I am in my mother’s body. Her big pink belly. I look down at myself through my mother’s eyes. I feel the warm pink belly between her hands like a taut balloon. I hold the belly, the belly I am in and not in. I feel my mother’s joy. I am her and she is me. I am inside her. The warm tight pink belly is full with a magical crystalline fluid and although I know I grow in there, I prefer much more to float up into my mother’s eyes, her arms, her heart. I can move freely inside of her for the time being, unrestricted, unconfined. I move with her as she moves but I don’t feel the moving. I only feel the bright warm weightless space inside. I know she knows I’m in here. I know she feels me. I know we know each other. I know we know each other in the most intimate connected way that two people can know each other. I know we exist in a space timeless limitless boundless. I know we share a space that is beyond the physical space, a space I have not yet entered through her. I know she feels the space inside her that we share, where we meet. Where I am her and she is me. I know we are inside of each other.
There are miles of paper dolls connected hand to hand, feet to feet, stretched out like an infinity mirror, forward in time, back in time. They are all the expressions of me, of who I am, of who I was, of who I am becoming. I slide along the paper doll continuum, moving in and out of the various versions of myself, slipping easily into the 5 year old, 15 years old, 20 year old versions of myself. Energy like the tail of a comet moves back and forth along the continuum of me. I slide forward into the future me, feeling the full rush of energy between all the versions of me, connecting them, linking them, as one continuous part of me. It’s as if I am nothing but a streak of light across the sky, a sun beam, a shooting star.
My future self infuses my current self and makes sense of my past self. All of it condensed into a single story line, a single streak of light. I look forward and back at reflections of me, of who I was, of who I am becoming and there is growth and there is change, but mostly there is just still movement, a movement that is not moving. Mostly it’s just like the space I inhabit inside my mother when she is pregnant with me.
So then she pushes me out into the world. Outside of her. Into the world. I can no longer move freely, no longer inhabit her eyes, her hands, her heart. I have my own eyes and hands and heart now. I’m not sure how they work. Don’t really like to move them. It’s all so heavy and cumbersome and stiff. It hurts to move in this way. It pains me to breathe, to turn my head, to open and clench my fist. She pushed me out of her. She pushed me out of her into the world.
I draw down a heavy blanket of numbness to cover up the feeling. I wrap around me a cloak of dull feeling. There is burning inside but the outside is covered like the colorful plastic covers surrounding electric wires. I am covered. I am separate.
And then I am lying on my back on an air mattress in the tower of my house, somewhere between 16 and 17 years later. I am warm and tingling from the rum swimming inside of me. I am lying on my back and he pushes himself inside of me and we are no longer two people. We are one person. I am inside of him and he is inside of me. I can move freely again. I can leave myself and go inside of him. I can feel his heart as if it is my own. I can see with his eyes, feel with his hands. I am connected. I am part of someone again. I am connected to someone in the most intimate connected way again.
And then I am aware. I am aware that I can go inside of you. I can go inside any of you and see what you are seeing, feel what you are feeling, think what you are thinking. I can feel your blood and flesh as my own. But mostly I can connect to you in the most intimate and connected way that two people can connect.
And then she dies. Like a balloon popping, mom dies and all that’s left is the air. All that’s left is the limitless space, the still movement, the vast emptiness where we are both existing in the tail of the comet, the heat of the sunbeam, the sparkle of the shooting star. I am no longer inside of her but somehow we are in the same space again. And she’s not inside of me but somehow we are in the same space. Am I am physical and she is not physical but somehow we are in the same space.
And then I begin touching people. I touch them and try to heal them. And they say they feel warmth in my hands. They call me a healer. They say ‘thank you for healing me.’ They bring me flowers. They send me notes. They say, ‘how do you do that?’ And what can I say? How could I possibly explain? Well you see…
First I was inside her and I could feel her and she could feel me and we were in this space like a private space, that space that connects all of us, and then she pushed me out into the world and I was cast out of the space and I couldn’t get back to the space, and then he was inside of me and I felt the space again and then she died and the space expanded and she became everything, and then I knew if I put my hands on people that I could go back to the space. And you see, this is how I ended up here with you, in your eyes, in your hands, in your heart, knowing what you need, how you feel, who you are. This is how I know you. Can you understand that?
I drop down into my hands. I dissolve into light. I travel out of my hands into you, like the breath, slipping in undetected. I close my eyes, I find the space that is you inside of you. The breath inside the breath. I move easily and freely. I know who you are. You cover your face, embarrassed. How can she see so much? How can she know so much? How does she do it? You say, “You know how to touch me.”
I know that I know how to touch you. It’s what I know. It’s who I am. I would not be me if I didn’t know how to touch you. I feel you, ya know.
People say that: “I feel ya.” What they mean to say is, “I’ve felt what you’ve felt at one time. I know how you feel.”
But I mean it differently. I feel you. I feel you as real as I felt myself through my mother’s hands as she touched her big warm pink belly. I feel what you feel.
We’ve been inside each other all along.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Pink Diary
I have a pink diary with a gold lock. The lock isn’t very sturdy and it’s easy to open the lock without using the key. The key is very small like a key that Alice in Wonderland would use to open a very small door. The cover of my diary is kind of like a door. It takes me away from this house, this room, this life and into a different one. In my diary, I am writing my life instead of my life writing me. In my diary, I tell the story instead of listening to the story being told. In my diary, I am the author, the writer, the creator. In my diary, I can write whatever I want. I can write good words, bad words, soft words, hard words, they are my words. I don’t need permission to write them. No one is checking my grammar or spelling. No one checks for mistakes. There are no mistakes. I can say whatever I want and its mine. It belongs to no one else. Sometimes when I feel like hurting myself or someone else I write in my diary instead. Sometimes when I am sad, I write that too. Once during a scary storm, I wrote a poem but I don’t write poems much.
