Places

I haven’t actually written anything besides Craigslist ads or emails for I don’t know how long (I know a gasp from all you super devoted writers). I don’t have any diversion towards it or anything, I just haven’t made time for it. I do, however, write in my head, mostly as I go to bed at night. I have started many novels, written various emails or thought of what could go on my blog next. Last night’s writing was for Sharon’s blog though and I felt inspired to actually put it down on paper.

When I saw the picture of the river, my heart sank a little. Upper Darby, Pennsylvania is fine, but I don’t love it the way that I LOVE southeast Idaho, especially Sharon’s house. I know what you all are thinking. We all love Sharon’s, but I think that my generation of Writing Center folk, especially a few of us, have special claim on her Idahoan paradise. We were there when she first moved in. We were there for her first Christmas. In fact, I decorated her house while she was gone because she absolutely refused to let me decorate while she was there (she didn’t want it decorated at all…but I’m stubborn). I was one of the first to live at Sharon’s and I know I was definitely one of the first to clean Sharon’s. I picked out the colors for her deck (saving us all from an ugly gray) and for her kitchen, and along with Trevor, Emily and Serena, signed my name in cranberry colored paint behind her refrigerator in an effort to become immortal according to the house.

I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of this post is, other than to maybe say that there is something special, maybe even a little bit magical, about that house. We have all loved it for so many reasons. So I guess this is to say, Sharon, if the rumor mill is true and you are thinking of selling (again), just know that your house has healed and helped more than just you. We all love your house and we have all needed the sanctuary that it provides at sometime or another.

Oh and if you do sell, make sure to tell the new owners that there is a pretty good chance that there will be hippie kids coming in and out looking for you, probably for as long as the house is there.

Rocky Raccoon

Hey, is that James Best out there? I hope so, 'cause I miss you lots.
And, yes, JG, Chan is Tanner and Berrett's (msp) brother. We LOVE the Warnicks. Tanner is the side picture. They're part of our pre-existent crowd, I'm sure of it. No, really, I'm serious. Otherwise how do we explain these deep, no-maintenance relationships we all have. In fact, if I push real hard against my brain cells, I can see Tanner singing one of Jame's or Jaren's poems, while Joe beats the black drums as Em, Greg, I dance around and through the fire with full hippie headbands (headbands made from snake skin for hippies, you cynical idiots.) Chandler is watching over all of us to keep the snakes away (or stuff them in his back pocket. That child is one snake-lover. But, I forgive him because of his deep sincere and constant honesty). Jen has cooked the frogs for our dinner in a special lime sauce; Emily Pew is late; Jaren, Josh, and James (the JJJ's)are already again by the river writing, writing, writing until the smell of crisp frog covered with bacon and lime juice brings them running. And the Lord approves and smiles. Then, we are all itching to get down here to our polluted earth-life ASAP. I must have been out of my mind to say I'd come down first and meet up with y'all during my PTSD from earlier nuclear bombs exploding in and around my humble domain.
Raccoons? I found a huge Rainbow Trout last night on the lawn by my canoe and threw it back in the river. I thought JG had been out fishing earlier and left it for my dinner, until I realized I'd interrupted a raccoon. Patch (my small dog, who thinks he's a St. Bernard) ran after him through the Sleeping Beauty-like hedge around my house (as in briers, cockle-burs, and rotted cottonwood trees; I build it up to keep the world away). I flashed a light and saw his eyes--red, lined with white--pure cold hatred. I called Patch back from sure-death but . . . wow. I've never seen a raccoon in my many midnight walks under the moon. Sigh, moments of pure remorse. I'm sorry, dear raccoon. Next time you flip your trout dinner on my lawn, I'll bring you ice cream for desert.

One Green and Speckled Frog

As promised, here are the pictures of Emily's latest feeding frenzy.

In the first picture, my stepson Triston is showing Emily his prized frog. They have been together for a very long time. It is his best friend.

In the background is Emily's date Dane who, earlier that day, was walking down the street with a bag of groceries when he was accosted by Emily and forced to accompany her for the evening. Shown here, he is praying: "I don't know what I did to offend Thee . . . ." The rest is just garbled pleadings.

In the second picture, after back-handing Triston and playing a game of bobbing for Lumpy, Emily is making short work of the frog. Triston is crying in his bedroom with a pillowcase over his head and Dane is hiding under the table, quivering and moist. It took 45 minutes and a plate of sugar cookies before he came out again.

On the bright side, before the frog was downed, its skin excreted a fine toxic foam into Emily's mouth. She was pretty sick there for a while, vomiting blood and bits of rubber hose. Doing okay now. The only thing remaining is a voice like Tom Waits' and a mouthful of plantar warts.

