Frazzle you little devil you. Yes I’m talking to you. Why can’t we just get along?

You and your obsessions, compulsions and fears. You keep me working and reworking it to death sometimes. You chain me to the computer screen just so you know I’m hard at it—not even letting me get to the creative bit. That way you think I can’t wander off. You’ve got me grinding away, fearful that I might never write anything again, that I might lose my nerve to perform: fearful, frantic Frazzle.

Heavens, I might just get lost in a sea of chocolate, red wine and New Yorker articles, a lazy day in bed, a gad about town. I bet you worry I’ll polish up my passport and forget to come home. You’re so jealous of all the things I might decide to do. Really Frazzle, sometimes you won’t even let me put away the dishes. Do you think I’ll be seduced by the dishwasher and fill its pokey belly just to avoid writing? But that’s how it is with you, isn’t it Frazzle. Fess up. You’re a control freak.

I know you mean well, Frazzle. Your insistence gets the bills paid and helps me find the desk beneath the rubble. It sorts and stacks little pots of this and that, all fluffed and alphabetized: get well; happy birthday; be on-time; connect the dots. You’ve helped me prepare my backseat for all the events that could arise today and then the next. Sometimes, my calendar jumps a whole week I’m so damn prepared. Lists are magnificently checked.

Thanks for spots of order-from-chaos, the full plate of work, a comprehensible accounting system. You really do know how to do it Frazzle—whatever “it” is. Sincerely, I need you; I am thankful for the tasks you push me through.

And now Frazzle, having accorded you something of your due and thinking kindly on you, could I ask your favor in return? Please worry somewhat less. Let me slow, slip, tumble and squeak along the normal pleasures of the day. Let us breathe the air we’ve earned—together as colleagues, Frazzle. Yes, I will respect you—dare I say expect you—in the anxious rush of three a.m. But just now, let’s have us another glass of wine… and there’s that article on page 78….and we can go to town in our candy apple lipsticks. Oh please Frazzle? Just these next twenty times or so?

Ice cream is about as close to the divine as a grocery store ever gets. Its consistency, chill, and creaminess are near to perfect, whatever one’s favorite type or brand. Even at it’s worst, ice cream is pretty good. When I encounter those special attributes that cater to my tongue, memory and desire it steps up to fabulous.

Many of us have grown picky and I can confess to a certain ice cream snobbery—I’ve been a huge fan of gelato since I personally discovered Italy in 1985–no Gianni-come-lately. Yes I’m happy gelato has come to America, even though I’m a little disdainful of the foody-fication and merchtumble process. Give me your gelato, sorbetto, fresh made waffles yearning to breathe free… bella.

Traditional American ice cream is creamier than gelato. I was raised to value creaminess and butterfat. My father was from the American heartland born of Hungarian stock; butterfat was next to godliness.

My mother was the special target of a prosperous German Jewish family who would offer her trips across the Dutch border for ice cream while secreting their valuables on her small, child-person, preparing for their eventual flight to Holland. In hindsight, she resented that they preyed upon her sweet tooth and put her in grave danger by using her to smuggle their gold out of NAZI Germany. But she never regretted a smack of the ice cream.

My ice cream adventures were much more safe and savory. Childhood family summer nights were graced by a square dip from a local Evanston shop– I’ve forgotten the name. Today I cannot imagine how I could begin to manage a square of ice cream. Those corners would adversely affect the experience for me. Luckily I wasn’t as fussy as a kid. Non-ice cream frozen treats were frowned upon in my household, thereby exoticized. Wow! What would a rocket pop be like? These treats could be redeemed by chocolate; my weakness for fudgesicles was tolerated.

A double-dip cone of maple nut ice cream from Bridgeman’s took me to my summer graveyard factory job each night in Minneapolis. Occasionally I did venture to other flavors, but I always came back to maple nut. This was one of my few devotions to a dessert that wasn’t chocolate. Bridgeman’s chocolate just wasn’t chocolate-y enough.

In my child-raising days, ice cream was the third level of emergency treatment for childhood injuries. Step one was “kiss the owie.” Step 2 required a band-aid on it. When my daughter grabbed the searing beam of a metal jungle gym I initiated step three; “let’s go get ice cream.” Step 4 would have been a trip to the emergency room. Fortunately I never got to step four.

