patti and the room.

five days of a cold that has laid me down, hard and fast.  fatigue is overwhelming and quirky; i almost fell asleep several times while watching the new episode of "fargo" last night, which was almost sacreligious.

i got out of work early today--only two parent-teacher conferences and i was done.  i pushed my meetings aside and headed to the pet store to buy frozen rats for my classroom snake, who just this morning i found curled up inside the futon in our classroom.  i mean, literally INSIDE the futon; i had to cut the bottom fabric from the underbelly and there she was.  she had been missing for two days.  i can't help but wonder what she was heading out for, what kind of life she was seeking away from her heating pad and newspaper shreddings.  

at home, i ate a bowl of ice cream that could do nothing for my cold except exacerbate it, but i didn't even blink as i spooned it into my mouth.  i watched bad tv on my ipad, my headphones covering up the sounds of my daughter's tv show across from me.  isolated and insulated.

i put on long pajamas and socks, despite it being 86 degrees outside.  it was cooler in the house, and it is almost the end of october, so on principle i just decide to go with autumn.  the other day i wore my doc martens for the first time in months, because it was in the 60s when i woke up.

alex was on a work call in our room, so i made my way to my son's room to read and rest.  he's away with his school this week, camping.  his room is exactly the way it looked the second he stepped foot outside its doorway--which is to say darkened, cluttered, and his.

i layed on his bed, tucking myself in under the comforter.  i opened the shades a bit, because i need daylight to remind me to wake up after a few minutes of napping.  i turned on the fan for white noise, and picked up the patti smith book that has been my light for the past few days.  i started to make a list of all of the authors, painters and philosophers that she mentions whom i do not know, but gave up due to its size.  who cares if i don't get her references?  all i know is that she is pulling me in, over and over again, thinking about her watch cap and olive oil brown bread and lists without commas.

and then i read this:

"We want things we cannot have.  We seek to reclaim a certain moment, sound, sensation. . . I want to see my children as children.  Hands small, feet swift.  Everything changes . . . Please stay forever, I say to the things I know.  Don't go.  Don't grow."

my son is gone for a few days, and gone for good.  gone for the good work of growing up, gone to himself, to his friends, to his place in the world without me.  he began this work when he took his first steps, weaned himself from my milk, slept by himself--but the real meat of this job began this season.  he chooses to stay up late, well after i've crashed for the day.  he talks to his friends via texts.  eats dinner and then has another meal later.  he doesn't ask for help except when he does and then it is frought with my inevitable failure at not being able to craft an answer that works for him.  

he is on his way out, and the world is going to be so fucking lucky in a few short years to have him amongst the grown people who can do, and change, and make, and be.

patti's words made me cry a little bit, but only a little.  being in his room makes me feel close and far at the same time, but it is comforting to me.  i don't expect much from him these days, and when i am given the time of day or a hug or a "thank you for dinner, motherrrr" i quietly contain my happiness and respond with blase affirmation. 

i can take you or leave you, i tell him.  you doofus, i tell him.  dude, i tell him.

i rest my head on his shoulder when i hug him now.  he doesn't know this, but it gives me great joy.  i built you, i think.  i'm the one who has made it so you are tall and gangly and beautiful and strong.  i have secret pride in all the damn fine work i've put into you, kid.  someday i'll tell you about it.

in the meantime, i curl up on his bed and put his rabbit between my arms while i read.  i think of him on a beach with a bunch of teenagers, wind flying around them; all dirty feet and no showers and stars above him as he sleeps out in the open at night.

they are all for you, i think.  every single one.  

here and there.

and just like that, i am driving on shady roads.  dappled, hidden curves, spots of sunlight poking through; i realize that this is such a novelty to me now after riding in cars in Los Angeles for the past 21 years.

i drive around here in borrowed cars, smiling out loud at the "turtle crossing" signs.  when i walk i see the remains of dead frogs who didn't make it across the street in time.  i hear all the birds sing and they sound more fulfilled than the birds in Los Angeles, if such a thing is possible.

and the clouds.  good god almighty, the clouds.  filled up, soaked in their own glory, the possibility of water from them to me is almost too much for me to bear.  

i am inundated with the beauty around me, here in New England.

