Nay Aug Park

I am in the park. Nay Aug Park. The ground is gravel and grass and there are cars parked sideways and next to each other under shady trees. Mom takes us here to play. There is so much to see and do. Scattered among the trees are amusement rides, old rusty ones, painted red and yellow. We can’t run from one ride to the next because we might fall and scrape our knees on the jagged grey stones. Each ride is like a magnet, shiny and bright, pulling me closer, begging to be ridden. The one that calls to me the most is the one that spins so fast that you stick to the walls and the ground falls out and you feel like you are flying in outer space. And I can ride it lots of times without getting sick, more times than my brother. And my favorite part is to watch the people across from me as they’re splattered to the sides like bugs in a cage and the girl with the long blond hair, her hair looks like its standing straight up, like electricity is shooting through her, like lightening has struck her but really its just the gravity or the lack of it that makes a wild design like fire around her face.

And there are other rides too. Kiddie rides and grown-up rides. And almost from the beginning, I go on the grown-up rides. I always feel grown-up even though I’m not. Beyond the rides, in the shady grass, there is a train. Not a whole train, just part of a train, a big piece, a link in the chain. And it’s complete, in and of itself and my brother and I, we climb on it, and kids are allowed to climb on the train pieces because it’s part of the park. And there are more trees and more kids and not too far away is a pool. A pool so big it could hold 1000 people. A cement pool. A long rectangular pool. And sometimes it’s empty and sometimes its full. And sometimes we swim in it. And there are so many people when we swim in it that I can barely see the water. And mom swims with me and she’s gorgeous. She wears a strapless bathing suit and she floats in the water near the side by the metal ladder that people use to climb in and out of the pool. And I just stare at her. I don’t really think about the swimming. I just watch her and I probably do lots of underwater flips and ask her to watch me, too.

And when we’re not in the water, we’re in the grass. And there are large gazebos in the grass with cement floors and pointy tops like the tops on the carousel. And I think the gazebos are for bands, for people to watch but there is no band today so I dance in the gazebo. No one is watching. No one is around. I just dance. I dance to my own music. I pretend there is an audience. I pretend the whole world is watching. And I throw my arms out to the sides and I spin until I am dizzy. And I spin until the trees are blurry and I spin until the light and the trees and the leaves and the shadows are spinning around like the ride that spins so fast that you stick to the walls and the ground falls out.

There is another park by my house. It’s much smaller, about the size of a shoebox. Me and my brother can walk to this park because it’s only a block away and there is a jungle gym made of wood and a tire swing and sand. And it’s boring compared to Nay Aug Park so we try to make it interesting by doing things we’re not supposed to do. The boys dare me to jump off the jungle gym. It’s way high over my head and it hurts my feet to jump off but I do it anyway. I do it because the boys are watching and because they dared me to do it. The boys keep a Playboy magazine hidden in the bushes at the park and sometimes they show it to me. The magazine makes my little brother nervous. I can tell. He’s worried he’s gonna get caught and makes me promise not to say anything. My brother is always trying to get more Playboy magazines. He thinks it’s funny. I don’t know what the big deal is.

I’ve seen mom naked and she looks just like the ladies in the Playboy magazine. One time, when we were swimming in the pool at Nay Aug Park, mom’s boobs popped out of her bathing suit. I pointed at her top and she looked down. She was so embarrassed and she quickly put her top back on. She looked a little nervous and sweaty for a while afterwards and she kept checking her bathing suit top over and over to make sure it was on right.

Mom warns us about the gorge behind Nay Aug Park. She warns us over and over again not to go in the woods behind the pool. Every year, some kids go into the woods and drink some beers and fall off the cliff and die. I worry about the gorge. It’s like a giant monster lurking in the bushes behind the pool eating up kids. I worry about the kids going into the woods and drinking some beers and falling off the cliff. I wonder why they do that. My brother isn’t scared of the woods or the gorge or the cliff. He wants to go exploring. He likes the adventure. But I won’t go exploring with him. No way. I like the rides and the spinning and the swimming and being in the pool with mom. That’s good enough for me.

Not My Words

What another would have done as well, do not do it.
What another would have said as well or written as well, do not say or write it.
Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself.
— André Gide

There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy… that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist…It is not your business to determine how good it is…It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,to keep the channel open.
— Martha Graham

As we write, we are both describing and deciding the direction that our life is taking.
— Julia Cameron

I am in the church.