Needless to say, it took a nearly a week before Dane got up the courage to ask her out again.

The third picture (Claire with elephant stag beetle) illustrates the power of bad examples.

On a different note, for those of you who are in Idaho:

The Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars are playing in Boise and Hailey this week. Boise-28th. Hailey-29th.

I just learned about this band. All the members are refugees who were forced from their homes in that country's bloody revolution from 1999-2004. The murders and mutilations that occured there are very similar to what is happening in Uganda and Sudan right now, only on a smaller scale.

There is a remarkable documentary film about this band that I saw on PBS late last night if you're interested. Also, here's a link to their myspace page where you can hear a song or two. In addition to their pacifist message they've got a funky beat that I can really bug out to. Check it.

Guardian Angels (Rating. G for gush.)

Many times, God can't get through to me, though I know He wants to, because I'm looking backward or forward or to the side instead of toward Him. I dabble in smallness, because it's easier. I miss God--even long to feel Him close by, and I miss that unearthly peace, but I'm unwilling to go to His throne because sometimes He asks a lot (anyone know what I mean?). But, sometimes I think He misses me, and He sends a real live angel to talk directly to my face, to remind me of what I want, and where I intend to go. This time he came in one of the Warnick brother's bodies--as in Chandler, the Chan, Sandman.

He shows up at a party a couple of weeks ago, though he's supposed to be catching snakes in the Utah dessert with Em. He's first there and last to leave. He sat on my stairs, spewing out whole profound inspiration about the Atonement that showed me a way to melt this hard cannon ball in my throat, and--not-to-over-do-it--I saw light for the first time in a loooong time. My eyes were bugging out. I don't understand the Atonement--it's so . . . big. But he showed me how to "use" it anyway. Bravo, Chan. Where did you get those words? How do you know those things? Yet, he actually thinks he's in "spiritual shambles." How ironic. And where's his errant brother, Tanner? Probably skinning rattlers in Arizona to make hippie headbands?

Goats, Em? And my two cent memories

Joe, I may sell to go after a PhD with Em and Jaren (though I haven't discussed this with them yet.) For now my beautiful daughter, Meg, and her ex-Jehovah Witness, ex-heroin addict husband (long story)-- who's getting baptised in three weeks--will be cutting the grass and feeding the ducks while I'm gone. If I do sell, I promise I'll call you, so you can come fishing again. But I won't be moving into a town--ever. I get sick when too many people are thinking all at the same time around me, and I'm sure I could never sleep closed in with a lot of people filling up the air with their own dreams. And what if they were dreaming silly dreams? I hate stupid dreams. I've had peace here and much healing; it may be too difficult to move. . . . or it may have served its purpose.

Em. I cannot believe you put goats on my blog; if my cowboy dad sees it, he'll freak. He already thinks you're weird from the deck party when you shoved a whole hamburger in your mouth, slobbering tomatoes while Trevor filmed it. . . .

My memory, Jaren? I had a goat once. We were leaving the Blackfoot fair, walking by the petting zoo, when a guard stopped us because a Shetland was birthing a colt. Twilight, warm air, holding my husband's hand, watching a miracle--whew. A pygmy goat kept rubbing up against my leg; she hid behind me because the Shetland was screaming (horse screams are different from human; painful, but cleaner, more pure--can't explain; no words for it). I knelt by the goat to keep her from being scared, and my son, Turner, shook his head and said, "Don't even think about it, Mom." Yep. She rode home in the back of the car with T. After a couple of days, she thought she was a dog and would run down the lane to meet the kids, chase any car that drove in, bunt cats with her head. One time I let her in the house when Dad was there, and he said "Oh sh--!" Put on his hat and left. (Do you know why cowboys hate sheep and goats? Because they eat the grass clear down almost to the roots, so it won't grow fast enough for cattle to range on it. But now who the h--- cares, except old old cowboys, because most of our cattle belong to BIG ranches and rodeo stock, and the government owns most of the range. My, My, I forgot how I hate the big government.) Anyway, I couldn't wait 'til summer when I could really play with this goat. But Taylor came in from feeding the horses one day to tell me he'd found blood and hair along the snow path. "I'll go find her," he said. All of us, including grandchildren, threw on coats. If she was dead, I needed to see it. If I don't face crap like that, it stays on, floating around in my head, hanging around to drop on my Prufrock plate at the oddest times, and the plate's already too full. We checked out the fox den, but something had been after them also. The grand kids found her. We saw them across the field, standing still and staring at the ground. A coyote from the river maybe or huge dogs (several; many tracks) had ripped open her stomach to get at the food I'd fed her the night before. Later Brayten (5 yrs then) said, "I wish I hadn't seen her." Parker (10) said, "Geez, stop talking about it, Brayten." Brayten spun around and yelled at him, "Shut up, Parker. I gotta talk about it." (I've always admired that kind of courage.) Then he asked me if I thought the goat went to heaven. I said, "Heck yeah, I've got so many animals in heaven that there's barely going to be room for us--dogs, cats, horses, frogs, turtles, fish, canaries, but no snakes-- the Lord's probably already given them our ranch up there to run around on. That goat is probably sleeping in your room right now." . . . Geez, what a stupid thing to say, especially when I wanted to leave, go to the barn and kick some hay, swear every swear word I know--which are many. Well, that was a darn sad memory. Sorry. Biker chick's fault. (How funny, Jaren.) She started it.

