Reading Poetry to My Cat

Lately I have taken to reading poetry to my cat at night. It's usually around midnight when we both curl up on my bed and I grab a book of Ted Kooser's poems and flip to a random page, whispering the words to Taffy as she sleeps. I like to think that she finds the cadence of my voice as soothing as I find Kooser's words--most of which are so beautiful they bring me to tears.


Here is a poem from his new-to-me collection entitled "Flying at Night." This is one of my (and Taffy's) faves:

Christmas Eve

Now my father carries his old heart
in its basket of ribs
like a child coming into the room with an injured bird.
Our ages sit down with a table between them,
eager to talk.
Our common bones are wrapped in new robes.
A common pulse tugs at the ropes
in the backs of our hands.
We are so much alike
we both weep at the end of his stories.

There is something gorgeously soul-crushing about his lines--the last two in particular. They are so raw, so personal, that I feel like I too know these stories and can't help but weep myself. This poem is an explanation of love, and reading it poem aloud to my cat, as ridiculous as that sounds, is my own attempt at a connection with the closest thing I have to offspring. It is what I most look forward to when I wake up every morning. I think Taffy feels the same way. I hope so, at least.

Four of my favorite things: my baby kitten, poetry, my bed, and my rainbow body pillow named Elliot Stabler.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

On a recent trip to Seattle with my dad, I discovered the Rummage Hall at Pike Place Market. The room consists of several tables covered with everything from books to teacups to jewelry to old plastic lunch boxes--all at thrift store prices. It was a delightful place and I walked away with an anthology of poems by American women as well as the absolute steal of a book called "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" by James Finn Garner.


What I am going to do now is share with you some of my favorite excerpts.

From Goldilocks:

"Through the thicket, across the river, and deep, deep in the woods, lived a family of bears--a Papa Bear, a Mama Bear, and a Baby Bear--and they all lived together anthropomorphically in a little cottage as a nuclear family. They were very sorry about this, of course, since the nuclear family has traditionally served to enslave womyn, instill a self-righteous moralism in its members, and imprint rigid notions of heterosexualist roles onto the next generation. Nevertheless, they tried to be happy and took steps to avoid these pitfalls, such as naming their offspring the non-gender-specific 'Baby.' "

From Jack & the Beanstalk:

"'FEE, FIE, FOE, FUM, I smell the blood of an English person! I'd like to learn about his culture and views on life! And share my own perspectives in an open and generous way!' Unfortunately, Jack was too crazed with greed to accept the giant's offer of a cultural interchange."

From The Emperor's New Clothes:

"Now, tailors who move from place to place normally keep to themselves and are careful not to overstep the bounds of local decency. This tailor, though, was overly gregarious and decorum-impaired, and soon he was at a local inn, abusing alcohol, invading the personal space of the female employees, and telling unenlightened stories about tinkers, dung-gatherers, and other tradespeople."

From Rapunzel:

"There once lived an economically disadvantaged tinker and his wife. His lack of material accomplishment is not meant to imply that all tinkers are economically marginalized, or that if they are, they deserve to be so. While the archetype of the tinker is generally the whipping person in classical bedtime stories, this particular individual was a tinker by trade and just happened to be economically disadvantaged.
"The tinker and his wife lived in a little hovel next to the modest estate of a local witch. From their window, they could see the witch's meticulously kept garden, a nauseating attempt to impose human notions of order onto Nature."

From Cinderella:

"One day an invitation arrived at their house. The prince was celebrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a fancy dress ball. Cinderella's sisters-of-step were very excited to be invited to the palace. They began to plan the expensive clothes they would use to alter and enslave their natural body images to emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine beauty. (It was especially unrealistic in their case, as they were differently visaged enough to stop a clock.)"

Can you believe I got this gem for only $1.00? It feels like satirical robbery. Nonetheless, you can bet I will be reading this nightly to my children, whenever they may be. Thank you, James Finn Garner, for making my life just a little bit better.

