For my Mom Mom

For my Mom Mom

She used to feed me graham crackers with strawberry jam on them and keep tins of sweets hidden under her bed for when I would stay over. She would call me precious cargo and speed through the city with me belted into her passenger seat while she yelled at other motorists. She taught me a lot about being a lady and even more about being tough. The first time I ate pumpkin pie, it was because she told me to stop being stupid and just try something new for once. She was 16 when she had her first kid and never lied to me about that, choosing instead to tell me to be careful not to end up with one of my own. When I was 16, she helped me dye my hair blue in my mother's wash basin because, as she put it: "If you're gonna make yourself look like an ass, you're gonna do it right." My mother still has not forgiven her for this, but I never forgot how to use a tint brush after that. She was the kind of woman who would lug two oxygen tanks and half a dozen pill bottles through the inner city just to make sure that two squirming 12 year olds got to see the latest Nightmare on Elm Street in the theaters, on the day it opened. She chose her battles wisely and knew when to give in, but she could stop you dead in your tracks with one dirty look. Even at the very end of her life, she still went out of her way to make me feel special with 32 different kinds of cheese sandwiches and cakes on my 17th birthday. She was always my rock and my idol and my safest place and I will always miss her.

I originally posted the paragraph above over a year ago. Today is the anniversary of my grandmother's death, and the first time I have ventured near her house since then. Tonight, I ate dinner with many members of my family and I realized that there is so much of her in so many of us, right down to the late night snacking and the very pointy teeth. I like to think that she was there with us, cracking jokes and busting balls. I also like to think that, where ever she is now, she's at least a little proud to see us all flourishing. I miss her every single day, but more so today than others.

Well, At Least There Were No Motherfucking Snakes On The Motherfucking Plane: Or How I Figured Out Where My Home Is

I am a master of almost disaster. I have an uncanny ability to stumble into situations which are not disastrous or painful enough to warrant, say, flower delivery or sympathy cards from Halmark, but just terrible enough to cross the line from inconveniencing into panic inducing. I also have a tendency to plan for events by thinking through every possible scenario where something can go wrong, accept for the exact scenario which will inevitably occur.

A little over a week ago, I woke up to a note from my father that I should wake him before I left for class. This was strange, but not alarming beyond the fact that my own unpleasantness in the morning is inherited from him. What was alarming, however, was the fact that he woke up and said "don't freak out." This is almost always a sign that whatever is about to happen will most definitely make me freak out, and that that inevitable freakout is something that my father would really rather not witness. I noted his lack of desire to see a nervous breakdown and went outside to find that my car had been thoughtfully disabused of its driver side mirror by someone who must have been operating under the assumption that my car was trying to trim inches off its physique. (or under the influence of a rather sizable amount of booze). My two month old car was missing a drivers side mirror and a good deal of paint, but it was still drivable and I had class at 8:45, so I left for school and soon discovered that unmitigated joy and exhilarating sense of danger that results from trying to merge onto the PA turnpike during rush hour without the aid of a mirror. If you're unfamiliar with this road, first count your blessing, then imagine 10 lanes of cars suddenly being funneled down to one lane as they enter a road on which driving bellow 80mph can result in you suddenly having another car in you trunk. Once I was safely on the road and on my way, I made a mental note to move that evening's dinner date to another night and pencil in a nervous breakdown for the time in which I would have been dining with my partner. This schedule would allow me to attend all of my classes and a very important writing conference with my professor with a temporarily clear mind while delaying my emotional reaction over my car until a time when I was near someone who is contractually obligated to make appropriately soothing noises while pretending not to be reading the internet over my shoulder.

This was a good plan. Only it didn't play out that way. Instead, I walked into my professor's office and immediately turned from a moderately capable student into a quivering ball of salt and snot. Fortunately, one of the upshots of attending a womens' college is that the faculty are at least somewhat experienced in seeing young women come unglued. My nonplussed professor offered kleenex and let me know that needing some time to deal with outside disasters is common and that she would allow an extension on an upcoming paper if I needed. I declined the offer, commenting that "I'd better save that one for the inevitable next disaster that will be even worse." We laughed at that, and I was on my way before I could even really understand that I had just tempted fate.

