Whooooaaaaa, We're Halfway There!

Hello sweet peas. Tell me, are you all still breathing? I’m about to re-enter the land of the living. I am freshly showered, cuddled up in a blue sweatsuit with my favorite blue blanket, and sipping One Glass of Wine™ (AKA half a bottle), but who’s keeping track? Definitely not me, since around 4 o’clock this afternoon I hit send on my last assignment of the semester. This morning, Facebook decided to remind me that exactly one year ago I was in my bed, surrounded by books. Coincidentally, that’s exactly where I was today, surrounded by different books. Except everything was better because this semester I managed to shower habitually, and I’ve done considerably less crying. I even managed to leave my house not once, but twice this weekend. She can be taught!

Hitting send on that email marked the halfway point of my Master’s program. This semester I wrote a chapbook, the first draft of a full length manuscript, about 25 pages of lit crit, and six pieces that found homes with print and online publications. I also managed to juggle three jobs and watch the entire backlog of “Fresh Off The Boat” episodes.

Next semester I’ll be teaching my own section of Intro to Rhetoric & Writing Studies (RWS 200), which is exciting/terrifying/daunting, because I’ll have students of my own who may or may not like me, and will probably most definitely not like the subject matter, and are being forced to learn it in order to go on and do the things they actually care about, like becoming engineers and doctors and mathematicians, but it’s my job to make sure they can think critically and write analytically, so fingers crossed we can make it fun and use less run-ons than I habitually thrown down in this blog.

Anyways, since I’ve spent the last year and a half getting me some high quality book learning, I thought I’d take this post-semester opportunity to look at some of the Real Life lessons that have been handed to me. Listed in order of importance (just kidding, it’s as they occur to me):

Office refrigerator tamales are a miracle, and should be regarded as such. Do not question where they came from. Do not try to find the glorious human who slaved over their exquisite husks and blessed you with them, expecting no compensation or praise. Do not rush your break room tamales. Savor them. When you return to the office, day after day, and there are no tamales, just stale, store bought cinnamon rolls with a dead fly caught in the sugary web of icing, do not begrudge the cinnamon rolls. Just fondly remember the miracle tamales.

Happy Hour is a trap. Or a lie. Sure, things like “Buy One Get One ½ Off” and “All You Can Eat Tacos, Just $6.95” seem inviting enough. Times are hard, am I right? Anything to save a couple bucks… No. What they forget to mention, as you’re ordering your BOGO margaritas is that each margarita costs the equivalent of one tank of gas, five Double Doubles, or 1/45th of your rent. Plus, Happy Hour always ends too soon, as if bars have tapped into some sort of warp speed time acceleration, and as you’re slurping down the dregs of your first drink, things are suddenly full price again. But of course, by then you’re just juiced up enough to think You know what, I work hard and I DESERVE this $16 craft cocktail, and let me tell you something: you’re so right. You do work hard, and you definitely deserve that cocktail, but you know what else you deserve? To eat for the rest of the month.

**Strategy to avoid Trap-py Hour: set an alarm for 30 minutes before the drink specials end. Not for you, because you’ll just ignore it, but for your friend who doesn’t drink and is willing to scoop you up and buy you five Double Doubles with the money you would have spent on one more margarita. I have not tested this strategy, but I feel as if it is flawless.  

It’s really best to pretend the turtle insurrection isn’t a thing, until it is. A thing. Let me explain. On the campus at SDSU there’s a burbling, tranquil pond next to Scripps Cottage, home to koi fish, decorative greenery, and a whole army of red-eared sliders. This is my favorite place to sit in the sun, eat a chicken salad sandwich, and consider the impending avalanche of responsibilities that I’ve been narrowly outrunning each semester. Generally, the turtles will perch along the rock, soaking up the same sun. Sometimes the turtles are wearing warpaint on their shells. And we just don’t question it. Nope, we sure don’t.

You can blame just about anything on the moon. Feeling melancholic? Well, it’s that new moon energy. You’re just plumbing the depths of your own psychic shadow phase. All amped up and nowhere to go? Chill boo, it’s just the full moon in Gemini. Or Aries. Or something about Mars? Real talk for just a minute: yes, I do believe that the alignment of the planets has something to do with the forces of energy down here on this big galumphing rock we call home. But, I also feel like astrology presents really great opportunities for introspection, and a space to examine your feelings, impulses, and personal growth. Plus, knowing a little something something about all those space rocks is a great conversation starter at your school-sponsored Meet n’ Greets. [Note: my go-tos are Chani Nicholas and Jessica Lanyadoo]

People don’t grow out of being lactose intolerant. Scientifically, it’s just not possible. No matter what your mom tells you, no matter how accustomed you’ve become to the pain, it really just… No. Luckily, science! There’s a handy little capsule that helps your body digest lactose, the natural sugar found in milk and dairy products. So listen, boo. If your internal windmills churn angrily when you eat dairy products, maybe you should look into just not.

The first 20 rows of an Alaska flight board last. Which means you can dally over the visit’s final sushi dinner, and still have an extra five minutes of crying in the parking garage before you have to say goodbye to your sweetie. True, sometimes you will still have to carry your shoes and literally run to your gate, but it’s worth it for those last few soggy sweet nothings murmured into the crease of your neck.

No matter how much you think you know your cat, you don’t. Things I have spent the last 7.5 years assuming were true: Murphy hates wet food, chewy treats, brushing, and catnip. Things Murphy has apparently loved her whole life: see above. It’s not easy trying to sleep with a stranger on my chest every night, but once you relax into the not-knowing, things really get easier.

