STELLMON. That would be Tanner Stellmon I'm talking to--my nephew (though I guess he's not technically my nephew anymore), NOT Tanner Warnick, whom I am not talking to right now, since I had to find out about his wedding from his little brother (Whoops. Sorry, Chan. His "taller" brother) even though I planned on dancing--on the table tops--at his wedding, since I personally had to suffer so much from his troubles with Melissa, who was probably just sent to get him ready for his real wife.
Soooooo, Tanner STELLMON, I was wondering if you have an office, and if you do, is it F.S.? I tipped over rock salt today, which I had in all four corners of my house to suck out bad energy. Wow, I bought that rock salt with Serena--that's how long ago it was--it seems like I dreamed it.
Remember when I had you and Jared move my desk around so it faced exactly SE, which meant it sat triangular to the door? Whew. Did my F.S. work? I don't know. I think I'll try it again and pay attention this time. I think it did though; I'm normal more than half the time now; but I was wondering if yours did.
I wonder if the Lord ever gets irritated with our silliness.
7/14/08
7/11/08
yael naim new soul clip
PERSPECTIVES--It's always interesting to see how others view us. I'm usualy appalled at another's perspective, or surprised, sometimes amused, or irritated, disappointed, or just plain happy that someone actually understands me.
On another blog, Sarah (just had baby girl--Ella) posted lyrics from C.Crows song, "Marjorie is Dreaming of Horses." She says it reminds her of my life. To me, the lyrics paint a depressed loser. Whew (though I DO often dream of horses and related).
Today my daughter sent me yael naim's "New Soul" and said, "This is you, Mom." I relate again, especially to the lyrics "to learn to give and take ... but make so many mistakes." Also, in our 100 moves, I could never unpack boxes unless I decorated walls with my DI art and posters first, even if it meant we slept on floors and ate off crates. I relate to her scribbling in her own reality between the lines until it bursts into her vision, and if this is what J. Watson refered to as my habit of changing reality to fit what I want it to be, then he may be right. It's possible I was wrong. This looks like a younger me. (Yeah for the resurrection-the day after, I'm going to run and dance to Santana.)
But, I see pieces of me in everyone and everything. So much for identity--it's over-rated anyway.... I know I DO love this video and daughter Megan.
On another blog, Sarah (just had baby girl--Ella) posted lyrics from C.Crows song, "Marjorie is Dreaming of Horses." She says it reminds her of my life. To me, the lyrics paint a depressed loser. Whew (though I DO often dream of horses and related).
Today my daughter sent me yael naim's "New Soul" and said, "This is you, Mom." I relate again, especially to the lyrics "to learn to give and take ... but make so many mistakes." Also, in our 100 moves, I could never unpack boxes unless I decorated walls with my DI art and posters first, even if it meant we slept on floors and ate off crates. I relate to her scribbling in her own reality between the lines until it bursts into her vision, and if this is what J. Watson refered to as my habit of changing reality to fit what I want it to be, then he may be right. It's possible I was wrong. This looks like a younger me. (Yeah for the resurrection-the day after, I'm going to run and dance to Santana.)
But, I see pieces of me in everyone and everything. So much for identity--it's over-rated anyway.... I know I DO love this video and daughter Megan.
7/9/08
4th of July--White Kittens and Chainsaws.
I'm glad to have friends who hop in the car--without thinking--at midnight to help Megan and me run disaster kittens to a drop box at a Humane society. I'm glad I have that kind of a daughter. It's late on a long holiday. Em and I are sitting around a fire, and she's telling me some fascinating mystical story when I see a white kitten through the smoke--sitting perfectly still--watching us. I'm sure it's not real; it's a flashback spirit-guide from Peyote dreams of long ago, but it whines and moves. I pick it up to find its twin sulking in the shadows (marking in my mind the spot where Em needs to finish her story). They're tiny and hungry and look like they've been beaten up by raccoons, so I know what's going to happen when Megan sees them. I automatically go to the garage to cut air holes in a box. Then, we three leave son-Taylor, Jessica, and Ben and drive 15 miles over construction roads to help two mutilated kittens. Em sticks out her hand to pet white guard dogs, who happily jump in the open car door after we wouldn't let them eat the kittens. It's even later now, but time has evaporated, so we buy soda and ice cream at an all-night truck stop. For some reason, it's the best ice cream in the world. Lil' Emily Pew, does this justify having Ben let Em practice with the chainsaw? Who knows? Yes, it's possible we'll see her name in lights for the next Chainsaw Massacre movie. But she wins heavy points for just being there, supporting Megan's thin-skinned heart--without questioning--and for being who she is (WHATEVER that is).
6/20/08
6/11/08
Patty Griffin- Heavenly Day
Oh, Heavenly Day. Emily Pew finally broke down and BLOGGED. I'm in shock and may have to duck my head in the river to recover. Wow. This video is for you. Now throw on something you've written, Girl.
I think you're right about Em and the chainsaw, though chainsawing through this huge tree would be great therapy for her.
I'm going to take shots of my cat and post for H. Especially if you post. C'mon. Even just a small poem would keep us happy.
6/9/08
Beavers and Black Swans
Sunday afternoon, and I'm lying on my porch swing reading and watching the birds dive bomb over the river, when the cat's tail starts to wag slowly in her "hunter-killer" mode. I glance toward the river and see a black swan, with a neck like a snake, swim by the small island, next to the new beaver dam. I've never seen a black swan out of captivity, and I spend the rest of the afternoon watching it glide back and forth and dip its head in the river. Once it came up to swim next to my canoe--what a treat.
Next, after dark, Patch is barking frantically enough to pull me away from another book. The idiot has something pinned down in the garage. I draw back to consider, since last time it turned out to be a small skunk, who sprayed. But I finally reach my hand around the door and hit the door opener. Does Patch chase the "thing" OUTSIDE? Nope--that's too easy for him. Instead, I hear them running directly back toward me as I dash for the door, just in time to see . . . what? A raccoon? It ran like a beaver, but it was too big. My first thought was "It's a porcupine," but Patch would have quills sticking out of his nose by now. Whatever it is scrambles over the cat, who jumps to my shoulder (with claws,of course, open); I scream, and Patch barks this brown lump, three times his size, clear to China and back. What a grand day. I think it was a grizzly bear or a lion, maybe a tiger.