Exactly one week later, excited for my upcoming trip to my cousin's wedding in St. Louis, I was on my way home when the car in front of me on the turnpike ran over a piece of tire from a semi-truck or the sole of Godzilla's sneaker. Seeing this piece of shrapnel flying through the air toward my car and having had a whopping total of 11 hours of sleep in the past 4 days, I swerved to the right, conveniently failing to notice that I was in a construction zone and that there was no shoulder but, rather, a concrete barrier where a shoulder ought to be. It took a few seconds for me to register that the terrific cracking sound was not a giant monster taking a walk, but was my car slamming into the barrier. Panicked, I quickly assessed the situation and determined that my car could still go and that stopping would probably mean death for me, and proceeded to drive home. Once there, I sat for a few minutes before working up the nerve to get out and check to see if my car was now more symmetrically damaged than it had been the day before. It was, and this upset me, but I had to complete 4 days worth of work in the next 6 hours, so I set about trying to do that until my partner came home and assumed his now familiar role as comforter.

The following morning, I got up and cheerily set about packing for the trip that would take me away from the problem of the damaged car which I can not afford to repair and to the loving embrace and good natured teasing of my family. I was very impressed with myself as I carefully packed the exactly correct amount of clothing and dressed for the rehearsal dinner I would be attending in St. Louis that evening. As my partner was dropping me off at the airport, I joked that he'd better be extra sweet to me so he wouldn't feel as bad if my plane crashed. You'd think that I'd have learned not to look fate in the eye and laugh like that, but I had not. In fact, I have a long legacy of joking about air disaster which dates back to my cousin Charles and I consistently making references to The Twilight Zone movie segment with the lightening storm and the gremlin on the wing every single time he has accompanied me to the airport. I should have been worried but I was not.

I sailed happily through the airport, cheerfully accepting the compliments of a friendly TSA agent and preparing to alternate between napping on the plane and reading some things for school. I had to change planes in Raleigh, which was a new thing and made me slightly nervous, but my itinerary had plenty of time for me to locate my connecting flight and get on my way to the party. I was confident and sleepy when I boarded the plane and very excited as the captain began the decent into the Raleigh airport. Then, just as I began to get very comfortable with the idea of switching planes, the captain made the announcement that storms in Raleigh had forced us into a holding pattern, but that we would be landing shortly. We floated about happily, and I worried about making my connecting flight until we began to descend. I assumed that we were going to land and that I might still make it to my next flight until there was a loud boom and a very bright flash of light. The plane began to bounce about like a basketball at a Globetrotter's show and the other passengers began screaming and shouting. The captain then announced that there was nothing to worry about, but we were out of fuel and needed to land in nearby Norfolk V.A. to refuel. This sounded a lot like code for "holyshitwe'reallgoingtodie!" to me, but I tried to stay calm.

Once we landed, and the plane was rapidly surrounded by firetrucks and people in jumpsuits, I started to suspect that I was definitely not going to make my connecting flight. No worries though. Surely there would be a later flight to St.Louis and my biggest problem would be killing an hour or so with no money for snacks. Well, that illusion was shattered when a flight attendant smugly announced to the plane at large that "passenger Spectre's" boarding pass for tomorrow morning was waiting at the front of the plane. Tomorrow? Well, that wasn't going to work for me. I walked up to the front of the plane to ask the steward if the airline could help me find a place to stay or another flight and was politely informed that my princess was in another castle and I was, like Mario, shit out of luck. It was then that the gravity of the situation became apparent. I had no money, had not eaten, was in the middle of a lightning struck plane, and would be grounded in an unfamiliar city over night. I did what any rational adult would do and promptly began to freak the fuck out. Eventually, I called my cousin in St. Louis to let her know that her husband would not have to pick me up that night and then tried to decide what to do. Once I located a dinner of peanut M&M's for myself, I decided that once we were returned to Raleigh, I would have an adventure and camp out in the airport. Then I found out that the airport was closed and I would have to camp out in the unsecured baggage area with the other mentally ill and homeless people. That is when I really lost my shit.

As I trembled and spewed snot and tears in Raleigh, my cousin was busy mobilizing the troops in St. Louis. She got my father to call me, though he ended up shoving the phone in my aunt's hand at the first hint of tears, showed a room full of people over fifty how to use their smartphones to find a hotel, and allowed her husband to text me the reassurance that he was, in fact, helping the situation by bringing sexy back. Within an hour, I had a room booked at a hotel and was in a cab on my way to relative safety. I spent the night in a hotel that was also providing entertainment in the form of a weed smoking and regaeton blasting party in one room and a dog fight in another, but I was at least on solid ground and able to chat with my partner, who was no doubt worried, while I lay on the fully made bed in my dress and heels.

