“The Iles d’Or (The Iles d’Hyeres, Var)” (1892, oil on canvas) by Henri Edmond Cross
“After all, you know there are days
when even thirst runs dry
and prayer’s lips harden.” ~ Adam Zagajewski, from “Tierra del Fuego,”
Wednesday afternoon. Sunny, hot and humid, 94 degrees.
Last night I had this very intricate dream in which I was retelling a family history story to a friend, something that my mother had told me. I was using letters, news clippings, and photographs that were in an old trunk. I kept getting facts wrong and forgetting key players. I was very frustrated because I hadn’t written down what my mother had told me, and now it was too late to ask her.
“Les Iles d’or” (1892, oil on canvas) by Henri Edmond Cross
It had something to do with a great great grandparent owning an old hotel in Norfolk. There was a criminal involved, and a distant relation that no one knew about. It was actually a pretty good story. Wish I could remember more.
Anyway, it’s hot as blazes, too hot to go outside because my head is exploding. I had a wonderful conversation with my legal representative, the one who is going to be at the Social Security hearing with me in August. This is my second go round on the hearing route. That I am underwhelmed at the prospect is an overstatement. This whole thing taxes me mentally and physically, but hey, some person with a list can sit there and say what jobs I can do, and I can’t say a thing, can’t make the argument that not a single employer out there is going to want to hire someone who cannot give 100 percent, someone who is guaranteed to have to call out of work frequently because of pain issues . . .
whatever . . .
I have sat here for four hours, going back and forth between this supposed post and my e-mail, my tumblr, and comparative shopping on different sites for water weights. The fact is I just cannot turn this into a post, no matter how hard I try. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s that I have too much to say, but so much of it involves other people, and I just don’t feel that I can talk about some of these things here even though I really, really need to talk about a lot of these things.
Suffice it to say that my head is rumbling at about a point 5 on the Richter scale, even after giving myself one of those painful shots. The glare from the screen is making me squint, which isn’t helping my head. And I am no further along in making words flow than I was when I started, so . . .
whatever . . .
Music by Banks, “Waiting Game”
Who Needs Us?
The quiet, the bitter, the bereaved,
the going forth of us, the coming home,
the drag and pull of us, the tome and teem
and tensile greed of us, the opening
and closing of us, our eyes, in sleep,
our crematorium dreams?
The brush of us one against another,
the crumple on the couch of us,
the spring in our step, the sequestered dance
in front of the cracked mirrors of us,
our savage suffering, our wobbly ladders
of despair, the drenched seaweed-green
of our tipped wineglass hearts, our wheels
and guitars, white spider bites blooming
on our many-colored skins, the din
of our nerves, our pearl onion toes
and orangey fingers, our effigies
and empty bellies, our plazas
of ache and despair, our dusky faces
round as dinner plates, our bald pates,
our doubt, our clout, our bold mistakes?
Who needs the footprints of us,
the glimpse of us in a corridor of stars,
who sees the globes of our breath
before us in winter, the angels
we make in the stiff snow,
the hack and ice of us, the glide
and gleam and busted puzzle of us,
the myth and math of us,
the blue bruise and excuse of us,
who will know the magnified
magnificence of us, could there be
too many of us, the clutch and strum
and feral singing of us, the hush of us,
who will hear the whisker of silence
we will leave in our wake?
“Nattens Helgedom (Night Sanctuary),” (nd, oil on canvas) by Otto Hesselbom
“The part of this being that is rock, the part of this body that is a star, lately I feel them yearning to go back and be what they are.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, from “In the Borderlands”
Thursday afternoon. Partly cloudy and mild, 50 degrees.
Yesterday was a crappy day, really, really crappy, and as a result, I was foul, really, really foul. Nine days into the new year, and I’m already having bad days. Sheesh.
“Landscape with Stars,” (1905-8) by Henri-Edmond Cross
In spite of its crappiness, I did get things done. I made those telephone calls regarding health claims that haven’t been paid. Both of the people with whom I spoke were very nice and helpful. It wasn’t them. It was just the doing of it that got to me. Does that make sense?
After years and years of always being the one to make the telephone calls, pay the bills, take care of the details with my ex, I have given up some of those responsibilities to Corey—quite willingly. I am not good at doing the finances. I freely admit that to anyone and everyone. And taking care of the details tends to make me very stressed. I don’t know why exactly. It just does. Perhaps because as the telephone is ringing, I am preparing to deal with the customer service representative from hell, so my blood pressure climbs with each successive ring, and then when someone nice answers and offers to help, I’m thrown for a loop.
Also, I think that since Corey has been taking care of so much to do with the details of life, I have allowed my patience in such things to erode. Anyway, yesterday is over. I made a few more short calls today, and my to-do-list is shorter. So enough.
“The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood.” ~ W. B. Yeats, from “Maid Quiet”
I think another reason that I was so foul yesterday was because I forgot to take my meds the day before. Not intentionally, just didn’t remember as I was so caught up in getting things done. That happens to me—I become so focused in the midst of my OCD-fueled binges that I don’t pay attention to other things, completely leave them by the wayside.
