11/25/20
It was a week or two after I'd moved from David's place (it had gotten to be too much) into a shared flat in Temescal. It was an all-female household, chore charts and jars of alfalfa sprouts germinating on the shelf, composting coffee grounds and conversations about our nation's demagoguery. I had one of the large bedrooms towards the back, for which I paid a gauged proportion of the total rent. As an undergraduate, I was grateful.
Every day, I'd walk past Madame Circe's house, the sign with its neon palm in the window, and think, I should go in there. I certainly had enough questions about what in the actual fuck was going on with my life. But then, there she was on the front porch, Madame Circe herself, and there was no confusing her with a normal human being, for she wore a floor-length maroon velvet gown, a Russian scarf over her hair, and a remarkable collection of necklaces and rings and bracelets.
I was coming back after my South American lit class, a 2-hour seminar in magic realism.
"Girlchik," Madame Circe called from, her porch, "Girlchik~!"
I stopped.
"You are new to the neighborhood! You go to the university. You know very much and you know nothing!"
She had me there. I looked at her on her porch, really looked at her.
"Come here, Zeeskeit, I will tell you."
I must have looked a bit stunned, because she gestured with her bejeweled hand, "Come, come," and so I climbed her steps and followed her into the house.
The front room was a little disappointing. The whole place was a jumble of furniture and stuff. There was a baby asleep in a crib in the corner, a TV on, sound muted. a table with a long, embroidered cloth. Madame Circe took my hand and drew me over to this, and bade me to sit.
"You are very unhappy, dear girl," She began and I felt a dark tide rise in me.
Yes, I was.
"Let me see your hand, " and she lay my hand down on the cloth.
I looked at it as intently.
"Though your thoughts run towards truth and kind discovery, there are those who suspect you," she began.
I watched her lips which were large and expressive. They moved like twin beasts accustomed to the way, though her accent was thick.
"You have experienced a heart ache recently, no, you are still deep within it," and I had to nod on that one. Was that all revealed in my hand?
"But there is a good thing in all this. A good thing. He was in your way. He didn't see you clearly and he never would. It is better to move on," which I've come to realize is maybe always the best advice.
"Your path will take you over staggering terrain. You will fall and injure yourself, but how will you see the very most top, the long, long view from there, unless you venture? How?" And she paused, held my hand, looked me in the eye fiercely.
"I don't know," I mumbled.
"Five dollars," she said next, so I almost didn't hear her.
"Five dollars," she said again, a bit louder, "for the children."
"What?"
"My eyes," Madame Circe said, still holding my hand with ever increasing grip. "They do not work together. There is a glowing star in this one," and she gestured to her right eye, "and a darking edge in this one," she blinked.
"I need an operation."
Her face before me became a wider plane.
"And when I am eating, a simple bowl of kasha, I felt a rock, but it was not a rock. It was my crown, with decay, you can't know, decay under."
I tried to pull my hand away, as I stood up, but Madame Circe held me.
"College girl, help us," She said, and I looked into the star at the center of her eye, saw how the dark edge looked almost like the feather of a bird.
I gave her all I had in my pocket, $7.78.
Almost instantly, she regained her regal voice and stance.
"Your expedition has already begun," she said.
"You have begun to climb."
11/24/20
In times like these, you have to ask yourself, should I get tested, taking yourself where there are others spaced by marked Xes, many of whom have cause for worry, focused on the brave workers who, with gloves and masks, greet each person like some kind of animated statistics to swab their nostrils and give them an identifying number for report.
To be honest, I have not been in a gathering that large since before February, last, and had I known what was coming, I would have embraced every stranger, left and right, told them, "I'm glad we live in the same world, brother/sister of mine!~"
And maybe I would have gotten some shocked stares, but maybe some of the softer hearts would see
the seer in me, and know that this might be our last chance for such rash abandon, with the hum between us,
sharing circumstances, poised to die.
In times like these, you have to ask yourself, should I get tested, taking yourself where there are others spaced by marked Xes, many of whom have cause for worry, focused on the brave workers who, with gloves and masks, greet each person like some kind of animated statistics to swab their nostrils and give them an identifying number for report.
To be honest, I have not been in a gathering that large since before February, last, and had I known what was coming, I would have embraced every stranger, left and right, told them, "I'm glad we live in the same world, brother/sister of mine!~"
And maybe I would have gotten some shocked stares, but maybe some of the softer hearts would see
the seer in me, and know that this might be our last chance for such rash abandon, with the hum between us,
sharing circumstances, poised to die.
11/23/20
They'd seen him, rushing bare-headed, hiding from the law. I was supposed to meet him, but he never showed. What's that they say about the power of the horizon? Stuck in a small town, as far as you can see, the jagged line between here and gone calls your name.
Jack was supposed to have some answer, some plan, whatever, but he was sometimes janky, coming to the door wearing nothing but his shorts. And why was I always waiting for some wizard to reveal what I always knew?
It's the wrong way to raise a kid, called upon in class for the right answer, silent otherwise. Thoughts like these added to the whole mad swirl of what might happen next, a face in a photo, torn down the middle of what was and would be.
I'd been packed for weeks, so when I finally saw Jack in his van outside his house at 6:00 A.M., I told him "Wait for me, let me get my stuff, and I'm ready to go."
"You're not bringing that one, are you," he asked, because I was out walking Daisy, the sheepdog who'd claimed me back in March.
"Of course. There's no road show without a canine companion!" I said and Daisy placed her two paws on him, muddying his jeans. Jack pushed her off, but gently. The guy did have a heart for the wild.
"You go on then," and I ran the four blocks to my place.
This would be a beginning without end -- cell expansion of color and light generated by miles, the songs on the radio, a measure of the earth's arcing curves.
They'd seen him, rushing bare-headed, hiding from the law. I was supposed to meet him, but he never showed. What's that they say about the power of the horizon? Stuck in a small town, as far as you can see, the jagged line between here and gone calls your name.
Jack was supposed to have some answer, some plan, whatever, but he was sometimes janky, coming to the door wearing nothing but his shorts. And why was I always waiting for some wizard to reveal what I always knew?
It's the wrong way to raise a kid, called upon in class for the right answer, silent otherwise. Thoughts like these added to the whole mad swirl of what might happen next, a face in a photo, torn down the middle of what was and would be.
I'd been packed for weeks, so when I finally saw Jack in his van outside his house at 6:00 A.M., I told him "Wait for me, let me get my stuff, and I'm ready to go."
"You're not bringing that one, are you," he asked, because I was out walking Daisy, the sheepdog who'd claimed me back in March.
"Of course. There's no road show without a canine companion!" I said and Daisy placed her two paws on him, muddying his jeans. Jack pushed her off, but gently. The guy did have a heart for the wild.
"You go on then," and I ran the four blocks to my place.
This would be a beginning without end -- cell expansion of color and light generated by miles, the songs on the radio, a measure of the earth's arcing curves.
The voice of the virus was heard
most robustly in the basement,
in the choir room.
Ever before, we breathed the same air,
and that had felt a sacrament.
But it struck our church
by the thousands.
What had infected us
depended on intimacies.
A Hallelujah takes a full in-out
breath cadenced to the hymns:
how warm it grew in there.
Caroline, with the soprano
of a winged angel,
was the first to die:
what do you make of that?
If you say "science," that's the only way
I'd agree to it, the unholy numbers of us
who died, made a sense to us
because of the frame of it all,
Sundays, after service, 2-4PM,
and Tuesday evenings, 7-9.
You'd have to rewrite scripture
to believe we were targeted.
The microscopic belief behaves,
observed or not,
and you can [disbar me
from my Christian rank
as choirmaster]
excommunicate
my song. God is good.
most robustly in the basement,
in the choir room.
Ever before, we breathed the same air,
and that had felt a sacrament.
But it struck our church
by the thousands.
What had infected us
depended on intimacies.
A Hallelujah takes a full in-out
breath cadenced to the hymns:
how warm it grew in there.
Caroline, with the soprano
of a winged angel,
was the first to die:
what do you make of that?
If you say "science," that's the only way
I'd agree to it, the unholy numbers of us
who died, made a sense to us
because of the frame of it all,
Sundays, after service, 2-4PM,
and Tuesday evenings, 7-9.
You'd have to rewrite scripture
to believe we were targeted.
The microscopic belief behaves,
observed or not,
and you can [disbar me
from my Christian rank
as choirmaster]
excommunicate
my song. God is good.
11/22/20
Between Magadan and Yakutsk
There are 1260 miles
between Magadan,
on the ocean, and Yakutsk,
and they all belong to me:
each frozen, thawing, muddy mile
of each month
that's only about this foot,
then this foot, a body
compelled to keep moving.
But what is that muscle, bone, gristle?
As a woman, cursed with consciousness,
I found my own endurance reciting lines I'd written.
We may stand accused,
but we lose only if we relent.
Freedom on the Road of Bones
does not live in a body,
but in the enlivening spark,
the song I taught my comrade
to keep his manic anger
leashed to purpose on those miles.
It did not lessen or neglect the girl
who was shot for picking berries, or the bear
dragging off a ragged limb. It made of them
a lyric we lived on.
We saw graves when the snow thawed.
We heard tales of hundreds, thousands.
Those who delved for copper or tin,
for uranium and gold, had depth for breadth,
had pierced the earth, as directed.
We saw them, stained and frozen,
exhausted and blinking,
from convoys kicking up mud and ice
passing us on the Kolyma highway.
And what was of that enabled me to survive
beyond human will or rule or warrant?
Was it the words I sang and chanted,
barely able, sometimes, to pant them out?
Or was it the small circle I'd painted
on my boot in gold,
as if to say, I am living on this earth
right now to be who I am, alive.
Between Magadan and Yakutsk
There are 1260 miles
between Magadan,
on the ocean, and Yakutsk,
and they all belong to me:
each frozen, thawing, muddy mile
of each month
that's only about this foot,
then this foot, a body
compelled to keep moving.
But what is that muscle, bone, gristle?
As a woman, cursed with consciousness,
I found my own endurance reciting lines I'd written.
We may stand accused,
but we lose only if we relent.
Freedom on the Road of Bones
does not live in a body,
but in the enlivening spark,
the song I taught my comrade
to keep his manic anger
leashed to purpose on those miles.
It did not lessen or neglect the girl
who was shot for picking berries, or the bear
dragging off a ragged limb. It made of them
a lyric we lived on.
We saw graves when the snow thawed.
We heard tales of hundreds, thousands.
Those who delved for copper or tin,
for uranium and gold, had depth for breadth,
had pierced the earth, as directed.
We saw them, stained and frozen,
exhausted and blinking,
from convoys kicking up mud and ice
passing us on the Kolyma highway.
And what was of that enabled me to survive
beyond human will or rule or warrant?
Was it the words I sang and chanted,
barely able, sometimes, to pant them out?
Or was it the small circle I'd painted
on my boot in gold,
as if to say, I am living on this earth
right now to be who I am, alive.
11/21/20
It's all about valor and costume, isn't it, when you're little: saving lives, in sequins, gaining access through closed doors. There was a kid in my 3rd grade class, a whiz at math minutes, who declared during circle that he wanted to be an accountant and we all stared, never having heard that word, much less considered what was involved, all of us working class and below. I had to ask my father what an accountant did. I just pitied the boy. What a small dream.