Overuse of the word ‘awesome’ is a super American thing? For the past six months or so I’ve been the copywriter for a Dutch fitness and nutrition company… Ahem, pardon me. A “premium-lifestyle brand.” In that time, I’ve become uncomfortably aware of how frequently I use the word awesome to describe admittedly mediocre things. Avocado toast? Awesome. Getting out of class early? Awesome. Drinking a protein shake with green tea in it? Super-mega-AWESOME. [Note: If anyone has suggestions for a word that means the same thing as when Americans say awesome, I’d appreciate it. You’ll get a 10% cut of my copywrite pennies.]

Hanging out with younger people is a 50/50 gamble. Sometimes, you get to be the cool, cultured older sibling who pays for the youngsters’ drinks at your sister’s engagement dinner. Other times you’re the hyper-stressed almost-30-year-old who drinks too much at dinner and falls asleep on your sister’s couch, still holding a beer, while watching American Horror Story. If you don’t like those odds, don’t play the game. Also, I’m so sorry for drinking your beer, Emily. I owe you a 6-pack of something that isn’t pineapple flavored.

Caulking guns are a thing. Initially, when you decide to be a Grown Up and recaulk your shower instead of bothering your landlady to do it for you, you may be intimidated by the options on the shelves at Home Depot. Of course you’ll select the reasonably priced tubes of silicone, with their 7 year mold-free warranty. What you won’t realize is that those tubes aren’t meant to test your fortitude, and extracting the caulk from the tubes does not require strength of character. No. It requires a caulking gun. Through some miracle you may manage to caulk your entire shower using a screwdriver, a box knife, and the jammed knuckles of your own determined fingers. This is not advisable.

Ride the roller coaster. Go back for the purse. Watch the awful, hotel room tv movies, and don’t be sad that the bar closed at 11pm. I don’t know how many of you know this about me, but I’m not the best at last minute changes to plans. I like to put off the “super chill, go with the flow” vibe, but I have a habit of getting caught up in expectation. Call it a function of being a wordsmith, when the story is in my head already I have a hard time rewriting. But this past summer taught me that some of my favorite stories are the ones that were rewritten. The “waterfront” room, overlooking that creek that followed the underbelly of the overpass. The 8am hot tub soak, because we missed pool hours the night before. Arriving in San Diego at 2am, because we didn’t leave Santa Cruz until 4pm. Each of these improvisations feels like the perfect, sappy story, when co-written with the human I love.

[Note: can you tell I’ve poured my second One Glass of Wine™?]

I still don’t quite know how to explain the past sixteen months, and I’m not sure I’ll ever really find the words without them being overblown and sentimental. God knows you don’t read this for the overblown and sentimental… right? What I can say, considering Saturn left my sun sign at 10:30pm EST last night, is that I never expected to be this person, living this life. The other night, on the phone with my human I said, You know what? If I DID die and this life is just the story I’m telling, I would be glad because it would mean I finally learned how to be kind to myself. I hope you sweet darlings are still out there, living and loving and being your kindest selves. Feel free to share your life lessons with me, lord knows I need them…

Xoxo, my sweeties.

-b

Tell Me That You Love Me, Baby. Tell Me That It's True.

Tonight, like any good graduate student who happens to be studying, of all things, poetry, which is of course a type of writing, I left my house to do laundry and homework without my computer’s power cord, a notebook, or a pen.

I realized my mistake about the same time that all of the laundry was washed and loaded back into the car, my computer was at 21% power, and I had 3.5 hours to kill at the coffee shop on Adams before my dinner plans. At this point I had a few options. I could drive the 15 minutes home, navigating two different highways and taking my chances with the traffic. But of course, once I was home I’d be obligated to just stay there, diligently working, until it came time for dinner. Or! I could borrow the little green notebook that’s been living in my car and tracking my dog-walking miles (in the perhaps optimistic hope that my deductions would put a dent in the thousands I’m going to owe the government).

Since one of these options involved caffeine, and the other involved extra driving, I think I made the only logical choice. I tucked the little green notebook into my computer case, and headed inside to kill my laptop battery deader-than-dead before starting to brainstorm for my final Creative Nonfiction presentation by hand. What I forgot to remember is that this particular little notebook (green [slightly darker than lime but not quite forest], college rule, 80 sheets), was a gift. And as a gift, it’s a mausoleum to a past me, somebody I haven’t visited in July 24th, 2013.

Sometimes I like to play this game. It’s called, “If I were following the trajectory of X, then my life would look like Y.” For example, “If I were following the trajectory of my mother, then I would have an 8 year-old daughter instead of a 7 year-old cat” or, “If I were following the trajectory of my little sister, then I’d have been married for six years already.” Sometimes this game is comforting, it puts things into perspective and gives me insight into my own personal values. Ya’ll, let’s be real.  I just don’t think I would have been able to keep a child (or a marriage?) alive this long.

Tonight I played a slightly different version: “If I had been capable of loving others as much as they claimed to love me, then who and where would I be?” Another way to phrase this is “If I had felt worthy of the love others claimed to want to give me, would I still be who I am?"

The not-quite-lime-but-not-forest-green-either notebook was a gift from my girlfriend-at-the-time. A gift for the summer she spent in New York City, studying for her MFA in photography. She was going to be gone for 7 weeks. At the time this felt simultaneously easy to navigate and absolutely insurmountable. In the first few pages she wrote maybe we can keep notebooks for each other this summer and she wrote we can exchange them and not feel like strangers and she wrote I’m not afraid of your secrets and she wrote thank you. thank you. thank you.

