Letters From a Life

How are you pronounced?

2012-01-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Joan Didion's Blue Nights and among the many, many thoughts that curl around me as I read, ponder, imagine is her reference to Ntozake Shange. I know that name. Have I read her book, her poems?

Medical alert: my brain has been on vacation, pining for estrogen, low in neuroplasticity, a term used first by the Polish neuroscientist Jersy Konorski -- not the writer Jerzy Kozinski, although pronouncing either name is vaguely orgasmic. I Google "Shange," learn how to pronounce "en-toh-ZAH-kee SHAHN-gay." Say that, enjoy the pleasure: "en-toh-ZAH-kee." Makes you want to change your name, does it not? To have a name that sings itself?

I changed my name when I was 34 years old and completely divorced. Completely, that is, compared to kind of separated (still living together), formally separated (living apart), legally separated (paying money to a lawyer, signing a piece of paper, counting months until divorce). That was in the gray ages when someone had to be at fault. I wanted to leave, so I accepted the charge: Mental Cruelty. Say that, lips pressed, breath expelled, a pout, tongue to teeth, "Men... tull... crew... ull... tee!" Say "Mary." Say "Marry." "Mary does not want to stay Mary-ied."

Over a Sunday morning plate full of tidbits from Frisch's breakfast buffet in Cincinnati, Ohio, I announced to my lover, Len, that I must change my name. When he asked what name I was considering, I said "Vladimir Shostakovitz." A whole alphabet of mouth play.

Ntozake knew that "Paulette L. Williams" was not a name that was going anywhere. I knew the name "Mary Schwab" could not hold the woman I would become. I wished to break completely, dump the "Mary" as well as the "Schwab." But I was drifting without the tether I'd been taught to desire -- life as a wife -- and needed something familiar in the lone container of my self. Though I longed to be a "Maya" or a "Simone" or even an "Ntozake," I kept "Mary" for safety, for assurance, and looked to goddesses for the unexpected.

Everyone loves Athena; everyone knows Diana. More private, a quiet healer, the goddess I chose was known for protecting her believers from evil spirits. By the time she reached the Greeks she was the cat-goddess.

Still worshipped today (see per.Bast.org), her name creates a yearning.

Say "Buh." Breathe "ahh." Push your teeth with "sss." Then tongue it: "tuh."

"Buhahhssstuh."

Unfamiliar Territory

2012-01-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

(Continued from Land of the Birds)

Thursday, July 7, 1988:

Nikki and I awoke early in Rarotonga yesterday from anxious dreams about being in unfamiliar territory. After two weeks on the island of Atiu we'll probably come back to the "civilized" world and wonder why we do all the things we do. But in these early days we'll have to adapt to a simpler life. Few Atiuan homes have running water, for example. Instead, most collect rain water. Becky says "When it's time to wash up you'll take a pitcher and basin to the bath house. Do it the way birds do."

In Atiu's traditional Christian culture, women are expected to dress modestly. Bathing suits, short shorts, or low-cut tops are not acceptable, although families may have different standards for attire in the privacy of their homes. For swimming and as a cover-up at home, Nikki and I each bought a pareu (sarong), two yards of cloth to wrap around the body in various ways. We chose the same dark blue and green on white pattern.

I'm now sitting in bed in my small room in Atiu at 5:15 a.m. The canopy is made of white lace, and a gentle cross-breeze flows from the window to the open hall in the middle of the house on this hot, muggy morning. I'm glad I brought a battery-operated book light, because electricity on the island is turned off between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Washing up was easier than I expected because the collected rainwater flows from a spigot in the bath house. Before "doing as the birds do" last night, I brushed my teeth and rinsed the brush in my bath water I was a bit nervous using the outdoor toilet in the dark, but found it flushes with only a little help from a bucket of water kept at the door of the outhouse.

So much is new, some expected because of our briefings, some surprising. It's certainly true, as we've been told by many people, that families here are wonderfully generous and caring. I have the good fortune to live at the home of the mayor, called Papa Tu by everyone because of his position in the village, and his wife Teu Mere, or Mere for short -- a name pronounced like mine: Mare-Ray, though I'm to call her "Mama."

Mama (Mere) on the right, in blue

As promised, our plane (one of two) was met yesterday by our host families and we were draped with eis (called leis in Hawaii) and our hair bedecked with garlands of flowers. I went with Mama right away to our home, where she served me fresh coconut milk (in a coconut), and two kinds of coconut meat: the nutty, mature meat and the immature flesh of the sprouting coconut -- fluffy, juicy, and very tender, similar in flavor but more delicate.