The fact was, and is, life was a mix of mishap and relevant decision, mostly made in the moment, at least for me. I sang well and didn't have the brains or gumption to move from town, so I ended up working as a waitress, with Fridays at the Crescent Moon open mic. Was it a dream come true? Hardly. But that was my own damned fault for not dreaming with a bigger skirt.
I made enough to pay for my flat above Cumberland's, food, drink, electricity. No complaints there. It lay down easy, my life, with time and cash for the occasional extra -- trips down the coast, or a new pair of heeled boots.
Then Robert Zander came in to the Crescent on a Friday, after my first set. I was sitting at the corner of the bar, talking to Joey and drinking a beer.
"Brook!" He called, walking across the floor like he was in some kind of movie.
"Hey Richard," I said. We'd never said more than that when we were classmates in Freshman English, more than 10 years earlier. Why should now be any different.
"Robert, silly. Just look at you!" He said, and I waited. "Man, you're even prettier than you were."
I smiled, but I wasn't going to let myself get drawn in. I had ten minutes to drink my beer and then I was back up.
"What are you doing these days, Brooker T?" And yes, that had been my nickname oh so long ago, among the initiated, which Robert Zander had never been.
"This," I said and let my hand make a circle of "TA-DA" around the place, jukebox playing in the corner, where a couple of guys played pool, small dance floor, not in use for my songs, which tended to be ballads and dirges and cross-genre who-knows-what, scrubbed tables of folks drinking, talking, trying to get lucky, maybe.
"Huh?" He looked surprised. His heavy brows rose above the black frames of his glasses.
"I work here. I sing, play guitar. You know." I said, and why this guy from high school should make me feel weird about anything, I don't know.
He ordered a Manhattan and gestured to the stool beside me.
"Do you mind?" He asked.
I shrugged. "I'm on in a minute."
But he sat down, anyway.
"Brook Leeds! It feels like just yesterday!" Robert began again. "Are you married?"
"Nope."
"Divorced?"
"Nope."
"Going out with anyone?"
"Seriously, Robert?"
"Hey, sorry, I'm just trying to catch up with you. Trying to be friendly." He looked at me innocently enough, so I thought, might as well.
"And what have you been doing... this last decade?" I said, and laughed a little.
"Well, after grad school, I became an entomologist, specializing in coleoptera, or beetles, the largest order of --"
"Oops! Time for me to get back up there," I said. I'd missed the hour by a few minutes.
"Oh, sorry, Brook. When I get going...."He took a deep drink of his Manhattan.
"Take care," I said and patted his shoulder, on my way up to the stage.
I usually played a mix of originals and covers, one kind of paid for the other, I figured. Yes, people would dance to a Breeders or a Green Day song, and gladly, after one of my ballads.
"Hello, everybody," I said. "Thanks for your patience, I hope you're having the time of your life!" I called out, looking at Robert, and dove in.
"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road... Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go --"
All these songs had long sleeves and sad linings. I segued into the next and the next song, keeping the banter and badinage to a minimum. Hell, everyone just wanted to get a little drunk and forget the daily.
I couldn't help it. I kept looking over at Robert, a beetle specialist. It looked like he'd been joined by some people, who may, or may not, have gone to high school with us. It was sometimes hard to tell... with weight gain or loss, hair growth or loss, and to be honest, I hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to them back then, I'd been far too alienated from nearly everyone.
"This one goes out to a a fellow Whittier High School alum. Yep, it's a Beatle song for a beetle guy," and I launched into Norwegian Wood," everybody in their corner had stopped what they were doing and a couple elbowed Robert, who looked at me from across the room. I messed up and sang, "biting my time," but nobody seemed to notice.
I finished with my own song, the chorus ran, "I've never ever ever ever/I've never ever even measured/I've never even drawn the length of gone."
"Thank you very much," I said, in my Elvis voice, and took a bow to scattered applause.
On my way back to the bar for my second shift beer, one of the women standing with Richard reached out and squeezed my arm.
"That was great, Brooker-T," she said, and her name might have been Ella or Elsa.
"Thanks," I said.
"I didn't know you could sing!" She said, as if no time at all had passed.
My beer arrived, so I took an empty stool and sat to drink it.
The little gathering of former highschoolers was loud and lively. I tried to focus on my drink, angling odd comments to Nix behind the bar. We liked to trade X walks into a bar jokes, and laugh cretinous laughs.
"So that's two bloods and a blood lite!" Nix said, and smacked the bare in mock hilarity.
Just then, Robert leaned over towards me and said, "You should, you know."
"I beg your pardon?" I asked.
"You should 'measure the length of gone."
"What?" I turned my barstool around to look at him. Who was this, this bugman telling me what I should do.
"I don't mean to offend you. I wouldn't want to do that, certainly not, I just wanted to tell you that you have more talent than this place can even see, can even recognize." He spoke emphatically, thrusting his forefinger towards me.
"Thanks, Robert," I said.
"No, really. You've really got something."
"Without a doubt, I've got something."
"I'll never forget what you said in English that day..." He said.
I looked at him more intently. I couldn't remember anything I'd said in English ten years ago.
"We were reading To Kill a Mockingbird and you said you were part Boo Radley, part Scout, but that we were all Tom Robinson."
"I did? And what has that to do with anything now?"
"You're too much for this place. You should go to New York or L.A. or, or, Paris!"
Now I was laughing, and one of the girls pulled Robert back to their group, saying, "you're mine for the night, Mr. Coleoptera!" and burst into laughter.
I had about a half a beer and 7 minutes before my last set.
Maybe I'd sing my newest song. It was so new the name was provisional, "Knowing she has wings", but maybe that was a little over the the top. It might seem like I was thinking too much.
It's all about valor and costume, isn't it, when you're little: saving lives, in sequins, gaining access through closed doors. There was a kid in my 3rd grade class, a whiz at math minutes, who declared during circle that he wanted to be an accountant and we all stared, never having heard that word, much less considered what was involved, all of us working class and below. I had to ask my father what an accountant did. I just pitied the boy. What a small dream.
The fact was, and is, life was a mix of mishap and relevant decision, mostly made in the moment, at least for me. I sang well and didn't have the brains or gumption to move from town, so I ended up working as a waitress, with Fridays at the Crescent Moon open mic. Was it a dream come true? Hardly. But that was my own damned fault for not dreaming with a bigger skirt.
I made enough to pay for my flat above Cumberland's, food, drink, electricity. No complaints there. It lay down easy, my life, with time and cash for the occasional extra -- trips down the coast, or a new pair of heeled boots.
Then Robert Zander came in to the Crescent on a Friday, after my first set. I was sitting at the corner of the bar, talking to Joey and drinking a beer.
"Brook!" He called, walking across the floor like he was in some kind of movie.
"Hey Richard," I said. We'd never said more than that when we were classmates in Freshman English, more than 10 years earlier. Why should now be any different.
"Robert, silly. Just look at you!" He said, and I waited. "Man, you're even prettier than you were."
I smiled, but I wasn't going to let myself get drawn in. I had ten minutes to drink my beer and then I was back up.
"What are you doing these days, Brooker T?" And yes, that had been my nickname oh so long ago, among the initiated, which Robert Zander had never been.
"This," I said and let my hand make a circle of "TA-DA" around the place, jukebox playing in the corner, where a couple of guys played pool, small dance floor, not in use for my songs, which tended to be ballads and dirges and cross-genre who-knows-what, scrubbed tables of folks drinking, talking, trying to get lucky, maybe.
"Huh?" He looked surprised. His heavy brows rose above the black frames of his glasses.
"I work here. I sing, play guitar. You know." I said, and why this guy from high school should make me feel weird about anything, I don't know.
He ordered a Manhattan and gestured to the stool beside me.
"Do you mind?" He asked.
I shrugged. "I'm on in a minute."
But he sat down, anyway.
"Brook Leeds! It feels like just yesterday!" Robert began again. "Are you married?"
"Nope."
"Divorced?"
"Nope."
"Going out with anyone?"
"Seriously, Robert?"
"Hey, sorry, I'm just trying to catch up with you. Trying to be friendly." He looked at me innocently enough, so I thought, might as well.
"And what have you been doing... this last decade?" I said, and laughed a little.
"Well, after grad school, I became an entomologist, specializing in coleoptera, or beetles, the largest order of --"
"Oops! Time for me to get back up there," I said. I'd missed the hour by a few minutes.
"Oh, sorry, Brook. When I get going...."He took a deep drink of his Manhattan.
"Take care," I said and patted his shoulder, on my way up to the stage.
I usually played a mix of originals and covers, one kind of paid for the other, I figured. Yes, people would dance to a Breeders or a Green Day song, and gladly, after one of my ballads.
"Hello, everybody," I said. "Thanks for your patience, I hope you're having the time of your life!" I called out, looking at Robert, and dove in.
"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road... Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go --"
All these songs had long sleeves and sad linings. I segued into the next and the next song, keeping the banter and badinage to a minimum. Hell, everyone just wanted to get a little drunk and forget the daily.
I couldn't help it. I kept looking over at Robert, a beetle specialist. It looked like he'd been joined by some people, who may, or may not, have gone to high school with us. It was sometimes hard to tell... with weight gain or loss, hair growth or loss, and to be honest, I hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to them back then, I'd been far too alienated from nearly everyone.
"This one goes out to a a fellow Whittier High School alum. Yep, it's a Beatle song for a beetle guy," and I launched into Norwegian Wood," everybody in their corner had stopped what they were doing and a couple elbowed Robert, who looked at me from across the room. I messed up and sang, "biting my time," but nobody seemed to notice.
I finished with my own song, the chorus ran, "I've never ever ever ever/I've never ever even measured/I've never even drawn the length of gone."
"Thank you very much," I said, in my Elvis voice, and took a bow to scattered applause.
On my way back to the bar for my second shift beer, one of the women standing with Richard reached out and squeezed my arm.
"That was great, Brooker-T," she said, and her name might have been Ella or Elsa.
"Thanks," I said.
"I didn't know you could sing!" She said, as if no time at all had passed.
My beer arrived, so I took an empty stool and sat to drink it.
The little gathering of former highschoolers was loud and lively. I tried to focus on my drink, angling odd comments to Nix behind the bar. We liked to trade X walks into a bar jokes, and laugh cretinous laughs.
"So that's two bloods and a blood lite!" Nix said, and smacked the bare in mock hilarity.
Just then, Robert leaned over towards me and said, "You should, you know."
"I beg your pardon?" I asked.
"You should 'measure the length of gone."
"What?" I turned my barstool around to look at him. Who was this, this bugman telling me what I should do.
"I don't mean to offend you. I wouldn't want to do that, certainly not, I just wanted to tell you that you have more talent than this place can even see, can even recognize." He spoke emphatically, thrusting his forefinger towards me.
"Thanks, Robert," I said.
"No, really. You've really got something."
"Without a doubt, I've got something."
"I'll never forget what you said in English that day..." He said.
I looked at him more intently. I couldn't remember anything I'd said in English ten years ago.
"We were reading To Kill a Mockingbird and you said you were part Boo Radley, part Scout, but that we were all Tom Robinson."
"I did? And what has that to do with anything now?"
"You're too much for this place. You should go to New York or L.A. or, or, Paris!"
Now I was laughing, and one of the girls pulled Robert back to their group, saying, "you're mine for the night, Mr. Coleoptera!" and burst into laughter.
