the Sagrada Familia.
I certainly was.
And I wonder if it's the concept behind the name of the place- if it's the many tendrils of concepts that connect each stained glass window and iron door frame and marble column and granite carving-- they all seem to be cohesive in a way. A Church dedicated to a Family. A Sacred Family. Which for me means - Us. Humanity. Not just God and his boy, not just the virgin who conceived of him (ahem. ok, that's the only truly 'blasphemous' thing I'll say on that.) Not even the sacred Trinity, which, like almost all religious iconography and/or symbols, I find so useful actually in theory rather than in actuality.
This place felt like it was meant to honor Faith and Spirit. And whether you're Jewish or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim or Hindu or nothing- Faith and Spirit are a part of everyone's existence. Because even if you don't believe in anything in the spiritual realm, you do believe in something. Even if it's only the oxygen you breathe, or the goals you have set for yourself, or possibly the people you love. You believe in, and must tie and connect yourself to SOMETHING. And this feeds you faith and gives you spirit to move forth in life.
So the universality of this place captivated me. And I felt like I was home a little bit in this amazingly astounding, weird, gorgeous, demonstrative, Alice in Wonderland-styled place of worship and devotion. At home with my family in the place dedicated to worshiping the family that we all are together.
Here's a few photos we took of the Sagrada Familia. None of which of course do any justice to any part of this place, but pictures are fun to look at, and I think I've typed enough long-winded paragraphs. Please forgive the occasional baseball hat of another unwitting tourist. It was tough to get photos of this place without having people in them, there are so many there at any given time- even given how big it it, even given that I'm taller than most in heels (small heels- kitten heels on my boots. I knew I was gonna climb some stairs after all...) Hopefully you can catch a glimmer of what I felt in them. Adios, my readers, for now. Hasta la proxima, mi familia!
And now that we're two weeks away from it, I'm still not sure that either of them truly loved the trip. They both appeared to have a relatively good time most of the time and I do believe there were some A-ha moments for them both- surely many more for my 10-year-old daughter than for my 8-year-old son. The son who was visibly disgruntled at having to leave all electronic equipment behind each morning- forced away from the hotel room (read- a consistent Wi-Fi source) on a daily basis to go seeking tourist attractions. It put a real cramp into his All Minecraft/All The Time Especially On Vacations sort of personal manifesto.
And yet despite that- Truman loved Barcelona. At least, he says he did. Josephine was happy in both cities, Paris having already enthralled her before she ever stepped foot on an international bound flight for Charles De Gaulle. In fact, she informed me sometime late in her fourth grade year that she wanted to live in Paris when she grew up- perhaps go to college there. "Hm.." I responded, a bemused grin trying not to launch itself rampantly across my face thereby causing Josephine to (rightfully) retort that I wasn't taking her seriously and why she ever tells me anything, she doesn't know?! Instead, I calmly asked her "Why, Jo? Why Paris?" "Well mom," she says completely seriously, "Probably because of the fashion there. You know- the Fashion. And the art."
For any of you who may know my daughter Josephine, perhaps you've already chortled in disbelief to yourself. Because up until VERY recently, Josephine Adele Petunia Lieber, a young woman endowed with many wonderful traits, including a consistently upbeat demeanor and flawless lust for life, has not reflected ANY of her mother's penchant to cultivate any sort of fashion sense whatsoever. She has been surrounded by friends who do, however, and so I assumed that her comment about wanting to "live in Paris someday" was likely prompted by some playdate flop-on-the-bed talk with her girlfriends- at least one of the friends who has a penchant for magazines, shopping, accessorizing. Or one whom at least seems to have mastered the ability to wear a pair of pants for longer than one day before holes at the knees and/or indelible Sharpee marker slash dirt slash motor oil stains renders them unwearable.
So when we arrived in Paris- all 38 degrees of it- she was undeterred by the chill and wind. She saw the Paris that I see, and giddily fell in love. She was, of course, ready to.
Truman on the other hand. Paris was "ok." And that's a direct quote. Perhaps the only soul alive on this earth today who's been to the jewel of France and still believes that Paris is "just ok." But Barcelona on the other hand-- ahh-- well, he's always been a sucker for the beauteous darker-skinned ladies. Barcelona was great, according to Truman Lieber. Namely, he says, because of one man actually-- because of the great architect Antonin Gaudi.
Now I can't really choose favorites between the two cities- they both enthrall and delight me. And I have a tough time choosing which of our many tourist stops were my favorite among them all (of course, Montmartre now begs to be at the top of that list, considering m'last blog entry.) Though there was the Montjuic Park, and Park Guell and Notre Dame and La Tour Eiffel and the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona and shopping in St. Germaine and every Gaudi structure we encountered and and and---
But I do choose the Sagrada Familia as perhaps the only monument we encountered on our vacation that I will probably devote a blog entry to. One might argue this cathedral- easily the largest tourist attraction we visited- definitely deserves the attention. But mostly it's because this particular holy structure captured not only my attention (like shooting fish in a barrel really,) but captured the heart and imagination of my 8 year old Minecraft obsessed Truman. He was oddly like a kid in a candy store inside this huge unfamiliar church. "Look mom- you look up and it really does look like a forest. Like he wanted it to." (um- oh yeah! I'm thinking. We watched that 60 Minutes segment about the Sagrada Familia that my mother in law turned me onto 10 days ago or so before leaving for Spain.) "Mom- mom- remember how they said that each column of stone was stronger than the one next to it moving up toward the front of the church? Because the stronger ones needed to be close to that statue of Jesus over there? So, those big pink ones there are the strongest, Mom. They're from Persia. Persian marble."
Now here I must pause a bit. Because I have not painted a fair and well- rounded picture of my kid. Yes, my flopsy mopsy beautiful toe-headed Venice surfer boy of a son is stubborn. And video-game obsessed like almost all his peers. And loose of limb and good at most sports that he seems to lack any real competitive nature to excel in. And really funny- almost always getting the joke- meaning also the adult ones- and delivering his own comedic gems with impeccable timing. (If only he could really understand that yes, comedy comes in threes, but once you've made someone laugh once with the thing... you don't trot the same thing out 3 seconds later and expect the same reaction. Or 10 seconds later. Or 30 seconds later. Or even later on that night. Yeah- just not gonna happen, kid.)
I guess what I'm trying to get at is, Truman is usually pretty damn smart for an 8 year old. And I forget this because, like many boys I know, he comes off like all the others: vaguely smelly, cute, and distracted. Truman just wants to hang with his peers- watch his Comedy Central TV shows- build his many various minecraft structures on the various servers he's connected to, or play with his pet rat. He doesn't so much want to read, or even talk much to other adults. But he has a memory like an elephant. And so, while he's regaling me with the Persian Marble thing, I'm thinking, ok, well that DEFINITELY must have been a 60 Minutes factoid because God knows, I never told him that. I don't even remember hearing it. But of course, Truman does. Truman remembers everything. (Maybe one day he'll be a very effective politician. Or lawyer. Yeesh.)
Now- La Sagrada Familia translates to The Sacred Family. And this huge mammoth church is clearly Antonin Gaudi's greatest work among a portfolio of groundbreaking stunners- though he only lived to see a fraction of it actually built. It's still not entirely constructed- they suspect it will be finished somewhere around 2025, I believe. But over the decades since the beginning of its construction at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, this building has been faithfully, painstakingly attended to. Well, really like all other massive, major and minor historical European cathedrals predating this one- it has been sweated over and brought into existence chunk by chunk by a huge posse of dedicated stone masons, artists, architects, engineers and the like. For years upon years. Hell, Notre Dame took over 250 years to build, so this house of God is moving along rather quickly in the grand scheme of things! Point of interest via 60 Minutes: There's one stone carver born in Japan, who moved to Barcelona in his early twenties to meet the aging Gaudi and throw in his talents on this work, and he has ever since been helping to sculpt the Sagrada Familia's famous outdoor facades for almost his entire 75 years of life.
But back to the title of the thing. Sagrada Familia- Sacred Family. I find this interesting- not as a Christian, because I am not a Christian. (Though I grew up in the church and was baptized at 13 in the holy waters of Lake Michigan.) But this title reaches out to me as a human, and a soul who though she's roundly denounced all religion as sorely lacking, cherishes her very personal connection with the Divine Spirit (or God, as others might say.) And this enormous chamber that Gaudi, the very devout Christian that he was, conceived of to celebrate his God and his Son did feel like a holy place. Not only is the actual physical surrounding of the cathedral monstrous and unlike any church you've ever been inside of, but the space itself, the very air seems charged with - for lack of a slew of specifics- love. This church celebrating not only God, not only Jesus, not even really only Mary, but celebrating the WHOLE story of Jesus from birth to death is most clearly, most palpably a holy place. And this is coming from a gal who truly thinks Jesus was an amazing guy, with some absolutely right on ideas, but not at all the son of God.
(If you care, if you're interested, in short- I believe we're all sons and daughters of it all. That's right- you, me, the neighbor's annoying cat perched on the fence just outside your home office window, the little eight legged tannish spider you keep meaning to squish in the kitchen ceiling corner because you're not sure if it's poisonous or not... we're all sacred. All of life on earth- all of everything outside of earth- all of it all.)
But my views aside- this church and its architect, Antonin Gaudi, is really so very special. Even (I might almost be tempted to say especially) eight-year-old Truman Lieber could see this. Truman with his penchant for building things in cyberspace and being just as mesmerized by train and ship models as were his Grandfathers before him. (One grandfather is an architect. The other is a structural engineer. Another great-grandfather was both...) I don't know if it was traveling up into the towers and walking the myriad of steps that comprise the nautilus-like spiral staircases, or leaning out the windows spaced at intervals along the way- frightfully high- so overtly higher than anything else for miles and miles and miles around that you feel like you really might be touching heaven if there were such a thing. But I believe my son was truly moved by the spirit that day- moved by the Sagrada Familia.
I certainly was.
And I wonder if it's the concept behind the name of the place- if it's the many tendrils of concepts that connect each stained glass window and iron door frame and marble column and granite carving-- they all seem to be cohesive in a way. A Church dedicated to a Family. A Sacred Family. Which for me means - Us. Humanity. Not just God and his boy, not just the virgin who conceived of him (ahem. ok, that's the only truly 'blasphemous' thing I'll say on that.) Not even the sacred Trinity, which, like almost all religious iconography and/or symbols, I find so useful actually in theory rather than in actuality.
This place felt like it was meant to honor Faith and Spirit. And whether you're Jewish or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim or Hindu or nothing- Faith and Spirit are a part of everyone's existence. Because even if you don't believe in anything in the spiritual realm, you do believe in something. Even if it's only the oxygen you breathe, or the goals you have set for yourself, or possibly the people you love. You believe in, and must tie and connect yourself to SOMETHING. And this feeds you faith and gives you spirit to move forth in life.
So the universality of this place captivated me. And I felt like I was home a little bit in this amazingly astounding, weird, gorgeous, demonstrative, Alice in Wonderland-styled place of worship and devotion. At home with my family in the place dedicated to worshiping the family that we all are together.
Here's a few photos we took of the Sagrada Familia. None of which of course do any justice to any part of this place, but pictures are fun to look at, and I think I've typed enough long-winded paragraphs. Please forgive the occasional baseball hat of another unwitting tourist. It was tough to get photos of this place without having people in them, there are so many there at any given time- even given how big it it, even given that I'm taller than most in heels (small heels- kitten heels on my boots. I knew I was gonna climb some stairs after all...) Hopefully you can catch a glimmer of what I felt in them. Adios, my readers, for now. Hasta la proxima, mi familia!
Friday, April 12, 2013
"Do More of That" - Chapter 2 of European Vacation
I fell in love in Paris. Again.
Though this time, not with the city, nor with any of the many dreamy Parisian lads flying by on their bikes with scarves blowing in the wind, ruddy cheeked from the chill like a prep school footballer on the field in October. No, I am a happily married woman...
And yet- I did not fall in love- again- with my husband! Strong and steady, he is, always at my side- our love has deepened to what I believe on good days is akin to what the Beatles were getting at with "One day when we're dreaming...deep in love, not a lot to say..." sort of thing. On the not so good days, it's just the humdrum love of long-term marriage. Love aging like a fine wine into contentment and deep familiarity. Not a whole lot of room for crazy fiery passion any longer...hm... ("Wait-- oh wait, young Parisian lad! You there! Arrete! Arrete!")
But anyway. That's a blog for another day.
I fell in love in Paris this time around with an artist. A woman. A dead woman to be exact.
And heaven knows I'm not the only one. Apparently this woman-- Suzanne Veladon is her name- was quite the toast of the town in her day. And because I did not take a whole lot of art history back in my youth, I was very spotty on the story behind the lives of all those Belle Epoque Parisian thinkers and painters and writers-- all those Dadaists and Impressionists. I had never heard of Suzanne Veladon.
Which seems crazy after all. Because I had heard of all her compatriots - Degas (her mentor,) Renoir (her lover, fan, and painter of one of her famed portraits,) Toulouse Lautrec (similarly a fan of her work and a friend. Also painted a portrait of Suzanne.) In fact, I stumbled upon her name because I was looking for Erik Satie in Paris. Satie- the self-monikered " phonometrician" (as opposed to composer) who back around the turn of the 19th Century into the 20th, penned the melancholic and delightful Gymnopedies that have stuck in my head since childhood. I played each of the three as a kid too, many times over, because they were A. technically easy and B. vaguely sad. Both of which suited me to a tee in my early teens.
So I've been a Satie admirer for years. Especially since he was so modest and poor- such a great image of a starving artist in his little 10x10 foot room almost on the top of the hill of Montmartre. I trudged the family up this very hill- all these sets of stairs in Montmartre after snapping a disheartened picture of the Moulin Rouge upon the main drag of that part of the city which is so incredibly like the French version of seedy Hollywood Boulevard. All the Le Sex Shoppes left and right, I almost couldn't walk up all those steps to find my Satie and his little room on the hill after all.
But we did -- I assured everyone that what I was searching for on the top of Montmartre was worth more to me than the brick red windmill sandwiched between two other buildings now- one housing a theater as well, and the other a nondescript chunk of office concrete.
I had to go up there- I don't know what I thought I was looking for, but it definitely had something to do with my starving, self-deprecating Satie whose work and whose energy I've always resonated to. It had something to do with that. Of course the world always has other plans for you, and so the irony is, that yes- Satie did live in this little room up there on number 5 Rue Cortot, with a glorious view of Paris spread wide from the top of the hill nestled up close to the Sacre-Coeur.
But what wasn't there was the Satie museum I had read about weeks previously in the Sunday LA Times. (Turns out that's located just outside of Paris in a suburb I believe called Arcuiel where he was forced to relocate after running out of all his dough in Paris itself. Oops.) There was nothing but a small brass plaque positioned above the front door of a small apartment complex marking the place Satie used to live. Modest- easy to miss. I suppose, somehow fitting for the composer of the sweet, shyly meandering Gymnopedie strains.
So- the disgruntled kids and vaguely annoyed husband that comprised my family were soon distracted by some chocolate crepes and espresso in a nearby cafe while I rabidly Googled on my phone anything relating to Satie so that I could somehow salvage the moment for them and for me. Don't know if I ever really did that for them- hopefully at some point our children will be happy they've trudged up and down and around the famous steps of Montmartre- which turns out to be very much akin to our little artsy, dingy, lively LA suburb of Venice here in the CA.
But I was successful for myself, for in the moments of desperate electronic research, I of course land on Suzanne Veladon. Because not only was she a quality artist in her own right, and the mother of the famous painter, Maurice Utrillo, but she was the only love of poor Erik Satie, who enjoyed six glorious months in her company, only to be dumped roundly by her when she abruptly moved herself and her son out of his tiny flat.
Apparently, Satie never loved again. Supposedly never even tried- no dates for lovelorn Erik who spent the rest of his phonometric days pining away for Suzanne and writing her letter after letter for 30 years following their wild but short lived affair.
So I became enraptured with this woman. This woman whom Google tells me is known as "The Mistress of Montmartre." I read as much as I could find about her (in roughly 24 minutes- the time it takes for my family to consume two chocolate crepes- one with whipped cream and one without- and an espresso.) I found images of her art- I found images of her portraits.
Turns out- she was a spitfire, this Suzanne. And a wonderful artist. Turns out, she was worthy of Satie's obsession.
First of all, Suzanne Veladon was quite a looker with her sweet heart shaped French visage- large doe-eyes widespread on her face. Fiery red hair. Lush lips. Tiny waist and hands. Had she been a wee bit taller, and born 100 years later she could have been a Victoria Secret model. But she was also a sassy survivor of a lady having been born to a poor washerwoman - dad up and split. She dropped out of school at 9 to work as a waitress, groom, laundress, eventually running away to join the circus as a trapeze artist! Which she probably would have done until her dying day had she not taken a terrible fall, which did not end her life, but ended it in the circus for certain.
(I'm now going to bullet point here because I know this might be a little tiring- reading a poorly constructed bio of someone YOU could just easily google yourself. There' s just a few more points I want to get at about her life because they were salient to me.)
- Then, at 18 gives birth to bastard son Maurice
- Moves to Montmartre district of Paris where she works as a model for artists
- Becomes a fixture in the thriving art scene and in the lives of Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, and of course, my little Satie.
- Has many portraits of her completed by these masters
- Under the tutelage of Degas, learns to paint and begins her life-long journey of becoming a master herself
- Begins to teach her bi-polar son Maurice how to paint to help him deal with his mental illness. He will eventually surpass her in critical acclaim and become much more famous than his mother as a painter.
- Sometime after her affair with Satie (and there were many many lovers in this woman's life, make no mistake) marries a wealthy banker. Stays married for approx 12 years
- Leaves the banker- falls in love with a man 21 years her junior.
- Marries this man - Andre Utter- in her FIFTIES
- Lives well and happily into her late 70's in her chosen bohemian lifestyle
Wow.
That's called living, I think. Yes- there were clearly many casualties, as I suppose there always are around the fiery ones. Many hearts broken and marriages disrupted and relationships sullied and promises broken in and around the life of Suzanne Veladon. But boy oh boy, did she live that life. She loved and lusted and fucked and loved some more. She worked her craft and her art. In fact, she apparently worked on some of her oil paintings meticulously and forever before deeming them to be "completed" works. One piece in particular took her over 13 YEARS-
So- I come home with this. This is my treat and my reward for blindly moving forward sans guidebook upward into the Montmartre district of Paris (we missed many other fantastic points of interest there as a result, I am certain.)
I come home with a renewed European sense of self. As artist, as woman, as spitfire, as one WORTHY of continuing to not so much trudge through this artist's path that life and I have chosen for me, but to dance through it. To shimmy and move and fly and occasionally stumble and fall down on it all covered in horseshit and mud.
Because if you're lucky- life is long. And there's nothing you're supposed to DO, no one or where you absolutely have to SEE, nothing you need to GIVE or TAKE. It all is just part of the crazy beautiful quilt of your existence- moment by moment, stitch by stitch. Wherever it is that you find yourself.
I am unhinging myself perhaps finally from the last vestiges of a need to be commercially recognized and/or "successful." I am tired of the "marketing" hat I've forced myself to wear for years now. Not that I can't wear it, not that I don't actually- turns out- have a little inherent talent for selling and understanding what makes people gravitate toward certain things or ideas vs others- but I don't WANT TO. That's not who I am and not what I do. I am an artist and a grump and a wild silly dancer and at times a comedian and at others a depressive mother fucker who likes to shack myself up in my room with the piano and delve into Rachmaninov. Or Satie. Or Jimi Hendrix. Or Holly Long. So I think I'm going to do more of "that" in the forseeable future.
****
This woman behind the counter of the Santa Monica Homeopathic Pharmacy gave me a gift last month after I'd been compulsively driving myself there week after week, searching for yet another natural supplement to help stave off the viciously debilitating anxiety--- I think during this visit I had gotten in a protracted conversation with another aproned herbalist behind the counter about my digestive tract. As related to my heart issue. As colored by my hormonal imbalances. As perhaps affecting my insomnia.
And this other older woman pharmacist, having overheard it all, jumps in and asks me what I do for fun and relaxation.
I say, "I'm an artist, and so really doing my art- making my music, performing on stage and writing songs or writing anything really, is what makes me happiest. I feel the most alive. So, I don't know what I do really to 'relax'- I'm not so much for the 'relax.'"
"So you make the music and you a singer and a writer?" (She was of some form of Eastern European descent.)
And I say "Yes, yes I do, and I am. But I haven't been doing that as much lately. I've been in a slump."
And she says-- "Aha. Yes. Well- there you go. You go write. You go make more of the music. You do more of THAT (she gestures a bit with her hands here, shaking them slightly away from her body as if air drying them after a wash)- you going to be fine."
Perhaps the most essential vitamin and mineral for this starving artist.
So, thank you Suzanne Veladon. You may not be aware, but our affair has only just begun. I've already written a belabored mediocre folk song about your life. Perhaps if I edit it carefully and stick some reverbed electric guitar behind it, it will be worthy of performance at some point. And google keeps calling out to me with updates about you- I think there may be some movies about your life- certainly many many books...
And of course, thank you, Erik Satie, for bringing me to Suzanne. Not like you aren't still important to me in your way, but I'm suddenly very very hot for your ex. (How familiarly that must ring for you...)
And finally - thank you eastern European homeopathic pharmacist lady. You are wise and smart and as it turns out, very very right. I don't need another supplement. I don't need to chart my bowel movements or count the hours of sleep or vegetable calorie intake...
Right now, I just need to do my art. I need to do more of THAT.
(Didja notice I changed my header photo? I thought it apropos for this travelling series of posts. It's a nice snap captured by my daughter who fanatically drained away the digital camera battery day after day on our Europe trip taking bizarrely framed artsy photos at every moment. I thought this was a great candid of me. Or at least of the me I was trying on for the 10 days in Barcelona and Paris. God bless that Josephine- she rocks it behind the lens.)