After the second plane arrived, we were all taken to two umukai's (feasts), the first an official greeting by Papa Tu and the head ariki (chieftain). Because it's customary for guests to eat first, our hosts did not join us in this feast of passion fruit juice, chicken, bananas, cookies, marinated squash, and a staple of the island called taro. This bland-tasting root looks somewhat like a sweet potato, although it can be grey or white or pink. Papa Tu says the color varies by where it's grown and how much moisture surrounds it.

The second umukai followed a brief religious ceremony at the Sunday School. Papa Tu, who is also the assistant minister, introduced the minister -- a younger, quite heavy man with a booming voice, who gave a sermon on love. I taped the traditional hymn which was sung in Maori, eerie and beautiful, all the voices clear and joyful.

My island family is highly religious. Yesterday evening, after I was shown to the bath house and we had coffee, tea, and more taro with butter, some of the children and Mama's sister Rongo came in for evening devotion. Papa Tu played the guitar while all sang a folk hymn in a combination of Maori and English. Mama and the children alternated reading verses from the Bible in Maori. In my honor, Papa Tu read in English. Then we had a closing prayer.

Papa Tu and Mere have raised 21 children; only the two youngest boys still at home. Newton is 10 years old and very handsome, named after the town in New Zealand where five of their children lived at one time. Another son lives in the next village because he has a girlfriend there. I asked if they are married, and Papa Tu said, "Not yet. It is better that they know each other first, so they don't divorce right away, as so many have done." This son and his girlfriend have a two-year-old boy.

Papa Tu is very proud of his family, especially his oldest brother, who has passed away. In their inside sitting room are photographs on the walls, decorated with shell necklaces. This brother's picture is displayed prominently next to one of Papa Tu when he was younger. This oldest brother, Vainerere Tangatapoto, was Becky Stephenson's "Papa" on the island -- the one she lived with for a year and a half thirteen years ago while collecting data for her dissertation in anthropology. Papa says his brother loved Becky like a daughter and she loved him like a father.

Clearly, Papa Tu's favorite son is his namesake, who lives in New Zealand and is very much missed. Papa recalls with great tenderness Teio Tu's helpfulness as a boy. Mama says Teio Tu helped Papa put up the kitchen ceiling when he was only 12 years old.

There are other children about, mostly nieces, and one granddaughter. Of one of the nieces, Tau, Papa Tu says her parents are "not good." These relatives of Mama's, he said, drink a lot and go away at night with their "gang," leaving the children unattended.

Humor is a big part of their lives. Papa Tu teased Mama that only her relatives are bad. Even his nephew joked with Papa at the feast last night, saying everyone hoped Papa would keep his speech short.

Mama speaks English quite well, though not as fluently as Papa. This is, I suspect, partly due to personality, and partly to roles. Papa Tu does most of the talking and he's the one who decides what's appropriate behavior for me. Mama is present, adding comments or laughing.

In this morning's briefing we were asked to describe to the Earthwatch group what we've observed so far, and I found myself tongue-tied, trying to share how open my family has been and how touched I am by their stability and spiritual depth. Though many described themselves as happy with their families, I believe I'm the luckiest to be with mine. I'm interested in the island's history and traditions, and my family holds to most of the historical culture. Nikki is with a "modern" family -- they watch TV (VCR) till midnight, drink Diet Pepsi, and eat mostly tinned food. I'm sure her "Mama" believes she is serving her guest especially well, but Nikki isn't experiencing the old ways of the islanders. There was much laughter in my family, for example, when Mama dressed me in this traditional costume.

(to be continued)

Pure Prairie League

2011-10-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

It's 1973. I'm 35 years old, here at the communal Dana House with Lou, 11 years younger. We're sitting around the huge kitchen table with ten or so others, passing around a bottle of tequila, a plate of lemon wedges, a shaker of salt.

Earlier we listened to Pure Prairie League, in person, in the living room where they started several years ago, before they and "Amie" became nationally known. Some of them are at the table with us, but I don't know their names. All I know is that this is SO MUCH FUN!

When the tequila runs out we'll begin passing around joints. At some point I will go to the bathroom to take out my contact lenses and drop one on the floor. Then I'll weep, not because I can't find the contact lens but because I think it must be so lonely all alone down there.