I had about a half a beer and 7 minutes before my last set.
Maybe I'd sing my newest song. It was so new the name was provisional, "Knowing she has wings", but maybe that was a little over the the top. It might seem like I was thinking too much.
11/19/20
We both were still under age back then, Lucy and I, so getting in was the first performance of the night. What we wore was crucial, crucial, so often, we'd start out at her place or mine, and with Lydia Lunch or the Bush Tetras blasting, we'd don our ensemble of battered black mysticism, of kohl etched eyes, and blue-black lipstick. My father, poking his head in during one of our hour-long prep sessions, "Is the idea to look as ugly as possible?" The answer was a resounding "no," but we both said, "yes!"
Sometimes we walked, or if either of us had the money, we'd cab it, have them drop us a block away, so we could make our entrance all the more dramatically. There was usually a susceptible college boy at the door, as tonight.
"Hello love," Lucy said, in her practiced British East Ender accent. "Did you know that the moon tonight is in Sagittarius?"
The boy turned his handsome face to her and smiled.
"Is that right?" His accent was true Southie.
"Yes, indeed, which means every instinct is turned towards socializing and musical delight."
She had a way, that one.
"Well, you two are in luck," and he gave me an appraising look, my black fishnets up to a black leather sheath, "because we have Dresden Nog and Notorious Brother for your listening enjoyment."
"What's the cover? "I asked, because I was getting cold out there.
He turned to look at Lily, then me, with those age-assessing eyes.
"It depends," he said.
"Oh?" we both said, our voices revealing the youth of hope.
"On whether you're willing," he said, and winked a college boy eye.
"What are you prospecting for, Mr. Miner," Lily said. She'd lit a cigarette and was smoking it from a long, rhinestone-studded holder.
"That's just it --" the bouncer said, "a couple of minors of my own."
"The only thing minor about us, is our sins," I said, and arched an inked brow.
"A kiss each will get you in," the boy said, pointing to each cheek, "and make them hard enough to show."
Lucy and I took our positions on either side of the guy, who stood a good 6'2", but he crouched a little, as we took hold of his long-haired, sweet face, and at an inner count of three, we kissed his shaven cheeks hard, leaving the print of our black winged kisses. And just like that, we were in!
11/18/20
In general, I think I'm pretty lucky, if by that you mean that bad things can and maybe should happen a third of the time, good another third, and average things you don't even really notice, that last third, so anything that tips the scale to good is the mark of the truly lucky. I mean, think of those people born with their intestines sprawling out of their belly buttons, or living on one of those drought-blighted plains, with flies mating in their nostrils.
I'd had two parents, a house, an education. I'd lived to adulthood with only one broken bone. Of course luck is the courted patron saint of a place like Las Vegas, where it seems your worth or deserving is settled on spec, under flashing lights.
Dean and I went on a kind of crazy whim one weekend, early in our relationship, when we both still threw ourselves at odd experiences just to see what might happen.
"You can call me Diamond Dean," Dean said, plucking the two wings of a very dapper black bow tie.
"Wow, you look great!" Because he did, now matter what he wore, his honey skin and hazel eyes, a bright smile that he knew how to ignite.
"And I'll be Snake Eye, Sal," I said, and rolled some dice across our hotel room's carpet. They came up box cars, two sixes.
"Where'd you get those?" Dean asked.
"Three are some old folks on Ventnor Avenue wondering if they'll ever again get a ride on the Reading." I flashed him my own smile.
"You ready, Snake Eyes? You want any more of this joint?"
"It's all yours, Diamond, Dean."
And before long, we were launched onto the film set that is the Vegas Strip, lights flashing, taxies disgorging passengers, the clang and chime of slot machines, paying out. Each of us had ten, ten-dollar bills in our pockets, a fortune for us in those days.
At the door of the Golden Nugget, we paused to look. We had devised a kind of race. The idea was to wager up to fifty dollars on anything -- slots, black jack, craps-- whatever, and see who was ahead in an hour -- a kind of race.
I have to admit, I was a little cowed by the whole scene, and made for a corner slot machine by the door (I'd heard they paid out at a higher rate to entice people to come in) and fed my first quarter into the slot. First roll: one cherry, that always pays something, and I let out a little chirp of pleasure. The woman who was seated beside me looked over to my machine, then gave me a long glare. She looked like she'd been parked long, earing house-slippers shaped like alligators.
Quarters in, quarters out, the drink lady brought over a Bloody Mary, then a beer, and on the hour buzzed by. Sadly, I had 9 quarters left. Dean and I met over by the giant ace of spades.
"Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" Dean sang out when he saw me, and fanned an array of bills under my nose.
I made the saddest face in my arsenal, the corners of my mouth folded down hard.
"Don't tell me Lucky Lulu hit a wall?" He said sweetly.
"The name's Snake Eyes."
"It's time for the wheel of fortune to spin your way. Come on, Snaky, let's hit the table!"
As anyone might have surmised by now, I wasn't exactly an old hand at this gambling thing. In fact, I didn't really believe anyone deserved to win, unless they were measurably better at a game, and certainly one might know the odds, and work them in one's favor, but dice? Little pocked cubes? What did they have to say about my boyfriend or me? They to say the old saw about how often a sucker was born.
It didn't take 45 minutes for us to lose our entire holding, and lucky we were that Dean had won a coupon granting us a meal for two, otherwise we would have had nothing but a bag of nuts to drown our sorrow.
But there was on at the craps table, I will always remember, because it beat the odds of probability so astonishingly. Yes, I was throwing.
"Coming out!"
"Snake eyes!" The sequined girl shouted. The "don't come" folks cheered.
Dean threw an arm around my shoulders, "true to your name, but not so good for our bets, doll."
"Come on! Roll!"
"Whoa! Snake Eyes again!"
All those on the come line and numbers let our a low groan. A few, at the end of the table cheered, most notably a little, old lady, wearing a purple tiara.
"Okay, doll, we're going down fast. Let's see what you've got!"
What I had was a freaking knack for those beady little white eyes.
This time, one of the dice flipped right on the one, but the second spun on its corner, while everyone held their breath. But then it fell.
"Snake Eyes!"
"That's her name!" Dean shouted.
"Unbelievable!"
Who said I wasn't lucky?
In general, I think I'm pretty lucky, if by that you mean that bad things can and maybe should happen a third of the time, good another third, and average things you don't even really notice, that last third, so anything that tips the scale to good is the mark of the truly lucky. I mean, think of those people born with their intestines sprawling out of their belly buttons, or living on one of those drought-blighted plains, with flies mating in their nostrils.
I'd had two parents, a house, an education. I'd lived to adulthood with only one broken bone. Of course luck is the courted patron saint of a place like Las Vegas, where it seems your worth or deserving is settled on spec, under flashing lights.
Dean and I went on a kind of crazy whim one weekend, early in our relationship, when we both still threw ourselves at odd experiences just to see what might happen.
"You can call me Diamond Dean," Dean said, plucking the two wings of a very dapper black bow tie.
"Wow, you look great!" Because he did, now matter what he wore, his honey skin and hazel eyes, a bright smile that he knew how to ignite.
"And I'll be Snake Eye, Sal," I said, and rolled some dice across our hotel room's carpet. They came up box cars, two sixes.
"Where'd you get those?" Dean asked.
"Three are some old folks on Ventnor Avenue wondering if they'll ever again get a ride on the Reading." I flashed him my own smile.
"You ready, Snake Eyes? You want any more of this joint?"
"It's all yours, Diamond, Dean."
And before long, we were launched onto the film set that is the Vegas Strip, lights flashing, taxies disgorging passengers, the clang and chime of slot machines, paying out. Each of us had ten, ten-dollar bills in our pockets, a fortune for us in those days.
At the door of the Golden Nugget, we paused to look. We had devised a kind of race. The idea was to wager up to fifty dollars on anything -- slots, black jack, craps-- whatever, and see who was ahead in an hour -- a kind of race.
I have to admit, I was a little cowed by the whole scene, and made for a corner slot machine by the door (I'd heard they paid out at a higher rate to entice people to come in) and fed my first quarter into the slot. First roll: one cherry, that always pays something, and I let out a little chirp of pleasure. The woman who was seated beside me looked over to my machine, then gave me a long glare. She looked like she'd been parked long, earing house-slippers shaped like alligators.
Quarters in, quarters out, the drink lady brought over a Bloody Mary, then a beer, and on the hour buzzed by. Sadly, I had 9 quarters left. Dean and I met over by the giant ace of spades.
"Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" Dean sang out when he saw me, and fanned an array of bills under my nose.
I made the saddest face in my arsenal, the corners of my mouth folded down hard.
"Don't tell me Lucky Lulu hit a wall?" He said sweetly.
"The name's Snake Eyes."
"It's time for the wheel of fortune to spin your way. Come on, Snaky, let's hit the table!"
As anyone might have surmised by now, I wasn't exactly an old hand at this gambling thing. In fact, I didn't really believe anyone deserved to win, unless they were measurably better at a game, and certainly one might know the odds, and work them in one's favor, but dice? Little pocked cubes? What did they have to say about my boyfriend or me? They to say the old saw about how often a sucker was born.
It didn't take 45 minutes for us to lose our entire holding, and lucky we were that Dean had won a coupon granting us a meal for two, otherwise we would have had nothing but a bag of nuts to drown our sorrow.
But there was on at the craps table, I will always remember, because it beat the odds of probability so astonishingly. Yes, I was throwing.
"Coming out!"
"Snake eyes!" The sequined girl shouted. The "don't come" folks cheered.
Dean threw an arm around my shoulders, "true to your name, but not so good for our bets, doll."
"Come on! Roll!"
"Whoa! Snake Eyes again!"
All those on the come line and numbers let our a low groan. A few, at the end of the table cheered, most notably a little, old lady, wearing a purple tiara.
"Okay, doll, we're going down fast. Let's see what you've got!"
What I had was a freaking knack for those beady little white eyes.
This time, one of the dice flipped right on the one, but the second spun on its corner, while everyone held their breath. But then it fell.
"Snake Eyes!"
"That's her name!" Dean shouted.
"Unbelievable!"
Who said I wasn't lucky?
Jusqu'ici (Le Ballet Mechanique) 11/17/20
And what we knew of fluid swinging was a matter of dark and light in motion, not a hat, a triangle, a smile, not even the woman we love.
If a pendulum swung beauty upside down to measure time, if prismatic vision bisected the moment, frantic on the piano, we would know evanescence in her dark eyes.
He appears from the wreckage of chandelier and gear; he disappears at the siren, replaced by bottles and pans.
This is much earlier than any real peril.
25 centimes for each pastille.
The mechanisms work, or play, spun at the fair.
The repetition is mindless and well-conceived for function, each lever and gear, metallic bindle, treadle, spindle, lash.
He'd asked her what she had going on Friday and when she asked why, he just smiled.
Always with a plan to shatter order, always the the object to make of her an object, who could not object.
Eyes lashed blackly, a mouth drawn as a bow, parting the flow with a bow, lipstick black.
She opens her eyes. She closes her eyes.
She looks right, looks left.
And what we knew of fluid swinging was a matter of dark and light in motion, not a hat, a triangle, a smile, not even the woman we love.
If a pendulum swung beauty upside down to measure time, if prismatic vision bisected the moment, frantic on the piano, we would know evanescence in her dark eyes.
