think about long distance rates instead of

Ohh the relief, that great exhalation as I flew over Los Angeles which, until this morning, I had only recently seen on episodes of The Hills. I was groggier than anything as I came off the plane, leaving the season 3 of The Office which Emma gave me for Christmas on my seat! Which truly sucks. Because what's going to keep me occupied on the flight back now? Nancy met me, Mum met Peter, she handed off Dad's car to him and while he drove down to long beach to pick up his boys from their jet blue flight, Nancy, Mum and I drove to starbucks where Mum and I sang along to the James Taylor song playing over their sound system that seems to leave this troubled world behind, then we drove to 3rd street where we attempted to find a farmers market, no dice, we decided on Whole Foods, we came home and cooked a little, I got the rollerblading bug but realizing I no longer had blades that fit I went to Big 5 Sporting Goods and dropped 100 bucks on some baby blue, very snazzy rollerblades.
I went out, down Entrada, going under PCH and coming up on the other side on the beach path that I took all the way down to where Venice blvd meets the beach. These blades were heavier than my old ones, and strained both knees a good deal, but it was so satisfying to feel that salt air tear at my throat and the burn in my quads while Paul Simon sang in my ears. I love blading on that path because I feel like I am taking advantage of my life, living to my capacity, under the sun, against the sky, through the wind, I am fast.

Tonight Peter brought over his visiting friends, Mum made killer fried chicken, and I made tapioca that Mum put too much orange flavoring in, so I'm a little bitter, and now I'm sitting upstairs in my room listening to the wind move through these trees, wondering how it's possible that I really live in a little room in Medford. The way I feel sitting in bed there, and the way I feel here are two entirely different skins, although I haven't really the vocabulary to explain why. Something about feeling less critical of myself, and trusting my head more. Or maybe it's just my sense of ownership and comfort here. I was trying to describe this to Mum earlier- in Boston it feels as though my life exists within these series of little rooms: my bedroom, Kate's house, Andy's office, the church, Upstairs, the rehearsal spaces, and outside of those rooms, or rather when I'm traveling between those rooms, I'm neither inhaling or exhaling, I'm this static isolated thing merely made to travel (yes, I realize this makes no sense, I'm talking about how it feels not how things necessarily are. And in LA, my life is open, both literally in that I spend more time outside, and in that it continues when I'm traveling, that I have a momentum here. I recognize that all these feelings, and this perspective itself, are just expressions of my relief in having this homesickness quelled, and that I wouldn't necessarily be flawlessly happy, and not depressed, and perfectly stable here as opposed to Boston. I know this isn't my ultimate cure. What I do know is that it feels marvelous to be home, and I'd like to hold on to that.

I'll go to the 9:30 women's meeting with Mum tomorrow, then to the bank and other errands, then to yoga *smile*. Mum's just called up to me; the tapioca's cooled.


***
***

Every time I'm home I rummage through my books and old journals, school notebooks and random spirals I've kept from years of education and spontaneous poetry, in search of notes I've left myself. Since I was little I've been leaving scraps of paper for me to find sometime late, informing myself of what I was doing on this day, or reminding me of what my favorite song was on the date the note was written, or some little thing reminding me that I love me. I found one tonight when thumbing through my copy of Faith On trial. It reads "To this place, I leave this girl so swollen by the noise in her head. From this place I take Mollie B- volume down."

Working my way back to square one, my slate is clear.

glories stream from heaven afar

I've made it up to Teds, helped play Santa by eating the cookies Eli left out and then wrapping some gifts. I may or may not have managed to wrap the scissors inside the wrapping.

The service tonight was beautiful, homey, and yet very very far...or maybe I was far from it. Or it was far from what I was used to. Same scripture But Mary kept all these things, and pondered it in her heart, same carols (and some new ones), but it wasn't really mine. It was the first Christmas mass I've been to yet without family, and honestly what I missed most (and what made me cry when they turned off the lights and we all stood and sang Silent Night with candles) was not having Kate's and Mum's harmonies, or my Dad fighting back tears beside me, or Peter looking bored, or Eric pretending he was more of a Bass than he is. It was very strange to be paid for the event. I got 100 bucks for going to service and singing some incredible music. I guess, as they say, "Christmas came early." Or in this case right on time. Anyhow I'm glad to be up here with Ted and Cheryl, and Eli who apparently has a cough that I will no doubt catch during the brief time I'm up here. My eyes are heavy, and I want to play with my brother a little before we all zonk out. I'm glad to have spent Christmas like this, or to be spending it this way tomorrow (I forget, it's only the eve, isn't it) Happy Christmas!


love biscuits,
fish, 5, lily

Show me how you do that trick, the one that

My house is damn cold, but my litle space heater from cvs is plugging away very diligently and it's slowly (very, very slowly) but surely breathing some warmth into this room. I think I'd like to name it. Suggestions?

