Facebook Confessional
Sep 23
I’ve been a long time critic of Facebook. I’ve threatened to delete my account, can’t often keep up with the changes that are implemented on a seemingly regular basis, and while I have nine hundred and fifty three friends, I don’t keep up with the pokes I have waiting for me, or use it to the extent that my friends do.But the honest truth is that I’m obsessed with it. Long before “The Social Network”, before they bought FriendFeed, or introduced the power of the thumbs up like, I’ve been preoccupied with it’s popularity.I started using it back at my old job in California where I worked with grad students at a small art college because no matter how many phone calls, emails, threatening letters sent via snail mail, sometimes it was just too hard to get some reciprocity in trying to establish communication with them. I soon learned that after friending them (and I totes love how friend has now become a verb due to the power of Facebook), that mere minutes after sending a note or writing on their wall, how quickly they would respond. It became my phone book, my Rolodex, my index, and the easiest method to keep in contact with my students, and for that, it was great. I’ve since moved on and am in library school where I’m studying information science and really love social networking. I say this not because I love to share everything and anything for lunch, where I am, what I’m watching, who I’m with and what color my socks might be, but because I find that we’ve gravitated towards being social in this digital capacity because we now can.I’ve used some of these services because I want to understand what’s so compelling about sharing this information though personally, I’ve grown wary of letting so many people in (and I’m aware that that’s my bias, but watching others do it is the best digital people watching ever). There’s also an aspect of privacy and what Facebook might be doing with all of the data they’re collecting to fuel the ads tailored based on our favorite movies, articles we like, things we share and links we click and I find that fascinating too. I’ve always been a “people” person. If you "know" me in real life, then you know that to be true. I'm very social and love to engage, be engaged and enjoy the company of my friends. That hasn’t changed. I might be lurking in the shadows of code, but I’m watching your (and Facebook’s) every move.
Sep 11
2.
I was born with a broken heart. I was resigned to that fact even though pediatric surgeons wielded their scalpels and claimed to have repaired the hole in the valve well before my marshmallow of a navel healed. The doctors said they fixed it.
I never expected this to happen. I told myself it was impossible to be in this position. I considered myself unable, incapable of being on either the giving or receiving end of love. And then it happened. And then, just like that, it was gone again. The hole in my heart is back. Once again, it is broken. The doctors said they fixed it.
The parking lots at the train station undid me.
I have seen newborn babies abandoned behind dumpsters, tried my best to revive them and sadly turned them over to the coroner.
I have seen cheating husbands cower in the corner of bedrooms while their wives stood defiantly over them – with both eyes on a shrieking mistress – and a bloody knife in one hand and guilty genitals in the other.
But we are trained to keep it together and stay focused; it is our job.
But the parking lot train stations -– and I didn’t realize this until the planes were back in the air – but those cars in the lot, the ones that sat there and collected dust were owned by the men and women who thought they could fly.
I didn’t think that I would be one of those that fell apart. The ones in the market when wondering whether to choose the green beans or the sweet corn that simply lost it. On the subway, grown men in nice suits would be standing there holding onto the handgrip as quiet is kept, then out of nowhere, hollered. Puerto Rican domestics whispered into their ears, “Essokay, mijo, essokay” then rubbed their backs in concentric, clockwise circles in that reassuring way only parents can.
We pulled into the station, and I saw a red-eyed woman with her hair tied back in a bun nod at a tow-truck driver and that’s when it all came together for me. I sat down on a bench and watched the whole thing until he pulled out of the lot, a German sedan tethered behind him and drove off through the saltiest tears I have ever cried.
That’s when I realized that I was like that red-eyed woman:
Alone in this world,
just me and me.
An unclaimed car.
No one coming home,
no one to come home to. 3.“His name is Malcolm. MALCOLM. He worked for Merrill Lynch. Have you seen him? His name is Malcolm.”
–– a teenage girl handing out flyers at Ground Zero, September 12, 20014.If you happen to find yourself down there now, in the midst of resuscitated cafes and shops and peek in between the trees of flags whose leaves dance on the wind, you can still see the images of the loved ones. Their faces stare back at you from a niece’s birthday party on the beach or are crowned with Halloween party bunny ears.