The cover of my diary is pink and squooshy like a plastic pillow. I like the texture. It’s shiny. I keep my diary on my nightstand next to my little prayer books. I like to write with my favorite pen – a black skinny stem with a fluffy fuchsia hair ball at the end with eyes and a nose. It kind of looks like a bird. A bird from a far away place maybe. Not a bird from around here. The fluffy ball is so soft – soft like my cat. While I think about what to write I like to rub the fluffy ball on my face. I like the way it feels. The fluffy ball seems so alive to me that I start to write stories about it in my diary. I draw a whole family of fluffies. Fluffy balls with faces and hands and feet. The fluffies live in the clouds. They hold hands and play baseball. They have big smiles and no worries. Sometimes I roll out the left-over wallpaper in the basement closet and use the back of it as a canvas. I draw endless scenes of fluffies in the clouds. Sometimes I draw a rainbow or a unicorn, too. I love unicorns almost as much as I love my fluffy pen. I believe in unicorns. I believe they are real. I think someday I will have my very own unicorn. I think I might meet a magic lady that lives in the forest and she will ask me what I want and I will tell her I want a unicorn and she will give one to me. My unicorn can fly. My unicorn is friendly and gentle and my unicorn is white with a golden horn in his forehead. His horn is 24 carat gold like mom’s jewelry. If I had a unicorn, I wouldn’t want anything else. I wouldn’t even need a place to live. We could just ride from place to place and stop and sleep on the clouds when we were tired.
After I fill up my entire pink diary, I ask mom for another one. The next one is blue. It doesn’t have a lock. I don’t like it as much but I fill it up anyway. Then I ask for another and another. I start writing a whole story about a faraway place like dungeons and dragons. There is a wizard in my story and lots of adventures. At night, sometimes Lee comes to my room and sits on my floor and I read him some of my story. He likes it. Sometimes he draws with me on the wallpaper rolls, too.
Sometimes I think our stories and pictures are more real than our real life. I don’t feel anything in the real world when I am writing or drawing. I would like it very much if I could step right into the diary or the drawings and live there. I would like to be a drawing, a 2-dimenison person on paper. I would like that very much.
My favorite thing to do with Lee is to make forts in my room. We take sheets and blankets and pillows and build rooms within my room. The forts are small and we have to crawl on hands and knees to get inside. We can’t stand up or the whole thing will topple down. The space is so small and so safe like a cave where baby animals sleep in the woods. Mom always makes us take them down but we just build them again.
Mom can’t get us to listen to her much. We’re kind of like those trick birthday candles – you keep blowing them out but they keep lighting up again. In the fort, I can touch all four walls from where I sit. I could never do that in my real house. In the fort, the walls, floor and ceiling are all soft. Not like my real house. In my fort, we can use a flashlight for light and there is no big glass chandelier overhead. I love the fort and I could stay in there forever. When you live in a fort, you don’t need many supplies. There’s no kitchen for cooking and no dirty dishes. There are no long hallways to vacuum or beds to be made. There is just a sitting space for talking and laughing and sleeping. That’s it.
Lee and I, we’re like best friends. We do everything at home together. I listen when he plays music on the piano. He plays Barbies with me when I have no one to play with. We’re happier together than we are apart. We fight a lot, too. I’m not sure why but it seems like brothers and sisters are supposed to fight. Maybe we get sick of each other. Maybe we get sick of the house. Maybe we fight because that’s what mom and dad do. I don’t know. But we always make up. Either because mom makes us or because we want to.
Sometimes we gang up and do things to drive mom crazy. It’s really fun. One time, we were hiding in a department store when mom was looking for us. We would’ve never got caught except that Lee knocked over a bookcase and it smashed on the floor. Mom was real mad when they called her name on the loud speaker and she pulled us out of the store by our ears. She said she could never take us anywhere. When we are bad at home, mom makes us sit on the stairs. Lee sits on the back steps and I sit on the front steps. The top of the steps are connected by a long hallway. If we both sit at the top of the steps, we can see each other and continue to make our naughty plans. Lee’s favorite thing to do when he gets in trouble is to ask to go to the bathroom and then go inside the bathroom cupboards and turn everything upside down. This really drives mom crazy. She yells a lot when he does that. She doesn’t ever hit him though. Sometimes she tries to hit me and I swing right back. One time, mom’s fingernail cut me real bad when she grabbed my arm. She was freaked out by the blood so now she doesn’t grab me anymore.
Besides my diary, my next favorite thing in my room is my closet. In my closet, there are beautiful sparkly costumes from all of my dance recitals and beauty pageants. I love sitting on the floor of my closet and looking up at the satin, sequence and bright colors. I think my favorite costume is the one with the purple pants, black and white top, purple hat and silver sequence wrist bands. I think sequence is prettier than diamonds because it sparkles a lot more and you can wear it all over your clothes. I have one leotard that is bright pink with silver and white beads. It’s so pretty. I wore that in a roller skating competition. The one good thing about mom is that she lets me take all the classes I want – dance, skating, painting, singing. I love to take classes. After I go to school all day, I go to classes all night. It makes me happy.
My friend Christine is in my painting class. Sometimes we act silly in the bathroom when we are cleaning our brushes and the teacher Gloria yells at us. We like to laugh but Gloria likes for us to be real serious. One time, Gloria took us on an art trip to a museum in New York City and I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants. Christine was fooling around in one of the museum rooms and she accidently kicked off her shoe and it went flying through the air nearly knocking a painting off the wall. Lucky for us, Gloria didn’t see or we would have been in soooo much trouble.
I write about Christine in my diary. I want to remember the stuff we do together. I wonder if I’ll have the diaries forever or if someday they just won’t matter anymore. Grown-ups don’t seem to write diaries. They always seem to busy. I wonder if I’ll be too busy to write when I grow up too. I hope not.
The cover of my diary is pink and squooshy like a plastic pillow. I like the texture. It’s shiny. I keep my diary on my nightstand next to my little prayer books. I like to write with my favorite pen – a black skinny stem with a fluffy fuchsia hair ball at the end with eyes and a nose. It kind of looks like a bird. A bird from a far away place maybe. Not a bird from around here. The fluffy ball is so soft – soft like my cat. While I think about what to write I like to rub the fluffy ball on my face. I like the way it feels. The fluffy ball seems so alive to me that I start to write stories about it in my diary. I draw a whole family of fluffies. Fluffy balls with faces and hands and feet. The fluffies live in the clouds. They hold hands and play baseball. They have big smiles and no worries. Sometimes I roll out the left-over wallpaper in the basement closet and use the back of it as a canvas. I draw endless scenes of fluffies in the clouds. Sometimes I draw a rainbow or a unicorn, too. I love unicorns almost as much as I love my fluffy pen. I believe in unicorns. I believe they are real. I think someday I will have my very own unicorn. I think I might meet a magic lady that lives in the forest and she will ask me what I want and I will tell her I want a unicorn and she will give one to me. My unicorn can fly. My unicorn is friendly and gentle and my unicorn is white with a golden horn in his forehead. His horn is 24 carat gold like mom’s jewelry. If I had a unicorn, I wouldn’t want anything else. I wouldn’t even need a place to live. We could just ride from place to place and stop and sleep on the clouds when we were tired.