Though this time, not with the city, nor with any of the many dreamy Parisian lads flying by on their bikes with scarves blowing in the wind, ruddy cheeked from the chill like a prep school footballer on the field in October. No, I am a happily married woman...
And yet- I did not fall in love- again- with my husband! Strong and steady, he is, always at my side- our love has deepened to what I believe on good days is akin to what the Beatles were getting at with "One day when we're dreaming...deep in love, not a lot to say..." sort of thing. On the not so good days, it's just the humdrum love of long-term marriage. Love aging like a fine wine into contentment and deep familiarity. Not a whole lot of room for crazy fiery passion any longer...hm... ("Wait-- oh wait, young Parisian lad! You there! Arrete! Arrete!")
But anyway. That's a blog for another day.
I fell in love in Paris this time around with an artist. A woman. A dead woman to be exact.
And heaven knows I'm not the only one. Apparently this woman-- Suzanne Veladon is her name- was quite the toast of the town in her day. And because I did not take a whole lot of art history back in my youth, I was very spotty on the story behind the lives of all those Belle Epoque Parisian thinkers and painters and writers-- all those Dadaists and Impressionists. I had never heard of Suzanne Veladon.
Which seems crazy after all. Because I had heard of all her compatriots - Degas (her mentor,) Renoir (her lover, fan, and painter of one of her famed portraits,) Toulouse Lautrec (similarly a fan of her work and a friend. Also painted a portrait of Suzanne.) In fact, I stumbled upon her name because I was looking for Erik Satie in Paris. Satie- the self-monikered " phonometrician" (as opposed to composer) who back around the turn of the 19th Century into the 20th, penned the melancholic and delightful Gymnopedies that have stuck in my head since childhood. I played each of the three as a kid too, many times over, because they were A. technically easy and B. vaguely sad. Both of which suited me to a tee in my early teens.
So I've been a Satie admirer for years. Especially since he was so modest and poor- such a great image of a starving artist in his little 10x10 foot room almost on the top of the hill of Montmartre. I trudged the family up this very hill- all these sets of stairs in Montmartre after snapping a disheartened picture of the Moulin Rouge upon the main drag of that part of the city which is so incredibly like the French version of seedy Hollywood Boulevard. All the Le Sex Shoppes left and right, I almost couldn't walk up all those steps to find my Satie and his little room on the hill after all.
But we did -- I assured everyone that what I was searching for on the top of Montmartre was worth more to me than the brick red windmill sandwiched between two other buildings now- one housing a theater as well, and the other a nondescript chunk of office concrete.
I had to go up there- I don't know what I thought I was looking for, but it definitely had something to do with my starving, self-deprecating Satie whose work and whose energy I've always resonated to. It had something to do with that. Of course the world always has other plans for you, and so the irony is, that yes- Satie did live in this little room up there on number 5 Rue Cortot, with a glorious view of Paris spread wide from the top of the hill nestled up close to the Sacre-Coeur.
But what wasn't there was the Satie museum I had read about weeks previously in the Sunday LA Times. (Turns out that's located just outside of Paris in a suburb I believe called Arcuiel where he was forced to relocate after running out of all his dough in Paris itself. Oops.) There was nothing but a small brass plaque positioned above the front door of a small apartment complex marking the place Satie used to live. Modest- easy to miss. I suppose, somehow fitting for the composer of the sweet, shyly meandering Gymnopedie strains.
So- the disgruntled kids and vaguely annoyed husband that comprised my family were soon distracted by some chocolate crepes and espresso in a nearby cafe while I rabidly Googled on my phone anything relating to Satie so that I could somehow salvage the moment for them and for me. Don't know if I ever really did that for them- hopefully at some point our children will be happy they've trudged up and down and around the famous steps of Montmartre- which turns out to be very much akin to our little artsy, dingy, lively LA suburb of Venice here in the CA.
But I was successful for myself, for in the moments of desperate electronic research, I of course land on Suzanne Veladon. Because not only was she a quality artist in her own right, and the mother of the famous painter, Maurice Utrillo, but she was the only love of poor Erik Satie, who enjoyed six glorious months in her company, only to be dumped roundly by her when she abruptly moved herself and her son out of his tiny flat.
Apparently, Satie never loved again. Supposedly never even tried- no dates for lovelorn Erik who spent the rest of his phonometric days pining away for Suzanne and writing her letter after letter for 30 years following their wild but short lived affair.
So I became enraptured with this woman. This woman whom Google tells me is known as "The Mistress of Montmartre." I read as much as I could find about her (in roughly 24 minutes- the time it takes for my family to consume two chocolate crepes- one with whipped cream and one without- and an espresso.) I found images of her art- I found images of her portraits.
Turns out- she was a spitfire, this Suzanne. And a wonderful artist. Turns out, she was worthy of Satie's obsession.
First of all, Suzanne Veladon was quite a looker with her sweet heart shaped French visage- large doe-eyes widespread on her face. Fiery red hair. Lush lips. Tiny waist and hands. Had she been a wee bit taller, and born 100 years later she could have been a Victoria Secret model. But she was also a sassy survivor of a lady having been born to a poor washerwoman - dad up and split. She dropped out of school at 9 to work as a waitress, groom, laundress, eventually running away to join the circus as a trapeze artist! Which she probably would have done until her dying day had she not taken a terrible fall, which did not end her life, but ended it in the circus for certain.
(I'm now going to bullet point here because I know this might be a little tiring- reading a poorly constructed bio of someone YOU could just easily google yourself. There' s just a few more points I want to get at about her life because they were salient to me.)
- Then, at 18 gives birth to bastard son Maurice
- Moves to Montmartre district of Paris where she works as a model for artists
- Becomes a fixture in the thriving art scene and in the lives of Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, and of course, my little Satie.
- Has many portraits of her completed by these masters
- Under the tutelage of Degas, learns to paint and begins her life-long journey of becoming a master herself
- Begins to teach her bi-polar son Maurice how to paint to help him deal with his mental illness. He will eventually surpass her in critical acclaim and become much more famous than his mother as a painter.
- Sometime after her affair with Satie (and there were many many lovers in this woman's life, make no mistake) marries a wealthy banker. Stays married for approx 12 years
- Leaves the banker- falls in love with a man 21 years her junior.
- Marries this man - Andre Utter- in her FIFTIES
- Lives well and happily into her late 70's in her chosen bohemian lifestyle
Wow.
That's called living, I think. Yes- there were clearly many casualties, as I suppose there always are around the fiery ones. Many hearts broken and marriages disrupted and relationships sullied and promises broken in and around the life of Suzanne Veladon. But boy oh boy, did she live that life. She loved and lusted and fucked and loved some more. She worked her craft and her art. In fact, she apparently worked on some of her oil paintings meticulously and forever before deeming them to be "completed" works. One piece in particular took her over 13 YEARS-
So- I come home with this. This is my treat and my reward for blindly moving forward sans guidebook upward into the Montmartre district of Paris (we missed many other fantastic points of interest there as a result, I am certain.)
I come home with a renewed European sense of self. As artist, as woman, as spitfire, as one WORTHY of continuing to not so much trudge through this artist's path that life and I have chosen for me, but to dance through it. To shimmy and move and fly and occasionally stumble and fall down on it all covered in horseshit and mud.
Because if you're lucky- life is long. And there's nothing you're supposed to DO, no one or where you absolutely have to SEE, nothing you need to GIVE or TAKE. It all is just part of the crazy beautiful quilt of your existence- moment by moment, stitch by stitch. Wherever it is that you find yourself.
I am unhinging myself perhaps finally from the last vestiges of a need to be commercially recognized and/or "successful." I am tired of the "marketing" hat I've forced myself to wear for years now. Not that I can't wear it, not that I don't actually- turns out- have a little inherent talent for selling and understanding what makes people gravitate toward certain things or ideas vs others- but I don't WANT TO. That's not who I am and not what I do. I am an artist and a grump and a wild silly dancer and at times a comedian and at others a depressive mother fucker who likes to shack myself up in my room with the piano and delve into Rachmaninov. Or Satie. Or Jimi Hendrix. Or Holly Long. So I think I'm going to do more of "that" in the forseeable future.
****
This woman behind the counter of the Santa Monica Homeopathic Pharmacy gave me a gift last month after I'd been compulsively driving myself there week after week, searching for yet another natural supplement to help stave off the viciously debilitating anxiety--- I think during this visit I had gotten in a protracted conversation with another aproned herbalist behind the counter about my digestive tract. As related to my heart issue. As colored by my hormonal imbalances. As perhaps affecting my insomnia.
And this other older woman pharmacist, having overheard it all, jumps in and asks me what I do for fun and relaxation.
I say, "I'm an artist, and so really doing my art- making my music, performing on stage and writing songs or writing anything really, is what makes me happiest. I feel the most alive. So, I don't know what I do really to 'relax'- I'm not so much for the 'relax.'"
"So you make the music and you a singer and a writer?" (She was of some form of Eastern European descent.)
And I say "Yes, yes I do, and I am. But I haven't been doing that as much lately. I've been in a slump."
And she says-- "Aha. Yes. Well- there you go. You go write. You go make more of the music. You do more of THAT (she gestures a bit with her hands here, shaking them slightly away from her body as if air drying them after a wash)- you going to be fine."
Perhaps the most essential vitamin and mineral for this starving artist.
So, thank you Suzanne Veladon. You may not be aware, but our affair has only just begun. I've already written a belabored mediocre folk song about your life. Perhaps if I edit it carefully and stick some reverbed electric guitar behind it, it will be worthy of performance at some point. And google keeps calling out to me with updates about you- I think there may be some movies about your life- certainly many many books...
And of course, thank you, Erik Satie, for bringing me to Suzanne. Not like you aren't still important to me in your way, but I'm suddenly very very hot for your ex. (How familiarly that must ring for you...)
And finally - thank you eastern European homeopathic pharmacist lady. You are wise and smart and as it turns out, very very right. I don't need another supplement. I don't need to chart my bowel movements or count the hours of sleep or vegetable calorie intake...
Right now, I just need to do my art. I need to do more of THAT.
(Didja notice I changed my header photo? I thought it apropos for this travelling series of posts. It's a nice snap captured by my daughter who fanatically drained away the digital camera battery day after day on our Europe trip taking bizarrely framed artsy photos at every moment. I thought this was a great candid of me. Or at least of the me I was trying on for the 10 days in Barcelona and Paris. God bless that Josephine- she rocks it behind the lens.)
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Traveller's Guide
My family and I have just returned from a lovely and exhausting 10 day trip to Europe. Two cities in ten days didn't sound like a lot, but when you're doing it with two highly energetic elementary school kids, and it's just you two parents "on" as tour guides- all the time- 24/7... it turns out, deciding which croissant to choose from the in-hotel breakfast bar in the morning can seem tiring.
Yet it was wondrous- Barcelona and then Paris. Really a great trip. I'm thrilled we went and equally thrilled to be back home.
And I'm sure most other people at this point might spend their time posting pictures or unwinding sweet yarns about their fun family excursion on their personal blog. Me, however... I'm not feeling it yet. Perhaps it's the jet lag. Perhaps it's post-trip malaise. Perhaps it's just the fact that I have really yet to poop following approximately 22 hours in the air and in three different airports approximately two days ago. (Has it been two days now? Or fourteen? Didn't we just land this morning?.....)
But in my current moments of unpacking, both physically and psychologically, I thought instead of laying out chapters of our Spanish/French holiday, I'd provide my readership with a list. Because I like em. I like the lists. I've got one next to me right now, o course- the "Just got home from Spring Break, Gotta get back to your actual fucking life you slacker, here's some shit you gotta do" list. But I won't present you with that piece of doldrum either--
What I will provide below is slightly reminiscent of the actual list we left with our dear house-sitter upon jetting off across the pond. You know, all the nitty gritty shit she hadta know about where the pet towels are for when the cat pees on the floor, and how the faucet can get sticky in the downstairs office bathroom...
Except this list is a bit different. This list will entail what one would have to know if one were taking over not my house for a time, but my LIFE. A body-sitter list, if you will.
So just in case I go away for a time in the near future, and I enlist you to take over as Holly Long - to BE Holly- here is a brief, yet helpful guide for you in two parts: Holly at Home. And Holly On the Road- should that need arise. ($75 per day plus expenses, right?)
HOLLY AT HOME- The Traveller's Guide
First of all, thank you so much for stepping in last minute. I'm not sure what I would have done had you not been available. We'll talk on the phone to go over everything sometime before I leave, but I thought I'd send you a little precursor of some things you'll need to know about taking over as me for the next few days.
1. First and foremost, you will have to sweat the small stuff all the time. But you will have to be really good at pretending you're not doing that at all. Well, except to your husband and kids. You can never really fool them.
2. You must obsessively clean shit that will immediately get messed up again. Either that or-
3. Spend inordinate amounts of time organizing something unnecessarily- like the chopsticks in the silverware drawer. This is almost always because you are simultaneously engaged in-
4. Freaking out that you're not doing enough for your art. Or your children. Or the world in general. So when this happens, you must divert and procrastinate.
Ah! Which reminds me-
5. At least once while you're me, take the dog and a book to the coffee shop. Be sure you sit in the coffee shop with the intention of "getting inspired" by your surroundings. Read the same three sentences over and over again. Then wind up just feeling guilty that your nanny is picking the kids up from school and essentially parenting them while you fritter away the afternoon making eyes at the 20- something tatoo-ed barista.
(**Note. If you need to accomplish this task, but don't want to leave the house, the same result can be had by watching a few hours of your favorite cable TV shows on demand. In the middle of the day while the rest of the adult world is hard at work in the spirit of progress, productivity, and survival. Don't forget to eat almost an entire bag of potato chips and onion dip while doing this too.)
6. Sing and/or play some sort of musical instrument and/or write something down at least once every day. Otherwise you will actually start to disappear. It's been proven.
7. Which brings me to number 7. Always spend a little time each day (and/or wee early morning hours) feeling like because you're 42 and you haven't yet accomplished anything remotely grand or interesting, your life is probably over and you'll never get anywhere. You got good at that around 22. You're too old- you used to be young, vibrant and relatively attractive and now the best you can hope for is probably somewhere in the realm of "handsome." Plus, you might not be particularly good at any of the things you've spent 42 years trying to cultivate getting good at. Be sure to familiarize yourself with these thoughts. They will be taking up a lot of your time.
HOLLY ON THE ROAD- The Traveller's Guide
Ah! So I've enlisted the brave soul that you are to become me while away from the homestead. It must be that I'm just too weary or afraid this time around to attempt it myself. Again, I must thank you from the bottom of my heart, and please know that my cell phone will always be on should you need to reach me at any moment to answer any Holly Long related questions.
1. Bring your Ativan.
2. Bring your other bottle of Ativan.
3. After about the second day and the second glass of wine, you will finally feel as though you have arrived anywhere you are at that point, you will be grateful for the opportunity to see whatever part of the world you're currently in, and you will be much easier to be around. This feeling will leave you, and return numerous times while you're away.
4. Anytime you think of it, try to be nice to everyone around you because though you're unaware of it now, as a result of your nervous tendencies, you're probably being a bit of a dick a lot of the time.
5. You won't really poop until you get home. S'ok.
That's all you need to know! Feel free to buy me any fantastic foreign baubles, unnecessary clothes or shoes you think I should own. I can't get enough of all that stuff. Have a ball, and I'll see you/me when I/you return!
******
(I do promise some actually interesting European trip related thoughts at some point in the upcoming week. Since one of you may want to read something about something other than myself and my deep well-tended neurosis. I mean, yeah- Gaudi was pretty cool. And Paris has a bunch of stuff in it that I might be able to scrounge some words around. Ok- you've convinced me. Next post- Los Thoughts De Europe!)
Yet it was wondrous- Barcelona and then Paris. Really a great trip. I'm thrilled we went and equally thrilled to be back home.
And I'm sure most other people at this point might spend their time posting pictures or unwinding sweet yarns about their fun family excursion on their personal blog. Me, however... I'm not feeling it yet. Perhaps it's the jet lag. Perhaps it's post-trip malaise. Perhaps it's just the fact that I have really yet to poop following approximately 22 hours in the air and in three different airports approximately two days ago. (Has it been two days now? Or fourteen? Didn't we just land this morning?.....)
But in my current moments of unpacking, both physically and psychologically, I thought instead of laying out chapters of our Spanish/French holiday, I'd provide my readership with a list. Because I like em. I like the lists. I've got one next to me right now, o course- the "Just got home from Spring Break, Gotta get back to your actual fucking life you slacker, here's some shit you gotta do" list. But I won't present you with that piece of doldrum either--
What I will provide below is slightly reminiscent of the actual list we left with our dear house-sitter upon jetting off across the pond. You know, all the nitty gritty shit she hadta know about where the pet towels are for when the cat pees on the floor, and how the faucet can get sticky in the downstairs office bathroom...
Except this list is a bit different. This list will entail what one would have to know if one were taking over not my house for a time, but my LIFE. A body-sitter list, if you will.
So just in case I go away for a time in the near future, and I enlist you to take over as Holly Long - to BE Holly- here is a brief, yet helpful guide for you in two parts: Holly at Home. And Holly On the Road- should that need arise. ($75 per day plus expenses, right?)
HOLLY AT HOME- The Traveller's Guide
First of all, thank you so much for stepping in last minute. I'm not sure what I would have done had you not been available. We'll talk on the phone to go over everything sometime before I leave, but I thought I'd send you a little precursor of some things you'll need to know about taking over as me for the next few days.
1. First and foremost, you will have to sweat the small stuff all the time. But you will have to be really good at pretending you're not doing that at all. Well, except to your husband and kids. You can never really fool them.
2. You must obsessively clean shit that will immediately get messed up again. Either that or-
3. Spend inordinate amounts of time organizing something unnecessarily- like the chopsticks in the silverware drawer. This is almost always because you are simultaneously engaged in-
4. Freaking out that you're not doing enough for your art. Or your children. Or the world in general. So when this happens, you must divert and procrastinate.
Ah! Which reminds me-
5. At least once while you're me, take the dog and a book to the coffee shop. Be sure you sit in the coffee shop with the intention of "getting inspired" by your surroundings. Read the same three sentences over and over again. Then wind up just feeling guilty that your nanny is picking the kids up from school and essentially parenting them while you fritter away the afternoon making eyes at the 20- something tatoo-ed barista.
(**Note. If you need to accomplish this task, but don't want to leave the house, the same result can be had by watching a few hours of your favorite cable TV shows on demand. In the middle of the day while the rest of the adult world is hard at work in the spirit of progress, productivity, and survival. Don't forget to eat almost an entire bag of potato chips and onion dip while doing this too.)
6. Sing and/or play some sort of musical instrument and/or write something down at least once every day. Otherwise you will actually start to disappear. It's been proven.
7. Which brings me to number 7. Always spend a little time each day (and/or wee early morning hours) feeling like because you're 42 and you haven't yet accomplished anything remotely grand or interesting, your life is probably over and you'll never get anywhere. You got good at that around 22. You're too old- you used to be young, vibrant and relatively attractive and now the best you can hope for is probably somewhere in the realm of "handsome." Plus, you might not be particularly good at any of the things you've spent 42 years trying to cultivate getting good at. Be sure to familiarize yourself with these thoughts. They will be taking up a lot of your time.
HOLLY ON THE ROAD- The Traveller's Guide
Ah! So I've enlisted the brave soul that you are to become me while away from the homestead. It must be that I'm just too weary or afraid this time around to attempt it myself. Again, I must thank you from the bottom of my heart, and please know that my cell phone will always be on should you need to reach me at any moment to answer any Holly Long related questions.
1. Bring your Ativan.
2. Bring your other bottle of Ativan.
3. After about the second day and the second glass of wine, you will finally feel as though you have arrived anywhere you are at that point, you will be grateful for the opportunity to see whatever part of the world you're currently in, and you will be much easier to be around. This feeling will leave you, and return numerous times while you're away.
4. Anytime you think of it, try to be nice to everyone around you because though you're unaware of it now, as a result of your nervous tendencies, you're probably being a bit of a dick a lot of the time.
5. You won't really poop until you get home. S'ok.
That's all you need to know! Feel free to buy me any fantastic foreign baubles, unnecessary clothes or shoes you think I should own. I can't get enough of all that stuff. Have a ball, and I'll see you/me when I/you return!
******
(I do promise some actually interesting European trip related thoughts at some point in the upcoming week. Since one of you may want to read something about something other than myself and my deep well-tended neurosis. I mean, yeah- Gaudi was pretty cool. And Paris has a bunch of stuff in it that I might be able to scrounge some words around. Ok- you've convinced me. Next post- Los Thoughts De Europe!)
Friday, March 22, 2013
Re-run of a Re-run
My daughter comes home this afternoon with an assignment from English class. An assignment to interview someone (an adult...close to you...well maybe just your parent) about the subject of poetry. Which they are obviously delving deeper into now that they're on the backend of 5th grade. 10 and 11 year olds. Time to bite off more of a chunky scrumptious morsel.
Or at least I hope that's where they are in their educational process, because when Jo asked me question number 4- what is your favorite poem and/or who is your favorite poet? I spit out my knee-jerk answer before she even got to and/or. My favorite poem- that's easy- that's a cinch. My favorite poem is "The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" by TS Eliot. (Though he is perhaps not my overall favorite poet- that position belongs more squarely in Whitman's camp. Or maybe Dickinson or Plath. Eliot is phenomenal, but really beyond Prufrock I'm not as rabid a fan.)
And I love how my daughter decided, after I read her the entire poem at her request that because of my choice, I am a 'sophistocate.' (Perhaps only by proxy, right? The poem is just about one of the most elegant collection of words strung together upon this coil of mortality in the entire history of human writing. And though Josephine understood perhaps less than 10% of it, she did absorb the depth and universal ringtone.)