When I landed the next morning, after spending a delightfully lightening free flight helping an unaccompanied 8 year old boy consume enough sugar to kill a small horse, I was shaking and overwhelmed, but also so grateful to be near my family. My cousin picked me up and essentially told me that I was going to eat. As we sat in an IHOP and I unhinged my jaw like a boa constrictor and shoveled in the food before proceeding to the hotel in which my extended family was staying to be met with a chorus of jokes about my skill at being cursed, I began to understand why I couldn't answer a question about where my home was a few weeks prior.

When the asker had posed the question, they were looking for a place, but my home is more than one place. It is fluid, far reaching, and full of surprises. It is my partner's beard and the way he laughs at me when I am freaking out. It is my cousins' abilities to know what I need and to tease me for not knowing that myself. It is my big burly uncle's way of making fun of me, my dad's way of not being able to see me cry, my mom's way of informing everyone around her that I do not need any more drama, my aunts' way of just being there and being solid, it is an ever expanding network of people who will laugh, dance, bring sexy back, and never ever let the coffee cup stand empty. Most of all, it is knowing that, even when I make the absolutely worst decisions, there is a small army standing behind me and just accepting me. With them behind me, I can be free to grow in a way that not everyone is, even if there are motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane, or my princess is in other castle, or I am driving in the path of a monster. I am probably the luckiest person alive because, just as they helped me make the trip to the wedding, they will help me make the trip forward too.

I was lost...

"I have known many graduates of Bryn Mawr. They are all of the same mold. They have all accepted the same bright challenge: something is lost that has not been found, something's at stake that has not been won, something is started that has not been finished, something is dimly felt that has not been fully realized. They carry the distinguishing mark – the mark that separates them from other educated and superior women: the incredible vigor, the subtlety of mind, the warmth of spirit, the aspiration, the fidelity to past and to present. As they grow in years, they grow in light. As their minds and hearts expand, their deeds become more formidable, their connections more significant, their husbands more startled and delighted. I once held a live hummingbird in my hand. I once married a Bryn Mawr girl. To a large extent they are twin experiences. Sometimes I feel as though I were a diver who had ventured a little beyond the limits of safe travel under the sea and had entered the strange zone where one is said to enjoy the rapture of the deep."
— E.B. White

When I was a little girl, I read a good deal of old books about other girls who went to college, or dreamed of going to college, or fought to go to college. I used to imagine that college would look like a tree filled campus with old buildings and surrounding woods. It would have vast, cavernous buildings with nooks and crannies and hidden places. The students there would be scholarly, smart, witty, and (because this is after all my fantasy) well coordinated and fashionable. There would be a bell that rang like a church bell.

My fantasy of college life, though conceived in the early nineties, looked an awful lot like the 1950's.

Of course, like all lives, my life happened in the intervening years between these girlish fantasies and now. I grew up. I traveled. I worked. I kept reading. I sometimes kept writing. I left home and came back and left again. I tried on a lot of different skins and none of them felt right.

Then, I went to school. I meant to go part time, and keep playing around with all those different skins. What happened how ever, is that I was lucky enough to be included in a pretty amazing program, dreamed up and maintained by some pretty amazing professors. These professors gave me the idea that, maybe, just maybe, my childhood collegiate fantasy was still a possibility.

They directed me to Bryn Mawr College.

I researched. I applied. I scheduled an interview.

On the day of the interview, my father drove me the 30 or so miles to the school and waited patiently while his adult daughter fumbled around the campus in the snow. I was amazed by how much the place matched my daydreams. I was also really delighted to find out that their mascot is an owl, when my name means wise little owl in Gaelic.

The interview seemed to go well, but I was not admitted.

Ever the optimist, I hadn't applied to any other schools and decided that I would stay where I was for one more year.

I applied again,

I waited and waited, but heard nothing.

I accepted another school's offer of admission and went on with my life.

Then, in the middle of summer, I got a phone call that I had been accepted to Bryn Mawr. I reacted quite like I imagine I would if I was crowned Miss America. I jumped. I squealed. I ran around. I cried a little.

A little over two weeks ago, I drove to the campus for the first time to attend 3 days of orientation. It was whirlwind of activity and the weight of it never really sank in until I registered for my classes on the library computer. I fought back the emotional response to finally, finally, being exactly where I wanted to be, after a long search.

That emotional response has been threatening to come for two and half weeks, but always at the worst possible times, like when I have been driving, or when I was walking through the woods to class. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to come at a good time. I even visited my grandmother's grave to tell her about it, and, still nothing came. Tonight, by accident, I found this E.B. White Quote.

That emotional response?

It's here.