I am in the church. Holy Rosary church. The air around me is thick with chanting, with music, with incense. In every direction I am far away from something. Far away from the doors, the walls, the ceiling, the altar. The only thing I can touch is the wooden pew, the prayer book, the kneeling step with the soft leather cushion that folds up and down at my feet. I feel ultimately alone in a big space with important people and a reverence that is palpable. I lean to my left, to look around the white column that is much too thick to wrap my arms around, bigger than a big tree, and I peer down the aisle, the aisle of weddings and funerals and processions, the aisle of my communion, my confirmation, my mother’s death. The aisle is so long that it becomes narrow at the end like a painting painted in perspective, and the long narrow tip points to the mighty priest in his robes with his candles and his magic. He is the grand sorcerer, the magic man that came long before the characters in Harry Potter. He turns bread and wine into flesh and blood and I believe him and we all eat like cannibals and I don’t understand but it is the ritual and I am in it. And I sing because others are singing and I know the words by heart and I don’t even have to look in the hymn book anymore.

Here I am Lord
It is I Lord
I have heard you calling in the night
I will go Lord
If you lead me
I will hold your people in my heart

And it must have been there in that moment that I discovered that all of God’s people belonged to me and they were all my responsibility and they were mine to protect, to care for, to save.

A withered bloody man stapled to wood hovers over me as if he is floating, as if he is connected to nothing, as if he is levitating by the magic power of the sorcerer.

Red blue yellow gold green frosty glass cut and carved into people, into stories on the gigantic windows, floor to ceiling along the walls from door to altar. There he is the withered man carrying a cross in the colorful cut glass. There he is the withered man being stalked and taunted by the people in the colorful cut glass. There he is the withered man being betrayed by his friends in the colorful cut class. There he is the withered man being hammered into a piece of wood in the colorful cut glass. There they are the people watching in the colorful cut glass. There we are the people kneeling before the colorful cut glass. He we are singing surrounded by the colorful cut glass.

There are letters. Latin I think. And numbers. Must be roman numerals. I try to read them. I try to count them but they are like hieroglyphics, an ancient language I don’t understand. He must know the secret to decoding the letters and numbers. There must be an explanation in his book of magic. He hovers over the book at the altar, raising his arms as he casts his spell on hundreds of us kneeling before him. He is blessing me. This is a blessing. I am being blessed. I am blessed. I eat. I drink. I kneel. I sing. I pray. I become one of them.

The pews are covered in a thick waxy coating. When we are standing, I scratch the coating off the pew in front of me with my fingernail. It makes lines like rivers, like veins in an autumn leaf. After the wax gathers under my fingernail, I scrape it out and start again. I don’t try to sign the pew with my initials like you would carve into a tree or draw a picture on the pew like you would draw with chalk on the sidewalk. I just scrape the waxy coating for no particular reason. I like the design n the wood, the lines and the circles and the life beneath the surface. I like the fact that I can touch the pew, feel the wax and feel the wood.

The space around me is so big, so thick with chanting, with music, with prayer. I know there are people around me but I don’t really see them. I’m not allowed to touch them or talk to them except for one brief moment mid-mass when the priest says:

Peace be with you. Now offer your brothers and sisters the sign of peace.

And we all turn and shake hands. And this terrifies me. I know when it’s coming. I know the whole mass by heart and I have to reach out and touch all the strangers around me and my palms are sweaty and I don’t know how I will shake everyone’s hand in the short time allotted to shake hands and there are some hands that I don’t want to shake but I shake them anyway because this is the prayer and this is the practice.

I feel a little bit warmer, a little bit more relaxed, and I settle back into myself and wait for the people around me to slowly fade away again, to drift away from me, leaving me alone in the empty pew, the big church, with nothing but my fingernail and the waxy coating that I scrape off the back of the pew.

It’s time to receive communion. We filter out of the pews and into the aisles. We walk quietly and orderly. The walking feels good. It makes me sleepy to sit so long. I follow slowly behind the people in front to me. I take my steps carefully because I don’t want to make a mistake. I count the people between me and the altar.

