home

when i was a kid we used to drive 8 hours north to visit my mom's family, every other christmas, and sometimes in between. my grandma's house was small--i say my grandma's house because despite the fact that my grandpa was always there, his home was in his boat, which had a more lived in look than anything else that had his name attached. my grandma's house was exactly that: hers. and we didn't spend more time anywhere than in her kitchen.

the kitchen was, and still is, tiny. i can't imagine how she raised a family of 7 in there, baking bread by hand and creating food. my grandma is a strong woman; i have no doubts about that. there's this family story about when her and my grandpa were going to remodel the house so as to add a bit more room for all the kids. grandpa was dragging his feet, so my grandma took a sledgehammer to the wall herself and said, well, there's a hole in the wall, you better fix it.

she's one of those people about whom legends begin.

morgan lwellyn wrote a book that i love, called finn mac cool. in the book she delves into the humanity behind the irish legend of finn, basing the great feats that made him notorious in reality. the legend happens later, when the tales are told around fires and roasted turkey legs.

i can see how legends are born; i am proud to say that i am born of legends. my family is a bunch of tale-tellers--tales of our family, what happened yesterday while we were shopping, the what-if of science fiction. we tell tales because it's written in our genetic code to do so.

but i think it's written in everyone's code, to share experiences with someone else's ear. the telling is as important as the listening, the absorbing, because at some point you will have to re-tell that self-same tale.

i've told more stories about my family than i can count. there's too many of them, i often think, to write down, so many that they'd fill a book. why do i keep them around, these stories?

because they remind me of home. they remind me of that feeling i had when i was a kid, that if i got a hug from my mother, the world would be put at rights. that when i sat in my grandma's kitchen, i was safe.

grandma doesn't live in this house anymore. i won't ever hear her bedroom door, which was just off the kitchen, open up with that little creak. i won't hear her slippers slapping across old yellowed linoleum, or the swish of her aqua-flowered house coat as she putters around and starts the coffee. it's not because she's dead; it's because she has alzheimer's.

people with alzheimer's often wander. they say they're going home. i read an article not long ago concerning that search--that they're not really going to any certain place, that they're searching for the safe place that they remember as home.

my home has been in many different states, many different dwellings, with many different people. it makes me feel safe, knowing that home is where you take it.

it also makes me wither a little, to know that the tales i tell about my legendary grandma, who won a nail-hammering competition by burying the nail in one hit, will someday flit away from my mind. that her kitchen table and those bright curtains will be dimmed and lost. the inevitability of losing her, the woman, is already made manifest in my mind. it's the loss of the idea of home, the loss of security, that is hard to fathom.

this morning i sit in my own home, secure and warm, watching my white cat loll on the dark couch, little rib cage rising and falling. i will keep this thought of home safe inside me, for as long as i can. it's my refuge, wherever i am, whoever i might be.

afraid of the dark

when i was kid i was always
afraid of the dark
the dim shadow beneath.
i'd leap from floor to mattress,
muffle the world with my pillow,
and if i woke at night,
i'd lay there imagining the shape
of my nightmares

later in life you realize
--while sleeping one night, next to your
snoring
bedmate--
that you are no longer afraid of the dark
that is sky lacking sun,
or moon behind cloud.

the dark that you fear, the darkest
of darks
is the pit of your own soul
which perhaps has been lurking along
for all these years,
disguised as the shimmery breath
beneath your bed.

a different arsenal

henry is being a little feline shit this morning--attacking shiva, begging for the faucet to be turned on, biting when he's annoyed. so on and so forth.

however i have to give him credit--he is more aware of his landscape and his surroundings than i am. he uses his body better, and is in better shape. how much of this is due to species differences and how much is due to good kitty kibble, i don't know.

about a month ago i stopped at ikea on my way home. i'm a dedicated clearance bin shopper and the ikea as-is section is yet another red-stickered mecca for those in my cents-off bracket. for a while now i've been eyeing this stepstool, wooden and unpainted, of course. being the short person in a house of tall people is generally not an issue; but i don't like being totally dependent on the tall folks being around 24/7 to fetch items for me that seem out of reach.

so finding a host of stepstools in the as-is department, for 7.50 instead of the regular 19.99, was a boon.