This

This is summer.

This is ill-advised.

This is a lot of trees.

This is definitely overly dramatic.

This is two lights at once.

This is fishermen in bloom.

Revolving Days

(By David Malouf)

That year I had nowhere to go, I fell in love--a mistake
of course, but it lasted and has lasted.
The old tug at the heart, the grace unasked for, urgencies
that boom under the pocket of a shirt. What I remember
is the color of the shirts. I'd bought them
as an experiment in ways of seeing myself, hoping to catch
in a window as I passed what I was to be
in my new life as lover: one mint green, one
pink, the third, called Ivy League, tan
with darker stripes, my first button-down collar.

We never write. But sometimes, knotting my tie
at a mirror, one of those selves I had expected
steps into the room. In the next room you
are waiting (we have not yet taken back
the life we promised to pour into each other's mouths
forever and for ever) while I choose between
changes to surprise you.

Revolving days. My heart

in my mouth again, I'm writing this for you, wherever
you are, whoever is staring into your blue eyes. It is me,
I'm still here. No, don't worry, I won't appear out of
that old time to discomfort you. And no, at this
distance, I'm not holding my breath for a reply.

That American Life Over There

Ira Glass makes balloon animals. And he loves Lady Gaga. And he knows how to drop the F-bomb. All of that plus the fact that his voice is so magical that I swear it is the single reason human beings have ears makes him hands-down the greatest man on the face of the earth. Also, he has a beard now, which I'm not sure how I feel about but I think I might probably like it.

The night was peppered with perfect moments, including (but not limited to) the following:

1. The woman who, during the Q&A session after his talk, admitted that she listens religiously to the show but has never donated. In case you're keeping track at home, that is not a question. After a drawn-out explanation of why she has not monetarily supported public radio, she had the audacity to--get this--ask Ira to call her to ask for money. I'm sorry, what are you? You do not ask Ira Glass to call you. The very opportunity to breathe air in his presence should be enough of an honor to last you the rest of your life. Luckily Ira was having none of it. "You want me to call you?" he asked. "Now, why would I do that? Can't we just consider this the call? If I call you, I'd have to call everyone." At this point, some random man shouted from the balcony, "Call me, Ira!" Ira pointed to him and said, "See? It's starting already." He then asked the lady how much money she had on her, and she ended up giving him the $38 she had in her wallet. In exchange he made her a balloon animal. I would kill for an Ira balloon animal. I would display it on my desk next to the peanut with googly eyes that I got from David Sedaris when he came to UPS during my sophomore year. I am very upset that this crazy woman who dared to ask THE Ira Glass to call her walked away from the theater with one of his balloon animals. Too bad for her that it'll deflate, whereas my peanut is doing just fine two years later. Take that, crazy.

2. Also during the Q&A session, a woman asked Ira to share his favorite story. He thought a moment, then responded, "Okay. I have a story that I promised I'd never share on the radio. But this isn't the radio. So I'm going to share it." He proceeded to describe a friend and her husband who attended a swingers' party. The friend shall remain nameless because after Ira told us her name, he stopped abruptly, exclaiming, "Shit! I just realized I should have changed her name. Okay, well for the rest of the story I will refer to her as Pam. Can we all agree not to take this outside the theater?" He continued with the tale, forgetting time after time that he had just renamed his friend, hence sparking an emphatic "Pam!" from the audience every time he did so. Even better was a moment toward the end when he accidentally revealed the identity of Pam's husband, which he followed with yet another "Shit!"

3. At one point Ira was explaining the process behind putting together the most difficult episode of the show--one based on the theme "Stories Pitched By Our Parents." He described calling his in-laws repeatedly, begging them for ideas for the show. Each time, he encountered the same insistence that they had nothing interesting to share on the radio. Twenty-four hours before the show was to air, Ira called them one last time, pleading desperately. "Are you sure you don't have anything?" he asked. His father in law sighed. "No, no. We don't have anything." After a moment he added, "Oh. Well, did we ever tell you about the time we met the 9/11 hijackers?"