but still, i miss my people.  i miss the dogs who adore me, who sit on the new red couch, waiting patiently for us to come back.  i miss feeling like i am part of something that needs me.

here, i am just floating along for a while, and i'm not sure it does me good.  i mean, i know it does me good, this vacationing, this down time, this simplicity of day; but it is difficult sometimes.

between two worlds is my place in this life.  i have always been that way, and perhaps always will be.

when i am there, i miss here.

when i am here, i miss there.

constantly searching for the home that i know is just hidden inside my gut, if only i could reach it more readily.

but damn, massachusetts, you know how to wreak havoc with a girl's heart.  

brave new whirl.

home sick today.  first time in a while.  i've got a wicked-ass head cold and i'm worn out, people.

it's been a long time since i've swum in this blog-lake o'mine.

i watched documentaries today: "advanced style", "20 feet from stardom" and "the punk singer".  a lot of women.  if you haven't seen these docs, you should.  

i finished with the kathleen hanna movie, and i'm sitting here in my messy house, my dog snoring, using part of the table that isn't taken up by the enormous 1000-piece puzzle of jungle animals that my family is working on...

i'm sitting here feeling fired up, wired to my sick core, thinking about my life.  reflecting upon it, as it were.  watching "the punk singer" brought a lot of memories forward again; bits and pieces of myself that i let sink to the bottom somewhere, covered up by what is right in front of me--namely my family, my children, my job.

i wasn't on the bikini kill train back in the early 90s.  i had found ani difranco, and she satisfied my need for a female feminist musical role model.  i remember reading about bikini kill--seeing the announcements for concerts in Los Angeles, but they scared me.  the idea of punk rock scared me.  it was too much for this massachusetts girl.

watching the documentary today, i was blown away by the power of the music, by what the riot grrrls were trying to do, trying to bring to pop culture.  what kathleen hanna had to offer me that i was not present for.  it's all a little bit heartbreaking, as i think back to what i missed.  

i can't help thinking that i could've been one of those women, either in the audience or somehow up on stage.  those were my people, save for the fact that i already had a boyfriend whom i would marry a few short years later; save for the fact that i felt the need to have children, to settle down, to feel security; save for the fact that i wasn't brave enough for all of it.

there is something in me that makes me crave the bravery i left behind.  it was there in small amounts while i was at calarts--when i wrote about kicking the shit out of mike tyson after her raped desiree washington--or when i jumped up on the bar at the roxy to perform my monologue about my shaved head--or when i got naked on stage and talked about the perfect body and how it wasn't mine--but in retrospect all of that shit just seems played out, like everyone did that, all of my like-minded women tried those moments on for size just like me.  and sure, there is bravery in that, but was there really originality?  revolutionary thought?  brilliance?

probably not.

i had this idea that i would somehow continue to create art and subvert the patriarchy my entire life.  i really did.  i thought i would save teenage girls from themselves and from fashion magazines, and be a part of the third-wave feminism that i so fiercely believed in.  and then what happened to all of this fervor?  it got redirected to wedding plans, preschool teaching, pregnancies, toddlers, daily lives of dogs and bills being paid and the agonizing consistencies of what has come to be my life.  my life.

there is nothing wrong with this life of mine.  it is a good and well-placed life, full of love and happiness and promise.  i have not failed myself, but i am sad today.

i miss being brave, whatever it looked like.  i miss that woman who used to ride her anger around town, looking for fights because she knew she was the one with justice and truth on her side.  i miss the person who thought she could be a part of something that could change minds.

then again, maybe i just miss the spotlight.  maybe i miss the idea that i could be the lead singer, the one in the kickass t-shirt and tights, screaming her words while the audience begged for more.  don't all people want to have that moment?  is this just another piece of my status-quo-ness coming through?

i remember back then when i was writing about being a girl that i had fury in my pocket, and all it took was one good word or look to make me grab hold of it and wield it like a machete.  but even then, sometimes my anger felt disingenuous.  like i couldn't be that mad, because i had never been raped.  like i wasn't allowed to give over to it all because my childhood had been relatively normal. like i wasn't allowed to just be mad at the world the way it was, because i wasn't willing to go all out for it.  i wasn't willing to give it all up to go on my quest because deep down inside i was too scared to give up what was comfortable and real to me.