Jane remembers when the pictures were vivid. Their colors have faded but their ghosts remain. She was in her classroom trying to explain to twenty-three third graders the difference between a cursive capital Q and a number 2. “Miss Benoit, they look the same,” Maria stated rather sincerely. Jane often wondered why they hadn’t advanced her a grade. “I know they do, but why would one combine letters and numbers in a sentence?” Jane responded. Marie accepted her teacher’s response but wasn’t satisfied with it. Jane smiled on the inside. Just like her, she thought. If I ever have a daughter, I’d like her to be just like Maria. She paused the thought as Coach Springer came in. “Did you hear?” he asked. Jane eyes turned to slits. “Jane, did you hear?” He cupped his hand around her ear and let the information escape from his lips in a whisper. When the color drained from her face and the fine hairs on her arm stood straight up, twenty-two third graders were connecting rows of letters on newsprint. Only one, a girl named Maria who was much smarter than her nine years might indicate, thought enough to ask: "What happened?”5.
World Trade Center:
Location: New York, New York, USA
Building Type: skyscraper , commercial office tower
Architect(s): Minoru Yamasaki & Associates; Emery Roth & Sons
Completion Date: 1972 (Tower One), 1973 (Tower Two)
Cost: $400 million
Height: 1,368 feet (Tower One), 1,362 feet (Tower Two)
Stories: 110
Materials: Steel
Construction System: steel frame, glass, concrete slabs on steel truss joists
Facing Materials: Aluminum, steel
Engineer(s): Skilling, Helle, Christiansen & Robertson
Date: 1966 to 1977. Demolished by terrorist attack on September 11, 2001
An incomplete 9/11 story.
I wrote a long and drawn out introduction to this that somehow got gobbled up by cybernetic beings set on taking down the internet, or at least my blog post.
The following is an excerpt of an incomplete story I started writing a few months after the attacks on 9/11. I don't know what I'll do with it, what will become of it, but I am fond of it. It is difficult to write because of the subject matter and my usually oversensitive self.
I wasn't sure how I'd feel or what I'd do on this ten year anniversary, but I think sharing this is the least I can do.
--
1.
Of the first, he wasn’t sure if the man leapt or fell; all he knew was that on his way up ninety some odd flights of stairs, somewhere near the end, as he peered through a pane of glass sullied with the greasy prints of fingertips and noses, a man flew face down through the air, his necktie fluttering and flapping behind him, the tip pointing up to Heaven. Thomas was still alive then, or so he’d like to think. He’d never know for certain, and as his heart fervently pumped blood through his veins he thought to himself he hadn’t felt this way in a long time – not since he saw an angel crash through the ceiling and then made love to God.
It wasn’t until they reached the foursome, a blond man whose face registered the calm of a patient father and three women whose looks he can’t recall but whose unforgettable eyes said goodbye, joined hands, whispered a prayer, bent their legs at the knees and took flight from a gap in the building that he found confirmation: It was a decision. A choice to soar, exotic as any parrot or flamingo though no wing and no feather graced the surface of their backs, like the most beautiful birds in the world.
After a week had passed and the dust had more or less settled, and people in Des Moines and Oakland and Tallahassee had gone back to work, and returned to their lives, fires still raged on at the tip of the island.
Of the first, he wasn’t sure if the man leapt or fell; all he knew was that on his way up ninety some odd flights of stairs, somewhere near the end, as he peered through a pane of glass sullied with the greasy prints of fingertips and noses, a man flew face down through the air, his necktie fluttering and flapping behind him, the tip pointing up to Heaven. Thomas was still alive then, or so he’d like to think. He’d never know for certain, and as his heart fervently pumped blood through his veins he thought to himself he hadn’t felt this way in a long time – not since he saw an angel crash through the ceiling and then made love to God.