Red-Letter Morning and Apricot Pits
Thurs.
Last night (Well, technically early this morning), I’m reading a piece out of Replacing Memory by Barry Lopez. I’m tired, but he has me in a trance. He's visiting Whittier, CA and tries to find two of his childhood homes.
At one place--he's guessing though--he walks across a perfectly flat lot: trees, bushes, numbers on mailbox, beehive--all "swept clean, empty," except for "the tread marks of a single tractor." He finds an apricot pit at the back of the lot and puts it in his pocket. But he finds the next house still standing, occupied by an elderly woman he once knew, says an old neighbor. She doesn’t answer his knock because “she's inside dying of cancer."
I'm leaning against pillows on a white feather quilt. My dog is draped over my feet, and Cat is curled up under my arm as close as she can get. She doesn't like it when the wind blows hard enough to swirl the birds outside. I'm wrapped up in the smell of lilacs I picked earlier—a sweet, slightly syrupy smell like getting off the plane in Hawaii the first time. Tori Amos plays on the IPod: Piano notes as light as raindrops:
"Excuse me, but can I be here for awhile?
. . . And sometimes, I said sometimes, I hear my voice, and it's been here -- Silent All These Years.
. . . So you found a girl who thinks deep thoughts. What’s so amazing about deep thoughts? Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon. How’s that thought for ya? My scream got lost in a paper cup. I think there’s a heaven where the screams have gone.
. . . But I don’t care.
. . . Years go by and I’ll still be waiting for somebody else to understand. Years go by, even stripped of my beauty and the orange clouds raining in my hand. . . . Easy. Easy. Easy.
. . . Your mother shows up in a nasty dress, and it’s your turn now to stand where I stand, and everybody looking at you. . . . But, I don’t care.
. . . And it’s been years. And I’ve been here, I said I’ve been here, silent all these years.”
Whew. Amos is a morning gift. Vaguely I hear the birds start in and wonder again why they can’t wake up one at a time. It’s like some big bird conductors taps their wand on a tree branch, cough, and say in chirp talk: “Ready? Hit it.”
I turn back to Lopez, feeling that dull dread of the day coming after I haven’t slept, already anticipating sore eyes, a stiff neck:
He writes, “I told her something Wallace Stegner wrote: whatever landscape a child is exposed to early on, that will be the sort of gauze through which he or she will see all the world afterward. I said I thought it was emotional sight, not strictly a physical thing.”
Duh. Why did Lopez have to add his own thought? Couldn’t he just let us hear Stegner, since what he adds is obvious?
Back to the page, where he walking around the side of the house, which holds the woman dying of cancer, and I’m suddenly whisked away from this Idaho dawn to California where Leonard Cohen feeds me “oranges that come all the way from China”:
Lopez says, “We were standing on a concrete path, where I squatted down to peer at a column of ants going in and out of a crack. I had watched ants in this same crack forty years before. These were their progeny, still gathering food here [Ah, I love that line].The mystery of their life, which had once transfixed me, seemed in no way to have diminished. [Don’t like these two sentences, but love the last one, except for the word “deliberately.”] I felt tears brim under my eyes and spill onto my cheeks. The woman touched my forearm deliberately but lightly, and walked away.”
It’s those ants. Those ants get me every time because they’re such a minute detail, and they remind me how small I am also. My problems fall away, sort of shed downward like dead skin, for a moment, although I wonder if this generation will have the luxury of noticing that some parts of life always stay the same.
In her sleep, the cat scoots toward the bird sounds, but then slumps, like bones dissolving into milk, rolls over, and twists her head in a circle, with paws curled in the air. She makes me laugh. How can she sleep like that? And I notice I feel happy. Completely happy.
For a fleeting second, I realize how long it’s been. Whew, so long that the feeling is strange--unfamiliar, but I relax into it (because who can predict when it’ll come again) to watch the dawn, which does not come up over the river. It’s nothing swift like the “rosy fingers of dawn.” It’s more like slivers of color flow into gray then dissolve the darkness, like water filling up an empty sink. No, not quite like that. The light does not even “push” the dark out; it blends with it until it’s just more there than the dark. Dawn moves into another day smooth and soft, like the best kind of quiet. And now Santana plays his guitar in the background. Ha. Mmmmmm--sound of pleasure to hear that Black Magic guitar with dawn birds as grey moves into day—I have to smile again. I mean, people pay big bucks for moments like this.
Last night (Well, technically early this morning), I’m reading a piece out of Replacing Memory by Barry Lopez. I’m tired, but he has me in a trance. He's visiting Whittier, CA and tries to find two of his childhood homes.
At one place--he's guessing though--he walks across a perfectly flat lot: trees, bushes, numbers on mailbox, beehive--all "swept clean, empty," except for "the tread marks of a single tractor." He finds an apricot pit at the back of the lot and puts it in his pocket. But he finds the next house still standing, occupied by an elderly woman he once knew, says an old neighbor. She doesn’t answer his knock because “she's inside dying of cancer."
I'm leaning against pillows on a white feather quilt. My dog is draped over my feet, and Cat is curled up under my arm as close as she can get. She doesn't like it when the wind blows hard enough to swirl the birds outside. I'm wrapped up in the smell of lilacs I picked earlier—a sweet, slightly syrupy smell like getting off the plane in Hawaii the first time. Tori Amos plays on the IPod: Piano notes as light as raindrops:
"Excuse me, but can I be here for awhile?
. . . And sometimes, I said sometimes, I hear my voice, and it's been here -- Silent All These Years.
. . . So you found a girl who thinks deep thoughts. What’s so amazing about deep thoughts? Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon. How’s that thought for ya? My scream got lost in a paper cup. I think there’s a heaven where the screams have gone.
. . . But I don’t care.
. . . Years go by and I’ll still be waiting for somebody else to understand. Years go by, even stripped of my beauty and the orange clouds raining in my hand. . . . Easy. Easy. Easy.
. . . Your mother shows up in a nasty dress, and it’s your turn now to stand where I stand, and everybody looking at you. . . . But, I don’t care.
. . . And it’s been years. And I’ve been here, I said I’ve been here, silent all these years.”
Whew. Amos is a morning gift. Vaguely I hear the birds start in and wonder again why they can’t wake up one at a time. It’s like some big bird conductors taps their wand on a tree branch, cough, and say in chirp talk: “Ready? Hit it.”
