11:03 p.m. - 10/05/03
!.!.i'll always be true!.!.
Oh, the cursed tiredness. It's trying to defeat me. It's trying to keep me from being productive, to make this feel like a school night, during which I must force myself to do worthless work born from no passion or face the terrifying consequences. Only, more devastating, the work I want to do (and need to do) is that of passion. It's calling friends and writing. Writing! Aigh. Where were my thirty minutes yesterday? I seriously needed demerits after that. I had myself do an extra fifteen minute exercise that was more difficult than the free writing I normally choose. I don't know how effective it is to punish myself with writing, but at least I got my point across. And tonight when I wanted to bail due (once again) to the wretched tiredness, my darling Philippina sister hijacked our phone line (long distance), leaving me temporarily without Internet access, meaning I had time I could kill through what I tell myself I'm supposed to be doing. Writing practice.
I'm not sure what the rambling little pieces are supposed to do for me, so I can't say for certain if they're working, but I have noticed a few points of interest. One and two are not particularly ground-breaking: Scented pens and silly notebooks can entertain me and keep my attention for at least thirty minutes. They should always be kept on hand. Three, I suppose, is that I'm avoiding all rough material. I'm telling very easy stories, feeling that my major experiences and pains, or even minor ones with a few more edges, are better left to journaling and serious writing. Focused writing. Not these little exercises. Tonight was actually the first time anything real came out. I began talking about card-playing, how my grandma taught me to play poker as a child, thinking I would go into how my oldest brother and I play weird, slightly more underground card games now. Instead, I got waylaid into the subject of gambling, and how much brokenness a good friend had to face because of it; it was the first piece with any feeling, I think. And that's observation number four: I am writing very rationally, very from-my-head, very much without weird symbols and poetic language. Very much not how I write, or how I once wrote, at the time when I was most sure the voice I was writing in (however rarely) was my own. It's clear to me now that my poetry has become very dependent (overly dependent) on its rhythm; it's almost parallel with the popular music whose lyric clutches on the crutch of its beat. The idea that I could do that without music, with the rhythm of the words, is intriguing, and I'm very glad for all the studying I've done under slam poets and lyricists like Ani DiFranco, but I'm missing my old murky, symbolic self. I've been listening to a lot of Tori Amos lately, and while she was my first real taste of music, the first musician to seriously save my life, I don't often listen to her with this much concentration. Day after day, album after album, looping through my life. I started reading poetry by Margaret Atwood and Marge Piercy, knowing I needed to tighten up the lyric I write, and what I've found on top of that is I'm telling what's meant to be shown. The ultimate don't in the writer's ten commandments. One I've always had a far too easy time with...(My writing instructors: "Not everything has to be detailed and made metaphor. Sometimes you can just tell us it's a chair.") I feel like I've fallen too far into the other direction and I want to come back to the middle of the balance. I came in search of actual intellect-to-intellect communication (which I learned as I learned to speak) and now I need to go back to the cellular dirt of art and build steel rainbows there. I need some imagery, stat.
I bought a bunch of lovely plays (I just know there lovely; I just do) by Gertrude Stein. I've been wracking my brain figuring out who I need to read right now; I want the literary equivalent of Tori Amos, and the name that came to mind was Gertrude Stein. And oh, the plays are lovely. They make me want to stay inside them and forget everything *I* need to be writing. Which is good because right now I'm back to trying to force pieces that don't want to come out yet. I'm trying to determine if the scraps of something that I have is intended to be a certain sort of bigger something for next year's EDAW, and in order to develop it, I keep trying to figure out the next component, which just leads me to writing crap about eating disorders. I don't want to write about eating disorders! I hate eating disorders. I don't care about eating disorders. They don't interest me. I wouldn't care if they stopped existing tomorrow. And I wouldn't even feel *joy* if they stopped existing except on behalf of the *people* who have *lives* that I actually care about. So that's what the piece needs to be: everything beside, under, and on top of an eating disorder. Everything but the disease. The love and the life that take place during the disease. That's what matters to me, and that's what wants to come up on its own schedule. Fucking diva muses.
Oh, and speaking of how much I do not care about illness, am actually tired and sick of illness, and finding it less and less romantic, beautiful, or poetic...I ended up in a Borders today. We won't talk about how, and we won't draw too much attention to the fact that I bought my Gertrude Stein book from them instead of one of the good independent stores (because we're going to be nice to me and let me off the hook. I'm a good kid, and it's pretty much a first offense, right?). Anyway, I ended up at a Borders and I listened to all this music, thinking hmm, what new music do I need...and I was honestly trying to find something to buy (can we say equation for Mary's scasid issues to explode in their oh-so-favored shopping decoration?) - something rough like Kittie or Melissa Ferrick, something that wasn't too slippery sweet. Melissa Ferrick was the last CD I took a listen to, and I've previewed (preheard?) it before; it seems like a really great album. But the first thing she sang about was how she'd screwed up again, and I was just like, fuck it. Fuck it! No more messing up, no more apologies, no more remorseful songs of what we did or didn't do. Just NOW, ok? Just NOW, like it's a verb. I need to now. I need to write and live and feel and experience and stay somewhat focused in this NOW. So, I put down Melissa, went in search of Gertrude, and la de da de da de dum, t'is Autumn.
