Siouxsie and the Banshees: Fireworks

This isn’t working the way it should. I’ll need to see what I’m missing…something somewhere isn’t turned on.

Still haven’t decided on whether or not to do Fangsgiving. Talked to Mom, not sure what is going on there.

I’m just sad. I have nothing important to say right now. The lyrics of this song seem apropos in light of recent events however.

The Body is wrapped is shadow
the face is built of cinders
and painc tears thro’ your silhouette
as your squeezed by burning fingers
and he’s crackling in our colours
with teeth of gelignite

when he sighs his song and pirouettes
thro’a dance of dynamite

We are fireworks — slowly, glowing
bold and bright
We are fireworks — burning shapes
into the night

His fuel is our frustration
and dreams begin to ache
and all the while we wear a party smile
and happily we shiver
happily we shake
Oh shake, shake, shake

We are fireworks — slowly, glowing
bold and bright
We are fireworks — burning shapes
into the night

Twist and turn — burn, burn, burn
Twist and turn — burn, baby, burn

I’m going to post some of my assignments on my blog and on Facebook. There’s quite a lot of writing and it’s good exercise.

Callin All Angels

The loss of one of my dearest friends, strangely wasn’t on my quick list of watershed moments, but when I stopped to think about the many many things that have changed my life, usually, but not always, for the better, I had to think about my cats. I’ve always had cats and I’ve always been, some would say, abnormally attached to them. I was even told I’d love them less after my daughter was born, but I think I love them more because of the more than human understanding they’ve always shown her, from the time of her infancy-either by leaving her alone until she understood not to yank their tails or by gently keeping watch over her in the bathtub, on the changing table or in her crib. As a child myself, I faced many difficult, sometimes frightening times, and I always had my cats with me. As an adult I had three very special furry folk I called the triumphant triumvirate. Hotspur, Mister Newguise and Miss Ninny spent 15, 16 and 18 years with me. They padded through my undergraduate degrees and helped my claw my way through a divorce and a graduate degree. They sat close by as I built my first ever computer in 1988 from dumpster dived spare parts and pushed a screwdriver over when I rehabbed another machine last year to give to my daughter. I’ve cried in their fur and danced in circles singing each their own song, something I won’t subject you to here. I’ve had to face losing each of these three long time friends, who I’m sure carried some of my soul and memory with them when they left. It’s so hard to call them pets, when really they were friends, the kind that actually does love you unconditionally. In 2003 I lost Mr. Newguise, who is named after a character in Mankind, one of my favorite morality plays. There is even more behind that funny moniker, but that’s yet another story for yet another day. His illness surprised us and his vet. He was a healthy dapperly attired tuxedo gentleman, who we thought would be with us more than 20 years. When Dr. Rovner told us Mr. Newg had a fast growing fatal form of cancer and had about a month to live we were crushed. There was nothing to be done and in the next three months, because he was just that determined of a catguy, he ate all the tuna and chicken he could have dreamed of. We made sure he had pain medicine and he was never left alone. When he couldn’t eat we gave him tuna water, when he couldn’t drink even water anymore, we took him to Dr. Rovner on his favorite blanket and encircled him in our arms while he passed peacefully from the world. Even now, as I write this I can’t help but cry. He was the kindest fellow I’ve ever met and the court jester of our household. He was a hat for my daughter that purred her to sleep and a sweet friend who let me cry on his shoulder at any time of the day. Each time I lose one of my furry folk to age or disease I think I’ll never want another friend who I know I’ll outlive. Then I listen to this song and know that even though I still cry six years later, he was the best example of an angel and I’d never “trade in all the pain and suffering? /ah, but then you’d miss /the beauty of the light upon this earth /and the sweetness of the leaving.” As hard as it was to let him go, we were able to be with him completely. He was never unloved for one moment from the time he and I met on that sidewalk in San Francisco until his last breath. And he is still loved. I’m not sure about the existence of angels, but if there are I know one is wearing a red collar.

