They loom over the yard, the new townhouses, and Old Lady Mabel's yard too. Beige pressboard, they popped up in two weeks, built by workers who don't speak the native tongue and are willing to work on holidays and weekends for less pay than the few manual laborers left who were born here. They do a better job, too, with fewer expectations, because they're grateful, and they don't qualify for unemployment.
The parts of the yard they shadow are not so large, nor so significant. They leave in sun the persimmon and the apricot, the raspberries, the grape and the fig. What they shadow is so much larger. They are selling for half a million dollars, these new townhouses that are built where the old Head Start was, and after that the revival church. Old Lady Mabel's house never sold for that much. Maybe ten thousand, back in the day. They don't cast a shadow on her yard, to the south of them, and the neighborhood is grateful because she has been gardening in that yard for long enough that the soil is rich and crumbly and black, and anything she plants springs up in a few weeks time as lush and nourishing as Eden. She tends her rows hunched over in a flowered housedress, white-haired and slow, dark brown skin and sweet grandma voice telling you what crops she likes to plant in which seasons. "I do love the sound of chickens", she says, smiling, passing bundles of collards and mustard over the fence to her neighbors, "Always have, since I was a girl".
The townhouses don't care whose yards they oppress with their height and their sameness. They don't care about Old Lady Mabel and her stories. The people who build them don't care, because they are working and it's a paycheck to help feed their families. The investors don't care, because real estate is a surefire way to maximize their investments. Real estate never loses. Right? Right?
In the neighborhood, neighbors who bought at market peak couldn't sell their houses for what they paid, but maybe the new townhouses will change all that. Half a million! That could bring housing values up for everyone! Make our homes worth more than we paid for them, so much more. So we can leave. So we can get the hell out of the shithole neighborhood with the old lady who grows her own food and the crazy people with the chickens. A grand or so extra taxes per year is so worth it, if we can refinance and buy that Prius we've been wanting to go with our green lifestyle. And maybe the new neighbors will be the kind of people we've been wanting to live near, people with nice things, clean things, and no dirt in their yards. Maybe, just maybe.
Maybe all those good things will happen, and the new neighbors will pay their half-a-million dollars to move into those new green-construction townhouses, and everything will be so clean and so nice, and the new neighbors will complain to the city about the chickens, and the new neighbors will drive the property values and the property taxes up until Old Lady Mabel and the crazy people with the chickens can't afford to live here anymore, and the neighborhood will be so nice then, won't it? We can have such lovely dinner parties.
Or maybe, just maybe, the people with nice things, clean things, lovely earth-friendly things won't be able to look twice at those half-million-dollar townhomes with green construction and no yards, and they'll sit vacant for years, until the investors pull out and the contractor goes bankrupt and property values continue to slide and maybe the city will step in and force them to lease it to the Headstart program, or maybe they won't, but either way Old Lady Mabel will keep on growing her garden, and the crazy people with the chickens will go on trading eggs for greens. And no one will buy a Prius, or get out from under their mortgage, and the neighborhood will never, ever, get any better.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Dumplings
He acted like they were a damn miracle. Like he couldn't believe I would come over and cook just for him. He ate them slowly and very intently, meticulously scooping equal portions of chicken, vegetables, dumpling and broth into each spoonful. And then he fell asleep curled up against me on the couch, holding my hand. I woke him up eventually and made him go to bed, of course. This morning he got up ever so carefully and dressed, then he sat on the edge of the bed and bent over me, cradled his arms around my head. He pressed his cheek against mine, told me I could sleep in, kissed me and went to work. I can't get too attached to the feeling, but it was a good one. It's been such a long time since someone told me to sleep in and kissed me goodbye.
He acted like no one has ever just... taken care of him. Like it was a foreign concept.
He acted like no one has ever just... taken care of him. Like it was a foreign concept.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The girl I live with is a dumpster-diver, and through her I've become one too. We've been friends for a while now, but I'm not sure exactly how long... eight years perhaps? She is tall and blond, a classic beauty with a tiny waist and old-fashioned ideas. She is from a wealthy family, and travels abroad at least once a year. She is a graduate student of chemistry, and a talented artist. She brings new definition to the term "eccentric". Everyone always said that we were a perfect match, and now we live together in a house that is growing slowly more and more full of things, insane things which we made or found or were gifted to us anonymously by friends passing by in the night.
Mostly, though, it's filling with things from dumpsters.
I know that over time people have begun thinking of us differently. We are building our future out of the things we bring home, a future made out of pieces of other people's pasts. Each dumpster contains an entire story; a bankrupt church with old choir robes, conference tables and a broken organ, or the former crack house with filthy clothes and unsalvageable, vomit-stained furniture. There are some dumpsters that you know, before climbing up and peeking over the edge, that you would need a hazmat suit to climb into.