I'd intended to go to a yoga class this morning (interesting Mollie, you're putting things off again) at 7:15 but I decided to sleep through it, go to the church rehearsal, and now I'm back with enough time to wash my uniform pants and haul myself back to Cambridge for a tea and dinner shift. Last night I worked dinner, and found myself amazed at the number of customers who go out of their way to be downright mean, and embarrass you in front of their friends. It's mostly tone, not their words-- Maggie had asked me to do a wine opening at her tables, and apparently she was a little behind because as I approached the table the guy said "we've been waiting for this for a half hour" (I'm more ready to believe Maggie, who said ten minutes, which, I agree, is too long to wait for wine.) I said "Sir I apologize, who is tasting?" to which he replied "don't bother apologizing, just pour." "Who's tasting sir?" "Who do you think?!" I cant convey his tone, but it was so sharp it scared me. I get really frightened when I'm spoken to like this, it brings tears to my eyes and I found myself working very very hard to retain my composure. I hate when people are angry with me (I know Mum, I should learn to handle my side of the street and the rest is theirs) but I have a really hard time when I feel the other person is going out of their way to be hurtful. Another gentlemen last night (I have yet to have a lady speak to me like this) pulled me aside (and granted, this was my table), and said loudly enough for his table of 5 to hear "What kind of waitress doesn't bring bread? I asked your busser for bread but he doesn't seem to understand english so I'm now expecting bread and butter from you. Don't bring the pesto." Ugly, ugly tone that again I cannot begin to convey here. Our bussers are Portuguese, and yes, are in charge of bringing bread to the table. Definitely, I should have taken note that this table was lacking in the bread department, and remedied that. My bad. But this guy, man, this guy... so for some reason I had a little nerve and I said "Sir the way you're talking to me seems intentionally mean, and it's hurting my feelings. Please stop trying to embarrass me. I'll bring your bread over." Thats what I said. And it felt badass, and cutting in it's direct simplicity. And he sat back, and the wives at the table looked surprised, and they left me an awesome 23% tip. So. Yeah.

Then I dropped Nate, David and Sarah off at their respective houses (it was kind of cute to carpool everyone home) because I feel that owning a car means i have a responsibility to putt out some good karma for all the times I've been driven home.

Anyway, this morning I went to the church to rehearse for the christmas eve mass which I'm really excited about - Bryce has chosen some insanely beautiful stuff, very traditional in text but less so in their style in that the harmonies from these various pieces sound Irish, old old Medieval English, and in one case modal. Respectively. I'm actually still struggling with them, but at the beginning of the rehearsal Bryce said "okay I have a few things to take care of, Mollie would you teach these first three and I'll be back?" So I did, and I plunked away at the piano and I wasn't awesome with the part-teaching but once everyone knew their notes, I was able to effectively explain what I wanted and make it happen with my hands. I just love that I have a safe place to learn all these things. Everyone knows I'm just beginning, but respects and trusts my aural image that I'm working towards. So they're not impatient with me, and often ask for things that they could use to better understand me, like "Mollie, could you give a clearer 4 there and show us that cutoff more clearly" "but Mollie when you do that the altos need clarification because they're subdividing." It's a group effort that I get to lead, and I love what I'm learning, even if these pieces are kicking my ass. Especially the Vaughn Williams Magnificat.

I've got to get in the shower because I honestly smell awful and wouldn't you much rather be waited on for Tea by a waitress who doesn't smell like armpit? I thought so. I'm classy.

a few Thanksgiving pictures... I love my family

the smoke and who's still standing when it clears

Well! It's been a busier day than I thought it'd be- I'm just home from the children's choir where I had a truly unfulfilling session due to the ratio of time spent sitting in traffic to time spent teaching was pretty disappointing. On the way home I called my friend Lindsay (from Upstairs) with whom I had dinner/movie plans, only to learn that she was canceling because she was, in her own words, "destroyed cuz [she's] been drinking since 5." So no movie. Which sucks. I was really excited to go hang out with a friend who I've been getting to know lately - I usually drive her home from work and sometimes she calls with random anecdotes of her nights she thinks I'd enjoy, and she's a piano performance major at the Longey school of music so she actually understands what I'm babbling about much of the time. What I both like and am utterly confused by is that she actually calls to ask me for advice! ME! Which means there's someone in the world who has less of a clue than I do and thinks I have some facking answers! Answers which, when we chat, come out of my mouth like water, like I'm some sort of mountain-dwelling Yogi who knows what she's talking about and you know what? More often than not, what I have to say is pretty wise. Stop laughing. Anyhow, I was feelin' kinda let-down about her ditching me (especially for that shitty reason) so on my way home from the BCC I called Allen to cheer me up and we talked about eating disorders vs. disordered eating and why Mitt Romney should be drawn and quartered. Chatting with him actually turned my head around out of my own little self pitying mini circus. *smile* So I'm home and that's not such a bad thing, because I'm feeling lazy and I have some left over chinese food and Season 3 of The Office, so that kinda brings the awesome.