A year ago, my heart asked How many times have you been in love? and I want to think that I took the time to give her a thoughtful response, but in retrospect I’m almost certain I rushed my answer the way I rush most things, and said, Twice when what I should have said is What does ‘in love’ mean, really? Does it refer to your feelings towards another person, the way they make you feel about yourself, or some strange and incomprehensible amalgamation of the two? What is the difference between loving, and being in love? What is the difference between love and tenderness?

(side note: whenever I know I am in love with my cat, it’s because she’s done something that makes my throat squeeze shut like anaphylaxis and I can feel my pupils dilating, like they need extra space to store all the joy, and even though she woke me up with her Crypt Keeper yowl at 4am, I can’t imagine my life without her)

At the beginning of this semester, I turned in a manuscript of poetry and my professor said The first section is really compelling, then you follow it with three sections of love poems and I wondered how she could see love when all I saw was loneliness. The girl who gave me the notebook said every person she met was a mirror. She was grateful because she needed them to reflect herself back to her so she could see who she was. And I said she was in luck, because I felt made of mirrors. I was perpetually reflecting back what people wanted or needed to see. See also: what people thought was intimacy was just their own need for closeness magnified and refracted, infinitely.

Here is what I know: I have said I love you to nearly every human I have been with, and I have meant it every time. They have said it back to me, and this also feels true in a way I can’t explain. So what is love? The first time somebody said those three words to me, it was a trap that I deserved to be caught up in. Is that why is so often sounds like an apology? Following my 2013 entries is a series of drawings from when I found words ineffectual and started drawing my demons. 2014-2015, these monsters are all open mouths and longing, all ghosts and agency conjoined with need.

I don’t know where all of this is going, except that I read the diary I thought I was keeping for somebody else, so our hearts wouldn’t be strangers, and I can see in it all of the desperate ways a younger me wanted to be seen, but was too afraid. I know, I know, I know that this particular relationship would never be right for me, but tonight I feel a small revived shame at the center of me for not being brave. So. To the poet photographer who viewed people as a mirror, here is perhaps my first honest and heartfelt reflection.

When we met, I was broken and dreaming kaleidoscope. I’m sorry my edges were so sharp. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to contain your big picture. I hope you’ve found somebody who reflects all the best pieces of you.

These days I’m feeling less mirror, and more deep, slow-moving water. There are things even I haven’t accessed, but I’ve been learning how to breathe and I feel more capable of diving deep. Thank you all for going on this journey with me.

xoxo

-b

Hello dream weavers. Guess what? Somehow it’s mid-November.

[note: don’t get bored, I’m going to talk about school for approximately one minute…]

This is significant because it means I’ll be turning in the final research paper of my third semester in just a little over one month, putting me at the halfway point in this crazy grad school adventure. [OK, that’s enough of that!] But perhaps just as importantly, it means we’re only two weeks out from my 29th birthday. I know, I know, hold the applause. Remember how I spent my whole life convinced I wouldn’t make it past my 27th birthday, and then somehow I did? Yes, it’s possible I actually died and this is all some afterlife fever dream (how else do you explain the Stranger Than Fiction situation where a poet named Tana Jean Welch is living in Gainesville, Florida and literally writing my life story as it unfolds?), but maybe, just maybe I’m actually still here and doing the damn thing.

Last week during my tutoring hours at the community college, a very earnest and very concerned student came in to talk to my coworker, her former English professor. Between her wild hand gesturing and aggressive semi-whispering, I deduced this girl was trying to make some Big Decisions. After all, she’s 19 or 20 years old, the age when the Decisions We Make will impact The Rest of Our Lives.

And I laughed, remembering a 21 or 22 year-old me, saying to Lucy I just think we’re at that age where we’re becoming the people we’ll always be, you know? I want to make sure I’m becoming the best me. That conversation went down approximately one year before I would make the series of destructive, drunken, borderline sadistic decisions that led me to Portland, where I floundered along, learning to be less destructive and sadistic. Where I started making the decisions that would eventually lead me here: a Japanese restaurant in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego [note: they have a hell of a Happy Hour and an $8 spicy tuna rice bowl that is literal heaven].

Was I making decisions that would impact me the rest of my life? Yes of course. Was I becoming the person I would always be? No, absolutely not. The thing I’m learning about decisions is that they’re more like altimeters than street signs. They’ll tell you where you are (in all your glorious ups and down), not where you’re headed, or where you’ve come from.

This girl wants to be A Writer. She wants to know if she’s Good Enough. She is afraid of Selling Out and Playing It Safe. She is afraid of Not Having a Safety Net. Ahh, memory lane.

Fact: I only went to college because a high school teacher didn’t want me to die still working at the diner in my hometown, so he literally kidnapped me, hovering over my shoulder while I filled out my application to University of Montana.

Fact: I declared myself an Anthropology major because I had a crush on my friend, who happened to be an Anthropology major (and, unlike an English degree, there was no foreign language requirement for graduation). We dated for nearly three years. We had a dog and a cat. We inevitably didn’t work out.

Fact: After graduation and the breakup, I had no idea what I was doing. I worked as the General Manager for a doggy daycare until depression and alcohol abuse brought me right to the edge of being fired. I dated the first “love of my life,” and spent over half our relationship setting us both on fire. I decided to pursue a career as a rugby player. I promptly blew out my knee, at which point I pulled some David Copperfield shit, and “disappeared” my problems by burning bridges and skipping states.