After I fill up my entire pink diary, I ask mom for another one. The next one is blue. It doesn’t have a lock. I don’t like it as much but I fill it up anyway. Then I ask for another and another. I start writing a whole story about a faraway place like dungeons and dragons. There is a wizard in my story and lots of adventures. At night, sometimes Lee comes to my room and sits on my floor and I read him some of my story. He likes it. Sometimes he draws with me on the wallpaper rolls, too.
Sometimes I think our stories and pictures are more real than our real life. I don’t feel anything in the real world when I am writing or drawing. I would like it very much if I could step right into the diary or the drawings and live there. I would like to be a drawing, a 2-dimenison person on paper. I would like that very much.
My favorite thing to do with Lee is to make forts in my room. We take sheets and blankets and pillows and build rooms within my room. The forts are small and we have to crawl on hands and knees to get inside. We can’t stand up or the whole thing will topple down. The space is so small and so safe like a cave where baby animals sleep in the woods. Mom always makes us take them down but we just build them again.
Mom can’t get us to listen to her much. We’re kind of like those trick birthday candles – you keep blowing them out but they keep lighting up again. In the fort, I can touch all four walls from where I sit. I could never do that in my real house. In the fort, the walls, floor and ceiling are all soft. Not like my real house. In my fort, we can use a flashlight for light and there is no big glass chandelier overhead. I love the fort and I could stay in there forever. When you live in a fort, you don’t need many supplies. There’s no kitchen for cooking and no dirty dishes. There are no long hallways to vacuum or beds to be made. There is just a sitting space for talking and laughing and sleeping. That’s it.
Lee and I, we’re like best friends. We do everything at home together. I listen when he plays music on the piano. He plays Barbies with me when I have no one to play with. We’re happier together than we are apart. We fight a lot, too. I’m not sure why but it seems like brothers and sisters are supposed to fight. Maybe we get sick of each other. Maybe we get sick of the house. Maybe we fight because that’s what mom and dad do. I don’t know. But we always make up. Either because mom makes us or because we want to.
Sometimes we gang up and do things to drive mom crazy. It’s really fun. One time, we were hiding in a department store when mom was looking for us. We would’ve never got caught except that Lee knocked over a bookcase and it smashed on the floor. Mom was real mad when they called her name on the loud speaker and she pulled us out of the store by our ears. She said she could never take us anywhere. When we are bad at home, mom makes us sit on the stairs. Lee sits on the back steps and I sit on the front steps. The top of the steps are connected by a long hallway. If we both sit at the top of the steps, we can see each other and continue to make our naughty plans. Lee’s favorite thing to do when he gets in trouble is to ask to go to the bathroom and then go inside the bathroom cupboards and turn everything upside down. This really drives mom crazy. She yells a lot when he does that. She doesn’t ever hit him though. Sometimes she tries to hit me and I swing right back. One time, mom’s fingernail cut me real bad when she grabbed my arm. She was freaked out by the blood so now she doesn’t grab me anymore.
Besides my diary, my next favorite thing in my room is my closet. In my closet, there are beautiful sparkly costumes from all of my dance recitals and beauty pageants. I love sitting on the floor of my closet and looking up at the satin, sequence and bright colors. I think my favorite costume is the one with the purple pants, black and white top, purple hat and silver sequence wrist bands. I think sequence is prettier than diamonds because it sparkles a lot more and you can wear it all over your clothes. I have one leotard that is bright pink with silver and white beads. It’s so pretty. I wore that in a roller skating competition. The one good thing about mom is that she lets me take all the classes I want – dance, skating, painting, singing. I love to take classes. After I go to school all day, I go to classes all night. It makes me happy.
My friend Christine is in my painting class. Sometimes we act silly in the bathroom when we are cleaning our brushes and the teacher Gloria yells at us. We like to laugh but Gloria likes for us to be real serious. One time, Gloria took us on an art trip to a museum in New York City and I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants. Christine was fooling around in one of the museum rooms and she accidently kicked off her shoe and it went flying through the air nearly knocking a painting off the wall. Lucky for us, Gloria didn’t see or we would have been in soooo much trouble.
I write about Christine in my diary. I want to remember the stuff we do together. I wonder if I’ll have the diaries forever or if someday they just won’t matter anymore. Grown-ups don’t seem to write diaries. They always seem to busy. I wonder if I’ll be too busy to write when I grow up too. I hope not.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Sidewalk
It’s a short walk to school. I take the walk everyday for eight years. My eyes memorize the pavement because that’s mostly where I look. Most of the sidewalks are uneven. They are chunks of grey slate bumping up against each other. From the looks of the sidewalk and the pothole-filled roads you would think we have earthquakes here in Scranton. But we don’t. Mom says the roads freeze and break because of the snow and the cold. It’s cold for most of the year here. And grey. Most of the houses are grey, too. People don’t really take care of their houses. The girl Amy who lives down the street from me, her roof is held up by 2X4’s. She’s the same age as me. We have more money than she does so we celebrate birthdays at my house. Mom gets a magician and balloons and a cake. Amy seems happy. Amy’s mom works at McDonalds. We always see her when we go through the drive-thru.
I know that we are getting close to school when the sidewalks change. The sidewalks around the school and church sparkle with little silver flecks of light. I think that these are the sidewalks that they have in heaven and that’s why we have them in front of the church – to remind us of heaven. I feel like the world changes when I walk on those sidewalks. I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I feel like I am stepping into a world that is clean and good and safe. It’s nice to be off the grey, uneven sidewalk. The uneven sidewalk makes me nervous. The kids say things like ‘step on a crack, break your mother’s back.’ That makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to break anything.