In other self-obsessed news...I actually meditated today. I say that with a bit of a scoff because it sounds pretentious, and in reality it wasn't hours and hours of zen but rather ten minutes of me sitting on a pillow by my window and trying to let my eyes shut and my spine lengthen while I listened to my neighbor shovel snow. My one success in my effort was that I didn't once open my eyes to check the clock to see if my ten minutes were up. I'm embarrassed to admit how proud I am of that. I made it ten minutes without boring myself.

One of the really neat things that's arisen today is an offer from Bryce (music director at North Prospect Church where they freekin' pay me to sing) has offered me the chance to not only sing the Vaughn Williams 'Magnificat' at their Christmas Eve service, but also to conduct the choir and mini baroque orchestra in the other pieces he's chosen, among them a William Billings piece, and what appear to be rather complicated versions of less traditional carols! I cannot believe he think me capable of handling the choir AND baroque ensemble, but I'm really excited about the offer and I'm gonna do it. Which means that I've opted out of park city about which I already felt conflicted because I couldn't ski and it was a quick flurry of a trip etc. etc. and Bryce's offer came my way. So on this pre-Christmas weekend I'll have a couple of rehearsals and work at Upstairs. Oh, and there will be some yoga thrown in there as well. Then on the 24th I'll sing the Christmas Eve Mass, and that same night drive up to Ted and Cheryl and Eli's place to stay over and spend Christmas day with them, during which I'll eat all their food and drive home to make my flight to LA on the 26th. This whole spending the days around Christmas independently isn't something I'm sold on every minute of the day, and I know it sounds kind of lonely, but I think it will ultimately be a good thing- getting to buckle down on some new music, making some money at the restaurant, and making a yoga class every day. It demands that I take care of myself in a way that I feel I'm just gathering the tools to do, and it's only for a few days. Yoga and conducting and singing and Eli and Upstairs folk. It sounds a nice to me.

Chinese food awaits...unless somebody's eaten it. In which case it's crepe time.

Name it, read it, tune it, print it, scan it, send it, fax - rename it,

I've received, today, a couple of really comforting emails (and a blog comment), all of them about loneliness, about how heavy it is, how there is hope and relief from it, and I guess mostly about how it's on everyone's backs. I guess what stood out to me most was not so much what was said, but the people who said them - these are people who aren't in Boston- people I don't see every day or even talk to with any regularity, but it's a weird thing, that loneliness, or maybe it was just me whining about it so much, but other human beings get it. And oh how quickly I forget that. How quick I am to assume that the guy who delivers my crepes from the place down the street isn't plagued with a damn thing, or that the woman who sent back her salmon has never felt hopeless in her entire life (fascinating that my references for the world are all food-based). I just liked hearing from other parts of the US that a) no one who is feeling lonely is actually alone and b) it passes. That was the theme, I guess. That everything passes- the peace and calm too. And I hate that. I have only few of those steady perfect moments that I would cling to with all my strength if I could, of these feelings of peace and resident happiness that I believed couldn't be wrestled away from me. At brunch at Lowes with Michael, Lucy, Peter and Mom after the Sunday meeting, where not only was there a 'make your own omelette' station but an entire dessert bar with waffles and cream puffs...fine...laugh at me...but my point is that I had everything I could have needed at the age of twelve at my fingertips at at that moment: an intact nuclear family, and an open buffet. Really, I remember that as a moment of unadulterated happiness. Another was a day at The Wedge after I'd been sufficiently pummeled by the waves and dragged out of the surf by Clint and Lucy where I fell asleep face-down on my hot towel with sand in my hair and Clint's warm body beside me. That, I'd keep. Or the first Sunday I sang at the North Prospect Church as a soloist- for pay- discovering the "our endless story hymn", and learning the music with the other choir members and hearing my clear voice resonate and being unable to believe that someone was paying me to do this. Rehearsing the Lauridson "O Magnum" for the first time. Struggling through e.e. cummings. Every Friday morning before school when Mum made blintzes. Playing Barbie with Lucy. Driving into Marlborough belting "Walking In Memphis" on the 10 fwy and believing I was profound. Rollerblading on the beach path while listening to techno thinking I was truly badass. Driving out to go Paintballing with Justin Parco and Kevin, also feeling truly badass. The left-footed goal against Marymount into the upper left corner (that one really was badass). Staying the night at Eva and Charlie's knowing I was going to be allowed to have donuts for breakfast. Singing on the street corner in Spain. Concocting very poisonous magic potions from Mum's spice rack when I was 6. Dressing Peter (willingly!) in drag for a play he and Lucy and I wrote and performed about an elf that falls into a well that leads to the human world that Mum and Michael watched and hooted at and loved. Their wedding and my perfect blue dress. Carrying Abigail piggy-back all over the parking lot while we ate peanuts and waited for a table. Realizing I'd actually stopped when I was full. "Accidentally" slamming Cami Marcus to the ground in a game of soccer at Mirman. Waking up early Saturday morning's at Dad's house to an english muffin with butter and peanut butter that he'd left for me, and likely a poem, and taking it to my red velvet chair where I could watch the beach wake up and see who was walking their dogs that morning. Finding out I'd gotten into Tufts. Falling asleep to "O Brother Where Art Thou". Sorry, these things are flooding to me and I'm writing them all down because the act of recalling them and typing them in detail is reminding me, as Dad is always hammering home to me, that I. Have. Good. Stuff. These are moments I would have chosen to keep. I guess I have.
Sierra Tucson was really the longest moment of all- afternoons spent running laps around the dry track or evenings by the fire. Those moments stretched into 45 days where I was untouchable by anything other than centered self-certainty and happiness. I'd hang onto that, too. So in knowing that those things pass (and thankfully return as they do when I'm writing, or when I'm fortunate enough to discover another one), I can find comfort in that, and in believing that the loneliness will not hang like this thick blanket all of my life. Maybe just this day, or just the rest of this month. Maybe for years it will be here, but it cannot cannot stay all the time. It, too, will pass. It will be interspersed with pockets where I will be okay- better than okay, and they'll be made of cream puffs and family and waves and my own internal kiva. And I guess that's faith, believing all that. Believing it'll be better.
My Gawd this is self-indulgent sometimes.


