Knowing

In my last entry I talked about lying, and truth.  But the truth is that if someone asks me how I am or what I feel, I would be lying if I said anything other than "I don't know."  Or, what would be more accurate, I guess, would be to say that the feelings are too tangled up, and I don't know which ones come first, or how many they are, or how many layers deep they go.  I've never been good at choosing a place to start.

(In cleaning a room or--so horrific--cleaning and packing to move--the question of where to start immobilizes me.  "Just pick a place," people say.  "It doesn't matter where you start, just pick a place and go from there."  And I just continue to stand in the doorway, uncomprehending.  I hear the words--they make sense--but still I have no idea how to put them into practice, and no idea how to learn to do it.)

I'm not even good at writing in a diary anymore.  I used to keep one, from the time I was about fourteen till I was--maybe--about twenty.  Even then I wasn't good at it.  I wrote a lot, but if someone were to read those books (after they found the keys, of course), they'd be disappointed if they thought they were going to learn about my life or the world around me.  Reading over them, I always notice that I almost never talk about any events, anything concrete to give a reader something to grab on to.  No, it's all about feelings.  And elaborate metaphors to illustrate those feelings.

"I wish it were the way it used to be, when the light shone upon me and everything seemed golden.  Now I just huddle in the shadows, cold and shivering, a tattered blanket all I have to try to wrap myself in, and it is woefully small. . . ."

Okay, that's not an actual quote.  It's something I just made up.  But that's the gist of it.  My writing is embarrassingly bad, though I blame my teachers for some of that.  Why did they give me As and tell me it was good?

I don't completely ridicule that girl.  I get it.  She was a teenager, and that was the way she wrote as a teenager.  I can tell now, of course, when a young writer is good--or going to be good--even through all the curlicues and winding sentences and "big" words.  (I smile at them, though.  I can't help that.)  But of course I hold myself to a different standard, as we all do, I suppose.  I should have been better.  I should have seen it.  How could I have remained so immature for so long?  It was long after everyone else had matured, wasn't it?  When I think about authors like Austen, like the Brontes, I think about how young they were when they first wrote publishable books.  My writing was like the writing of a two-year-old when compared with that.  I can't remember smiling over the naivety in Northanger Abbey or Wuthering Heights.

(Though, to be honest, Charlotte's Professor tends to make one grin.  Or grimace.  Because it's a mess, it's just an emotional, wish-fulfilling mess.  It reminds me of the first "novel" I wrote--and actually managed to finish--when I was 16-18 years old.  Oh, Charlotte.  Your professor.  And how he seemed in print form to value your qualities over anyone else's. . . . I know.  I know.  I know.)

Someone might say I'm just being hard on myself.  "We're always harder on ourselves than anyone else . . . ," yada, yada, yada.  But that's not what it is  It is pure and simple narcissism.  (If narcissism can be simple.)  Because I have to believe that I was different from other people, that my writing had something indescribable even then, that there was foreshadowing, crystal ball revealing of how it was to be, much later.  Because if none of that is true, then I'm just another person.  I'm just another nameless wisher, and there is no magic charm to guarantee that it's all been written in the stars, I'm just another girl who wants something and is, if we look at statistics--boring, cold, flat statistics--much more than likely to fail.  Branwell Bronte.  Tolstoy's brother.  So, you see, I need proof that this isn't the case, and you can imagine how upsetting it might be to think you might not find it.  To think that you're ordinary. . . .

It's amazing the stories we tell ourselves to survive, isn't it?  Amazing how the brain hits on something it just can't deal with, and so it comes up with an explanation, or invents an alternative that we cling to, because we have to--or else stumble and fall--fall hard.  And we tell ourselves, "But if I believe so strongly, then it must be true, mustn't it?"  And then, "Well, but if I believe in it hard enough, then it will have to come true, won't it?"  And then, even as everything is ending, a baffled, "But it was true--it was true--wasn't it?"

But who cares if it is true?  I do.

Who cares if it's true?  I don't.