But I must warn you, I do write whatever sits on the end of my tongue, which may be sentimental, cheese, kitch, and sometimes some darn nice sentences, sooooo my friends . . . I need some sleep, or I'll stay home again to play with my dog tomorrow and soon get fired from my job. Oh darn.

Parenting

Oh Em, it will be EXACTLY like you said. See:

Since Jaren got us started.......

Okay, because we're talking first memories and core events in life, I'll take a minute to drop my two cents since I'm sitting in one of my best friend's (Jen R. Parkin's) computer-room/guest-quarters at midnight PA time and.....I'm not very sleepy. And Sharon knows we've shared many core moments, she and Jen and I. And with Serena who slips like the wind in and out of our lives leaving random myspace comments or knocking on office doors without leaving notes. And with Trev, whom Jen and I are off to see on Tuesday for a picnic on the Jersey shore where Jen can see the Statue of Liberty for the first time. How horrible I sometimes think it is that I saw Paris before Jen. But I don't think I saw Jen's Paris. That's hers. And I sent her a Moulin Rouge postcard. Which I can now confirm is hanging on her refrigerator. This makes me happy.

Anyway, today Jen and Aaron and I took their baby Olivia (who is really adorable...I always worry that kids will either HATE me or else they'll be really ugly and I'll have to fake wanting to kiss them on the cheeks. Olivia LOVES me, or at least loves girls, and she is the cutest kid I have seen since pictures of myself at 16 months--haha, Jen!), anyway we took her to these raspberry days outside of Philly....hayrides with berry picking-and-eating and places to feed goats and chickens and people dressed up as Dora and Elmo (who needed to be guided along by the hand so they wouldn't trample the toddling children who kept dancing around underfoot). All in all the experience was interesting because I remember Jen from her wild single days--packing her up inside a suitcase because she was petite enough to fit, midnight movies at the FHE brothers' houses on a school night, eggnog shakes at the HogYog, throwing lightbulbs onto Porters' parking lot with Aaron Davis and running around a cemetery afterward (actually, that was pretty unlike Jen that night....we caught her in a rare mood).....Jen the Wife and Mom is still definitely the same old Jen, but a more refined, protecting, intuitive Jen. A Jen who carries crackers with her along with twelve other various and assorted items of which she will use every single one whenever Olivia sneezes, calls out, beckons, or grins. Books, tissues, juice, etc. I'm impressed. And intimidated.

I feel jealous definitely. And scared definitely. I mean, this is a lot of responsibility. And we all know Jen was always better prepared for it than me. Jen practically raised me as her own while we lived together, when I asked her to. Or when I let her. She never could get me to clean my room. The point of this whole blathering post is that one of my very first memories is feeding goats at the Hogle Zoo when I was maybe three. I remember their tongues and I remember tentatively holding out my palm between the iron grate and being nervous and excited when a baby goat...possibly even a faun, not even a goat....batted his big eyes at me and licked up the pellets with his gray tongue and big floppy lips. And I guess this does make me a bit eager to experience this again with my own kids. No, I won't even guess. I do feel this way. I do envy Jen a bit that in a few years she'll take Olivia to the library and read huge hardback childrens' books with her and take stale bread to feed the ducks. I admit this is a hugely romantic portrayal of parenting, so before Sharon and Jared pipe up and tell me to get over this single woman's portrayal of motherhood (which I KNOW I know nothing about).....I recognize the late nights with stomach flus and broken bones and just the sheer monotonous fussiness and changing of diapers that will never ever end. But even those things I want to relive with these little people, I think. Even if I get a little girl someday like myself, paranoid and anxious until she breaks out in a rash on her stomach and I have to buy her worry stones that we both know don't really work. I like to think that maybe I'll remember how it was, and tell her I know how it is. But I also get scared I'll forget. Or I'll have a child I don't know or understand. A child with problems I never had, and I'll have to sit her down in silence and maybe even anger, staring her down with no empathy, and waning patience.