I turn back to Lopez, feeling that dull dread of the day coming after I haven’t slept, already anticipating sore eyes, a stiff neck:
He writes, “I told her something Wallace Stegner wrote: whatever landscape a child is exposed to early on, that will be the sort of gauze through which he or she will see all the world afterward. I said I thought it was emotional sight, not strictly a physical thing.”
Duh. Why did Lopez have to add his own thought? Couldn’t he just let us hear Stegner, since what he adds is obvious?
Back to the page, where he walking around the side of the house, which holds the woman dying of cancer, and I’m suddenly whisked away from this Idaho dawn to California where Leonard Cohen feeds me “oranges that come all the way from China”:
Lopez says, “We were standing on a concrete path, where I squatted down to peer at a column of ants going in and out of a crack. I had watched ants in this same crack forty years before. These were their progeny, still gathering food here [Ah, I love that line].The mystery of their life, which had once transfixed me, seemed in no way to have diminished. [Don’t like these two sentences, but love the last one, except for the word “deliberately.”] I felt tears brim under my eyes and spill onto my cheeks. The woman touched my forearm deliberately but lightly, and walked away.”
It’s those ants. Those ants get me every time because they’re such a minute detail, and they remind me how small I am also. My problems fall away, sort of shed downward like dead skin, for a moment, although I wonder if this generation will have the luxury of noticing that some parts of life always stay the same.
In her sleep, the cat scoots toward the bird sounds, but then slumps, like bones dissolving into milk, rolls over, and twists her head in a circle, with paws curled in the air. She makes me laugh. How can she sleep like that? And I notice I feel happy. Completely happy.
For a fleeting second, I realize how long it’s been. Whew, so long that the feeling is strange--unfamiliar, but I relax into it (because who can predict when it’ll come again) to watch the dawn, which does not come up over the river. It’s nothing swift like the “rosy fingers of dawn.” It’s more like slivers of color flow into gray then dissolve the darkness, like water filling up an empty sink. No, not quite like that. The light does not even “push” the dark out; it blends with it until it’s just more there than the dark. Dawn moves into another day smooth and soft, like the best kind of quiet. And now Santana plays his guitar in the background. Ha. Mmmmmm--sound of pleasure to hear that Black Magic guitar with dawn birds as grey moves into day—I have to smile again. I mean, people pay big bucks for moments like this.
6/2/08
Latest WC Party and Waikiki
So good to see Steve Bell even if he is quitting teaching to go into dentistry. Good party with lots of singing around a fire against a sunset, but seemed strange not to have guitars.--Chan, Kaitlin, and Jami tipped over my canoe, but they dragged it back in snow run-off water, instead of leaving it at the bottom of the river, bless their hearts (or I would have killed them).I had a strange feeling as I watched the fire and their shadows against the twilight. I think this was our last party by the river. Don't know why I feel that way. And it made me sad, like the end of a part of my life--another end.
Sometimes (excuse self-pity), it seems I've had more ends than beginnings.
If I could go back and do something over again--make a new beginning--where would I go? Whew. Never mind. Too many answers to that question. But . . . were there simple, small beginnings I missed? Probably thousands.
. . . Tonight, I'd go to Waikiki (1967 or '68) when a soldier on RR (Rest & Relaxation--ha)from Vietnam stopped me on the street to ask where I was from. (Funny this memory should surface now? Wafting up from those romantic days when most everything was golden--and whatever wasn't gold, we'd throw away by morning.)
I remember I looked up into the most beautiful green eyes, shy, clear, and lonely, and I couldn't think of one cleaver thing to say; I just pulled away from him and walked toward the beach sunset. Later I saw him eating alone at a sidewalk table. His eyes were looking at something far away--maybe the war, his little brother, or a girl back home. He sat hunched over, wasn't interested in his Patty Melt sandwich, and barely glanced up when I sat down. Somewhere between the clouds rolling in and his shiny military shoes, he turned into a human being instead of a hustler. "When do you go back?"
His eyes focused in, but he didn't smile. "Two days, but it doesn't matter."
"Are you okay?"
He smiled, "I am now."
"OK, listen, I'm from Idaho, love the color gray, lobster, and registered quarter horses. I'm sorry, but I don't trust guys very much, and I won't sleep with you, but if you want, I can show you a ledge outside the Hawaiian Hilton where we can hear some good music and watch the surf?" It all came out in a rush of jumbled noise because he had these amazing green eyes that seemed to really SEE me when he looked at me. And I wasn't used to talking to soldiers; they were too hungry, too rushed, too scared. But he seemed so . . . I don't know. Familiar?
"Are you picking me up?" Now he was grinning.
As usual, a defensive irritation shot up my spine. "Geez, I've never picked up a guy--whatever that means--nor will I ever have to or want to pick up a guy. Excuse me; I read you wrong." I marched away and ducked down an alley and into the back door of a bar I knew about to lose him.
But what if I'd stayed? What if I hadn't grown up with a hair-trigger temper, and I'd just laughed along with his joke--which I'm sure it was now. I missed a walk along the beach, maybe a swim in the always-warm water--I could have shown him the thick yellow rope to swim under where we could check out the million dollar boats on the other side tied up in the harbor; we could have played at picking out the one we'd sail away in tomorrow morning. We could have strolled through the International Market where I would show him the knife with the elaborate carved Ivory handle I was saving up to buy. I could have shown him where we could buy broiled shrimp for a 50 cents. And when it got close to his curfew, maybe I would have kissed him, since he was flying back to jungle rot and hutches where they tried to stay sane by smoking MJ mixed with Jimmi Hendricks. And because he had green, very green eyes.
Yeah, I ended that one before it began. And what a nice walk down the beach that would have been. Sometimes we eat our bitter fears for breakfast, like burnt toast.
Or maybe he was a serial killer in disguise, who had just slit the throat of a poor RR soldier for his uniform and planned on chunking me up for shark bait.
Naaaw. I don't think so. Otherwise, I would have forgotten those green green eyes by now.