I mean really, yes- I took a 19th-20th Century Modern Poetry course in my sophomore year of college and thereupon had my mind blown open by the genius of the classics of that period. But by no means am I some sort of poetry guru. I feel as if saying Prufrock is my favorite poem is almost as bland as confessing that the Beatles might be my favorite pop band.
But who cares. To my rosebud 10 year old, just opening her petals to all the glorious pieces of human creation that are out there in this big old wide world, I am a giant of intellect. A monster of sophistication. Awesome- let's just let that one ride for awhile.
After my sincere presentation of the Eliot monument to my daughter, I sat a little breathless. Again wrapped in the clarity of this man's feeling. And how as I grow older (and roll my trousers ever higher) I just keep living this piece of poetry. I just keep falling down in deeper and deeper into its beautiful human melancholy.
Which reminded me- hey! I wrote a blog about this very thing perhaps a little less than a year ago! The end of last spring. And I posted it up on my old blog on hollylong.com. It was called "The Fake Plastic Lovesong of J Alfred Long" because it was equally an homage to Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Watering Can". A dual love song, as it were.
So, I think I'd like to repost it here and now upon revisiting this poem in the most achingly gorgeous of ways-- me with a glass of wine in my hand, lemonade in my kids,' and quiet tears perched haltingly in each of our eyes.
I humbly present to you a re-run of "THE FAKE PLASTIC LOVESONG OF H ALFRED LONG." I hope you dig in:
When I was in my twenties, I had the strange privilege and the desperate misfortune of living through a particularly deadly health disorder called Endocarditis. It’s a massive bacterial infection of the heart- either the lining or a valve, which brings on systematic organ shutdown and if left untreated for a mere few days to a week, will lead to death. The great composer and conductor Gustav Mahler died of Endocarditis (as I recently discovered.) The wondrous icon Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and Sesame Street, died of it too.
I mention my bout with Endocarditis briefly in my bio on my website. In fact, it used to take up more space on the page- as it took up more space in my brain the closer the events were in proximity to my current life. My spotty memories of that rush to the ICU- the hazy unconsciousness/coma state brought on by intensely high fever- the slow awakening from this near death state-the dread of realizing how direly ill I had become- the hope and strength and terror and countless procedures and bags and bags of liquid antibiotics that lead me to recovery—all that…all of it used to loom large as the most foundational memory in my life. Because it changed everything about my life. My body was forever scarred and changed and ultimately healed, but my spirit and soul were also more deeply rooted suddenly in the here and now. I felt what it was like to come to the brink of death, and feel powerless, and terrified, and then to be saved from it all, excruciatingly slowly and painfully, one step at a time over the course of over a year after my month long hospital stay.
It wasn’t really until my children were born in my thirties that any event eclipsed this Endocarditis in my mind. And I believe I decided to give birth to my first child, Josephine, without the use of an epidural because somewhere deep inside of me I wanted to know I was a kick ass survivor. That I had won over the bacteria- that my body was strong and vital and healthy and that I could birth another human into this world without drugs—that I just needed my bottom dwelling primal yells and Deep Mother Chi.
(It didn’t really work that way. I mean, maybe it did on paper. But in actuality, I puked and shook and wheedled the whole 24 hours worth for pain killers. My doula kept me on track through all of my blubbering assertions that I knew I was not going to make it. Through the pooping the table and the clutching her fingers and sobbing like a toddler who’s just realized he’s not the only human being on earth…so yes- I did successfully give birth to Jo without an epidural. A process I would never recommend to anyone. Ever. Turns out, the primal screams were there- that part happened. They were deep and guttural and would have scared the bejesus out of me if I wasn’t already so fucking terrified– SO sure that my body was going to rip itself in half and I was going to die a horrible primeval death by alien life form exeunting from twixt the center of me.)
But I did it.
And then two years later, I did it again- I gave birth a second time. And when the puking and the light-headedness and shakes started again during labor, I took my same doula by the collar of her sweet hand-crocheted baby blue bunny festooned sweater and told her to get me the effing epidural NOW. And she did. And so Truman was born in a haze of sweet dozing sleep as opposed to Josephine who came into the world sort of like the Nazis bombing London.
And it was only these two experiences that shook the Endocarditis out of its Kingly position in my memory. It was only the revisitation of a different hospital (Cedars for the heart infection- UCLA Santa Monica for the kids) that superceded the original hospital experience. I basically just swapped mauve tiles for light minty green. One squeaky waxed linoleum floor for another. One achingly ugly Aztec pine framed print above my head for another equally as soulless and sad.
Though all the smells were the same. Hospital smells. The smells of the beginning and the end of lives. Bleachy cleaners. Floor wax. Urine. Citrus room freshener. Mild liquid body cleanser- no added dyes or odors. Lilies. Daisies. Death.
I don’t live in those memories very often. I do like to ritually revisit the birth stories of my kids for each of them on their respective birthdays- but only if they want to go there with me. I would never press those moments on them- though it is fun to go through the first early photos in each of their baby books. Look at the bracelets. Trace their first footy prints and feel the lock of hair.
(I may have missed my calling as a professional Scrapbooker actually. Though I didn’t and I don’t keep EVERYTHING- I’m a stickler for photos in books. In the right order. With terse captions if necessary. And yes, I’ve scrapbooked our families’ big vacations- was in charge of my own wedding book. Honeymoon album. None of them are ridiculous or overly splendid in any way, but I do have a knack for it. Jesus, don’t tell anyone- it will TOTALLY screw with my hard-ass rocker mom rep.)
On the other end of the spectrum- I have happily stopped revisiting my brush with death so often. That big ripe bundle of memories is mostly safely tucked away on the top shelf of a very dark closet in my brain now, and it only comes out every so often. Unfortunately though, that bundle does tend to come out whenever I am dealing with anything dark and scary- like my childrens’ ongoing health issues, or my own. When my infant son started developing a scary tendency to wheeze and gasp for air in the third month of his life and we discovered he had RSV, I remembered my heart. And then when he had to have surgery to correct a mild birth defect at nine months and they wheeled him away to get aenesthetized, I remembered my heart. And four years later when my daughter came down with a terrifyingly high fever and horrible back pain and had to be hospitalized for 4 days with an acute kidney infection, I remembered my heart.
And then finally this past month what with the initial re-breaking of the foot… and then subsequent scary information I received regarding my beautiful girl’s ongoing bladder issues now having something to do with a tethered spinal cord (SPINAL CORD- gives me sweaty hands just typing it)…and then my own need to revisit the cardiologist to get another look at my Endocarditis-scarred leaky heart valve- getting leakier… it’s been a month of remembering Cedars Sinai. A month of begrudgingly taking down that bundle of santizer soaked hospital memories and having to relive little frightened moments in claustrophobic, fluorescent lit rooms. With tubes sticking out of me and freshly scrubbed healthy men and women poking and prodding and the whole time feeling just so– tired. So desperately….weak…and…broken….and…tired.
And I just want to throw on my running shoes and fly to the beach with some AC/DC blaring in my earpads. To say Fuck You, you magnificent crazy reeling silly scary world! I’m still fucking HERE! I’m alive and my heart is BEATING and I’m running and breathing hard because I’m a motherfucker- you can’t kill me that EASY! But I can’t. Because my foot, she is still healing….
And I just DON”T want to go to Salina Kansas in June to help my mom and my aunt move my grandmother out of her house for the first and last time into an assisted living facility where all her friends now reside because her Alzheimers has finally gotten too severe for her to live alone. I don’t want to be a part of watching the family parcel out her belongings from that beautiful house that used to feel so safe and so lovely and so timeless to me as a kid. But I can’t not go. Because I may not see my grandmother alive for much longer- and she needs me now. And this may be the last time she can actually remember who I am…
And I just want to scoop up my children and hold them close to me and stop time- literally FREEZE it- so that we can just stay in this relatively healthy precious moment together. So that Jo won’t have to go through the fear of small spinal surgery in a few short months. So that Truman won’t wake up with another night terror and have to fall back to sleep shivering and clinging to me in mommy and daddy’s bed (a habit he developed a few years ago, and still has occasional dealings with.) So that they won’t have to crack open my chest—which they will eventually have to do whether this decade of my life or the next. And I will have to again fumble with the ties of that flimsy cheap pastel hospital gown, open in the back for all to see. I will again have to pad down the waxed linoleum floored halls wheeling my IV …face pale and slightly sweaty from the effort of walking…again in recovery. Again. Resting and healing my poor body after they’ve put a small saw through my breastplate and carefully replaced my fluttery, thickened human valve with one from a generous, not so fortunate swine.
But these are just fantasies. Fantasties that I can avoid these and all subsequent frightening moments in my life. Fantasies that I won’t have to go through the crying jags and the heart palpitations and the white knuckle minutes that seem to last days and the dry heaving in the toilets. I cannot pretend. Because as one of my best friends said the other day- “You have too much skin in the game, Hol.” This is the beauty of our lives- this is everything that’s worth anything and this is the center of the horror now.
It’s not that I’m actually all that esoterically afraid of dying anymore. Barring a suicidal end, when and how I die is basically not going to be up to me- and I’m more ok with that than I’ve ever been. Having to live with a chronic heart condition has enabled me to have a dialogue with death like I simply was not able to do previous to my infection. So, I’m far from “fine” with it. But I think I can mostly make peace with simply dying- because it’s the next thing. It’s the next portal through which we all pass eventually.
But it’s the thought of those that I would leave behind that now torture my life-filled, heart beating soul when I must come to the precipice of thinking about death. Now that I’ve swapped mauve tiles for light green, I’ve got too much skin in the game to make anything easy. Everything is costly now. Everything is beautifully, painfully important.
Now that there are two breathing living life forms that came bounding out from twixt the center of me- it’s all changed. There is no more bluffing- there is no more fantasizing. There is no more pretending I am only a lone small little soul back home in my tiny Eastside LA apartment after four weeks in a hospital that saved my life, trying to manage the searing pain in my head that is the healing brain scars, slowly grow back all the hair that fell out and the 25 pounds of muscle mass gone–dissolved from days on end of lying supine in a dreary hospital bed with sheets covered in fading moons and stars.
Now it’s really real. The heart that beats in my breast beats for two other creatures more than for anyone else. More than for myself. And I would do anything to have that heart beat as long as it possibly can for them. To allow for this body to squeeze any life out they need from me now and forever more.
And so basically I suppose, who better to crack my chest open for? It already feels like I have.
“Skin in the game, baby.”
(She pushes the entirety of her poker chips to the center of the table.)
“I’m all in.”
…
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It has been with much humility, and not a whole lot of grace that I have had to accept hobbling around on my orthopedic boot for the past four weeks after ONCE AGAIN causing a hairline stress fracture in one of my metatarsels. From running. This time the fracture is on my left foot.
My foot- she is healing, which is the good news. The bad news is that I’m not sure I can really engage in this whole “barefoot running” notion, or more recently, “flatshoe running” that I’ve been participating in. And I think, it’s not because those ways of running are inherently wrong and bad for your body. In fact, I actually believe the opposite to be true. Turns out I’m just too old and have been running on puffy running shoes for too long now to really be able to successfully change my stride from heel slammer/toe rocker to the much-better-for-you barefoot strike which is something akin to how children naturally run shoeless in the grass on a summer day. (Sliding down to the ground from the ball/toe of your foot first, then to the heel and finally springing off the toe. Try running in the park barefoot- it’s kinda what your foot wants to do naturally.)
I’d been trying to re-create my inner 7-year-old Holly over the past few months- or rather channel the 7-year-old Holly- in a noble attempt to allow myself the ability to run far into my senior years. See, those big old puffy running shoes that we humans have been plogging around on now for a few decades are kinda the worst thing for your body imaginable. They make you slam your heel down, which causes strain on your lower back, and secondly over-extend your knees. All this misaligns your body as you lean forward to run faster…farther…atop your over-extended knee. It’s no wonder why so many runners quit in their 40′s or 50′s with blown out backs, knees, hip pain.
Yet, attempting to side-step said pain by running on flatter shoes (or none at all) was clearly not the right direction for me. Help for the knees and back ended up blowing out the little bones on the top of my feet a number of times. So, I’ve been dejectedly entertaining the notion that perhaps– no. As far as running goes, you can’t teach this old dog new tricks. If I’m going to continue to run, I need to get back out there on my pumped up Nikes or Sauconys or New Balances, continue to pop my Omega 3′s, and just pray that my knees and joints hold out for at least the next decade.
This vaguely depresses me. Because running for me is akin to crack cocaine. Though I’ve never run longer than 5 miles at a stretch, running to me is something like a religion and it keeps me healthy and happy and if not stress-free- definitely stress-reduced.
So- I’ve decided to make a list in the other direction. A list of ways I HAVE changed lately. A reminder of how it IS possible to evolve. That not all attempts to alter one’s foot fall in this life end up in ugly black velcro laden boots that literally look good with zero fashion ensembles. And I’ve tried.
Here goes.
1. I walked into a Carl’s Jr today. I’ve NEVER eaten in a Carl’s Jr! I’ve eaten at many other fast food restaurants in my time, but until today- no love for Carl. This was not hard when you consider the horrid rumors I’ve neard about how he is a low-life racist and gives large amounts of money to politicians who would attempt to bring our country back to the good old days of the early 60′s. Additionally, I frequently scoffed at what I came to decide were Carl’s Jr’s dopey ad campaigns which seem strategically aimed at 15 year old boys. If it’s not some splooch of mustard sliding down the front of some girl’s tight white T-shirt, or glamorizing the amount of mess created from eating a Carl’s Jr burger by counting the napkins needed, it’s the “unreasonable-ness” of sit-down restaurants wanting to charge $6 for a decent hamburger. My god. Why would you ever pay $6 for a hamburger, when you can get something that LOOKS very much like that sit-down restaurant hamburger at Carl’s Jr for almost half that price?! (Where, by the way, is there a non-fast food restaurant serving a burger that’s anywhere near $6? Did anyone else find that to be a strangely silly lowball figure? Almost counter-productive to their own message? I mean, even at a joint like Marie Callendar’s- when you order a hamburger, you better be sure you have at LEAST 10 bucks floating around in your pocket. And that’s not even counting drink and tip!) But I digress. So-
Out running errands this afternoon, I got a hankerin for a hunka burger today for lunch. And seeing as it’s about that time of month I thought- yes Holly. You’re allowed a big old nasty fat burger. You need the protein- you need the iron. Go for it. As I drove toward home with my carnivorous fangs dripping, Carl’s Jr loomed ahead- mere blocks from my gastronomical brainstorm. The drive thru line was around the block. But lo- there was one little parking space left right in front of the entrance. So I swung myself and my big old velcro-festooned boot through the doors and ordered me a Six Dollar Burger. And by golly, if it didn’t turn out to be almost as good as if I had gone to one of those restaurants where they serve real burgers for about $12.95! And, btw, six napkins worth of mess. So there’s some truth in advertising. I’ll probably never align with Carl’s politics, but he now has $6.48 of my money and I was far from dissatisfied.
2. (Remember this was a list?) Here’s another new thing for me: So- I shushed someone I didn’t know today sitting next to me and my kid in our school’s weekly Friday morning “All School Meeting.” (This isn’t really the new thing for me, but I’ll get to that, so bear with me for a little bit.) The ASM, as it’s affectionately called round the hood of our school, is a four parts lovely, two parts frivolous, one part annoying tradition where all kids, parents, teachers, etc meet for (what you hope is) about 35 minutes in the Common area. Kids share songs, skits…fifth graders lead the meetings, thereby culminating their private school elementary experience with a very public display of self-confidence, school information is passed around, sometimes visiting performers come to share their talents. It’s really mostly very nice.
However, for this particularly curmudgeonly mom, I find some elements of the tradition to be tiresome- the most common of which is the propensity for TALKING during the meeting. And I don’t mean kids talking. The students at school are for the most part fairly kind, helpful, thoughtful people. They are capable of actually sitting around for a long time criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with a bare minimum of disruption. Perhaps because these meetings are weekly, the kids get used to shutting up and mostly paying attention. And mostly not talking to their friends who might be sitting right next to them or across the room. I cannot say the same thing about the adults. It’s the PARENTS who tend to be so frigging annoying. It’s the clueless entitled private school PARENTS who cannot seem to stop talking to each other during ASM. As if the code of silence only applies to their younguns and not to them. As if politeness is an overly tight snakeskin that one eventually molts out of. Well, I for one don’t agree. I don’t go often any more to these all school meetings, but when I do, I try as hard as I can to mirror for the kids what I think it is we are attempting to teach them with our communal silence and attention to whatever is happening onstage– self control and respect for others.
So today I had it. There was a middle aged man and his teenage son sitting next to me and my son just yakking away during the beginning of the meeting. Now, I didn’t recognize them so it is possible they were visiting relatives of one of the students– perhaps even one of the fifth graders leading the meeting. But suffice to say, there was plenty of “shushing” at the onset of the meeting, so it seemed evident to me there was no lack of clarity about the desire for- the need for- silence from the audience. And the meeting begins- and there’s some talk. And then a song that we’re all singing together- a call and response sort of thing. And during both the call, and the response this father and his son are still talking to each other in regular voices. Not even really an attempt to whisper at all. And I’m starting to boil with rage. (Did I mention it’s about that time of the month for me? Just so we’re clear.) Because it’s really the lack of awareness that just niggles at me. It’s the lack of ability to apparently realize you’re in a room with many OTHER individuals who are there together- trying to co-create an experience. That maybe just shutting the fuck UP might be the best thing to do. You can giggle with your teenage son after the thing is over. So, I try to sit on it. Try to sit on it. Sit. Just sit, Holly. Just Sit on– and then I can’t any longer, and instead of slightly turning my head, vaguely looking into the middle of nowhere and uttering some sort of passive aggressive “ShhHHH” like I would imagine might be the normally accepted way of handling the situation, I actually turn to completely face these two and say something like, “Hey, could you both stop talking please? It’s loud and hard to concentrate.” There’s a pause. And then because I am literally 28.9 cm away from them both and have to spend the rest of the meeting sitting next to them, I turn back to mitigate a bit and say, “I’m sorry if I sound really rude, but it’s just distracting. Thank you.” Both the father and son say nothing. They sort of glare at me as if they realize they’ve accidentally opted to sit next to the school crazy. Then they look away haughtily. And I look away. And that’s the end of the encounter.
But now here’s the part that belongs in my list today. This is new for me: I was relatively calm afterwards. My heart did not continue to beat hard after I said my little piece. I was able to breathe normally and not regret what I had said. I did not feel the need to further mitigate the situation. I did not feel the need to try to make myself more likable and look at them later with apologetic eyes, which I believe is what my slightly younger self would have done. In other words, I believe I’m getting a little better at speaking my truth and letting it hang in the air without needing to make anyone else comfortable. That’s a biggie for me.
3. Ok. What else? I could list how I recently took my kids on a plane by myself (bootlegged) to Atlanta over spring break and how I didn’t let my peri-menopausal CRUSHING travel anxiety get the better of me. (I love you, Ativan.) Or I could say something about how when during my trip to the doc three days ago to re-check some hormone levels, and my well-intentioned GP mentioned something about how my facial melasma looks really bad- like it’s gotten worse- and it must be because I didn’t have any makeup on, I didn’t go down the self-esteem rabbit hole. Despite the fact that I had just seconds before her entrance been applying foundation to my face with the few minutes I had to myself in the exam room. Nor did I really care to inform her that for six months now I’ve been applying a very expensive bleaching cream that my dermatologist has recommended to me and that actually, my melasma is significantly better than it was the last time I saw her. I think she was trying to be supportive of my assertion that my estrogen is rising. (Melasma is a sign of high estrogen. I think she was trying to be a Yes Girl.)
4. Ah wait– I’ve got one. This is good. Two weeks ago I had a gig at a local joint. Fun place- two blocks from my house. And I hobbled over on my boot. Ready to rock it onstage with the Black Velcroed Wonder. And I brought out– for the very first time– my Fender Telecaster. Which is an electric guitar, for those who don’t know. And for those who don’t know me, I’d NEVER played my Fender Telecaster onstage before – never. Though the guitar was cool looking, and though I had posed with it slung on my back for the cover of my third album, and though the guitar came to me out of the blue- literally showed up on my doorstep one day back in 2001 after I’d put out my first record (I unwittingly won some online contest that I hadn’t even entered myself in) –I could not bring myself to play it. In fact, until 10 days ago, it still sported the same lightweight strings that it came with, propped up against my front door back in 2001 with a congratulatory note taped to it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play the Telecaster. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to honor the nudge that the universal forces were apparently giving me right at the dawn of my recording career. It was just that the thought of figuring out what sort of AMP to buy for it, and what kind of STRINGS it might require and how it might change the way I was already haltingly picking and struming my acoustic guitar… I just wasn’t READY for it, I decided. The universe is never wrong, but in this case, I had decided the universe had shown up to the party a little early and would just have to hang around by the buffet with a drink and wait for the rest of the party guests to arrive.
So of course I didn’t play it or even pay any attention to it for a long time. And when any musician would come over to practice with me and notice the poor neglected Tele leaning expectantly in its stand in the corner of my office, he would comment on how- Oh Hol! I didn’t know you had a Fender! That’s cool. Why don’t you ever play it? And then the litany of whys would pour out of me.