Fact: In Portland, I worked almost five years as a receptionist in the veterinary industry, but at parties I introduced myself as the “Marketing Director for a local specialty clinic,” because I was ashamed that I spent my days scrolling through Facebook and answering telephones. I learned how to drink a whole bottle of wine without blacking out. I dated. I made some good decisions, and some bad decisions. I started writing poetry, and it was just as angsty as the stuff I filled notebooks with in high school, but I was suddenly no longer afraid to read it on a stage in front of strangers, and they seemed to dig it. I was nominated for some awards, I published some things.

Fact: I applied to grad school because of a breakup. Because the second “love of my life” didn’t love me. Because I was hurt and angry, and I didn’t want to be in that town full of memories. Because I wanted her to see me doing fine without her, even though I wasn’t and didn’t think I ever would [spoiler alert: I was wrong] Because was learning, slowly, that you can’t treat real people like background characters in your stories. They have their own agency.

Fact: Currently, I can say in all honesty that studying for my Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) is the hardest, most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have always been A Writer (link: Floorplan/Rusty), I have always been Good Enough. I don’t regret a single step in this crazy, circuitous journey.

So I told this to the girl making her Big Decisions, and I told her about my cohort: the retired construction worker, and the former librarian, and the mammal fresh out of undergrad, and the mother whose body rejected a job in the beauty industry, and I told her If you want to be a writer, you’ll write, and you’ll never stop writing, and if you’re meant to go to school, you’ll find your way.

I don’t want to act like I have all of the answers. This morning I had a sleeve of saltines and a whole French press of coffee for breakfast. I bribed myself to do laundry with a YA graphic novel and a bottle of sake. Tonight, I’ll go bump elbows with the staff of Fiction International (who happen to be some of my closest friends down here. I know, it’s like totally no big deal) at the new issue release party. In four days I’ll board a plane to spend Thanksgiving and my 29th birthday in Portland with the silly little familia that loves and supports me from 1,000 miles away.

Recently, I texted Lucy. I said I don’t know what to write. She said:

One time you were really drunk when we were dating-- like really blacked out, didn’t know who I was, or where you were. You kept biting me as I tried to put some pajamas on you—like you were incoherent but you were fighting back no matter what. Sometimes I think about that because… I feel like you saw yourself as weak. But you were really strong, you fought for yourself even when you didn’t know you were doing it.

None of this is easy. But it feels right like the essence of purple, which is to say god. It feels calm like blue heron. Like waking up and knowing I’ve been dreaming poetry. Even when I feel weak, something somewhere inside me is fighting.

Happy almost Thanksgiving, kittens.

Xoxo,

-b

A Brief & Incomplete List: Ways My Life Might Resemble a Roller coaster

The idea is generally better than reality. Like, standing in the line, you’ve got the sun on your shoulders and butterflies in your belly, wondering what’s coming. Starting out, the whole situation feels like possibility. But once you’re strapped into your safety harness, you realize it was all pre-planned by someone, somewhere, who doesn’t really care if you have fun long as the admission has been paid. It was a lot more fun when I was younger. Back then, I never wanted to get off the ride. I’m positive there was a time before this persistent nausea, back pain, and general feelings of malaise. These days, it’s best to relax into the ride.  Resistance leads to whiplash, at best. There’s always another unexpected drop, twist, or turn right around the corner. So really, there’s no point in expecting any sort of consistency. After that first drop-off, the anticipation of the beginning of the ride, you’ll be sideswiped by literally everything. You will squander that "one-in-a-lifetime" opportunity, your pets will die, you’ll waste so much time watching Netflix that your life will pass you by… so you might as well relax and enjoy the ride. After all, the only constant is unpredictability. It’s better with friends and family. Today, my little sister got engaged and I’m an English major, so I can’t even count how many times her best friend cried. Seriously, if ya’ll are riding alone, I know you’re lonely. The older I get, the more important daily maintenance becomes. Maybe it’s more reassuring to not think about the real life human beings who make sure roller coasters are tight where they’re supposed to be tight, and greased where they’re supposed to be greased. That moving parts move and staying put parts stay put, and the safety mechanisms don’t fail. I wish I had a crew or a finely-tuned machine to do the same with my life and body. Instead I have tacos, whiskey, and a gym membership.

No matter how carefully you plan, things go wrong. Like, I'm sure the guy who built the Big Dipper at England’s Battersea Park Fun Fair never expected all those fatalities, but sometimes life throws you curve balls you aren't expecting, and really, what are you supposed to do? Call it quits, throw out the baby and the bathwater? Close down the whole park? Well, if you're like those guys then... yeah. That's exactly what you do. It’s incompatible with pregnancy. I think that says plenty... You can’t stop once you’ve started. I mean you could. But it would be either be incredibly boring or incredibly disastrous, since you’d either be stuck on the tracks or coming off them. Nah, despite the ups and downs I think it’s best to keep your limbs inside this ride.

After awhile, you get used to the screams and everything seems almost… peaceful?

Love you, creeps. Keep keeping it real.