Ok, quick recap of my day thus far, this morning I had an egg and cheddar cheese sammich on cibatta from Au Bon Pain, went to Kelly's, and then to Andy's where I conducted the two excerpts of recitative from Messiah for him, with an awful lot more mistakes in them then I'd had last night. He sent me home with an even more terrifying ten pages of Magic Flute recitative that requires so much subdividing and careful counting that I don't know that I can tackle it without a lot of hand-holding. And then I blogged for like a bajillion hours about myself and loneliness and good memories and actually felt better.

I'm going to meet Kate for a Yoga class, and then likely to her house for Christmas Cookies and, with luck, Marx Brothers. By the way, last night she didn't call and ask me over, so I called her and invited myself over and I rehearsed my music and then she Eric and I watched The Matrix. Sometimes what this fish needs is to take initiative.

dance to the static on the AM radio

Mush. This weather has been mush and slip and splat. Freezing pelting rain and sleet and eventually softer rain that erodes the snow piled on the sidewalks and slicks everything in ice. Today, I wore too-big jeans and clogs, and now my jeans are soggy up to my knees and my socks are snowy. I went to the Sackler Museum with Dad, Kate and Eric to see an exhibit about painted figures of deities where I felt truly uncultured because I was having a difficult time feeling inspired to focus on any pieces or read any of their little blurbs. I don't know, it was a pretty disconnected day, though it improved when Kate Eric and I went to tea at Upstairs where we laughed hysterically and drew unfavorable attention from tea-goers who's snobbery far exceeded ours. There was a string trio there playing Schubert and Bach and during every waltz they played, we bounced in our banquette to the long-short-short 3 count of it, and looked very very silly.

Last night Dad and I attended the Christmas Revels, an event that happens for a few weeks in December where a group of singers, dancers, poets, actors etc gather to celebrate Christmas tradition and music and dances etc from a single culture. This Christmas was music and poetry in the Slavic tradition. I've gotta say, other than Dona Nobis Pacem it was mostly inaccessable - there's only so much half-tone yodeling one can handle in a two and a half hour show. HOWEVER, they did present a reduction of this beautiful story I remember Mum reading us when we were little, called The Month Brothers. (Mum, here's a link, see if this looks familiar: http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780688015107/The_MonthBrothers/index.aspx)

I love rediscovering stories of children's books I'd read when I was little because the illustrations come back so vividly and I guess I find comfort in it. I keep a mental list of children's books I intend to collect for my own children's library, among them are King Bidgood's In the Bathtub (and he won't get out), Heckety Peg, and The Six Swans. Just...in case you were wondering.
I wonder.

I've felt pretty even-keeled all day, that is until I came home and encountered that familiar "now what" feeling. I'm waiting to hear back from Kate whether or not I'm going to be invited over to do work (I must must must go over this recitative for Andy before tomorrow) and I'm feeling like my attitude towards the night is kind of going to be made or broken depending on that invitation. I hate teetering. I came home to a really encouraging email from a friend (that was especially timely) that simply reminded me how these feelings, all of them, even the bliss, passes. And it was validating to be reminded that when they shift quickly, and a person bounces from that bliss to despair within a matter of hours, OF COURSE we'll feel exhausted and overrun. And hopefully, at some point, even again.

I don't know. I just wish the lonely would go away. No matter where I'm at on that emotional spectrum, loneliness is always clinging. I'm like a benched whale. That's right. That's what I said.

So I guess I'll hop on that recitative and not wait for Kate's invite, and if it happens peachy, and if not, poop on her.

"what's a crocus" and you said "it's a flower". I tried to remember, but I said "what's a flower?" you said "I still love you"

Very, very disjointed (and whiny) post ahead...

