drama

Two little girls.

Do I have the stamina to write of a tragedy as it occurs? of heartbreak as the figurative organ is cut, falters, and pumps onward? I am the war photographer who takes her pictures as her subjects die: I am present, yet I cannot stop the carnage.

I am speaking of a bittersweet vacation. I have just returned from a visit to my sister's house on the west coast. I just returned from the drugstore with my photographs of the two of us, smiling into the sun, into the freeze-framed moment, captured on film. I miss her so much it hurts.

Here I stop and rub my eyes. I am so fatigued. I am tired by the tragedy we call life and the lives of the people we love.

when I was in seminary, my sister left home. She was 16 years old and brave. She was 16 years old and stupid. She was 16 years old and miserable. She was 16 years old and, she was my sister, and she left home.

She left home because it stopped feeling like home. She left to find home.

At seminary, abroad, I would lie awake at night, my roommate and I with our duel insomnia--our shared homesickness and giddyness of being up at 2am--and so we talked about our childhood--not so distant past (and now that I think of it, an extention of the present). A few timezones away, and you tend to remember the funny sentimental things, school projects, pranks, our parents mannerisms, the odd kid in the class who smashed bees and got a kick out of it, the sleepwalking sibling, the time we collected lightning bugs and let them out indoors. Our stories were amusing, and enlightening because we now understood our parents from a distence. We had objectivity, we could see our past from a vantage point of "being-0ut-on-our-own-and-quasi-independant."

Sharing those stories, I appreciated my upringing more than ever. My folks had given me the best of every world, exposed us to beauty, culture, joy and quirkyness. Life was interesting. Freedom was granted, they trusted us to do the right thing, and we respected what they did for us and everyone was happy, at least, most of the time.

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There were two puppies in a yard. Both had collars, both had retractible leads. One puppy frolicked in the yard, ate grass, chased its tail, and occassionally ran until the lead was stretched to the limitations of its tauntness. The other puppy pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled, until the lead snapped one day. The puppy ran accross the street, dodging cars. Then it sat on the neighbors lawn and chased its tail, chewed grass and then turned around to stare at the old yard with big sad eyes. It then went further down along the street.
_______

The hope is that all children grow up and become adults. Parents are happy when their children choose a lifestyle that is based on values taught: but even then, the severing of the umbilical chord is always traumatic. Visiting my sister, I saw that the chord wasn't severed all the way: there were a few strands of tissue: the break wasn't clean, but torn and shredded, like a flower with a fibrous stem. You twist and pull the hearty stem from its firm root system, and the effort coats your hands in pale green sticky juice. The stem of the beautiful flower is a mucky mess of strands.

As we were saying goodbye at the airport I had one blessing for her. That the spats she has with my parents when she is 25, 30 and 45 are not the same reoccuring themes of the fights we have as 16 year olds. We need to move on, so that our disagreements can mature. It's a bleak way of looking at reconciliation: forgive and forget so that we may fight over other things? Ah, yes. see, that would be utopian--it would allow true freedom for my sister, it would allow our family to more on from what is now a four year struggle.

This trip was bittersweet. I saw my sister's fierce need to live her life as she so chooses. I see my parents expectations from her (and expectations never go away, especially when your child is your reason for living, your demigod). And like two bullets in the sky, it will be a far cry for these two views to meet somewhere in the middle.

Coming home, I asked my mother to make the trip to see my sister. She wont go. My mother's need for self preservation, is, well, she claims she is too weak for this trip, it would only make things worse. I understand.

In my sister's home, I begged her to understand my parents. Their expectations were too high, they tried to do what they thought was best, they didn't hate her by raising her in the lifestyle they did, they were concerned for her safety, her health, her welbeing. There are some things she can't forgive them for. this too, I understand.

Life is so short, you know? At the end of the day, can we become strong enough people to face the one's we love who have hurt us? I fear this wound can never be healed...

...I also feel arrogant and aloof by believing that this all can be easily solved, that this "situation" can go away. I want to stamp my foot and shout, "STOP it, already, you are all just being so SILLY!"