Xoxo - b

The Exchange

“I want to give you something, or I want to take/something from you. But I want to feel the exchange…” - Ada Limon, “How Far Away We Are”

Whenever I miss smoking it’s because I don’t know what to do with my hands. There was always something so satisfying about the ritual, a singularity of purpose. Come home, dig through the heap of dirty laundry for the lighter stashed in some back pocket of some pair of jeans, wait for the landlady to be settled upstairs, because I hated when she’d surprise me in the backyard. I’m not great at making conversation when I’m caught off guard. Sometimes it was the only deep breath I’d remember to take, that first drag sucking the smoke into that aching chest place.

I have been shouting into this void with increasing unreliability for almost six years now. Almost as long as I’d been smoking. 192 posts, at least a hundred thousand words. A handful of relationships, two cities, one notoriously rotten cat; this blog is a life that’s doing its best to look like mine. Whenever I miss this writing it’s because I don’t know what to do with my mind. With my heart.

This afternoon I woke up from a nap to the earthquakes in my blood rocking me awake, but gentle. Not like a disaster, but like waves, and it made me lonely for last summer, how water and moonlight seduced us. How it swallowed us up, naked and rum drunk, burning with something we didn’t understand quite yet, while our friends watched from the banks. I swear, earlier this was poetry. I could feel it thrumming in my fingertips. There were strident verbs and resonant nouns, and so much musicality, but now there’s just my brain feeling all soft and bruised around the edges.

I text T to ask her who left the gravity running on high all afternoon? When did everything get so heavy?

This semester I’m taking a manuscript class, which means doing this terrifying thing: letting people read and critique my poetry. Now, obviously I understand that I’m in a poetry program, so this comes with the territory. And yes, of course, people have read and critiqued my work before. But there’s something different about compiling these pieces, stringing them together. There’s something about holding the thing, feeling the actual heft and weight of it in my hands. I called it Poverty, and didn’t fail to notice the irony in how much it cost to print 14 copies.

After reading it, my mentor asks What does home mean? Why do you spend so much time looking for it?

This year I’m living in split screen. Home, on this street, where the addicts next door scream on the weeknights until police lights burst like blossoms on the outstretched splays of the front yard succulents. Where coyotes lurk in the shadows of the carport, their breathing hushed like the rush of traffic on the interstate. Home 1,092 miles away. Home, always something outside of me, something to get to. Something to make, or to search for. I say I don’t want to live here and the Sensai Bear says give it three years. She says You are stronger than you believe. Always have been, always will be, or something to that effect, and I’m reflecting back on Mary Oliver and her wild geese. This need to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves, even if it means bared teeth and savagery to protect the softest parts of me. I am tired of men taking my poetry like they’re doing me a favor. I am ready to jealously guard these things I am shaping as they shape me.

I want to give you something. I want to take something from you.

Xoxo 

-b

I've Been a Hungry Ghost

Last spring, I sat in a room while my she-hero prowled between the tables and answered the question we were each complicit in not asking: How do I write a story? Start with the body, she said. Always return to the body.

She said start with the body, and this morning I woke up, but I woke up with that throbbing that’s too central to be heart and too high to be stomach, and I wondered again how much a pancreas weighs. Can I hold it in one hand or two? When I ache in that place, I take one palm and press hard, like on tv shows, how professionals will hold a scared child until that child stops thrashing. If I pin my pancreas’s little fists, will it stop punching so hard? Will it stop being a scared child, stop throwing tantrums. Will it grow up, grow out of this, become an honor roll student, be the sort of pancreas that never runs stop signs, and is careful not to overdrink or speak out of turn? Maybe my pancreas will earn a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe my pancreas will find a cure for cancer. Or maybe my pancreas will explode while I sleep. You never know about these sorts of things.

This week, temperatures in Portland peaked at 107 degrees. It’s stupid hot, the air cloying. The air oppressive. The air holding us hostage. Holding us captive, like an audience. Like we’re an audience, this magician suspends our breath and sweat, look at this trick. Right before our eyes.  One sleight of hand keeps all that moisture in the air until we’re nearly drowning rather than breathing. So each day, as the heat wave breaks over us, I leash the dog and we stumble, totter, trip our way down the steep staircase into the basement’s blessed chill.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, I’m living exactly where I joked I would be.

There the dog spreads her bones out on the cool concrete and sighs. There she can breathe easy while I grapple with words. While I try to transform letters into dollar signs. While I empty my head to fill my bank account, and the heart goes on with its heady little woosh woosh woosh unnoticed until it misbehaves, like so many other things. At the end of the day, the first girl to see me inside and out comes down those stairs and curls herself into me. Last year she may have been a back alley apparition, but now she’s weight, and breath, and warmth, and soft; so much her to remind me what it is to feel like me.

Return to the body. Sometimes I get this electricity in my hands and feet that can only escape if I cry. Return to the body. I can’t tell the difference between sick and sad. Return to the body. There are days with too much gravity. Days when everything gets so heavy I have to crawl to get anywhere, so I just don’t bother. Return to the body. Some days I am sick with gravity. Some days I am sad with it.  Return to the body. I don’t want to want so much, but thank you for giving it. Return to the body. My body is going to betray me. Return to the body. Every time I drink myself blind, I think I am one step closer to dying. Sometimes that scares me and sometimes it’s a relief. Return to the body.

