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.

Eperu and Apsu

For the young adult book I'm working on, The City of Doubles.  The people have their own religion, so I felt I needed to write down what that was.  This is just their creation story, probably not finished, not all that honed.  (Line formatting with this thing sucks in some places too.)  But here it is. :)

"Eperu and Apsu"

Long ago, before there was Time,
there was Eperu—the earth—and Apsu—the deep. 
There was nothing but the two of them in the vast blankness of the world,
and they were both asleep. 
Calm, peaceful, innocent, they slept,
longer and deeper than can ever possibly be imagined,
because Time was not there to hurry them along
and Sound was not there to disturb them. 
They slept like infants, worlds unto themselves.

Then, Eperu woke. 
She awakened very slowly, because she had not done it before
and it was new to her.  But while she was waking
she was aware of one thing,
a coolness next to her, just touching her,
a thing separate from herself that she had never dreamt existed. 

When at last her eyes had fully opened
(and they did not look or function like flesh and blood eyes,
so they could see through the deepest dark of this early world),
the first thing she did was look for the cool thing she had felt. 
She beheld Apsu,
blue and smooth and vast,
and she loved him without question, and completely.

But Apsu was still asleep

and she would not wake him.  Eperu waited patiently,
through what Time would have called eons or eternities,
until at last Apsu, too, began to wake.
Eperu watched him, his blue waters rising and falling,
and she thought she had never beheld anything
more beautiful than he was. 
Then Apsu’s eyes were at last fully opened,
and the first thing he saw and felt was Eperu,
brown and rocky and warm.
And he loved her without question, and completely.

Through great yawning lifetimes

Eperu and Apsu remained awake, loving one another. 
They came closer,
they went under and over and around each another,
and their love created a world that had light,
that sprouted green, that glittered under stars. 
It was a spinning world of mountains and oceans and rivers and plains,
and it was indeed beautiful.

But at last, Eperu and Apsu began to long once more

for sleep, for the quiet, blissful dark
that had enveloped them before Time and light had sprung up all around them. 
They were together now; they were one. 
They would slumber together, and only together, forever,
warm and wet and primeval.

But still they were loathe to leave their new world

unattended and uncared for.  It seemed vulnerable,
and worth more than they were willing to stay awake
to give it.  So before they began their long, sinking journey into sleep
(because everything they did was still slow and monumental),
Eperu and Apsu gave to their world three daughters,
whom they would leave behind to care for it. 
The daughters sprung from Eperu,
in the muddy clay just beside the river,
where Apsu washed over them and gave them life. 
Three tall white reeds,
they grew, straight up at first
and then rounding, spiraling outward. 
As Eperu and Apsu watched, three goddesses stepped out from the reeds,
in the shape of women.  They were the Zikia,
or the Triple Goddess,
and they immediately bowed before their parents.

Ummum, Abu, they addressed them,
Mother and Father, we thank you for giving us life. 
We sisters are here to serve you,
as we have been created to do.

You are good daughters, and we are proud of you,

Eperu and Apsu answered.  But to serve us is not necessary. 
To you we are entrusting this world that we have created,
this world that is made of us and yet is separate. 
We have decided to leave it forever so that we may slumber together through eternity,
and now it is yours.  Populate it. 
Create new life. 
And govern it as you feel best.

We will do what you ask of us, oh mighty parents,

said the Sisters. We will do our best, as your creation
and your children.

But Eperu and Apsu were already beginning their slow fall into sleep,

and did not hear them.

Then the Sisters looked around them

and began to mold the first people out of the soft clay
at their feet, the very clay they themselves
had sprouted from.  And in this way they created new life
and populated the world.

Yadonu.  Protect us.

Eperu and Apsu.

Oil

We are like paintings, with all our layers.  What starts out as a patch of sky gets eclipsed by tree.  Green strokes through water, and blue is no longer just blue.

If I had a portrait of myself, a Dorian Grey of my own, I'd hope it forever remained wet.  How does oil feel?  If I had a portrait of myself before me now, I would run my fingers through the paint and wipe them clean against my skin . . . my face, my neck, my clavicles.  Perhaps I would paint myself into a wall, a floor, a stained glass Mary smiling down at Jesus.  I would become that glass.  I would become the smile.

But--even though I so often want to hide, I know I cannot always.  Not really.  The need to do it isn't ever in me--completely.