Jane Siberry and K.D. Lang

santa maria, santa teresa, santa anna, santa susannah
santa cecelia, santa copelia, santa domenica, mary angelica
frater achad, frater pietro, julianus, petronilla
santa, santos, miroslaw, vladimir and all the rest

a man is placed upon the steps, a baby cries,
and high above the church bells start to ring
and as the heaviness the body oh the heaviness settles in
somewhere you can hear a mother sing
then it’s one foot then the other as you step out onto the road
how much weight? how much weight?
then it’s how long? and how far? and how many times before it’s too late?

calling all angels
calling all angels
walk me through this one
don’t leave me alone
calling all angels
calling all angels
we’re cryin’ and we’re hurtin’
and we’re not sure why…

and every day you gaze upon the sunset with such love and intensity
it’s almost…it’s almost as if if you could only crack the code
then you’d finally understand what all this means
but if you could…do you think you would trade in all the pain and
suffering?
ah, but then you’d miss the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving

calling all angels
calling all angels
walk me through this one
don’t leave me alone
callin’ all angels
callin’ all angels
we’re tryin’
we’re hopin’
we’re hurtin’
we’re lovin’
we’re cryin’
we’re callin’
‘cuz we’re not sure how this goes

I know I lived here. I know I had these friends and experiences. I have them all locked in my head. I remember some very very clearly. But there are very few pictures. There are many pictures of my friends, some of them I took, but very few of me.

This makes me sad. When I moved to SF I told so many stories about my life here–the hat party, the music, the friends with whom I went through many more experiences than most kids in Arkansas had at that time,. And there aren’t any pictures of me–of Pop Culture in the Park, that poetry and music fest I put on, nearly single handed. There aren’t any pictures of me at the Icehouse, though I did help to get it going–I know I spent the time in the permits office and the Fire Department arguing to keep it open.

J pointed out that I was like the soundman–crucial but unobserved. Did I mention I ran sound for the Descendants at Lily’s? Or wrote for the Grapevine? None of those things show up either. Who photographs the soundman?

I left Fayetteville and then many things seemed to start here. It makes me wish I’d stayed another year or so, but then I might not have left and I needed to. I had a big life in San Francisco. I did many interesting and strange things. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. I might ask for a refund on a few of them, but I’d keep most.

I don’t think there are many pictures of me there either.

And there aren’t many pictures of me now. It’s almost like I don’t exist sometimes.

Maybe it is time to take a break from the internets for awhile. All this reminiscing where I don’t seem to be makes me feel like I’ve been amputated, or …excised…maybe removed..

Edited later after a facebook discussion to add:

Sometimes in your life you can actually hear the door slam and the window open. It’s been a shattering month. Despite the pregnancy losses, mortality and the simple dividing line between living and not, was never so obvious as recently. We knew that C was dying. We’d been visiting weekly, sometimes more. We knew he was fading; indeed he’d been visibly fading in the 2 and a half years since we moved back. But the last few weeks from the hospital to the hospice to the last night–as his voice grew fainter, as he could “see” us only for minutes, then for seconds, as his breathing became more and more labored–mortality became less a concept and more a reality.

The longest time he held on “really seeing” while we visited was when he looked at my daughter’s face.

And then one night: nothing.

I’ve never had an easy relationship with my family. We’ve never understood or quite possibly been comfortable with each other. But the last two years and the especially the last two months–well I discovered , I realized that at the end of your life all you have are those whose lives you have touched in some way. That whatever the estrangement, you are stripped bare. In the end we breathe, shit and cry and hope for love, just like an infant.  While I still felt apart–truly I couldn’t feel any other way–I’ve only seen his children a handful of times since 1987–I wished for his and their ease and comfort. I was sorry for all the suffering. I was glad he wasn’t alone and hoped we’d helped him know that.

I don’t know what he regretted at the end. I do know that by that point so much of my anger had fled. And I fully realized how thin the thread is that holds us all to life and to each other.

And as I scramble and claw at middle age I realize but only with the help of E’s dying grandfather and an angry 25 year old man that what has been scaring and confusing me isn’t what is actually important. It isn’t what will make the next 40 years meaningful or fill it with love and purpose. It’s so very hard to let go of how things have been and embrace how things must become. I have spent most of my life on the fringe in some way or another. Divorced parents before that was very normal, a dead parent before that was likely for most people, bookish, political, dreamy and odd. Sometimes horrendously outspoken, other times terrified. I gravitated towards others like me and reveled in the acceptance and freedom of those all dressed in black or screaming angry lyrics, or pounding poetry into the air with a vehemence most 20 year olds didn’t cultivate. And I wandered into technology, a lone female capable with a shell script or screwdriver, after being forced by money away from Chaucer’s canonical bosom. My music, the people I loved, the meaning for everything came from the fringe.