Well, in any case, EVERY kid of mine is going to love feeding the goats. We'll always have that.

Dying, Death equels leaving, left

"My first memory is of pain" writes Jaren in a beautiful post--truly a pleasure to read, a treat, like getting off a plane to feel warm Arizona air in the middle of winter.

I can't remember my first memory because my mind doesn't work backward anymore--in a chronological order. It's arranged more like a complicated spider's web. And each new sensation floats rather than attaches, while each new experience stays at the back of my neck until I'm ready to inspect it, pick it apart to know the danger before it explodes; consequently, my neck feels stretched to the point of breaking. Because what's the point of moving a new experience in to center stage, white space until I've named the core ones and placed them in a clean "well-lighted room"--nailed them to the floor, so I can see them, handle them, paint them any color I want? I think I've spent most of my life shell-shocked from my own anger at how the universe twists and turns so flippantly. Most events happen much too soon--before I am ready. What would it take for me to stand open-armed at the forefront of my life again? Or is this "naming of parts" an old woman feeling the movement toward her own death? It's an awfully morbid thought to see all of us marching toward our own graves, yet it's not like we can say "No, I'd prefer not to." We just move along toward . . . understanding? I don't think so. Compassion? I hope so because that would make it all worth while.
Jaren catches much with his openng line.

A memory

We were all still alive then. It was the late 1970’s and my family was on vacation. My parents ponied up the cash for the record-high gas, piled their six kids in a maroon Chevrolet suburban, and drove from Rexburg, Idaho, still reeling from the flood caused by the burst Teton Dam, across the shimmering deserts of Utah and Nevada, to Disneyland, the greatest place in the world. I was three years old and that trip is my first memory.

I don’t remember the fifteen hour drive. Having been a few places with my own kids, I could be persuaded that it sucked mightily for my parents.

What the hotel looked like is lost to me, though there is a vague notion that it was quite close to the theme park because it seems as though it wasn’t necessary to drive. It may even have been called Disneyland Hotel. I don’t even remember much of the park to be quite honest, but one thing about the trip is very clear. Two things, actually.

We had spent the day on the roller coasters, the teacups with their endless chiming of “It’s a Small World, After All”, shaking hands with and taking pictures of the whole cast of oversized celebrities, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, et al. I’m sure it was grand.

Here’s where it comes into focus. It was night, probably around 9 or 10 o’clock. Other than my younger brother Joshua, who was only one year old, the kids were headed to the pool. Mom and Dad stayed with Joshua in the room. It may seem like a bad idea to send children that young to swim unaccompanied by adults, but we were all precocious swimmers—I was swimming at two.

I remember the sidewalk to the pool was lit with a greenish hued lamp, the same color, incidentally, as illuminated pool water. Johnny, the oldest at thirteen, had his towel rolled lengthwise and he had it around the back of his neck, holding the two ends with his hands at his sides. He looked so cool, walking with his towel like that. So of course I copied him. As I was rolling my towel, trying to keep up with the others, I tripped and fell.

It couldn't be as bad as I remember, but memory tells me I scraped the hell out of my knees. I wailed.

Thinking about it now, I was probably upset as much by my failure to imitate my older brother as I was by the pain. Either way, I sat there and I screamed in the night. Because of my little injury, we all had to go back to the hotel room. None of us swam. My siblings were slightly pissed. I don’t blame them. I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t remember who held me, my mom or my dad. I cried myself to sleep.

It’s interesting to me that my very first memory is one of pain.

The second memory is from the next day. It’s of riding “The Matterhorn Bobsled” with my dad. Fashioned after the real Matterhorn in Switzerland, the roller coaster ascends to the top of an artificial mountain. After peaking, the bobsled flies down, looping in and out of tunnels that cut through the mountain. In one of the tunnels is a giant Abominable Snowman with glowing red eyes. He scared me to death. I loved it. Dad and I rode it again and again. We spent the day on that ride, just us.

Years later, I understood what he had done for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but my dad had an intense fear of heights. He also got motion sickness. It turns out that he absolutely hated roller coasters. In all our subsequent trips to amusement parks, I can’t remember him ever going on any rides. He joked that he didn’t feel comfortable sitting on park benches without a seatbelt. He just watched the rest of us and waited for us to get off before walking us to the next ride. I can only imagine the physical misery he put himself through to ride that bobsled with me.

I get a little sentimental this time of year. In a couple of months it will have been three years since he died. It is a huge and silent reality that so many have gone that way. I’ve looked in every room of my soul for the answers. If they’re there, I’m not yet equipped with the ability to understand them. I've talked very little about it, have written less. The whole thing is pushing at me these days.