But I am me, and they are they, and this is between them. I can only be the cheerleader, the rah rah girl with the high kicking legs and Crest-white smile, the varsity lettered jacket, the supporter of the brave, ...and believe me, my pom poms are in my back pocket, I can take them out at any moment

The summer I was eight. There is only one photograph taken of me that summer, and it was not by my mother. 15 years ago our family had nine minus two equals seven. One dad, one mom and 5 sisters. All of those little girls; lined up along the wall, a sure hand marking our height with a chewed on pencil, and connecting those dashes--a perfect staircase family, one, two, three, four, five little girls, one exhausted mother.

In that photograph I stand squinting at the camera through large plastic eyeglasses. Pink, because I was a girl, and because the red made me look terrible. The pink weren't much of a step up. Plastic, so they would last a few falls. That summer, like every summer, I had splinters in my fingers, gravel in my knees from a breathless game of tag, or a climb up the old crabapple tree. I squint at the camera and my stance is rigid. Do I stand with arms stiffly at my sides out of fear of falling off my perch? or was it because I hated to have my picture taken?

Someone else's mother took that photo. H's mother who had a backyard daycamp, or maybe one of H's sisters watched us play in the kiddie pool for a few hours, or taught us how to make shimmering bubbles out of drinking straws and twisties fixed to the end, bent into an O. The perch was another homemade invention. In my neighborhood, being a cool kid meant having a parent with brainy ideas. Ideas that wuold hold our interest for a few hours. Like the invention I was stiffly standing on in that single photograph--a jumble of tires, a snake of cables holding them together--and oh, how wonderful, to clambor up to the top and tower above your playmates. One could chant repetitively, "I'm the king of the castle! (we couldn't finish the phrase "...and you're the dirty rascal!" because it was a meanie comment and someone would inevitably tell on you, at which point you would have to give up your lofty throne of glory)

If not for that picture, I would not remember that summer at all. Summers at home, those agonizingly long months dragged on endlessly. My parents did not believe they were there to entertain us. Boredom, they felt, forced children to be inventive and creative. But, oh, the boredom. When I shut my eyes and think of summer, I feel the dead heat, hear the fly's agonizing tsssszz against the back screen door, and the feeling of time stopped still.

We were inventive. We made musical instruments out of boards sanded, with nails pounded in, and rubber bands stretched accross those nails... One day, I made a birdfeeder out of a diper wipe container, wood, and bent wires. Dangerous? of course! but a smashed thumb is nothing when the results are so satisfying! We had a trampoline in the backyard, and and endless supply of sidewalk chalk...we would draw a gigantic gameboard accross the driveway, create a die out of an old box, and we ourselves were the gamepieces. We made air popped popcorn, and sour lemonade--the sugar always would sink to the bottom.

We walked to the library across the street; we had a thirty book limit (thirty books!) The library was always intimidating. Sure, I loved sweet Mrs. B. and the hard, green shag carpet covered couches. You could get styrofoam popcorn and feed it to the paper mache pig that was seated in a rocket ship above the bookcases (he's still there!). Or get a drink from the icy-cold drinking fountain; the water was so cold! freezing! I liked books that came in series: The boxcar children, little house on the praries, all of a kind family, the babysitters' club, barenstein bears, dr. suess, james stevenson, isaac b singer's short stories, shel silverstien's poems, make way for ducklings? blueberries for sal? paul bunion? where's waldo? so many to read! so little time! The summer I was 10 I correctly guessed all the items by feeling them through a slot in a shoebox, a twig, a chicken bone (ew, gross) a peice of lego. I won a $10 gift certificate to toys r us.

Lugging a stack of books to the counter was terrifying. What if you had a lost book, or even worse, a damaged book on your record? We had a secret name for the women at the desk: The eggplant lady. In the old days, we had no computers. Every book had a pocket, and in every pocket went a blue slip with the due date, and a white card that read, "please return this item with this card in the pocket. failure to do so will result in a $1 fine". Later, My mother would collect those white cards as we walked in the door and save them in her purse until the books went back.