Some dumpsters tell you, in fragments night after night, about the person whose life is being emptied box by box into it, for portage to the landfill. The mildewed makeshift endtable at first tells of poverty, but soon boxes of toiletries start to tell a story of thriftiness, of always being prepared for the future. An entire case of shampoo; four boxes of Irish Spring. Thousands of tampons. She was a hoarder, the former owner of what is now trash. We guess from her hats and the brightness of her costume jewelry that she was black, and from the beautiful coat with a fur collar that she was imposing in stature. There are no religious mementos... perhaps she was an atheist, or simply not a churchgoer. Perhaps those things were given away to family. In the dozens of romance novels, we find a name written in the front cover. These things come to live with us.
In the neighborhood, we unfold our story as we go out night after night and retrieve pieces of other stories, bring them home to hoard in our history. We can see ourselves growing old, doing this; we can see the overwhelmed look on the faces of the executors of our estate as they say "What are we going to do with all this junk? Should we just get a dumpster?" Those old ladies that lived in that house... the neighbors say they used to go out at night and scavenge through the trash. Their house is full of junk, of strange things rescued from the dump. They always seemed normal enough when you talked to them, but you could see them bringing things home all the time...
Tonight we're visiting the dumpster of a lonely old man who lived on 13th. He was really into Westerns, and his Chinese pornography collection is amazing.
Mostly, though, it's filling with things from dumpsters.
I know that over time people have begun thinking of us differently. We are building our future out of the things we bring home, a future made out of pieces of other people's pasts. Each dumpster contains an entire story; a bankrupt church with old choir robes, conference tables and a broken organ, or the former crack house with filthy clothes and unsalvageable, vomit-stained furniture. There are some dumpsters that you know, before climbing up and peeking over the edge, that you would need a hazmat suit to climb into.
Some dumpsters tell you, in fragments night after night, about the person whose life is being emptied box by box into it, for portage to the landfill. The mildewed makeshift endtable at first tells of poverty, but soon boxes of toiletries start to tell a story of thriftiness, of always being prepared for the future. An entire case of shampoo; four boxes of Irish Spring. Thousands of tampons. She was a hoarder, the former owner of what is now trash. We guess from her hats and the brightness of her costume jewelry that she was black, and from the beautiful coat with a fur collar that she was imposing in stature. There are no religious mementos... perhaps she was an atheist, or simply not a churchgoer. Perhaps those things were given away to family. In the dozens of romance novels, we find a name written in the front cover. These things come to live with us.
In the neighborhood, we unfold our story as we go out night after night and retrieve pieces of other stories, bring them home to hoard in our history. We can see ourselves growing old, doing this; we can see the overwhelmed look on the faces of the executors of our estate as they say "What are we going to do with all this junk? Should we just get a dumpster?" Those old ladies that lived in that house... the neighbors say they used to go out at night and scavenge through the trash. Their house is full of junk, of strange things rescued from the dump. They always seemed normal enough when you talked to them, but you could see them bringing things home all the time...
Tonight we're visiting the dumpster of a lonely old man who lived on 13th. He was really into Westerns, and his Chinese pornography collection is amazing.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
This is the schtick:
"I'm a creative thwarted artist compromising my freedom for domesticity".
We all need to recognize that living our lives, normal lives that include basic amenities like, say, a comfortable home and the luxury of a partner, all requires sacrifice of something on some level, just as having freedom to pursue our artistic dreams fully would require sacrificing something else, like maybe having a partner and a comfortable home. It is a balancing act, for everyone all the time, and all of life requires compromise.
The stifled artist-angst thing is not something I have great patience for. For one thing, I consider it little more than a lame excuse; a cheap out from actually doing the work. If you're an artist, you can be an artist in a crappy apartment alone or you can be an artist in a comfortable home with a partner. Same artist. If you were alone in a crappy apartment, you would simply find another excuse for feeling like a thwarted artist; that blockage isn't coming from outside. That has always chapped my hide... the people who think they're being held back artistically by the comforts of domestic life. It's crap. All of it. And it's lazy, disingenuous crap at best. It may "feel" romantic to be a thwarted artist when you're in the throes of it, but in the end it's unproductive, creatively hypocritical bullshit that leaves you with no art and no fulfillment. It's the fucking Mentos of angst.
If you are a great person and a creative brain, an artist, and you think you are not fulfilling your creative potential, you need to look inside yourself for what's holding you up, not externalize it and project it on your relationship or your job or your life circumstances. Not on your home, your kids, or your partner. You need to recognize that you are not some fundamentally different creature; that others, too, have sacrificed and compromised and sometimes miss the single, free life of intellectual pursuit and hot 3-am makeout sessions and writing and being a star. Everyone does; every single person. Great artists have, and so have non-artists. But we all grow up and we all change the ways in which we pursue those things, and what sacrifice and compromise we make hopefully leads us to the growth of other things or other ways of expression that we wanted MORE.