At the beginning of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Phaedrus says, “Truth comes knocking at the door, and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ The ghost may have something there.

Whether it's familiarity that's blinding me or something else, I don't know. I do know that we all search for something. Here's to looking.

I was worried about ending here because I was afraid it would come off as overly sentimental. But I figured out how to say it: My first memory is of pain. My second one isn't.

News from KY

I'm young at this, so I'll pick it up as I go. Sharon, thanks for the invite. I sincerely hope you post often.

To start: You didn't finish the Dylan story (as it pertains to rejection). After he said "I don't believe you," he turned to the band and said "play it ******* loud." He not only played exactly what he wanted, but he did it more insistently.

Second, O'Brien is genius. True, he may be burning out in his present job, but as far as natural quick humor, he has few peers. And his hair: it speaks for itself.

Third, Emily is amazing. When she first came to visit, the kids were mauling her and I asked Wife during the distraction if she could remember if she and Emily had met. Wife said "Are you kidding? I'd remember meeting someone that beautiful." True. We had such a good time. The babies loved her unreserved and immediate. Wife and I loved her too, which is why we made her take the frog out of her purse and clamp it between her gums while we snapped degrading photos--I'll share them as soon as I get them off the camera. Then we pulled the old sleep deprivation (to illustrate our affection), allowing a hair under two hours' sleep in a muggy tent in our living room. And finally, at dawn's crack, we unceremoniously booted her out the door, stumbling and bleary-eyed, without breakfast or shower, and bid farewell forever. On the whole, it was grand.

The pictures:

As most children do, Emilia, Claire, and Joshua (with respect to their positioning on this page) thrill when exploring the outdoor world. We try to get them out as often as possible, letting them see and feel and smell. Their eagerness to experience the world makes new the familiar for me. It also points, a little ominously, toward the lessons down the road.

I was looking at these pictures of them in this field behind our apartment. Spotting the grass are thousands of dandelions in various stages of growth. I pop the tops off for the kids and they scream whoop. Inevitably, they search out the dandelions that are gone to seed, the translucent pappus with parachute stalks too tempting to resist. They pick them and blow them and watch the wind float the attendant flotsam till the sun disappears it all. Where they land is unseen, yet of course they do land somewhere, and soon the taproot tendrils the soil.

The whole of it is this, the dread fear of every parent--when mine are grown and gone, where will they land? For atmospheric currents are not too remote from those of life, they are complex and ever changing. Ending up where you want requires starting out right.

To God: Let me learn the winds. So that when I let go. . . .

The Conan Post

Sharon, it's Emily. THIS is why we like Conan O'Brien. Actually, no, first, let me guide you through it. Yes, he is kind of an idiot. But also brilliant. Studied English at Harvard. He's endearing. And I despise Access Hollywood but they did pull Conan and Andy Richter back together for an interview....which is the following clip. Watch for Conan's brief allusions to Jaws. And for his self-deprecation. And his floppy hair. This is why we love him. And his Chuck Norris lever. He's like the strange uncle I never had. Also, Jaren agrees with me that Conan is cool. And he doesn't know how to use Blogger but I think we can teach him. Also, we put frogs in our mouths. You would have killed us.

Late nights

I really hate Conon O'Brien (Sp). I mean what is that stupid, hair-flopping dance he does in the beginning of his show? I'm embarrassed for him. Doesn't he know he looks like an idiot? Who's his audience? Never mind. I don't want to know. It'd scare me. Last night I felt like Jewel's "Alice in Wonderland": Trying to figure out my life/ My youth scattered along the highway.
Or maybe more like her "A Good Day": Self, why are you awake again?/ It's 1:00 am/ . . . As it is I might/ watch TV because it's nice/ to see people more messed up than me/ . . . But it's going be all right/ No matter what they say/It's gonna be a good day/The point of it all/is if I should fall/But it's gonna be a good day/. . . as long as we laugh out loud/. . . It's gonna be okay/ . . .Get back in bed/ Turn off the TV/. . .un oh. I'm awake again/ It's 1:00 am/ such a sight--starring/ Well, at least the stars are bright.

Rejection

The worst thing about Rejection is that it's such a blatent lie--and we buy into it, like idiots. When Dylan first toured Europe, he wanted to play acoustic guitar. His audiences booed and catcalled: "Hey, Dylan, you're a sell-out." "Where's Arlo Guthry (msp), Dylan?" He tuned his equipment as if he didn't hear, but then he walked to the microphone and said "I don't believe you." He turned back to his band and played exactly what he wanted to play.