3 am

I've taken some kava kava to help me sleep. When I wake, I realize the sounds have been going on for awhile. Voices and thumping. The upstairs neighbor watching television? His footfall always heavy. A particularly loud thump, then just the voices. Did he going to the window to see people talking on the street below? I get up, don pajama pants, crack the door to see if I can discern the nature of the sound and where it is coming from. I can. The neighbors downstairs are fighting what may be their last fight, though I have never heard them argue before. Her voice is just a sound, but his words are clearly audible. Go then. Just go. We're over. He says her name, which I have not known until this moment. I close and lock the door. Lying in bed, my heart pounds. I take deep breaths. And do not sleep.

**

We’ve reasons, we have reasons, so we say,
For giving love, and for withholding it.
I who would love must marvel at the way
I know aloneness when I’m holding it

from "Snow Melting" by Gjertrude Schnackenberg.
Read the rest of the poem here: http://teaandbooks.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/gjertrude-schnackenberg-snow-melting/

Without the Vigorous Scrubbing of Youth

From the beginning, I liked to eat. Mother’s milk, formula, baby food, blender food, sister’s food, dog food…well, I became more discerning as time went on. But before discernment, everything was fuel for my growing and learning. That is still true, but perhaps I have to sample the rotten, the stale, the not-to-my-taste less frequently now than I did so many years ago. How many years ago, I don’t choose to reveal.

What will I reveal? More than you might want to know. Hell, more than I might want to know. But I don’t choose the events; I merely relate them. Does my perception also shape them? As storyteller, am I also part author/creator, part chef? Yes; I am chef, waiter, and customer, epicure. I want to tantalize, feed, fill, and fortify.
When I was young, able to stand but not able to see over the kitchen counter, I began experimenting in the kitchen. Father made me a stool and Mother placed it in the kitchen. There, on rainy afternoons, I became acquainted with cumin, garlic, and saffron. No, not saffron. That came later in life, I think. There, in the warmth of kitchen and family, I became acquainted with comfort and nutrition, nurturing. I carry that knowledge with me today. Believe me, I do not wish to lead you astray. I do not wish to, but I might. I am only…a chef standing 4 feet, 0 inches at home, where critics are gentle and adventurous.

I went to school, as children do. My parents had taught me that I was smart and capable. School was supposed to sharpen me, but it ground me down. At least, that is how I see it now. But I see that it is lunchtime and my stomach tells me it is time for a little something.

. . .

Please excuse the crumbs and stains. But eating and reading—or eating and writing—is one of the simple pleasures in life. We have control over few things, and that includes stains. So I have stopped trying to stop the encroachment of stains. I still do the laundry and clean the counters, mind you, but without the vigorous scrubbing of youth. I have come to accept imperfection, and I am happier for it. I suggest you do the same.

I live with a dog now. Wolf is my best friend and constant, undemanding companion. I meet other dog-walkers in the city and we stop to chat and sniff the air (and other places we shan’t mention here). I like dogs, and I like people with dogs because I believe they tend to be looser than other people, say those young, urban professionals I see hurrying across the street. Dog people know that stains happen. No one likes them, but you deal with them and move on. No sense crying over spilt milk or dwelling over rotten, up-chucked woodchuck. In fact, it is especially best if you don’t dwell over the latter. Or so I hear from my friends who live in the country. We don’t get many woodchucks in the city. We do get rats and pigeons, though. Some people don’t choose to distinguish between the two, but I do.

More

I was born in North Carolina, lived an unextraordinary life, much like yours, I imagine. I like to imagine the lives of others, their thoughts, secret hopes and public failures. I suppose you could call me a voyeur, but that is only part of the story. No matter how many fragments a story has, how many roundabouts and detours and dead-ends, somewhere there is a whole. But that whole is different for different people. You participate in the creation of the story, make it unique, unimagined by anyone else. You are important. You matter. No matter how much events, people, and television will seem to add up to you being a cog, a little person, joe schmoe, jane doe. Go home at night and, lying in bed, whisper to yourself that you matter. I only give this advice because I care, because I have been there myself. And I promised I would tell you about myself.

It was a grey afternoon when I was born; mother was napping. It was before Thanksgiving. The house was quiet, no preparations yet in progress. Cypress trees watched over her from the swamp. Brown leaves gathered to muffle sounds, to protect us. I was born and I was loved, like we all hope to be. But there is the way things should be, and the way things are. And it’s not always easy to tell which is which. So I am on guard, watchful for indications that things are not what they seem.

Too Tired to Post

Do I contradict myself again? Alas. Don't want to be too predictable. We all hold inconsistencies, contradictions, and paradoxes within ourselves. There is more to write about my trip, but I have spent my energy doing other things. And my energy doesn't seem to last long, lately. So I leave you with this:

We were born on a November afternoon on a twin bed in North Carolina. Our story really begins, however, hundreds of miles away in a big city—about as different as you can get from the sleepy southern town where we were conceived. But what is a story, if not a journey from one place to another? And what, if not the journey? The end exists, but it is artificial, as we all know. Except for death, and whether that is an ending is still being debated. But I didn’t start telling you this to prosthelytize my point of view…or did I? I will leave that up to you to decide.

There is usually a moment when the course of our journey shifts. Or many such moments, really, but we often don’t recognize them at the time for what they are. Sometimes we do recognize them, feel the gathering force of their power, a giant cartoon snowball picking up everything in its path. I have mentioned some passer-bys, innocent bystanders, walk-ons, stand-ins, wallflowers, backgrounds, bit-parts, accompaniments, appetizers, condiments…we will come back to them. But for now, let’s start with me. No sense in false modesty; I would be lying if I said I didn’t like talking about myself; who doesn’t? Anyone who doesn’t like talking about themselves is hiding something. You can attribute it to whatever you like—being an only child, being the star of the school play, being a lonely person who lives alone, works in what, if not a dead-end job, is at least a detour, roundabout, one-way street or one of those subdivision streets where the houses all look the same. The point is, I will admit to things that many people think, feel, or do, but that they would never admit to. I don’t like lying and I usually don’t see the point. Remember that; it will be important later, when you start to doubt me, start to doubt my version of events.

Insubordinate Kneecap

A coworker once told me what she learned in her presentations class: public speaking is people's #1 fear. Death is #3.

If you are dead, do you need fear public speaking? Do the angels require you to give a weekly update of your activities in heaven to justify your presence there? Does the devil torture you by making you regurgitate in a position other than one of the four home base positions? It must be he didn't like the holy implications of the steeple posititon (fingertips touching, hands at waist level).

When I'm dead, I hope people remember that my shoe color was two shades darker than my hem and that I never showed an insubordinate kneecap in the office.

Winter Comfort

Jane Kenyon's poems on despair
tom kha tofu, spicy and steaming
Mary Oliver's poems of joy
bare purple branches of a bush
afternoon naps
"Antilamentation" by Dorianne Laux
Motown music
one red cardinal
yes when no was expected
strange strains of lilting Finnish music
misty rain
Ani DiFranco
snuggling my cat
I'd be lying if I didn't say chocolate
and whiskey
dancing alone in an empty house
singing in the car
a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives
shocking drama of Northwestern light