And however I might fight it, however it might terrify me–I don’t really live there anymore. We have a mortgage (now declining in value), yard work, 2 cars to take care of, pets, a nine year marriage and most importantly a young daughter. We go to PTO meetings and volunteer at her school. We’re still left of center and more Buddhist than Christian but don’t discount anyone’s beliefs, nor feel the need to chastise them. In our youth my husband and I were rebels. Now? We’re like a lot of other grown up rebels. We aren’t terribly unique. More open minded than usual perhaps, more likely to try new music or a new activity, slower to grow all the way up perhaps. Now though it becomes obvious that different isn’t so very different. Because we all grew up. And now the things that set us apart from the person next to us aren’t as important as the things that make us the same. 

Once or twice a year the last 4 years I’ve ended up back in my old types of haunts or around younger, much younger, denizens of the the fringes. I’d stay up too late, get far too intense and unfortunately….become maternal. The youth and age inside me fighting for dominance. I’d have conversations I’d had repeatedly 10, 20 years ago. But as a parent now I start trying to “hear them” and “help them.” Which isn’t the point. While far younger than me, they certainly don’t require that from me. They need to push against me–not me in particular, just older adults, just people where I am, who have had experiences (like college, a career, a child) like I have had. This isn’t a bad impulse, just badly applied. I need to find an outlet for this–someplace I can do good. Some situation, where me paying attention, caring and nurturing even, is appropriate and helpful. Like it is with my daughter and her friends. As I hope it will be if I become a teacher.

So while that young man was rude and said some horrible things obviously designed to hurt me, I’m grateful he did. He didn’t prove the point he thought to–my age and experience does qualify me to decide that. However, he did show me where I don’t belong anymore and what I don’t need to be doing. Even only once or twice a year. Having an intense, soul searching conversation with a 25 year old on their turf and an intense souls searching conversation with a fellow 40 year old on your own shared territory are two wildly different things. One is the wrong thing for me to do, the other is right. It may actually be a moral question.

So, if I need to volunteer my time at high school debate tournaments, political campaigns and my daughter’s school and work at this new career of being a teacher–that is likely where my time is best spent. It is where I am supposed to be. I’ve been afraid of giving my energy to those things whole heartedly–afraid to love it all again. Why? I’m not entirely sure — I know now though that I must and will become comfortable with my age, my position as one growing into  an elder who can both guide and withstand rebellion, and that I must leave behind those jaunts back into my 20s– that I’ll be embracing rather than refusing, rather than fighting–maybe I will stride towards the final destination, the final breath, and end surrounded by love, memories of my own and other’s children and how I hopefully loved and helped them. I’ll end with the knowledge I made a difference. An everlasting yea rather than a relentless denial of what comes to us all.

The door slammed closed the other night, but the window is open wide and the vista beyond welcoming, terrifying and necessary.

My town has taken quite a beating recently. And it both angers and saddens me. By now everyone has read A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat up,Repeatedly. Or it seems like everyone. And the blogosphere has exploded with this story.

Many of them condemn Fayetteville. I find that part interesting considering how bullying is a problem everywhere. In California and New York, in Colorado and Texas and yes in Fayetteville. One of the things I really disliked about California when I lived there was the attitude that no where else on earth was as wonderful or as perfect and I’ve seen a number of California bloggers (and New York etc) pointing big fingers at this small Southern Town and sneering.

But the same thing goes on in their schools. So why the superiority? I think it partly has to do with the arrogance of the coasts for the flyover zone. We’re easy targets in Arkansas –you know for other states to bully.

I can’t say I know what happened in the case of Billy Wolfe. I don’t doubt he was bullied. I also can’t imagine that the entire school system was aligned against him. That’s unthinkable.

And why didn’t his parents get him out of that situation? Why keep sending him back, day after day? Keep fighting the principled fight yes, but don’t keep sending your kid into it.

I was bullied. I had a few great teachers at FHS who saved my heart and mind when they listened, when they cared about me. I had my head flushed down the toilet, I was abused in the locker room by some pretty vicious girls, I was even picked on by several teachers. I was also told that I was bringing it on myself by being different. I had smart assed replies. I ignored the kids, I walked away.

And I still ended up with a bruised body and a bruised soul. But there were teachers who listened to me and tried so hard to help–some of them are still at the school and I can’t imagine they aren’t as caring as they were 100 years ago when I was a student. I survived because those teachers helped me become the individual I am–even while there were principals and other kids telling me it was all my fault that I was picked on.