He appears from the wreckage of chandelier and gear; he disappears at the siren, replaced by bottles and pans.
This is much earlier than any real peril.
25 centimes for each pastille.
The mechanisms work, or play, spun at the fair.
The repetition is mindless and well-conceived for function, each lever and gear, metallic bindle, treadle, spindle, lash.
He'd asked her what she had going on Friday and when she asked why, he just smiled.
Always with a plan to shatter order, always the the object to make of her an object, who could not object.
Eyes lashed blackly, a mouth drawn as a bow, parting the flow with a bow, lipstick black.
She opens her eyes. She closes her eyes.
She looks right, looks left.
11/16/20
During the pandemic, they'd had to be more inventive if they were to have any social life at all. Marion and Lewis had taken to their flat all those months ago, thinking it was a brief time, certainly for the best, but neither of them was good at isolation, neither might be called a "homebody." When the weather was good, they'd staged neighborhood get-togethers in their backyard in Cobble Hill, everybody masked and spaced apart, everybody giddy from their own brought drinks and whatever else.
"This one will be different," Marion said at breakfast, if you could call it that.
Both of them had put on twenty pounds plus in the past several months; they were now sharing a grapefruit.
"I'm listening," Lewis said.
"We can start early on a Sunday, put on the heat lamp, and it can be a charades party -- so people will be on their feet, moving, not freezing their asses off on the iron chairs."
"A charades party," Lewis said, his voice falling.
"Yeah, you know, charades!" Marion said, drawing her hands over her head, making the draped curtain that indicated "play or drama.
"Does anybody even do charades anymore, " Lewis asked.
"Does anybody ever do anything anymore?" Marion asked.
And though Lewis was resistant the whole way, Marion pushed the idea through, sending out animated evites, decorating their back yards with strands of twinkling lights, dressing in a long gown.
"Welcome! Welcome, everybody! I'm so glad you all could make it, braving these fall temperatures on this bleak, but promising Sunday." She stood on the small upraised platform on which they usually put their grill. That they had moved to the side and powered up for its radiant heat, and a pot of cider on a back burner, should anyone be brave enough to dare. Hot food was supposed to be safe, anyway, which Marion was just saying, followed by the laugh that Lewis had told her a bunch of times sounded manic.
"Who wants to go first?" She asked the ten or so people scattered in their back yard. Each had received a scrap of paper, with 3 interlocking clues.
"Really?" Lewis had asked her. "Can't we just play the usual way? Somebody acts out their favorite TV show or Rhiannon song lyric?
"Come on, Lewis. It's going to be fun," which had begun to sound like Marion's usual chorus. Why was he always so adverse to adventure, she wondered.
Len raised his hand.
Marion knew she could count on her old college buddy, Len. Having flamboyant was a blessing in these blighted times.
"Coming to you from the wilds of Flatbush, the one, the only, Len Kaminski!" Marion shouted and ceded the platform.
The way it work, Marion had explained, was that there were three interlocking clues. They could be linked in any way -- grammatically, thematically, by author/creator, by genre, whatever. She, herself, had spent hours writing up the first set of clues to get folks started, but she'd also gotten 15 little notebooks printed with Amity Street Actors in gold, each with its own felt tip pen.
"Seriously?" Lewis had rolled his eyes.
"I want to make it special," she'd said.
And special it was.
Len was beginning, placing his hands together, then opening them like a
"Book," someone shouted.
Len touched his nose with his right index finger to indicate "on the nose," right.
He whirled his hands around to show he would try to act out the whole story. Then, with two fingers, he looked like he was plucking something out of the air, then crying profusely, silently.
Everybody shouted at once.
"Bear!" "Fruit!" "Rubyfruit Jungle!" "Berries!" Until Rex, with his basso profundo called out, "The Grapes of Wrath!"
Yes! Len touched his nose with a great smile.
This was followed by a grand battle scene of "Paths of Glory!" and torrents coming to create the Grateful Dead song, "Buckets of Rain"
When the last clue was solved, Len fell down into the leaves, kicking his feat in teh air, like a downed dog, dead and stiff with rigor mortis.
"That's well worth a shot!"Marion called, and downed another small glass of tequila.
"Okay, next!" She shouted.
When nobody volunteered, she called across the small yard to her husband.
"Come on, Lew. Let's see what you've got!"
"I think I'll wait, if you don't mind, Marion. I'm sure some of our guests would rather --"
"No, you don't. Don't be a party poop. Let's hear it for our host, Lewis Delmonico!" And she led the group in applause.
Lewis glared at her, but finally walked over and took the stage,
Standing before them, he looked both awkward and grand. It had been a while since Marion had actually seen him, she thought.
Lewis drew his hand over his head, while bubbles of lyrics rose from his mouth.
"Song!" everyone shouted. He pointed to his heart.
"I!"
"He reached out both hands, grasping their air.
"Grab?"
"Want!" They all called, and he brought his finger to his nose. Yes.
"Then he grasped one hand to the other.
"Pray?"
"Handshake?"
"I know!" Greta yelled. "To hold your hand!"
That was rewarded by another "on the nose" gesture.
"This is a bit harder," Lewis said.
"No talking!" Marion shouted.
"It's just that it's --"
"Lewis!" She shouted, admonishing him.
"But I don't even know how to categorize this one," He said, scowling.
"Just act the clue out, damn it!" Marion said. "You can do that much, can't you?"
He looked at her across the crowd. She was leaning against the far wall, his bottle of Tears of Llorona, No. 3, dangling from her hand. He realized he just couldn't.
He held up four fingers, "4 words," someone called.
He pointed to himself again, showed his wanting hands, then in front of all their friends he somehow managed to get out "a divorce."
"I didn't write that," Marion shouted. "I don't get it."
And Lewis said clearly, "You will."
During the pandemic, they'd had to be more inventive if they were to have any social life at all. Marion and Lewis had taken to their flat all those months ago, thinking it was a brief time, certainly for the best, but neither of them was good at isolation, neither might be called a "homebody." When the weather was good, they'd staged neighborhood get-togethers in their backyard in Cobble Hill, everybody masked and spaced apart, everybody giddy from their own brought drinks and whatever else.
"This one will be different," Marion said at breakfast, if you could call it that.
Both of them had put on twenty pounds plus in the past several months; they were now sharing a grapefruit.
"I'm listening," Lewis said.
"We can start early on a Sunday, put on the heat lamp, and it can be a charades party -- so people will be on their feet, moving, not freezing their asses off on the iron chairs."
"A charades party," Lewis said, his voice falling.
"Yeah, you know, charades!" Marion said, drawing her hands over her head, making the draped curtain that indicated "play or drama.
"Does anybody even do charades anymore, " Lewis asked.
"Does anybody ever do anything anymore?" Marion asked.
And though Lewis was resistant the whole way, Marion pushed the idea through, sending out animated evites, decorating their back yards with strands of twinkling lights, dressing in a long gown.
"Welcome! Welcome, everybody! I'm so glad you all could make it, braving these fall temperatures on this bleak, but promising Sunday." She stood on the small upraised platform on which they usually put their grill. That they had moved to the side and powered up for its radiant heat, and a pot of cider on a back burner, should anyone be brave enough to dare. Hot food was supposed to be safe, anyway, which Marion was just saying, followed by the laugh that Lewis had told her a bunch of times sounded manic.
"Who wants to go first?" She asked the ten or so people scattered in their back yard. Each had received a scrap of paper, with 3 interlocking clues.
"Really?" Lewis had asked her. "Can't we just play the usual way? Somebody acts out their favorite TV show or Rhiannon song lyric?
"Come on, Lewis. It's going to be fun," which had begun to sound like Marion's usual chorus. Why was he always so adverse to adventure, she wondered.
Len raised his hand.
Marion knew she could count on her old college buddy, Len. Having flamboyant was a blessing in these blighted times.
"Coming to you from the wilds of Flatbush, the one, the only, Len Kaminski!" Marion shouted and ceded the platform.
The way it work, Marion had explained, was that there were three interlocking clues. They could be linked in any way -- grammatically, thematically, by author/creator, by genre, whatever. She, herself, had spent hours writing up the first set of clues to get folks started, but she'd also gotten 15 little notebooks printed with Amity Street Actors in gold, each with its own felt tip pen.
"Seriously?" Lewis had rolled his eyes.
"I want to make it special," she'd said.
And special it was.
Len was beginning, placing his hands together, then opening them like a
"Book," someone shouted.
Len touched his nose with his right index finger to indicate "on the nose," right.
He whirled his hands around to show he would try to act out the whole story. Then, with two fingers, he looked like he was plucking something out of the air, then crying profusely, silently.
Everybody shouted at once.
"Bear!" "Fruit!" "Rubyfruit Jungle!" "Berries!" Until Rex, with his basso profundo called out, "The Grapes of Wrath!"
Yes! Len touched his nose with a great smile.
This was followed by a grand battle scene of "Paths of Glory!" and torrents coming to create the Grateful Dead song, "Buckets of Rain"
When the last clue was solved, Len fell down into the leaves, kicking his feat in teh air, like a downed dog, dead and stiff with rigor mortis.
"That's well worth a shot!"Marion called, and downed another small glass of tequila.
"Okay, next!" She shouted.
When nobody volunteered, she called across the small yard to her husband.
"Come on, Lew. Let's see what you've got!"
"I think I'll wait, if you don't mind, Marion. I'm sure some of our guests would rather --"
"No, you don't. Don't be a party poop. Let's hear it for our host, Lewis Delmonico!" And she led the group in applause.
Lewis glared at her, but finally walked over and took the stage,
Standing before them, he looked both awkward and grand. It had been a while since Marion had actually seen him, she thought.
Lewis drew his hand over his head, while bubbles of lyrics rose from his mouth.
"Song!" everyone shouted. He pointed to his heart.
"I!"
"He reached out both hands, grasping their air.
"Grab?"
"Want!" They all called, and he brought his finger to his nose. Yes.
"Then he grasped one hand to the other.
"Pray?"
"Handshake?"
"I know!" Greta yelled. "To hold your hand!"
That was rewarded by another "on the nose" gesture.
"This is a bit harder," Lewis said.
"No talking!" Marion shouted.
"It's just that it's --"
"Lewis!" She shouted, admonishing him.
"But I don't even know how to categorize this one," He said, scowling.
"Just act the clue out, damn it!" Marion said. "You can do that much, can't you?"
He looked at her across the crowd. She was leaning against the far wall, his bottle of Tears of Llorona, No. 3, dangling from her hand. He realized he just couldn't.
He held up four fingers, "4 words," someone called.
He pointed to himself again, showed his wanting hands, then in front of all their friends he somehow managed to get out "a divorce."
"I didn't write that," Marion shouted. "I don't get it."
And Lewis said clearly, "You will."
11/13/20
Weeds Never Perish
And so it was, from the day he left us, I didn't want to, but I did end up counting days, as if the numbers might add up to something more than gone, like some kind of miraculous equation resulting in next month's rent. It wasn't so easy even when Jack was here and employed; now it was kind of hopeless, but that didn't stop me from keeping a small hope in a locked, a little bit of paper with the word "yes" written on it. I wore it even in the shower.
Lacy and Danny knew better than to ask me for anything, although I could see the questions in their eyes. Their sweet, steady, hazel eyes they'd gotten from my side, thank you very much, along with their deep-rooted kindness. At their age, coming up on teenagers, they had plenty reason to wonder, but they knew better to trouble me. They walked to and from school along the gully, did their homework and chores, without being asked, and were extra appreciative when I happened to serve their favorite dishes or suggest they might want to stay up to watch the end of their movie.