i was lacking real courage, it seems to me now.  but maybe not.  

i think it's ridiculous that right now, sitting here at the table, no lights on and the cloudy sky keeping my head and house dim; right now i want to put together a band of 40-year old women who still have something to say about the state of things, who don't know how to play instruments but want to do it anyway, who can somehow put aside all of their kids' schedules and daily committments to get together and become a force for good.  right now, that's what i want to do.

i could still be brave, i think.

the week behind...

in the midst of writing about other people this week; young people that i love and admire, finding details about them, uncovering the good stuff in their daily life at school--in the middle of all of this my life continues to trudge forward in all of its absurdity.

trying to color my hair and failing again, then finding a fixer-product at target and ending up with slightly reddish hair.  not the plan, but in the end, who gives a shit?

my lovely dog needing surgery, costing so much money that we don't have, knowing that we'll pay whatever it is we need to--or more specifically, put it on credit--because that is what you do when a family member needs to be mended.

working from home and realizing that silence is a balm.

(as i wrote that my other dog is in the back yard, yapping away at a squirrel.)

thinking about charlie hebdo and france.  about islaam and peaceful practitioners, about religion taking such fierce hold, about how my children cannot understand what would lead someone to do that.  no faith to be found in this household, other than faith in the earth and trees and dogs and ice cream and people.

still people.

feeling the winter melancholy pull me down, surround me in my grandmother's old bedspread, demand that i give over to the inevitability of this time of year.

the crookedness of my little life, the beauty in it.

trying to love every single fucking inch of my skin, because i deserve it.  resolving to put lotion all over my body every day -- not just my legs -- because my floppy belly and tiny breasts and ever-widening posterior deserve moisturizing, too.

anticipating the next two months of madness and scheduling and work, work, work.  traveling to virginia with 37 ten, eleven and twelve year-olds for five nights and days.  taking a red-eye with said children.

wallowing in some kind of selfishness, worry; festering money problems, uncertainity about stable income, knowing somewhere we'll be okay.  at least that's what the card on the goddess wisdom app told me today.

feeling jealous.  it's such a nasty thing to feel jealous.  i am ashamed.

wanting new music to listen to; music that wails (horn sections are a must) and cries out (soul singers) and demands that my heart bursts from my chest.

wondering when the peace kicks in.

bartering with myself about exercising.  about being okay with my 43-year old body and soul.

listing to do's along with groceries.  feeling accomplishment but knowing it's the teenage version of it.

feeding a squirrel in the tree near our house.  

wearing socks, glorious, cozy, fuzzy socks.

eating an entire plate of mashed potatoes for lunch yesterday; knowing that potatoes are my heritage, my history--or at least tellling myself that so i can eat more of them.  also that they are a winter staple, but in summer i'll eat lighter things.  believing this to be mostly true.

feeling unbelievable gratitude words that fuel me.

crying again.  grateful that i no longer have medicine inside of me that makes that response difficult.

wanting to move my body, to not be sedentary.  i will not be sedentary.  

being able to hear the clocks ticking in my house.  my heart beat.  my dogs' breathing.  letting all the quietness and loudness of my brain mix together into some kind of funky ease.  i am okay, somehow.

absurd, yes.  okay, yes.  

  

stair. well.

i used to love to read Nancy Drew mysteries.

my favorite was my first: "The Hidden Staircase."  it wasn't so much the character of nancy drew--who, truth be told, was a bit of a snob--or her friends bess (the "plump" one) or george (the "boyish" one, perhaps with a long-standing quiet love for nancy herself?)-- nope, for me, it was really about the cases themselves.  and that hidden staircase?  what could be cooler than that?

my favorite scene was the one where the girls tried to figure out how to climb up the old staircase without making a sound.  they started at the bottom and kept track of what stairs made noises in the middle, on the sides--and then charted a course up to the top that eventually was soundless.  i was so enamored of this.  i think i've tried a version of this on every single creaky wooden stairs that i've come across.

this vacation home, i've realized that that sidestepping, that dodging and ducking and finding the right place to put your feet in order to remain quiet--that, my friends, is what it is like to be with family during the holidays.  