"I'm a creative thwarted artist compromising my freedom for domesticity".
We all need to recognize that living our lives, normal lives that include basic amenities like, say, a comfortable home and the luxury of a partner, all requires sacrifice of something on some level, just as having freedom to pursue our artistic dreams fully would require sacrificing something else, like maybe having a partner and a comfortable home. It is a balancing act, for everyone all the time, and all of life requires compromise.
The stifled artist-angst thing is not something I have great patience for. For one thing, I consider it little more than a lame excuse; a cheap out from actually doing the work. If you're an artist, you can be an artist in a crappy apartment alone or you can be an artist in a comfortable home with a partner. Same artist. If you were alone in a crappy apartment, you would simply find another excuse for feeling like a thwarted artist; that blockage isn't coming from outside. That has always chapped my hide... the people who think they're being held back artistically by the comforts of domestic life. It's crap. All of it. And it's lazy, disingenuous crap at best. It may "feel" romantic to be a thwarted artist when you're in the throes of it, but in the end it's unproductive, creatively hypocritical bullshit that leaves you with no art and no fulfillment. It's the fucking Mentos of angst.
If you are a great person and a creative brain, an artist, and you think you are not fulfilling your creative potential, you need to look inside yourself for what's holding you up, not externalize it and project it on your relationship or your job or your life circumstances. Not on your home, your kids, or your partner. You need to recognize that you are not some fundamentally different creature; that others, too, have sacrificed and compromised and sometimes miss the single, free life of intellectual pursuit and hot 3-am makeout sessions and writing and being a star. Everyone does; every single person. Great artists have, and so have non-artists. But we all grow up and we all change the ways in which we pursue those things, and what sacrifice and compromise we make hopefully leads us to the growth of other things or other ways of expression that we wanted MORE.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
How about that story where the girl is in love with the guy, and has been for a long time, and he's basically her best friend except that they sleep together? Also it gets more complicated, but there's no real reason to go into that. It's complicated in the way everyone's lives are complicated, with divorces and kids and friends who don't know and damaged hearts and things that haven't been worked through yet and drinking problems and money problems and communication problems.
But in that story, which you already know because we all already know it, the girl is in love with the boy. The boy loves the girl but he isn't IN LOVE with her, for whatever reason, maybe because it's the wrong time or he's not over his ex or she's not the right girl. It doesn't matter. He's not cruel. He doesn't want anything to change because he likes it the way it is, the closeness and the friendship and even sometimes the sex. She likes it too. The sad part is that she likes it in a way that makes her feel like the only right and natural thing would be if he looked at her the way he used to look at his ex, which is also the way the girl looks at him. He avoids her eyes sometimes. The sad part is that she can feel in her little red fluttery meat heart how right it would be if they ate together, paid the mortgage together, slept together every night, were THAT THING for each other.
The sad part is that she knows she should cut it short, should walk away from the eyes that don't look at her that way and the hands that don't touch her that way, but she won't, because she loves him and she hopes that someday he will love her too, that way.
if I'm with you long enough
to whet our wills as we grow old
could you let me close
to breathe your breath
to touch your soul?
--Deb Talan
But in that story, which you already know because we all already know it, the girl is in love with the boy. The boy loves the girl but he isn't IN LOVE with her, for whatever reason, maybe because it's the wrong time or he's not over his ex or she's not the right girl. It doesn't matter. He's not cruel. He doesn't want anything to change because he likes it the way it is, the closeness and the friendship and even sometimes the sex. She likes it too. The sad part is that she likes it in a way that makes her feel like the only right and natural thing would be if he looked at her the way he used to look at his ex, which is also the way the girl looks at him. He avoids her eyes sometimes. The sad part is that she can feel in her little red fluttery meat heart how right it would be if they ate together, paid the mortgage together, slept together every night, were THAT THING for each other.
The sad part is that she knows she should cut it short, should walk away from the eyes that don't look at her that way and the hands that don't touch her that way, but she won't, because she loves him and she hopes that someday he will love her too, that way.
if I'm with you long enough
to whet our wills as we grow old
could you let me close
to breathe your breath
to touch your soul?
--Deb Talan
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
So hey
I met this guy. I wasn't sure at first, but he turned out to be totally fucking AWESOME. Smart as hell in a warped way, has kids himself, hits my wavelength. He gets everything, and the sex is fucking amazing. He's the second man I've been able to orgasm with in my life, and it's not for lack of sampling.