Sometimes when I get really angry I can’t control myself and I break something. This heat wave comes over my body. It starts at my feet and rushes up my legs. It’s like a force, like a fire hose. It comes up my legs, fills my body and rushes down my arms. Then my arms and chest become tight. I just have to kick or punch something or I’ll explode. One time I punched the window in my bedroom and it smashed. I just stood there looking at the window. I couldn’t believe I broke it. I wasn’t even scared of what mom and dad would say. I was kind of shocked by the whole thing. After I punched the window in a cool feeling came over my body, like a cool breeze or a summer swimming pool, and the heat gathered in my stomach like a simmering fire – reminding me it was there but I didn’t need to do anything about it. It was just hot in my belly while the rest of me was cool.
The nuns say that hell is hot. They say it’s hot like fire and people are burning there. I know how these people feel. I think of hell as a cavern under my basement, a red and orange cave with a river of lava. I imagine people like slaves in the cave. They are hungry, tired and dirty. They are covered in black ash like my grandfather who worked in the coal mines. The nuns say that we will go to hell if we are bad, that I will go to hell if I do bad things. There are so many bad things that I’m not supposed to do. I ‘m not supposed to talk back, to curse, to get bad grades, to kiss boys, to wear anything other than my blue and white uniform. I’m not supposed to chew gum, cheat on tests, think bad thoughts or tell lies. I do my best to follow all the rules, reminding myself about the dark place I will end up if I make a mistake. When I step off of the sparkling sidewalks, I step onto a large black parking lot and into my school. The school building is a big brick building and the church is even bigger. In between the church and school is a rectory for the priests and a convent for the nuns. The rectory and the convent seem like magical, mystical places to me. I’ve never seen inside of them. I imagine that the priests and nuns learn all their secret magical things in there – how to turn wine into blood and bread into body, how to communicate with God and tell God which ones of us are being bad and which ones are being good, how to read the chants from the bible and tell us what they mean. Sometimes I wonder if God and Mary and other saints appear in the convent or rectory to talk to the nuns and priests.
The nuns are much scarier than the priests at my school. The priests are kind of laid back and funny. The nuns are very strict and scold me all the time. Sister Mary is the principal. She is tall and skinny and wears glasses. It terrifies me to be called to her office. I’ll do just about anything to avoid it. I mostly get sent to the office for dress code violations. I just can’t stand to wear the same thing every day and try to sneak in with other clothes sometimes. I always get caught. I feel the same fire in my legs and arms and belly when I get scolded by Mister Mary that I do at home sometimes when I fight with mom. I wouldn’t dare smash a window at school though. I’m certain that a trap door would open up in the floor and I would slide right down into hell if I did that.
Sitting all day in the little seats makes my butt numb and gives me a headache. There are metal radiators that hiss and rattle in the winter. The room is very hot in the winter. Spring is better because we can open the windows. Breathing the outside air makes me feel like I am alive. I feel like I could die when I’m stuck in the hot stuffy room with the windows closed. I don’t know how the other kids stand it.
At the end of the day, we step back out onto the black pavement, then the sparkly sidewalk, then the uneven sidewalk again. I don’t even have to look up as we approach my house, the Victorian beast on the corner of Oak and Wayne. I can feel her. I can feel her sitting there waiting for me to come back. Stepping into her is like stepping into the belly of an animal. I enter reluctantly, looking forward to the following day when I can take the short walk again to school, looking forward to the few minutes between the brick building and the beast when I get to be outside on the sidewalk in the fresh air, with my feet on the ground.
I know that we are getting close to school when the sidewalks change. The sidewalks around the school and church sparkle with little silver flecks of light. I think that these are the sidewalks that they have in heaven and that’s why we have them in front of the church – to remind us of heaven. I feel like the world changes when I walk on those sidewalks. I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I feel like I am stepping into a world that is clean and good and safe. It’s nice to be off the grey, uneven sidewalk. The uneven sidewalk makes me nervous. The kids say things like ‘step on a crack, break your mother’s back.’ That makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to break anything.
Sometimes when I get really angry I can’t control myself and I break something. This heat wave comes over my body. It starts at my feet and rushes up my legs. It’s like a force, like a fire hose. It comes up my legs, fills my body and rushes down my arms. Then my arms and chest become tight. I just have to kick or punch something or I’ll explode. One time I punched the window in my bedroom and it smashed. I just stood there looking at the window. I couldn’t believe I broke it. I wasn’t even scared of what mom and dad would say. I was kind of shocked by the whole thing. After I punched the window in a cool feeling came over my body, like a cool breeze or a summer swimming pool, and the heat gathered in my stomach like a simmering fire – reminding me it was there but I didn’t need to do anything about it. It was just hot in my belly while the rest of me was cool.
The nuns say that hell is hot. They say it’s hot like fire and people are burning there. I know how these people feel. I think of hell as a cavern under my basement, a red and orange cave with a river of lava. I imagine people like slaves in the cave. They are hungry, tired and dirty. They are covered in black ash like my grandfather who worked in the coal mines. The nuns say that we will go to hell if we are bad, that I will go to hell if I do bad things. There are so many bad things that I’m not supposed to do. I ‘m not supposed to talk back, to curse, to get bad grades, to kiss boys, to wear anything other than my blue and white uniform. I’m not supposed to chew gum, cheat on tests, think bad thoughts or tell lies. I do my best to follow all the rules, reminding myself about the dark place I will end up if I make a mistake. When I step off of the sparkling sidewalks, I step onto a large black parking lot and into my school. The school building is a big brick building and the church is even bigger. In between the church and school is a rectory for the priests and a convent for the nuns. The rectory and the convent seem like magical, mystical places to me. I’ve never seen inside of them. I imagine that the priests and nuns learn all their secret magical things in there – how to turn wine into blood and bread into body, how to communicate with God and tell God which ones of us are being bad and which ones are being good, how to read the chants from the bible and tell us what they mean. Sometimes I wonder if God and Mary and other saints appear in the convent or rectory to talk to the nuns and priests.