It wasn’t until they reached the foursome, a blond man whose face registered the calm of a patient father and three women whose looks he can’t recall but whose unforgettable eyes said goodbye, joined hands, whispered a prayer, bent their legs at the knees and took flight from a gap in the building that he found confirmation: It was a decision. A choice to soar, exotic as any parrot or flamingo though no wing and no feather graced the surface of their backs, like the most beautiful birds in the world.
After a week had passed and the dust had more or less settled, and people in Des Moines and Oakland and Tallahassee had gone back to work, and returned to their lives, fires still raged on at the tip of the island.
2.
I was born with a broken heart. I was resigned to that fact even though pediatric surgeons wielded their scalpels and claimed to have repaired the hole in the valve well before my marshmallow of a navel healed. The doctors said they fixed it.
I never expected this to happen. I told myself it was impossible to be in this position. I considered myself unable, incapable of being on either the giving or receiving end of love. And then it happened. And then, just like that, it was gone again. The hole in my heart is back. Once again, it is broken. The doctors said they fixed it.
The parking lots at the train station undid me.
I have seen newborn babies abandoned behind dumpsters, tried my best to revive them and sadly turned them over to the coroner.
I have seen cheating husbands cower in the corner of bedrooms while their wives stood defiantly over them – with both eyes on a shrieking mistress – and a bloody knife in one hand and guilty genitals in the other.
But we are trained to keep it together and stay focused; it is our job.
But the parking lot train stations -– and I didn’t realize this until the planes were back in the air – but those cars in the lot, the ones that sat there and collected dust were owned by the men and women who thought they could fly.
I didn’t think that I would be one of those that fell apart. The ones in the market when wondering whether to choose the green beans or the sweet corn that simply lost it. On the subway, grown men in nice suits would be standing there holding onto the handgrip as quiet is kept, then out of nowhere, hollered. Puerto Rican domestics whispered into their ears, “Essokay, mijo, essokay” then rubbed their backs in concentric, clockwise circles in that reassuring way only parents can.
We pulled into the station, and I saw a red-eyed woman with her hair tied back in a bun nod at a tow-truck driver and that’s when it all came together for me. I sat down on a bench and watched the whole thing until he pulled out of the lot, a German sedan tethered behind him and drove off through the saltiest tears I have ever cried.
That’s when I realized that I was like that red-eyed woman:
Alone in this world,
just me and me.
An unclaimed car.
No one coming home,
no one to come home to. 3.“His name is Malcolm. MALCOLM. He worked for Merrill Lynch. Have you seen him? His name is Malcolm.”
–– a teenage girl handing out flyers at Ground Zero, September 12, 20014.If you happen to find yourself down there now, in the midst of resuscitated cafes and shops and peek in between the trees of flags whose leaves dance on the wind, you can still see the images of the loved ones. Their faces stare back at you from a niece’s birthday party on the beach or are crowned with Halloween party bunny ears.
Jane remembers when the pictures were vivid. Their colors have faded but their ghosts remain. She was in her classroom trying to explain to twenty-three third graders the difference between a cursive capital Q and a number 2. “Miss Benoit, they look the same,” Maria stated rather sincerely. Jane often wondered why they hadn’t advanced her a grade. “I know they do, but why would one combine letters and numbers in a sentence?” Jane responded. Marie accepted her teacher’s response but wasn’t satisfied with it. Jane smiled on the inside. Just like her, she thought. If I ever have a daughter, I’d like her to be just like Maria. She paused the thought as Coach Springer came in. “Did you hear?” he asked. Jane eyes turned to slits. “Jane, did you hear?” He cupped his hand around her ear and let the information escape from his lips in a whisper. When the color drained from her face and the fine hairs on her arm stood straight up, twenty-two third graders were connecting rows of letters on newsprint. Only one, a girl named Maria who was much smarter than her nine years might indicate, thought enough to ask: "What happened?”5.