Oh, and in the bathroom, I stumbled onto a cute girl with something pink (a scarf maybe?) around her (but not overwhelming pink, not dressed in pink entirely) who seemed to be fumbling with the tampon dispenser in a not entirely innocent fashion. I smiled a little as she pried at the metal case, taking off the front panel on one side, and slipping her finger in. "I paid for it," she said, as soon as I came in. "I swear." I gave her a, "Don't worry, I'm not going to grab the authorities; I'll even play lookout!" smile and asked if it had been an ordeal. She groaned about how she'd already given it a quarter, and so on, and I was completely entranced by this girl duking it out with the tampon dispenser. I couldn't help it. I didn't feel separate or awkward, like with the high school seniors yesterday. I felt excited, kind of comfortable, myself. That's the thing about nervousness, when it's active and social and with new people, it tends to feel like excitement. And, oh, I wanted to know what the next step was. I wanted to know how I kept the conversation going, learned her name, her whereabouts, the first bits of her life which I could then weave into mine but I didn't know, and though I lingered at the sink, I assumed she'd already gone. Another woman had come in, our bonded moment gone. But she was cute and funny and maybe it wasn't so long ago that I couldn't do the first two sentences, the situational small talk. And I can do that now; I do that often. And one of these days I will learn how to follow it up. Also, it's possible that high schoolers are just weird (in a not-good way) and even though Robyn's son and his girlfriend seemed like really nice high schoolers, they were still a part of this world that just isn't real to me, and that is so set and without a need for change or novel stimuli. (Imagine.) So maybe it isn't all me. I have no idea how old this girl was, but she probably wasn't 18 +/- 5. I'm guessing we were considerably closer than that. I refuse to stop hoping. I walked with four thousand people on Saturday, and they're nowhere near the entire population here. Somewhere in all that crowd there has to be a group of friendlings. I would just appreciate it if they'd put up some neon arrows to direct me.
I fancy neon.
I, fancy neon. Ay. Fancy neon. Aih. Fancy neon! I, fancy, neon. ...Oh, I am definitely playing frightful word games again. Oh, yeay, yeay, yeay.
...So, I did spend time with my dad, and it was horrible enough to warrant my contemplation of saying Catholic prayers (despite not being Catholic) beforehand. He tried really hard, and the movie was pretty funny and against some of what I hate in some simple, very cool ways, but my Godd, it was awkward. It was so terribly, horribly awkward. I kept thinking about going home, and then I kept thinking how I hadn't seen him, and I couldn't just ditch him so quickly, after which I'd wonder if I was just trying to buy more time between this visit and the next by spending more with him now. Talk about a good way to drive yourself (to the other side of) crazy. I came home mad at my dad, mad at my mom, hating everything about their relationship, and wishing they'd never gotten married. I cried just a little and spent time alone, which helped some. I need to talk to the doctor about how "my crazy parents" needs to be redefined. I need an understanding of them that doesn't make things more difficult. I need to understand how my dad was emotionally abusive. I need to understand that my mom is not perfect, and certainly was not. I need to ask if my dad is a good dad, and if he isn't, if such a thing exists. I need to know if my mom was a good mom. And does the answer to that bear weight when discussing whether or not she *is*?
Maybe tomorrow, we'll talk about that. Tomorrow, when I tell him also that I called the girl! I called the girl *again* after fighting with my modem for an eon because I didn't have her new cell number written down; I only had it saved in an e-mail. I considered taking the computer's lack of willingness to be a sign more than once (obviously, I was just supposed to call Sara, as I'd intended, before realizing how many days it's been since Chas called me back, and that she'll probably be harder to get hold of during the week), but I persisted, found the number, called her anyway.
And oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
Emotions are funny like fish. I feel so ok right now, so totally good, and the every terrifying aspect of the "Chas issue" - the wedding, the marriage, the fiance, the husband - seems entirely tame. Those things all seem so silly. The wedding is one day's celebration in her life, which she described having chosen for the exact same oh-so-characteristic-of-her reasons that I guessed as I tried to explain "the girl" and her ways to the doc. I felt close to her in having known them, and I felt close because we were talking, and it was just about me and her, with the occasional "my former classmate/ her former student is now up to blah" thrown in for color. Mostly it was just the two of us talking, Chas and me. And that's so rare. That's so rare, it's almost non-existent. I've called her when my life was absolutely falling apart (and that would have been sophomore if not freshman year - at the latest) and pretty much only then. We've talked about what I need to do and how I can feel better; she's always made it seem strangely comforting. She didn't have to ask me how I am three times, though, and she didn't have to take care of me. I felt like I was talking too much; the doctor said to tell her I was really just calling to hear about her, but every time she'd say something, I'd have something to say in return, and I just kept talking and talking because that was natural. I got to congratulate her a million times over the phone. I got to hear her say how it's all about her, and it is, (and that's the sort of thing that I realize now made me feel better. Even when she talked about the wedding, she barely mentioned her fiance. It's all about her! As it should be) I got to hear her happy-shriek my name. I got to joke and jest around my confusion over this foreign object - the telephone - and do the, "oh, it's so good to hear your voice; e-mail is not the same...we must do this more often!" exchange. I told her it had to be more than a once a year event, and she said, "Yes! At least semi-annual" which made me laugh, and then she said she wanted to talk again soon, and I was programmed into her phone, and I told her I'd try not to be frightened by that second part. "I've programmed you," she replied, making it sound even more scary.