i have to find my own footing, tiptoeing on the balls of my feet, using my toes for balance.  i have to hug the walls and stop whenever i feel a break is coming.  i literally have to freeze myself; make myself colder than the 40 degree air outside.  i have to stand and breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.

on and on and on i breathe.  

i try to make the breath go all the way down to my thighs.   i want them to feel the oxygen, to sturdy themselves again by the circulating cells and air.  

i breathe and breathe.  and breathe.

and i love the stairs.  i really do.  i love how cranky and fussy they are, and i love how much i know them.  how i skip a certain step each time.  how i know that deliberately pounding down them gives my body the knocking-around it needs.  how i can hit my head on the lower steps if i don't pay enough attention.

i love the stairs.  the boxing-dance that i do on them is my annual choreography.  i've got nothing to do but find the right places to land; and land with grace and gentleness, if at all possible.

it's not always possible.  the stairs are tired, and so am i.  but we do the best we can.

upon turning 43.

yesterday i took a walk in the morning.  it was my birthday.  i was by myself, hustling along rural streets in massachusetts.

i was in heaven.

as i walked, i thought about how it felt to be another year older.  how i thought so much about making my birthday day so full of things i love, of people i want to be with; how even though i'm an adult my birthday always feels so important.  monumental.  as i say each time, "this year is a really big deal."

and yet it's not.  it's just another day, another moment in what will hopefully be my long and meandering life.  

but still, it feels right to celebrate when i was born.  yesterday i figured out it had to do with being an xmas baby.  i was brought home on xmas day, wrapped in ribbons by the nurses (back when moms stayed in the hospital for three days).  present.  gifted, even at three days old.  my parents drove me home in an old car, me in my mom's arms, and when they arrived at their third-floor walk-up apartment my newborn lungs took in the freezing cold air around me, and my position as a advocate for cold winters began.

i adore wintertime.  i've written here before about how it chips away at my soul, not living where we get a true winter snap of weather.  i've come to terms with it lately, but it doesn't mean that i don't immediately engage that part of myself when we come back for the holidays.  the fact that my birthday is inevitably part of that reinforces it to me; welded to my soul yet again.

winter is about rest.  the wide world around me is resting.  the trees stand stock still, devoid of accessories--except for the ones who proudly strut their needles year-round.  the ground smells wet and marshy.  the air that escapes from my mouth as i walk can be seen--can be seen, i tell you--and i get to participate in circulating oxygen to all.  

everything is quiet, and if it isn't, it should be.  

even with no snow in the forecast (60 degrees on Christmas Day--i'm so sorry), i find ways to dig deep into winter.  the world around me seems surreal, made-up.  nature is tired.  so am i.  

there is inevitable ugliness in the decay and dirty snow, and it is there that i find such beauty and hope. i am like that pile of dirty snow, it seems.  i stick around.  underneath the top layer there is a purity, a sincerity, a cleanliness that offers truth.  forty-three years later, i respond to dirty snow, to piles of mud, to broken-up ice near the edge of the pond.  there is nothing resplendent in these images, but to me, they are the simple proof that winter is gorgeous.

by proxy, i am too.

shame and disconcerting embarrassment on sunset boulevard.

i won tickets to go see the band bleachers today.  they had posted on facebook yesterday, something about a secret show in hollywood, and i threw my name in the email hat.  i never, ever win these kind of things.

except this time.

so i try to find someone to go with; a last-minute date on a work night, someone who really likes jack antonoff and his music.  i come up short, and therein begins an four-hour debate with myself about whether or not i attempt this concert thing by myself.

the general consensus from work people and family people is that i should go.  i ask facebook people, and their replies are similar.  "fuck yeah!" seems to be a common response.

i decide to do it.

i leave school without my phone.  after retrieving it and leaving again, i realize i have left the only piece of clothing that can possibly make me feel somewhat appropriate to this endeavor: my faux leather jacket.  i rush back and get that too.  

let me also say that the doors open at 8pm, but that i have a conference call set for 7pm regarding one of my students.  it is a call filled with all kinds of therapists, parents, and teachers; one that will require me to use my teacher brain and voice and words to foster the discussion.  