5/15/08
Roy Reynold's sketch of a Hipster
Late 60's. I was in Moscow, Idaho looking into the church, and I read the scriptures for hours at a time. My artist friend Roy sketched me reading the Bible. I glued the sketch on a cutting board, so as not to lose it in the next 22 moves. The sketch looks like I felt at the time--scared, unsure, reluctant--praying all the time that I wouldn't find the Mormon church was true. "Please don't let it be true." But it was true then and is still true-blue now.I splashed my favorite colors on the sketch. It makes me feel good to remember those slow diamond-like discoveries.
4/12/08
Bright Spots of Time
Wow. You knew I would love the poem. I really love it. Where is this museum? And how was the poem in a museum? In what form? Or were there just poetry books lying around on every surface and decorating the floors? This is how I would arrange a museum: I'd lay my friend’s sculptures on slabs of marble and hang art pieces suspended from the ceiling to eye level; our chairs would be books.
I hope you get the job. It fits you, but how did you feel when you interviewed? How come I’m always in the middle of what you’re doing? Rachel is calling me early early in the morning because she can't reach you, so she turns from Utah to Idaho to find you in AZ.? Logic? I'm trying to find you with zip luck as she's in a panic on the other line. I finally told her that I had shouted--not gently nudged--but shouted at you through text and e-mail. And even though I personally knew you were in a fetal position somewhere under sagebrush, cuddling with the snakes, I didn't tell her that. I told her I was sure you would contact her immediately. And I knew you would, since the job fell obviously from heaven into your un-deserving lap.
How is the desert? I think it wears your name, but so does a graduate program.
Hey and thanks for bringing me back here. I’m looking around, and it feels good. Jaren blew me off this site a couple of months ago like a dark wind from hell with his condescending remark about changing reality. Now, he’s sent me an essay to read, which I’m dying to open, but won’t until I get an official apology from Tuscan. I love Jaren, so I’ve wondered why his snooty comment caused grief, since I realize he completely missed or willfully ignored my point. But, no matter what he says, he, Greg, and James were a delight to be around. Jaren and Greg pulled up chairs in my office to sit in on my interview with James, coaching him in what to say either before or after (can’t remember, Jaren, and it doesn’t matter anyway) because his answers read like textbooks. “I don’t need to hire another EGO, James. Looking at Jaren and Greg, I said, “We have enough egos already at the WC. Don’t need more, thank you very much.” Whoa and what if I hadn’t hired James? Makes me sick to think I might have missed knowing James Best.
Time is a strange animal. As I grow older, it speeds up and passes like a Technicolor dream. Memory is even stranger. Summer and fall semesters blend like falling leaves. However, at times, I DO choose to have a selective memory. I remember only good times in my marriage unless I’m with other people, since it’s a safer way to live. I locate bright spots and ask why they are bright? My memory of knowing James and Greg and Jaren (“around” the same time, Jaren) has sunlight about it—Why? Because I enjoyed their cynicism? Hardly. More because I loved their ability to let go of cynicism and see the present, see “now” like innocent children. They have keen minds and love to use them. (However, Jaren’s mind suffers lately from sunburn.) James and Jaren usually live at the front edge of their lives while, all the time, both investigate their darker pasts. Greg’s mind needs a hook like a large crochet needle to pull it in, but once in the vicinity, he sparks up any landscape.
In my writing, I compress time and blend characters together. My mother becomes part of my grandmother. Randy becomes part of Jim. You--Em G. -- and Em Little often blend in your exclusive brilliance. But I don’t mistake the center of reality, Jaren Watson. How could I? It has often slapped me side the head –even while I pulled mountains down to hide my home--with its continual harshness, complicated paradoxes, and forever beauty. Here’s why I think I felt insulted: 1) My life’s goal is to find exact reality; without that goal, I’m aware that I cannot find God. 2) I’ve been a long time at it. 3) It’s important to me because I spent time in a landscape where I wasn’t sure which reality to believe. Is the paint really dripping off those walls? Should I walk over and touch it to find out? Did that radio really come on before I turned it on? 4) It’s almost as exciting as being in love (but not quite) to find what really “is” underneath the 1000 illusions we pile on top of truth. 5) I’m aware there are 1000 truths inside one truth, and I love the hunt.
Enough. I love the poem
I hope you get the job. It fits you, but how did you feel when you interviewed? How come I’m always in the middle of what you’re doing? Rachel is calling me early early in the morning because she can't reach you, so she turns from Utah to Idaho to find you in AZ.? Logic? I'm trying to find you with zip luck as she's in a panic on the other line. I finally told her that I had shouted--not gently nudged--but shouted at you through text and e-mail. And even though I personally knew you were in a fetal position somewhere under sagebrush, cuddling with the snakes, I didn't tell her that. I told her I was sure you would contact her immediately. And I knew you would, since the job fell obviously from heaven into your un-deserving lap.
How is the desert? I think it wears your name, but so does a graduate program.
Hey and thanks for bringing me back here. I’m looking around, and it feels good. Jaren blew me off this site a couple of months ago like a dark wind from hell with his condescending remark about changing reality. Now, he’s sent me an essay to read, which I’m dying to open, but won’t until I get an official apology from Tuscan. I love Jaren, so I’ve wondered why his snooty comment caused grief, since I realize he completely missed or willfully ignored my point. But, no matter what he says, he, Greg, and James were a delight to be around. Jaren and Greg pulled up chairs in my office to sit in on my interview with James, coaching him in what to say either before or after (can’t remember, Jaren, and it doesn’t matter anyway) because his answers read like textbooks. “I don’t need to hire another EGO, James. Looking at Jaren and Greg, I said, “We have enough egos already at the WC. Don’t need more, thank you very much.” Whoa and what if I hadn’t hired James? Makes me sick to think I might have missed knowing James Best.
Time is a strange animal. As I grow older, it speeds up and passes like a Technicolor dream. Memory is even stranger. Summer and fall semesters blend like falling leaves. However, at times, I DO choose to have a selective memory. I remember only good times in my marriage unless I’m with other people, since it’s a safer way to live. I locate bright spots and ask why they are bright? My memory of knowing James and Greg and Jaren (“around” the same time, Jaren) has sunlight about it—Why? Because I enjoyed their cynicism? Hardly. More because I loved their ability to let go of cynicism and see the present, see “now” like innocent children. They have keen minds and love to use them. (However, Jaren’s mind suffers lately from sunburn.) James and Jaren usually live at the front edge of their lives while, all the time, both investigate their darker pasts. Greg’s mind needs a hook like a large crochet needle to pull it in, but once in the vicinity, he sparks up any landscape.