The nuns are much scarier than the priests at my school. The priests are kind of laid back and funny. The nuns are very strict and scold me all the time. Sister Mary is the principal. She is tall and skinny and wears glasses. It terrifies me to be called to her office. I’ll do just about anything to avoid it. I mostly get sent to the office for dress code violations. I just can’t stand to wear the same thing every day and try to sneak in with other clothes sometimes. I always get caught. I feel the same fire in my legs and arms and belly when I get scolded by Mister Mary that I do at home sometimes when I fight with mom. I wouldn’t dare smash a window at school though. I’m certain that a trap door would open up in the floor and I would slide right down into hell if I did that.
Sitting all day in the little seats makes my butt numb and gives me a headache. There are metal radiators that hiss and rattle in the winter. The room is very hot in the winter. Spring is better because we can open the windows. Breathing the outside air makes me feel like I am alive. I feel like I could die when I’m stuck in the hot stuffy room with the windows closed. I don’t know how the other kids stand it.
At the end of the day, we step back out onto the black pavement, then the sparkly sidewalk, then the uneven sidewalk again. I don’t even have to look up as we approach my house, the Victorian beast on the corner of Oak and Wayne. I can feel her. I can feel her sitting there waiting for me to come back. Stepping into her is like stepping into the belly of an animal. I enter reluctantly, looking forward to the following day when I can take the short walk again to school, looking forward to the few minutes between the brick building and the beast when I get to be outside on the sidewalk in the fresh air, with my feet on the ground.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Heart of the House
The air is tight and thick around my throat. I’m dropped down into a hot tight place. There is less room for my body, less space for my breath. I try to take up as little space as possible. Such a big house. Such a little space for me. Maybe if I breathe less, move less, the rumble of the house will stop, slow down at least. Maybe I can be the perfect balance point, the eye of the storm in this chaos. Maybe if I stop breathing, stop moving, I will disappear and every fiber of my being will merge into the fiber of everything around me. Maybe I will just become part of the wallpaper, the carpet, the dark brown wood.
I am breathing now. I am open and alive. My body is free and spacious. I stretch like a lazy cat taking up more space unimpeded by hot tight air. I take in more breath, deeper breath, pure powerful energy. Everything is coming aware, awake and alive.
I drop in again. My tummy tightens. My chest collapses. Someone took the air out of the room like someone scooping water out of a boat with a bucket. The air is so tight. Its hard to look side to side, my eyes heavy in my head.
The room seems frozen in time. The scene frozen. The people frozen. I walk around them like mannequins in a department store. There she is at the kitchen table. Her cigarette smoke frozen in air like a snake dancing out of a woven basket. There he is frozen in joyful play, the cat equally frozen like an animal stuffed and posed on display. The scene unfolds one frame at a time, slower than slow motion. One gesture. One breath of smoke. One swoosh of tail. One smile stretched as eyes blink closed.
I don’t think any water flows through here. I don’t recall any rain. I can hear the thunder, dark and deep. I can feel the branches scrape the window trying to push their way in like prying fingers. I run away in my mind over and over again. The stairs in the house lead only to a hallway which leads down another hallway which leads down another set of stairs which connects to another hallway which leads back to the first set of stairs. A labyrinth. A maze. A Salvador Dali painting.
If I cracked the window maybe I could feel some air on my skin but the windows won’t budge. They are painted shut with 100 years of paint. Maybe I could part the curtains and find the source of light. The curtains won’t open much though, the fabric thick like burlap covered with ugly pictures.
What is brand new? Is there anything I haven’t seen before? A drawer? A keyhole? A piece of jewelry?
Does a house have a heart? If it has a heart, the heart of this house is in the dark bottomless closet under the front stairs. A portal. An energy vortex. The hole where Alice falls flailingly.
I find a picture in the closet. A framed picture about the length of my arm from wrist to elbow. It is a picture of a person – maybe Mary, maybe Jesus – and on the front of the body is a glowing pulsing heart covered in a crown of bloody thorns. The figure -- half woman, half man – is smiling a peaceful smile and the arms are floating up about waist high, palms facing up. It’s not an invitation for a hug or some other embrace. It’s not a limp gesture like someone shrugging their shoulders. It’s just a posture of surrender and serenity – if a posture can communicate that. It’s just a person, standing before me with an aching bleeding heart and a smile. It’s just a person with a glowing light around their pain. I think the figure is wearing a blue robe. I can’t say for sure. And the hair is long, shoulder length. And the features are neither masculine nor feminine. The hands are soft. If I could touch them, I think they would feel like my mother’s hands. The nails are clear and clean, like the eyes. The eyes are light blue or green, I can’t say for sure and although the details are so hard to describe the total effect is that I feel like there is a person hovering before me, not a picture at all. It’s not as if the picture is alive or some 3D optical illusion. It’s as if it is a person in a 2-dimensional frame, with a big fat exposed heart.
I want to cover up the heart with the robe and say, “Put that thing away!” It’s just hovering there. Not quite in the chest, but not quite detached either. I want to throw some water on the heart, put out the pain, but there is no water in this house. Maybe the heart will catch fire and burn the whole house down. Maybe that’s why the painting is here. Maybe God knows the evil that lives in this house and he has sent this saint to burn it all down. Could it burn me down too? Would the house burn around me or would I burn with it? I have the funny feeling that the house would burn down around me and I would be left standing on a pile of black ash like the piles of black coal stacked up around this city.
I like the thought of standing on a pile of black ash on the place where the house used to be. I like the idea of everything I know and everything I love burning to a soft quiet black ash. No more stormy nights. No more crazy chaos. No more screaming suffering in my ear. Just soft quiet black ash. I would dip my thumb into the soft black ash and make a cross on my forehead like they do on ash Wednesday in remembrance of everything that burnt down. I would make a cross on my forehead and stand in the ash in my dirty dress and breathe the air that couldn’t come through the windows because they were painted shut with 100 years of paint. I would make a cross on my forehead and stand in my dirty dress and look directly into the source of light that couldn’t get through the heavy ugly curtains that are now settled like soft fallen snow around my feet.
I can’t imagine this for too long, can’t dream it too deep or I might burn the place down myself. Who is this figure in the painting? Why is it here? Why was it hiding in the back of the dark closet under the front stairs? I see my reflection in the picture frame glass. Something about this painting, this person speaks to me. Something says, “I see you.” I squeeze my eyes closed. The image hurts my eyes now. Makes them burn like they burn when mom is smoking in the kitchen. The heart seems like it growing bigger and heavier. Is it moving? Is it beating?