I hadn't gotten back my courage yet, enough to head out of our place to look for work or even to go shopping. Old habits end slow, but I knew I would have to venture forth, sooner or later.
"Mama?" A small voice a the door.
"Yes, Lacy?"
"Are you okay in there?"
"Yes, darling. I'm fine. Just a little tired." I'd slept forty of the last forty-eight hours.
"Do you want me to make some macaroni and cheese, or something?"
"Sure, that would be fine."
And I could hear her walk back down the hall in her slippers, the soles making a hushed hush hush sound against the carpet.
I could hear the television with its canned laugher, someone on the street, revving the engine of a motorcycle, the low hum of the clock on my bedside table.
It wasn't as if everything was suddenly over. There was plenty good about Jack's leaving. I was sure of it, though the list hadn't come together as such, as yet. To be honest, he was a real son-of-a-bitch, and that was the truth. Once we could figure out a path, we would be on our way.
"Mama?" this time it was Danny.
"Yes, Honey?"
"Are you awake?"
"What a question. I just spoke to you." That child.
"Oh yeah. Right."
There was a pause. I could hear his hair brush the hollow core door. It sounded like it had some kind of eerie amplification.
"Danny?"
"Yes, Mom?" If I wasn't mistaken, his voice sounded like it was getting deeper.
"What do you want?"
"Oh. I was wondering if I could show you something I made in school today." He was speaking with his mouth nearly touching the door, I could tell.
"Sure, honey. Come on in." I said. The kids were still holding back from this room, and who could blame them?
The door opened a crack to let in a widening sliver of light, and then Danny walked in slowly, not looking around, just walking straight over to the bed, carrying a big cardboard box, painted green.
The room was dim from the drawn curtains, but I couldn't really reach the lamp.
"Now, what do you have there?"
"I made a diorama of the Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse."
"You did?"
He nodded.
"Well, let's have a look at it."
Danny placed the box on the bed , the opening turned towards me. He had affixed a branch to the cardboard to create an arching tree in whose branches an elaborate network of platforms and mesh extended, secure in the upper section. Two small dolls, boy and girl were grouped in an upper story. A woman doll lay in a constructed bed, blanketed in a lavender spread like mine.
"Well, Daniel, this is lovely!" I said and I really believed it was. "Just look at the detail you've put into it." For he had, down to the miniature plates and silverware on the table, cut from oaktag and colored.
Danny looked from his diaorama to me and back again.
And then, because I had to ask, I said, "Hold on, I thought there was a mother and father and four boys in that book."
Danny didn't say anything.
"Where's the father?" I didn't say for a beat of twenty, then did., and Danny went to pick up his project.
"Wait," I said, and held him by the wrist.
He looked at me with those sad, young boy eyes.
"He's gone," he said, after a bit, then under his breath, "and good riddance."
"Daniel," I said because he was still his father. He dropped his gaze.
"I just wanted to show you --"
"I'm so glad you did. It's really remarkable. You've mad such a detailed, magical, believable world." I said, but my voice dropped at the end.
It takes courage to believe.
"Thank you," he muttered and took up his project again.
Then, because the door had been left open, Lacy stood in the doorway.
"Macaroni's ready," she said. "I'll bring you a bowl, Mama."
"No, that's okay," I said, and her face fell.
I adjusted myself in the bed, pulling forward.
"I think I'll try to get up," I said.
Both kids looked surprised, and Danny offered me a hand.
There were harder things to do than get out of bed, and I was going to have to do them.
Weeds Never Perish
And so it was, from the day he left us, I didn't want to, but I did end up counting days, as if the numbers might add up to something more than gone, like some kind of miraculous equation resulting in next month's rent. It wasn't so easy even when Jack was here and employed; now it was kind of hopeless, but that didn't stop me from keeping a small hope in a locked, a little bit of paper with the word "yes" written on it. I wore it even in the shower.
Lacy and Danny knew better than to ask me for anything, although I could see the questions in their eyes. Their sweet, steady, hazel eyes they'd gotten from my side, thank you very much, along with their deep-rooted kindness. At their age, coming up on teenagers, they had plenty reason to wonder, but they knew better to trouble me. They walked to and from school along the gully, did their homework and chores, without being asked, and were extra appreciative when I happened to serve their favorite dishes or suggest they might want to stay up to watch the end of their movie.
I hadn't gotten back my courage yet, enough to head out of our place to look for work or even to go shopping. Old habits end slow, but I knew I would have to venture forth, sooner or later.
"Mama?" A small voice a the door.
"Yes, Lacy?"
"Are you okay in there?"
"Yes, darling. I'm fine. Just a little tired." I'd slept forty of the last forty-eight hours.
"Do you want me to make some macaroni and cheese, or something?"
"Sure, that would be fine."
And I could hear her walk back down the hall in her slippers, the soles making a hushed hush hush sound against the carpet.
I could hear the television with its canned laugher, someone on the street, revving the engine of a motorcycle, the low hum of the clock on my bedside table.
It wasn't as if everything was suddenly over. There was plenty good about Jack's leaving. I was sure of it, though the list hadn't come together as such, as yet. To be honest, he was a real son-of-a-bitch, and that was the truth. Once we could figure out a path, we would be on our way.
"Mama?" this time it was Danny.
"Yes, Honey?"
"Are you awake?"
"What a question. I just spoke to you." That child.
"Oh yeah. Right."
There was a pause. I could hear his hair brush the hollow core door. It sounded like it had some kind of eerie amplification.
"Danny?"
"Yes, Mom?" If I wasn't mistaken, his voice sounded like it was getting deeper.
"What do you want?"
"Oh. I was wondering if I could show you something I made in school today." He was speaking with his mouth nearly touching the door, I could tell.
"Sure, honey. Come on in." I said. The kids were still holding back from this room, and who could blame them?
The door opened a crack to let in a widening sliver of light, and then Danny walked in slowly, not looking around, just walking straight over to the bed, carrying a big cardboard box, painted green.
The room was dim from the drawn curtains, but I couldn't really reach the lamp.
"Now, what do you have there?"
"I made a diorama of the Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse."
"You did?"
He nodded.
"Well, let's have a look at it."
Danny placed the box on the bed , the opening turned towards me. He had affixed a branch to the cardboard to create an arching tree in whose branches an elaborate network of platforms and mesh extended, secure in the upper section. Two small dolls, boy and girl were grouped in an upper story. A woman doll lay in a constructed bed, blanketed in a lavender spread like mine.
"Well, Daniel, this is lovely!" I said and I really believed it was. "Just look at the detail you've put into it." For he had, down to the miniature plates and silverware on the table, cut from oaktag and colored.
Danny looked from his diaorama to me and back again.
And then, because I had to ask, I said, "Hold on, I thought there was a mother and father and four boys in that book."
Danny didn't say anything.
"Where's the father?" I didn't say for a beat of twenty, then did., and Danny went to pick up his project.
"Wait," I said, and held him by the wrist.
He looked at me with those sad, young boy eyes.
"He's gone," he said, after a bit, then under his breath, "and good riddance."
"Daniel," I said because he was still his father. He dropped his gaze.
"I just wanted to show you --"
"I'm so glad you did. It's really remarkable. You've mad such a detailed, magical, believable world." I said, but my voice dropped at the end.
It takes courage to believe.
"Thank you," he muttered and took up his project again.
Then, because the door had been left open, Lacy stood in the doorway.
"Macaroni's ready," she said. "I'll bring you a bowl, Mama."
"No, that's okay," I said, and her face fell.
I adjusted myself in the bed, pulling forward.
"I think I'll try to get up," I said.
Both kids looked surprised, and Danny offered me a hand.
There were harder things to do than get out of bed, and I was going to have to do them.
11/12/20
I'd planned my getaway for more than a month, mapping the route, calculating the cost and funds, packing only essentials. As a fifteen year old trans kid in Utah (in case you don't know, the actual anus of this wide country of ours), I knew there was no future for me here.
I tried to tell my parents a few months ago. It went something like this:
"Pass the peas, will you, Marcus?" My father had said to me.
I passed the peas and under my breath said, "Margo."
He glowered at me and chased, with a spoon, some loose peas that had rolled off his plate.
Okay, maybe not the most courageous or explicit confrontation, but an attempt.
The thing was, my parents were both strict Mormons; I won't even go there. Let's just say that they wouldn't even drink coke, and say no more. But I did love them and they loved me. I knew that. But which me? That was the question. The boy they'd celebrated November 12th with a triple chocolate cake and a pair of soccer cleats, size 7 and a half? The boy they'd sent to Outdoor for Youth, where we were instructed to "stay on the trail" but where I strayed from said trail to wind up kissing Leon Ingram, and getting a wicked rash from the poison oak that lurked out there in the rough. I was their only child, as they told me on the daily, so you knew what that meant, crazy pressure to be everything, except who I was.
Every day was worse. It felt more and more like I was strangling on pretense. I could hardly speak anymore.
"Marcus, I can't help noticing your grades are suffering."
"Marcus, would it be too much to ask for you to answer Mrs. Wilson, when she asks how you're doing?"
"I didn't hear you? Did you say something? Darling, speak up."
But I couldn't speak up with a voice that sounded to my ears like it emerged from a cavern of buried souls: that deep, that lost.
At last, the day had arrived. I placed the note I'd suffered over on the table near my bed, made of course, though never to be slept in by me again. All the nevers stacked up. Never to pet Tabitha again. Never to slide down the banister in the hall. Never to tie the tie that was part of my high school uniform. But it had been a long time of imagining an equal number of firsts and forever mores, living my life as a young woman.
On the way out, I tried to commit to memory all the details of what I'd known as home, because they would be with me, part of me, inescapable, even as I left them behind. Just before I turned onto Grove Street, I looked back, and there she was, my mother, framed in the window of her crafting room, looking right at me, and it was like the first time I ever really saw her, her hair pulled back from her face, her broad forehead, her mouth set, as if she were poised to accept whatever in the world might be happening, as it was happening right now.
I'd planned my getaway for more than a month, mapping the route, calculating the cost and funds, packing only essentials. As a fifteen year old trans kid in Utah (in case you don't know, the actual anus of this wide country of ours), I knew there was no future for me here.
I tried to tell my parents a few months ago. It went something like this:
"Pass the peas, will you, Marcus?" My father had said to me.
I passed the peas and under my breath said, "Margo."
He glowered at me and chased, with a spoon, some loose peas that had rolled off his plate.
Okay, maybe not the most courageous or explicit confrontation, but an attempt.
The thing was, my parents were both strict Mormons; I won't even go there. Let's just say that they wouldn't even drink coke, and say no more. But I did love them and they loved me. I knew that. But which me? That was the question. The boy they'd celebrated November 12th with a triple chocolate cake and a pair of soccer cleats, size 7 and a half? The boy they'd sent to Outdoor for Youth, where we were instructed to "stay on the trail" but where I strayed from said trail to wind up kissing Leon Ingram, and getting a wicked rash from the poison oak that lurked out there in the rough. I was their only child, as they told me on the daily, so you knew what that meant, crazy pressure to be everything, except who I was.
Every day was worse. It felt more and more like I was strangling on pretense. I could hardly speak anymore.
