First I’ll assemble those little pieces I have. There’s no one left to ask about the connective tissue. How did I miss that window? How could I have been so careless with my Mother and Father, letting them slip away before polishing the narration of each significant scene? Sometimes the patch merely conceals the hole. And sometimes it transforms the treasured scrap into new cloth.
I worried about Mommy when the voice reminded registered aliens to report their addresses to the Post Office. Did Mommy have to do this? Did she know? Had she taken care of it? The stern man interrupted my afternoon cartoons. Failure to register was a federal offense. Was my mother an alien? I knew they [...]
When I said the word it felt like a live fish in my mouth, like I’d never heard it, never knew what it meant, like maybe I never said it before. How could that word be about me? It blasted my ear like a tumble from a front loader.
So today, when “run away” flashes though my mind, it’s not just fear of the creative, it’s not just the special vulnerability of having to create art and knowing it just might be shit. No, I’ve always hoped someone would save me from the moment, the task, the possibility of foolishness, uselessness or failure.
Of course it’s the favorite stuffed animal that takes the most journeys and therefore increases the odds of disappearance. And face it, how long will a kid cry when she loses the toy she didn’t really care about? I don’t think my four year old lost the bear. And while I tend to misplace things, I always find them. The disappearance of Yellow Bear still mystifies me. Yes, I blame myself.
When I decided to thumb through Ireland, I got busy putting all the fear-laced warnings about hitch-hiking out of my head. I hadn’t contemplated the also-fearful-and-more-likely reality that I’d be expected to converse with perfect strangers for hours.
Who isn’t haunted by the roaches that creep through the brain’s kitchen at 4 a.m.? I couldn’t see and create myself when no one else even bothered to see me. So I signed up for some expensive coursework. You can’t cram for exams at the School of Hard Knocks.
In unconnected hours face-to-face, drenched in the ice-water of failed intimacy, alone finally becomes loneliness. My strong right-side withered under worm-eaten embraces, preoccupied hearts, and habitual sex.
The life she crafts—unconsciously and with fierce determination—is Goddess at her core. She is that composite we never really see in our lifetime, that we often don’t trust to be there—that vast well-spring we might not even dare to be. But we are here, anyway, in spite of ourselves or with calculated assertion.
The others were already through their first round of lemon drops by the time I got there. The late rush hour was aggravated by sprinkles. After two months of sun, Portlanders were indulging their habit of collective amnesia for rainy-weather-driving. I avoided the candy drinks and took on the bottle of wine that would take [...]