My sisters liked reading outside, under the crabapple, lying on a blanket. I liked reading in bed. One could always enter another world; when I read I heard nothing, saw nothing but the words in front of me, was a million miles away.

Remember that feeling of being put to bed when it was still light outside? The nights were long, and hot, but the days were neverending. Twilight in the summer lasted for eternity, especially when you were thirsty. My dad used to tell us these long boring parsha stories (why did bedtime stories invoke such a distinctive monotone?). My mother, when she tucked us in the evenings, would created wonderfully strange tales of talking trees and gorrillas and clowns. Sometimes they were scary--I remember one character, the meatball man--a collossal strand of spaggetti with meatballs for eyes and wide gaping mouth--that terrified me for a month, so much so, that I had to leave the closet light on.

I don't know if you have ever heard Bill Cosby's bedtime ruitine of his childhood in Philly. Growing up, we always shared a room with a sibling, and a menagerie of stuffed animals (all Kosher animals...Toasty, the first traif animal to enter our residence, was a gift to a child post-surgery. I guess when it came to life and death matters, my folks caved in a bit on that one!). My favorite was a graying sheep with matted fur that had not sustained the 40 million washings she/he endured all that well. If you smashed his little snout in, he/she looked like a boy in my class (or so I thought at the time!).

One of my good, no great, friends recently read my blog, and emailed me this as a response.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


duct tape my soul down.
and then I shall be free.
as an animal in the jungle.
pick my own and eat it too.
life and liberty .

Duct tape her shut.
and I will philosophize and expound.
on a freedom, which knew no bounds.
Duct tape that soulful voice
and then I 'll sit with pride
I wont be always looking back
at my granparents potato sack.

duct tape it close,
let her suffer in silence
and I can order my cup of tea
and then drink it real heartily.

and even if her voice cannot be heard
she trembles so soft
duct tape her still.
with her my life is hancuffed
my dreams are stifled and chilled.

quiet that consience
her who makes me think
her who causes me shame and guilt
about one drop of ink.

Who fathered such a child?
born of stubborn ways.
finds me and then want to tame,
a man that grew so wild..

fated from the start-
am I meant to be that one,
the porter
with his baggage .
from the mind and back again
deep into the heart.

I want the duct tape - the boy cries
I cannot live without,
I cannot play a life long tug of war
with this devil called DOUBT.

but the aged men with beard a greying,
stroking it ever so,
have seen men come and seen them go,
speaking of ...
and have seen wars come and seen wars go
but the art is here.
talking of michelangelo.
The art is here,
it needs contrast, shades of sort, a pain of some type
a soul that witnessed depth and breadth,
that heard the songs that played
a soul that tasted tears of love and laughter of the pain.
a soul, split and ever torn,
cryptic and rosy with one too many thorns.

More of utter sameness

Too often I look at myself and utter: Bah HUMBUG! Sometimes its more like, "Giiiirl, whatchoo upto?" Occassionally I mumble, "not bad," but usually its more of a '"Yikes, watchit"

Today was bad. Another friend got engaged. woohoo. ...friend two went on sour date, friend three, friend four...everyone is busy busy busy.

and me? my lovelife is too odd to elaborate. Odd it is, and that always makes for a good story, but hey, 90% of my readers are my best friends, and you know enough about me, right?

Why not grab the backspace button with right pinky, and hold??? damn, I wish I could do that in the real world.

I read the paper every morning, and some days the front page makes sense-the politics, people, press...pressure...punditry...pandemic...phew.
some days I wish the world would stop spinning so I can catch my breath.

I developed some pictures from thanksgiving weekend. I look beautiful, and so do everyone else in the pics. Its amazing how good we look when we feel good. So don't look right now. I'm feeling a bit shitty.

Man of my dreams, can you come by tonight on your white stallion and take me out for coffee? we can leave the horse outside and tumble into starbucks, order gingerbread lattes and philosophise existentially.

Or, we can look into each others' eyes, and (cough)....ooops. didn't mean to scare you, dear reader

I think I really need to end this post. Can't believe this is all I have to write after a month...maybe I just should have waited.