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

I am standing beneath him. He is tall. I am short. My hands are locked in the mudra I was taught, right hand cupped beneath the left hand. I raise my hands. He holds a circle of bread before me. We lock eyes and he says, “Body of Christ.” Everything seems to drop away. He is floating. I am floating. The bread slowly descends into my palm. I reach with my right hand into my left palm, take the bread and put it into my mouth. I am walking back to the pew, hands in prayer pose, but I can’t feel my hands, I can’t feel my feet, I can’t feel the walking. I can only feel the bread on my tongue and the way that it absorbs all the moisture in my mouth like a sponge, leaving my tongue dry and sticky. For a long time, I can feel nothing but my mouth and the bread dissolving on my tongue and I try to make it last as long as possible. It breaks into pieces and I savor each crumb until the last little bit has disappeared and even then I can still taste it as if it’s there, as if it never left my mouth.

I am a small girl lying on a very big bed.

I am a small girl lying on a very big bed. A bed too big for a small girl. The headboard is tall and high and it almost touches the ceiling. It is made of dark wood and it’s ornate. There are carvings and wooden pieces shaped like balls that come off in my hand. They are cold and soft and fit easily in place with a small peg that goes into a wooden hole. And there are thick ugly curtains that hang down around the bed. There are a dozen of them. They are red and white but they look pink if you squint your eyes. And if you look closely there are people drawn on the curtains. They are ugly people but I’m not sure why. They are dressed like Victorian people and they are pushing wheel barrels and fishing and the women are wearing big dresses and mostly they are outdoors, maybe they are farmers, maybe they are just rich and they don’t have anything important to do. I don’t know. I stare at them so much that they become empty like little ghosts all around me. I don’t like them. And I am tucked into another large heavy blanket with the same people – the curtain people – and my pillows are covered with the curtain people, too, and everything matches and I am wearing a white lacey nightgown and I am tucked into the big heavy tall wooden bed like a Victorian doll with the heavy blanket on me with the curtain people dancing on me and all around me.

And to the left of my bed is a night-table made of the same dark wood as the bed. It has a cold, white marble top. And from the window I can see the street and the trees and the slanted red roof. And if I open the window, I can climb out onto the roof. And I am not afraid. I would rather be on the roof or in the tree than in this stupid bed. And on the floor there is a thick scratchy wool carpet – pink and baby blue – and it is Persian in design and it is so big that it takes up the whole room and the room is big and I am small. And at the foot of the bed there is a foot-board – dark and wooden and ornate – and then a dark wooden trunk – and there is a dark wooden dresser across the room with a white marble top and a big mirror shaped like an hour-glass. And hanging in the center of the room is a brass and glass chandelier and I’m always afraid it’s going to break and I don’t like to touch it, especially when mom makes me clean it because it is dusty.

And there are more windows across the room and the room is shaped like a circle because there is a tower above me – on the third floor – and I’m in the room just below the tower. And under the thick scratchy carpet is a wooden floor. And the wooden floors are everywhere throughout the whole house and the house is big – 14 rooms and four floors – and I am small and it is way too much room for 4 people, sometimes 3. And I don’t think there should be this much space between people. And my brother’s room is next door to mine. His room is shaped like a square, not a circle. And his bed is shaped like a square and so is his headboard. And his headboard is small and simple. And his carpet is big, too, but not as scratchy as mine and the colors are dark blue and brown. My brother doesn’t have the heavy curtains or the bedspread. In fact, I don’t think he has curtains at all. His room is warm. Mine is cold. He doesn’t have a chandelier. He has a TV and video games. He has friends come over and play. I don’t really have friends. I write in my diary. When I finish one, I start another. I think I may have filled 12 of them by now.

I spend a lot of time in my bed. Mostly thinking and talking to God. Mom said that God can hear my thoughts so I don’t have to talk out loud. I can just think about what I want to say and he can hear me. I try to ask him about ‘forever.’ I want to know what it means to be somewhere forever. I can’t really understand forever. It’s kind of like a waterfall that never runs out. That doesn’t really make sense to me. It feels like forever since I’ve been in this bed and this room and I wonder if it will ever be any different. I wonder if I will be in this bed forever.