In conclusion, I honestly don't understand why I'm not married to Ira Glass. That is all. (Side note: the second picture is obviously not Ira. It is syndicated sex advice columnist Dan Savage who is also fantastic and hilarious and perfect in every way.

Curse You, Aqua Scum!

By which I mean, of course, my sore throat. It appears that I like to take any opportunity I can to quote Finding Nemo.

I have been under self-imposed house-arrest today so I could get over this nasty flu thing before I go see Ira Glass in Seattle tomorrow with my friend Kim. I want to look and feel my best so that Ira will see me all the way up in the third tier (back row) and fall instantly in love with me and leave his probably-perfect wife in New York to be with me. I don't know her, but I don't need to know her to know that I would totally be a better life partner for Ira. I would just listen to him talk all day, every day. And I'd make sure that every time he answered his cell phone he would say, "Hey Podcast Listeners, Ira Glass here." Also, I would insist that he always sit at his desk with a microphone and a cup of coffee. And that he invite all his public radio friends over for dinner. I would be such a good wife.

But I digress. I meant this post to be a list of things I am doing while I home with a stuffy nose, achy arms, bipolar body temperature, and a sore throat so malicious that I swear there is an army of tiny molecular men with jackhammers that drill in unison every time I swallow. So here it is, my Sick List:

1. Watching Bones (and consequently shouting at my computer screen whenever I feel a scene should have unfolded differently than it did. Which is quite often).
2. Finishing The Atlas of Love, the debut novel of one of my favorite professors, Laurie Frankel. I encourage you all to go out and purchase this immediately. One reviewer wrote "Once in a great while, a book is so beautifully written that when you close it, all you can do is sit quietly and hold it to your chest. Laurie Frankel's 'The Atlas of Love' is that book." This is 100% true. It is exactly what I did when I finished the last page, tears still wet on my cheeks.
3. Painting my toenails, though I'm not entirely sure why, since summer seems to be abandoning us and my toes are preparing for their ten-month sneaker hibernation.
4. Lint rolling the cat hair and dandruff off of my comforter just in time for my cat to come back to reclaim her indentation at the foot of my bed. Yes, I'm living a futile existence over here. (This just in: Cat is now asleep right next to my pillow. I sense that we are about to engage in a prolonged battle of wits--Princess Bride style--with her playing Musical Comforter and me cleaning up her messes every time she moves. It's on, Taff. It's so on).
5. Blowing my nose. A lot. Sorry, should I not have shared that?
6. Trying to purge my room of unnecessary clutter. Pro: I always manage to successfully separate the crap from the non-crap. Con: The crap always winds up in piles across my floor. After a few weeks, when I'm sick of having to step around stacks of old papers and clothes that haven't fit since junior high just so I can get to the door, I usually integrate them back into the non-crap. See #4 for note on futility.
7. Drinking soul-numbing, copious amounts of tea. Seriously, at the rate I'm downing this stuff you'd think I was trying to test the capacity of the human stomach.
8. Attempting to translate my journal entries into poems. See #s 4 and 6 for note on futility.
9. Working futilely (hmm, seems to be a theme) on the crossword book I bought for my 15-hour flight home from Melbourne but never really got around to filling out. I was too busy sobbing myself into a stupor while the middle-aged man in the seat next to me regaled me with stories of his own daughter who was off on a church mission in Colorado. I usually appreciate chit-chat with airplane seatmates, but let me tell you that when you're on the verge of an epileptic seizure because you're leaving behind (indefinitely) the best thing that has ever happened to you, you're generally not in the mood for someone else's life story.

I think that's about it. I've blown my nose a few dozen more times since I wrote #5, but other than that I'd say the list remains accurate. I'm off to go down another glass of OJ. "Pumpin' the VC" should be the title of my debut rap album. I'll have to run it by Ice-T.