"Marcus, I can't help noticing your grades are suffering."
"Marcus, would it be too much to ask for you to answer Mrs. Wilson, when she asks how you're doing?"
"I didn't hear you? Did you say something? Darling, speak up."
But I couldn't speak up with a voice that sounded to my ears like it emerged from a cavern of buried souls: that deep, that lost.
At last, the day had arrived. I placed the note I'd suffered over on the table near my bed, made of course, though never to be slept in by me again. All the nevers stacked up. Never to pet Tabitha again. Never to slide down the banister in the hall. Never to tie the tie that was part of my high school uniform. But it had been a long time of imagining an equal number of firsts and forever mores, living my life as a young woman.
On the way out, I tried to commit to memory all the details of what I'd known as home, because they would be with me, part of me, inescapable, even as I left them behind. Just before I turned onto Grove Street, I looked back, and there she was, my mother, framed in the window of her crafting room, looking right at me, and it was like the first time I ever really saw her, her hair pulled back from her face, her broad forehead, her mouth set, as if she were poised to accept whatever in the world might be happening, as it was happening right now.
11/11/20
After the accident, he no longer believed in God or luck or security. Each day, one further day away from the ritualized mourning was despite, loose, a kind of course he ran from waking until he fell into bed, nearly nullified by grief. He became fixated on the apparatuses and systems of physical existence, respiration -- oh his heavy lungs --, circulation, with blood remaining mostly inside the smooth, young containment of his skin, that dogged heart, steady as she comes, sympathetic nervous system of fight or flight.
He did neither; he worked and he slept. How could anyone see to love him when all he was now could be summed up by some study of basic human function, but she saw something in him, something beyond his slack sorrow, his deep dawning reckoning of life's fragile balance.
To be seen, begin to be known, believed to be whole and true and kind, before one's depths devoured, because of each year's renewal and the faith it generated, an utterance that called to a future, even as it challenged this future and union to exist.
Although it was dangerous to begin to believe there was a reason for one's survival, one step further along from a reason for one's birth, tempered by tragedy, by the intricate axes of time and space, of injury and absence, that given the conflation of speeding cars and wet roads and why he too, a taxi later than his entire family, bringing boxes of clothes never again to be worn, which produced a kind of hollow, painful laughter, an equation that, despite the complexity of the left side factors and coefficients, equaled one.
The end is not the end.
Their story was not without its magic, if you can call it that, the odds against such intricate marquisette, the mesh of deeds and words and experiences that can again feel whole, make what happened the more, well, necessary.
For they did find each other, the two of them, and their love was freed from expectation, from time and tradition, from reason viewed from an outside vantage, or a story's plotted course, and it freed them, gave them a giddiness of stolen instance, of shared occasion happening full throated now.
After the accident, he no longer believed in God or luck or security. Each day, one further day away from the ritualized mourning was despite, loose, a kind of course he ran from waking until he fell into bed, nearly nullified by grief. He became fixated on the apparatuses and systems of physical existence, respiration -- oh his heavy lungs --, circulation, with blood remaining mostly inside the smooth, young containment of his skin, that dogged heart, steady as she comes, sympathetic nervous system of fight or flight.
He did neither; he worked and he slept. How could anyone see to love him when all he was now could be summed up by some study of basic human function, but she saw something in him, something beyond his slack sorrow, his deep dawning reckoning of life's fragile balance.
To be seen, begin to be known, believed to be whole and true and kind, before one's depths devoured, because of each year's renewal and the faith it generated, an utterance that called to a future, even as it challenged this future and union to exist.
Although it was dangerous to begin to believe there was a reason for one's survival, one step further along from a reason for one's birth, tempered by tragedy, by the intricate axes of time and space, of injury and absence, that given the conflation of speeding cars and wet roads and why he too, a taxi later than his entire family, bringing boxes of clothes never again to be worn, which produced a kind of hollow, painful laughter, an equation that, despite the complexity of the left side factors and coefficients, equaled one.
The end is not the end.
Their story was not without its magic, if you can call it that, the odds against such intricate marquisette, the mesh of deeds and words and experiences that can again feel whole, make what happened the more, well, necessary.
For they did find each other, the two of them, and their love was freed from expectation, from time and tradition, from reason viewed from an outside vantage, or a story's plotted course, and it freed them, gave them a giddiness of stolen instance, of shared occasion happening full throated now.
November 10, 2020
Signals
When she got up to go to the bathroom that morning, Lily could barely walk. It was as if she were on the gunwale of a boat, rocked by a storm. She'd had only one glass of Cabernet with dinner last night. She couldn't be hung over.
"Des," she called weakly. "Des!"
Her boyfriend Desmond was an early riser, recently taken by isometric exercises; his colored rubber resistance belts hung by the Eastern window of their flat.
"Des!"
His face appeared in the doorway, a little flushed, around his trimmed, black beard.
"Did you call me, my little Alpine Moon Blossom?" When he saw her, he rushed over to her, sitting on her side of the bed. "What's wrong, Lil?"
"Oh god, I don't know. I feel horrible."
He placed his hand on her forehead and leaned forward to look into her eyes. He launched into his EMT protocol, taking her pulse, instructing her to open her mouth, helping her to sit up so he could listen to her chest.
"Hmmm. Nothing. Everything seems to check out."
"But I feel awful," she said and somehow she managed to surge out of their bed and stagger to the bathroom, where she vomited.
"We have to bring you in. Let me help you get dressed," Desmond called in to her. "You may be having a stroke."
"Oh god," Lily moaned. "This is bad. It feels as if the room is somehow inverting, as if, I don't know, the center is shifting and the walls," she closed her eyes and pressed her finger to her forehead, "as if the walls are pressing in."
"Oh, Lily, it's going to be all right. Here, hold on," and he would have had her wear a green jersey with her red dirndl skirt, but she was well enough to object.
"Please," she said. "Are you kidding?"
Somehow they managed to make it to the car, where she lay in the reclined front seat. Desmond had shifted into emergency mode, which was both efficient and cheerful.
"Oh god," Lily moaned. "I'm going to be sick again."
Desmond pulled the car over just in time for Lily to fling the car door open and be sick on a blanket of fallen oak leaves along the road. It was as if she were filled with choppy waves, a strange tidal shifting within her, knocking her sideways with a kind of centrifugal force. Even the simple movement from leaning outside the car to rolling back to her seat felt like a radical rearrangement of matter and space.
"Are you dying? Please don't be dying," Des whispered.
"I don't know," Lily said, weakly, "I might be."
Desmond stepped on the gas and sped through the backroads to the hospital. Lily need assistance to the wheelchair, but then she was secured in a bed, administered to, tested.
"What you're experiencing is a bout of vertigo," the young doctor told her, after the hour they'd waited. She drew from a folder a sheet on the condition, and handed it to Desmond.
"Vertigo?" Desmond asked.
"Yes, vertigo." The doctor explained the probable causes, the symptoms, the implications of this condition of the inner ear.
"Nothing to do with Hitchcock, then?" Lily said quietly. She lay still, thundering tides within her claiming their levels. She had never before felt so alien to herself.
The doctor went on to describe the usual course the condition took, what she might do to offer some relief, and then it was time to go.
"I'm like some wayward balloon," Lily said to Des. "You're going to have to hold my string to keep me here with you."
"Happy to be of service," he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips to kiss her.
They walked through the hospital halls, tethered to each other by chance and decision, not in control of any of the other forces of science or signal, untold gales of what might happen next.
November 9, 2020
When the girl and her mother entered the bank, we all looked up. In such a small town, we knew not only every account holder, but his or her schedule of transactions. Many folks used the ATM, but the older residents liked to come in for a chat, along with their usual banking needs.
The bell on the door sounded, and there they were. The girl looked to be about 10 or 11. She walked in, with a white cane and heavy dark glasses.
"Good morning," I said when they came up to my window. "How may I help you?"
"My daughter would like to make a deposit," the woman said, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder. The girl immediately flinched under the weight of the hand. "This is the first money that Sarah has ever earned of her own, and --"
"Do you really think anyone cares?" The girl said under breath.
As I'm employed to represent the Bank of Winston United and all it stands for, I stood a little taller and focused on a spot of the wall beyond these two customers, where the silver grained marble joined the blue wall.
"I'd be happy to help," I said. "Account number?"
"Well, that's just the thing. Sara hasn't got an account yet. " The girl's face was inscrutable, lips set in a thin, pink line, eyes shielded by the reflection of her glasses.
Tim was out today, shopping for his wedding tux, as he'd told us last week, so there was no foisting these two off.
"Not to worry," I said, "I can help you with that! Checking or savings?"
At once, mother said "Savings" while daughter said "Checking." They said it again, the two words slightly louder, and again, with greater emphasis.
Sara stood a few inches taller than her mother, her stance four square.
I ran through the terms and the relative values of our account offerings, a spiel I'd had to learn my first weeks of the job.
"And, what's the amount of your first deposit. Perhaps that would --"
"One thousand, three hundred, and forty-eight dollars," Sara said, her voice flat. "I earned it sewing pot holders."
"Pot holders?" I asked, because what else could I say?
"For sale on Etsy," her mother said, "They're really nice with bits of --"
"Mother, she's not interested in our potholders," Sara said, with a withering drop of pity.
"Oh well. Fine. Checking."
While I took out the necessary forms and lay the bills in the mechanical counter, mother and daughter spoke to one another in dark, tense whispers. I could hardly hear anything, but "exploitation" from the girl, with a crisp crease along the ex, and, I think, "sweat shop." From the mother, I heard "utter ingrate" among a jumble of urgent mumbling.
I positioned the forms in front of the girl, placing a pen in her hand, and helping her to orient herself on the proper line.
"Our young people today," the mother said, her voice trailing off, "I never had a fraction of the advantages..."
With all the paperwork done, I placed the temporary checkbook into Sara's hand, saying "Congratulations on your first bank account."
She shifted her chin upwards a little, gave me a thin smile.
On their way out of the bank, with her mother trailing behind her, the girl swung her white cane a little widely and managed to sweep the glass candy dish off the low counter with a resounding crash. Jenna, from Safe Deposits, let out a shrill scream.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the mother said and bent down to attend to the mess -- shards of glass amidst color-wrapped mints. "She's new to the cane."
"Mother," Sara said, reaching back. "Mo-ther," with a ferocity.
She groped her mother's arm and pulled her, shuffling and apologizing, out the front door of the bank.
When the girl and her mother entered the bank, we all looked up. In such a small town, we knew not only every account holder, but his or her schedule of transactions. Many folks used the ATM, but the older residents liked to come in for a chat, along with their usual banking needs.
The bell on the door sounded, and there they were. The girl looked to be about 10 or 11. She walked in, with a white cane and heavy dark glasses.
"Good morning," I said when they came up to my window. "How may I help you?"
"My daughter would like to make a deposit," the woman said, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder. The girl immediately flinched under the weight of the hand. "This is the first money that Sarah has ever earned of her own, and --"
"Do you really think anyone cares?" The girl said under breath.
As I'm employed to represent the Bank of Winston United and all it stands for, I stood a little taller and focused on a spot of the wall beyond these two customers, where the silver grained marble joined the blue wall.
"I'd be happy to help," I said. "Account number?"
"Well, that's just the thing. Sara hasn't got an account yet. " The girl's face was inscrutable, lips set in a thin, pink line, eyes shielded by the reflection of her glasses.