And it wasn’t until 2012 that I really decided to own the ONLY reason why I wasn’t playing this delightful gift of the Magi that showed up like Moses in the basket to Pharoh’s wife. I wasn’t playing this guitar because I was SCARED. I was scared of trying something I didn’t know how to do. I was terrified of my eventual trips to Guitar Center armed with my little Tele, forced to go ask one of the tattoo encrusted sales dudes, “What kind of amp do you think I should buy for this guitar?” And I would be forced to say “I don’t know anything about anything when it comes to pedals and sounds and effects. I only know that they exist and that I won this guitar and I should probably start playing around with some gear and such and stuff.” I didn’t want to appear as the Soccer-Mom-Wanna-Be-Middle-Age Rockster whose smiling face would soon grace an ad-hoc WANTED poster in the Guitar Center break room: ”Seen this tall, slightly wrinkly, totally clueless loser? Warning- knows nothing about anything! If you happen to encounter, pitch only expensive reject guitar gear. She apparently has dough to burn! Claims to play the “keyboard.”
I finally swallowed my pride this month and borrowed a cool little amp. And a tremolo pedal. And immediately wrote a song on the 11 year old lightweight strings. And then showed up armed with said guitar, amp, pedal and song to my gig of two weeks ago. The best part is of course, the high E string broke onstage just as I was about to play the new tune. Though I played it anyway- struggling every moment with the guitar wailing painfully out of tune. See, when one string is missing on the neck of the guitar, the balance of tension gets all off and it will pull the remainder of the strings off their game. It was hilarious listening to my guitar in the monitor get softer and softer as the song progressed. (Thank you sound man.) Luckily, I was performing with my pal Eric who is a SMOKIN guitarist and who sort of took over the song even though he had never heard it and was wingin it the whole way through. Suffice to say, the song rocked. Even though I did not on my Fender Tele.
So there’s more. But I believe I have now reached the organic end of this blog post. It feels like it’s done. I think I’ve made my point to myself and the millions of tiny etheral quarks which surround me as I sit here typing away that I am indeed, if only very slowly and very slightly, evolving. I am learning to face my fears one broken guitar string at a time. I am edging farther away from my safe position of moralism, and learning to live who am I more consistently. Even though I may irritate a fellow human being or two seated next to me. Even though I may accomplish something as mundane and unnecessary as patronizing a fast food restaurant.
Because I suppose I can still surprise even myself. And that is something I never want to break.
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When I was in my twenties, I had the strange privilege and the desperate misfortune of living through a particularly deadly health disorder called Endocarditis. It’s a massive bacterial infection of the heart- either the lining or a valve, which brings on systematic organ shutdown and if left untreated for a mere few days to a week, will lead to death. The great composer and conductor Gustav Mahler died of Endocarditis (as I recently discovered.) The wondrous icon Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and Sesame Street, died of it too.
I mention my bout with Endocarditis briefly in my bio on my website. In fact, it used to take up more space on the page- as it took up more space in my brain the closer the events were in proximity to my current life. My spotty memories of that rush to the ICU- the hazy unconsciousness/coma state brought on by intensely high fever- the slow awakening from this near death state-the dread of realizing how direly ill I had become- the hope and strength and terror and countless procedures and bags and bags of liquid antibiotics that lead me to recovery—all that…all of it used to loom large as the most foundational memory in my life. Because it changed everything about my life. My body was forever scarred and changed and ultimately healed, but my spirit and soul were also more deeply rooted suddenly in the here and now. I felt what it was like to come to the brink of death, and feel powerless, and terrified, and then to be saved from it all, excruciatingly slowly and painfully, one step at a time over the course of over a year after my month long hospital stay.
It wasn’t really until my children were born in my thirties that any event eclipsed this Endocarditis in my mind. And I believe I decided to give birth to my first child, Josephine, without the use of an epidural because somewhere deep inside of me I wanted to know I was a kick ass survivor. That I had won over the bacteria- that my body was strong and vital and healthy and that I could birth another human into this world without drugs—that I just needed my bottom dwelling primal yells and Deep Mother Chi.
(It didn’t really work that way. I mean, maybe it did on paper. But in actuality, I puked and shook and wheedled the whole 24 hours worth for pain killers. My doula kept me on track through all of my blubbering assertions that I knew I was not going to make it. Through the pooping the table and the clutching her fingers and sobbing like a toddler who’s just realized he’s not the only human being on earth…so yes- I did successfully give birth to Jo without an epidural. A process I would never recommend to anyone. Ever. Turns out, the primal screams were there- that part happened. They were deep and guttural and would have scared the bejesus out of me if I wasn’t already so fucking terrified– SO sure that my body was going to rip itself in half and I was going to die a horrible primeval death by alien life form exeunting from twixt the center of me.)
But I did it.
And then two years later, I did it again- I gave birth a second time. And when the puking and the light-headedness and shakes started again during labor, I took my same doula by the collar of her sweet hand-crocheted baby blue bunny festooned sweater and told her to get me the effing epidural NOW. And she did. And so Truman was born in a haze of sweet dozing sleep as opposed to Josephine who came into the world sort of like the Nazis bombing London.
And it was only these two experiences that shook the Endocarditis out of its Kingly position in my memory. It was only the revisitation of a different hospital (Cedars for the heart infection- UCLA Santa Monica for the kids) that superceded the original hospital experience. I basically just swapped mauve tiles for light minty green. One squeaky waxed linoleum floor for another. One achingly ugly Aztec pine framed print above my head for another equally as soulless and sad.
Though all the smells were the same. Hospital smells. The smells of the beginning and the end of lives. Bleachy cleaners. Floor wax. Urine. Citrus room freshener. Mild liquid body cleanser- no added dyes or odors. Lilies. Daisies. Death.
I don’t live in those memories very often. I do like to ritually revisit the birth stories of my kids for each of them on their respective birthdays- but only if they want to go there with me. I would never press those moments on them- though it is fun to go through the first early photos in each of their baby books. Look at the bracelets. Trace their first footy prints and feel the lock of hair.
(I may have missed my calling as a professional Scrapbooker actually. Though I didn’t and I don’t keep EVERYTHING- I’m a stickler for photos in books. In the right order. With terse captions if necessary. And yes, I’ve scrapbooked our families’ big vacations- was in charge of my own wedding book. Honeymoon album. None of them are ridiculous or overly splendid in any way, but I do have a knack for it. Jesus, don’t tell anyone- it will TOTALLY screw with my hard-ass rocker mom rep.)
On the other end of the spectrum- I have happily stopped revisiting my brush with death so often. That big ripe bundle of memories is mostly safely tucked away on the top shelf of a very dark closet in my brain now, and it only comes out every so often. Unfortunately though, that bundle does tend to come out whenever I am dealing with anything dark and scary- like my childrens’ ongoing health issues, or my own. When my infant son started developing a scary tendency to wheeze and gasp for air in the third month of his life and we discovered he had RSV, I remembered my heart. And then when he had to have surgery to correct a mild birth defect at nine months and they wheeled him away to get aenesthetized, I remembered my heart. And four years later when my daughter came down with a terrifyingly high fever and horrible back pain and had to be hospitalized for 4 days with an acute kidney infection, I remembered my heart.
And then finally this past month what with the initial re-breaking of the foot… and then subsequent scary information I received regarding my beautiful girl’s ongoing bladder issues now having something to do with a tethered spinal cord (SPINAL CORD- gives me sweaty hands just typing it)…and then my own need to revisit the cardiologist to get another look at my Endocarditis-scarred leaky heart valve- getting leakier… it’s been a month of remembering Cedars Sinai. A month of begrudgingly taking down that bundle of santizer soaked hospital memories and having to relive little frightened moments in claustrophobic, fluorescent lit rooms. With tubes sticking out of me and freshly scrubbed healthy men and women poking and prodding and the whole time feeling just so– tired. So desperately….weak…and…broken….and…tired.
And I just want to throw on my running shoes and fly to the beach with some AC/DC blaring in my earpads. To say Fuck You, you magnificent crazy reeling silly scary world! I’m still fucking HERE! I’m alive and my heart is BEATING and I’m running and breathing hard because I’m a motherfucker- you can’t kill me that EASY! But I can’t. Because my foot, she is still healing….
And I just DON”T want to go to Salina Kansas in June to help my mom and my aunt move my grandmother out of her house for the first and last time into an assisted living facility where all her friends now reside because her Alzheimers has finally gotten too severe for her to live alone. I don’t want to be a part of watching the family parcel out her belongings from that beautiful house that used to feel so safe and so lovely and so timeless to me as a kid. But I can’t not go. Because I may not see my grandmother alive for much longer- and she needs me now. And this may be the last time she can actually remember who I am…
And I just want to scoop up my children and hold them close to me and stop time- literally FREEZE it- so that we can just stay in this relatively healthy precious moment together. So that Jo won’t have to go through the fear of small spinal surgery in a few short months. So that Truman won’t wake up with another night terror and have to fall back to sleep shivering and clinging to me in mommy and daddy’s bed (a habit he developed a few years ago, and still has occasional dealings with.) So that they won’t have to crack open my chest—which they will eventually have to do whether this decade of my life or the next. And I will have to again fumble with the ties of that flimsy cheap pastel hospital gown, open in the back for all to see. I will again have to pad down the waxed linoleum floored halls wheeling my IV …face pale and slightly sweaty from the effort of walking…again in recovery. Again. Resting and healing my poor body after they’ve put a small saw through my breastplate and carefully replaced my fluttery, thickened human valve with one from a generous, not so fortunate swine.
But these are just fantasies. Fantasties that I can avoid these and all subsequent frightening moments in my life. Fantasies that I won’t have to go through the crying jags and the heart palpitations and the white knuckle minutes that seem to last days and the dry heaving in the toilets. I cannot pretend. Because as one of my best friends said the other day- “You have too much skin in the game, Hol.” This is the beauty of our lives- this is everything that’s worth anything and this is the center of the horror now.
It’s not that I’m actually all that esoterically afraid of dying anymore. Barring a suicidal end, when and how I die is basically not going to be up to me- and I’m more ok with that than I’ve ever been. Having to live with a chronic heart condition has enabled me to have a dialogue with death like I simply was not able to do previous to my infection. So, I’m far from “fine” with it. But I think I can mostly make peace with simply dying- because it’s the next thing. It’s the next portal through which we all pass eventually.
But it’s the thought of those that I would leave behind that now torture my life-filled, heart beating soul when I must come to the precipice of thinking about death. Now that I’ve swapped mauve tiles for light green, I’ve got too much skin in the game to make anything easy. Everything is costly now. Everything is beautifully, painfully important.
Now that there are two breathing living life forms that came bounding out from twixt the center of me- it’s all changed. There is no more bluffing- there is no more fantasizing. There is no more pretending I am only a lone small little soul back home in my tiny Eastside LA apartment after four weeks in a hospital that saved my life, trying to manage the searing pain in my head that is the healing brain scars, slowly grow back all the hair that fell out and the 25 pounds of muscle mass gone–dissolved from days on end of lying supine in a dreary hospital bed with sheets covered in fading moons and stars.
Now it’s really real. The heart that beats in my breast beats for two other creatures more than for anyone else. More than for myself. And I would do anything to have that heart beat as long as it possibly can for them. To allow for this body to squeeze any life out they need from me now and forever more.
And so basically I suppose, who better to crack my chest open for? It already feels like I have.
“Skin in the game, baby.”
(She pushes the entirety of her poker chips to the center of the table.)
“I’m all in.”
…
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It has been with much humility, and not a whole lot of grace that I have had to accept hobbling around on my orthopedic boot for the past four weeks after ONCE AGAIN causing a hairline stress fracture in one of my metatarsels. From running. This time the fracture is on my left foot.
My foot- she is healing, which is the good news. The bad news is that I’m not sure I can really engage in this whole “barefoot running” notion, or more recently, “flatshoe running” that I’ve been participating in. And I think, it’s not because those ways of running are inherently wrong and bad for your body. In fact, I actually believe the opposite to be true. Turns out I’m just too old and have been running on puffy running shoes for too long now to really be able to successfully change my stride from heel slammer/toe rocker to the much-better-for-you barefoot strike which is something akin to how children naturally run shoeless in the grass on a summer day. (Sliding down to the ground from the ball/toe of your foot first, then to the heel and finally springing off the toe. Try running in the park barefoot- it’s kinda what your foot wants to do naturally.)
I’d been trying to re-create my inner 7-year-old Holly over the past few months- or rather channel the 7-year-old Holly- in a noble attempt to allow myself the ability to run far into my senior years. See, those big old puffy running shoes that we humans have been plogging around on now for a few decades are kinda the worst thing for your body imaginable. They make you slam your heel down, which causes strain on your lower back, and secondly over-extend your knees. All this misaligns your body as you lean forward to run faster…farther…atop your over-extended knee. It’s no wonder why so many runners quit in their 40′s or 50′s with blown out backs, knees, hip pain.
Yet, attempting to side-step said pain by running on flatter shoes (or none at all) was clearly not the right direction for me. Help for the knees and back ended up blowing out the little bones on the top of my feet a number of times. So, I’ve been dejectedly entertaining the notion that perhaps– no. As far as running goes, you can’t teach this old dog new tricks. If I’m going to continue to run, I need to get back out there on my pumped up Nikes or Sauconys or New Balances, continue to pop my Omega 3′s, and just pray that my knees and joints hold out for at least the next decade.
This vaguely depresses me. Because running for me is akin to crack cocaine. Though I’ve never run longer than 5 miles at a stretch, running to me is something like a religion and it keeps me healthy and happy and if not stress-free- definitely stress-reduced.
So- I’ve decided to make a list in the other direction. A list of ways I HAVE changed lately. A reminder of how it IS possible to evolve. That not all attempts to alter one’s foot fall in this life end up in ugly black velcro laden boots that literally look good with zero fashion ensembles. And I’ve tried.
Here goes.
1. I walked into a Carl’s Jr today. I’ve NEVER eaten in a Carl’s Jr! I’ve eaten at many other fast food restaurants in my time, but until today- no love for Carl. This was not hard when you consider the horrid rumors I’ve neard about how he is a low-life racist and gives large amounts of money to politicians who would attempt to bring our country back to the good old days of the early 60′s. Additionally, I frequently scoffed at what I came to decide were Carl’s Jr’s dopey ad campaigns which seem strategically aimed at 15 year old boys. If it’s not some splooch of mustard sliding down the front of some girl’s tight white T-shirt, or glamorizing the amount of mess created from eating a Carl’s Jr burger by counting the napkins needed, it’s the “unreasonable-ness” of sit-down restaurants wanting to charge $6 for a decent hamburger. My god. Why would you ever pay $6 for a hamburger, when you can get something that LOOKS very much like that sit-down restaurant hamburger at Carl’s Jr for almost half that price?! (Where, by the way, is there a non-fast food restaurant serving a burger that’s anywhere near $6? Did anyone else find that to be a strangely silly lowball figure? Almost counter-productive to their own message? I mean, even at a joint like Marie Callendar’s- when you order a hamburger, you better be sure you have at LEAST 10 bucks floating around in your pocket. And that’s not even counting drink and tip!) But I digress. So-
Out running errands this afternoon, I got a hankerin for a hunka burger today for lunch. And seeing as it’s about that time of month I thought- yes Holly. You’re allowed a big old nasty fat burger. You need the protein- you need the iron. Go for it. As I drove toward home with my carnivorous fangs dripping, Carl’s Jr loomed ahead- mere blocks from my gastronomical brainstorm. The drive thru line was around the block. But lo- there was one little parking space left right in front of the entrance. So I swung myself and my big old velcro-festooned boot through the doors and ordered me a Six Dollar Burger. And by golly, if it didn’t turn out to be almost as good as if I had gone to one of those restaurants where they serve real burgers for about $12.95! And, btw, six napkins worth of mess. So there’s some truth in advertising. I’ll probably never align with Carl’s politics, but he now has $6.48 of my money and I was far from dissatisfied.
2. (Remember this was a list?) Here’s another new thing for me: So- I shushed someone I didn’t know today sitting next to me and my kid in our school’s weekly Friday morning “All School Meeting.” (This isn’t really the new thing for me, but I’ll get to that, so bear with me for a little bit.) The ASM, as it’s affectionately called round the hood of our school, is a four parts lovely, two parts frivolous, one part annoying tradition where all kids, parents, teachers, etc meet for (what you hope is) about 35 minutes in the Common area. Kids share songs, skits…fifth graders lead the meetings, thereby culminating their private school elementary experience with a very public display of self-confidence, school information is passed around, sometimes visiting performers come to share their talents. It’s really mostly very nice.
However, for this particularly curmudgeonly mom, I find some elements of the tradition to be tiresome- the most common of which is the propensity for TALKING during the meeting. And I don’t mean kids talking. The students at school are for the most part fairly kind, helpful, thoughtful people. They are capable of actually sitting around for a long time criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with a bare minimum of disruption. Perhaps because these meetings are weekly, the kids get used to shutting up and mostly paying attention. And mostly not talking to their friends who might be sitting right next to them or across the room. I cannot say the same thing about the adults. It’s the PARENTS who tend to be so frigging annoying. It’s the clueless entitled private school PARENTS who cannot seem to stop talking to each other during ASM. As if the code of silence only applies to their younguns and not to them. As if politeness is an overly tight snakeskin that one eventually molts out of. Well, I for one don’t agree. I don’t go often any more to these all school meetings, but when I do, I try as hard as I can to mirror for the kids what I think it is we are attempting to teach them with our communal silence and attention to whatever is happening onstage– self control and respect for others.
So today I had it. There was a middle aged man and his teenage son sitting next to me and my son just yakking away during the beginning of the meeting. Now, I didn’t recognize them so it is possible they were visiting relatives of one of the students– perhaps even one of the fifth graders leading the meeting. But suffice to say, there was plenty of “shushing” at the onset of the meeting, so it seemed evident to me there was no lack of clarity about the desire for- the need for- silence from the audience. And the meeting begins- and there’s some talk. And then a song that we’re all singing together- a call and response sort of thing. And during both the call, and the response this father and his son are still talking to each other in regular voices. Not even really an attempt to whisper at all. And I’m starting to boil with rage. (Did I mention it’s about that time of the month for me? Just so we’re clear.) Because it’s really the lack of awareness that just niggles at me. It’s the lack of ability to apparently realize you’re in a room with many OTHER individuals who are there together- trying to co-create an experience. That maybe just shutting the fuck UP might be the best thing to do. You can giggle with your teenage son after the thing is over. So, I try to sit on it. Try to sit on it. Sit. Just sit, Holly. Just Sit on– and then I can’t any longer, and instead of slightly turning my head, vaguely looking into the middle of nowhere and uttering some sort of passive aggressive “ShhHHH” like I would imagine might be the normally accepted way of handling the situation, I actually turn to completely face these two and say something like, “Hey, could you both stop talking please? It’s loud and hard to concentrate.” There’s a pause. And then because I am literally 28.9 cm away from them both and have to spend the rest of the meeting sitting next to them, I turn back to mitigate a bit and say, “I’m sorry if I sound really rude, but it’s just distracting. Thank you.” Both the father and son say nothing. They sort of glare at me as if they realize they’ve accidentally opted to sit next to the school crazy. Then they look away haughtily. And I look away. And that’s the end of the encounter.
But now here’s the part that belongs in my list today. This is new for me: I was relatively calm afterwards. My heart did not continue to beat hard after I said my little piece. I was able to breathe normally and not regret what I had said. I did not feel the need to further mitigate the situation. I did not feel the need to try to make myself more likable and look at them later with apologetic eyes, which I believe is what my slightly younger self would have done. In other words, I believe I’m getting a little better at speaking my truth and letting it hang in the air without needing to make anyone else comfortable. That’s a biggie for me.
3. Ok. What else? I could list how I recently took my kids on a plane by myself (bootlegged) to Atlanta over spring break and how I didn’t let my peri-menopausal CRUSHING travel anxiety get the better of me. (I love you, Ativan.) Or I could say something about how when during my trip to the doc three days ago to re-check some hormone levels, and my well-intentioned GP mentioned something about how my facial melasma looks really bad- like it’s gotten worse- and it must be because I didn’t have any makeup on, I didn’t go down the self-esteem rabbit hole. Despite the fact that I had just seconds before her entrance been applying foundation to my face with the few minutes I had to myself in the exam room. Nor did I really care to inform her that for six months now I’ve been applying a very expensive bleaching cream that my dermatologist has recommended to me and that actually, my melasma is significantly better than it was the last time I saw her. I think she was trying to be supportive of my assertion that my estrogen is rising. (Melasma is a sign of high estrogen. I think she was trying to be a Yes Girl.)
4. Ah wait– I’ve got one. This is good. Two weeks ago I had a gig at a local joint. Fun place- two blocks from my house. And I hobbled over on my boot. Ready to rock it onstage with the Black Velcroed Wonder. And I brought out– for the very first time– my Fender Telecaster. Which is an electric guitar, for those who don’t know. And for those who don’t know me, I’d NEVER played my Fender Telecaster onstage before – never. Though the guitar was cool looking, and though I had posed with it slung on my back for the cover of my third album, and though the guitar came to me out of the blue- literally showed up on my doorstep one day back in 2001 after I’d put out my first record (I unwittingly won some online contest that I hadn’t even entered myself in) –I could not bring myself to play it. In fact, until 10 days ago, it still sported the same lightweight strings that it came with, propped up against my front door back in 2001 with a congratulatory note taped to it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play the Telecaster. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to honor the nudge that the universal forces were apparently giving me right at the dawn of my recording career. It was just that the thought of figuring out what sort of AMP to buy for it, and what kind of STRINGS it might require and how it might change the way I was already haltingly picking and struming my acoustic guitar… I just wasn’t READY for it, I decided. The universe is never wrong, but in this case, I had decided the universe had shown up to the party a little early and would just have to hang around by the buffet with a drink and wait for the rest of the party guests to arrive.
So of course I didn’t play it or even pay any attention to it for a long time. And when any musician would come over to practice with me and notice the poor neglected Tele leaning expectantly in its stand in the corner of my office, he would comment on how- Oh Hol! I didn’t know you had a Fender! That’s cool. Why don’t you ever play it? And then the litany of whys would pour out of me.