Hedda Gabler, in Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name, kills herself because she so badly wants two things that are so at odds with one another that it is impossible to possess both at the same time.  A house divided against itself cannot stand.  Hedda Gabler needs the impossible.  If her needs cannot be met, she must die.

Don't worry, this is not a suicide note.  I'm much too scared of death for something like that.  And also, underneath all the doom and gloom and giving up, I'm forced to admit that I actually haven't given up.  Not really.  It only looks that way, mostly feels that way.  But there is always that muffled spark.  "Hope is the thing with feathers----- and never stops--at all--"  How many wish this weren't true, I wonder?  Sometimes the humiliation of hope is enough to make you sink to your knees.  And even then--it sings on.

I think it's what I still do, maybe.  Talk on and on about abstract feelings, until what once might have made sense in a single sentence--or two--becomes all tangled up and confusing and turns out not to make sense at all.  But say life itself doesn't make sense, plain and simple, and we've come full circle. 

(If circles exist.  Or lines.  Or even the contour of a beating heart.)

I know how I feel, but there are no words for it all.  In all the words here I have barely even touched on it.  So my answer must be "I don't know."  Because I don't know how to tell you.

Lying

I'm not a good liar. 

That is to say--I'm quite capable of lying, and--I think--of lying well.  I think this because I used to be able to do it when I was younger.  The actual moments of lying were always filled with fear, but afterward, when I knew I'd gotten away with it, they were a source of pride.  Now, don't get me wrong--being proud of a lie is not a great thing any way you look at .  Though, in hopes that this isn't just a way for me to justify my behavior, I do think that a lot of the pride came from feeling that I could act a part well, that I could be smart enough and creative enough to pull it off.  It was an art form, and art, to me, was like air--necessary to life, and always nice to be able to breathe in the fresh kind.  Any new form or nuance of art I wanted to go after and become good at.  I don't know if I would have put it quite in these words at the time, but it's fairly safe to say this is how I felt about it.

In sixth grade, there was this time I forgot to do my homework.  That almost never happened to me, but this time it had just completely escaped my mind.  And this wasn't a teacher who would just shake her head at you or give you a 0 or something like that.  This one would yell at you in front of everyone, and I mean really yell.  She was loud.  And cutting.  And rather long-winded.  She liked me, because I was a good student, but that didn't really mean all that much in moments like these.  So when she called for the homework to be turned in, I froze for a second or two in shock.  Then I stood up and walked over to her desk, while everyone else was putting their homework in the homework box and returning to their seats.

"Ms. ____," I said.  "May I go to the restroom?"

She smiled at me: "Of course."  And handed me the pass.

Heart pounding, I walked out of the room, down the hall, and into the girls' bathroom.  I didn't really have to go, so I locked myself in a stall (in case anyone else came in), and waited for a decent amount of time.  When I got back to class, everyone of course had moved beyond homework and were well into the next order of business.

That night, I did the homework.  And at the beginning of class the next day I walked up to the teacher's desk again.

"Ms. ____?" I said.  "Did you call for the homework yesterday?"

"Yes, I did," she said, pleasantly enough.

"Oh . . . I don't think I heard you."

She didn't pause to think for more than a second.  "You know what?  I think you were in the restroom.  Here, I'll take it now."

"Thank you," I said, and gave it to her.

Some people might call this a lot of trouble for nothing.  They might say, "It was just one day of homework.  Who cares?"  But I cared.  Even more than getting bad grades on--anything--I dreaded being chastised, especially in front of others.  I dreaded drawing any kind of negative attention to myself.  So as I walked away from the desk, a smile snaked across my face--but it wasn't just from relief.  I was good, and I knew it.  I bragged about it.  Oh, I bragged.

But the funny thing is that I guess even then I wasn't a natural liar.  I really had to put on an act, an act I was nervous about the entire time I was performing it.  And it was never about anything important--or about anything I considered important.  Who cared if I lied about the homework once or twice?  Who cared if, in high school, I left early when I had nothing but study hall left?  It was a stupid rule anyway.  You didn't have to go to your last period class if it was just a study hall, but you couldn't leave for the last two periods if both were study halls.  Dumb.  So I found that if you just walked out slowly and calmly and with a smile, no one said a word to you except, "See you tomorrow!  Have a good night!"