I can’t look at it anymore. I put it back in the closet. Does a house have a heart? If it has a heart, the heart of this house is in the dark bottomless closet under the front stairs.
I am breathing now. I am open and alive. My body is free and spacious. I stretch like a lazy cat taking up more space unimpeded by hot tight air. I take in more breath, deeper breath, pure powerful energy. Everything is coming aware, awake and alive.
I drop in again. My tummy tightens. My chest collapses. Someone took the air out of the room like someone scooping water out of a boat with a bucket. The air is so tight. Its hard to look side to side, my eyes heavy in my head.
The room seems frozen in time. The scene frozen. The people frozen. I walk around them like mannequins in a department store. There she is at the kitchen table. Her cigarette smoke frozen in air like a snake dancing out of a woven basket. There he is frozen in joyful play, the cat equally frozen like an animal stuffed and posed on display. The scene unfolds one frame at a time, slower than slow motion. One gesture. One breath of smoke. One swoosh of tail. One smile stretched as eyes blink closed.
I don’t think any water flows through here. I don’t recall any rain. I can hear the thunder, dark and deep. I can feel the branches scrape the window trying to push their way in like prying fingers. I run away in my mind over and over again. The stairs in the house lead only to a hallway which leads down another hallway which leads down another set of stairs which connects to another hallway which leads back to the first set of stairs. A labyrinth. A maze. A Salvador Dali painting.
If I cracked the window maybe I could feel some air on my skin but the windows won’t budge. They are painted shut with 100 years of paint. Maybe I could part the curtains and find the source of light. The curtains won’t open much though, the fabric thick like burlap covered with ugly pictures.
What is brand new? Is there anything I haven’t seen before? A drawer? A keyhole? A piece of jewelry?
Does a house have a heart? If it has a heart, the heart of this house is in the dark bottomless closet under the front stairs. A portal. An energy vortex. The hole where Alice falls flailingly.
I find a picture in the closet. A framed picture about the length of my arm from wrist to elbow. It is a picture of a person – maybe Mary, maybe Jesus – and on the front of the body is a glowing pulsing heart covered in a crown of bloody thorns. The figure -- half woman, half man – is smiling a peaceful smile and the arms are floating up about waist high, palms facing up. It’s not an invitation for a hug or some other embrace. It’s not a limp gesture like someone shrugging their shoulders. It’s just a posture of surrender and serenity – if a posture can communicate that. It’s just a person, standing before me with an aching bleeding heart and a smile. It’s just a person with a glowing light around their pain. I think the figure is wearing a blue robe. I can’t say for sure. And the hair is long, shoulder length. And the features are neither masculine nor feminine. The hands are soft. If I could touch them, I think they would feel like my mother’s hands. The nails are clear and clean, like the eyes. The eyes are light blue or green, I can’t say for sure and although the details are so hard to describe the total effect is that I feel like there is a person hovering before me, not a picture at all. It’s not as if the picture is alive or some 3D optical illusion. It’s as if it is a person in a 2-dimensional frame, with a big fat exposed heart.
I want to cover up the heart with the robe and say, “Put that thing away!” It’s just hovering there. Not quite in the chest, but not quite detached either. I want to throw some water on the heart, put out the pain, but there is no water in this house. Maybe the heart will catch fire and burn the whole house down. Maybe that’s why the painting is here. Maybe God knows the evil that lives in this house and he has sent this saint to burn it all down. Could it burn me down too? Would the house burn around me or would I burn with it? I have the funny feeling that the house would burn down around me and I would be left standing on a pile of black ash like the piles of black coal stacked up around this city.
I like the thought of standing on a pile of black ash on the place where the house used to be. I like the idea of everything I know and everything I love burning to a soft quiet black ash. No more stormy nights. No more crazy chaos. No more screaming suffering in my ear. Just soft quiet black ash. I would dip my thumb into the soft black ash and make a cross on my forehead like they do on ash Wednesday in remembrance of everything that burnt down. I would make a cross on my forehead and stand in the ash in my dirty dress and breathe the air that couldn’t come through the windows because they were painted shut with 100 years of paint. I would make a cross on my forehead and stand in my dirty dress and look directly into the source of light that couldn’t get through the heavy ugly curtains that are now settled like soft fallen snow around my feet.
I can’t imagine this for too long, can’t dream it too deep or I might burn the place down myself. Who is this figure in the painting? Why is it here? Why was it hiding in the back of the dark closet under the front stairs? I see my reflection in the picture frame glass. Something about this painting, this person speaks to me. Something says, “I see you.” I squeeze my eyes closed. The image hurts my eyes now. Makes them burn like they burn when mom is smoking in the kitchen. The heart seems like it growing bigger and heavier. Is it moving? Is it beating?
I can’t look at it anymore. I put it back in the closet. Does a house have a heart? If it has a heart, the heart of this house is in the dark bottomless closet under the front stairs.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Bodhi Tree
I went to the Bodhi tree. I sat at the base of the tree in amazement, in wonder. I sketched a drawing of the tree in my journal. I picked up one of the sacred leaves off the ground and pressed it into the white pages. The tree itself is a descendent of the original Bodhi tree where the Buddha sat when he became enlightened. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in the exact same place where the Buddha sat some 2500 years ago. The garden that surrounds the Bodhi tree is surprisingly unassuming. It’s not like the big Lotus Temple in Delhi or the Taj Mahal in Agra. It’s just a garden and a tree and a few visitors – a colorful mix of Asian, Indian and White people. It’s quiet there. Not deliberately quiet like church or a library. Just quiet like a garden. I don’t think anyone stared at the tree quite as much as I did. I was mesmerized. I was much more intrigued by the tree where the Buddha sat than with the Buddha himself. There was something about the aliveness. The tree was alive. The Buddha was dead. The tree was breathing. The Buddha is a memory. I felt the same way sitting and staring at the tree as I did the day my mother died and again when I was standing in the forest in South Africa. I thought, “I know you! I know this feeling. I know the experience that the Buddha had when he was sitting underneath you. I felt that too.”