I think my greatest wish, my real wish, is to blend the clashes--just within my own shape.  Not all of them.  Some lines can stay unfinished, can dry into nowhere, and some blobs of paint can crack upward, hard, jagged, sharp.  But other parts--perhaps someday they can flow like rivers, blue and green and purple, and the black shadow of a tree--into the line of my neck, the damp skin of my eyelids.

Perhaps.  Someday.  Or maybe, after all is said and done, I'll just get to learn the meaning of oil--and rest.

I'm Not Really Sure This Post Means Anything At All

Part of me thinks there is more to life than this.  And another part of me thinks, no there isn’t, I’m just some damn character in a novel—probably by Virginia Woolf or Franz Kafka or someone like that—who’s always thought there was more to life and is rudely awakened at some depressing point. Or—and this is even worse—who goes on believing there’s more to life until the day she dies but never gets anything more. Then the literary question is all, “Well, should we despair for her, because she never got what she wanted, or should be envy her and rejoice for her because she believed in the chance up until the very end?”

Let me tell ya. Don’t rejoice. Don’t. It’ll piss me off.

It’s like the people who see poetry in tragedy. Seriously. Shut the hell up. Tragedy is never poetic unless you’re the person to whom something tragic is not happening, or this is years down the line and you don’t feel tragic anymore and you feel like saying something profound like, “You know, I think that had to happen to me, in order for me to grow.” Well, I’m sick of growth. If I wanted to see more growth I’d get a damn Chia pet, and I’ve always thought those things were hideously ugly. (By the way, have you seen that there’s an Obama Chia pet now? Seriously? That’s how we honor our presidents?)

Anyway—I’m in one of those moods tonight, so maybe we should all just disregard this pointless blather. But I do want to say that I don’t really feel like being Mrs. Dalloway or, say, that girl from “The Glass Menagerie” whose name I can’t remember right now (see?).

Let’s put on a comedy, Shakespeare.

How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin (And More)

I was thinking (as I often do when I’m washing my face and looking at myself in the mirror—don’t ask) about a “short story,” or fable, really, that I wrote for my book. Frayne (a dragon) tells it to Susan (a little girl), and it’s about a tiny mosquito that overcomes a bully of a dragon by biting him all over. And as I was thinking, I wondered what people would say about the little story, because, at the end, the dragon has learned his lesson and the mosquito gives him some very effective salve for his bites. All is happy, the end.

I could just hear them:

“Oh, come on. What a sickly sweet way to end a story. Everybody wins? The bad guy doesn’t get punished? Everyone is friends?”

And maybe it’s true, maybe it’s a little too optimistic, or maybe it’s too Mary Poppins/Pollyanna. But I had to end it that way, and here’s why.

Because, when I was little, my grandparents had an old book of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just-So Stories,” and I read the story about the rude rhinoceros who leaves his skin on the riverbank. And a man, to punish the rhino for eating his cake, puts the leftover crumbs and some burned currants in the skin, so that when the rhino puts it back on, he itches until his smooth skin wrinkles all over—and he itches forever. Forever.

When I read that as a little girl, it made me sick. I hated that man who made the rhinoceros itch, no matter what the reason. I hated him because—because—he didn’t just cause the rhinoceros pain. No. There is dignity in pain, in bearing it, even in being dealt it, somehow, in martyrdom, but there is no dignity in itching. It even makes a sentence sound absurd. The rhino—he didn’t go out with a bang, he wasn’t put on the rack, he didn’t get his head chopped off, he was made to itch—forever. It’s painful, it’s horrifying, and it’s ridiculous.

Another thing that happened to me a lot when I was little was that my brother would scratch me when we were fighting. And sometimes scratches, besides hurting, will puff up a bit and itch monstrously. The pain of those scratches didn’t bother me. But the itching—that would bring tears to my eyes. I’d scratch my hand or my arm or whatever body part it was and think, “He must really hate me. To want to cause me shame like this.”

Or, well, maybe those weren’t the exact words that went through my head. But they were the essence of my feelings. And those feelings, if people ever accuse me of being sentimental or sickly sweet or too nice, are why I can’t let dragons itch forever, or even for very long. It’s because the rhinoceros did. And because I never want to be the cause of someone or something’s suffering like that, not even in a story.

The end.