In my writing, I compress time and blend characters together. My mother becomes part of my grandmother. Randy becomes part of Jim. You--Em G. -- and Em Little often blend in your exclusive brilliance. But I don’t mistake the center of reality, Jaren Watson. How could I? It has often slapped me side the head –even while I pulled mountains down to hide my home--with its continual harshness, complicated paradoxes, and forever beauty. Here’s why I think I felt insulted: 1) My life’s goal is to find exact reality; without that goal, I’m aware that I cannot find God. 2) I’ve been a long time at it. 3) It’s important to me because I spent time in a landscape where I wasn’t sure which reality to believe. Is the paint really dripping off those walls? Should I walk over and touch it to find out? Did that radio really come on before I turned it on? 4) It’s almost as exciting as being in love (but not quite) to find what really “is” underneath the 1000 illusions we pile on top of truth. 5) I’m aware there are 1000 truths inside one truth, and I love the hunt.
Enough. I love the poem
4/10/08
At the Heard Museum today......
.....I bought a book of Louise Erdrich's poetry and found a poem that made me wish I were reading it with you, Sharon. So I thought I'd post it on here so you could read it. I was really impressed with the museum....I'll have to talk to you about it someday. Hopefully I will get Rachel K's job in Utah and not be so far away, although my heart is settling nicely in the Sonoran Desert....I'm afraid I will always be returning to pull a week on the trail here and there. I definitely need to purchase some artwork while I'm here.
Grief
Sometimes you have to take your own hand
as though you were a lost child
and bring yourself stumbling
home over twisted ice.
Whiteness drifts over your house.
A page of warm light
falls steady from the open door.
Here is your bed, folded open.
Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.
Love you, Shar. --Em
Grief
Sometimes you have to take your own hand
as though you were a lost child
and bring yourself stumbling
home over twisted ice.
Whiteness drifts over your house.
A page of warm light
falls steady from the open door.
Here is your bed, folded open.
Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.
Love you, Shar. --Em
3/19/08
"Snow Woman"; Criticism; and J. Grifter
Stressful day. Actually a bad, bad day; Nothing goes right, and I ache to drop this life flat and run to search out old hipster friends--just to hear someone sit quietly and pick a guitar. So driving home from work at 12 a.m., I'm looking forward to seeing deer in my yard. But, tonight, when I need them, the deer are across the river eating my neighbor's hay. Worthless deer. Tears move close to the surface, when I turn off the loud 4-wheel drive truck. But one thing I know--for dead certain--is I'm not going inside to sit in a pool of self-pity. I'll stay out in this ice land all night before I'll sit on my floor and fall face-forward into a "woe is me poor victim stance." Solutions?--none. First, I want the key to unlock my 22 to shoot at the moon, which I can't see behind the clouds. But I now it's there. The moon won't desert us like some famliy and friends do. It can't walk away. It's got to run the tides, the hecks sakes. But the key to my pistal is lost; Thank heaven. So I fall out of the truck, since I'm too short to step out gracefully, and stand to squint at the trees where the deer bed down. I'm emotionally stuck. But, slowly like small drops of water rolling off my roof, I hear the Quiet of my farmhouse laid out in the new snow, and walk in a circle.... I've never been able to find the exact words to describe snow falling past my big yard light.
It falls soft and light as if the flakes barely disturb or move the air. Quiet. The only sound tonight comes from ice breaking up in the river. The world begins to shift and change and fall back into reasonable places.
I can hear my dog, Patch, clawing at the door to get out. He loves me, can't wait to see me, needs contact with me, or he stops eating, drops into severe depression, which makes it hard to have my oldest son babysit him when I travel. I change into boots and my Minnesota coat, wondering if he got this disease from me. Patch jumps around my boots; I watch the sky for a break in the clouds. The snow falls straight down and makes the trees look like they float above ground. I study the sky again and remember making snowmen with the kids on nights like this: a familiar ache churns into it's fiamiliar pattern. I feel like spitting out a swearword. Surely, there's a way to live without constantly grieving the loss of people I have loved--some I'll see again; some are gone like they've been blown out of the universe by a hurricane--before I had time to wake up and say a proper, dignified good-bye....
Geez, I sound like a Carol King song. And who am I talking to anyway--the trees? the covered-up moon? or to God? I'm disgusted and throw a snowball at Patch. He runs around me, barking; he thinks we're playing. So . . . we do play. I roll the first snowball to make a snowman--Never mind. It'll be a snow woman (I hate all men tonight including my dad and my boss)-- mindlessly, roll it too big, I suppose forgetting that it was my boys who lifted the packed-down snow, forgetting that Patch is obviously too small to help me, and he's worthless anyway, since he's over by the river barking at ducks he can't even see but knows are there--somewhere. He trots back, tilts his head at the snow ball and heads for the trees to flush out the deer, who, for some reason, are usually there, but are not there tonight. This is life--animals, things, family, friends should be there, but, really, are not ever in a close enough landscape. The cat, who lives with us so distantly that I haven't even named her, is trying to get across the snow to where I'm standing. I wonder how she can see me through the flakes as she jumps daintily from one pile of snow to another with a faint, pitiful meow before every jump. She loves me also, but is a worthless cat who crawls up and sleeps by my neck as soon as she hears Patch snoring. If she makes it across the snow field, I realize I'll have to carry her back, and since she's not used to being carried, or even touched, she'll scratch the heck out of my neck. Wow. Geez, life is complicated for those in a bad mood, who like to complain. Turning back to start over on the snowman, I leave Patch to bark at phantom deer and by 3:00 am, I've made a very anorexic snow "woman" with small Christmas bulbs for her eyes, nose, and mouth--they shine--(I don't want her to have ears). She wears a cowboy hat and a tie-died red scarf, and though she tilts to the left side, she is one Picasso of a snow woman. "She's so fine," my artist friends are going to be jealous; Sculptress Friend Ann, move over and eat your heart out. I pat more snow underneath her left silver-ornament eye to keep the wind from sailing it into the river, since it's not real silver. It's not even plastic, but more like glittered egg shell. Nice. So nice. This Snow Woman is taking grand art prize of the year. I'm certain; they'll freeze her, wrap her in cellophane, and ship her back east to a famous museum, probably the one where Meg and I learned that J. Best is the only male we know who loves Wuthering Heights as much as we do. Even her stick arms still have dried leaves on them. A western Madonna. A Greek goddess. Just before I reach for the cat, who is now crouched against my boot, watching every shadow in tight fear, I'm proud--I'm feeling very proud--especially proud that--tonight--I beat back the Big Bad Blues, sans Ipod, sans late night TV, sans Alive PM.