All day I've been wrestling with the snow, whether it's trying to park in it and having my wheels spin under me, or not dressing warmly enough for it, or dealing with the repercussions of the approaching storm. The Handel Chandos Anthem has been canceled for this Sunday because Bryce has decided turnout wouldn't be as good as he had hoped, and also he felt it was unfair to ask all the instrumentalists to come into town under such weather conditions. I guess I understand, but honestly I'm disappointed. And Dad flew all the way out here to see it. *sigh* So that sucks. Today sucks, actually. This morning I compiled and turned in my poetry portfolio for my final, and then went over to Kate's briefly where I rehearsed the Handel downstairs while she showered and puttered about upstairs, and then went into work. But throughout it all, there was that loneliness. Really, it was like a person following me, watching me go about my day and waiting for the right moment to pounce and cling like an over-sized backpack. It came in the middle of Dinner service, just as Dad sat down in my section and I gripped my phone in my apron and Sandeesh presented me with the two cappuccinos I'd begged him to make for me (I honestly cannot make foam to save my life). At that moment, It came and it sat so heavily on my shoulders that I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

I feel, lately, as though I don't have any place in the world. I'm struck sometimes by the kind of displacement and anxiety and uselessness that makes me curl and wince at every word that comes my way. I don't know how to receive questions that are asked of me, don't know how to handle simple tasks because my motor skills have left my hands. This is just sometimes, and less often since the medication, but man oh man, this coming home at night, this little heartbeat in medford, this very quiet snow-slick street... This, the way This feels is not tolerable. If I believed the rest of my life would feel like this, I would likely combust. As though I have any idea what that would look like. I'm trying to tolerate living my life when I'm alone. Plus I'm out of Golden Raisins which really doesn't make my trail-mix situation easy. I should call Emma. I wish this were easier.

By the way I have 10 months.

Tomorrow I've promised my body a 9am yoga class (I may opt for the 11 o'clock one becauese I'd love to sleep in, but that wouldn't work so well with Dad's schedule, because he's running in the morning), followed by breakfast with Dad and then I'll head back to the restaurant to work the tea shift. I would have been rehearsing 9-4 if the Handel hadn't been canceled. Man that's disappointing. Then Dinner with dad tomorrow night, he's requested "somewhere simple". It'll be just he and I, as Kate and Eric are in NY this weekend to support Emma while she tests for her black belt.

Sometimes when I think of people other than Mum and Dad reading this, like Joanna or Annie, or Grandpa Allan, I feel embarrassed for being so blunt. Or raw I guess is a better word. Or I suppose I don't so much mind the bluntness, but I realize that these are people I respect and love and admire, and when I talk about depression like this, I'm definitely not portraying myself as I'd like those people to see me. I think the great hope is that I say something that strikes a chord with someone else, and so the great reaction is not "oh Mollie you really need some help, girl", or "Pull it together please" or "ew", but rather "oh...I've felt that". Or maybe they're just send me up a quick prayer.

*big sigh*

I'm going to bed without brushing my teeth. There's my act of defiance for the day. I feel pathetic. Oh, heh, and lonely.

breathe unless you do this with me

Just home from work, it's after 1am, my feet are buzzing. Today that infamous book I'm reading said this to me-

look for god like a man who's head is on fire looks for water

I love it. No, I really love it.

I've got a million thoughts but I know I really need to put myself to bed instead of expounding upon them. Really, they're all very self-involved. So is having a blog I guess.

wish you were (incubus version)

It wasn't at all in my plans when I got up this morning but I took a yoga class tonight. Chorale was short because it was the end of the semester, and Andy collected music (from everyone but me...I felt special) and wished us well, and so I went to the outskirts of Cambridge and took a yoga class that left me in a heap. I don't really understand the chanting of 'Om' three times at the beginning and end of the practice (and I got dirty looks when I sang my 'Om' a major third higher than everyone else). I guess it's to center yourself in your body and with the "oneness"of the others in the room, but I always wish it was more musical than it is.
I noticed some old habits when I was in the yoga class though, the pinching my waist and feeling for my hip bones, running my fingers along my jaw line, all in an attempt to assess my body, my weight, how am I doing, how worthy am I? Those aren't the literal words in my head, but I know enough to identify the surrounding thoughts. My food has been strange lately. I've been utterly uninterested, rarely hungry, and when I am hungry it's a pretty powerful feeling to acknowledge that it's not the kind of uncontrollable hunger I would feel when I wanted to binge, rather it's a quiet gnawing that, rather than trigger my search for a meal, has given me permission to congratulate myself for resisting. Also, I've lost a little weight without thinking about it, and so now that I've noticed of course I'm thinking about it. So...that's not so hot. It would help if I actually found the time to go grocery shopping and find bargain produce or something, and didn't subsist entirely off of trail mix, yogurt, cereal and carrots. Really, Mollie. You should know better than this... little dangerous doncha think? So there's my fessing up in text. I'm committing to eating three meals tomorrow. Embarrassing to admit these sort of things. It's like saying Tomorrow, I pledge not to poop my pants, or Tomorrow I will tie BOTH of my shoes! This is a basic thing. Children have mastered this, and yet I'm still unable to feed myself in a reasonable way

So now I'm just out of the shower about to go over some of the Recitative that Andy assigned me for tomorrow. It's to short excerpts from the Messiah, but the thing about Recitative is that the conductor isn't in charge; the soloist is in charge. So it's a matter of anticipating beats and cuing the orchestra based on the pacing of the soloist. I'm horrible at it. Really truly confused. I wish I had a better handle on it before going to meet with Andy.