Now, this was only a lie by omission.  And about absolutely nothing that was really going to hurt anybody.

I actually had huge problems lying to certain people, like my parents (though you'd never get my dad to believe that).  In addition to not liking to lie about important things, I also didn't like to lie to people who mattered to me.  When I had to do it (if you didn't want to go to school, for instance, on field day--a day everyone else loved and I hated--it would be a good idea to say you were allowed to miss that day if, say, your parents just wrote a note excusing you), I'd often get caught because I would say as little as possible and avoid the subject like crazy.  If I had to lie to someone who mattered (and to get out of a horrible day of school you dreaded or to keep some secret you just couldn't tell from a friend, then, yes, you'd have to lie), then I was awkward and noncommittal and usually ended up admitting whatever it was to whomever it was at some later point anyway.

After high school, I pretty much stopped feeling proud about executing any kind of lie, no matter how small or how inspired.  I knew I could do it--I didn't like doing it.  I still felt the need to lie about certain things, like when my dad was hellbent on me becoming an elementary school teacher and told me I had to take a certain elementary ed class that conflicted with the poetry class I was finally able to take.  That, I thought--and still think--was sort of a necessary evil.  Other than that kind of thing, though, I stayed away from it as much as I could.

Then there came a point in my life when I lied all the time.  I lied about what I was doing, what I was feeling, and about who I was.  Lying became second nature, and though I still hated doing it and agonized over it, it was very, very hard to stop.  So when I finally did, I told myself that I would never lie again if I could help it, except in cases of sparing another's feelings, without hurting them further.  And that would be minimal.  I have told people I will never lie to them, and I mean it.  If they say, "Please be honest with me--am I being a whiny baby?" or "--do you think there's anything I need to do to fix this piece of art?" I'll grit my teeth and give my honest answer in the kindest way possible if it is a negative one, so that when I say, "No; you have every right to be upset about this," or "No, that's amazing, and I love it," they'll believe it.  Or I hope they will.

An ex-boyfriend of mine was always convinced that I was lying when I wasn't:

"All I was looking for was loyalty."
"I've been loyal!"
"Oh, please.  You never once were."
"I love you."
"You do not, and it's fine.  Just admit it, and we can both move on."

These conversations usually ended in a lie (if they didn't just end in me crying): "All right.  Fine.  You're right.  You won't ever believe anything else, so I hate you, I'm disloyal, and whatever else you want to think."

It would be funny if it weren't sad.

What I do find unbelievably funny is that--after all of this--my psychologist now tells me I should lie more.

What?

"You like to preserve the integrity of things," she says with a smile.  "You hate lying, based on principle.  But sometimes it's better to lie to avoid certain situations.  Don't bring unnecessary hurt upon yourself."

But I still find that very hard to do, and I've told her so.  I don't consider myself a person who "tells it like it is."  When people claim that, they're usually using it as an excuse to be rude or to no longer worry about any kind of filter.  They often want a fight.  I don't offer up useless information if it's going to hurt someone.  But if you ask me a question--I will tell you the truth, as long as I know what the truth is.  If I don't, I'll tell you so.  And if it is something I feel I absolutely can't say--I will tell you that, too.

I'm not sure that this is taking the moral high ground.  I don't think I'm preaching about anything.  It's just that I've discovered it's a lot easier--and a huge relief--to tell the truth.  I like feeling good about myself that way.

FAIL

Ugh.  I hate when I write vague poems.  What good are those?  I didn't set out to be vague . . . but it somehow spiraled away from me.


Fate

Write about the sun, she said,

worship at the altars

of the ancients.

Take communion with the dawn

of waking man,

find your bright equivalent.

I know Diana and Selene

are not enough

when the rays fight against my fingers

and stain red the darkness

even when I close my eyes.