World Trade Center:
Location: New York, New York, USA
Building Type: skyscraper , commercial office tower
Architect(s): Minoru Yamasaki & Associates; Emery Roth & Sons
Completion Date: 1972 (Tower One), 1973 (Tower Two)
Cost: $400 million
Height: 1,368 feet (Tower One), 1,362 feet (Tower Two)
Stories: 110
Materials: Steel
Construction System: steel frame, glass, concrete slabs on steel truss joists
Facing Materials: Aluminum, steel
Engineer(s): Skilling, Helle, Christiansen & Robertson
Date: 1966 to 1977. Demolished by terrorist attack on September 11, 2001
Aug 18
Sorry my race is a problem.
via Salon.com
The role of race is nothing new. A New York Times survey as well as a University of Washington study found Tea Party members more likely even than other Republicans to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people, that the Obama administration favors blacks over whites, and to blame black disadvantage on the shortcomings of black people, rather than on the legacy of slavery and discrimination. Is it only about having a black president? Um, that probably doesn't help. But it's worth noting that these are the same people who've been fighting the Democratic Party since the days of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the beginning of the War on Poverty, almost 50 years ago. They associate those long overdue social reforms with giving folks, mainly black people, something they don't deserve. I sometimes think just calling them racist against our black president obscures the depths of their hatred for Democrats, period.
Aug 17
For Once and For All
Sigh. I’m tired, y’all. Here we go again. Election season is ramping up and all of a sudden we’ve become a political issue. I’m talking about the gays. And I wish we weren’t. Gays in the military, gay marriage, gay this, gay that, and I wonder if y’all are as tired of it as I am? Not that I don’t think we’re worthy of the discussion, but you can bet your Victor/Victoria that all the talk is up because it’s just one of those things that divides the populace on the grounds of sexuality and and it's alleged ties to religion. Cause y’know, it’s in the bible. And the man up above said it was wrong, or something. Leviticus and poppers, and Calvin Klein underwear, and a night out over mai tais and hardly constrained erections.
This is getting old. Ole Bachmann once ran off at the mouth about the gay “lifestyle” being one of bondage. Ricky Santorum likes to equate homosexuality with bestiality and incest. And like I said on Twitter in one of my recent rants, you know what gays do in bed? They watch Jimmy Fallon before falling asleep.Ridiculous. And an actual disservice to those who do partake in bondage, actually. What does it matter? We’re here. What does it matter? We grocery shop, do laundry, take our kids to soccer practice, and go to work every day. Why are we pretending that the GLBT people live these wildly crazy, sex-drenched lives when we face the same challenges as the rest of the country. A wrecked economy, good schools, wonky gas prices, holding on to homes in danger of foreclosure. Aren’t these real issues? And issues faced not just by our straight heterosexual brethren, but all Americans? I went on a rant before about this notion of what it is to be an American and it seems that these politicians would have you believe that you must be white, Christian, drive a truck, eat apple pie, heterosexual, work at some blue collar job, grab your hat in your hand and say, “Aw, shucks” when you’re faced with an obstacle of some sort. I’m still calling baloney. My father served four terms in Vietnam over his 23-year career in the U.S. Navy. I have worked my butt off, clawed, fought, and climbed to get the things I’ve earned in my life. Again, this is ridiculous. I’m not your campaign issue, fodder, political strategy or otherwise. This is my life. I’m a gay man 24/7, I don’t turn it off, use it when convenient, flash my gay discount card to catch a deal on Broadway tickets, or have any notion of being a child molester, deviant, immoral fiend, or desire to partake in carnal knowledge of livestock. So can we just please for the love of all that is good in this world, get beyond that sillyness? I work hard, I pay taxes, I vote, I try and eat lots of fruits and vegetables, do my homework, help people, recycle, and live a terribly simple life. Free your freaking mind and your ass will follow. We can do better. And the way things are looking, we have to. So, can we once and for all get off this divisive notion of gay this and gay that and get to what matters?
Aug 15
The One Where I Give Myself A Pep Talk
I have a tendency to complicate things. My own doing really. If anything I’m ever involved with is to be undermined, it will be unequivocally be because of my own hand. I think too much. Obsess. Worry. I’m nervous that way. I’m a control freak. What if? Will they understand what I’m talking about? Get it right? Screw it up? I have a problem trusting people. Again, at the nucleus of all these neurotic incidents is me.