And it wasn’t until 2012 that I really decided to own the ONLY reason why I wasn’t playing this delightful gift of the Magi that showed up like Moses in the basket to Pharoh’s wife. I wasn’t playing this guitar because I was SCARED. I was scared of trying something I didn’t know how to do. I was terrified of my eventual trips to Guitar Center armed with my little Tele, forced to go ask one of the tattoo encrusted sales dudes, “What kind of amp do you think I should buy for this guitar?” And I would be forced to say “I don’t know anything about anything when it comes to pedals and sounds and effects. I only know that they exist and that I won this guitar and I should probably start playing around with some gear and such and stuff.” I didn’t want to appear as the Soccer-Mom-Wanna-Be-Middle-Age Rockster whose smiling face would soon grace an ad-hoc WANTED poster in the Guitar Center break room: ”Seen this tall, slightly wrinkly, totally clueless loser? Warning- knows nothing about anything! If you happen to encounter, pitch only expensive reject guitar gear. She apparently has dough to burn! Claims to play the “keyboard.”
I finally swallowed my pride this month and borrowed a cool little amp. And a tremolo pedal. And immediately wrote a song on the 11 year old lightweight strings. And then showed up armed with said guitar, amp, pedal and song to my gig of two weeks ago. The best part is of course, the high E string broke onstage just as I was about to play the new tune. Though I played it anyway- struggling every moment with the guitar wailing painfully out of tune. See, when one string is missing on the neck of the guitar, the balance of tension gets all off and it will pull the remainder of the strings off their game. It was hilarious listening to my guitar in the monitor get softer and softer as the song progressed. (Thank you sound man.) Luckily, I was performing with my pal Eric who is a SMOKIN guitarist and who sort of took over the song even though he had never heard it and was wingin it the whole way through. Suffice to say, the song rocked. Even though I did not on my Fender Tele.
So there’s more. But I believe I have now reached the organic end of this blog post. It feels like it’s done. I think I’ve made my point to myself and the millions of tiny etheral quarks which surround me as I sit here typing away that I am indeed, if only very slowly and very slightly, evolving. I am learning to face my fears one broken guitar string at a time. I am edging farther away from my safe position of moralism, and learning to live who am I more consistently. Even though I may irritate a fellow human being or two seated next to me. Even though I may accomplish something as mundane and unnecessary as patronizing a fast food restaurant.
Because I suppose I can still surprise even myself. And that is something I never want to break.
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Or at least I hope that's where they are in their educational process, because when Jo asked me question number 4- what is your favorite poem and/or who is your favorite poet? I spit out my knee-jerk answer before she even got to and/or. My favorite poem- that's easy- that's a cinch. My favorite poem is "The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" by TS Eliot. (Though he is perhaps not my overall favorite poet- that position belongs more squarely in Whitman's camp. Or maybe Dickinson or Plath. Eliot is phenomenal, but really beyond Prufrock I'm not as rabid a fan.)
And I love how my daughter decided, after I read her the entire poem at her request that because of my choice, I am a 'sophistocate.' (Perhaps only by proxy, right? The poem is just about one of the most elegant collection of words strung together upon this coil of mortality in the entire history of human writing. And though Josephine understood perhaps less than 10% of it, she did absorb the depth and universal ringtone.)
I mean really, yes- I took a 19th-20th Century Modern Poetry course in my sophomore year of college and thereupon had my mind blown open by the genius of the classics of that period. But by no means am I some sort of poetry guru. I feel as if saying Prufrock is my favorite poem is almost as bland as confessing that the Beatles might be my favorite pop band.
But who cares. To my rosebud 10 year old, just opening her petals to all the glorious pieces of human creation that are out there in this big old wide world, I am a giant of intellect. A monster of sophistication. Awesome- let's just let that one ride for awhile.
After my sincere presentation of the Eliot monument to my daughter, I sat a little breathless. Again wrapped in the clarity of this man's feeling. And how as I grow older (and roll my trousers ever higher) I just keep living this piece of poetry. I just keep falling down in deeper and deeper into its beautiful human melancholy.
Which reminded me- hey! I wrote a blog about this very thing perhaps a little less than a year ago! The end of last spring. And I posted it up on my old blog on hollylong.com. It was called "The Fake Plastic Lovesong of J Alfred Long" because it was equally an homage to Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Watering Can". A dual love song, as it were.
So, I think I'd like to repost it here and now upon revisiting this poem in the most achingly gorgeous of ways-- me with a glass of wine in my hand, lemonade in my kids,' and quiet tears perched haltingly in each of our eyes.
I humbly present to you a re-run of "THE FAKE PLASTIC LOVESONG OF H ALFRED LONG." I hope you dig in:
I cannot think of a more beautiful poem than The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I had the distinct aching joy of a re-introduction to it today as I sat basking in a sea of my favorite songs of all time. (Brought to you by Spotify. Itunes for the music obsessed.) Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" was spinning for the third time in a row- maybe fourth. I just kept pressing play as the swelling third verse brought stinging tears to my eyes' corners and burgeoning mucus to all membranes-- a barely leveed flood for the face and the heart.
And as "She lives with a broken man. A cracked polystyrene man who just crumbles and burns" floats out of Thom Yorke's blotchy redheaded mouth, I must read Prufrock. "She looks like the real thing- she tastes like the real thing..." Yorke pleads. And I'm pulling up All the Women Come and Go- Talking of Michelangelo.
And now the tears that were teasing and stinging in my ducts now come roaring down, bellowing out like clear lava forming little caves and ravines of Prescription Formula Number 40 foundation on my cheeks. Because as it wears out Yorke's cracked plastic surgeon who eventually loses out to gravity every time, I am reaching desperately toward Eliot's "attendant lord- no- not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. One that will do, though, to swell a progress, start a scene or two. At times indeed almost ridiculous. Almost at times the Fool."
And I can no longer remain sitting up straight. I am bowled over from the middle - cut in half- reduced to wracked sobbing. Quiet, long streams of wails emitting out of my mouth with the searing gorgeous painful truth of these lovely, wretched human souls.
Because you see- my grandmother is losing her mind.
And I am going to visit her this weekend with my mother and my aunt. We are all purposefully traveling to the middle of the country- to the bread basket, the heartland of America-- to Salina Kansas. We are coming to hold her and envelope her and guide her like whatshisname over the river Styx as her life passes from its final stages of rich independent livlihood to the waiting room of death that is Salina Kansas' best assisted-living retirement community-- The Manor. This barely disguised hole of finality. Encased in soft ecru and mauve tones-- damask on the pillows of the overstuffed couches. This is where my Nana Ruth will now reside until the last of her days. It is where her mother, Lula Mae Buchanan (nee Moon) spent the last decade of her years. It is where most of her friends currently live. It is the beginning of the end.
And there's something about being roughly half her age now, roughly half of what she's accumulated in wisdom and experience- in Prufrock's measured coffee spoons- that makes me swoon with recognition at both the Radiohead lead characters in "Fake Plastic Trees" as well as Eliot's Hamlet substitute. A man balding slowly- losing virility- losing gravity- losing sense of purpose and power that he is finding was all an illusion anyway.
So- perhaps- more the crumpled styrene surgeon coming to terms with the scales always being tipped in gravity's favor- I dig, I dig, I dig that space. I vibe to that- I get it. I live it. I awaken at 4 am to the hour of the wolf with sweaty palms and a heart beat too fast for such an hour lying in a supine position obsessed and anxious about only the big issues. Death. The end. The destruction. The last desperate squeeze of the heart- the squish of the blood through the valves. The end of being here and now as I know it.
And I wonder at what must be running through the brain of my grandmother. As her brain slowly calcifies- denying her access to the most basic of information that had been hers for the taking for decades. I wonder at her current concept of her reality. She forgets names, dates, having taken her multitude of medicines on time or not, the story she just told you 10 minutes ago that she'll tell you again...but perhaps is her reality any closer to actual reality? Now that she's sinking deeper into the chasm of The Manor? Of hospital-like fluorescents in the hallways (only turned on after 11pm through the night) and of oatmeal berber carpet on the living space of her 250 square foot apartment to enable easier cleaning? Is she somehow more able to grasp the moment to moment child like view of the world that allows her an ability to live somehow more presently? Or is it just a constant sea of o confusion. That in and of itself, possiblly a more authentic way of looking at the human experience.
I am not a stranger to confusion myself. Though I have not been friends with it so much. Confusion has at times brought about rage at my own limitations or misfortunes. Confusion has convinced me that I have Not Done It Right so many times at the 4am witching hour. I wonder if Confusion is really a starting point- a launching pad from which we (I) should more often be comfortable launching. Or not. Perhaps just camping out upon.
"I grow old...I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
And now I am traveling back in time. To a world not so long ago- not so distant in time or space. A world right here in sunny smoggy Los Angeles. A world of beginnings and sex and possibilities where I am running--late-- to my 3rd quarter junior year poetry class at UCLA's Royce Hall. My long tanned limbs are beating the stones of the old-world section of campus clad in some short flowy 80's mini skirt. I most assuredly have some white high heeled leather booties on my feet, making it hard for me to run very fast. But I am not even 21, and so my joints and bones and cartilage are all very up to the task. No physical repercussions are forthcoming. And this poetry class is a course I had every right, and every privilege to be able to sign up for.
Because, you see, I am a theater major- attaining my bachelor's degree as an artist. I am a student of every subject. And so I am allowed to take astronomy- ancient Chinese History, European Art History of the 17th-19th Centuries, a TV class where I learn how to run a 3 camera studio shoot a la "Cheers" or "Archie Bunker."
And I sail into class and find an empty seat near the door just as my efficiently artsy and bespectacled sweater vest professor jabs passionately in the air with his pencil and tells us vehemently to turn to page 426 of our Anthology Of Poetry. For today we will tackle Prufrock. Today we will start at least on the first two paragraphs- we will analyze, we will wrack our brains, we will work caringly, dilligently and slowly through this work. Because this might be perhaps the most accomplished of all the post modern poems- this just might be our anthem for the Western World through time immemorial. And I am engaged and titillated by such talk. I have heard vaguely about this poem- though I have no real knowledge of it. I'm just busy crossing my legs and adjusting my very short very fashionable mini skirt so that any of the potentially inquisitive men- young or old- sitting vaguely in front of me might not get such a wanton show should Prufrock not prove as absorbing as sweater vest professes it will.
And we begin our reading. And I remember immediately being drawn by the cadence of the thing. By the words themselves and how they presented next to each other. By the sheer juxtaposition of language- I remember thinking- this is deep. This is dense. This is a grouping of words that deserves my utmost attention and this is the sort of thing I hoped to encounter when I decided to enroll in such a course- this is the very kind of 'message' that I need to be able to learn how to take in and absorb. Yes- bring it, Prufrock. Bring it to my young eager overly sensitized intellectualized brain stem. Push this up past my white booties and though the cotton of my skirt up through the reach of my spine past any young bouncy bodily section of me and plant this firmly in the old tree root that I know is my heart. Put 'er there, TS- you know you've got a friend in me.
But for all my yearning- for all my desire- Prufrock was no more than a beautiful masterful tapestry of divine syllables then and for a long time afterwards. It was strings of pearly words draped neatly and deftly upon each other. Back in 1991, I had no more idea what to make of J Alfred Prufrock than I would have a urine stained nursing home bed pan. And now... And now somehow. I am closer. I do.
Now I think no more of this poem in terms of its paragraphs- of its "stanzas"- of the Michelangelo theme refrain...of its catchy clever phrases. No - now I consume this poem as a whole. As a big juicy pear that doesn't actually satisfy, but feeds anyway. In fact- it is so nutritious for me, I almost don't even need to read beyond the first few paragraphs. Once the evening has spread itself against the sky like an anesthetized patient, and we're remembering the sawdust restaurant floors covered in oyster shells, I only really need to get to the yellow fog rubbing its back and muzzle on the window panes, and I'm already there. I'm already breaking. "Fake Plastic Trees" hasn't even mentioned the surgeon, and I'm gripped in the throes of the deepest most profound bourgois ennui that is so painstakingly executed by Eliot's Prufrock. And somehow so gorgeously set to music by Radiohead.
I am thankful for the recognition of this new juxtaposition for me. I am not looking forward to seeing my grandmother, though I do love her deeply and soundly and want so much to make a difference and help this passage for her be if only slightly less burdensome. As I hope some loved one will do for me one day.
"Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question...Oh, do not ask, "what is it?" Let us go and make our visit."
I am coming to see you Nana.
I cannot think of a more beautiful poem than The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I had the distinct aching joy of a re-introduction to it today as I sat basking in a sea of my favorite songs of all time. (Brought to you by Spotify. Itunes for the music obsessed.) Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” was spinning for the third time in a row- maybe fourth. I just kept pressing play as the swelling third verse brought stinging tears to my eyes’ corners and burgeoning mucus to all membranes– a barely leveed flood for the face and the heart. And as “She lives with a broken man. A cracked polystyrene man who just crumbles and burns” floats out of Thom Yorke’s blotchy redheaded mouth, I must read Prufrock. ”She looks like the real thing- she tastes like the real thing…” Yorke pleads. And I’m pulling up All the Women Come and Go- Talking of Michelangelo.
And now the tears that were teasing and stinging in my ducts now come roaring down, bellowing out like clear lava forming little caves and ravines of Prescription Formula Number 40 foundation on my cheeks. Because as it wears out Yorke’s cracked plastic surgeon who eventually loses out to gravity every time, I am reaching desperately toward Eliot’s “attendant lord- no- not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. One that will do, though, to swell a progress, start a scene or two. At times indeed almost ridiculous. Almost at times the Fool.”
And I can no longer remain sitting up straight. I am bowled over from the middle – cut in half- reduced to wracked sobbing. Quiet, long streams of wails emitting out of my mouth with the searing gorgeous painful truth of these lovely, wretched human souls.
Because you see- my grandmother is losing her mind.
And I am going to visit her this weekend with my mother and my aunt. We are all purposefully traveling to the middle of the country- to the bread basket, the heartland of America– to Salina Kansas. We are coming to hold her and envelope her and guide her like whatshisname over the river Styx as her life passes from its final stages of rich independent livlihood to the waiting room of death that is Salina Kansas’ best assisted-living retirement community– The Manor. This barely disguised hole of finality. Encased in soft ecru and mauve tones– damask on the pillows of the overstuffed couches. This is where my Nana Ruth will now reside until the last of her days. It is where her mother, Lula Mae Buchanan (nee Moon) spent the last decade of her years. It is where most of her friends currently live. It is the beginning of the end.
And there’s something about being roughly half her age now, roughly half of what she’s accumulated in wisdom and experience- in Prufrock’s measured tea spoons- that makes me swoon with recognition at both the Radiohead lead characters in “Fake Plastic Trees” as well as Eliot’s Hamlet substitute. A man balding slowly- losing virility- losing gravity- losing sense of purpose and power that he is finding was all an illusion anyway. So- perhaps- more the crumpled styrene surgeon coming to terms with the scales always being tipped in gravity’s favor- I dig, I dig, I dig that space. I vibe to that- I get it. I live it. I awaken at 4 am to the hour of the wolf with sweaty palms and a heart beat too fast for such an hour lying in a supine position obsessed and anxious about only the big issues. Death. The end. The destruction. The last desperate squeeze of the heart- the squish of the blood through the valves. The end of being here and now as I know it.
And I wonder at what must be running through the brain of my grandmother. As her brain slowly calcifies- denying her access to the most basic of information that had been hers for the taking for decades. I wonder at her current concept of her reality. She forgets names, dates, having taken her multitude of medicines on time or not, the story she just told you 10 minutes ago that she’ll tell you again…but perhaps is her reality any closer to actual reality? Now that she’s sinking deeper into the chasm of The Manor? Of hospital-like fluorescents in the hallways (only turned on after 11pm through the night) and of oatmeal berber carpet on the living space of her 250 square foot apartment to enable easier cleaning? Is she somehow more able to grasp the moment to moment child like view of the world that allows her an ability to live somehow more presently? Or is it just a constant sea of o confusion. That in and of itself, possiblly a more authentic way of looking at the human experience.
I am not a stranger to confusion myself. Though I have not been friends with it so much. Confusion has at times brought about rage at my own limitations or misfortunes. Confusion has convinced me that I have Not Done It Right so many times at the 4am witching hour. I wonder if Confusion is really a starting point- a launching pad from which we (I) should more often be comfortable launching. Or not. Perhaps just camping out upon.
“I grow old…I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
And now I am traveling back in time. To a world not so long ago- not so distant in time or space. A world right here in sunny smoggy Los Angeles. A world of beginnings and sex and possibilities where I am running–late– to my 3rd quarter junior year poetry class at UCLA’s Royce Hall. My long tanned limbs are beating the stones of the old-world section of campus clad in some short flowy 80′s mini skirt. I most assuredly have some white high heeled leather booties on my feet, making it hard for me to run very fast. But I am not even 21, and so my joints and bones and cartilage are all very up to the task. No physical repercussions are forthcoming. And this poetry class is a course I had every right, and every privilege to be able to sign up for. Because, you see, I am a theater major- attaining my bachelor’s degree as an artist. I am a student of every subject. And so I am allowed to take astronomy- ancient Chinese History, European Art History of the 17th-19th Centuries, a TV class where I learn how to run a 3 camera studio shoot a la “Cheers” or “Archie Bunker.”
And I sail into class and find an empty seat near the door just as my efficiently artsy and bespectacled sweater vest professor jabs passionately in the air with his pencil and tells us vehemently to turn to page 426 of our Anthology Of Poetry. For today we will tackle Prufrock. Today we will start at least on the first two paragraphs- we will analyze, we will wrack our brains, we will work caringly, dilligently and slowly through this work. Because this might be perhaps the most accomplished of all the post modern poems- this just might be our anthem for the Western World through time immemorial. And I am engaged and titillated by such talk. I have heard vaguely about this poem- though I have no real knowledge of it. I’m just busy crossing my legs and adjusting my very short very fashionable mini skirt so that any of the potentially inquisitive men- young or old- sitting vaguely in front of me might not get such a wanton show should Prufrock not prove as absorbing as sweater vest professes it will.
And we begin our reading. And I remember immediately being drawn by the cadence of the thing. By the words themselves and how they presented next to each other. By the sheer juxtaposition of language- I remember thinking- this is deep. This is dense. This is a grouping of words that deserves my utmost attention and this is the sort of thing I hoped to encounter when I decided to enroll in such a course- this is the very kind of ‘message’ that I need to be able to learn how to take in and absorb. Yes- bring it, Prufrock. Bring it to my young eager overly sensitized intellectualized brain stem. Push this up past my white booties and though the cotton of my skirt up through the reach of my spine past any young bouncy bodily section of me and plant this firmly in the old tree root that I know is my heart. Put ‘er there, TS- you know you’ve got a friend in me.
But for all my yearning- for all my desire- Prufrock was no more than a beautiful masterful tapestry of divine syllables then and for a long time afterwards. It was strings of pearly words draped neatly and deftly upon each other. Back in 1991, I had no more idea what to make of J Alfred Prufrock than I would have a urine stained nursing home bed pan. And now… And now somehow. I am closer. I do.
Now I think no more of this poem in terms of its paragraphs- of its “stanzas”- of the Michelangelo theme refrain…of its catchy clever phrases. No – now I consume this poem as a whole. As a big juicy pear that doesn’t actually satisfy, but feeds anyway. In fact- it is so nutritious for me, I almost don’t even need to read beyond the first few paragraphs. Once the evening has spread itself against the sky like an anesthetized patient, and we’re remembering the sawdust restaurant floors covered in oyster shells, I only really need to get to the yellow fog rubbing its back and muzzle on the window panes, and I’m already there. I’m already breaking. “Fake Plastic Trees” hasn’t even mentioned the surgeon, and I’m gripped in the throes of the deepest most profound bourgois ennui that is so painstakingly executed by Eliot’s Prufrock. And somehow so gorgeously set to music by Radiohead.
I am thankful for the recognition of this new juxtaposition for me. I am not looking forward to seeing my grandmother, though I do love her deeply and soundly and want so much to make a difference and help this passage for her be if only slightly less burdensome. As I hope some loved one will do for me one day.
“Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question…Oh, do not ask, “what is it?” Let us go and make our visit.”
I am coming to see you Nana.
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And now the tears that were teasing and stinging in my ducts now come roaring down, bellowing out like clear lava forming little caves and ravines of Prescription Formula Number 40 foundation on my cheeks. Because as it wears out Yorke’s cracked plastic surgeon who eventually loses out to gravity every time, I am reaching desperately toward Eliot’s “attendant lord- no- not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. One that will do, though, to swell a progress, start a scene or two. At times indeed almost ridiculous. Almost at times the Fool.”
And I can no longer remain sitting up straight. I am bowled over from the middle – cut in half- reduced to wracked sobbing. Quiet, long streams of wails emitting out of my mouth with the searing gorgeous painful truth of these lovely, wretched human souls.
Because you see- my grandmother is losing her mind.
And I am going to visit her this weekend with my mother and my aunt. We are all purposefully traveling to the middle of the country- to the bread basket, the heartland of America– to Salina Kansas. We are coming to hold her and envelope her and guide her like whatshisname over the river Styx as her life passes from its final stages of rich independent livlihood to the waiting room of death that is Salina Kansas’ best assisted-living retirement community– The Manor. This barely disguised hole of finality. Encased in soft ecru and mauve tones– damask on the pillows of the overstuffed couches. This is where my Nana Ruth will now reside until the last of her days. It is where her mother, Lula Mae Buchanan (nee Moon) spent the last decade of her years. It is where most of her friends currently live. It is the beginning of the end.