“Royal Monastery” (1932, tempera on paper) by Nicholas Roerich
I know. I need to find balance. Easy to say. Hard to do. Balance is always just beyond my reach. Perhaps that’s why I’m always so taken with those images of balancing rocks; they represent something for which I yearn.
Anyway, enough on that. Another thing that I did yesterday—and this is surprising—is that I went through old posts looking for poems that I might submit to a journal that is accepting work. I have to submit three poems at a time. In going through the old posts, though, I found that I have written things that I actually like, even two to three years later, which makes me think more and more that I really need to go through these posts and cull the best (or what I consider to be the best), try to put together some kind of non-fiction manuscript with what I have.
This is where I need your help. If I’ve written a post of which you are particularly fond, or that you think could be readable with some work, I’d love to know about it. You can just put the title in the comments, or if you don’t remember the title but remember what the post was about, a general description would be fine. Of course, if you said something like, “You know, the one about grief,” that might be a bit hard . . .
“And silent answers crept across the stars.” ~ Hart Crane, from “At Melville’s Tomb”
But what do you think? Am I on the right track? A couple of you have suggested something along these lines to me before, but I waffled as I never quite know if I like what I’ve written enough to put it out there (there as in beyond this forum), but I have to admit that I found more than a couple of posts of which I’m not ashamed.
“Night Scene” (1981-2) by Neil Welliver
Oh, who knows. Certainly not me. But I’m willing to give it a go.
So other than that, I think that I’ve managed to move beyond yesterday’s total crappiness. I’ve gotten out of my pajamas and even put on some cologne and dark circle concealer, as if I might actually be ready to greet the world. Speaking of which, and I am almost embarrassed to admit this, I realized the other day that I have not left the house in weeks. No really, weeks. This is not a good sign. This is a sign that I am regressing.
I think that I need to make it a point to go to Lex’s apartment at least one day a week to help out with Olivia instead of waiting for them to come here. But without Brett being enrolled in school this semester, I’m sort of without a reason to leave the house unless I make one. Truthfully, I don’t want to go back to the days in which I stayed inside for weeks on end. It’s just not healthy.
I have big plans to take Tillie for walks. Perhaps I should work on that.
“It is inner luxury, of golden figures that breathe like mountains do and whose skin is made dusky by stars.” ~ Joanne Kyger, from “September”
Obviously, I’m still fixated on the skies, first the Northern Lights, and now stars. The moon and the stars, my life-long love affair. Did you know that the Tunisians have a proverb that goes something like “If the full moon loves you, why worry about the stars?”—but why not both?
“Sparks III” (1906, tempera on paper) by Mikalojus Ciurlionis
I have to tell you that it’s damned hard for me to write a post featuring lots of words about stars and not to use any art by Van Gogh, as I don’t think that anyone before or since has painted such beautiful skies, but I made an effort and came up with some other artists’ paintings.
Speaking of Van Gogh, did you know that there are new claims that the artist did not commit suicide but instead was shot by teenagers? I know that I’m behind on this, but I find it fascinating. Apparently a book was published last year in which authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith claim that Van Gogh was fatally wounded by a friend’s teenage brother. The book is called Van Gogh: The Life, and I would love to read it.
Van Gogh has always fascinated me. He created such incredible beauty out of such immense pain. It’s as if he couldn’t create fast enough to release all of the demons inside.
When I was walking around the museums in NYC years ago, I was finally able to see some of Van Gogh’s works of art at the Met and at the MOMA. My god, they took my breath away. I would love to visit more museums housing the artist’s work.
“She was one of those stars, a bright dot in blackness, without home, without a companion, in eternal cold and silence.” ~ Maxine Hong Kingston, from The Woman Warrior
I spoke too soon. I just lost the last fifth of this post when I went to save. Crap. Crap. Crap.
Moving right along . . .
“Moonlight Night” (1907, linocut) by Wassily Kandinsky
I once met Maxine Hong Kingston when she was participating in the ODU Literary Festival years ago. She is such a tiny woman, and her presence was almost dwarfed on the big stage until she began to read. Later, at an after-reading cocktail party, I mustered the courage to talk to her and tell her how much I loved her work.
Just thought I’d throw that out there.
I suppose I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today after going through posts past and thinking about those wonderful afternoons at the museums. One day, I’m going to visit the Louvre and Musée D’Orsay, spend hours upon hours, days upon days, just meandering through the galleries, and I’ll take Corey because I know that he will appreciate the beauty just as much as I would.
One day. Until then, I suppose I’ll just hang out here in my yoga pants, thinking about things to come, things that have been, places to see, and places I have gone. Kind of reminds me of The Beatles’ song, “My Life.”
More later. Peace.