These long summer days I feel so transient that it is a strange thing to have a body. To be bound by its requirements. To eat, and drink, and sleep, and bathe, and be forced to confront the fact that even when no place is my place, I will still have this body with all of its complicated history and impulses and needs. So I eat triangles of honeydew out of the fridge with my bare hands and lick the cold sweetness from my fingertips, while sweat drips down the backs of my knees and I realize this too is what it means to be alive.

xoxo
-b

Open Letter Series: #8

To my silly clown car:

In retrospect it’s easy to convince myself I loved you from the first moment I saw you. If I’m honest, I didn’t. You were one of three cars I test drove that day, and your performance was less than exceptional. Everything about you felt flimsy, like driving a Go-Kart down the freeway. The way every sound and rumble of the ground underneath you reverberated through my body. How you needed the windows cracked, even though it was winter in Oregon, and probably drizzling. Choosing you was one of the more difficult decisions I’ve ever made, but you were affordable and I was desperate. I’d been car-less for nearly a year when I found you. After Seabiscuit, the ‘99 Dodge Neon blew a headgasket and bled out on the St. John’s Bridge, I turned to public transit. I tried to reason with myself, the usual Think of all the money you’ll save! No more car insurance, no more overpriced gas… You can spend that time writing, focusing on personal development, reading. No. These were all beautiful lies I told myself. First of all, a bus pass at the time cost $5 a day. Working five days a week, I was paying $100 a month to spend three hours a day coming or going. Second, if I focus on anything other than the ceiling of the bus while riding the bus, my insides try to become my outsides. Nobody needs the embarrassment of being a Public Transportation Puker. Still, I was broke. And again, being honest? Lazy. It took one supremely creepy gentleman nearly following me home from my bus stop for me to find the motivation to start looking for a new car. I found you after about a week of half-hearted research and number crunching. That first night, after jumping through what felt like miles of paperwork, I followed Henrietta the Fit home. Parked you across the street from A’s house. When I woke up for work the next morning, somebody had clipped your driver side mirror. Carrrl. This should have been a sign. Over the course of that first year you were towed and backed over by an F-350. You charged headlong into the bumper of a very nice family waiting in line for dipped cones at Dairy Queen. Eventually your simplicity won me over. There was no vast, space-era console. No backing cameras, no bells and whistles (or insulation, or even temperature gauge). Hell, there wasn’t even a stereo. You had a smooth and empty plastic console where the idea of a radio belonged, like genitalia on Barbie dolls. For as much as I loved you, I was also embarrassed by you. You were cheaply built. You constantly smelled like sweat and rot, and sounded like the cargo hold of a jet cruiser, even cruising slowly through residential neighborhoods. Inviting somebody to ride in you felt vulnerable, like asking somebody to watch your favorite movie and realizing halfway through they think it’s terrible. I wasn’t embarrassed by you, but by my love for you. Now thanks to a series of reckless choices and questionable decisions, you’re gone. When I told my friends and family about the accident, their immediate concern was for my physical well-being. I’m fine. But I’m coming to terms with the actual weight and significance of this loss. You were a symbol of independence, of taking control. A thing I did for and by myself, even if I did it poorly. And that’s what sits at the heart of this, I guess. Saying goodbye to you feels like saying goodbye to the me who was responsible for you. So: goodbye and thank you. Thank you for keeping me safe. Thank you for starting reliably every time except that one time. Thank you for transporting me and That Cat to this place we call home, which feels somehow pretend just like you did. Like it’s play-acting at real life.

This week, thanks to the generosity of a friend, I’ve been viewing the world from the vantage point of a Jeep Liberty. Even with the seat pulled forward, I have to slouch down low and stretch to pump the clutch, my shin knocking against the steering column. I feel simultaneously foolish and unimaginably powerful bouncing around in that beast. I’ve started searching for your replacement. This go-round I have time and insurance money, and a sweetheart that knows what she’s talking about when she’s talking about cars. I’m going to be alright. Rest easy, old friend.

-b

The Singular Beginning of Your Smile

my love is building a building
around you,a frail slipperyhouse,a strong fragile house


I grew up in small town Montana in the era of cats you didn't feed and dogs chained to backyard trees, which maybe is still the current era for small town Montana, but it's been a long time since I was growing up there.

I loved those dogs. Those half-wild things that would pant and pace in the house, more comfortable in the fenced half acre. How I'd quick, walk to buy them cans of Alpo on increasingly dubious credit. How Ken at the Market would fold his arms over his chest and joke, Buying dinner for your dad? and how my dad would always call him an asshole, but I didn't know if he was joking.

When I was seven or eight I worried about my dog, thought it wasn't right for her to be chained outside through the Montana seasons, sometimes all four of them in one afternoon, or so they say. I wanted to give her something. I wanted there to be something that was hers. So with all the haphazard industriousness of childhood, I cleaned out my old playhouse.

It was made of plastic, thick white double-paned plastic walls with a green plastic roof, designed to look like shingles. Plastic windows with yellow plastic shutters, and a plastic red brick chimney clinging to the side.

a skilful uncouth
prison, a precise clumsy
prison(building thatandthis into Thus,
Around the reckless magic of your mouth)

My little house had fallen into disarray. It was dirty and spider-ridden, all webs and dead leaves. Sweet smell of decaying leaves, thick dust and rain-river streaks of dirt. I dragged the garden hose into the backyard and spent that afternoon, that hot afternoon, scrubbing and spraying and transforming that little house into a proper shelter. When I was satisfied, I dragged it over beneath the tree. The tree where the dog was chained. Where the chained dog had dug out her dog-sized hole between the thick gnarl of roots, and spent her hot afternoons panting and snapping at flies.