Bones

I have recently acquired for myself yet another addictive vice: the television show Bones. On a scale of 1 to Complete Emulation of Major Characters, I'd say I have entered the I'd Like to Be Their Best Friend level of obsession, which, as we all know, falls somewhere between Who the Heck is This Guy? and Why Am I Not Married to This Guy?

In high school I wanted to become a forensic anthropologist, so I like to pretend that this is a show about my unrealized, hypothetical life. Aside from the genius part, I honestly believe the character Temperance Brennan is the grown-up, successful version of me. I mean, she utters the phrase "I don't even know what that means" at least once every episode, has never played Monopoly, doesn't know the word for basketball, and can't understand the purpose or benefits of high-fiving. I'm impressed that creator Hart Hanson was able to achieve such levels of awkwardness in his lead character without first consulting me. And I thought I knew all the tricks...

In one scene of the episode I'm currently watching, Bones and her partner--FBI Special Agent Seely Booth--are investigating the deaths of several people killed in a bar fire. The manager of the bar is a little person and Bones, in her social ineptitude, keeps drawing attention to that fact. At one point Booth made a comment in front of Bones and the manager that they had to take "baby steps" to get to the bottom of the issue. After a moment, Bones laughed. "I get it," she said, turning to the manager. "It's funny because you're so little." Me. So me.

In another episode, the team was working with the body of a nine-year-old girl to determine cause of death:
Angela: She was a kid. A little girl. This shouldn't have been her childhood. Childhoods should be all about swings. How high can you go, and how long will I spin if I twist the chains...
Hodgins: How hard will I fall if I jump from here...
Angela: Exactly. I miss that.
Bones: I miss Organic Chemistry class. Those were good times.

Again. Me.

Almost, But Not Quite

Yesterday I left my island. In a way I feel that's all there is to say, though I'll say that it's not all I feel.

I already miss my evening walks up West Beach road past the cemetery and sprawling cow pastures. I miss the hill by the hardware store that I scaled at least once every day on bike or foot but that never got any easier to climb.

My final two days were black bean soup days--black bean soup and roasted veggies with caramelized onion dipping sauce, homemade potato gnocchi and focaccia and coconut mojitos. And that was just Friday evening.

Saturday morning: zucchini and potatoes, candle holders made from the arced staves of oak wine barrels, tie-dye skirts and grapefruit rhubarb jam from Lone Cow Farm. The extravagance of my final Farmer's Market seemed to me a plea from the island for me to stay. We'll give you tomatoes. Just don't go. It's strange to think that all of that belongs in a different life than the one I woke up living this morning. The three loaves of bread (garlic parsley walnut, chocolate cherry, and fig anise) in their paper bag on top of the refrigerator are now edible souvenirs of noon yesterday, bits of history smuggled into the present with the hopes that they'll count as something more than themselves.

I had my last lemon scone at Teezer's, and then my mom and I crossed the street to the Village Green where volunteers had roped off an enormous plot next to the market awnings for Eastsound's annual Library Fair. Thousands of books, one-dollar paperbacks (and three for $2). Though signs stated that the fair would open promptly at 10am, the lady in the blue vest holding the scissors appeared ill-prepared for the seemingly effortless job of cutting the orange tape. Despite the fact that as 10 o'clock neared the band onstage halted its music and began a countdown, and despite the fact that this countdown was echoed loudly in growing enthusiasm by the hundreds of line-waiters along the perimeter of the fair, the poor volunteer woman missed her cue by at least five seconds. Five excruciating seconds during which you could practically hear the confusion and frustration roll through the line like the aural reverberations of a gunshot over the side of a cliff. Poor thing. The pressures that came with donning the Blue Volunteer Vest must have sent her into a near-catatonic stupor.