And there’s something about being roughly half her age now, roughly half of what she’s accumulated in wisdom and experience- in Prufrock’s measured tea spoons- that makes me swoon with recognition at both the Radiohead lead characters in “Fake Plastic Trees” as well as Eliot’s Hamlet substitute. A man balding slowly- losing virility- losing gravity- losing sense of purpose and power that he is finding was all an illusion anyway. So- perhaps- more the crumpled styrene surgeon coming to terms with the scales always being tipped in gravity’s favor- I dig, I dig, I dig that space. I vibe to that- I get it. I live it. I awaken at 4 am to the hour of the wolf with sweaty palms and a heart beat too fast for such an hour lying in a supine position obsessed and anxious about only the big issues. Death. The end. The destruction. The last desperate squeeze of the heart- the squish of the blood through the valves. The end of being here and now as I know it.
And I wonder at what must be running through the brain of my grandmother. As her brain slowly calcifies- denying her access to the most basic of information that had been hers for the taking for decades. I wonder at her current concept of her reality. She forgets names, dates, having taken her multitude of medicines on time or not, the story she just told you 10 minutes ago that she’ll tell you again…but perhaps is her reality any closer to actual reality? Now that she’s sinking deeper into the chasm of The Manor? Of hospital-like fluorescents in the hallways (only turned on after 11pm through the night) and of oatmeal berber carpet on the living space of her 250 square foot apartment to enable easier cleaning? Is she somehow more able to grasp the moment to moment child like view of the world that allows her an ability to live somehow more presently? Or is it just a constant sea of o confusion. That in and of itself, possiblly a more authentic way of looking at the human experience.
I am not a stranger to confusion myself. Though I have not been friends with it so much. Confusion has at times brought about rage at my own limitations or misfortunes. Confusion has convinced me that I have Not Done It Right so many times at the 4am witching hour. I wonder if Confusion is really a starting point- a launching pad from which we (I) should more often be comfortable launching. Or not. Perhaps just camping out upon.
“I grow old…I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
And now I am traveling back in time. To a world not so long ago- not so distant in time or space. A world right here in sunny smoggy Los Angeles. A world of beginnings and sex and possibilities where I am running–late– to my 3rd quarter junior year poetry class at UCLA’s Royce Hall. My long tanned limbs are beating the stones of the old-world section of campus clad in some short flowy 80′s mini skirt. I most assuredly have some white high heeled leather booties on my feet, making it hard for me to run very fast. But I am not even 21, and so my joints and bones and cartilage are all very up to the task. No physical repercussions are forthcoming. And this poetry class is a course I had every right, and every privilege to be able to sign up for. Because, you see, I am a theater major- attaining my bachelor’s degree as an artist. I am a student of every subject. And so I am allowed to take astronomy- ancient Chinese History, European Art History of the 17th-19th Centuries, a TV class where I learn how to run a 3 camera studio shoot a la “Cheers” or “Archie Bunker.”
And I sail into class and find an empty seat near the door just as my efficiently artsy and bespectacled sweater vest professor jabs passionately in the air with his pencil and tells us vehemently to turn to page 426 of our Anthology Of Poetry. For today we will tackle Prufrock. Today we will start at least on the first two paragraphs- we will analyze, we will wrack our brains, we will work caringly, dilligently and slowly through this work. Because this might be perhaps the most accomplished of all the post modern poems- this just might be our anthem for the Western World through time immemorial. And I am engaged and titillated by such talk. I have heard vaguely about this poem- though I have no real knowledge of it. I’m just busy crossing my legs and adjusting my very short very fashionable mini skirt so that any of the potentially inquisitive men- young or old- sitting vaguely in front of me might not get such a wanton show should Prufrock not prove as absorbing as sweater vest professes it will.
And we begin our reading. And I remember immediately being drawn by the cadence of the thing. By the words themselves and how they presented next to each other. By the sheer juxtaposition of language- I remember thinking- this is deep. This is dense. This is a grouping of words that deserves my utmost attention and this is the sort of thing I hoped to encounter when I decided to enroll in such a course- this is the very kind of ‘message’ that I need to be able to learn how to take in and absorb. Yes- bring it, Prufrock. Bring it to my young eager overly sensitized intellectualized brain stem. Push this up past my white booties and though the cotton of my skirt up through the reach of my spine past any young bouncy bodily section of me and plant this firmly in the old tree root that I know is my heart. Put ‘er there, TS- you know you’ve got a friend in me.
But for all my yearning- for all my desire- Prufrock was no more than a beautiful masterful tapestry of divine syllables then and for a long time afterwards. It was strings of pearly words draped neatly and deftly upon each other. Back in 1991, I had no more idea what to make of J Alfred Prufrock than I would have a urine stained nursing home bed pan. And now… And now somehow. I am closer. I do.
Now I think no more of this poem in terms of its paragraphs- of its “stanzas”- of the Michelangelo theme refrain…of its catchy clever phrases. No – now I consume this poem as a whole. As a big juicy pear that doesn’t actually satisfy, but feeds anyway. In fact- it is so nutritious for me, I almost don’t even need to read beyond the first few paragraphs. Once the evening has spread itself against the sky like an anesthetized patient, and we’re remembering the sawdust restaurant floors covered in oyster shells, I only really need to get to the yellow fog rubbing its back and muzzle on the window panes, and I’m already there. I’m already breaking. “Fake Plastic Trees” hasn’t even mentioned the surgeon, and I’m gripped in the throes of the deepest most profound bourgois ennui that is so painstakingly executed by Eliot’s Prufrock. And somehow so gorgeously set to music by Radiohead.
I am thankful for the recognition of this new juxtaposition for me. I am not looking forward to seeing my grandmother, though I do love her deeply and soundly and want so much to make a difference and help this passage for her be if only slightly less burdensome. As I hope some loved one will do for me one day.
“Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question…Oh, do not ask, “what is it?” Let us go and make our visit.”
I am coming to see you Nana.
Skin In The Game
April 20, 2012When I was in my twenties, I had the strange privilege and the desperate misfortune of living through a particularly deadly health disorder called Endocarditis. It’s a massive bacterial infection of the heart- either the lining or a valve, which brings on systematic organ shutdown and if left untreated for a mere few days to a week, will lead to death. The great composer and conductor Gustav Mahler died of Endocarditis (as I recently discovered.) The wondrous icon Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and Sesame Street, died of it too.
I mention my bout with Endocarditis briefly in my bio on my website. In fact, it used to take up more space on the page- as it took up more space in my brain the closer the events were in proximity to my current life. My spotty memories of that rush to the ICU- the hazy unconsciousness/coma state brought on by intensely high fever- the slow awakening from this near death state-the dread of realizing how direly ill I had become- the hope and strength and terror and countless procedures and bags and bags of liquid antibiotics that lead me to recovery—all that…all of it used to loom large as the most foundational memory in my life. Because it changed everything about my life. My body was forever scarred and changed and ultimately healed, but my spirit and soul were also more deeply rooted suddenly in the here and now. I felt what it was like to come to the brink of death, and feel powerless, and terrified, and then to be saved from it all, excruciatingly slowly and painfully, one step at a time over the course of over a year after my month long hospital stay.
It wasn’t really until my children were born in my thirties that any event eclipsed this Endocarditis in my mind. And I believe I decided to give birth to my first child, Josephine, without the use of an epidural because somewhere deep inside of me I wanted to know I was a kick ass survivor. That I had won over the bacteria- that my body was strong and vital and healthy and that I could birth another human into this world without drugs—that I just needed my bottom dwelling primal yells and Deep Mother Chi.
(It didn’t really work that way. I mean, maybe it did on paper. But in actuality, I puked and shook and wheedled the whole 24 hours worth for pain killers. My doula kept me on track through all of my blubbering assertions that I knew I was not going to make it. Through the pooping the table and the clutching her fingers and sobbing like a toddler who’s just realized he’s not the only human being on earth…so yes- I did successfully give birth to Jo without an epidural. A process I would never recommend to anyone. Ever. Turns out, the primal screams were there- that part happened. They were deep and guttural and would have scared the bejesus out of me if I wasn’t already so fucking terrified– SO sure that my body was going to rip itself in half and I was going to die a horrible primeval death by alien life form exeunting from twixt the center of me.)
But I did it.
And then two years later, I did it again- I gave birth a second time. And when the puking and the light-headedness and shakes started again during labor, I took my same doula by the collar of her sweet hand-crocheted baby blue bunny festooned sweater and told her to get me the effing epidural NOW. And she did. And so Truman was born in a haze of sweet dozing sleep as opposed to Josephine who came into the world sort of like the Nazis bombing London.
And it was only these two experiences that shook the Endocarditis out of its Kingly position in my memory. It was only the revisitation of a different hospital (Cedars for the heart infection- UCLA Santa Monica for the kids) that superceded the original hospital experience. I basically just swapped mauve tiles for light minty green. One squeaky waxed linoleum floor for another. One achingly ugly Aztec pine framed print above my head for another equally as soulless and sad.
Though all the smells were the same. Hospital smells. The smells of the beginning and the end of lives. Bleachy cleaners. Floor wax. Urine. Citrus room freshener. Mild liquid body cleanser- no added dyes or odors. Lilies. Daisies. Death.
I don’t live in those memories very often. I do like to ritually revisit the birth stories of my kids for each of them on their respective birthdays- but only if they want to go there with me. I would never press those moments on them- though it is fun to go through the first early photos in each of their baby books. Look at the bracelets. Trace their first footy prints and feel the lock of hair.
(I may have missed my calling as a professional Scrapbooker actually. Though I didn’t and I don’t keep EVERYTHING- I’m a stickler for photos in books. In the right order. With terse captions if necessary. And yes, I’ve scrapbooked our families’ big vacations- was in charge of my own wedding book. Honeymoon album. None of them are ridiculous or overly splendid in any way, but I do have a knack for it. Jesus, don’t tell anyone- it will TOTALLY screw with my hard-ass rocker mom rep.)
On the other end of the spectrum- I have happily stopped revisiting my brush with death so often. That big ripe bundle of memories is mostly safely tucked away on the top shelf of a very dark closet in my brain now, and it only comes out every so often. Unfortunately though, that bundle does tend to come out whenever I am dealing with anything dark and scary- like my childrens’ ongoing health issues, or my own. When my infant son started developing a scary tendency to wheeze and gasp for air in the third month of his life and we discovered he had RSV, I remembered my heart. And then when he had to have surgery to correct a mild birth defect at nine months and they wheeled him away to get aenesthetized, I remembered my heart. And four years later when my daughter came down with a terrifyingly high fever and horrible back pain and had to be hospitalized for 4 days with an acute kidney infection, I remembered my heart.
And then finally this past month what with the initial re-breaking of the foot… and then subsequent scary information I received regarding my beautiful girl’s ongoing bladder issues now having something to do with a tethered spinal cord (SPINAL CORD- gives me sweaty hands just typing it)…and then my own need to revisit the cardiologist to get another look at my Endocarditis-scarred leaky heart valve- getting leakier… it’s been a month of remembering Cedars Sinai. A month of begrudgingly taking down that bundle of santizer soaked hospital memories and having to relive little frightened moments in claustrophobic, fluorescent lit rooms. With tubes sticking out of me and freshly scrubbed healthy men and women poking and prodding and the whole time feeling just so– tired. So desperately….weak…and…broken….and…tired.
And I just want to throw on my running shoes and fly to the beach with some AC/DC blaring in my earpads. To say Fuck You, you magnificent crazy reeling silly scary world! I’m still fucking HERE! I’m alive and my heart is BEATING and I’m running and breathing hard because I’m a motherfucker- you can’t kill me that EASY! But I can’t. Because my foot, she is still healing….
And I just DON”T want to go to Salina Kansas in June to help my mom and my aunt move my grandmother out of her house for the first and last time into an assisted living facility where all her friends now reside because her Alzheimers has finally gotten too severe for her to live alone. I don’t want to be a part of watching the family parcel out her belongings from that beautiful house that used to feel so safe and so lovely and so timeless to me as a kid. But I can’t not go. Because I may not see my grandmother alive for much longer- and she needs me now. And this may be the last time she can actually remember who I am…
And I just want to scoop up my children and hold them close to me and stop time- literally FREEZE it- so that we can just stay in this relatively healthy precious moment together. So that Jo won’t have to go through the fear of small spinal surgery in a few short months. So that Truman won’t wake up with another night terror and have to fall back to sleep shivering and clinging to me in mommy and daddy’s bed (a habit he developed a few years ago, and still has occasional dealings with.) So that they won’t have to crack open my chest—which they will eventually have to do whether this decade of my life or the next. And I will have to again fumble with the ties of that flimsy cheap pastel hospital gown, open in the back for all to see. I will again have to pad down the waxed linoleum floored halls wheeling my IV …face pale and slightly sweaty from the effort of walking…again in recovery. Again. Resting and healing my poor body after they’ve put a small saw through my breastplate and carefully replaced my fluttery, thickened human valve with one from a generous, not so fortunate swine.
But these are just fantasies. Fantasties that I can avoid these and all subsequent frightening moments in my life. Fantasies that I won’t have to go through the crying jags and the heart palpitations and the white knuckle minutes that seem to last days and the dry heaving in the toilets. I cannot pretend. Because as one of my best friends said the other day- “You have too much skin in the game, Hol.” This is the beauty of our lives- this is everything that’s worth anything and this is the center of the horror now.
It’s not that I’m actually all that esoterically afraid of dying anymore. Barring a suicidal end, when and how I die is basically not going to be up to me- and I’m more ok with that than I’ve ever been. Having to live with a chronic heart condition has enabled me to have a dialogue with death like I simply was not able to do previous to my infection. So, I’m far from “fine” with it. But I think I can mostly make peace with simply dying- because it’s the next thing. It’s the next portal through which we all pass eventually.
But it’s the thought of those that I would leave behind that now torture my life-filled, heart beating soul when I must come to the precipice of thinking about death. Now that I’ve swapped mauve tiles for light green, I’ve got too much skin in the game to make anything easy. Everything is costly now. Everything is beautifully, painfully important.
Now that there are two breathing living life forms that came bounding out from twixt the center of me- it’s all changed. There is no more bluffing- there is no more fantasizing. There is no more pretending I am only a lone small little soul back home in my tiny Eastside LA apartment after four weeks in a hospital that saved my life, trying to manage the searing pain in my head that is the healing brain scars, slowly grow back all the hair that fell out and the 25 pounds of muscle mass gone–dissolved from days on end of lying supine in a dreary hospital bed with sheets covered in fading moons and stars.
Now it’s really real. The heart that beats in my breast beats for two other creatures more than for anyone else. More than for myself. And I would do anything to have that heart beat as long as it possibly can for them. To allow for this body to squeeze any life out they need from me now and forever more.
And so basically I suppose, who better to crack my chest open for? It already feels like I have.
“Skin in the game, baby.”
(She pushes the entirety of her poker chips to the center of the table.)
“I’m all in.”
…
Broken Foot or You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
April 14, 2012It has been with much humility, and not a whole lot of grace that I have had to accept hobbling around on my orthopedic boot for the past four weeks after ONCE AGAIN causing a hairline stress fracture in one of my metatarsels. From running. This time the fracture is on my left foot.
My foot- she is healing, which is the good news. The bad news is that I’m not sure I can really engage in this whole “barefoot running” notion, or more recently, “flatshoe running” that I’ve been participating in. And I think, it’s not because those ways of running are inherently wrong and bad for your body. In fact, I actually believe the opposite to be true. Turns out I’m just too old and have been running on puffy running shoes for too long now to really be able to successfully change my stride from heel slammer/toe rocker to the much-better-for-you barefoot strike which is something akin to how children naturally run shoeless in the grass on a summer day. (Sliding down to the ground from the ball/toe of your foot first, then to the heel and finally springing off the toe. Try running in the park barefoot- it’s kinda what your foot wants to do naturally.)
I’d been trying to re-create my inner 7-year-old Holly over the past few months- or rather channel the 7-year-old Holly- in a noble attempt to allow myself the ability to run far into my senior years. See, those big old puffy running shoes that we humans have been plogging around on now for a few decades are kinda the worst thing for your body imaginable. They make you slam your heel down, which causes strain on your lower back, and secondly over-extend your knees. All this misaligns your body as you lean forward to run faster…farther…atop your over-extended knee. It’s no wonder why so many runners quit in their 40′s or 50′s with blown out backs, knees, hip pain.
Yet, attempting to side-step said pain by running on flatter shoes (or none at all) was clearly not the right direction for me. Help for the knees and back ended up blowing out the little bones on the top of my feet a number of times. So, I’ve been dejectedly entertaining the notion that perhaps– no. As far as running goes, you can’t teach this old dog new tricks. If I’m going to continue to run, I need to get back out there on my pumped up Nikes or Sauconys or New Balances, continue to pop my Omega 3′s, and just pray that my knees and joints hold out for at least the next decade.
This vaguely depresses me. Because running for me is akin to crack cocaine. Though I’ve never run longer than 5 miles at a stretch, running to me is something like a religion and it keeps me healthy and happy and if not stress-free- definitely stress-reduced.
So- I’ve decided to make a list in the other direction. A list of ways I HAVE changed lately. A reminder of how it IS possible to evolve. That not all attempts to alter one’s foot fall in this life end up in ugly black velcro laden boots that literally look good with zero fashion ensembles. And I’ve tried.
Here goes.
1. I walked into a Carl’s Jr today. I’ve NEVER eaten in a Carl’s Jr! I’ve eaten at many other fast food restaurants in my time, but until today- no love for Carl. This was not hard when you consider the horrid rumors I’ve neard about how he is a low-life racist and gives large amounts of money to politicians who would attempt to bring our country back to the good old days of the early 60′s. Additionally, I frequently scoffed at what I came to decide were Carl’s Jr’s dopey ad campaigns which seem strategically aimed at 15 year old boys. If it’s not some splooch of mustard sliding down the front of some girl’s tight white T-shirt, or glamorizing the amount of mess created from eating a Carl’s Jr burger by counting the napkins needed, it’s the “unreasonable-ness” of sit-down restaurants wanting to charge $6 for a decent hamburger. My god. Why would you ever pay $6 for a hamburger, when you can get something that LOOKS very much like that sit-down restaurant hamburger at Carl’s Jr for almost half that price?! (Where, by the way, is there a non-fast food restaurant serving a burger that’s anywhere near $6? Did anyone else find that to be a strangely silly lowball figure? Almost counter-productive to their own message? I mean, even at a joint like Marie Callendar’s- when you order a hamburger, you better be sure you have at LEAST 10 bucks floating around in your pocket. And that’s not even counting drink and tip!) But I digress. So-
Out running errands this afternoon, I got a hankerin for a hunka burger today for lunch. And seeing as it’s about that time of month I thought- yes Holly. You’re allowed a big old nasty fat burger. You need the protein- you need the iron. Go for it. As I drove toward home with my carnivorous fangs dripping, Carl’s Jr loomed ahead- mere blocks from my gastronomical brainstorm. The drive thru line was around the block. But lo- there was one little parking space left right in front of the entrance. So I swung myself and my big old velcro-festooned boot through the doors and ordered me a Six Dollar Burger. And by golly, if it didn’t turn out to be almost as good as if I had gone to one of those restaurants where they serve real burgers for about $12.95! And, btw, six napkins worth of mess. So there’s some truth in advertising. I’ll probably never align with Carl’s politics, but he now has $6.48 of my money and I was far from dissatisfied.
2. (Remember this was a list?) Here’s another new thing for me: So- I shushed someone I didn’t know today sitting next to me and my kid in our school’s weekly Friday morning “All School Meeting.” (This isn’t really the new thing for me, but I’ll get to that, so bear with me for a little bit.) The ASM, as it’s affectionately called round the hood of our school, is a four parts lovely, two parts frivolous, one part annoying tradition where all kids, parents, teachers, etc meet for (what you hope is) about 35 minutes in the Common area. Kids share songs, skits…fifth graders lead the meetings, thereby culminating their private school elementary experience with a very public display of self-confidence, school information is passed around, sometimes visiting performers come to share their talents. It’s really mostly very nice.
However, for this particularly curmudgeonly mom, I find some elements of the tradition to be tiresome- the most common of which is the propensity for TALKING during the meeting. And I don’t mean kids talking. The students at school are for the most part fairly kind, helpful, thoughtful people. They are capable of actually sitting around for a long time criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with a bare minimum of disruption. Perhaps because these meetings are weekly, the kids get used to shutting up and mostly paying attention. And mostly not talking to their friends who might be sitting right next to them or across the room. I cannot say the same thing about the adults. It’s the PARENTS who tend to be so frigging annoying. It’s the clueless entitled private school PARENTS who cannot seem to stop talking to each other during ASM. As if the code of silence only applies to their younguns and not to them. As if politeness is an overly tight snakeskin that one eventually molts out of. Well, I for one don’t agree. I don’t go often any more to these all school meetings, but when I do, I try as hard as I can to mirror for the kids what I think it is we are attempting to teach them with our communal silence and attention to whatever is happening onstage– self control and respect for others.