I am crying and laughing at the same time. So humbled and lucky and fucking amazed that I have been included in this community of bright and witty and amazing young women who have welcomed me warmly into a world that I used to dream about.

All our flesh was like veil...

They told my parents to put me in Ballet lessons because I was a clumsy kid. Instead of making me into the graceful, pretty kid my mom wanted I made me into a kid who was obsessed with swans and could only be graceful on my toes. I would dance, alone, for hours to Swan Lake, pretending I was a princess in tutus and lace.

In my room, I was lovely. I would bow deeply, accept roses from my fans, and plié my way to greatness. In public, however, I remained stiff and shy. I would always look at my feet and rarely glace upward. I was, for lack of a more poetic way the phrase it, gawky. I had long limbs and big eyes, but I also had a belly and a brain. I worshipped the sun and, to this very day, my nose is a map of every summer I ever had: a topographic story told in freckles.

Middle school was cruel to me, with a multitude of kids punching me in my chubby chest and laughing at my dreamy ideas of skyward travel and otherworldly inventions. I had many crushes and many heartaches and I learn, from all of that, to make a joke of myself. I would exaggerate my trips and stumbles and make the boys laugh. I alienated nearly every girl I met by allowing their boyfriends to be my confidants. I walked through cheerleading formations and stumbled through my own first dances.

However, the one thing I learned, much earlier than was strictly fair, was that laughing at myself was the best thing I could ever do. I understood, even at 12, that this life a one supreme joke of struggle and that, by making myself the butt of my jokes I was beating everyone else to the punch.

Today, as an adult, I will never be the prettiest girl in room. I will never harness, as so many women have, the power of my own sexuality, but I will always have the ability to laugh at myself. And, as look so fatefully fade, I will always have that, and my magnificent imagination to carry me along.

I think, in retrospect, that this is the greatest gift I could have ever been given.

To imagine myself, all awkward and weird, as a prima ballerina or as a lovely creature to be treasured means that I will never, as so many will, be sad or lonely.

You Got A Brand New Key

So, today, my bike was stolen. Well, it was probably stolen last night. I know that it’s just a material object and that many worse crimes occur every day, but I can’t help but be shaken up and saddened by this. First and foremost, my bike was my most prized possession. I bought it a few years ago from the sort of bike shop where you’re more likely to see a Hispanic kid getting his low rider tricked out than to find a bubblegum pink beach cruiser. As soon as I stumbled upon it, I knew it was my bike.

It was slow and heavy and had coaster brakes. It was cumbersome and wobbly. It was majestically geeky and unabashedly girly. It was neither sleek nor practical and, the second I sat my butt in the wide, springy saddle seat and started the white wall tires rolling down Passyunk Avenue, I was in love. Within 20 minutes, I had a yellow receipt, a titanium lock, a white basket for the handle bars, and a new best friend. I christened her Melonie (after the 70’s pop star) because she didn’t go too fast, but she went pretty far.

For two years, I rode my rusty old cruiser alongside friends on road bikes. I rode her to picnics on the river and to see The Flaming Lips. She was not easy to ride uphill and her chain guard was a little squeaky, but she got plenty of attention from friends and strangers alike.

When I moved back into my parents’ house and felt like my life was coming undone at the seams, that bike was my refuge. At first, I would ride it around the neighborhood after it got dark, peddling out all my sadness and regret. Later, when I’d healed a bit, I rode her on the fitness path with the old lady power walkers. I peddled for miles- sweaty, silly looking and angry- until I was smiling again. Later still, when I was being raked over the coals and having my heart broken again, I rode even harder, pretending that those who were hurting me were under the pedals. Lately, in my happiness, I have ridden that bike to release the anxiety that comes from starting a new life, one you’re afraid to loose, and to celebrate my love for the bike and my newfound love for the neighborhood.

So, today, when I first realized that Melonie was gone, I was crushed.

Then, I got angry.

You see, in order to get the bike, the thief had to move a porch-swing, a ream of vinyl siding, a circular saw, and a ton of other construction material, from their path. They had to have done this during a thunderstorm, or in the dead middle of the night. In short, whoever stole my bike had to really want to steal my bike. It’s rusty and old and, frankly, not even worth $30. But, to me, it’s worth the world.

I try to be kind, and I try not to put too much stock in my possessions, but I can assure you all of one thing. If I see the person who took the bike, I will beat the snot out of them. Well, really, I’ll probably just cry. However, as those salty tears roll over my sun kissed cheeks, I will relish the thought of whomever it was suffering their way through all or the bike’s quirks and karma’s slings and arrows.