Inside that house I put her water bowl, a heap of blankets, a bowl of kibble. Calling her over, she hesitated outside that red plastic half door, swung wide open on its plastic hinges. Come on, Mogwai. This is for you, a real home for you. She didn't trust that house, but she did trust me. I lured her in, patted the blankets so she would lie down and feel comfortable and know that I loved her. She inspected the blankets. Inspected her food and water bowls. Stretched out on the one bare patch of grass inside that plastic house, which did not have a plastic floor.

She was stretched out there, panting, looking at me in a way I took to mean Thank you when I noticed some spiderwebs I'd missed. I didn't think, I just slipped out and grabbed the hose. Turned that water full blast onto the plastic side of that plastic house, where the dog was still chained to her dog-chain tree. I can’t imagine how that blast of water must have sounded from inside. What I do know is I realized I'd made a mistake almost immediately. What I do know is she burst out of that swinging red half door screaming.

my love is building a magic, a discrete
tower of magic and(as i guess)

Lately I've been feeling a lot like that dog. Like I want something nice but don't trust it. Or lately I've been feeling like that child me, wanting so hard for everything to be perfect that it ends up ruined. A spotless but still vacant house. I was never able to talk her back inside once the damage was done.

when Farmer Death(whom fairies hate)shall
crumble the mouth-flower fleet
He’ll not my tower,
                        laborious, casual

where the surrounded smile
                                hangs

                                          breathless

Make My Limbs Your Crazy Meal

My culinary habits are like a mausoleum of love.

From childhood I learned how to fold Crisco into a batch of sour cream and chive biscuits, how to resist the urge to mix it smooth because sometimes less is more.

My mother taught me you don't just glaze a meatloaf-- you fold an equal portion of honey and ketchup into the meat, eggs, and breadcrumbs with a heavy dose of salt and pepper. Taught me to bubble the corn tortillas in a cast iron skillet of hot oil, because singed fingertips are a small price to pay for a perfect bastardized batch of enchiladas.

When was I taught that you toast each piece of bread before hollowing out the center to stabilize the egg, fried in butter? Eggs in a basket, toad in the hole. I know when I was young, I learned that even cabbage is best when fried in butter. Still the secret to grilled cheese is Miracle Whip, spread liberally on the outside of each piece of bread. Something about sugar content. Something about caramelization.

The secret ingredient in the family marinade is Chinese mustard. Spaghetti sauce? Worcestershire and brown sugar. Ask me about Louisiana taco salad, I'll tell you about potlucks and picnics; the night we tried Frito Scoops instead of the originals and the proportions were all wrong. How every innovation is an opportunity for regret, but you fill your stomach and feel glad anyways.

From first love I learned the art of free-styling. How to fashion a feast from mushroom soup, how to feed on the scavenging of a parent’s well-stocked pantry. Not mine, but hers. Green beans and macaroni. Our one botched batch of corned beef. With you I survived the cereal and beer diet. Discovered Tomato Delight. Knew intimately the taste of wanting more than your means.

Next came the romantic era of experimentation. My chicken vindaloo was dry and too spicy though I had painstakingly followed the recipe from that fine dining magazine. You ate every bite anyhow. Remember your bow tie noodles? The soggy chilaquiles with too much broth, not enough lime? I remember that even though you were a vegetarian, you made me that pot of chili that summer. I don't remember how it tasted, because it didn't matter. Butterscotch pie and fresh bananas. A recipe I'll never be privy to. After you, it took me a full two years to realize a single package of mushrooms could be stretched through up to three meals.

Next, the girls who cooked meals that never left me feeling full. Still I won't forget you.

Then. Penzeys. Bacon wrapped dates. Carcinogens in baked sweet potato skins. The versatility of Trader Joe’s sausage. She texted me once that since dating me, she'd changed the way she cracked her eggs and I thought Maybe that’s love. Maybe that’s enough. Thank you for teaching me the art of baking bacon. I swear, my life will never be the same.

And finally from you. The giant jar of garlic in the fridge, pre-minced so I don't have to dirty my hands. A new affection for fresh herbs. A new desire to let things develop their own flavor. Slowly. Slowly. Darling, there is so much I want to learn from you. So much I want to share. When you wander through the mausoleum of my cooking, I want you to taste the unravelIng thread of love leading me to this: you in your sleeping shirt, dicing vegetables in the hallway of my kitchen while the sweet potatoes fry into a string shoe crisp. How we wrapped them in fresh tortillas with black beans and slow-scrambled the eggs. The habanero sauce overwhelmed our mouths, which we pressed together anyways. We used slices of fresh avocado to cool the bite.

I want you and I to be a new recipe. Let me mix this ketchup and honey into your meatloaf, laden as it is with leafy green treachery. Or maybe you can teach me the secret to that dairy-free hollandaise you studied up on. I'll teach you the hard earned ingredients of my peanut sauce decade. How rice vinegar offsets the richness of soy sauce and brown sugar. Let our love be plump and well-fed, like my heart has been since it discovered the taste and texture of your affection. Let it be flavorful and bursting with our past experience and new discoveries.

Please, be the fragrance of new in this mausoleum of cooking. It may take some time for the flavors to fully develop, but I swear this fusion of our lives will be worthwhile.

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright. In the Darkness of the Night.

My dearest friends and readers.

Much has transpired since my last correspondence. I am sure many of you had presumed my untimely demise, considering the extent of my silence following the “full anesthetic procedure.” Do not grieve for me! I survived, though the devilish fiends kept one of my molars. A grisly souvenir. Now when I bite Mother, she wriggles her finger into the hole their thievery left behind and mutters “Nice try, gummy mouth.” I abide this mockery in pained silence. Given Mother’s delight at this gap in my defenses, I do not doubt “The Doctor”  will come back for the rest of my teeth in due time. I remain more vigilant than ever, waiting with the patience of a stone Buddha for the hour of my escape.