So today I had it. There was a middle aged man and his teenage son sitting next to me and my son just yakking away during the beginning of the meeting. Now, I didn’t recognize them so it is possible they were visiting relatives of one of the students– perhaps even one of the fifth graders leading the meeting. But suffice to say, there was plenty of “shushing” at the onset of the meeting, so it seemed evident to me there was no lack of clarity about the desire for- the need for- silence from the audience. And the meeting begins- and there’s some talk. And then a song that we’re all singing together- a call and response sort of thing. And during both the call, and the response this father and his son are still talking to each other in regular voices. Not even really an attempt to whisper at all. And I’m starting to boil with rage. (Did I mention it’s about that time of the month for me? Just so we’re clear.) Because it’s really the lack of awareness that just niggles at me. It’s the lack of ability to apparently realize you’re in a room with many OTHER individuals who are there together- trying to co-create an experience. That maybe just shutting the fuck UP might be the best thing to do. You can giggle with your teenage son after the thing is over. So, I try to sit on it. Try to sit on it. Sit. Just sit, Holly. Just Sit on– and then I can’t any longer, and instead of slightly turning my head, vaguely looking into the middle of nowhere and uttering some sort of passive aggressive “ShhHHH” like I would imagine might be the normally accepted way of handling the situation, I actually turn to completely face these two and say something like, “Hey, could you both stop talking please? It’s loud and hard to concentrate.” There’s a pause. And then because I am literally 28.9 cm away from them both and have to spend the rest of the meeting sitting next to them, I turn back to mitigate a bit and say, “I’m sorry if I sound really rude, but it’s just distracting. Thank you.” Both the father and son say nothing. They sort of glare at me as if they realize they’ve accidentally opted to sit next to the school crazy. Then they look away haughtily. And I look away. And that’s the end of the encounter.
But now here’s the part that belongs in my list today. This is new for me: I was relatively calm afterwards. My heart did not continue to beat hard after I said my little piece. I was able to breathe normally and not regret what I had said. I did not feel the need to further mitigate the situation. I did not feel the need to try to make myself more likable and look at them later with apologetic eyes, which I believe is what my slightly younger self would have done. In other words, I believe I’m getting a little better at speaking my truth and letting it hang in the air without needing to make anyone else comfortable. That’s a biggie for me.
3. Ok. What else? I could list how I recently took my kids on a plane by myself (bootlegged) to Atlanta over spring break and how I didn’t let my peri-menopausal CRUSHING travel anxiety get the better of me. (I love you, Ativan.) Or I could say something about how when during my trip to the doc three days ago to re-check some hormone levels, and my well-intentioned GP mentioned something about how my facial melasma looks really bad- like it’s gotten worse- and it must be because I didn’t have any makeup on, I didn’t go down the self-esteem rabbit hole. Despite the fact that I had just seconds before her entrance been applying foundation to my face with the few minutes I had to myself in the exam room. Nor did I really care to inform her that for six months now I’ve been applying a very expensive bleaching cream that my dermatologist has recommended to me and that actually, my melasma is significantly better than it was the last time I saw her. I think she was trying to be supportive of my assertion that my estrogen is rising. (Melasma is a sign of high estrogen. I think she was trying to be a Yes Girl.)
4. Ah wait– I’ve got one. This is good. Two weeks ago I had a gig at a local joint. Fun place- two blocks from my house. And I hobbled over on my boot. Ready to rock it onstage with the Black Velcroed Wonder. And I brought out– for the very first time– my Fender Telecaster. Which is an electric guitar, for those who don’t know. And for those who don’t know me, I’d NEVER played my Fender Telecaster onstage before – never. Though the guitar was cool looking, and though I had posed with it slung on my back for the cover of my third album, and though the guitar came to me out of the blue- literally showed up on my doorstep one day back in 2001 after I’d put out my first record (I unwittingly won some online contest that I hadn’t even entered myself in) –I could not bring myself to play it. In fact, until 10 days ago, it still sported the same lightweight strings that it came with, propped up against my front door back in 2001 with a congratulatory note taped to it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play the Telecaster. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to honor the nudge that the universal forces were apparently giving me right at the dawn of my recording career. It was just that the thought of figuring out what sort of AMP to buy for it, and what kind of STRINGS it might require and how it might change the way I was already haltingly picking and struming my acoustic guitar… I just wasn’t READY for it, I decided. The universe is never wrong, but in this case, I had decided the universe had shown up to the party a little early and would just have to hang around by the buffet with a drink and wait for the rest of the party guests to arrive.
So of course I didn’t play it or even pay any attention to it for a long time. And when any musician would come over to practice with me and notice the poor neglected Tele leaning expectantly in its stand in the corner of my office, he would comment on how- Oh Hol! I didn’t know you had a Fender! That’s cool. Why don’t you ever play it? And then the litany of whys would pour out of me.
And it wasn’t until 2012 that I really decided to own the ONLY reason why I wasn’t playing this delightful gift of the Magi that showed up like Moses in the basket to Pharoh’s wife. I wasn’t playing this guitar because I was SCARED. I was scared of trying something I didn’t know how to do. I was terrified of my eventual trips to Guitar Center armed with my little Tele, forced to go ask one of the tattoo encrusted sales dudes, “What kind of amp do you think I should buy for this guitar?” And I would be forced to say “I don’t know anything about anything when it comes to pedals and sounds and effects. I only know that they exist and that I won this guitar and I should probably start playing around with some gear and such and stuff.” I didn’t want to appear as the Soccer-Mom-Wanna-Be-Middle-Age Rockster whose smiling face would soon grace an ad-hoc WANTED poster in the Guitar Center break room: ”Seen this tall, slightly wrinkly, totally clueless loser? Warning- knows nothing about anything! If you happen to encounter, pitch only expensive reject guitar gear. She apparently has dough to burn! Claims to play the “keyboard.”
I finally swallowed my pride this month and borrowed a cool little amp. And a tremolo pedal. And immediately wrote a song on the 11 year old lightweight strings. And then showed up armed with said guitar, amp, pedal and song to my gig of two weeks ago. The best part is of course, the high E string broke onstage just as I was about to play the new tune. Though I played it anyway- struggling every moment with the guitar wailing painfully out of tune. See, when one string is missing on the neck of the guitar, the balance of tension gets all off and it will pull the remainder of the strings off their game. It was hilarious listening to my guitar in the monitor get softer and softer as the song progressed. (Thank you sound man.) Luckily, I was performing with my pal Eric who is a SMOKIN guitarist and who sort of took over the song even though he had never heard it and was wingin it the whole way through. Suffice to say, the song rocked. Even though I did not on my Fender Tele.
So there’s more. But I believe I have now reached the organic end of this blog post. It feels like it’s done. I think I’ve made my point to myself and the millions of tiny etheral quarks which surround me as I sit here typing away that I am indeed, if only very slowly and very slightly, evolving. I am learning to face my fears one broken guitar string at a time. I am edging farther away from my safe position of moralism, and learning to live who am I more consistently. Even though I may irritate a fellow human being or two seated next to me. Even though I may accomplish something as mundane and unnecessary as patronizing a fast food restaurant.
Because I suppose I can still surprise even myself. And that is something I never want to break.
I cannot think of a more beautiful poem than The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I had the distinct aching joy of a re-introduction to it today as I sat basking in a sea of my favorite songs of all time. (Brought to you by Spotify. Itunes for the music obsessed.) Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” was spinning for the third time in a row- maybe fourth. I just kept pressing play as the swelling third verse brought stinging tears to my eyes’ corners and burgeoning mucus to all membranes– a barely leveed flood for the face and the heart. And as “She lives with a broken man. A cracked polystyrene man who just crumbles and burns” floats out of Thom Yorke’s blotchy redheaded mouth, I must read Prufrock. ”She looks like the real thing- she tastes like the real thing…” Yorke pleads. And I’m pulling up All the Women Come and Go- Talking of Michelangelo.
And now the tears that were teasing and stinging in my ducts now come roaring down, bellowing out like clear lava forming little caves and ravines of Prescription Formula Number 40 foundation on my cheeks. Because as it wears out Yorke’s cracked plastic surgeon who eventually loses out to gravity every time, I am reaching desperately toward Eliot’s “attendant lord- no- not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. One that will do, though, to swell a progress, start a scene or two. At times indeed almost ridiculous. Almost at times the Fool.”
And I can no longer remain sitting up straight. I am bowled over from the middle – cut in half- reduced to wracked sobbing. Quiet, long streams of wails emitting out of my mouth with the searing gorgeous painful truth of these lovely, wretched human souls.
Because you see- my grandmother is losing her mind.
And I am going to visit her this weekend with my mother and my aunt. We are all purposefully traveling to the middle of the country- to the bread basket, the heartland of America– to Salina Kansas. We are coming to hold her and envelope her and guide her like whatshisname over the river Styx as her life passes from its final stages of rich independent livlihood to the waiting room of death that is Salina Kansas’ best assisted-living retirement community– The Manor. This barely disguised hole of finality. Encased in soft ecru and mauve tones– damask on the pillows of the overstuffed couches. This is where my Nana Ruth will now reside until the last of her days. It is where her mother, Lula Mae Buchanan (nee Moon) spent the last decade of her years. It is where most of her friends currently live. It is the beginning of the end.
And there’s something about being roughly half her age now, roughly half of what she’s accumulated in wisdom and experience- in Prufrock’s measured tea spoons- that makes me swoon with recognition at both the Radiohead lead characters in “Fake Plastic Trees” as well as Eliot’s Hamlet substitute. A man balding slowly- losing virility- losing gravity- losing sense of purpose and power that he is finding was all an illusion anyway. So- perhaps- more the crumpled styrene surgeon coming to terms with the scales always being tipped in gravity’s favor- I dig, I dig, I dig that space. I vibe to that- I get it. I live it. I awaken at 4 am to the hour of the wolf with sweaty palms and a heart beat too fast for such an hour lying in a supine position obsessed and anxious about only the big issues. Death. The end. The destruction. The last desperate squeeze of the heart- the squish of the blood through the valves. The end of being here and now as I know it.
And I wonder at what must be running through the brain of my grandmother. As her brain slowly calcifies- denying her access to the most basic of information that had been hers for the taking for decades. I wonder at her current concept of her reality. She forgets names, dates, having taken her multitude of medicines on time or not, the story she just told you 10 minutes ago that she’ll tell you again…but perhaps is her reality any closer to actual reality? Now that she’s sinking deeper into the chasm of The Manor? Of hospital-like fluorescents in the hallways (only turned on after 11pm through the night) and of oatmeal berber carpet on the living space of her 250 square foot apartment to enable easier cleaning? Is she somehow more able to grasp the moment to moment child like view of the world that allows her an ability to live somehow more presently? Or is it just a constant sea of o confusion. That in and of itself, possiblly a more authentic way of looking at the human experience.
I am not a stranger to confusion myself. Though I have not been friends with it so much. Confusion has at times brought about rage at my own limitations or misfortunes. Confusion has convinced me that I have Not Done It Right so many times at the 4am witching hour. I wonder if Confusion is really a starting point- a launching pad from which we (I) should more often be comfortable launching. Or not. Perhaps just camping out upon.
“I grow old…I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
And now I am traveling back in time. To a world not so long ago- not so distant in time or space. A world right here in sunny smoggy Los Angeles. A world of beginnings and sex and possibilities where I am running–late– to my 3rd quarter junior year poetry class at UCLA’s Royce Hall. My long tanned limbs are beating the stones of the old-world section of campus clad in some short flowy 80′s mini skirt. I most assuredly have some white high heeled leather booties on my feet, making it hard for me to run very fast. But I am not even 21, and so my joints and bones and cartilage are all very up to the task. No physical repercussions are forthcoming. And this poetry class is a course I had every right, and every privilege to be able to sign up for. Because, you see, I am a theater major- attaining my bachelor’s degree as an artist. I am a student of every subject. And so I am allowed to take astronomy- ancient Chinese History, European Art History of the 17th-19th Centuries, a TV class where I learn how to run a 3 camera studio shoot a la “Cheers” or “Archie Bunker.”
And I sail into class and find an empty seat near the door just as my efficiently artsy and bespectacled sweater vest professor jabs passionately in the air with his pencil and tells us vehemently to turn to page 426 of our Anthology Of Poetry. For today we will tackle Prufrock. Today we will start at least on the first two paragraphs- we will analyze, we will wrack our brains, we will work caringly, dilligently and slowly through this work. Because this might be perhaps the most accomplished of all the post modern poems- this just might be our anthem for the Western World through time immemorial. And I am engaged and titillated by such talk. I have heard vaguely about this poem- though I have no real knowledge of it. I’m just busy crossing my legs and adjusting my very short very fashionable mini skirt so that any of the potentially inquisitive men- young or old- sitting vaguely in front of me might not get such a wanton show should Prufrock not prove as absorbing as sweater vest professes it will.
And we begin our reading. And I remember immediately being drawn by the cadence of the thing. By the words themselves and how they presented next to each other. By the sheer juxtaposition of language- I remember thinking- this is deep. This is dense. This is a grouping of words that deserves my utmost attention and this is the sort of thing I hoped to encounter when I decided to enroll in such a course- this is the very kind of ‘message’ that I need to be able to learn how to take in and absorb. Yes- bring it, Prufrock. Bring it to my young eager overly sensitized intellectualized brain stem. Push this up past my white booties and though the cotton of my skirt up through the reach of my spine past any young bouncy bodily section of me and plant this firmly in the old tree root that I know is my heart. Put ‘er there, TS- you know you’ve got a friend in me.
But for all my yearning- for all my desire- Prufrock was no more than a beautiful masterful tapestry of divine syllables then and for a long time afterwards. It was strings of pearly words draped neatly and deftly upon each other. Back in 1991, I had no more idea what to make of J Alfred Prufrock than I would have a urine stained nursing home bed pan. And now… And now somehow. I am closer. I do.
Now I think no more of this poem in terms of its paragraphs- of its “stanzas”- of the Michelangelo theme refrain…of its catchy clever phrases. No – now I consume this poem as a whole. As a big juicy pear that doesn’t actually satisfy, but feeds anyway. In fact- it is so nutritious for me, I almost don’t even need to read beyond the first few paragraphs. Once the evening has spread itself against the sky like an anesthetized patient, and we’re remembering the sawdust restaurant floors covered in oyster shells, I only really need to get to the yellow fog rubbing its back and muzzle on the window panes, and I’m already there. I’m already breaking. “Fake Plastic Trees” hasn’t even mentioned the surgeon, and I’m gripped in the throes of the deepest most profound bourgois ennui that is so painstakingly executed by Eliot’s Prufrock. And somehow so gorgeously set to music by Radiohead.
I am thankful for the recognition of this new juxtaposition for me. I am not looking forward to seeing my grandmother, though I do love her deeply and soundly and want so much to make a difference and help this passage for her be if only slightly less burdensome. As I hope some loved one will do for me one day.
“Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question…Oh, do not ask, “what is it?” Let us go and make our visit.”
I am coming to see you Nana.
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And now the tears that were teasing and stinging in my ducts now come roaring down, bellowing out like clear lava forming little caves and ravines of Prescription Formula Number 40 foundation on my cheeks. Because as it wears out Yorke’s cracked plastic surgeon who eventually loses out to gravity every time, I am reaching desperately toward Eliot’s “attendant lord- no- not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. One that will do, though, to swell a progress, start a scene or two. At times indeed almost ridiculous. Almost at times the Fool.”
And I can no longer remain sitting up straight. I am bowled over from the middle – cut in half- reduced to wracked sobbing. Quiet, long streams of wails emitting out of my mouth with the searing gorgeous painful truth of these lovely, wretched human souls.
Because you see- my grandmother is losing her mind.
And I am going to visit her this weekend with my mother and my aunt. We are all purposefully traveling to the middle of the country- to the bread basket, the heartland of America– to Salina Kansas. We are coming to hold her and envelope her and guide her like whatshisname over the river Styx as her life passes from its final stages of rich independent livlihood to the waiting room of death that is Salina Kansas’ best assisted-living retirement community– The Manor. This barely disguised hole of finality. Encased in soft ecru and mauve tones– damask on the pillows of the overstuffed couches. This is where my Nana Ruth will now reside until the last of her days. It is where her mother, Lula Mae Buchanan (nee Moon) spent the last decade of her years. It is where most of her friends currently live. It is the beginning of the end.
And there’s something about being roughly half her age now, roughly half of what she’s accumulated in wisdom and experience- in Prufrock’s measured tea spoons- that makes me swoon with recognition at both the Radiohead lead characters in “Fake Plastic Trees” as well as Eliot’s Hamlet substitute. A man balding slowly- losing virility- losing gravity- losing sense of purpose and power that he is finding was all an illusion anyway. So- perhaps- more the crumpled styrene surgeon coming to terms with the scales always being tipped in gravity’s favor- I dig, I dig, I dig that space. I vibe to that- I get it. I live it. I awaken at 4 am to the hour of the wolf with sweaty palms and a heart beat too fast for such an hour lying in a supine position obsessed and anxious about only the big issues. Death. The end. The destruction. The last desperate squeeze of the heart- the squish of the blood through the valves. The end of being here and now as I know it.
And I wonder at what must be running through the brain of my grandmother. As her brain slowly calcifies- denying her access to the most basic of information that had been hers for the taking for decades. I wonder at her current concept of her reality. She forgets names, dates, having taken her multitude of medicines on time or not, the story she just told you 10 minutes ago that she’ll tell you again…but perhaps is her reality any closer to actual reality? Now that she’s sinking deeper into the chasm of The Manor? Of hospital-like fluorescents in the hallways (only turned on after 11pm through the night) and of oatmeal berber carpet on the living space of her 250 square foot apartment to enable easier cleaning? Is she somehow more able to grasp the moment to moment child like view of the world that allows her an ability to live somehow more presently? Or is it just a constant sea of o confusion. That in and of itself, possiblly a more authentic way of looking at the human experience.
I am not a stranger to confusion myself. Though I have not been friends with it so much. Confusion has at times brought about rage at my own limitations or misfortunes. Confusion has convinced me that I have Not Done It Right so many times at the 4am witching hour. I wonder if Confusion is really a starting point- a launching pad from which we (I) should more often be comfortable launching. Or not. Perhaps just camping out upon.
“I grow old…I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
And now I am traveling back in time. To a world not so long ago- not so distant in time or space. A world right here in sunny smoggy Los Angeles. A world of beginnings and sex and possibilities where I am running–late– to my 3rd quarter junior year poetry class at UCLA’s Royce Hall. My long tanned limbs are beating the stones of the old-world section of campus clad in some short flowy 80′s mini skirt. I most assuredly have some white high heeled leather booties on my feet, making it hard for me to run very fast. But I am not even 21, and so my joints and bones and cartilage are all very up to the task. No physical repercussions are forthcoming. And this poetry class is a course I had every right, and every privilege to be able to sign up for. Because, you see, I am a theater major- attaining my bachelor’s degree as an artist. I am a student of every subject. And so I am allowed to take astronomy- ancient Chinese History, European Art History of the 17th-19th Centuries, a TV class where I learn how to run a 3 camera studio shoot a la “Cheers” or “Archie Bunker.”
And I sail into class and find an empty seat near the door just as my efficiently artsy and bespectacled sweater vest professor jabs passionately in the air with his pencil and tells us vehemently to turn to page 426 of our Anthology Of Poetry. For today we will tackle Prufrock. Today we will start at least on the first two paragraphs- we will analyze, we will wrack our brains, we will work caringly, dilligently and slowly through this work. Because this might be perhaps the most accomplished of all the post modern poems- this just might be our anthem for the Western World through time immemorial. And I am engaged and titillated by such talk. I have heard vaguely about this poem- though I have no real knowledge of it. I’m just busy crossing my legs and adjusting my very short very fashionable mini skirt so that any of the potentially inquisitive men- young or old- sitting vaguely in front of me might not get such a wanton show should Prufrock not prove as absorbing as sweater vest professes it will.
And we begin our reading. And I remember immediately being drawn by the cadence of the thing. By the words themselves and how they presented next to each other. By the sheer juxtaposition of language- I remember thinking- this is deep. This is dense. This is a grouping of words that deserves my utmost attention and this is the sort of thing I hoped to encounter when I decided to enroll in such a course- this is the very kind of ‘message’ that I need to be able to learn how to take in and absorb. Yes- bring it, Prufrock. Bring it to my young eager overly sensitized intellectualized brain stem. Push this up past my white booties and though the cotton of my skirt up through the reach of my spine past any young bouncy bodily section of me and plant this firmly in the old tree root that I know is my heart. Put ‘er there, TS- you know you’ve got a friend in me.
But for all my yearning- for all my desire- Prufrock was no more than a beautiful masterful tapestry of divine syllables then and for a long time afterwards. It was strings of pearly words draped neatly and deftly upon each other. Back in 1991, I had no more idea what to make of J Alfred Prufrock than I would have a urine stained nursing home bed pan. And now… And now somehow. I am closer. I do.
Now I think no more of this poem in terms of its paragraphs- of its “stanzas”- of the Michelangelo theme refrain…of its catchy clever phrases. No – now I consume this poem as a whole. As a big juicy pear that doesn’t actually satisfy, but feeds anyway. In fact- it is so nutritious for me, I almost don’t even need to read beyond the first few paragraphs. Once the evening has spread itself against the sky like an anesthetized patient, and we’re remembering the sawdust restaurant floors covered in oyster shells, I only really need to get to the yellow fog rubbing its back and muzzle on the window panes, and I’m already there. I’m already breaking. “Fake Plastic Trees” hasn’t even mentioned the surgeon, and I’m gripped in the throes of the deepest most profound bourgois ennui that is so painstakingly executed by Eliot’s Prufrock. And somehow so gorgeously set to music by Radiohead.
I am thankful for the recognition of this new juxtaposition for me. I am not looking forward to seeing my grandmother, though I do love her deeply and soundly and want so much to make a difference and help this passage for her be if only slightly less burdensome. As I hope some loved one will do for me one day.
“Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question…Oh, do not ask, “what is it?” Let us go and make our visit.”
I am coming to see you Nana.
Skin In The Game
April 20, 2012When I was in my twenties, I had the strange privilege and the desperate misfortune of living through a particularly deadly health disorder called Endocarditis. It’s a massive bacterial infection of the heart- either the lining or a valve, which brings on systematic organ shutdown and if left untreated for a mere few days to a week, will lead to death. The great composer and conductor Gustav Mahler died of Endocarditis (as I recently discovered.) The wondrous icon Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and Sesame Street, died of it too.