The music will start again and I'll go upstairs with Lou until late tomorrow morning, certain that even though we're on a residential street in Cincinnati, Ohio, we're somewhere near the ocean, because I'm floating on its waves and (you can start the music now) singing "I can see why you think you belong to me..."

New Rules for the Game

2011-09-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

I was taught my manners by a Southern mother, so when first introduced to feminism in graduate school, I shied away from it. “Nice Girl” played well with my professors and for me, too, as I received the kudos, scholarships, and fellowships that reward students who play the game. But slowly, slowly I felt my soul shrinking and began to bristle at the arbitrary power of academic faculty. My first effort was quiet and passive-aggressive—an article for a sociology newsletter that subtly mocked the pervasive use of the phrase “seminal idea” in (male-dominated) academic circles, as compared to the promise of “generative ideas” and the “birth” of new ways of thinking.

Then the two instructors leading my psychology practicum, both tenured faculty, both male, asked the twelve of us in the group to rank each other on a variety of dimensions. They said the questionnaire results would be confidential, a learning tool for our personal growth. Instead, they used the data to rank order us and sent that ranking to our advisers! I was horrified. As the oldest (I was 31 when I entered graduate school) and top-ranked, I thought if anyone's voice would be heard it would be mine (who'd listen to the lowest-ranked?) I sent a letter to those same advisers, signed by my classmates, protesting the misuse of the information and emphasizing that in a group of top performers even the lowest-ranked was still a top performer.

Did those two professors take me seriously? Did they in any way acknowledge a misuse of their power? No, they diminished my efforts by broadcasting my “problem with authority.” If you’ve experienced an “–ism” you’ll recognize the tactic—you stand up to those who've demeaned or bullied you, and they say, “You’re too sensitive.”

They did me a favor, though, because I realized I'd have to stand up for myself. I found it especially difficult to hold firm when someone on my dissertation committee asked for changes that seemed arbitrary to me. So I formed a dissertation support group. There were four of us struggling, not with the research and writing, but with the interpersonal and political dynamics of the academic system. Not only did we critique each others' thinking and writing, we rehearsed what we'd say when defending our ideas.

Then I met with my committee to review what I considered to be my completed dissertation. Out of the blue, two of them said it was too long and needed to be rewritten. One more hoop to jump through? No. Having rehearsed this possibility with my support group, I asked for specific examples and when they had none said, with rising excitement at my own daring, “I’ll be happy to consider specific suggestions; otherwise, what you have in front of you is my best effort.”

They accepted it.

Lesson learned.

A Long Way Down

2011-07-01T16:25:00.000-07:00

Ray was taller than I expected from the photos on his book covers, and thinner. He looked me over, too, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I made small talk while we waited for my luggage, but he was silent.

When we were finally in his truck heading to Whitefish, he cleared his throat. "Well, you've had quite a day, Mary. Twelve hours, three planes. You must be tired."

My Spirit Animal

2011-06-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

In my thirties, my friend Bob returned from an Omega Institute Spirit Quest workshop, eager to show me how to connect with my totem animal. I hoped for a rare and swift creature -- a gazelle, perhaps.

We turned the lights low in my living room, and I lay within a circle Bob created by walking around me with burning sage, gently spreading the smoke with his hands.

In a quiet, hypnotic voice he said, "Close your eyes, breathe deeply and slowly, in and out, letting go of all thoughts, all ego desires. Release any expectations of what you might find on your journey."

When I signaled my readiness, Bob said, "Picture a body of water with a densely grown bit of land in the middle. Now notice there's a rowboat waiting for you on shore. Step into the boat, row to the island, where you will find many animals. As you roam the landscape, one of the animals will speak to you. Be open to the message you're given, then thank your animal spirit guide for the lesson and come back to shore."

I saw the body of water, the island, and the rowboat, but there was already a creature in the boat. It was Babar, the children's storybook elephant. With the spats, the bow tie, and the stupid little hat.

I stepped into the rowboat and said, "No, no. Get out of the boat! I want to go to the island. I want a sleek and beautiful animal. I don't want you!"

Babar smiled in that innocent way of his and said, "We can row to the island if you wish, and you can walk among the other creatures, but none of them will talk to you. I'm your spirit guide."