so i run home, telling alex that i will not enter my house, but that he must meet me in the driveway with the phone charger.  i pull up to see my family dancing in the driveway for me.  they are so proud of me!  they think i'm awesome, driving into hollywood on a thursday night to see a band by myself!  they make me feel really good.

i stop at whole foods and get a crappy-ass burrito and a wonderful holiday-themed peppermint stick dark chocolate bar.  i start the drive into the city.

at 7 pm i illegally dial the call-in number for the conference; and approximately 7 minutes later as the psychologist is about to give the official diagnosis i am driving past highland and the call is dropped.  after dialing back in, i try to glean what the good word is from context.  i am trying to navigate and listen at the same time.  

it's all a wee bit absurd.

i turn onto sunset boulevard and i see the venue.  there is a bright yellow fiat or something outside, all lit up with lights and a couple lines of people who look really happy to be there.  i find an outstanding parking spot and sit and listen to the conference call.  it is in-depth and thoughtful.  i am listening intently, while staring at the clock, thinking about the inevitability of me leaving my car and joining that line of people outside the place.

i put my key in my tiny zipper pocket of my jacket, my license in my back pocket, my lipstick on --because it is the only weapon i have to protect me-- and i head out. 

when i get into the VIP line i'm still on the phone, trying desperately to muffle the sounds of sunset blvd. in the background.  i am checked in by a nice young woman.  i am standing in front of two nice young men, and surrounded by many nice young people looking at their phones.  

i am 15 years younger than most of these people.  i have on bigger clothes than most of these people. i have more children than most of these people.  i have less money, less credibility, more stretch marks, and more solid footwear than most of these people.

i am also wearing my docs.  i forgot.  weapons on the feet and face.

we wrap up the call. there is gratitude for the collaboration, for the upcoming work we will do together to support the child. it's too bizarre, standing outside, having this discussion while limos drop off important-looking people in front of me.

i am caught between two worlds: one i know really well and the other i'm trying to date, but just for tonight.

the line starts moving and we head inside.

everyone's hair looks really good.

i feel the corporate sponsors' presence.

i imagine the music being played in front of me.

i try to imagine the floor filled with jumping, dancing bodies; everyone enjoying the music.  everyone happy to be there.

it is now 8:40.  i am sitting on a huge couch by myself, with a free rolling stone magazine in my hand.  i try to read, but the lights are red and low and i don't have my glasses.  i. don't. have. my. glasses.  see that young man above?  he is without his glasses as well, but that doesn't seem to be stopping him because he probably does not need them yet.

i sit there and try to look casual.  i imagine that people are seeing me and thinking that maybe i am a seasoned music critic for an online magazine, or maybe one of rolling stone's old stand-by journalists. 

i do not belong to anyone else there.  there is no one i know, or can relate to.  i start to feel like i'm going to cry, which makes me chuckle softly to myself.

i get up, look for the bathroom, which takes me downstairs.  i peek into a corridor where the band has a dressing room, and see two other band names (unknown to this music critic) on the other doors.  i hang a left and hit the women's bathroom and as i pee i know that i am on my way home.

i grab my free magazine and head out, brushing past smoking hipsters, fancy music execs (I assume) and very, very pretty women.  i leave through the VIP stanchions and brush past fancy-pants people--past the 20s-themed bar next door where the flapper and her boyfriend are entering--round the corner past the homeless woman on her couch and into my car, where i phone my people and tell them that i have failed.

i failed!  i am full of shame!  i am crying from embarrassment!  i feel stupid!

i talk to myself on the drive home and reason that common sense has won, that bleachers wouldn't have gone on until 10:30 or so, that i wouldn't have gotten home until after 1 am, that i was so far out of my comfort zone that i could give myself a ticket out of there without judgment.  

but man, i felt like an asshole.

i did feel so brave, trying this on for size tonight.  doing something that was so out of character--bold and brazen and alive.  but it didn't fit me.  it really didn't fit me.  i didn't look good in VIP-event attire. 

i look much better in my pajamas and cozy socks, at home with my people.

goddamnit, though, i really wanted to post pictures of up close shots of the band, and be able to tell you all that i rocked it.  but i didn't. 

in the end, it was just me in a pleather jacket, biding my time until i could escape.