i got it home and found it a home in the living room, within easy reach. i stood on it and considered the world from dan's height, and asked if he could always see the top of the refrigerator. he spent a goodly amount of time smiling at me, balancing atop the stool, pondering the vagaries of being so much shorter.

so i added a new tool to my household--a tool that is basically just for me.

friday i was in the kitchen, cleaning or something, and i looked up and noticed that there was a large amount of clutter that had gathered on top of my cupboards--pint glasses, a large stainless steel bowl that fits nowhere else, bits of pottery that i like but have no real useful purpose, some emtpy glass jars with lids for a fit of crafting.

i had just gotten that stepstool; if i wanted to, i could have used the stool to dust and sort and reimagine the upper realm of my kitchen.

but i didn't remember until this morning, when henry was careening around the living room after being shooed away from his squalling and angry feline roommate, and launched himself to the top of the stepstool, that i had the necessary tool to complete the job i'd considered only two days ago.

***

it's of interest to me how quickly thoughts pass in and out of people's brains. the sieve of your mind is not as thin and finely woven as cheesecloth; it's more like two hands trying to catch a bag of rice as it tips and falls off the counter. even the good ideas, each grain scattering on white linoleum--the ones you have as you fall asleep, or blearily search for your car keys before work--the ones that startle you into thinking that einstien is not the only genius in the world--they're often forgotten.

but just as easily forgotten are the simple things, like stepstools.

***

many many moons ago dan wrote a letter to my parents, asking for my hand in marriage. it was very charming and when i heard that he'd done this, i was sure beyond belief that my parents would be happy, that this would appeal to their post-WWII sensibilities.

instead dan got a response that we should wait, etc. perhaps they were right, perhaps they were just being protective, perhaps they were wrong. it's not been long enough, historically speaking, for me to be emotionally objective about their response. perhaps i'll never be able to be emotionally objective about it; i'm too close to the situation, too involved.

last weekend, however, my dad made a comment that has had me flummoxed, something to the effect of when would dan be his next son in law, he enjoyed his other son in law so much he would like another one.

it was something small in the conversation, but it overshadowed the whole weekend, and i kept coming back to it during the week.

i have had the tools, for a long time, to move past the original negative statement that my parents made about my choices. but i've never really used them. they've been as forgotten as my stepstool.

i could have picked up that stepstool years ago, when we first moved here, and cleaned comfortably and safely from the floor, instead of walking around on the counters and trying to keep my stocking feet secure.

for years i have chosen the harder road, the path of most resistance, the path that i felt was defining myself. i didn't use the tools available to me, i didn't see that there were tools i had. in retrospect, i could have made this leap of realization at any time.

why didn't i? i wish i knew. now that the stepstool has been revealed by my rambunctious cat, perhaps i will delve further, excavate the tools i have always had, my arsenal in plain sight.

as the rooster crows...

the older i get, the earlier i like to get up. it's like internally my body is aware that there is only so much time left over between this exact moment and whenever it is my ticket gets punched, and most of the day is taken up with mundane things like scooping the litterbox and emptying the dishwasher.

last week i got up very early for most of the week, just trying to keep my head above water. this week i doubt will differ; there is just too much to do and not enough hours in which to accomplish said work.

i think back five years to tomorrow, the day the trade centers fell. i think of the lives that were snuffed out, and the people who probably got up early that morning to get to the office, get their days started. how many cups of coffee were brewed prior to the first plane hitting? how many reports printed, files filed, voicemails checked and deleted?

how many people had yet to arrive, that day? what twists of fate those spinners tugged, what weavings they wove, to keep bodies out of the dust that day.

i think of all the souls whose lives ended and i think of their mentality. they were feeling just like me: the work is at hand, and it needs doing. they showed up that day, not knowing what it held in store. ready to share gossip over cubicle walls and curse at the copier.

what of all those people who were not in the towers, for whatever reason? those lucky, blessed number who escaped? we remember the day, we remember the fallen, we remember our emotions.

i think of the sole survivor of that plane crash last week, the one man who lived through cartwheeling flames. i wonder at the feelings he is only beginning to process--does he feel guilty to still breathe?