Music by Aesthesys, “I Am Free, That Is Why I’m Lost”
Do you have stars
in your mouth?
she asks
and I laugh,
she’s never tasted
winter like I have,
midnights that linger
for days. Yes,
I tell her. Come see.
Will there be breath?
For a while, I whisper
and blow on her hands,
but you will sing
and the aurora lights
will walk across the ice.
She lets me
put my hands on her. Will I die? her hair
like snow.
Yes. I tell her.
Every time.
“Autumn, Rowan Tree and Birches” (1906, oil on canvas) by Igor Grabar
“Remembered landscapes are left in me The way a bee leaves its sting, hopelessly, passion-placed, Untranslatable language.” ~ Charles Wright, from “All Landscape Is Abstract, and Tends to Repeat Itself”
Sunday night. Rainy and cool, blessedly cool.
Outside my door, the low October sky looms. I would like to say looms largely, but it seems to contrived, somehow. But it’s true. It’s low. It’s looming, and it’s large.
“Autumn Landscape” (1903, oil on canvas) by Henri Edmond Cross
Heavy. Gravid.
It is gravid in its heaviness.
I’m not trying to be coy. That’s just how it is, how it seems: low, looming, large, heavy, gravid—as if expectant.
Expectant for what, I do not know. But if I peer into the clouds long enough, I can feel the air gathering around my face, the descent of minute particles of moisture collecting in my brows. And I must say, it is heavenly. A respite from the thick humidity, more like August than October. And so I delight in this evening, despite the unending wall of clouds the color of pale rust.
You see. I have not forgotten how to live in the moment upon occasion. I can still summon that still, small voice that says to the universe in its infinite wonder, thank you.
“Ah, it is here now, the here.” ~ Jorie Graham, from “The Covenant”
“Poplars, Row in Autumn” (1891) by Claude Monet
You might find it strange that I can delight in such dismal weather, but I have spent too much of recent days wiping sweat from my face, feeling as if my skin is covered in a thin coat of oil, the kind that sprays from a can, as if I have been misted, not with mineral water, but soul-clogging oleo.
So even though it is raining, even though the cover for the grill is completely soaked and lying on the ground instead of protecting the gas grill we bought for Corey, even though the dogs will not venture outside, I am delighted, delighted that it is almost 30 degrees cooler than yesterday, that the air conditioners are off, and the ceiling fans are still. Fall is finally here. Autumn has arrived.
I can feel it. But more importantly, I can smell it, smell the beginnings of loam from the fallen leaves that have collected in piles across the grass. There is no other smell quite like it unless it is the smell of freshly fallen snow on a plot of land far away from the city.
Fall. The season of poets and painters. The time for words and golden washes.
Too much? Perhaps, but I think not.
“The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.” ~ Brigit Pegeen Kelly, from “Song”
“October Morning” (nd) by Guy Rose
My best October?
To tell you would be to reveal too much, but I can say that it was the year I began graduate school in the mountains of Virginia, a place where Autumn is a rite of passage, where people stop and pay attention to leaves changing color. It was a season filled with change, exciting discussions about literature, Brunswick stew cooked over a fire in an iron pot, a gathering of graduate students drunk on cheap wine and heady conversation.
My worst October?
Oh. The autumn of great loss. Caitlin. Felt hats and rain coats. New friends and old. Heartbreak before the intense pain and anguish.
My most memorable October?
The year Corey and I sailed around the Caribbean, played tourist in far-away places, saw waters so blue I wanted to weep.
“overtaken by color, crowned with the hammered gold of leaves.” ~ Linda Pastan, from “The Months”
What is it exactly that I love about autumn (aside from the incipient melancholy)? Nostalgia? Oh yes, the melancholic gets very nostalgic indeed.
But what specifically? Another list?
It’s finally cold enough for Christmas socks and sweaters
The color burgundy isn’t too dark to wear.
“October Gold” (1922) by Franklin Carmichael
Velvet. I don’t know why, but I associate the softness of velvet with autumn
Dark nail polish. Do you know how many shades of dark red there are?
Classical music. My taste in music is seasonal, and cool weather heralds Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart.
Books. There is nothing that I like to do more than read on a cold, rainy afternoon.
Poetry. I write more poetry in the fall.
Black yoga pants and white cotton sweaters. I am nothing if not a creature of habit.
Beef stew, homemade vegetable soup and Brunswick stew in the crock pot simmering all afternoon. And corn bread.
The piano. I am drawn to play again, even though doing so locks up my back and wrists for days.
I know that everything isn’t golden in the way it is depicted in art, but somehow, it seems that way. Even if I don’t make it to Skyline Drive, something I haven’t done in too many years, the golds and deep reds of the changing leaves are firmly imprinted in memory.
As I draw to a close, the sky is no longer visible. The air is cool and damp, and everything smells a little bit like bread and wet dog, and it’s a strangely comforting combination.
More later. Peace.
Music by Darius Rucker, “It Won’t Be Like This Forever”
Du siehst, ich will viel (You see, I want a lot)
You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing,
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 