At first it was mostly a drunk-booty-call situation but then we started hanging out, and then we started hanging out more, and gradually he grew into a position in life as my best friend, and I realized one day that I was completely, shit-faced, fucked-up, ass-over tits in love with him. The only problem with this is that I'm married, and he's married-but-separated for the last year and a half.
It's been about eleven months since I met him. For most of the time I've been extremely diligent about squashing any ideas that deviate from the obvious option of friends-with-benefits, although deviant ideas have grown more invasive the longer I know him.
A month ago my husband declared, for maybe the 15th to 20th time, that he wants a divorce, and this time I realized that there is no way, no way even though I try and I compromise and I give him what he asks for as well as is within my capacity, that we can stop this cycle of coercion and threats and abandonment, so I decided to give it to him. Now he lives on my couch, and the love I have for my friend no longer has a compelling reason to be stopped pressing at my mind and my heart. There it is, ever present, ever dominating.
I have been in love before. Three times. The second time nearly killed me, and still, in retrospect, I don't know how or why I let myself fall in love a third time. This fourth time baffles me, it defies me. It is the hope that kills, it is the cynical laugh, it is the swerve that carries a carload of kids over the railing of a bridge.
The death of the third love has been a long, slow, lingering cancer. It is the memory of the regret of a long-ago deed. It is as real as the dying great-aunt I never write to. It is the last sorrow before sunrise, or the first one before sunset.
This which I feel for my friend, though; this guy... if I wrote it all down it would seem perfect, on paper. On paper, it is perfect, I suppose, except for this one thing; that he isn't in love with me. Perhaps he is still in love with his estranged wife, or perhaps he's just not recovered enough for love. Either way, he is blameless. I let myself into it. I walked in, open-eyed, open-handed, legs open.
I can't stay here. The multiple rejection is killing me, quickly and slowly at the same time, every day a thousand deaths, as they say. I know he cares about me, and that makes it harder and more tempting to stay, to hang around him, to sleep near him, to bring his body into mine in the hope that somehow, through intimate contact, he will start to feel what I feel. I could become that girl.
I won't become that girl. I won't be pitiful. I will ride my own destiny and not linger hoping for his heart to intersect mine. I will not look into his eyes and see again the absence of what my throat and belly and cunt ache to see.
I will keep putting my body under other men, until the imprint of his is obliterated.
At first it was mostly a drunk-booty-call situation but then we started hanging out, and then we started hanging out more, and gradually he grew into a position in life as my best friend, and I realized one day that I was completely, shit-faced, fucked-up, ass-over tits in love with him. The only problem with this is that I'm married, and he's married-but-separated for the last year and a half.
It's been about eleven months since I met him. For most of the time I've been extremely diligent about squashing any ideas that deviate from the obvious option of friends-with-benefits, although deviant ideas have grown more invasive the longer I know him.
A month ago my husband declared, for maybe the 15th to 20th time, that he wants a divorce, and this time I realized that there is no way, no way even though I try and I compromise and I give him what he asks for as well as is within my capacity, that we can stop this cycle of coercion and threats and abandonment, so I decided to give it to him. Now he lives on my couch, and the love I have for my friend no longer has a compelling reason to be stopped pressing at my mind and my heart. There it is, ever present, ever dominating.
I have been in love before. Three times. The second time nearly killed me, and still, in retrospect, I don't know how or why I let myself fall in love a third time. This fourth time baffles me, it defies me. It is the hope that kills, it is the cynical laugh, it is the swerve that carries a carload of kids over the railing of a bridge.
The death of the third love has been a long, slow, lingering cancer. It is the memory of the regret of a long-ago deed. It is as real as the dying great-aunt I never write to. It is the last sorrow before sunrise, or the first one before sunset.
This which I feel for my friend, though; this guy... if I wrote it all down it would seem perfect, on paper. On paper, it is perfect, I suppose, except for this one thing; that he isn't in love with me. Perhaps he is still in love with his estranged wife, or perhaps he's just not recovered enough for love. Either way, he is blameless. I let myself into it. I walked in, open-eyed, open-handed, legs open.
I can't stay here. The multiple rejection is killing me, quickly and slowly at the same time, every day a thousand deaths, as they say. I know he cares about me, and that makes it harder and more tempting to stay, to hang around him, to sleep near him, to bring his body into mine in the hope that somehow, through intimate contact, he will start to feel what I feel. I could become that girl.
I won't become that girl. I won't be pitiful. I will ride my own destiny and not linger hoping for his heart to intersect mine. I will not look into his eyes and see again the absence of what my throat and belly and cunt ache to see.
I will keep putting my body under other men, until the imprint of his is obliterated.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
I don't have anything else to say
I forgot how to write poetry a long time ago. Sometimes I eat the remnants, to remind me of the unreasonable heart that beats in my reasonable chest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