Tim was out today, shopping for his wedding tux, as he'd told us last week, so there was no foisting these two off.
"Not to worry," I said, "I can help you with that! Checking or savings?"
At once, mother said "Savings" while daughter said "Checking." They said it again, the two words slightly louder, and again, with greater emphasis.
Sara stood a few inches taller than her mother, her stance four square.
I ran through the terms and the relative values of our account offerings, a spiel I'd had to learn my first weeks of the job.
"And, what's the amount of your first deposit. Perhaps that would --"
"One thousand, three hundred, and forty-eight dollars," Sara said, her voice flat. "I earned it sewing pot holders."
"Pot holders?" I asked, because what else could I say?
"For sale on Etsy," her mother said, "They're really nice with bits of --"
"Mother, she's not interested in our potholders," Sara said, with a withering drop of pity.
"Oh well. Fine. Checking."
While I took out the necessary forms and lay the bills in the mechanical counter, mother and daughter spoke to one another in dark, tense whispers. I could hardly hear anything, but "exploitation" from the girl, with a crisp crease along the ex, and, I think, "sweat shop." From the mother, I heard "utter ingrate" among a jumble of urgent mumbling.
I positioned the forms in front of the girl, placing a pen in her hand, and helping her to orient herself on the proper line.
"Our young people today," the mother said, her voice trailing off, "I never had a fraction of the advantages..."
With all the paperwork done, I placed the temporary checkbook into Sara's hand, saying "Congratulations on your first bank account."
She shifted her chin upwards a little, gave me a thin smile.
On their way out of the bank, with her mother trailing behind her, the girl swung her white cane a little widely and managed to sweep the glass candy dish off the low counter with a resounding crash. Jenna, from Safe Deposits, let out a shrill scream.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the mother said and bent down to attend to the mess -- shards of glass amidst color-wrapped mints. "She's new to the cane."
"Mother," Sara said, reaching back. "Mo-ther," with a ferocity.
She groped her mother's arm and pulled her, shuffling and apologizing, out the front door of the bank.
November 8, 2020
When my mother first met my father, she was many rungs up a ladder, painting her friend's apartment, or he was, I don't really remember and it's not my memory. It's theirs, of course. Or hers, for he no longer lives. Separate, distinct levels, the perspective of staging, some interesting play of matter positioned for effect (like jumping a parking meter, like straddling the distance between fire escape and window, when one's love is sick, within, like legend to a daughter as to how the generative factors coincided.)
I'd like to begin my story at its very beginning, but that's impossible to calculate, even with a globe spinning on a mahogany desk and pens and wax pencils, progress and migration, and really, isn't it almost easier to embrace a kind of spontaneous generation of awareness and motive?
Today with the votes finally counted decisively, many are considering what comes next, how to bridge the gaping divide, how to create an alliance of diverging lines, the fragility of our future calls for a level of cooperation seemingly impossible with such rancor and resistance, with the others cluttered at boundaries, drawn in ink.
Love for another indulges in a common vision, an appreciation of unique features, shared experience, interest.
I'm weakened by worry, by the magnitude of it all. And when the camera angles in an afternoon obliqueness on the young people made suddenly aware of a kind of connectedness spanning the distance, hours and days and decisions and actions interweaving, to come upon something solid and positive, something elastic and generative, thanks to that particular angle of light, a town's deep well, a song rising through a window, carrying out to the street.
When my mother first met my father, she was many rungs up a ladder, painting her friend's apartment, or he was, I don't really remember and it's not my memory. It's theirs, of course. Or hers, for he no longer lives. Separate, distinct levels, the perspective of staging, some interesting play of matter positioned for effect (like jumping a parking meter, like straddling the distance between fire escape and window, when one's love is sick, within, like legend to a daughter as to how the generative factors coincided.)
I'd like to begin my story at its very beginning, but that's impossible to calculate, even with a globe spinning on a mahogany desk and pens and wax pencils, progress and migration, and really, isn't it almost easier to embrace a kind of spontaneous generation of awareness and motive?
Today with the votes finally counted decisively, many are considering what comes next, how to bridge the gaping divide, how to create an alliance of diverging lines, the fragility of our future calls for a level of cooperation seemingly impossible with such rancor and resistance, with the others cluttered at boundaries, drawn in ink.
Love for another indulges in a common vision, an appreciation of unique features, shared experience, interest.
I'm weakened by worry, by the magnitude of it all. And when the camera angles in an afternoon obliqueness on the young people made suddenly aware of a kind of connectedness spanning the distance, hours and days and decisions and actions interweaving, to come upon something solid and positive, something elastic and generative, thanks to that particular angle of light, a town's deep well, a song rising through a window, carrying out to the street.
November 6, 2020
Online Teaching in the Time of Covid
1. Attend to technology issues before addressing content can
In a class of twenty sixth graders in this river town, fully half may not understand how to click between screens. They are sitting in the kitchen, while someone loudly disassembles the stove. Their dog, Reina, is vomiting on the rug again. Do you think she should be brought in? Suddenly everything on the screen has become so small, or suddenly so large, who can see what to click? There's a lag, a hiss, an echo, a silence. There's a chicken next door laying her first egg. If one activates their screen everyone will see they have dyed their hair purple, or green, or shaved it down to a dim haze.
2. Offer students a chance to respond in "chat"
A column of:
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
yes
yes
will foster a sense of togetherness,
will trace a line to the next question
no
no
no
I can't
no
no
yes
no
no
not really
3. Implement multi-media to surround students in sensory effects
This might include links to songs, to TEDtalks, to interactive experiments that represent atoms with glowing green and yellow dots, agitating over a heat source. This will not make students feel less alone, but entertainment is not without its palliative promise.
4. If chat gets too heated or offensive, if it's used for the nonsense of digital pattern and play, cut off access.
5. You may have to repeat instructions several times.
One boy is coughing, coughing, coughing. One girl is missing her cousin Lee. Someone on the street is yelling something incomprehensible. There's a delay. You may have to repeat yourself to ensure students have received instructions. You may have to repeat yourself. Let me show you again how to submit your work. Let me show you how.
6. This is asynchronous time.
Asynchronous means, well yes, it may sound like an oxymoron, that is a figure conjoining words or terms apparently contradictory so as to give point to the statement or expression, oxymoron, that's pointedly foolish. I'm sorry. My microphone wasn't on. Time exists as a constant for us, whether we are working together or apart. No, that's synchronous, s. y. n. I'll write it out for you. Not it doesn't mean it's time to play video games. Certainly. Get a drink of water. Go pet your cat. Take a walk in the garden, but come back and get to work. A. S. Y. -- I've written it in the chat. Asynchronous.
7. If any of you need me, I'm here. I've got my camera and sound off, but I'm here. I'm here and I can help.
Online Teaching in the Time of Covid
1. Attend to technology issues before addressing content can
In a class of twenty sixth graders in this river town, fully half may not understand how to click between screens. They are sitting in the kitchen, while someone loudly disassembles the stove. Their dog, Reina, is vomiting on the rug again. Do you think she should be brought in? Suddenly everything on the screen has become so small, or suddenly so large, who can see what to click? There's a lag, a hiss, an echo, a silence. There's a chicken next door laying her first egg. If one activates their screen everyone will see they have dyed their hair purple, or green, or shaved it down to a dim haze.
2. Offer students a chance to respond in "chat"
A column of:
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
yes
yes
will foster a sense of togetherness,
will trace a line to the next question
no
no
no
I can't
no
no
yes
no
no
not really
3. Implement multi-media to surround students in sensory effects
This might include links to songs, to TEDtalks, to interactive experiments that represent atoms with glowing green and yellow dots, agitating over a heat source. This will not make students feel less alone, but entertainment is not without its palliative promise.
4. If chat gets too heated or offensive, if it's used for the nonsense of digital pattern and play, cut off access.
5. You may have to repeat instructions several times.
One boy is coughing, coughing, coughing. One girl is missing her cousin Lee. Someone on the street is yelling something incomprehensible. There's a delay. You may have to repeat yourself to ensure students have received instructions. You may have to repeat yourself. Let me show you again how to submit your work. Let me show you how.
6. This is asynchronous time.
Asynchronous means, well yes, it may sound like an oxymoron, that is a figure conjoining words or terms apparently contradictory so as to give point to the statement or expression, oxymoron, that's pointedly foolish. I'm sorry. My microphone wasn't on. Time exists as a constant for us, whether we are working together or apart. No, that's synchronous, s. y. n. I'll write it out for you. Not it doesn't mean it's time to play video games. Certainly. Get a drink of water. Go pet your cat. Take a walk in the garden, but come back and get to work. A. S. Y. -- I've written it in the chat. Asynchronous.
7. If any of you need me, I'm here. I've got my camera and sound off, but I'm here. I'm here and I can help.
November 5, 2020
Roman Slave Market (after Jean-Luc Gerome)
Roman Slave Market (after Jean-Luc Gerome)
Disrobed, she stands, a young column of flesh and contour, shielding her face from the onlookers. They are mostly eyes, accustomed to human commerce, eyes, evaluating, eyes, set in the mold of avarice.
A few bidding hands extend from those who would make her their own.
What we see from our position on the platform is the length and symmetry of her long, white legs, the cleft and plump curve of her ass, dip of waist, strength of back, canted lift of shoulders to deflect. We are left to imagine her frontal appeal: we take from her for free.
To her left, clad in red, is the vendor of human chattel, gesturing in support of her worth. We can't hear him, except as a kind of blood memory, the cadence of his come-on, his tally of her features in a language coined and polished to attract.
A ring of faces edges the stage. From each, I ask for reasons. Their expressions are so mild, indicating the ordinary. One seems to debate with her companion the relative virtues on display given focal value, there, waiting.
Two women stand among the gathered spectators. One seems to debate with her companion the relative virtues on display. The other, given focal value, stares straight across the stage, connecting with the second slave, who is there, waiting.
Next up for view and purchase, this woman occupies the lower corner of the frame, blanketed in black, with one shapely arm revealed to communicate her humanity and sorrow. Is she thinking of the distance's measure, a diagonal traced through the painted air, across classes' grain, the relative rights of ease and autonomy of object and subject? For the moment, our eyes take that corner with her, see her position in the larger frame, before returning, almost against our will, for how does will measure up to desire?, to enjoy the central display of the naked slave's perfect, physical beauty.
A few bidding hands extend from those who would make her their own.
What we see from our position on the platform is the length and symmetry of her long, white legs, the cleft and plump curve of her ass, dip of waist, strength of back, canted lift of shoulders to deflect. We are left to imagine her frontal appeal: we take from her for free.
To her left, clad in red, is the vendor of human chattel, gesturing in support of her worth. We can't hear him, except as a kind of blood memory, the cadence of his come-on, his tally of her features in a language coined and polished to attract.
A ring of faces edges the stage. From each, I ask for reasons. Their expressions are so mild, indicating the ordinary. One seems to debate with her companion the relative virtues on display given focal value, there, waiting.
Two women stand among the gathered spectators. One seems to debate with her companion the relative virtues on display. The other, given focal value, stares straight across the stage, connecting with the second slave, who is there, waiting.