Luckily, her paralysis was only temporary, and within seconds my mom and I were making our way toward the entrance, our empty totes in hand. We had formulated a strategy in line--upon entering my mom would take a sharp right to the first of three paperback fiction tables while I would cut left to check out the price list posted next to the registers. We would fight for our literature, clawing, tripping, head-butting. Nothing was off limits. It was strange, though: the splendor of thousands of well-loved book spines glinting in the Eastsound sunlight renewed us. We were reborn in the presence of literature. Rather than an uppercut to the jaws of our competition, we were exchanging pleasantries. "That's a great one," I said to a woman on my right who had picked up a nearly new copy of The Lovely Bones. She nodded toward the one in my hands--Fannie Flagg's Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! "Right back atcha," she said, and made her way to another table.

It doesn't need to be mentioned (though I will mention it anyway) that our bags did not stay empty for long. For $10 my mom and I each walked away with nearly twenty books! (This photo shows our spoils. The stack on the left is mine). The purchases made for quite a glorious afternoon, both of us floating in our own quiet smugness as we hauled our bags to and from the car so many times that you'd think we were doing it simply to feel the weight of words pulling at our fingers.

After a delayed ferry and way too long spent in the shade at the landing next to several loud families who insisted that a shy three-year-old boy approach a group of teenage girls, introduce himself, and learn all their names, I was finally off the island.

The day before had been my dad's birthday, and as a present my mom and I had found a hammock at the farmer's market. When we got home we immediately took down our old ratty hammock (if you could even call it a hammock anymore), hung up the new one, stacked all our books from the fair in a single pile, and set a glass of iced tea on the very top: my dad's birthday present from his girls. Well. The books aren't his. But they looked cute with iced tea (the beverage, not the rapper...although I'm sure they'd look cute with him too).

I was (and still am) so happy to be home. I'm finally around the people who know and love me, and I can finally make a phone call without having to ride my bike twenty minutes into town where I get patchy reception at most. But. True to every stage of my existence, I never really learn to love my life until it's about to change. I woke up this morning in my own bed with my cat next to me. I was so excited to be somewhere so comfortable and familiar, yet I couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment. No longer will I wake up in a place that I have not entirely discovered. No longer will there be a hint of unfamiliarity with my surroundings, and with that unfamiliarity the chance to establish myself as an alternate, better version of me. I have lived in my house for eighteen years; there is nothing I haven't discovered. When I am home, I am the same person I've always been. On Orcas, though, I don't have a past--not really, not the way I do here. Each summer I spend there I truly am starting over. Life on the island carries with it the perfect balance of Unknown and Well-Known, and my quest to establish a place and identity there only strengthens my resolve to make myself someone. It's that constant need to be a part of something that keeps me eating right, going on runs, sleeping the proper amount, taking my vitamins.

I care about myself more when I can entertain the notion of self-change. This is why I'll miss the feeling of not quite, but almost belonging.

What Was I Thinking?

As a continuation of my last post, I bring you this:

I don't know what I was smoking to make me forget to post this link at the top of my list of things that bring me to hernia-rupturing laughter, but here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtwaDbXK440.


"No, it's not a hazing. They don't do that. Except yes, you put olives in my jacket again."
"I'M Marian Cotesworth-Hay!"
"I'm sorry! I was thinking of this thing from...this thing that just happened...with the DEFICIT!"
"It's a key. The Francis Scott Key...Key."

You truly cannot find a greater scene in all of television.

On that note, goodnight.

You're Welcome

I've decided that I need to work on my abs. Naturally, because I can never seem to be bothered with these things called crunches that I hear so much about, I have resorted to forced laughter as a means of six-pack building. Here are some things that make me laugh, or that should make you laugh (no need to thank me):

1. When I have to call UPS for pickup and instead of saying, "Pickup at Orcas Island Pottery, 27 boxes," I say, "Pickup at Orcas Island Pottery, 27 dresses." See, it's funny because it's a movie.