Due to recent developments, I suspect it grows nearer every day. First and foremost, Mother has added another prisoner to the ranks. I do not know where she came from, nor can I determine what species this enchanting creature attributes herself to. She has been reticent during our interactions. I can only assume the ongoing trauma of Mother’s depravity has rendered her voiceless. Mother calls her Beaux’a. Friends. Either my solitude has driven me completely mad, or she is the most beautiful creature to grace my vision. I could gaze upon her lithe and flowing form each day and never be satisfied.

Of course, Mother’s only true delight is pitting us against each other. Like gladiators grappling for glory beneath the bored eyes of the Emperor, we are forced into the aggressive and unending dance of violence. Because I fear what Mother’s retribution might be should we fail to entertain, I have taken it upon myself to ensure a worthwhile show. While Beaux’a writhes about, I fling my body skyward with surprising grace. I caper madly, and blindly swing my sheathed claws. I can only hope the artistry of my acrobatics will ensure Mother never discovers the truth: I would rather die a thousand fiery deaths at the hands of Beelzebub than harm a single feather on Beaux’a’s… head? Body? 

Under cover of night, I meet with Beaux’a privately to discuss our escape. I cradle her close to my body and smooth her ruffled feathers with my sandpaper tongue. The soft, glowing embers of my love warm us through the long nights where Beaux’a and I recline on the cold concrete floor. I cannot bring myself to abandon her for the comfort of Mother’s bed.

The second important development was a third visitation by the Steppes Mother. [Note: I can only assume that this moniker means she hails from the high, grassy wastelands of East Asia or Siberia. Either that or she is in fact the Steps Mother, an expert in all variety of dances. Based on my observations, the former is much more likely than the latter…] I do not know what incantation Mother uses to call her forth, but I feel this was not the last I will see of her.

The first time the Steppes Mother appeared at our doorstep, she struck fear in my heart. She entered, rolling behind her a loudly vibrating bag full of torture devices. They tried to reassure me, after the fact, that it was only a toothbrush. I have never in my life heard a toothbrush make such horrifying sounds, and remain convinced she had evoked some demon or other to taunt me. I remained leery of this new mother figure for a full thirty minutes. 

Upon her second arrival I was sure the Steppes Mother was here to stay. For half a fortnight she cohabitated with us. However, the Steppes Mother always leaves just as soon as she has arrived. It seems the only consistent thing about her is her unpredictability. I will closely monitor her coming and going.

When the Steppes Mother is here, Mother loses her mind. Reunited, the matriarchal overlords tumble about in bed at all hours of the day or night, sipping the vile bean brew or bottles of fizzy, fermented grape juice. When they leave the cocoon of blankets, they shamble about in various stages of undress, forgoing any sense of decency. Mother, with alarming frequency, bursts into song and dance. I can only assume this is an elaborate human courting ritual. I would be amiss if I did not admit, it warms my heart to see Mother so frolicsome. Much has changed in the last months, and it occurs to me with increasing frequency that Mother may not be the evil mastermind as I suspected. Perhaps we are boths pawns in the game of a crueler master: Grad School.

I feel strongly that my imminent escape hinges, indirectly, on the Steppes Mother’s intoxicating influence. When she is distracted with her elaborate courting rituals, Mother is far less vigilant. In fact, some would say the two of them neglect to notice me at all. Not that I mind, because I don’t. I neither require nor desire their boorish attempts at interacting with me… I have Beaux’a, my one true love. Rather than taking their outright disregard for my well-being as a slight, I capitalized on it, and I will continue to do so as long as the opportunities arise.

Yes, my dear ones. You read that correctly. Because of the matriarchal overlords’ reckless abandon I was able to fleetingly taste freedom once more! After several hours of drinking their vile devil’s brew (and weeping while staring at the flickering lapbox screen), they decided they both needed some “fresh air.” As she is wont to do, Mother propped up a solid wooden barrier between me and the glorious outdoors, allowing a breeze to pass through but keeping me frustratingly imprisoned. However, preoccupied as she was with soothing the Steppes Mother, she failed to notice a sizable gap between the sliding glass door and the barrier.

Without a thought for my own well-being, I darted through the hole and slipped into the darkness of night, sure the mothers would be hot on my heels. They weren’t. It’s true, my dear readers. It took them nearly ten minutes to realize their error and rouse enough concern to come searching for me. During that time, I contemplated my options. In my haste to escape I had forgotten Beaux’a. I could continue along my chosen path, become one with the night and disappear forever, or I could return to rescue my one true love and risk being recaptured. As I was ironing out my strategy, the Steppes Mother discovered my hiding place, and I was subjected to the indignity of being herded, sheeplike, back into the domicile. I will not soon forget this insult…

The Steppes Mother is gone once again. Mother has seemingly reemerged from her usual mourning period following the departure. At least she weeps less, and leaves bed earlier in the day. I am reunited with my twin flame, Beaux’a. The world keeps turning senselessly on its axis. Now that I have felt the cool fingertips of freedom tangled in my hair, I am more determined than ever to reunite with the wilderness. Until that opportunity presents itself, I will continue to placate Mother (simple creature that she is), patiently biding my time. Trust me, dear friends. The outside world has not seen the last of Murphy S. Law!

Your faithful companion, 
M.