God, he was so prissy. The last thing I would have imagined is being irritated on a quest for a spirit animal. I remembered Bob's advice to be open to whatever happened, but I felt certain Babar was a trick of my imagination, a joke my psyche was playing on me. I insisted on rowing to the island. Babar very politely agreed but refused to leave the boat. He didn't help with the rowing, either.

Rousseau's Equatorial Jungle

On the island, I walked through a Rousseau-like jungle among strange flowers, exotic birds, curious apes, hungry lions, and fierce tigers. None of these fascinating creatures showed the slightest interest in me. I knew I couldn't choose my spirit animal. Even so, I tried to entice a sleek panther to speak to me of lunar power, of death and rebirth, of the gift of shape-shifting. She held me in her unblinking stare, silent.

Babar's take on Henri Rousseau

Babar relaxed and waited. Finally I saw the truth of the situation, how my desire to control the quest could only be upended by a surprising image I could not deny.

"Babar," I said, laughing. "What are you here to teach me?"

This is what he said: Go to this link and click for Babar's response.

I thanked him for the lesson and rowed back to shore.

Later, I learned that elephants bestow the ability to have great impact though saying little, to command a situation simply by being.

Land of the Birds

2011-06-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

Early in 1988 the corporation I worked for was acquired in a hostile takeover and my department eliminated. My March 50th birthday put me in a "protected" category that increased the size of my severance check, and I found consulting work one week a month for as much income as I'd been making in a full-time job. Suddenly free of traditional work hours and in the money, I could do something I'd been interested in for a long time -- join an Earthwatch expedition.

Though tempted by Tracking Orangutans in Borneo (more about this later), I was most intrigued by an archeology/anthropology expedition to Atiu Island (or Enuamanu, land of the birds) in the Cooks. My friend Nikki joined me. The following and some future posts will cover highlights from the journal I kept during the trip.

Tuesday, July 5, 1988: Nikki and I are sharing a room in Rarotonga before catching the cargo plane to Atiu with the other volunteers. The weather is cool, overcast, and windy. Our back window looks out on jungle and our front window on the ocean, framed by coconut palm trees, hibiscus, orchids, and bougainvillea.

Dr. Sinoto and Dr. Stephenson

Our expedition leaders Dr. Rebecca A. (Becky) Stephenson, Dr. Hiro Kurashina, and the senior investigator, Dr. Yosi Sinoto held a press conference this morning describing our goals -- to trace the route of Polynesian colonization through archeological artifacts and to observe changes in island culture by comparing our journals to similar information collected by Becky in her year on the island for her doctoral study a decade ago.

At lunch today we were told the difficulty of Earthwatch trips varies a great deal. One woman, on her eighth expedition, said the Borneo trip was the toughest. At times they tracked the orangutans through waist-deep swamp water and afterwards had to pull leeches off each other. Because they moved from place to place, their camp sites and facilities were temporary. At one site, the team leaders were concerned about a wild boar in the area. So their night visits to the latrine -- a wooden plank over a large hole -- required balancing on the plank while holding a flashlight and a club.

Nikki left front, Mary middle front

In contrast, we look forward to a welcome from friendly and loving islanders. Two members of our group have been to Atiu with Earthwatch before. Both are back because they became so attached to their hosts. Each of us will live with a family for two weeks, and those two will stay with the same families as before.

At today's briefing we learned that Maori is a directive language. Technically, "please" and "thank you" do not exist, so we shouldn't be surprised if told "Do this!" Reciprocity is integral to this culture. If you admire something, an Atiuan will feel obligated to give it to you. The same goes for us -- we'll know what gifts to give members of our families by what they admire among our possessions. The Maori have a saying that things "get legs." The children will be curious about jewelry, or small alarm clocks, or watches. If we leave such things lying around, they might disappear.

Because we're guests, we will probably eat alone until our families get to know us, and we will eat with our hands, as they do. Shoes are not worn in the house. Both men and women are affectionate and will hug and kiss on the cheek. When attending the dances, a tap on the knee by a man will be an invitation to dance. After the dance a tap on the rear end will be an unspoken "Thank you."

There will be a conspicuous display of food, and we'll show our pleasure by eating a lot, though not necessarily everything. We asked a man who was here last year what that really means. He said, "It means six meals a day."

(continued in Unfamiliar Territory)

Bridge to the Past

2011-01-24T16:32:00.000-08:00

Joseph Allen's response to a Vineyard Gazette reader: "Bridges were covered. damn fool, for the same reason women used to wear petticoats--to protect their underpinnings. Ever hear that wood rots when it gets wet?"