But if I were to join forces with Sumer,

with Babylon—

If I were to build a tower—

I’m certain I would be struck down,

lie broken in the sun.

Aurora seems kinder—

but even then—

exhaustion—

Though sometimes I feel ancient

in my bones,

others I know I am too young,

the years stretching out before me

in an endless string of stars.

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.

Luna, luna, luna. . . .

 

 

*     *     *

 

 

Also, in reading over old posts, I've realized how wildly unclear they are.  I seriously don't know what on earth I'm talking about in several places.

Shift

It is always so surreal when—for just a second—I find myself seeing a person I am very close to, or have known all my life, as a complete stranger would see them.  One moment they are the person I know, they are what their name, their features, their traits have come to embody for me—and the next they are just some woman, just some man, just a random child sitting next to me or a boy smiling out from a picture. 

When this happens to me with a picture, I always try to recapture the fleeting feeling after it is gone.  It really does last only a second—maybe less—and then I am left staring, looking at the photograph this way and that, trying to refocus my eyes until they see something different again, that slight shift in perception that is so strange and so fascinating.  It’s like that picture of the duck and the rabbit.  Which is it?  A duck or a rabbit?  Which one do you see first?  Which image remains, making it harder to return to the other?

When I was little, riding the school bus, I sometimes sat in the back and stared out the small window at the bottom of the emergency exit door, where you could see the pavement on the street gliding smoothly by in a blur of grain and tiny stones.  I stared at it because, if I refocused my eyes just right, I could imagine that the road was much farther away than just under the bus—that it was miles and miles away, as if I were flying far above it—or that it was a huge, magnificent road for tiny people, or a small, insignificant track for giants.

“What is she doing?” kids around me whispered.

I can’t imagine how I looked to them.  Or maybe I can: a strange kid transfixed by the bottom of the bus, her eyes huge and unswerving, spellbound by—nothing.  I kind of grin when I think about it now.

What is she doing?  I never did let them know.  Just ignored them and went on refocusing my eyes.

Why is it so fascinating—this occasional quest to alter my vision, my perception of people and things?  Sometimes I think it is just the fun of playing with the brain.  Sometimes it is because I want to do the impossible and travel back in time, where I can unknow a person I’ve known for years.  Other times I’m sure that it is a desire to see outside myself, to find someone else’s eyes, shift the crystal ever so slightly in the light and see what colors flash forth.

I had a dream recently that I was a dying old man.  The hospital couldn’t do anything for me anymore, so they released me to my daughter’s care.  As I stepped shakily off the bus that brought me to her home, I saw the bright smile on her face, the same smile my teenage granddaughter was wearing next to her.  The smiles were genuine.  I knew that.  They were happy to see me, despite the circumstances.  But I felt my heart sink as I looked at them, felt the hollowness beginning to spread all through me as I longed for someone I could lean on, someone I could look to for support.  My mother was gone.  My wife was gone.  My daughter would take care of me, I knew, but she was not someone I could sink into, let go with.  I was her caretaker.  Or that was the way it was supposed to be.  That was the way it had been.

Everything was different.  Everyone was gone.

And as the dream flashed to the next day, with me as an old man sitting by myself in my daughter’s den, I felt myself slipping away.  I closed my eyes, letting the darkness cascade over me, deeper and deeper, in waves, and was only partially afraid.  The rest of me knew that this was as it was meant to be.  And then, suddenly, I was half old man and half the real me, and a soft voice in my head said, You’re going to wake up now, and then I really sank back into the darkness, waiting to wake up.

It was such a strange dream, and the feeling lingered for so long afterward.  I kept marveling at how real it had seemed—at how I had never really felt what it was to be like that old man before—could never have hoped to feel it, but for that dream.

Why? I kept asking myself. Why did I dream it?

“Caretaker?” my dad scoffed when I told him about it.  “You’ve never been a caretaker to anyone in your life.”