Note to Em: Sorry I yelled at you during the whole phone call. I can't do that anymore. Just way too expensive for the minutes. Really. Sorry. You'll just have to come up here if you want criticized like that again.
Joe G. came to take me to lunch and left a note that was better than any mere lunch. Has anyone seen Grifter's hand writing? It looks like calligraphy. When I grow up, I want to write like that. But the cynical, music-lover that he is cannot write a straight-up note if it kills him. He turns everything into satirical drama, which makes life more fun. What a treat.
I, myself, would have written: "Hey. J. Came to take you to lunch." Not Joe. He starts with no salutation and turns the note into poetry: It's rings faint like "Forgive me; I ate the plums . . ."
Sharon
I stopped to take you to lunch.
You were gone.
Rain check. . . .
I also want you to know
That I would have bought
dessert.
Next time, dessert is
not an option.
PS
I was also tempted to
steal your checkbook.
Joseph Wyatt Griffin
3/4/08
12/14/07
The Fox
Guess who breezed into my office right before we marched through graduation in the Hart? Yep. The great breezer of all time--Gregory Fox himself. Bearded, handsome, excited to see Kimberly, taller? or did I shrink? Wow. It's good to see old friends. He's rich, thinking about grad school, still grins all the time he talks like he has a big secret he's going to tell you. He's writing, but it sounds like it's for other people--not his "truest blue voice" stuff, and he wants to party with AZ people after Christmas. As I sat in the Hart with the December graduates, wishing I'd talked him into sneaking away for dinner, listening to a speaker encourage students to build the right "study environment" (a little odd for an exit speech), I thought of the many days Greg and I have been through, many hours, thousands of minutes.When I interviewed him for hire, he looked so dang normal. How'd he do that? I swear his head circled the moon at least three times a day. He's a delight, but hard to explain to people. One time before a party, I threw a mop in his hands and said, "I'm so glad you came early." Ten minutes later, I came downstairs from cleaning the bathroom, and Greg's still standing in the same place, looking at the same mop. Luckily Beau came in the back door, saw the problem, gently took the mop, and talked nonstop to Greg, so Greg wouldn't notice him rinsing and cleaning the floor. It was just too hard to explain "mopping a floor" to Greg when the sun hit the horizen. At one Christmas party, I had forgotten presents for the spouses and was hurriedly wrapping last minute gifts. He and Jaren watched for a minute, then, behind my back, they sneaked around corners, scooping up things from my shelves, kitchen, etc. and wrapped them up as gifts to put under the tree. I opened one up later and said, "Wow. I just bought a straw doll at D.I. just like this." Weird? Ohhhh, "I could tell you stories." I grounded him from taking the Scribblers to the English Department because he stopped and flirted with the secretaries and caused such chaos. One day he whine and whined, so I sent someone with him to babysit. Geez, sure, as if she could control him--"How'd it go? Did he behave?" "Well, ...Sister Morgan, yeah, he did. I mean he didn't stop in the office and flirt, but.... " I was walking away and turned sharply to face her. "Well, nothing, really; he just sort of stopped at every open-door classroom and waved at people."
After the Becca heartache, he'd be so ADD some days that I couldn't stand to have him in seminar. But he wouldn't go away, so I'd give him paper to draw on and make him promise to sit in the corner and shut up. One seminar, while he threw across the room strong insights about the essay we were analyzing, he drew fifty pigs in different stages of dying--one had a dagger through its throat, another had his eyes blown out, blood everywhere, etc. I wished I'd saved it. In case I ever get accused of having sane acquaintances, I can pull it out as proof. Nope. Sorry. Normal? Never heard of it. I hang out with writers.
After the Becca heartache, he'd be so ADD some days that I couldn't stand to have him in seminar. But he wouldn't go away, so I'd give him paper to draw on and make him promise to sit in the corner and shut up. One seminar, while he threw across the room strong insights about the essay we were analyzing, he drew fifty pigs in different stages of dying--one had a dagger through its throat, another had his eyes blown out, blood everywhere, etc. I wished I'd saved it. In case I ever get accused of having sane acquaintances, I can pull it out as proof. Nope. Sorry. Normal? Never heard of it. I hang out with writers.
The semester that he, James Best, and Jaren Watson sat in seminar together was electric. Fun. Seriously brain-ripping brilliant, though I wanted to shoot all three of them before it was over.
I really think old friends are the best.
I really think old friends are the best.
12/10/07
"There are many prodigal sons ..." And football
Tanner, I posted your picture today, so you won't go into withdrawal after seeing two of your pictures in the BYU-I class schedule. Those are W.C. pics. aren't they? You scene stealer, you.
Hey, I wish you weren't still such a graphic writer. The image of the rage-soaked boy knifing his own mother haunts me, as do some questions about free agency. When you said "There's nothing free about this kid's agency now"(that's such a great line), I thought this boy lost his agency long before he grabbed that knife. But when and why did he lose his agency? And how much did he have in the first place? The same amount as you or I? I'm so intrigued by "when and how," though as in this case, it's often a moot point. I think of this kid's intense anger and rage and wonder . . . because anger is always a secondary emotion, which usually starts with sadness or comes from fear, and fear makes most of us act like animals. I'm not trying to justify what this boy did. I just wonder what happened in his nightmare life to push him past living in reality. Why did he make this decision to plunge a knife into his mother's head? When did he make this choice? Did he just wake up that morning and say, "Hey, good day to kill a mom?"
You say that you believe all emotions and chemistry are rooted in choice, which implies that every act has a choice attached to it, which is when it gets very complicated for me. Something makes my head ache about that idea. I see a six year old in Iraq get his leg blown off, and I think, "Whose agency is working here? His? For being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Pres. Bush's agency? Whose? That’s at the other end of the spectrum, but still, some choices people make seem so limited to me. Or it’s like listening to a candidate who promises massive changes once he/she is in the White House, when I know that all new presidents are very limited in decisions they can make because of the circumstances they inherit with the office, and because of the “time of season, the time of man.”