Someday, I will have another cruiser. Until then, I’ll be power walking with the old ladies and keeping a vigilant eye out for my poor Melonie.

No Threat of Turning Into a Pumpkin Here

When I was a little girl, I thought that the princesses in all of those fairy tales got their happily ever afters because they were so good. They were kind, forgiving, pious, sweet, gentle, patient and loving. They never wasted time being hateful, even toward those who truly deserved it. They were Technicolor angels, floating through life with gentle smiles and sparkling eyes. They never got drunk, fought, swore or even stuck out a tongue. Because of this, I reasoned, I should strive to be as good as I could possibly be and, if I was successful, I too would be rewarded with a fairy tale ending.

When some villainess threatened my well-being by being cruel and mean toward me, I reacted by retreating, like Snow White, into a fantasy world where, if I was kind and patient enough, no one would hurt me. I extended every ounce if energy I had wishing kind and happy things onto this person as though I could will her to afford me with an ounce of compassion. When that did not work, I switched to another kind of magical thinking, wherein I simply attempted to control fate with extreme worry. This, coupled with the extreme goodness, was utterly exhausting but I persisted.

I persisted with this worry princess voodoo until I was left, more like Bambi then a princess, standing between two forces which were hell bent on colliding and without the strength to move myself out of the way. Still, I reasoned, if I was good enough, and strong enough, it would not hurt me. Predictably, it did hurt me. When those two forces finally did smash into one another, six months ago, it hurt so badly that I thought that all of the goodness has been beaten out of me. I thought that I would never heal, never grow, and never be whole.

However, no matter how badly I was wounded or how angry I was, I could not let go of the idea that I could overcome all of this pain and be ok if I just willed myself to remain good. I openly practiced patience and understanding while secretly wishing death and dismemberment upon another human being. It was hard and painful, but I kept it up. I made myself a martyr for the cause of my own fairytale, all the while believing that my comeuppance would come on its own.

And then, a few days ago, I was given the chance to truly show my goodness chops when the person who had wounded me so badly was suffering and asking for my forgiveness. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t forgive her and I spent the next day being angry with myself for this. Then, a few words from the wisest woman I know put it all into sharp relief for me. I don’t have to be a saint to be better than someone who is cruel, and I don’t have to be better than her to be good enough to deserve my happily ever after.

It is these words, and the wisdom that is contained in them, that has finally, after six months of suffering in pious silence, set me free.

What a fucking relief.

There's No Good Metaphor For This...

A while ago, I took down all of my personal blogs and replaced them with one group blog and this one. I’d love to say that I had some enlightened, smart or funny reason for doing so, but the truth is that I was kind of tired of myself and needed a break from me. I know that is a funny thing to say, and that it reeks of exactly the same sort of navel gazing self-reflection that I was trying to avoid, but it is the truth in as compact a way as I can manage to phrase it.

Over the course of 4 years, I had spread myself all over the internet in an attempt to paint a pretty picture of my life as it was. I wrote in one blog about my daily life as though it were a conflict free sitcom life. Every trial was just comedy fodder and every triumph was Herculean. In another, I listed 5 good things every day, and in a final, more honest one, I secretly recorded every detail of the breakdown of my life and relationship.

When I deleted them, I did it for several reasons. The first was to stop constantly being confronted with all of the things I missed about my old life. The second was because I did not have it in me to write like that anymore. I was hurting, I was growing and I was busy. I wanted to see myself as just who I was at that particular moment and that self was too selfless to write about herself on the internet. The problem with this, of course, is that I am not that person. No one is ever just who they are at any given moment, and that’s a good thing.

After I deleted my blogs, I didn’t give the matter too much thought. I was busy with school and busy in my personal life and I felt good about it. Then, the other day, I revisited my cousin Leslie’s blog for the first time in a while. Reading her writing made me realize two key things. The first is that her talent for writing is unbelievable in its scope and power, and the second is that blogging was more than a means for me to project an image of myself to the world. It was a way for me to work out the things I was trying to understand within myself and a way for me to find my voice.

When I first started this blog I was playing around with finding my poetic voice and I thought this would be a good way to do so. Who knows, maybe it still will be. However, I think that the focus needs to be more on the poetry of everyday life and less on finding the most dense and confusion similes possible.

You see, in my life, there’s poetry every day, only it takes the form of many things. I think this blog might need to do the same. Because, like life and poetry, I take the form of many things and I would like to reflect them here. It won’t ever be as lovely and poised and eloquent as my friends’ blogs, but it will always be me.