It’s a connectedness. It’s a familiarity with nature, like nature is your friend and nature loves you. It’s a feeling that we come from nature and return to the essence of nature when we die. That’s what happened when mom died. She went back into the nature, back into the essence of everything. I felt her in the air, in the leaves of the tree, in the caterpillar. And I felt that essence standing in the forest in South Africa and again staring at the Bodhi tree in India.
The Bodhi tree is difficult to get to. It’s out of the way, off the beaten path. You really have to go out of your way to get there -- take a train for 20 hours, then ride in a taxi for 8 hours, then take a rickshaw for 20 min to the garden. You have to really want to go there, to make the trip. It really was the only thing that I wanted to see in India. It was the most important site to me. The big temples and statues and grand structures are pretty, but I’m much more impressed with the essence of a place. And for me, the essence of India all stemmed from the spirituality of the land and that spiritual essence was grounded for me in a tree in the middle of the desert.
India is hot. It was hot and dry and dusty. Brown everywhere. The tree was green. The leaves were shaped like hearts, little beating hearts falling from thick dark branches creating a blanket of hearts around the trunk of the tree. I smiled when I saw the leaves. Of course they look like hearts! Why wouldn’t they!
I recognized the tree when I saw it. Not recognized the site of it but the feeling of it. I felt at home. I was so far away from “home” so many thousands of miles from home all alone in the desert of India and yet I was in a “known” place. A guide took me up to the cave where Buddha sat for twelve years before he walked down the mountain across the river and sat under the Bodhi tree. The cave was black inside. Empty. Cold. No one was even there. There were a few tattered Tibetan flags marking the mountain but even less people ventured to the cave in the hot sun than they did to the tree. I imagined sitting in the cave for 12 years, listening to the bustling valley below. Wondered what it would be like to sit for 12 years and listen. That’s not what led to enlightenment though. There was no enlightenment until Buddha left the cave, crossed the water and sat under the tree to find the “middle way.”
So many times before and after my visit to the Bodhi tree I have sat at the trunk of a tree looking for comfort. So many times I have rested my hand on a tree to say, ‘hi friend. Can you give me a little support right now?’ So many times the tree has graciously and unconditionally offered its love and support to me. One time, I was walking in the woods, feeling lonely and I sat down on a rock in despair. I felt a branch touch the back of my shoulder like a friend putting her arm around me. I sighed in gratitude and thanked nature for reaching out. Another time, I was arguing with my boyfriend in Los Angeles and I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. I was raging inside with anger and frustration. I walked a few miles over dirty cement streets surrounded by street lights, head lights and cars wooshing by. It wasn’t until I got to the top of a hill where the road opened out to a golf course that I caught sight of a big beautiful grove of trees and I sighed again, saying a quiet thank you inside. I immediately felt the shift in my body. Felt all the anger release. Felt myself come into balance and found my breath once again.
It’s a connectedness. It’s a familiarity with nature, like nature is your friend and nature loves you. It’s a feeling that we come from nature and return to the essence of nature when we die. That’s what happened when mom died. She went back into the nature, back into the essence of everything. I felt her in the air, in the leaves of the tree, in the caterpillar. And I felt that essence standing in the forest in South Africa and again staring at the Bodhi tree in India.
The Bodhi tree is difficult to get to. It’s out of the way, off the beaten path. You really have to go out of your way to get there -- take a train for 20 hours, then ride in a taxi for 8 hours, then take a rickshaw for 20 min to the garden. You have to really want to go there, to make the trip. It really was the only thing that I wanted to see in India. It was the most important site to me. The big temples and statues and grand structures are pretty, but I’m much more impressed with the essence of a place. And for me, the essence of India all stemmed from the spirituality of the land and that spiritual essence was grounded for me in a tree in the middle of the desert.
India is hot. It was hot and dry and dusty. Brown everywhere. The tree was green. The leaves were shaped like hearts, little beating hearts falling from thick dark branches creating a blanket of hearts around the trunk of the tree. I smiled when I saw the leaves. Of course they look like hearts! Why wouldn’t they!
I recognized the tree when I saw it. Not recognized the site of it but the feeling of it. I felt at home. I was so far away from “home” so many thousands of miles from home all alone in the desert of India and yet I was in a “known” place. A guide took me up to the cave where Buddha sat for twelve years before he walked down the mountain across the river and sat under the Bodhi tree. The cave was black inside. Empty. Cold. No one was even there. There were a few tattered Tibetan flags marking the mountain but even less people ventured to the cave in the hot sun than they did to the tree. I imagined sitting in the cave for 12 years, listening to the bustling valley below. Wondered what it would be like to sit for 12 years and listen. That’s not what led to enlightenment though. There was no enlightenment until Buddha left the cave, crossed the water and sat under the tree to find the “middle way.”
So many times before and after my visit to the Bodhi tree I have sat at the trunk of a tree looking for comfort. So many times I have rested my hand on a tree to say, ‘hi friend. Can you give me a little support right now?’ So many times the tree has graciously and unconditionally offered its love and support to me. One time, I was walking in the woods, feeling lonely and I sat down on a rock in despair. I felt a branch touch the back of my shoulder like a friend putting her arm around me. I sighed in gratitude and thanked nature for reaching out. Another time, I was arguing with my boyfriend in Los Angeles and I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. I was raging inside with anger and frustration. I walked a few miles over dirty cement streets surrounded by street lights, head lights and cars wooshing by. It wasn’t until I got to the top of a hill where the road opened out to a golf course that I caught sight of a big beautiful grove of trees and I sighed again, saying a quiet thank you inside. I immediately felt the shift in my body. Felt all the anger release. Felt myself come into balance and found my breath once again.
Mom
The funeral home was empty except for the staff who were awaiting our arrival. I walked in alone. It was so quiet that I could hear each step I took towards the viewing room. The chairs and flowers were all arranged in their proper place. I knew it was going to be an open casket. I would have to “approve” my mother’s appearance and make sure it “looked like her.” I could see the coffin in the front of the room. I was so silent I could hear my own heart beat. I stepped forward. As I walked up to the coffin, all of time and space seemed to disappear. The air around me was thick with the presence of my mother. I looked at the body lying there in a soft pink dress. Hands crossed over the waist. Hair and make-up copied almost exactly from a photo we had given to the funeral home. I felt a presence in the room. The air around me was like a ball of unconditional love – embracing me. Making me smile. It was as if I could feel her breathing the life force around me. I could hold no other thought in my mind other than “my mother is free and happy.”
