Its very comforting, this silence. I don’t know what I am trying to prove. In becoming my mother, I have pretty much destroyed all shreds of intelligence I have left. And its not like she isn’t smart. Because of course! of course! I know she knows things--she can feel a person’s true intentions from a mile away--but it is the grammar behind the thing that has really got me.
And the problem is that I always prided myself on my grammar and my four hundred dollar words and I can see the sparks of this literarymind fly off of my mom’s blond head and so I guess mine, though its brown and not nearly as joyous, is also sparking off big words and the correct grammar on days when the hatchet decides to strike. Not usually. Usually I can feel my cold feet sunk in the colder mud and I’m saying words I know don’t exist. But I like ‘em. I like the way they feel against my tongue and through my teeth chattering--because its cold, y’know? And I have to say something. Might as well say what’s easiest.
Its strange, though. I can feel the division. Some people know me as this girl I guess we all used to be. (Me, my mother, my grandmother.) Correct spelling, the brain churning in all the right spots. My siblings always made fun of me for reading too much. Now the new people see me in a different light and it doesn’t match up, parts of me are shining through two different stained glass windows. I don’t know.
I feel more honest now.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
My Ambition
You can have a warm garden with a light kitchen and three apples resting in the fruit bowl
if that is what you want
water dripping from the faucet
and so many people have this life
want this life
need this life
It seems almost mundane in its universality.
And yet,
I want to drink coffee in the golden afternoon and laugh and laugh and laugh.
if that is what you want
water dripping from the faucet
and so many people have this life
want this life
need this life
It seems almost mundane in its universality.
And yet,
I want to drink coffee in the golden afternoon and laugh and laugh and laugh.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Strangers
I’ve been thinking a lot about strangers. About walking into a dark room, three strangers sprawled out on a couch. Your friend introduces you. You might never see them again. Here they are, these strangers, and that moment is perfection. You’re wearing a sweater. The girl on the right is wearing a similar sweater. You are similar. Her grey hair falls across her grainy cheek. You don’t know much else. The boy is sleepy. He yawns.
Strangers are so different than the rest of us. You can never enter their world. When you press ‘sandwich’ on the cash register, and the woman--Tina--on the other side of the counter smiles, all you know about her is that she looks like the type of woman that will find the exact change--$5.29--so you don’t bother with getting a penny, two quarters and two dimes out of the cash register. She leaves to fill her water cup.
I like dim lights and sweaters. I was warm once, inside the home of my first boyfriend’s grandma. It was December and her Christmas tree lights were the same as my great-grandma’s. I didn’t know his grandmother. I couldn’t talk about knitting and that was everything to her. She wasn’t very good at it and the scarves she made were ugly. Yet here we were--and she was still a stranger to me--and all I could feel was the same homesickness I felt at my great-grandmother’s. My great-grandmother lived on a lake and her house felt green and moldy and old. I was young and I thought, “We go here every year before Christmas” because that was what all the adults were saying but I didn’t remember much besides sliding across the lake in my new black shoes. My cousin had ice skates.
Are we born into a world of strangers? We can’t know but we can feel. I was born into a world of bright light and warmth. I was jaundice and they kept me under a bright light to take the yellow out of my skin. My favorite color is yellow. I lived with my grandparents and my mother and father. My father snuck beers within the shelving of his headboard. My mother cried because she I was jaundice and she laughed because I was her baby. My grandparents’ house still feels like home. They were never strangers. I grew through their home to the homesickness I feel today.
I like to create new strangers. I like to feel myself new to the world bright and blinding like sun on snow. I like old strangers. I like the familiarity of Tina as she enters Za’s to buy her sandwich and sit in the corner chewing methodically. She doesn’t know my name but she smiles at me when I ring her up. I like finding myself through the glimmer of strangers’ Christmas tree lights and warm sweaters. And I like that the dim light and warmth of others’ comforters reminds me of the perfection of my own dim light and warm comforter.
Strangers are so different than the rest of us. You can never enter their world. When you press ‘sandwich’ on the cash register, and the woman--Tina--on the other side of the counter smiles, all you know about her is that she looks like the type of woman that will find the exact change--$5.29--so you don’t bother with getting a penny, two quarters and two dimes out of the cash register. She leaves to fill her water cup.
I like dim lights and sweaters. I was warm once, inside the home of my first boyfriend’s grandma. It was December and her Christmas tree lights were the same as my great-grandma’s. I didn’t know his grandmother. I couldn’t talk about knitting and that was everything to her. She wasn’t very good at it and the scarves she made were ugly. Yet here we were--and she was still a stranger to me--and all I could feel was the same homesickness I felt at my great-grandmother’s. My great-grandmother lived on a lake and her house felt green and moldy and old. I was young and I thought, “We go here every year before Christmas” because that was what all the adults were saying but I didn’t remember much besides sliding across the lake in my new black shoes. My cousin had ice skates.