I remember Elder Holland's talk and Elder Bedner's on the same topic. I thought, "So true, how wise. And who would choose not to forgive? Who on this earth would choose to purposely be offended and stay offended? What a small and closed-down way to live." Then my shirt was soaked with tears because I thought of all the people I know who are filled with such agonizing pain that they can't even spell the word "forgiveness" yet. I thought of the long walk they must take with the Savior before they get past the pain to see what forgiveness really is. I thought of little girls now grown into W.C. assistants who've learned to walk very quietly in the shadows, so as not to call attention to themselves. Some voice deep inside still warns them to walk here--on the very edges of life (long after they’re physically safe) so Dad or Uncle Harry won't hear you and come looking. Or slice your arms to shreds tonight because your body was involved in a horribly wrong act, and that will punish it for you. And they don't even know they still hear this little voice. Is this a choice? Of course. Is it a negative choice? Yes, it keeps them from living fully, but it's a choice born out trying to survive because someone bigger-- someone they trusted and loved-- betrayed them and used them like rubber dolls you buy at stores. Their choice, which governs how they live now, came about as a reaction to someone else's free agency. When families are ripped apart by whomever or whatever, Tanner, how much agency remains in the ruins? Aren't we all just scrambling to get to a safe home again? And when we don’t feel safe, we run, or numb ourselves, or get angry. When I see a snake, I shrink up inside and freeze in utter horror because I’m so afraid of them. I can’t move. I can’t help it. It’s a reaction. So, explain this to me? It all sounds so hopeless and helpless.
I remember when I first started walking with my head down--always looking at the ground-- because so many bombs were falling that I couldn't look up without fear of my head splitting open. The world was agonizingly ugly. Now, the bombs don't fall so much, but I still walk stooped over. Choice? Yes. But isn't there a difference between free agency and choices one makes from an instinct to survive? You are wise, Tanner. I think you understand something I don't see. Yet . . . when you draw causal connections between mercury poisoning and our decision to eat fish, I want to say "Whoa. Hold it." The mercury poisoning that kept me in bed, studying plaster on the ceiling, for two-three years while I was married to your uncle came from having soft teeth (gene pool--didn't choose that one. Or did I?), and my mother taking me to a dentist, when I was nine, who filled my mouth with mercury (an odd practice still around). I can't see a choice I made to get this illness. Once I had the mercury removed (an excruciating experience), I started to heal, but that took another year, and I did not heal before my children had suffered from my absence. They made choices--very young--to fill up holes in themselves from not having a mother around, so where is their free agency. They made decisions out of a need to survive a situation created by me? But, again, where was my agency in this? Did you choose your M.S.? I don't think so. Do you choose how to react to it? Of course. But you have an education, a safe, well-lighted house, lots of family who adore you, and someone warm in your bed every night who probably even laughs at your stupid jokes. So, your agency seems freer to me than some other's, Tanner.
What I'm saying is that for some people, this life has many dark crawly caves where the only choice is "to be or not to be" until they come out in the light again. And if they are strong enough to wait it out and fight an intense heart battle, they usually make it. But many people are not strong, Tanner. Really. And waiting for that light--sometimes it's a long time coming--takes more faith than they ever thought they'd be asked to give, more faith than they have, until they realize they have no faith left, and they have no place to go but to ask God for a gift of faith--or they will die. (And maybe this is a state of grace rather than one of tragedy, Tanner. To see the hand of God moving in your life is no small thing.)
See? I just go round and round about this. Of course, you're right and the brethren are right, but thank God for a Savior who stays with me--He stays--and (for me) that is the highest praise I can give, and He holds onto my children in our darkest places also, healing and speaking soft peace until some of the blood stops filling up our mouths and ears and eyes, until we can turn--and on our own--finally--as we begin to feel like the earth is not going to drop away underneath us again, like we might be safe for just a little while--forgive and forgive completely. I don't know, Tanner, I just don't know. It seems to me that choosing to not forgive or to stay offended is more a choice made out of fear and pain rather than one made out of revenge or anger. Otherwise, who would not choose to do it? This doesn’t make the choice less wrong or make the consequences go away, but I think it’s complicated. I don’t think we can judge. It’s like the beggar in Luke who lies under the rich man’s table to catch his crumbs as dogs lick his sores. If we saw him, we would say, “Get up. Get a job. Geez, this is America. Get an education. Stop whining that you’re hungry. Do something for yourself or you deserve this.” But he didn’t do anything to better his state while he lived, and he was taken directly up to Abraham after this life. So, is it that he couldn't do anything? Maybe he was ill, insane, incapacitated by brain chemicals, but the Lord allows it? Or is he just a symbol to highlight the evilness of the rich guy in purple. As in the beggar wasn’t real?
You said "we anticipate and accept some consequences as fair, and we don't anticipate or accept others. Our foresight doesn't seem to influence the consequence, but our ability to accept, adapt, and advance may shape our next choice," and this sounds so wise. But if we cannot anticipate consequences, how is our agency free? Or if our choices are made under the intense influence of other's agency, how is our agency free? I just don't get it. And I’d welcome any enlightenment because all this just bugs the crap out of me.
However, having said “nothing” in a long-winded down the valley way and . . . speaking of irritation and anger-- Jaren Watson, if you send me one more football score or long e-mail discussion about the injured QB of whatever stupid football team plays this week, I'm goin' bring a football down to your backyard and bury it where the sun don' shine. I DON'T CARE ABOUT FOOTBALL, you stupid Tucson novel writer.
Hey, I wish you weren't still such a graphic writer. The image of the rage-soaked boy knifing his own mother haunts me, as do some questions about free agency. When you said "There's nothing free about this kid's agency now"(that's such a great line), I thought this boy lost his agency long before he grabbed that knife. But when and why did he lose his agency? And how much did he have in the first place? The same amount as you or I? I'm so intrigued by "when and how," though as in this case, it's often a moot point. I think of this kid's intense anger and rage and wonder . . . because anger is always a secondary emotion, which usually starts with sadness or comes from fear, and fear makes most of us act like animals. I'm not trying to justify what this boy did. I just wonder what happened in his nightmare life to push him past living in reality. Why did he make this decision to plunge a knife into his mother's head? When did he make this choice? Did he just wake up that morning and say, "Hey, good day to kill a mom?"