But that was the point.  I’d never been a father or grandfather.  I’d never been an old man, or a dying one.  But I was in that dream.  In that dream, my vision shifted, my emotions shifted.  I was someone else—or another me.

I don’t exactly know why.  But changes in perception are, I think, even in their smallest forms, gifts.  For a chance to see the world a little differently, just for a moment, I would stare and stare and stare.

Blessed Are

I like the show Once Upon a Time.  I've said quite a few times that I think the show is incredibly cheesy.  I mean, it has unabashedly embraced (and I mean embraced, like a frickin' boa constrictor) the themes of fate, love conquers all, love is the strongest magic, and good always wins.  So you can enjoy this show a lot only if you blithely shrug your shoulders and accept that it's a ridiculously feel-good, predictable trip.

That said, I think I need to take a break from my cynicism--just a little one, for just a short while. :)  People need these kinds of shows, books, songs, etc., sometimes.  Sometimes they're not just guilty pleasures.  Sometimes something else breaks through.  Tonight, when I was watching Once Upon a Time, I realized that a lot of my cynicism comes from people spouting these maxims about fate and love conquering all not because they believe them, but because they think it's what they're supposed to believe, or they're trying to trick themselves into strength, into making others believe they are strong.  So much lying to ourselves--so much lying to others to make us seem like the strong people the world expects us to be.  And I get fed up, and I just want to tell all these people--just admit that you are broken.  Just admit it and then shoot for reassembly--somehow.  Just admit you don't have it all together yet.

But the maxims--themselves--are essentially true.  Or I think I believe that again anyway.  At the heart of clichés, of course, is truth--we just have to ferret it out of the words and phrases that have become so commonplace and automatic as to seem absolutely meaningless.  Is there fate?  I don't know for sure.  But I think so.  There are some things in my life that have been so brilliant and so improbable and so right all at once that they make it hard for me to believe that they weren't simply meant to be from the beginning.  And love conquers all?  Good always wins?  Yes.  Yes, that is most certainly true.  Just not necessarily on this earth.  Probably not on this earth.  I've been forgetting that.  Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . . Blessed are those who mourn . . . .

There is such beauty here on earth.  Find it.  Feel it as much as you can.  Create it--if you can.  But know there is something more.

Poems ~ Bleh

I have poem phases and non-poem phases.  (That was a brilliant distinction, wasn't it?)  Right now--non-poem.  And I'm also in one of those all-too-frequent "my writing sucks" phases, but for some reason I felt like sending a couple poems into the world tonight.  These are three I don't hate too much.

Older ones:

The Remains (A Moment

In Italy)

I see them in your eyes,

those women’s words,
ash of the hourglass
sifting away the minutes
before you’ll leave again.
Who knew the obsidian
of your sharp gaze
had splintered so long ago
even your laugh cracked
beneath the shards?

I knew.

You didn’t have
to tell me.

The dark of your secrets
has always shimmered,
opaque at the heart
of your dormant throat.
And your chest houses
the scattered remains
of pottery, clay figures,
torn papyrus scrolls
of ancient story.

I have always known
your age.

You don’t have
to speak it.

I have seen the graves,
loved each hollowed shape.
I will lay my flowers,
sing my prayers,
if only to calm your
sleep tonight, ease
the burden of your
breathing.

 

Midnight in Berlin

There is snow on the street in Berlin

You have left me in the snow on the street
You are gazing up at windows
Let me in

It is cold in the street in Berlin

And you stand with no cloak in the street
Let me wrap my shawl about your shoulders
Turn—

It is raw in the street in Berlin

You could go numb in the white of the street
What ghosts have you seen sleeping here
Whose face

There is a child in the street in Berlin

There is a child where you stood in the street
Let me wrap my arms about his shoulders
Come—

There is snow on the street in Berlin

You have left me in the snow on the street
I am gazing up at windows
Let me in



Newer one:


Rome

Someday the fall of Rome will fill my soul

and with every crumble of the Colosseum I will feel you,
I’ll feel the stone
trembling
beneath your chest,
and I’ll try to rebuild, reroot each brick
until you convince me,
until I really believe,
that you like the crashing better
and the roaring
through your heaving body.