2. When the instructions for putting together a standing heater are so cryptic that I install the wheels upside-down...while Sara eats celery. Exhibit A:

3. My inability to text. Exhibit B:


4. Exaggerated diagrams of the perils of Australia. Exhibit C:

I particularly enjoy Queensland's alleged "maneating koalas" and the "sharks with frickin' lasers" that are hanging out in the Great Australian Bight.

5. The following YouTube video featuring one of my study abroad coordinators at the Tasmanian Devil Park in Tassie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNj-ou4PP1A. (Side note: of the 175 views, I think around 111 of them were my doing).

6. The Tassie News Broadcast series, starring my dear friends Cari(bou) Stayer and Laura(keet) Macaulay:
*Tassie News - Kings of the Wind

*Tassie News - Hobart Airport (our finest work)
*Tassie News - Birdie on a Perch
*Tassie News - Bus Preview

7. Man in shop (without so much as a "Hello"): I pickle large quantities of cabbage. Do you have any giant crocks to serve such a purpose?
Me: ...
Man: I'm talking a lot of cabbage. Like, a lot.

8. "I wanted to get breakfast right after I got to work, but I told my co-worker she could go, and she never came back. By the end of the first hour I was contemplating which would taste better given the choice of a staple or a paperclip." -Katie Lind

To be continued...
(I need sleep)

Double-Exposure: the Sequel

This is the hand of God. Or, you know, Sara.

This is joy.

This is Ray inside a sea bird.

This is futility.

This is a cat in a trolley.

This is dangerous.

When it's My Turn to Go

I had one of those moments yesterday evening in which you are moved to tears by something that is not a part of you--something that is so separate from your own identity that in a strange way it is almost a parallel you, a glimpse forward into a life that is not so much foreign as it is not yet familiar.

I took a walk to the Woodlawn Cemetery down the road from the pottery shop. I pass by it at least twice every day, whether I'm headed into town or just on a run to the hardware store. For years I have wanted to stroll through, but I'd never gotten the chance until yesterday.

The cemetery is sprawled across the side of a slowly inclining hill, headstones dotting the curved shank of the land with a horseshoe-shaped driveway marked with Enter and Exit signs. I went in through the exit (because you know me, Defyer of All Rules) and made my way past what I think of as the "gaudy" graves--mainly those marked with bronze busts. Near a bench at the back of the plot was the following headstone:

Ten. He was ten. I have lived more than twice as long as he will ever have a chance to. Seeing this marker was just the first jolt in a series of jolts that sent me out the entrance of the cemetery an hour later, weeping. The more I wandered, the more I realized that there truly were treasures buried beneath the hummingbird feeders and glass vases filled with fake plastic flowers, alive eternally in a way that nothing else can be. There were flat headstones with cylindrical holes embedded on both sides to act as flower holders, but most of them were full of cobwebs and pine needles, and this made my heart ache. The following headstone caught my eye:


I didn't notice the date immediately because my first thought was how this stone marked the grave of a person whose date of birth was a mystery, a person who lived and died ageless. It wasn't until I passed a second of these stones that I realized that they weren't marking the deceased, but merely saving places for the living. Not a commemoration of death but an acknowledgment of it. It was like these people were living their lives backwards, starting with death and working their way forward. I had never seen anything like it before, and I loved it instantly for its suggestion that death is not always the end.

Soon after, I came to a headstone that literally brought me to my knees. The instant I read the inscription I felt my eyes fill with tears, and I sat down in the brittle grass and I let them come:


Yes, there is a tense disagreement--tense as in Present vs. Past...not heated--but the sentiment is exactly what I hope will be my effect on those around me. I wept because I can have no greater aspiration than such a statement: "We who know her knew no one finer." I could have known this woman, and maybe I did. Maybe I passed her on the street, sipped on my chai at a table next to hers, nearly collided with her grocery cart in the produce section of the Island Market. It's comforting to think that I knew her in some capacity, that this "no one finer" was a presence in my life beyond a chance encounter with a headstone in a graveyard.

Rest in peace, Jessie Lavender. I hope my grave marker will say the same of me when it's my turn to go.