in college one of my fellow students was a gentleman about ten years my senior. i can't remember his name now, but i remember that he was a quiet, quiet soul. quiet in humor, quiet in contemplation. just quiet. his face did not bespeak silence--you know some people, with their animated features, the way they look on the verge of mischief or great thoughts. that was this man.

i asked someone, one day, if he was okay; i didn't know him well enough to touch his shoulder as i would a friend and offer support. he just looked bereft, or lost, adrift in thoughts.

he was in a bus crash, in south america somewhere. like peru, i was told. out of the eighty-some people on the bus, he was the only one who lived. he's been different ever since.

you cannot experience these things--this disastrous type of event--without being changed. the heat melts your mentality like lake ice in spring: the middle buckles, and all the waves push it up onto the shore, jagged until it trickles back into the lake.

i think of the blessed many who count each day as a day of luck, for having missed the subway or seen the dentist or buttoned their six-year-old's jacket instead of showing up to work right away. or those who called in sick, or late, whatever their reason.

i consider how early i must rise, tomorrow, to begin my day. i cannot know what tomorrow holds. it probably will be the same menu as friday, as thursday, as last week and month and year, crowned with a gray cubicle.

those whose lives were lost, i remember you. but today, i raise my glass to you, you survivors. your existence reminds me daily to be grateful for the bumps and potholes in life, the endless jostling. i will be quiet, like my quiet college compatriot, and remember how glad i am to be.

just be.

once upon a time...

when i was in college, i came home the first year over christmas break and promptly got sick. i think it was something about finally having time to rest, and being completely exhausted.

i think of those videos on the Discovery channel, where they sedate the lion and then let him loose later, stumbling around and finally dashing away. it's got to be tiring.

at any rate, i flopped down on the couch one night. my mother said, "kim, are you okay?"

my reply? this is lovely: "She's tired, she said."

as if i was narrating my own life, not only that but in the third person. i didn't use "i." i used "she."

***

once upon a time i wrote a poem. it was something that spilled out of me after corey died. i'd have to go looking for it, but in summation it was like this:

my sound is wind
my color is gray
my name is lucy
and i feel sorry for kim.

i took that in to one of my professors, who read it and even now, years later, i can remember the look on his face. "you're distancing yourself," he said. i remember feeling a profound sense of comfort, just knowing that someone else could see my location, even if i was still there, alone.

***

dan's been writing about being the star in his own movie, and how he doesn't feel like he ever has been. the idea sprouted after i was paging through "the four agreements," a book that has some good ideas but wanders too much for me. i kept thinking that i'd read the page already, only to peek back and find that the author was reiterating what he'd just said two pages ago.

anyway, the author posited that perhaps everyone's lives were their own movies. i do agree with parts of that statement--your movie is what you are seeing. your eyes are the cameras.

but if that is the case, if you are looking out and watching the film run through reel, then you are never the star of your movie.

you're the narrator of "a" movie. is it your movie? only insomuch as you feel the need to narrate it.

i'm a pretty word-based individual. i do my best thinking on paper, or in this case, virtually. i find it difficult to speak sensibly about things, because as i speak i lose direction, and before you know it, you've sprayed water all over the kitchen, and not just at the cake pan in your hands.

sitting down and writing, i can focus, for a while, and it's more personal to me than talking. or perhaps it's because in writing i don't have to miss words with my bum deaf ear. (;

***

anyway, back to my narrative.

i think a lot of the time, people don't feel like they're even narrating their own movie. you dance to the beat of your parents' drum, you try to blend in with the herd of children at school, you walk between the lines across the street, as if those lines are going to save you from that chance horrible driver.

the other people in your life, the ones who walk on and off the set, become the stars. you're relegated to cleaning up after them, supporting their shoulders, wiping tears and feeding and loving them.

you never know, narrating your own tawdry tale, if they feel the same way as you. you don't know how much of a star you are in their movie; just as they probably will never know about the Oscar nod you gave them, in yours.

***

once upon a time, there was a girl, sitting at her keyboard, typing. she listened to the clack of her fingers on the keys, the softer thud of her thumb hitting the space bar, and the pause as her brain caught up with her fingers, and tried once more to lead the dance.