Next up for view and purchase, this woman occupies the lower corner of the frame, blanketed in black, with one shapely arm revealed to communicate her humanity and sorrow. Is she thinking of the distance's measure, a diagonal traced through the painted air, across classes' grain, the relative rights of ease and autonomy of object and subject? For the moment, our eyes take that corner with her, see her position in the larger frame, before returning, almost against our will, for how does will measure up to desire?, to enjoy the central display of the naked slave's perfect, physical beauty.
November 4, 2020
BIRTHDAY
She woke, thinking of the odds of specificity, gametes, timing. With a mother now dead and a father abstracted, or at least distracted, she had no expectation of fanfare. She brushed her teeth, imagining the terrain at Kanab, where she would hike today with friends, the strength of her legs matched to elevation, the power of her eyes to see vast expanses, volcanic craters, lava beds. It made her all the more resolved to fully inhabit her own life, to interact with the unthought world, to bring her attention to all that differed or cohered. "Happy Birthday to me," she sang to the mirror, and went to fill her day pack with what she would need today.
BIRTHDAY
She woke, thinking of the odds of specificity, gametes, timing. With a mother now dead and a father abstracted, or at least distracted, she had no expectation of fanfare. She brushed her teeth, imagining the terrain at Kanab, where she would hike today with friends, the strength of her legs matched to elevation, the power of her eyes to see vast expanses, volcanic craters, lava beds. It made her all the more resolved to fully inhabit her own life, to interact with the unthought world, to bring her attention to all that differed or cohered. "Happy Birthday to me," she sang to the mirror, and went to fill her day pack with what she would need today.
November 3, 2020
Holiday Plan
Jerome had been, at one time, quite the skier. He grew up in Zermatt, Switzerland, where the Matterhorn oversaw everything he did or thought. That’s what he told me, that the omnipresent peak had felt equally omniscient and omnipotent to the boy, dwarfed daily by such magnitude. Still, he’d learned to brave it, and had become fairly adept, both at maneuvering the slopes and in confronting great heights.
In the year we’d been living together in Hermosa Beach, we hadn’t so much as seen a snowflake, but that was about to change.
“Check the side closet,” Jerome called from the bedroom, where he presided over packing our suitcases, a job in which, he told me, the Swiss were born to excel.
In our tiny beach apartment, the living room closet was the deep repository of all things extra, seasonal, sentimental, and forgotten. I found his box of woolens, more scarves and hats than a California girl like me could fathom. I put it aside, knowing Jerome would have strong feelings about which would be best. I kept going deeper, excavating, a box holding all my old blue books from UCLA (maybe I would want to look again to see how well I’d described mass culture’s stabilization of a system of political domination), table linens I’d inherited from my grandmother, my old roller skates (a high school phase of accepting the look of my legs in shorts), but where were those ski masks buried?
Finally, I found a box with French writing on it. It was pretty heavy, but who knew. Opening it, I was stunned to see hundreds of photographs of Jerome – it took me a while to realize it was him – but it was, in hundreds of pictures, and in every one, he was dressed as a girl. There he was, Jerome, in a little red dress, bending to look out a low window with such an expression on his face, Jerome, casting a glance over a bared shoulder, Jerome, sitting in the lap of a man in a suit, the man’s hand tucked into his dress’s bodice.
“Did you find the masks?” Jerome called from the bedroom.
“Well –” I called back, not sure what to say.
When he appeared, a minute later, in the doorway, it took him the briefest of moments to see what I had unearthed. The air in the room stilled between us as a fissure formed.
Look at him, I thought, framed as he is, the length of his bare neck, emerging from his collar, the hesitation that revealed ambivalence and mystery in his lips’ parting. For a long moment, it was as if a soundless snow fell to fill the front room of our apartment, as if the horizon fell back to allow a widening expanse.
Holiday Plan
Jerome had been, at one time, quite the skier. He grew up in Zermatt, Switzerland, where the Matterhorn oversaw everything he did or thought. That’s what he told me, that the omnipresent peak had felt equally omniscient and omnipotent to the boy, dwarfed daily by such magnitude. Still, he’d learned to brave it, and had become fairly adept, both at maneuvering the slopes and in confronting great heights.
In the year we’d been living together in Hermosa Beach, we hadn’t so much as seen a snowflake, but that was about to change.
“Check the side closet,” Jerome called from the bedroom, where he presided over packing our suitcases, a job in which, he told me, the Swiss were born to excel.
In our tiny beach apartment, the living room closet was the deep repository of all things extra, seasonal, sentimental, and forgotten. I found his box of woolens, more scarves and hats than a California girl like me could fathom. I put it aside, knowing Jerome would have strong feelings about which would be best. I kept going deeper, excavating, a box holding all my old blue books from UCLA (maybe I would want to look again to see how well I’d described mass culture’s stabilization of a system of political domination), table linens I’d inherited from my grandmother, my old roller skates (a high school phase of accepting the look of my legs in shorts), but where were those ski masks buried?
Finally, I found a box with French writing on it. It was pretty heavy, but who knew. Opening it, I was stunned to see hundreds of photographs of Jerome – it took me a while to realize it was him – but it was, in hundreds of pictures, and in every one, he was dressed as a girl. There he was, Jerome, in a little red dress, bending to look out a low window with such an expression on his face, Jerome, casting a glance over a bared shoulder, Jerome, sitting in the lap of a man in a suit, the man’s hand tucked into his dress’s bodice.
“Did you find the masks?” Jerome called from the bedroom.
“Well –” I called back, not sure what to say.
When he appeared, a minute later, in the doorway, it took him the briefest of moments to see what I had unearthed. The air in the room stilled between us as a fissure formed.
Look at him, I thought, framed as he is, the length of his bare neck, emerging from his collar, the hesitation that revealed ambivalence and mystery in his lips’ parting. For a long moment, it was as if a soundless snow fell to fill the front room of our apartment, as if the horizon fell back to allow a widening expanse.
November 2, 2020
Blue Bedroom When she got back from three months at Aspenwood, everyone treated her like she might shatter into a million pieces; she mostly slept. In her room, with the door closed and the fleeced blanket pulled up to her chin, it was almost like before, but not quite. Her bedside table had been cleared of books -- she no longer had the focus -- and now there was a red rimmed saucer, holding the hour's pills. Blue had been her favorite color when the room had been painted two years ago, but not this blue that seemed to define only limits in 3D, a sky clamped down on domestic innerness, soundless now without the old clock, which they'd removed, when her parents read up on chronophobia. "Good morning, Felicia. Would you like a glass of orange juice?" Her mother stood framed in the doorway. Felicia lay in her bed, blanket to her chin. Her eyelids felt so heavy. "No, thanks," she said. "How about some cereal? We've got a whole bunch of new --" but Felicia shook her head, let her eyes close. "Honey. You've got to eat something, to get back your energy," Her mother had not moved. Felicia thought, she's afraid to enter my blue sphere. "Okay, then, you get some rest. I'll check back in an hour." An hour, Felicia thought, and it was its own kind of cellular entity, complete but semi-permeable. Without a lock on her door, anyone might enter -- her younger brother, her father, her aunt, each with questions and moods, smells and glances. And at some point, she herself would have to believe in a world beyond the blue barriers, a wold of chance and mishap, of downpour an decision. Her arms and legs worked fin. Her 13-year-old body had been fairly obedient. Her inner organs never spoke out, but continued to process food, let blood travel around, carrying oxygen and whatever else. True, her eyes could be fanciful and not always to be trusted, able to see lattices and axes that traced dispute and counterbalance, an ever proliferating wealth of intricate forces. What drew here, and it always had, was the creek that ran on the far end of the property, with the wilds beyond. She could hear the supple flexing of the flow from her bed. It said molten movement, response, inflection. It said gelatinous gestation, fragrance of rot and growth. Felicia knew the tracery of rivers and creeks was often compared to a circulatory system of arteries and that soothed her. When she was ready, maybe in a day or tow, she would leave her blue room to live again by its flow, soon, she'd make it out there, probably soon. |
|
November 1, 2020
From the bedroom window today, I figure we've got about 12 feet of water, up to just below the second floor. That's more than a foot since yesterday. I'm keeping the count in one of my good art books that has vellum paper, and I'm using a waxed pencil for the record. I figure that's the least I can do.
I've told the children, it's our responsibility to make our own account of this, as we can. They are 10, 8, and 6, Lucia, Leo, and Alma, all writing now, even Alma, with the heartbreaking details important to each.
"Today for LUNCH we had to move to the second shelf for a can of soup. Corn chowder. And I have to tell you that corn chowder is NOT my favorite, or my second favorite, or my third favorite. Mom said eat, so I did," Lucia wrote today.
"There's a weird, weird, weird smell off the water," Leo wrote. "Kind of a rot smell mixed with deezel. We have to keep the windows closed."
"The birds dont no wat is going on. They flap arown and land on brachs and call, wooooohoooo," Alma wrote. Right now, she is all about birds.
Lionel, my husband, left two days ago on our kayak, promising to return with food and word, but I've begun to worry. I can't even imagine what it's like beyond our view. Worry is my own personal climate now. For the children's sake, I've become like the heroine of a movie, always attuned to a moment's beauty.
"Look," I say, when something, who knows what, has exploded along the horizon. "Look at that echoing glow!"
I've taken down a jigsaw puzzled today, one of the only ones we have yet to open. It's of a field of flowers in springtime, all dots and dashes of bright colors. Its irony is not lost on me, but at least I know for sure it's complete.
"Come on, you guys," I call them to join me at the table. We haven't had electricity for weeks so we have just a few hours of the brightest light. They're back in their beds for comfort, Alma sucking her thumb again. "Come on!" I call. "Let's find the straight pieces that form the outline! Then we can work on the flowers. Just look at them all!"
From the bedroom window today, I figure we've got about 12 feet of water, up to just below the second floor. That's more than a foot since yesterday. I'm keeping the count in one of my good art books that has vellum paper, and I'm using a waxed pencil for the record. I figure that's the least I can do.
I've told the children, it's our responsibility to make our own account of this, as we can. They are 10, 8, and 6, Lucia, Leo, and Alma, all writing now, even Alma, with the heartbreaking details important to each.
"Today for LUNCH we had to move to the second shelf for a can of soup. Corn chowder. And I have to tell you that corn chowder is NOT my favorite, or my second favorite, or my third favorite. Mom said eat, so I did," Lucia wrote today.
"There's a weird, weird, weird smell off the water," Leo wrote. "Kind of a rot smell mixed with deezel. We have to keep the windows closed."
"The birds dont no wat is going on. They flap arown and land on brachs and call, wooooohoooo," Alma wrote. Right now, she is all about birds.
Lionel, my husband, left two days ago on our kayak, promising to return with food and word, but I've begun to worry. I can't even imagine what it's like beyond our view. Worry is my own personal climate now. For the children's sake, I've become like the heroine of a movie, always attuned to a moment's beauty.
"Look," I say, when something, who knows what, has exploded along the horizon. "Look at that echoing glow!"
I've taken down a jigsaw puzzled today, one of the only ones we have yet to open. It's of a field of flowers in springtime, all dots and dashes of bright colors. Its irony is not lost on me, but at least I know for sure it's complete.
"Come on, you guys," I call them to join me at the table. We haven't had electricity for weeks so we have just a few hours of the brightest light. They're back in their beds for comfort, Alma sucking her thumb again. "Come on!" I call. "Let's find the straight pieces that form the outline! Then we can work on the flowers. Just look at them all!"