And we talked about eighth grade and the middle school, and she told me she's never had anyone who could write like me, and she *thanked me*...and I told her that she wasn't allowed to burn out on teaching - she was saying how many teachers do - although that of course was simply my opinion. I didn't know how to tell her that she's good at teaching in a way that just thinking of the two of them together - my Chas and her job - stirs emotion inside of me. She said she had gotten to a point where she wasn't sure she could do it anymore, but she'd found her way through, and I told her that was how it had to be. She said she gives less of herself than she used to because it's too hard to let go, and I told her about Rogers and how I can't imagine having that experience of connection and loss *every year*. (Translation: "Chas, even if you're giving 70% of what you gave when I was there, you're still ten times better than the majority of your coworkers. And ten-times-ten times better than the rest of them." With the added bonus of talking, actually talking! to her for the first time, about how wonderful Rogers was. A home for me.) And we talked about how the heart doesn't always listen to the head. I conceded that my head probably would not go in so quickly for "I went to this [cough] hospital in [ahem] *rural Wisconsin* and...it's seriously the best place I've ever been" so quickly as my heart does. She laughed. She laughed her glorious, unfair Chas laugh. I told her all she needs to do to know she's meant to continue teaching is poll her former students. I told her to poll them and *just see* how many tell her she's the best teacher they ever had. Just count. 90%? 99%? That's a damn high score on such a test, and she would get it, honestly. She made a noise that suggested to me I'd made her heart smile when I told her this, and I shrugged and said, you can't change what's true. I know how her students talk about her. I know who she was for me and who she is for me. I know how much she means to the people who continue to stay connected with her, and to some of those who don't know how to make that their reality.
She told me ours was her favorite class, and I couldn't help being glad. She told me she's had some really good classes, but ours is still her favorite (and she meant it, honestly), and I told her I'd like it to stay that way. I told her that it didn't feel like such an achievement, being her favorite class out of two (I had her in her second year), but as time goes by, it feels more and more impressive. We joked about who I was at fourteen. Do you know how I *never* get to joke about that? I never get to talk about that tragic, terrible time with a bit of distance and a bit of humor? We joked about it, and she remembered all the tragic details - the way people would talk to me and I'd respond inaudibly, I wouldn't speak, I'd sit in class and write poems. I told her I was "interesting" at that age, and she said she remembered. We talked about the intimacy of the class (it was the best class, as in group of people in a room bonding over subject matter, I've ever had the privilege/ pleasure to enjoy) - and all the things we did as a group: like the lock-in no one else knew about. Or the field trip we scheduled for after school was let out because we'd earned it, and she certainly wasn't going to stop seeing us just because summer had come. How she read "Oh the Places You'll Go" and cried, how we all cried, and hugged, and were late for our next class, but didn't care. How stoic, cynical Mary who never talked or talked only of how she'd escape N*land, stood in the upstairs hallway and *bawled* the day eighth grade came to an end. About how my writing's evolved and needs help from that time, simultaneously. About how she's the only one (the only one) of my eighth grade angels still in place. All the rest have flown away. And I guess with Rogers excepted, I've never been so grateful to have been somewhere exactly when I was.
She said she wanted to talk soon, and I was programmed into her phone. She said, "I'm engaged!!!" and I gave her extra congratulations for after she hung up. I told her I loved her (no hesitation, no anxiety, just the words and the sentiment, sincere) and she was already goodby-ing but she said she loved me as well. And she does. And it's so cool. It's so, so wonderful to be loved by a girl like her. By that "girl."
Chas, Chas, Chas. I said in the earliest days of atomgirl, it was a name we'd often hear. And the fact that it's still relevant here, that I'm still talking to her now, that it sure as hell will not be a year before I call her again (though, knowing the past few weeks, it *might* feel like one). I'm still saying I love you - saying it easily and genuine - and she's saying I love you back. And that's just going to keep on going. That boy, man, fiance, husband guy does not get to change that. And Chas knows. And I know for the moment. That two people who change as much as we have in the past four years, go through as much, struggle as distantly, and still care enough to pick up what they left off, and make it fit the new, are set for some time.
The truth is, when she has kids I'll explode with joy. I'll explode with the ecstasy-overload of knowing there's more of Chas in the world than there was. This conversation's the same way. I have more with her than I did. I have that one more conversation, that one recent connection, which makes so much of the difference. I must remember to tell the doctor to toggle Chas-fears for divorce-pain tomorrow and take it from there. I could continue feeling peaceful. In fact, I will continue feeling peaceful 'til I don't.
And that could be awhile! Or it could be just this night. Either way I'm grateful. I have good friends. The cream of the cream. And there's more. connection. to come.
chord
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