The first thing I do

The first thing I do every morning when I wake up is fill myself with garbage. I fill myself with emails and phone calls and tasks on the computer. I fill myself with ‘to-do’ lists and errands and planners and papers. It’s like eating ice cream for breakfast only it’s not tasty and it’s not sweet.

There is an emptiness now where the emails used to be. With them, my identity is gone, like socks from the dryer, to some unknown place. I need to stay in my room for days and wallow under the covers. I need to shut out the world and her screaming demands. I need to give myself permission to be silent and missing, like a phantom soldier not yet home from the war.

Lie to me and tell me you love me. Tell me you miss more than my efficiency and competency. What will become of me now that I’ve left you for a moment? Will I join the pictures on the wall of exiled ancestors that came before me? Will I become a legend or a rumor? Where do we go from here?

I’m so scared. I’m so new at this – staying with the emotion and feeling – not running away. I want to go to sleep and I want to sleep for days and I want to wake up when I don’t feel anything anymore. But you say this emotion is a gift. You say I am finding my voice, unleashing my power. I can feel the latent force within me. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. I have always tried to keep it at bay like a dog on a leash. It’s wild now. Its rabid, it’s raging. It’s tossing me in the white waters, throwing me up against jagged rocks. I’m soft like a fish, flopping my way down the stream toward some unknown destination. And I hate not knowing. I hate not knowing where I am going. I hate being scared and lost and not in control.

Squeezing the words out of my impacted brain is like trying to force oatmeal through a funnel. I have to push them out onto the page. I have to squeeze and contract my feeble brain until it produces one letter, one syllable, one meaningless phrase. And where is this going? This writing leads nowhere. I am a tortured artist on a horse with no name. What’s the point?

Salvation. I like the notion of salvation. I like the thought of someone saving me. Bring me joy. Bring me bliss. Then I don’t have to go out and search for it on my own. She said, ‘you don’t have to be good. You don’t have to crawl on your knees. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’ How I wish that were true! How I wish I did not have to be good, did not have to crawl on my knees, did not have to do anything except love what I love.

Acceptance. There is a word that has taunted me for ten years. Accept the things you cannot change. You don’t have to like them, understand them or forgive them. You only have to accept them, without trying to change them.

Adapt. Everyone tells me I should adapt. Everyone tells me I should turn purple and blue and green like the chameleon just to ‘fit in.’ It’s not your problem, they say, stop making it your problem. Calm down. Let it go.

I wish I were a kite and you were the string and you were holding me lovingly while standing firmly on the sand and my ribbons, they would dance in the wind, my head bobbing and weaving like a brightly painted Chinese dragon, my colors brilliant, my body free.

I want to punch something. I want to take the force inside of me, channel all of it into my fist and punch something so hard that I break my arm. I want to break something. I feel so unfortunate to have all of this emotion and yet you say it is a gift. How could it possibly be???

What if I wrote for no reason? What if I locked myself up for 90 days and wrote for no reason? What if I didn’t write a book or a poem or a story? What if I just got up every day and wrote whatever was going to come out? Would it eventually lead to something? Would it be worthwhile even if it didn’t lead to anything?

I have a headache. It’s as if the opposing forces inside of me are waging louder and harder than before. It’s as if the quiet dispute is now a full-on war. I wish I could talk to you. I wish you were not avoiding me, hiding from me, running away from me. I wish you knew how to be my friend. But the irony is that you fill me like ice cream, too, leaving me fat and tired and lazy instead of allowing my wounds to bleed onto the page. The loneliness forces me to write. Otherwise there would only be meaningless talking and gossip and chit-chat and advice.

I think there are worlds within me. I think there are glass cities underwater and serial killers in the desert and weddings on the beach. I don’t know where they come from or where they’re going. I only know that I feel like they are there.

Over the Log and Through the Woods

Oh what a journey…over the log and through the woods…there is so much I want to remember…the girl with the gun in her mouth…the backyard with the LCD lights…the truth of what’s working on me…the flexibility I don’t think I have…I bet they’ll think my sun-kissed sun is evidence of my betrayal…there is no way to win with them…there is so much I want to say…how do I say it all?