Other news, other news...oh...poem...last poetry class of the semester. Here's what I brought.

***


He’s Homeless

Hate mourning soon; lets kill soon.
Swell the served, reserved,
and rather coddle-brained winter again.

How did my evening’s madman become such a pansy?
It happened when his hands moved up, over his swollen stomach,
to touch the plush hanging skin round his neck,
creaky piped, clammy tongued.
Socks are his fur-lined mittens.

Would you believe this seedy loaf of a man--
My canker sore of a hobby.

We may both be thinking of crude, sharp innuendos—
The azure bowl in both our hands, our well-wishing plate
Crumb-scuddled, so empty?
Give in. Scrape up.
Sloppy papa and no-art daughter.
We might both erode, I guess.
Gypped and reserved and enshrouded, but which of us first?
Smelling of rag-wool, like an unwashed soup can, I cuddle in his collar.

***


The poems I've gathered this semester are like benchmarks of where my brain has been going. My professor's feedback was that it admitted a real loneliness from the speaker. I hadn't really intended that, but it's amazing how, when one writes, what's living in you seeps through.

Father says, "Your mother's right, she's really up on things"

I slept in late today after going to bed around 2 (I got home at 1:40). When I lay down after working Lunch, Tea, and a full Dinner service my whole body hums because it can't believe I've been asking it to go this continuously. It's all day, its without a single chance to sit down except for a fifteen minute family meal, and when I'm going, it's a constant fast-paced walk interspersed with a sprint up three flights of stairs to the upstairs kitchen to retrieve ice cream scoops from their pastry chef.

The Wellbutrin is...the Wellbutrin. It's not yet a week in but the four days are up and I've doubled the dosage and I'm not feeling much of anything different but hope. My friend Sam told me that in his experience, just the act of surrendering to the medication is enough to change your head a little bit, because it's a concrete action. I've experienced a little bit of that and certainly feel it when I'm on my way to work or going to run an errand, but it's mornings like today, waking up, eating breakfast, and then the great "now what?" feeling that's like a slug to the chest, when I feel completely incapable. That one loud question immediately makes me cry because it's followed by the instant realization that I haven't anything to do now. I should probably make a list of ongoing things, or projects I could tackle in those "now what" moments, like bed-making, room-cleaning, laundry...I wonder if neat freaks are just extraordinarily lonely people who put their time to good use.

I certainly could stand to do some laundry.

Heh...I just got a text from one of the Chefs at Upstairs that read "my arm hurts." I ran food to the wrong table last night because I mis-read the ticket (I honestly think I have dyslexic tendencies) and he punched me in the arm when he found out because he had to re-make the food. So I punched him back. Hard, apparently.

I'm reading a book that Cheryl gave to me at the vineyard over Thanksgiving, it's called Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and on the surface it's about this woman's travels through Italy, India, and Indonesia, divorcing herself from husband and her successful career, and living alone in these countries. But ultimately it's about what she unearths about herself in each place, her sense of pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and in Indonesia her own personal balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. Anyhow, the way she describes herself is resonating with me in the most startling ways. She talks about how when, in love, she throws herself so far in that there are no boundaries, will give you her heart, the sun and the the moon, her spirit, her money, her dog, her dog's money, etc. She talks about a depression that had her on the bathroom floor for two years, and her own struggle to come to terms with and define her higher power. Most significantly is her unspeakable loneliness. She describes how she came to handle this loneliness, and what she did when she was feeling that kind of darkness: she kept a journal in which she would begin to write to God, just her most basic feelings. "I need your help'. And then she waits, and after a little while a response comes in her own handwriting "I'm right here. What can I do for you?" She writes about this with embarrassment because she understands that it's a version of talking to herself and wouldn't be easily understood, but I loved how she wrote about it. She writes

I've been surprised to find that I can almost always access that voice, too, no matter how black my anguish may be. Even during the worst of suffering, that calm, compassionate, affectionate and infinitely wise voice (who is maybe me, or maybe not exactly me) is always available for conversation on paper at any time of day or night. I've decided to let myself off the hook from worrying that conversing with myself on paper means I'm a schizo. Maybe the voice I'm reaching for is God, or maybe it's my Guru speaking through me, or maybe it's the angle who was assigned to my case, or maybe it's my Highest Self, or maybe it is indeed just a construct of my subconscious, invented in order to protect me from my own torment.

I love this idea.