And we’ll be gods
in tattered remnants
watching the gladiators fight in jagged amphitheaters
collapsing all around us.
And we’ll laugh
because we aren’t fighting—
because we are ready to fall
soul in soul
within a nation—

We are empires

We are nothing
And I feel you here
with me
and I will fall
and fall
and fall
and fall—
with you—

When the stones of Rome are crashing down around me—
I want to be with you.

A rant about "regular" women--don't expect anything coherent

Look.  Here's the thing about women. 

We know that models are still bone-thin.  We know they're still six feet tall.  We know that there is still pressure to have a boyfriend and get married or else be considered pitiable (basically an old maid, just without the term "old maid").

But here's the other thing.  Or maybe it's the same thing, people just for some reason don't seem to be getting it:

WE KNOW ALL OF THIS.  NOW QUIT WRITING/TALKING ABOUT IT LIKE IT'S A NEW CONCEPT. 

I'm not saying you can't bitch about.  Whatever, go ahead if that's what you want to do.  But please recognize that you're not brilliant or innovative or a new, snarky, sassy voice that for the first time truly represents women.  I mean, come on, how many times does some chick have to write this same article or book or whatever before people stop saying, "At last, someone to speak for us regular women!" and they finally realize--THIS CHICK IS JUST JUMPING ON THE DAMN BANDWAGON that everyone somehow forgets is there every freaking time.  Apparently the latest voice of the regular women is always just floating along, preaching down from a perch on an invisible wagon AND flicking the reigns over an invisible horse.  I don't blame the horse and wagon at all, though.  If I were pulling and carting this clueless crap I'd want to disappear, too.

But I digress. And am probably being incoherent, as promised. ::slapping myself in the face::  Invisible horses and wagons . . . :)

Anyway--there's another element to this I'd like to discuss.  I absolutely hate the weird solutions the "voices" of "regular" women come up with.  And, oh yeah, they're always the same, too--it's called "let's discriminate against certain characteristics of women so as to end the discrimination of other characteristics."  For example, let's say you're a female who's outspoken, bold, and academic.  Cool.  Good for you.  Let's say you're kind of a girly girl who likes pink and thinks about finding love.  I say that's cool, too.  Another "good for you" is in order.  But apparently if we are defending the first kind of woman, that means we have to condemn the second kind.  What?  Is anyone out there suddenly confused?  If you're not, you should be.  Because, honestly, why on earth would you want to promote freedom to be who you are by making another person feel like it's taboo to be the way SHE is?  And WHY on EARTH can't a woman be outspoken, bold, academic, girly, pink-loving, and soulmate-searching all at the same time?

Love is supposedly weak now, that's why.  And there always has to be something to conform to.  I find it all to be ridiculous.  If you want a boyfriend or a husband because you think that will make you look better in the eyes of society--well, that's one thing.  But if you want to connect with someone or have some type of physical intimacy with another human being because you're like every other person on the face of this earth (men included) and actually WANT these things for yourself--well, that's quite a different thing.  I really think that people need to face the facts: Most books, TV shows, and movies are not about love because society shoves it in our faces.  They're about love because this is an eternal human quest, for women and for men.  Believe it or not, there are these kinds of things about men searching for love, too.  It's just that no one thinks anything about them because we're not tied up in being horrified over men wanting relationships.  And believe it or not, people start to "wonder" about men who aren't married past a certain age as well.  Is it right?  No. Not in the least.  But again, that's something entirely different. 

We should not need to feel pressure from society to date or get married.  But if we want to?  Just plain want to?  As women or men?  Go for it.  Write a sitcom about it.  Write a 500-page novel about it.  Do it.  I don't really care.  I don't feel threatened because I'm single or because I'm not married.  I'm really still okay with all of it. 

Oh--did I not mention that I'm single and not married?  Didn't think I needed to, I guess.  Didn't think anyone would care.

Silly me.