It isn’t right to blame the victim. My heart hurts for this boy. I also wonder at the students who have stepped forward to defend his beatings. Don’t they know that violence isn’t the way to deal with these things? That not only isn’t it moral, but it isn’t legal? When is it ever ok to meet words with blows? And I’m very interested to see what comes out about the school system and its policies–because I don’t think we are getting the entire story. I do feel the article was biased, and that is hard for me to say after what happened to me in school.

I hope this brings about a new focus on the policies of our school system –a focus that improves them. I hope Billy’s parents can get him out of what surely is a frightening situation. I hope the good teachers at FHS don’t lose heart. I really hope that the bullies out there–here in Fayetteville and elsewhere–start paying attention. It’s time these things get treated in kids they same way they are treated in adults. If you saw two men fighting by the side of the road, wouldn’t you call the police? I would. Why not two kids? Actions have consequences and the kids AND their parents need to know this.

We have to teach our children right from wrong. WE DO, the parents. The school system is a government entity and has more strictures placed upon it then we as parents do. Parents can make a difference here. If another parent comes to you and tells you your child has done something –don’t immediately get defensive, listen and work through it. Find a way to help the other child AND your own child. Because you don’t want to raise a bully do you? You don’t want to be responsible for victimizing another child do you? Because the parents of bullies are as much to blame as their kids. See what you can do first before you start searching for others to blame. Everyone is complicit in this tragedy. Now let’s fix it.

I like the idea of a wysiwyg life, but it isn’t entirely feasible anymore. I don’t want to let this corner of the web go though. I appreciate the dialogues I’ve developed with folks over the last few years. But I’m going for a major change. I’m scaling a mountain, taming a dragon, off on a quest, so a bit of circumspection is required now.

I am taking the energy I would feel being angry at this disruption and instead I’m focusing on this big goal and the other big desire. My darling J is being an excellent cheerleader too. I feel very lucky to have hit this watershed married to him.

I will still write on miscarriage, since that is all to often a whispered subject. And this will continue to be a place for the day to day as well as philosophical ramblings of a sort. Thanks for sticking with me.

OK then, my friend A isn’t here yet and the Bean is playing Jumpstart 1st grade (smarTYpants) on her computer. So I’m going to blither a bit.

Yes, her computer. It used to be mine, but I started working on videos with effects and music and such so I needed more power. I built it from er, scratch? Because in my other life I was a sysadmin and bigtime computer dork. That life I may still return to. But that’s a derail we’ll get to in a moment.

Here’s the box, but mine is a much less frightening blue and silver

http://www.atxcases.com/Cases/kitty.htm

I stuffed it full of great things –best dvd, best cdr, best video card and buttloads of ram (scavenged some for a friend and the Bean still has over a meg) and made it all play together nicely. I think I did that while pregnant with the Bean too. Pregnancy brain messed with other things, not that so much. ANYway…she’s up there “playing a game,” which is accidentally teaching her reading and math. Heh. Wonder how long that will work?

I’m really over J being gone. This has been a long freaking week. For many reasons. I think I’ll email C and a couple of other folks to help me process this thing that is eating me up. I can’t and don’t rely completely on J to do this with me. Besides, he has enough on his plate.

From this point forward this: ~ will note that I’m posting a random thought. I will try and have a somewhat cohesive post, with transitions and everything but really I want to get these thoughts out. I feel very strongly about what nablopomo has brought out in me.

~I love Edith Piaf and am enjoying listening to her muchly right now

~I like my titles for blog entries, stories, poems…I give good title.

~did anyone else think the new bpal eggnog smelled a bit like playdo, and that that was OK?

~I’m getting very tired of being angry and hurt. The meditation helps. The uh, blurting, on livejournal does too. I’m so shocked by this turn of events and trying to both find my spine AND be forgiving. That’s not easy.

~ I must note for posterity and just for general extreme happiness: The Bean chose to read a book to me. To really read the entire freaking story to me. The first library book the Bean has read herself is called “The Ballet Sisters,” at least the first story so far. She’s been reading Bob Books and Hello kitty books for awhile, like ER, 2 years now (puffing up with pride) but this was a case of “Mommy, I’m going to read this book to you and you can’t tell me the words, I’ll sound them out.” Oh god, what an adventure she’s in for. Reading is well, the best thing ever. I love a few things fervently in this world….J and The Bean, Cats (both mine and all of them) and reading. When I’m scared I can read. When I’m sad I can read. When I need help I can read. When I want to escape I can read. And I can read anything on any subject. And I read obscenely fast –I have to slow myself down on books with excellent plots and characters or it’s like eating an entire giant valentine’s box of chocolates at once.