When she's in Italy after a reprieve from her depression and loneliness, she encounters a night when they return full-force, and she's rendered almost hysterically helpless. She reaches for this voice again, and what she writes is that she is weak and full of fear. She writes that she's afraid she will never be without the Loneliness, that she doesn't want to take medication and is afraid she will always have to. She says she is terrified that she will never really pull her life together. You can understand why I'm riveted by this book. She writes all this in the journal, and what she finds herself writing back and all the certainties I have always wished another person would say to me when I was hurting

I'm here. I love you. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it-- I will love you through that, as well. If you don't need the medication, I will love you, too. There's nothing you can do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death, I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.

I read that and cried quietly and wished that I had that kind of faith. I cry typing it now because of how gentle the words are, and how I wish those words would come to me from a person, a real person who could sit across from me and hold my head in their hands for awhile, or at least one I could be on the phone with. I guess that's why we believe in God, because no real person could commit to the kind of consistent reassurance and unconditional love that we crave. And so we construct something to satisfy that. And if it satisfies, it's just as real as if it were someone we knew and could take them out for burritos to say thank you. When I was young I remember Mum telling me about the writing she did to work towards defining her God, and how comforting it was to realize that she could make up the terms, and I remember being truly comforted by that. I can also remember loving the idea of doing that for myself, and actually trying to in a journal I kept, but giving up because I was afraid I was doing it wrong and was making up something beautiful in which I had no faith. That was the big thing, I was worried I wouldn't believe in what I wanted to believe. I distinctly remember telling myself that it was okay because Mom's God had me covered and I could borrow hers if I needed it.
Wow. That's making me cry.

I don't mean that we're fabricating a character here, but that whatever we need is what God will be to us. I believe in God. I know this because when I'm really, really hurting, I say what everyone says when they're hurting: 'O, My God, help me'. And I it. They're said with such intensity and such Need that the thought of them being sent out to the universe without a recipient is unacceptable. Really, I'm unable to accept that possibility. And so for now, I believe in God because I Need God.
Fuck. I really wish it was something more beautiful than that, that I believe in God because of Bach, or because of how I feel on a swing set, or because of how I can now eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full.

I guess I should take what I can get on this one, letting the belief be enough without berating myself for the lack of poetry in my reason.

little boy, little boy, won't you lay your body down

Up and out for a long day at work at the restaurant. For which I'm very, very grateful. It actually shouldn't be that long, I'm not scheduled to work dinner but I'd happily pick it up if asked, and even the lunch and tea shifts that I will be there for tend to extend into the dinner hours, especially if we get a gang of ladies with a baby or wedding shower. Anyhow, I've just "ironed" my shirt by hanging it in the bathroom while I shower, and now I'm gonna throw on some sweats and head into Cambridge.

If I don't pick up the dinner shift tonight, I'm hoping the plan will be to go to Kate's and bake cookies and watch Elf with Eric and maybe Emma.
Alright, I've gotta fly...

that's my daughter in the water

So, I'm not sleeping much; I hear this isn't unusual. I had an incredibly defeating morning yesterday when I woke up at 6:30 to make sure I was breakfasted and dressed warmly enough (and familiar enough with directions) to get out the door and on the road to my shrink's office. I don't like saying my psychiatrist because that feels clinical, and I suppose I'm not all that fond of 'shrink' either but I feel slightly less ashamed using that word so I'mma stick with it. I had clear directions, I was out the door, I had more than enough time, and I was lost in ten minutes. I'm damn familiar with driving in Boston until I venture beyond Medford into Arlington and then I'm toast, I might as well be driving blindfolded because it's unfamiliar, it's entirely unmarked, and I've never gone more than a block beyond mystic valley parkway. So needless to say I was lost and running late and I called Dr. Pearson and let her know. I felt embarrassed (this is an office I'd gotten to before by T) and irresponsible and foolish. But when I sat back in my seat while resting in traffic (because of course there'd be traffic AND I'd be lost), I recognized that I was no longer crazed after making the call. I was no longer that worked up over this. I had made the appointment because I've been feeling like shit and had agreed to consider medication and a little more monitoring, so of course I saw this appointment as a big symbolic surrender and of COURSE I couldn't get there, I was late, I was under-slept, I was dark and grim. What was odd was that I came to a place where I wasn't losing my mind. This might sound like something I should have found comfort in, but I didn't. I Was pissed off; somehow my brain was able to calmly handle what I knew I was understand to be a kind of personal apocalypse (here I was, needing help, willing to get it, and I couldn't physically get myself there...madness, right?), and yet once I made the phone call I had no emotional response to it other than "hm...I'm sure this'll work work itself out. And yet, when I was making the bed the morning before (that's right Mum, Dad, I gave making my bed a bold shot) and I couldn't get the pillowcases on, or the day before when Andy asked to push our meeting back an hour, making it so I'd have to reschedule, or each time I encounter the faintest hint of loneliness: I. Am. Shredded. Defeated. Sometimes crying and unable to stop, sometimes silent, and feeling the need to make myself as still as possible. It's strange, but at those times lying on the floor next to my bed and concentrating all my efforts into not moving a single molecule of my body is all I am capable of.