You say that you believe all emotions and chemistry are rooted in choice, which implies that every act has a choice attached to it, which is when it gets very complicated for me. Something makes my head ache about that idea. I see a six year old in Iraq get his leg blown off, and I think, "Whose agency is working here? His? For being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Pres. Bush's agency? Whose? That’s at the other end of the spectrum, but still, some choices people make seem so limited to me. Or it’s like listening to a candidate who promises massive changes once he/she is in the White House, when I know that all new presidents are very limited in decisions they can make because of the circumstances they inherit with the office, and because of the “time of season, the time of man.”
I remember Elder Holland's talk and Elder Bedner's on the same topic. I thought, "So true, how wise. And who would choose not to forgive? Who on this earth would choose to purposely be offended and stay offended? What a small and closed-down way to live." Then my shirt was soaked with tears because I thought of all the people I know who are filled with such agonizing pain that they can't even spell the word "forgiveness" yet. I thought of the long walk they must take with the Savior before they get past the pain to see what forgiveness really is. I thought of little girls now grown into W.C. assistants who've learned to walk very quietly in the shadows, so as not to call attention to themselves. Some voice deep inside still warns them to walk here--on the very edges of life (long after they’re physically safe) so Dad or Uncle Harry won't hear you and come looking. Or slice your arms to shreds tonight because your body was involved in a horribly wrong act, and that will punish it for you. And they don't even know they still hear this little voice. Is this a choice? Of course. Is it a negative choice? Yes, it keeps them from living fully, but it's a choice born out trying to survive because someone bigger-- someone they trusted and loved-- betrayed them and used them like rubber dolls you buy at stores. Their choice, which governs how they live now, came about as a reaction to someone else's free agency. When families are ripped apart by whomever or whatever, Tanner, how much agency remains in the ruins? Aren't we all just scrambling to get to a safe home again? And when we don’t feel safe, we run, or numb ourselves, or get angry. When I see a snake, I shrink up inside and freeze in utter horror because I’m so afraid of them. I can’t move. I can’t help it. It’s a reaction. So, explain this to me? It all sounds so hopeless and helpless.
I remember when I first started walking with my head down--always looking at the ground-- because so many bombs were falling that I couldn't look up without fear of my head splitting open. The world was agonizingly ugly. Now, the bombs don't fall so much, but I still walk stooped over. Choice? Yes. But isn't there a difference between free agency and choices one makes from an instinct to survive? You are wise, Tanner. I think you understand something I don't see. Yet . . . when you draw causal connections between mercury poisoning and our decision to eat fish, I want to say "Whoa. Hold it." The mercury poisoning that kept me in bed, studying plaster on the ceiling, for two-three years while I was married to your uncle came from having soft teeth (gene pool--didn't choose that one. Or did I?), and my mother taking me to a dentist, when I was nine, who filled my mouth with mercury (an odd practice still around). I can't see a choice I made to get this illness. Once I had the mercury removed (an excruciating experience), I started to heal, but that took another year, and I did not heal before my children had suffered from my absence. They made choices--very young--to fill up holes in themselves from not having a mother around, so where is their free agency. They made decisions out of a need to survive a situation created by me? But, again, where was my agency in this? Did you choose your M.S.? I don't think so. Do you choose how to react to it? Of course. But you have an education, a safe, well-lighted house, lots of family who adore you, and someone warm in your bed every night who probably even laughs at your stupid jokes. So, your agency seems freer to me than some other's, Tanner.
What I'm saying is that for some people, this life has many dark crawly caves where the only choice is "to be or not to be" until they come out in the light again. And if they are strong enough to wait it out and fight an intense heart battle, they usually make it. But many people are not strong, Tanner. Really. And waiting for that light--sometimes it's a long time coming--takes more faith than they ever thought they'd be asked to give, more faith than they have, until they realize they have no faith left, and they have no place to go but to ask God for a gift of faith--or they will die. (And maybe this is a state of grace rather than one of tragedy, Tanner. To see the hand of God moving in your life is no small thing.)
See? I just go round and round about this. Of course, you're right and the brethren are right, but thank God for a Savior who stays with me--He stays--and (for me) that is the highest praise I can give, and He holds onto my children in our darkest places also, healing and speaking soft peace until some of the blood stops filling up our mouths and ears and eyes, until we can turn--and on our own--finally--as we begin to feel like the earth is not going to drop away underneath us again, like we might be safe for just a little while--forgive and forgive completely. I don't know, Tanner, I just don't know. It seems to me that choosing to not forgive or to stay offended is more a choice made out of fear and pain rather than one made out of revenge or anger. Otherwise, who would not choose to do it? This doesn’t make the choice less wrong or make the consequences go away, but I think it’s complicated. I don’t think we can judge. It’s like the beggar in Luke who lies under the rich man’s table to catch his crumbs as dogs lick his sores. If we saw him, we would say, “Get up. Get a job. Geez, this is America. Get an education. Stop whining that you’re hungry. Do something for yourself or you deserve this.” But he didn’t do anything to better his state while he lived, and he was taken directly up to Abraham after this life. So, is it that he couldn't do anything? Maybe he was ill, insane, incapacitated by brain chemicals, but the Lord allows it? Or is he just a symbol to highlight the evilness of the rich guy in purple. As in the beggar wasn’t real?
You said "we anticipate and accept some consequences as fair, and we don't anticipate or accept others. Our foresight doesn't seem to influence the consequence, but our ability to accept, adapt, and advance may shape our next choice," and this sounds so wise. But if we cannot anticipate consequences, how is our agency free? Or if our choices are made under the intense influence of other's agency, how is our agency free? I just don't get it. And I’d welcome any enlightenment because all this just bugs the crap out of me.
However, having said “nothing” in a long-winded down the valley way and . . . speaking of irritation and anger-- Jaren Watson, if you send me one more football score or long e-mail discussion about the injured QB of whatever stupid football team plays this week, I'm goin' bring a football down to your backyard and bury it where the sun don' shine. I DON'T CARE ABOUT FOOTBALL, you stupid Tucson novel writer.
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