Are we born into a world of strangers? We can’t know but we can feel. I was born into a world of bright light and warmth. I was jaundice and they kept me under a bright light to take the yellow out of my skin. My favorite color is yellow. I lived with my grandparents and my mother and father. My father snuck beers within the shelving of his headboard. My mother cried because she I was jaundice and she laughed because I was her baby. My grandparents’ house still feels like home. They were never strangers. I grew through their home to the homesickness I feel today.
I like to create new strangers. I like to feel myself new to the world bright and blinding like sun on snow. I like old strangers. I like the familiarity of Tina as she enters Za’s to buy her sandwich and sit in the corner chewing methodically. She doesn’t know my name but she smiles at me when I ring her up. I like finding myself through the glimmer of strangers’ Christmas tree lights and warm sweaters. And I like that the dim light and warmth of others’ comforters reminds me of the perfection of my own dim light and warm comforter.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
To be alive, Today
I'm so happy to be alive today. I was so tired this morning, rising, early, for class. My bed was so warm, my boyfriend was still asleep, snug, I did not want to shake myself, cold, from my covers and arrive tired into the dim, cold morning, alone. January 20, 2009. I had to get up today.
It was still cold when I walked the bright, clean path between my morning class and work. I shivered when I stepped inside Za's. My glasses did not fog up with the warmth of the restaurant as they usually did, the restaurant was almost as cold as outside. My manager was worried today, not that many customers were showing up. He couldn't understand why. I knew why. Who would come to eat chicken alfredo and greek salad when they could be watching Obama's speech? When they could see our president stand in front of a flushed, earnest crowd, eagerly anticipating the words of a new era?
And so with little food to cook, I had to clean. I thought "this is a historic day" as I scrubbed rotted banana bits off the floor behind the smoothie freezer. I thought "this is a historic day" as I wiped clean the pipes of the front sink. I thought "this is a historic day" as I swept the basement of months' worth of dirt and lint and grime.
I just watched Obama's inaugural speech. Not live, by myself, cold, in my bed. I am so happy, to be alive, today, to have froze this morning on my way to class, to have warmed my stiff hands on a hot rag in the back of an Italian restaurant, to have gone through the mediocre motions of my mediocre life and known that the world was turning in an inspirational way, and that all around me, others were also happy.
It was still cold when I walked the bright, clean path between my morning class and work. I shivered when I stepped inside Za's. My glasses did not fog up with the warmth of the restaurant as they usually did, the restaurant was almost as cold as outside. My manager was worried today, not that many customers were showing up. He couldn't understand why. I knew why. Who would come to eat chicken alfredo and greek salad when they could be watching Obama's speech? When they could see our president stand in front of a flushed, earnest crowd, eagerly anticipating the words of a new era?
And so with little food to cook, I had to clean. I thought "this is a historic day" as I scrubbed rotted banana bits off the floor behind the smoothie freezer. I thought "this is a historic day" as I wiped clean the pipes of the front sink. I thought "this is a historic day" as I swept the basement of months' worth of dirt and lint and grime.
I just watched Obama's inaugural speech. Not live, by myself, cold, in my bed. I am so happy, to be alive, today, to have froze this morning on my way to class, to have warmed my stiff hands on a hot rag in the back of an Italian restaurant, to have gone through the mediocre motions of my mediocre life and known that the world was turning in an inspirational way, and that all around me, others were also happy.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
CRAZY
I haven't been this hormonal in a long time. Last night, it started....
My mom made my siblings and I popcorn for dinner. I love popcorn and, like the crazy girl I am, hid it so that I could control when my siblings ate some. They obliged. However, soon enough, my dad ambled into the kitchen, reached onto the counter and grabbed the largest bowl of popcorn.
"You better not eat all of that," I warned him. I tried to be normal, to control the edge in my voice, but inside I was raging. My popcorn! MY POPCORN!
He went into the TV room and proceeded to eat HALF THE BOWL. I could not control myself when I walked in ten minutes later, his greedy fingers scooping the delicious kernels into his mouth, his eyes trained to the television screen, not even visually enjoying the buttery goodness. "You can't take that popcorn!" I cried. "It's for our dinner!"
My dad threw the bowl down and stalked off. I ran upstairs and cried until my parents left for their date.
Eventually, I came back downstairs and my siblings and I took our full bowls of popcorn (my mom had made us some more) and watched some movies. First, we watched The Lion King. I could not understand how I ever handled The Lion King before. Its devastating! I couldn't stop crying. We put in Rudolph, instead. Also, devastating. He's a misfit! I couldn't handle it. I left after twenty minutes and went to read Chloe's book 21 Proms. I cried and cried.