I mention my bout with Endocarditis briefly in my bio on my website. In fact, it used to take up more space on the page- as it took up more space in my brain the closer the events were in proximity to my current life. My spotty memories of that rush to the ICU- the hazy unconsciousness/coma state brought on by intensely high fever- the slow awakening from this near death state-the dread of realizing how direly ill I had become- the hope and strength and terror and countless procedures and bags and bags of liquid antibiotics that lead me to recovery—all that…all of it used to loom large as the most foundational memory in my life. Because it changed everything about my life. My body was forever scarred and changed and ultimately healed, but my spirit and soul were also more deeply rooted suddenly in the here and now. I felt what it was like to come to the brink of death, and feel powerless, and terrified, and then to be saved from it all, excruciatingly slowly and painfully, one step at a time over the course of over a year after my month long hospital stay.
It wasn’t really until my children were born in my thirties that any event eclipsed this Endocarditis in my mind. And I believe I decided to give birth to my first child, Josephine, without the use of an epidural because somewhere deep inside of me I wanted to know I was a kick ass survivor. That I had won over the bacteria- that my body was strong and vital and healthy and that I could birth another human into this world without drugs—that I just needed my bottom dwelling primal yells and Deep Mother Chi.
(It didn’t really work that way. I mean, maybe it did on paper. But in actuality, I puked and shook and wheedled the whole 24 hours worth for pain killers. My doula kept me on track through all of my blubbering assertions that I knew I was not going to make it. Through the pooping the table and the clutching her fingers and sobbing like a toddler who’s just realized he’s not the only human being on earth…so yes- I did successfully give birth to Jo without an epidural. A process I would never recommend to anyone. Ever. Turns out, the primal screams were there- that part happened. They were deep and guttural and would have scared the bejesus out of me if I wasn’t already so fucking terrified– SO sure that my body was going to rip itself in half and I was going to die a horrible primeval death by alien life form exeunting from twixt the center of me.)
But I did it.
And then two years later, I did it again- I gave birth a second time. And when the puking and the light-headedness and shakes started again during labor, I took my same doula by the collar of her sweet hand-crocheted baby blue bunny festooned sweater and told her to get me the effing epidural NOW. And she did. And so Truman was born in a haze of sweet dozing sleep as opposed to Josephine who came into the world sort of like the Nazis bombing London.
And it was only these two experiences that shook the Endocarditis out of its Kingly position in my memory. It was only the revisitation of a different hospital (Cedars for the heart infection- UCLA Santa Monica for the kids) that superceded the original hospital experience. I basically just swapped mauve tiles for light minty green. One squeaky waxed linoleum floor for another. One achingly ugly Aztec pine framed print above my head for another equally as soulless and sad.
Though all the smells were the same. Hospital smells. The smells of the beginning and the end of lives. Bleachy cleaners. Floor wax. Urine. Citrus room freshener. Mild liquid body cleanser- no added dyes or odors. Lilies. Daisies. Death.
I don’t live in those memories very often. I do like to ritually revisit the birth stories of my kids for each of them on their respective birthdays- but only if they want to go there with me. I would never press those moments on them- though it is fun to go through the first early photos in each of their baby books. Look at the bracelets. Trace their first footy prints and feel the lock of hair.
(I may have missed my calling as a professional Scrapbooker actually. Though I didn’t and I don’t keep EVERYTHING- I’m a stickler for photos in books. In the right order. With terse captions if necessary. And yes, I’ve scrapbooked our families’ big vacations- was in charge of my own wedding book. Honeymoon album. None of them are ridiculous or overly splendid in any way, but I do have a knack for it. Jesus, don’t tell anyone- it will TOTALLY screw with my hard-ass rocker mom rep.)
On the other end of the spectrum- I have happily stopped revisiting my brush with death so often. That big ripe bundle of memories is mostly safely tucked away on the top shelf of a very dark closet in my brain now, and it only comes out every so often. Unfortunately though, that bundle does tend to come out whenever I am dealing with anything dark and scary- like my childrens’ ongoing health issues, or my own. When my infant son started developing a scary tendency to wheeze and gasp for air in the third month of his life and we discovered he had RSV, I remembered my heart. And then when he had to have surgery to correct a mild birth defect at nine months and they wheeled him away to get aenesthetized, I remembered my heart. And four years later when my daughter came down with a terrifyingly high fever and horrible back pain and had to be hospitalized for 4 days with an acute kidney infection, I remembered my heart.
And then finally this past month what with the initial re-breaking of the foot… and then subsequent scary information I received regarding my beautiful girl’s ongoing bladder issues now having something to do with a tethered spinal cord (SPINAL CORD- gives me sweaty hands just typing it)…and then my own need to revisit the cardiologist to get another look at my Endocarditis-scarred leaky heart valve- getting leakier… it’s been a month of remembering Cedars Sinai. A month of begrudgingly taking down that bundle of santizer soaked hospital memories and having to relive little frightened moments in claustrophobic, fluorescent lit rooms. With tubes sticking out of me and freshly scrubbed healthy men and women poking and prodding and the whole time feeling just so– tired. So desperately….weak…and…broken….and…tired.
And I just want to throw on my running shoes and fly to the beach with some AC/DC blaring in my earpads. To say Fuck You, you magnificent crazy reeling silly scary world! I’m still fucking HERE! I’m alive and my heart is BEATING and I’m running and breathing hard because I’m a motherfucker- you can’t kill me that EASY! But I can’t. Because my foot, she is still healing….
And I just DON”T want to go to Salina Kansas in June to help my mom and my aunt move my grandmother out of her house for the first and last time into an assisted living facility where all her friends now reside because her Alzheimers has finally gotten too severe for her to live alone. I don’t want to be a part of watching the family parcel out her belongings from that beautiful house that used to feel so safe and so lovely and so timeless to me as a kid. But I can’t not go. Because I may not see my grandmother alive for much longer- and she needs me now. And this may be the last time she can actually remember who I am…
And I just want to scoop up my children and hold them close to me and stop time- literally FREEZE it- so that we can just stay in this relatively healthy precious moment together. So that Jo won’t have to go through the fear of small spinal surgery in a few short months. So that Truman won’t wake up with another night terror and have to fall back to sleep shivering and clinging to me in mommy and daddy’s bed (a habit he developed a few years ago, and still has occasional dealings with.) So that they won’t have to crack open my chest—which they will eventually have to do whether this decade of my life or the next. And I will have to again fumble with the ties of that flimsy cheap pastel hospital gown, open in the back for all to see. I will again have to pad down the waxed linoleum floored halls wheeling my IV …face pale and slightly sweaty from the effort of walking…again in recovery. Again. Resting and healing my poor body after they’ve put a small saw through my breastplate and carefully replaced my fluttery, thickened human valve with one from a generous, not so fortunate swine.
But these are just fantasies. Fantasties that I can avoid these and all subsequent frightening moments in my life. Fantasies that I won’t have to go through the crying jags and the heart palpitations and the white knuckle minutes that seem to last days and the dry heaving in the toilets. I cannot pretend. Because as one of my best friends said the other day- “You have too much skin in the game, Hol.” This is the beauty of our lives- this is everything that’s worth anything and this is the center of the horror now.
It’s not that I’m actually all that esoterically afraid of dying anymore. Barring a suicidal end, when and how I die is basically not going to be up to me- and I’m more ok with that than I’ve ever been. Having to live with a chronic heart condition has enabled me to have a dialogue with death like I simply was not able to do previous to my infection. So, I’m far from “fine” with it. But I think I can mostly make peace with simply dying- because it’s the next thing. It’s the next portal through which we all pass eventually.
But it’s the thought of those that I would leave behind that now torture my life-filled, heart beating soul when I must come to the precipice of thinking about death. Now that I’ve swapped mauve tiles for light green, I’ve got too much skin in the game to make anything easy. Everything is costly now. Everything is beautifully, painfully important.
Now that there are two breathing living life forms that came bounding out from twixt the center of me- it’s all changed. There is no more bluffing- there is no more fantasizing. There is no more pretending I am only a lone small little soul back home in my tiny Eastside LA apartment after four weeks in a hospital that saved my life, trying to manage the searing pain in my head that is the healing brain scars, slowly grow back all the hair that fell out and the 25 pounds of muscle mass gone–dissolved from days on end of lying supine in a dreary hospital bed with sheets covered in fading moons and stars.
Now it’s really real. The heart that beats in my breast beats for two other creatures more than for anyone else. More than for myself. And I would do anything to have that heart beat as long as it possibly can for them. To allow for this body to squeeze any life out they need from me now and forever more.
And so basically I suppose, who better to crack my chest open for? It already feels like I have.
“Skin in the game, baby.”
(She pushes the entirety of her poker chips to the center of the table.)
“I’m all in.”
…
Broken Foot or You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
April 14, 2012It has been with much humility, and not a whole lot of grace that I have had to accept hobbling around on my orthopedic boot for the past four weeks after ONCE AGAIN causing a hairline stress fracture in one of my metatarsels. From running. This time the fracture is on my left foot.
My foot- she is healing, which is the good news. The bad news is that I’m not sure I can really engage in this whole “barefoot running” notion, or more recently, “flatshoe running” that I’ve been participating in. And I think, it’s not because those ways of running are inherently wrong and bad for your body. In fact, I actually believe the opposite to be true. Turns out I’m just too old and have been running on puffy running shoes for too long now to really be able to successfully change my stride from heel slammer/toe rocker to the much-better-for-you barefoot strike which is something akin to how children naturally run shoeless in the grass on a summer day. (Sliding down to the ground from the ball/toe of your foot first, then to the heel and finally springing off the toe. Try running in the park barefoot- it’s kinda what your foot wants to do naturally.)
I’d been trying to re-create my inner 7-year-old Holly over the past few months- or rather channel the 7-year-old Holly- in a noble attempt to allow myself the ability to run far into my senior years. See, those big old puffy running shoes that we humans have been plogging around on now for a few decades are kinda the worst thing for your body imaginable. They make you slam your heel down, which causes strain on your lower back, and secondly over-extend your knees. All this misaligns your body as you lean forward to run faster…farther…atop your over-extended knee. It’s no wonder why so many runners quit in their 40′s or 50′s with blown out backs, knees, hip pain.
Yet, attempting to side-step said pain by running on flatter shoes (or none at all) was clearly not the right direction for me. Help for the knees and back ended up blowing out the little bones on the top of my feet a number of times. So, I’ve been dejectedly entertaining the notion that perhaps– no. As far as running goes, you can’t teach this old dog new tricks. If I’m going to continue to run, I need to get back out there on my pumped up Nikes or Sauconys or New Balances, continue to pop my Omega 3′s, and just pray that my knees and joints hold out for at least the next decade.
This vaguely depresses me. Because running for me is akin to crack cocaine. Though I’ve never run longer than 5 miles at a stretch, running to me is something like a religion and it keeps me healthy and happy and if not stress-free- definitely stress-reduced.
So- I’ve decided to make a list in the other direction. A list of ways I HAVE changed lately. A reminder of how it IS possible to evolve. That not all attempts to alter one’s foot fall in this life end up in ugly black velcro laden boots that literally look good with zero fashion ensembles. And I’ve tried.
Here goes.
1. I walked into a Carl’s Jr today. I’ve NEVER eaten in a Carl’s Jr! I’ve eaten at many other fast food restaurants in my time, but until today- no love for Carl. This was not hard when you consider the horrid rumors I’ve neard about how he is a low-life racist and gives large amounts of money to politicians who would attempt to bring our country back to the good old days of the early 60′s. Additionally, I frequently scoffed at what I came to decide were Carl’s Jr’s dopey ad campaigns which seem strategically aimed at 15 year old boys. If it’s not some splooch of mustard sliding down the front of some girl’s tight white T-shirt, or glamorizing the amount of mess created from eating a Carl’s Jr burger by counting the napkins needed, it’s the “unreasonable-ness” of sit-down restaurants wanting to charge $6 for a decent hamburger. My god. Why would you ever pay $6 for a hamburger, when you can get something that LOOKS very much like that sit-down restaurant hamburger at Carl’s Jr for almost half that price?! (Where, by the way, is there a non-fast food restaurant serving a burger that’s anywhere near $6? Did anyone else find that to be a strangely silly lowball figure? Almost counter-productive to their own message? I mean, even at a joint like Marie Callendar’s- when you order a hamburger, you better be sure you have at LEAST 10 bucks floating around in your pocket. And that’s not even counting drink and tip!) But I digress. So-
Out running errands this afternoon, I got a hankerin for a hunka burger today for lunch. And seeing as it’s about that time of month I thought- yes Holly. You’re allowed a big old nasty fat burger. You need the protein- you need the iron. Go for it. As I drove toward home with my carnivorous fangs dripping, Carl’s Jr loomed ahead- mere blocks from my gastronomical brainstorm. The drive thru line was around the block. But lo- there was one little parking space left right in front of the entrance. So I swung myself and my big old velcro-festooned boot through the doors and ordered me a Six Dollar Burger. And by golly, if it didn’t turn out to be almost as good as if I had gone to one of those restaurants where they serve real burgers for about $12.95! And, btw, six napkins worth of mess. So there’s some truth in advertising. I’ll probably never align with Carl’s politics, but he now has $6.48 of my money and I was far from dissatisfied.
2. (Remember this was a list?) Here’s another new thing for me: So- I shushed someone I didn’t know today sitting next to me and my kid in our school’s weekly Friday morning “All School Meeting.” (This isn’t really the new thing for me, but I’ll get to that, so bear with me for a little bit.) The ASM, as it’s affectionately called round the hood of our school, is a four parts lovely, two parts frivolous, one part annoying tradition where all kids, parents, teachers, etc meet for (what you hope is) about 35 minutes in the Common area. Kids share songs, skits…fifth graders lead the meetings, thereby culminating their private school elementary experience with a very public display of self-confidence, school information is passed around, sometimes visiting performers come to share their talents. It’s really mostly very nice.
However, for this particularly curmudgeonly mom, I find some elements of the tradition to be tiresome- the most common of which is the propensity for TALKING during the meeting. And I don’t mean kids talking. The students at school are for the most part fairly kind, helpful, thoughtful people. They are capable of actually sitting around for a long time criss-cross-applesauce on the floor with a bare minimum of disruption. Perhaps because these meetings are weekly, the kids get used to shutting up and mostly paying attention. And mostly not talking to their friends who might be sitting right next to them or across the room. I cannot say the same thing about the adults. It’s the PARENTS who tend to be so frigging annoying. It’s the clueless entitled private school PARENTS who cannot seem to stop talking to each other during ASM. As if the code of silence only applies to their younguns and not to them. As if politeness is an overly tight snakeskin that one eventually molts out of. Well, I for one don’t agree. I don’t go often any more to these all school meetings, but when I do, I try as hard as I can to mirror for the kids what I think it is we are attempting to teach them with our communal silence and attention to whatever is happening onstage– self control and respect for others.
So today I had it. There was a middle aged man and his teenage son sitting next to me and my son just yakking away during the beginning of the meeting. Now, I didn’t recognize them so it is possible they were visiting relatives of one of the students– perhaps even one of the fifth graders leading the meeting. But suffice to say, there was plenty of “shushing” at the onset of the meeting, so it seemed evident to me there was no lack of clarity about the desire for- the need for- silence from the audience. And the meeting begins- and there’s some talk. And then a song that we’re all singing together- a call and response sort of thing. And during both the call, and the response this father and his son are still talking to each other in regular voices. Not even really an attempt to whisper at all. And I’m starting to boil with rage. (Did I mention it’s about that time of the month for me? Just so we’re clear.) Because it’s really the lack of awareness that just niggles at me. It’s the lack of ability to apparently realize you’re in a room with many OTHER individuals who are there together- trying to co-create an experience. That maybe just shutting the fuck UP might be the best thing to do. You can giggle with your teenage son after the thing is over. So, I try to sit on it. Try to sit on it. Sit. Just sit, Holly. Just Sit on– and then I can’t any longer, and instead of slightly turning my head, vaguely looking into the middle of nowhere and uttering some sort of passive aggressive “ShhHHH” like I would imagine might be the normally accepted way of handling the situation, I actually turn to completely face these two and say something like, “Hey, could you both stop talking please? It’s loud and hard to concentrate.” There’s a pause. And then because I am literally 28.9 cm away from them both and have to spend the rest of the meeting sitting next to them, I turn back to mitigate a bit and say, “I’m sorry if I sound really rude, but it’s just distracting. Thank you.” Both the father and son say nothing. They sort of glare at me as if they realize they’ve accidentally opted to sit next to the school crazy. Then they look away haughtily. And I look away. And that’s the end of the encounter.
But now here’s the part that belongs in my list today. This is new for me: I was relatively calm afterwards. My heart did not continue to beat hard after I said my little piece. I was able to breathe normally and not regret what I had said. I did not feel the need to further mitigate the situation. I did not feel the need to try to make myself more likable and look at them later with apologetic eyes, which I believe is what my slightly younger self would have done. In other words, I believe I’m getting a little better at speaking my truth and letting it hang in the air without needing to make anyone else comfortable. That’s a biggie for me.
3. Ok. What else? I could list how I recently took my kids on a plane by myself (bootlegged) to Atlanta over spring break and how I didn’t let my peri-menopausal CRUSHING travel anxiety get the better of me. (I love you, Ativan.) Or I could say something about how when during my trip to the doc three days ago to re-check some hormone levels, and my well-intentioned GP mentioned something about how my facial melasma looks really bad- like it’s gotten worse- and it must be because I didn’t have any makeup on, I didn’t go down the self-esteem rabbit hole. Despite the fact that I had just seconds before her entrance been applying foundation to my face with the few minutes I had to myself in the exam room. Nor did I really care to inform her that for six months now I’ve been applying a very expensive bleaching cream that my dermatologist has recommended to me and that actually, my melasma is significantly better than it was the last time I saw her. I think she was trying to be supportive of my assertion that my estrogen is rising. (Melasma is a sign of high estrogen. I think she was trying to be a Yes Girl.)
4. Ah wait– I’ve got one. This is good. Two weeks ago I had a gig at a local joint. Fun place- two blocks from my house. And I hobbled over on my boot. Ready to rock it onstage with the Black Velcroed Wonder. And I brought out– for the very first time– my Fender Telecaster. Which is an electric guitar, for those who don’t know. And for those who don’t know me, I’d NEVER played my Fender Telecaster onstage before – never. Though the guitar was cool looking, and though I had posed with it slung on my back for the cover of my third album, and though the guitar came to me out of the blue- literally showed up on my doorstep one day back in 2001 after I’d put out my first record (I unwittingly won some online contest that I hadn’t even entered myself in) –I could not bring myself to play it. In fact, until 10 days ago, it still sported the same lightweight strings that it came with, propped up against my front door back in 2001 with a congratulatory note taped to it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play the Telecaster. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to honor the nudge that the universal forces were apparently giving me right at the dawn of my recording career. It was just that the thought of figuring out what sort of AMP to buy for it, and what kind of STRINGS it might require and how it might change the way I was already haltingly picking and struming my acoustic guitar… I just wasn’t READY for it, I decided. The universe is never wrong, but in this case, I had decided the universe had shown up to the party a little early and would just have to hang around by the buffet with a drink and wait for the rest of the party guests to arrive.
So of course I didn’t play it or even pay any attention to it for a long time. And when any musician would come over to practice with me and notice the poor neglected Tele leaning expectantly in its stand in the corner of my office, he would comment on how- Oh Hol! I didn’t know you had a Fender! That’s cool. Why don’t you ever play it? And then the litany of whys would pour out of me.
And it wasn’t until 2012 that I really decided to own the ONLY reason why I wasn’t playing this delightful gift of the Magi that showed up like Moses in the basket to Pharoh’s wife. I wasn’t playing this guitar because I was SCARED. I was scared of trying something I didn’t know how to do. I was terrified of my eventual trips to Guitar Center armed with my little Tele, forced to go ask one of the tattoo encrusted sales dudes, “What kind of amp do you think I should buy for this guitar?” And I would be forced to say “I don’t know anything about anything when it comes to pedals and sounds and effects. I only know that they exist and that I won this guitar and I should probably start playing around with some gear and such and stuff.” I didn’t want to appear as the Soccer-Mom-Wanna-Be-Middle-Age Rockster whose smiling face would soon grace an ad-hoc WANTED poster in the Guitar Center break room: ”Seen this tall, slightly wrinkly, totally clueless loser? Warning- knows nothing about anything! If you happen to encounter, pitch only expensive reject guitar gear. She apparently has dough to burn! Claims to play the “keyboard.”
I finally swallowed my pride this month and borrowed a cool little amp. And a tremolo pedal. And immediately wrote a song on the 11 year old lightweight strings. And then showed up armed with said guitar, amp, pedal and song to my gig of two weeks ago. The best part is of course, the high E string broke onstage just as I was about to play the new tune. Though I played it anyway- struggling every moment with the guitar wailing painfully out of tune. See, when one string is missing on the neck of the guitar, the balance of tension gets all off and it will pull the remainder of the strings off their game. It was hilarious listening to my guitar in the monitor get softer and softer as the song progressed. (Thank you sound man.) Luckily, I was performing with my pal Eric who is a SMOKIN guitarist and who sort of took over the song even though he had never heard it and was wingin it the whole way through. Suffice to say, the song rocked. Even though I did not on my Fender Tele.
So there’s more. But I believe I have now reached the organic end of this blog post. It feels like it’s done. I think I’ve made my point to myself and the millions of tiny etheral quarks which surround me as I sit here typing away that I am indeed, if only very slowly and very slightly, evolving. I am learning to face my fears one broken guitar string at a time. I am edging farther away from my safe position of moralism, and learning to live who am I more consistently. Even though I may irritate a fellow human being or two seated next to me. Even though I may accomplish something as mundane and unnecessary as patronizing a fast food restaurant.
Because I suppose I can still surprise even myself. And that is something I never want to break.
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