I am sitting on a fold-up chair at the cemetery. The priest is mumbling prayer after prayer. My mother’s best friend and brother are reading poems and song lyrics to the small crowd. My mother’s coffin is waiting to be set into the ground. I look to the tree on my left and there is a small green caterpillar on the nearest leaf. Through the eyes of the caterpillar I see my mother. My mother is in the caterpillar. She’s not just in the caterpillar, she’s in the the bush, the grass, the sky, the air I am breathing. My mother is everywhere.
I am sitting on a fold-up chair at the cemetery. The priest is mumbling prayer after prayer. My mother’s best friend and brother are reading poems and song lyrics to the small crowd. My mother’s coffin is waiting to be set into the ground. I look to the tree on my left and there is a small green caterpillar on the nearest leaf. Through the eyes of the caterpillar I see my mother. My mother is in the caterpillar. She’s not just in the caterpillar, she’s in the the bush, the grass, the sky, the air I am breathing. My mother is everywhere.
Lee
They’re holding his little 1-yr-old body down on the hospital bed. Like a wild animal he is screaming and squirming with blood all over his face. I am squeezing Mom’s hand and crying so hard that my throat is raw and my tear ducts dry. Blinding sunlight pours in through the window behind the bed onto the scene. A tall man in a white coat is bent over my little brother. A dozen other hospital people crowd around him. I am only thigh-high and I can’t see what he’s doing but he’s got a needle and thread and it sounds like he is stabbing my brother in the eye. Mom is shaking. Her black mascara running down her face and messy blond hair stuck to her head with sweat and tears. I want to save my brother so bad. I want to stop his pain. I want to kill that man hovering over him and make it stop. I can’t believe this is happening.
What an amazing thing it is to have a baby brother. I swear I thought he was mine from the minute Mom laid him down in front of me. I was only two and half years old but I knew exactly what to do to make him laugh, smile, giggle, and squirm. He was so fat and round – ten pounds when he was born- and too heavy for me to pick up. Mom let me feed him and play with him as much as I wanted. I would hug him all the time and kiss his face. His checks were puffy and soft and cool. Mom used to say his chubby legs were so cute that she wanted to eat them. I would’ve eaten them too if she offered me one. He was a delicious little baby and so totally different from me. He was quiet and always looking around. Taking everything in. Observing with big surprised eyes. I was always bouncing around, singing and dancing, trying to entertain him. Sometimes it was a puppet show with Burt, Ernie, and Cookie Monster with an upside-down cardboard box as our stage. Other times it was my impersonations of the Mouseketeers with my Mickey Mouse hat– and he would clap while I danced, and I would dance while he clapped. I just adored him from the minute I laid eyes on him.
The accident happened so fast. I was at the top of the stairs looking back. I was carrying some groceries for Mom. Lee slipped and fell, smashing his head on the bright orange ceramic pot. Lee started bleeding. Mom started screaming. Next thing I know we are in the emergency room, this torture scene where the doctors are trying to put my brother back together like Humpty Dumpty.
“Oh my God!” Mom is crying.
“Make it stop. Make it stop.” I yell.
“My baby!” Mom screams.
More wailing and squirming from Lee.
“They’re hurting him!” I say.
No one is listening to me.
“His little face. His precious little face.” Mom cries.
My body is filled with sensations and emotions that I did not yet have words for. My insides are hot and something is shaking me from the inside out. I tighten every muscle in my little body to keep from falling down.
They poke his face thirty times with the needle. I hear him screeching each time the needle pierces and tugs and pulls at his flesh. He has to get thirty stitches in his forehead over his right eye. Doctors said he was lucky he hit where he did or it could’ve been worse. I don’t think it was he was lucky at all. I saw what they did. I can’t believe somebody so little could stay awake through all that pain. I can’t believe I stood there and watched it happen. If suffering some pain is hard, watching someone suffer and not being able to do anything about it is a nightmare.
What an amazing thing it is to have a baby brother. I swear I thought he was mine from the minute Mom laid him down in front of me. I was only two and half years old but I knew exactly what to do to make him laugh, smile, giggle, and squirm. He was so fat and round – ten pounds when he was born- and too heavy for me to pick up. Mom let me feed him and play with him as much as I wanted. I would hug him all the time and kiss his face. His checks were puffy and soft and cool. Mom used to say his chubby legs were so cute that she wanted to eat them. I would’ve eaten them too if she offered me one. He was a delicious little baby and so totally different from me. He was quiet and always looking around. Taking everything in. Observing with big surprised eyes. I was always bouncing around, singing and dancing, trying to entertain him. Sometimes it was a puppet show with Burt, Ernie, and Cookie Monster with an upside-down cardboard box as our stage. Other times it was my impersonations of the Mouseketeers with my Mickey Mouse hat– and he would clap while I danced, and I would dance while he clapped. I just adored him from the minute I laid eyes on him.
The accident happened so fast. I was at the top of the stairs looking back. I was carrying some groceries for Mom. Lee slipped and fell, smashing his head on the bright orange ceramic pot. Lee started bleeding. Mom started screaming. Next thing I know we are in the emergency room, this torture scene where the doctors are trying to put my brother back together like Humpty Dumpty.
“Oh my God!” Mom is crying.
“Make it stop. Make it stop.” I yell.
“My baby!” Mom screams.
More wailing and squirming from Lee.
“They’re hurting him!” I say.
No one is listening to me.
“His little face. His precious little face.” Mom cries.
My body is filled with sensations and emotions that I did not yet have words for. My insides are hot and something is shaking me from the inside out. I tighten every muscle in my little body to keep from falling down.
They poke his face thirty times with the needle. I hear him screeching each time the needle pierces and tugs and pulls at his flesh. He has to get thirty stitches in his forehead over his right eye. Doctors said he was lucky he hit where he did or it could’ve been worse. I don’t think it was he was lucky at all. I saw what they did. I can’t believe somebody so little could stay awake through all that pain. I can’t believe I stood there and watched it happen. If suffering some pain is hard, watching someone suffer and not being able to do anything about it is a nightmare.
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