MY LIFE IS OVER. MY LIFE IS JUST LIKE THESE PROMS. ALL OF MY RELATIONSHIPS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THESE. I tried to quiet myself down by contemplating how old and mature I am. Twenty. I'm twenty! I am mature! I am completely in control of myself!
To say the least, today didn't go very well.
And, unfortunately, my mom is about to make popcorn again...
My mom made my siblings and I popcorn for dinner. I love popcorn and, like the crazy girl I am, hid it so that I could control when my siblings ate some. They obliged. However, soon enough, my dad ambled into the kitchen, reached onto the counter and grabbed the largest bowl of popcorn.
"You better not eat all of that," I warned him. I tried to be normal, to control the edge in my voice, but inside I was raging. My popcorn! MY POPCORN!
He went into the TV room and proceeded to eat HALF THE BOWL. I could not control myself when I walked in ten minutes later, his greedy fingers scooping the delicious kernels into his mouth, his eyes trained to the television screen, not even visually enjoying the buttery goodness. "You can't take that popcorn!" I cried. "It's for our dinner!"
My dad threw the bowl down and stalked off. I ran upstairs and cried until my parents left for their date.
Eventually, I came back downstairs and my siblings and I took our full bowls of popcorn (my mom had made us some more) and watched some movies. First, we watched The Lion King. I could not understand how I ever handled The Lion King before. Its devastating! I couldn't stop crying. We put in Rudolph, instead. Also, devastating. He's a misfit! I couldn't handle it. I left after twenty minutes and went to read Chloe's book 21 Proms. I cried and cried.
MY LIFE IS OVER. MY LIFE IS JUST LIKE THESE PROMS. ALL OF MY RELATIONSHIPS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THESE. I tried to quiet myself down by contemplating how old and mature I am. Twenty. I'm twenty! I am mature! I am completely in control of myself!
To say the least, today didn't go very well.
And, unfortunately, my mom is about to make popcorn again...
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Sleepy
Our class went twenty minutes over today. I wandered down the ice-covered sidewalk afterward and my head was boiling. Through a little yellow window I saw the inside of a little yellow house--the molding, the family portraits, the bookshelves. I love yellow houses.
Throughout my entire childhood I hated brick houses, even though my father would tell me that WE had a brick house so that if the grass burned our house wouldn't burn too.
When my parents divorced, my mom and us kids moved to a little yellow house. It felt safe.
When my mom remarried, we moved to a brick house. Life was exciting. I was living in Detroit. My family was expanding. I changed my mind. I would like brick houses! Maybe someday I would even live in a brick house!
But now, eight years later, I can't do it. I don't like brick houses. I love my family, of course. (This isn't some sort of strange symbolism.) But I don't like brick houses, I like little yellow houses.
Throughout my entire childhood I hated brick houses, even though my father would tell me that WE had a brick house so that if the grass burned our house wouldn't burn too.
When my parents divorced, my mom and us kids moved to a little yellow house. It felt safe.
When my mom remarried, we moved to a brick house. Life was exciting. I was living in Detroit. My family was expanding. I changed my mind. I would like brick houses! Maybe someday I would even live in a brick house!
But now, eight years later, I can't do it. I don't like brick houses. I love my family, of course. (This isn't some sort of strange symbolism.) But I don't like brick houses, I like little yellow houses.
Monday, December 1, 2008
I miss my family; I want to be a teenager again
It started in the fall. Fall isn't very long. Spring lasts longer. I can take spring and it can tease me and whip me and leave me breathless but fall always catches me off guard. It punches me in the gut with vibrant colors and cold wind. Then, its winter and we are no longer standing by a river shivering into our sweaters but we are freezing in blankets and no one wants to leave the fire.
The good thing about winter is that it is a long romance. Night intensifies all feeling and winter--snow against sky, eyes sparkling with champagne--is perpetual night. I can stand with the snow falling into my messy hair and my lips bitten and my cheeks flushed and you will kiss me. I can stand straight under a mistletoe with a Christmas sweater and polished fingernails and you will kiss me. I can run breathless up a snowbank and slip over a patch of ice--spilling red hat, red gloves into the snow--and you will, inevitably, kiss me.
The good thing about winter is that it is a long romance. Night intensifies all feeling and winter--snow against sky, eyes sparkling with champagne--is perpetual night. I can stand with the snow falling into my messy hair and my lips bitten and my cheeks flushed and you will kiss me. I can stand straight under a mistletoe with a Christmas sweater and polished fingernails and you will kiss me. I can run breathless up a snowbank and slip over a patch of ice--spilling red hat, red gloves into the snow--and you will, inevitably, kiss me.
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