I gave my daughter expert coaching in ice-cream cone management. I knew iced cream would be an important part of this relationship, so I approached this as a valuable skill I would hand down. You circle the cone working the meeting of cone and ice cream, simultaneously picking up and preventing drips. Not too hard, or you can undermine the stability of the scoop on the cone. The tongue is a strong muscle. Practice makes perfect and how sweet it is.

Ice cream works quite well on those injuries that transcend age and maturity, such as wounded pride, disappointment, fatigue … just about anything short of a broken bone. I’m pretty sure an ice cream cone would make even a temporarily broken person feel a whole lot better. I hope to remain ignorant.

Ice cream: it’s easy; it’s elegant; it’s simple. I think even when iced cream becomes merchtumbled and yes, even foody-fied, it still transports the eater directly to the magic of a very cold thing on a hot day; a sweet treat in the middle of it all; summer’s punctuation mark.

When I fell from marriage, home,
bland feats of life-as-I’d-known-it,
coupled-into some twenty-plus years ago,
suddenly everything was a question again.
What is? What isn’t?

All my assumptions broke into pieces:
sharp; slithery; and none-too-shiny.
Portland spoke through my ticklish in-step.
She pressed into the soles of my feet with
rose-and-tumble acceptance,
as I skirted puddles known and unknown.
Restless possiblity swayed along my sides
while Portland steadied my stride—“It’s ok.”

Who knew that asphalt could be a tender touch,
that this patient, old-friend town of mine
would roll out padding and take me easy,
while the stuffing in my head blew ‘round
many cups of coffee: many thanks, Portland.

The great hall at Ellis Island echoes with ghosts. They mutter, roar, cry and sometimes they even laugh in multilingual cacophony. Listen for the frightened whispers and halting speech in the examining rooms. Taunts and whispers slide through empty hallways of red brick school houses. Ancient songs and rhymes pop out of bureau drawers or cackle in the whoosh of a campfire.

Voices trapped in air currents swipe my ear, my memory and my imagination. They brush my eyes or my nostrils, and suddenly, the indelible media of song and spirit rush out. I feel the trials and joys, the courage and fears recorded there. The more these voices catch me, the more I crave their stories. I don‘t think this is mere longing for a tender time past. Rather, it‘s time-trained listening joined to a jagged sort of hearing—-pressed deep into the quick in some dark amino acid.

The stories transcend time and technology. I listen to the wind for epics that blow across plains. I touch the earth and feel the hoof beats of settlers. I soak in the river that bathes the heron and native bones.

Fondling tea cups stained with gossip and advice, I hear shuffles, accents and laughter of women I know, yet I’ve never met. Thumb-prints entice; are they mothers, maids or visionaries that twist canvas, stitches, stone, and glaze into beauty? The dust of Moses, Beethoven, and my grandfathers showers me with gifts. Ancient brothers sacrifice goats while sisters raise timbrels and dance in the deserts. My imagination dazzles.

Sometimes they weigh me down, the promises duty binds upon me and the gifts I can never repay. Those days, I am haunted by history, especially the dreams stolen from young dreamers. I cannot avoid the stench of camps where emptiness crushes the spirits of millions in the machinery of fear. I feel wooden and unworthy.

Other times these bygone days tingle in my nostrils and lift my wings. They charge the hair on my neck and drive the balls of my feet into ground. My pliers easily bend the next link of chain. I fill the song with my voice. My chest heats with wonder and the future shines, illumined by the past.

hear Backlighting

awaken spirit

speak the smallest grains of truth

boulders will follow

Recently published in VoiceCatcher 2, an anthology of new writing by Portland-area women, editor: Jennifer Lalime, 2d ed. 2007

“Both poetry and prose comprise this book (About Love: the bittersweet heart.) Even in her prose, Feder writes with the lyrical soul of a poet. Consider this from the prose piece called Passion: I enjoy this sweet, erotic, love-soaked slant on the fleeting light and last roses of fall. And I’m grateful to you for making me the lover I’ve always wanted to be: received; expansive and cherished. I’m surrounded by fountains of discovery and rediscovery; source and subject of so much passion.“