I will cop to being a work in progress, though aren’t we all? You see, I am acutely aware of it, because I enacted this change. Put it into motion. Kicked it off, reached back to St. Louis and brought that big bottle of champagne right across the bow of the ship because it needed to happen.I am too passive. Too cautious. I dip my toe in the water, then Google the local weather and at least two other national bureaus for confirmation. Leap without looking? Never. What if the bottom below is covered in broken glass and bones of ancient pachyderms and poison ivy? That’s my problem. It very well could be paved with gold but I would never know because...well, I hold back.
Part of my unravelling of all of this was, well, the move to New Orleans. See that last post for how that came into being. I do think it’s really the beginning. A new city, new career, new friends, new me. Except, there’s a lot of the old me keeping things afloat. Like the cross sticks of a classic kite, I steadily and safely hold things together. And, with that acknowledgement, there’s a lot of the old me that I like. It got me here. And like the proverbial house of cards that has been the structure of my life at this point, I don’t want to be rash and impulsively remove something from that structure in case of causing the whole damn thing to come tumbling down. No. I am mindful that what I need to do is enhance me, not change.So, as a note to self, I need to remind myself to be smart. Be compassionate. To exercise patience. Actually, to exercise could only help too. Be honest. Be real. Be in the moment. I need to take more risks, and be more trustworthy. I need to realize that I can’t do it all, and that it’s perfectly okay to ask for help when I need it. And sometimes saying no is the only answer. You simply just can’t do everything for everybody.Things have been a little crazy for me since classes let out for the summer and I have been supported in many ways by the best friends anyone could ever hope to have on their side. There’s a lot going on in this well-meaning head of mine. Some of it far-fetched and good intentioned, other things more rational and hope to be brought to fruition. So I’m a work in progress. I’m conscious of it, and getting better. Halfway there, I think. Maybe a little more than that. But I’m on my way. I like who I am, but what I’m about to become? Oh boy. Hold onto something. I’m a mess, but a good one. Wind me up and watch me go.
Aug 3
Three sixty five.
A year ago this week, I packed up my essential belongings in the back of my ‘96 Nissan, said goodbye to my friends, bit my bottom lip, and crept across California, down and around through Arizona on my way across the country. The first night I made it to New Mexico. I stayed at a Holiday Inn where pools of florescent lights drew in fat black beetles that clicked in the parking lot and crunched when you (accidentally) stepped on them on the sidewalk that led to your door. I made it through.
The second night, I hugged the border where Texas and Mexico seemingly kiss and skirted my way across the western part of the state where the arid land is flat and desolate, where any radio that would keep my attention was vastly different from anything I’d normally bop around to, and the dry desert is your only companion. That night I made it to Austin, where I was warmly welcomed onto the couch of a dear friend, her pit bull and our now wordless routine of donuts in the morning and Popeye’s chicken for dinner. I said goodbye to Austin, that central city almost smack dab in the middle of Texas and found my way back to the I-10 East. I can’t count how many times I found myself on the 10 in California. From downtown to Santa Monica and all points in between. Once upon a time, I was on it daily from my ‘hood of Mar Vista to the 110N which brought me to the manicured lawns and mansions of Pasadena where I went to grad school the first time. Thirty minutes door to door, if traffic wasn’t a bitch, and it normally was, so tack on some extra time even after eleven o’clock at night.I arrived in New Orleans late that night and pulled in front of a nice sized double in Mid City, a place occupied by some friends of a friend who were away at a festival. I poured myself out of the car trying to find my equilibrium with the humidity and thickness of the air that is New Orleans come August. I made it through.Things moved quickly after that; the friends came back, my money ran out, I couch surfed, ate a couple po’boys, drank a lot of Abita, got into some trouble with boys in the quarter, got my financial aid, rented a place, felt the love of the citizens, made a friend on a street corner, saw a brass band or eleven, got into some more trouble with some boys in the quarter, ran out of money again, got some love from my neighbors, cried on the streets of Gentilly, made my first gumbo, started calling everyone “babe”, did well at my internship, went to Mardi Gras, fell for the city, and a year later, a year later, I still can’t believe I live here.I’m halfway through my grad program and I’m obligated to stay here for two years after that to fulfill the requirements of the grant that brought me here from California. After that, I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel like I haven’t even begin to peel back the layers of this grand city and I want to get to know her intimately. What lies beneath the pentimento is there waiting for me to discover. So much has happened in a year. I can’t wait to see what goes down in year number two.I made it through.