Don’t mess with my writing, ok! Don’t mess with my wonder, my curiosity, my innocence, and my joy. Don’t try to take from me what isn’t yours because you don’t have it for yourself. Don’t try to bully me, control me, sit on me with your fat fear and your worry about what I might do…worry about what you’re doing right now! Worry about your arrogance, your emptiness, your ugliness and the way you have to control everyone and everything around you. You’re a hypocrite. You made me feel bad about myself. You made me wonder what I was doing wrong. You woke the big bad beast of shame that lives in the firey pit of my belly…he was sleeping, dammit! And now he’s throwing sloppy fire all over the place. Fuck!

I just want it to be easy…I want it to be easy and funny and happy…and carefree…I want it to be surfing and sunbathing and sharing stories…it makes me happy when you tell me stories…I love to hear your stories…I want to hear all the stories in the whole world.

I’m walking down a wooded path, thick with trees, with brush, with leaves, the branches cross overhead like the swords of soldiers making a procession for me…there is light in the distance, really bright, warm light. There is a cleaning and a beach and turquoise water and I am sitting on the beach and I am writing and it’s my fantasy and it calls to me and I wonder if he knows someone in Cabo that I can stay with? I wonder if I can move to Mexico and live on the beach and write my book? And I wonder if I can find the words if I’m far away and my only job is to find the words that say what I want to say? And I wonder if I’ll ever say what I want to say?...and why not? Because you bully me!You worry that I will run away…you worry that I will take something of yours with me…you worry that I want what you have but I don’t! I don’t want what’s yours…I only want what’s mine. I only want the spinning to stop so I can dive down deep and write the soulful things that need to be written.

Rambling…her book was like rambling, like listening to someone who can’t control what she’s thinking, can’t control what she’s writing…and where do the words come from?…they come so fast. I can’t keep up and my wrist starts to cramp. I don’t want to stop today. I don’t want to stop and be good and write something pretty so that everyone will say, ‘oh, you’re writing is so nice!’ I want to be stupid and irreverent and sloppy and I don’t want to live up to your expectations. I want to fail you…I want to let you down so the pressure is off and I don’t have to try anymore.

I want to get off the hook…I want to get off the big fat rusty sharp fish hook that’s tearing through the flesh in my cheek…I am not your catch! I don’t belong to you…you don’t own me and you can’t tell me what to do…I give to you because I love to give…I give to you because it makes me feel good but it doesn’t feel good anymore…it feels forced…it feels compromised…it feels sad and disappointing and draining…I want to feel good! I want you to love me…I want to shine and I want to glow and the more I fill up the room with light, the more I want you to smile and step back and say, ‘I’m so proud of you!’…and I don’t want to let you down – even though I say that I do.

Find me
At the edge of my path
Take my hand
Help me cross over
The invisible ground
Give me strength, please,
Give me wings

I’m so sorry all of the time I’m so sorry that I can’t do better I’m so sorry that I can’t do more and what a waste! What a waste it is to be sorry all the time…I just want to celebrate…I just want to see what other people see when they see me…I want to know my potential, my possibilities.

Ok, so there is this great story that I have to tell because it’s so great and it makes me smile and laugh at myself. There is this great book called ‘heart of the world’ where these young ambitious guys go exploring in the unexplored parts of Tibet to find magical waterfalls and traveling with them are a strange band of marauders…the most knowledgeable of which is a monk…and at one point in their journey they come across a log and its blocking their way and people are angry and frustrated and they keep throwing themselves at the log and they are trying to crawl over and they keep falling in the mud and they get more and more mad and then the monk tries…and they watch because he is always so happy and they are sure that this log will frustrate him as much as it frustrates them and they watch…as he approaches…he looks at the log, takes a few steps back, and then runs as fast as he can towards the log, trying to throw his lanky body over the top. He hits the log, flies backwards into the direction from which he came and bursts into a fit of laughter…the more he laughs, the more astonished his spectators become…and then he gets up, muddy from head to toe, takes a running start and throws himself at the log again…the log throws him back into the mud, back on his butt, and this time he laughs even harder and louder. After about 10 tries, he manages to flop himself across the this formidable obstacle and he rests for a moment before getting up and continuing on his path with a smile and unbending joy in his heart. His companions, mesmerized and speechless from the display, follow behind him with a newfound appreciation for just how easy it can be, if you let it be, to climb over a log and through the woods.

Raw

Raw like a broken tree branch, sap slipping out
Raw like a wide-open wound