We ended up doing a phone session and I'm good to go. Kind of. My friend Sam once told me, when we were discussing medication "I'd rather be an unhappy Sam than a happy somebody else." It's hard to argue with a point like that. My inclination is that I, too, would rather be an unhappy version of myself than a happier version of some other incarnation of me. Or not me. Or that I'd rather feel the floor of every emotional canyon and the zenith of every peak that's thrown my way, all the while believing I'll be a richer human being because of it. I suppose that just isn't true anymore. I'd rather be a happy anybody else. Hm. Reading that sentence back made me feel really sad.

and stand in a long line of sinners like me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina


Here's how the sestina turned out. It's missing the envoy at the end but I'm happier without it. Another stanza would be forced and awkward. I wrote most of it last night when I what I was feeling was impossible. Dark. I was imagining what it would be like if my whole life felt like that, if I continue to grow up into those kinds of feelings, wondering if my capacity for feeling lonely would only deepen and stretch with age. I wrote it wondering what my children would think if they saw me like that, so that's how the poem began. As I wrote the driver character became less and less me but the thoughts behind her remained. I woke up this morning to finish the piece hoping my feelings around it would have changed, that I would have time to u-turn it in one or two more stanzas but I couldn't. I wish me out of the woods.


We go home

The snow wouldn’t melt on the cold road
and collected, as though being cold was effortless.
Our mother cried, silently, with her mouth open,
We hushed in the back seat and took in no air.
It used to be a big deal, these episodes;
By now we knew better than to take her hand.

The steering wheel looked huge, unmanageable in my mother’s hand
as she guided us down the darkening road.
The drive home was just another gray episode
marking our day-in, day-out, otherwise numb and effortless.
This was something. Around our car was the loud rush of cold air
and I noticed our mother had her window open.

“Would you get my makeup bag open?”
My mother’s face was in her hands
and a fresh spray of perfume sat dead in the air.
She hadn’t taken her eyes off the whitening road.
I imagined her perfume freezing in the air, effortlessly,
and raining to the carpet in pearl-thump episodes.

Not a word during the makeup ritual of her episode,
Strange how, when applying lipstick, her mouth isn’t open.
the silent sobbing has stopped, she steers effortlessly.
Her fingernails look redder on the ends of her hands.
Her breath is the only warmth in the car, fogging the air
We all lean to accommodate the curve in the road.

you could always be your own girl

My Gawd I'm exhausted. It's been one of those weekends where nothing goes as planned (not that that's a bad thing) and when I look back on my calendar all I can think is - wow...I did none of those things. But it was just as productive. I ended up working three shifts at the restaurant on Saturday. Three. That's 9am-1am, roughly. Usually I work three shifts a week, but it was nice to just get there and stay there, knowing my car was safely parked, knowing I was in a place where the chaos was predictable, knowing I was going to make some serious money and I did. I had a bit of a meltdown in the middle of dinner service though, actually it was about Michael. I was walking upstairs to the soirée kitchen with Tony, our main Monday Club Bar chef, to get butter lettuces that they'd under-stocked, and he made some reference to his step-mother being very ill and out of the blue I crumpled on the stairs in this stupid, dramatic heap. Poor guy didn't really know what to make of me. I felt really embarrassed and was trying to get myself together but what was keeping me crying was a bleak and gruesome image of what it must have looked like when Michael was found in that hotel room. I'm assuming when booze wasn't the only thing that did him in so there must have been other crap around him, and alcohol poisoning does ugly things to your body before it eats you, that's to say, I'm guessing he puked. I wonder if he had his false teeth in when he passed out, what he was wearing, what he'd been spending the night doing. It's a thought I'm pretty haunted by, and poor Tony sat down next to me and just sat there with me, totally quiet, until I could banish the image and get up off the steps.
I know this is a weird transition, but I really can't think of how to end that last paragraph. Other than that the night went unusually smoothly. I worked the center of the MCB and did about three turnovers of my section, including one birthday - it made me so happy to see this family's face light up when I came out with their beautifully decorated plate and the candles and the sparklers and set it all in front of their father. I forget that this job makes me happy in simple ways. Also, everyone ordered really expensive bottles of wine, so that's always nice. It was great to walk out of there and get my ass home and crawl into bed with my the balls of my feet aching and my lower back in one single knot because those clogs have a little bit of a lift in them, and feeling my heartbeat in my toes. I felt useful and productive and as though I was making some small contribution.

It snowed last night. It was so cold that it didn't even melt in the streets and came down in teddy bear-sized flakes. It's so gray and foggy out I cant see the hills only two miles away. I'm trying to write this sestina for my poetry class in an hour, so I'm gonna get on that, and probably post it if it's not utter drivel. Here's my first stanza...I'm guessing I'll have to re-think a few of these end words:

The snow wouldn’t melt on the cold road
and collected, as though being cold was effortless.
Our mother cried, silently, with her mouth open,
We hushed in the back seat and took in no air.
It used to be a big deal, these episodes;
By now we knew better than to take her hand.