Jun 19
Father.
Today’s that day, that day that annually distracts me and baffles me, makes me crazy and want to make me fold myself up into tiny little pieces, smaller and smaller with each crease in the paper, another pleat until there simply isn’t anything else left. That sounds harsh. And honestly, I’m not trying to be. It’s just that it’s Father’s Day. June 19, 2011. And if I could share how much I love my father, I really do. Why I can’t tell him that...why it’s easier to for me to share that I find that hard to do with complete strangers as I’m doing in this very public place, I don’t know. I don’t know why I can’t say those words. It’s not like I don’t feel them. Our history is a complicated one and I realize I’m fortunate to have my father in my life, others do not. Moreover, our relationship changed significantly when my mother died. My mother who was the buffer, the referee, the way station and translator that found the way bridge the gap, that Pacific sized gulf that seems to separate us the way San Francisco is as distant to the coast of Japan. I know he’s there, I know he’s out there, but I just don’t know how to reach him.And I bet if you asked him, he’d probably say the same thing about me. It’s there. We’d love to be able to connect; growing up there were the yearly trips to the auto show (we both love cars), the fishing (he loves it, me, not so much), camping (s’ok, kinda); but he doesn’t quite know how to make sense of the art that I love, my culinary interests, or love of information. He’s practical and down to earth; I close my eyes, spread my arms and dream. We talked today and as is often the case, it was brief and awkward and didn’t go on for too long. We talked about school and the weather and yes, I keep the oil changed in my car. I thought about saying it and I bet it’s likely easier for me to say it than it would be for him to let the phrase escape his breath and pass through his lips, but by the time I mustered up the courage, we’d said our goodbyes, hung up the phone, and were on to something else.
Jun 11
Love, three beets, and an ungrateful hussy.
If you know me at all, it’s likely you are aware that I’m quite smitten with the concept of love, and of my appreciation of Toni Morrison. I wrote my MFA thesis on the film adaptation of Beloved, which is an amazing book in my estimation, and a movie that largely fails not for wanting to be something special, but because the adaptation is a) too literal, and b) seemingly something that can’t really be brought to fruition because of the nature of the narrative. Magical realism relies on some suspension of disbelief and the poetic prose that lyrically dazzles as text seems so right...but to see it...literal, tangible, realistically, through the choices, decisions, and eyes of someone other than your own, is why it suffers. My point is that I adore Ms. Morrison and there’s a sequence in her novel Sula that I adore and thought I’d share it here. For the lack of anything else, I’ll just call this passage: Love.Here’s the set up: Eva is Hannah’s mother. They’re snapping beans to cook for dinner and Eva is a little...annoyed at Hannah’s description (?) of being loved by her mother. Serious as a heart attack, Eva lets her feelings be known. (And by all means, if you haven’t already, pick up the book from your local library and give it a read. It’s a fairly quick one, won’t take you much more than a weekend.) “You settin’ here with your healthy-ass self and ax me did I love you? Them big old eyes in your head would a been two holes full of maggots if I hadn’t.”“I didn’t mean it like that, Mamma. I know you fed us and all. I was talkin’ bout something else. Like. Like. Playin’ with us. Did you ever, you know, play with us?”“Play? Wasn’t nobody playin’ in 1895. Just ‘cause you got it good now you think it was always this good? 1895 was a killer, girl. Things was bad. Niggers was dying like flies. Stepping tall, ain’t you? Uncle Paul gone bring me two bushels. Yeah. And they’s a melon downstairs, ain’t they? And I bake every Saturday, and Shad brings fish on Friday, and they’s a pork barrel full of meal, and we float eggs in a crock of vinegar...”“Mamma, what you talkin’ ‘bout?”“I’m talkin’ ‘bout 18 and 95 when I set in that house five days with you and Pearl and Plum and three beets, you snake-eyed ungrateful hussy. What would I look like leapin’ ‘round that little old room playin’ with youngins with three beets to my name?”“I know ‘bout them beets, Mamma. You told us that a million times.”“Yeah? Well? Don’t that count? Ain’t that love? You want me to tinkle you under the jaw and forget ‘bout them sores in your mouth? Pearl was shittin’ worms and I was supposed to play rang-around-the-rosie?”“But Mamma, they had to be some time when you wasn’t thinkin’ ‘bout...”“No time. They wasn’t no time. Not none. Soon as I got one day done here come a night. With you all coughin’ and me watchin’ so TB wouldn’t take you off and if you was sleepin’ quiet I thought, “O Lord, they dead and put my hand over your mouth to feel if the breath was comin’ what you talkin’ ‘bout did I love you girl I stayed alive for you can’t you get that through your thick head or what is that between your ears, heifer?”