She asked me for a flashlight so she can read under the covers. Well yes, we will be getting her one of course! Of course! I feel like dancing at this. So many adventures. Funny this after on NPR today they were talking about the decline in reading. Not in this house. We decorate in books. Our child will be both computer literate (hell she’s going to blow us out of the water and that’s saying something) and a reader. And into music. It’s unavoidable in this house and with our (very smart and musical) friends.

~She’s been a good girl this week, not so argumentative or whiny. Karate really freaking helps. I’ve been getting her more exercise too. And she’s getting ready to grow about three inches.

~I think what I’d like to do from this point forward is start taking pictures to post here. Not every day, because well, content suffers when you post every day I think. But to post a picture as often as possible. Of us (cats and people) friends and Fayetteville too . We live in such a pretty place …

This would mean of course, that I will need to figure out why my new digital camera is so hard to take pictures with. My last one (a Kodak ls753) was great, but succumbed to the stuck lens problem finally after 4 years. This new one was inexpensive as digitals go, but had the controls I wanted. I’m afraid it isn’t great though, and I’ll need to stick with it for a year or two before I can trade up. This new one blurs easily but has some excellent settings. Just like I’d like to take a serious culinary class.

There are some big things on the horizon. (redacted after nablopomo)….

This is more than a bit disjointed, but there you go. There’s much to think about. And I thank those of you who have made this journey with me. I’ll keep reading you, I hope you’ll keep reading me. Ya’ll made these intertubes less impersonal and brought me out from my small friend group of readers into the blogosphere once again (er yeah, I was once mentioned in a few reviews and books for documenting\ my life).

Thank you for helping me find my voice again. Same time next year?

Technorati : nablopomo

What happens after? I recall wondering if, when you were dying, if you knew you were dying, or if some kind of benevolent mental paralysis set in and held you in a golden place as you took your last breath.

In the moment of death,were you still there or already gone–was it like a blink or a sigh? The difference not unimportant in that last moment. In high school I researched (for a debate topic, still it was one I welcomed)funeral practices and discovered some touching and some frightening aspects of how we lay our dead to rest.

Rest, funny that euphemism. I suppose it is rest in that you are no longer in motion. But can you be said to rest if you no longer have the ability for motion?

I have greater knowledge of how the body disintegrates and how the mind follows quickly in staggering step. I don’t just wonder now,  I have met with  with, death. Because I’ve been learning, since losing pregnancies , just how close death always is. Death isn’t the other side of the life coin, it’s the exhale that is the match of the inhale, the river rushing to waterfall. All parts of the same moment. That which is likely birth is as likely death. And it’s good that you don’t really know this, in your own white skeleton, until much later. It’s better to have the joy of flying from the swing to snatch the clouds from the sky or that audacious adolescent surety of purpose and victory. Being bulletproof.

I can’t have oh time, the life just moments past, back so I have to give it to her. There are times  I wish I could have it back just in moments, just a taste like cotton candy in the summer, a third that very first kiss. My cliche, her future.

As I watch our daughter grow and learn I feel pages turning like a hackneyed expression of time passing. But I also feel a giving,-each moment new she has of experience- I wrap the equivalent of mine and hand it to the wind, a bequest, a movement away from me and to her. But my fingers can’t help but hang touch– just the ribbons as they fly away.

I’m not just missing moments now. I’m missing friends. I like to think somehow they are still around painting fantastic pictures with giant handfuls of sun, riding on balloon powered bicycles, becoming mermaids and staying in the fur that suits them best –oh and one day I’ll hold them all again young and strong and even more gorgeous than I could tell you in hours upon hours. Skin and fur each day I miss you.

I still find the easiest moments in the library or a cemetery.  They share a similar feeling, but it isn’t sorrowful, rather one of possibility. In the library it’s the possibility of knowledge, so many words falling around you–just reach out with open hands and spin them to you. In the cemetery? The possibility of what we thought lay beyond the moment of loss. The possibility of greater comprehension, the possibility of a hope more immense than any we could have understood. Or finally and simply nothing more than rest. No more striving, no more suffering, no more regret, no more fear. A nothingness as soothing as a loving mother’s touch to a fevered child’s head.