May 16
Bold As Love
Do you know how much hatred there is in the world? How many people have died for their beliefs? I know there’s a lot going on and everyone sees things differently. One man’s iPad is another man’s rent money. It’s all perspective. We all have our issues, and we can’t be all things to all people. I’ve been thinking about this because of some recent events, including the first class wedding of some friends I hold near and dear to this ever-thumping heart of mine, but seriously: What do you know about love?It takes love to make love, and if you love someone, you need to tell them. Regularly. Let them know what they mean to you. Someone out there caught your eye and you wanna holler at them? Been harboring that secret crush and it’s keeping you up at night? Why don’t yourself a favor and take the next step? What do you have to lose? Well, you might say everything, but being in that holding pattern of not knowing when you could potentially be with the love of your life? Get on it. And if they say thanks, but no thanks, well then you’re that much closer, another Kevin Bacon removed from the person who maybe, just maybe you’re supposed to be with. Life is too short and love is too grand to miss, not attempt, try out for, encourage, wrap your legs around, get drunk, caress and enjoy. Embrace love and chase love. Know love, grow love, own love and be shown love. I love you. And you, and you and you. And I could surely benefit from taking my own advice. I’m empowered and emboldened, bold as love. Just ask the axis. Y’all ready? Let’s go!
May 7
The Day Before Mother's Day.
Mother's Day is always a rough one for me as my mother succumbed to cancer sixteen years ago this year. Wow. A little less than half my life. And I remember it like it just happened. Some years, I'm fine and others I crawl up into the fetal position, isolating myself from the outside world and thinking about what she might think of the turns my life have taken since 1995. I've moved around, gone to graduate school, published some writing, started wearing glasses, got a tattoo or two, grown a beard, but mostly I've tried to uphold the teachings that undoubtedly gave my life the structure it has to be a contributing member to society.
I was in a holding pattern the first year. I watched my father cope with such loss; it broke my heart and the hearts of those who knew him to see him, after 30+ years of marriage (my parents had only dated each other, and my grandparents on both sides knew each other before either of my parents were even born), switch from sleeping on his side of the bed, to my mother's the night she died. I stepped into impossibly large shoes, trying to assume the duties she managed in our family because there simply was no one else to do it. I postponed school, quit writing, tried my best to cope, and did what I could. Inevitably, in my eyes, I fell short.
I hate to take credit for my writing work, although writing is such a big part of my identity. The first thing I wrote after my mom died, especially. I tend to see myself as more of a conduit; someone taking dictation from some other...place, writing down and scribbling what comes from wherever it comes and this could not be more truthful with this particular piece. I've likely shared this before and while I have tremendous respect for poets and the work they write, have never seen myself as a member of their ranks. I don't know how my mother spoke to me, but she did; she told this to me, and all I did was act a courier, writing this down and bringing it into this world. Thanks for reading, and a happy mother's day to all mothers out there for the love and work you do. You are appreciated.
From beyond the grave / What mama told me
Keep yo head up, boy. Quit shadowboxing with yourself.
There is no life without death and I've done my share of living.
Surrender, baby.
Cause you won't get over this.
But you might surprise yourself, and get through it
if you just let go.