There was the threat of a blizzard, but we kept to our plan. Dave warmed the car, then returned to help me carry the thermos and cooler packed with sandwiches and fruit. Locking the door of our Boston apartment, we set out on an adventure.

I rode as co-pilot in our new, red, 1960 Saab 96, its headlights peering into the January flurries that brushed the car on all sides. My turtleneck sweater was an authentic Scandinavian favorite, and I'd hung a fancy Kodak camera around my neck by the strap of its leather case. Both the car and camera were wedding gifts from the previous June. Though Dave was a medical student, and I helped support us as a medical secretary, we could easily have been mistaken for affluent tourists.

During weekends throughout the fall and early winter, we'd visited covered bridges to get to know Massachusetts. This was one of our longest drives, to the Creamery Bridge in Ashfield at the west end of the state, and by the time we neared the town the snowfall was luminous in the mid-afternoon sun. Our hardy Saab climbed the hills with no trouble, but huge drifts covered the roadside and we were all the way into Ashfield without having seen the turnoff we'd marked on our map.

There wasn't a person in sight, only a few parked cars, their roofs mounded with half a foot of snow. After several turns onto increasingly slippery side streets, we saw two men beside a black, dented Chevy truck with the hood up. Dave pulled alongside and I rolled down my window to ask for directions.

The man who'd been leaning over the engine raised his head. He could have been from an Ingmar Bergman film, his grizzled visage a menacing Max von Sydow. The young man with him was 16 or 17 years old, blond, and almost pretty except for his gap-toothed smirk. The old man told us to backtrack about six miles south and look on the right for a narrow lane to the bridge. The boy did not speak.

As we drove south, I was glad to be away from them, rattled by their strange presence in an otherwise sleepy town. After six miles I saw the one-lane road. It was becoming a bit icy, but we had enough traction to drive through the covered bridge and up the hill beyond it. At the top we turned around to drive back through the bridge, then saw a black Chevy truck heading up the hill toward us.

"Oh my God," I said as I pushed down the lock on my side, "it's those same two guys. What are they doing here?"

"They probably came by to make sure we found it."

Even though both cars had to make room to pass, the old man and the boy looked straight ahead, making no sign they saw us.

"Then why didn't they honk or wave?" I asked. "What if they think we're easy prey? No one would find us until spring thaw."

"Don't worry;" Dave responded, "they're probably heading back to town." Past the bridge, he pulled about 100 yards into a parking area, where the full length of the bridge was visible. He opened his door and stepped out, but I noticed he stayed close to the car.

I stood by the passenger side door for a minute, then walked cautiously a few feet. As I focused the camera on the covered bridge, the dented Chevy returned, heading down the hill and into the bridge. It did not reappear.

Dave and I looked at each other, then jumped into the Saab and locked the doors. He had trouble starting the engine. For those long seconds I thought my heart would beat through my chest. When the ignition finally caught, we zoomed out, slipping and sliding onto the main road and on our way home. I slumped in my seat, terrified of what I'd see if I looked behind us. Dave's furtive glances in the rear view mirror kept him occupied for miles.

The experience became one of our stories, of a time when we were protected by our love for each other, how we might have come to a bad end that day, long before the underpinnings of our marriage began to corrode.

At this moment, the snow on the covered bridge is as real to me as the keyboard I'm using to capture this memory. Were these two men friendly small towners who didn't want to alarm us, puzzled that we didn't stay to photograph their famous covered bridge? Or were they as sinister as I imagined?

Eeek Love

2010-10-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Take a close look: Cathie Jung's waist is a Guinness-record-holding 15 inches. For more than 25 years she's been tight-lacing—corseting, waist training. Why am I fascinated by this centuries-old practice? No, not because my own waist has added all the inches missing from this photo.

My passion for the skewed, the avant-garde, the idiosyncratic, or just plain contrary—my admiration for poets, writers, artists, visionaries, whistle blowers, and everyday goddesses—stems from a childhood trapped in the mind and body of a Margaret O'Brien prototype.

Behind the pigtails I was a voyeur of the sensational. Even more bewitching to me than Grimms' capricious and sometimes cruel fairy tales was Hans Christian Andersen's story of a nice little girl who was given a pair of coveted red shoes. The shoes made her want to dance everywhere—even to church, which was forbidden—and as punishment she could not remove them. The only way to stop the dancing was to have her feet cut off. Champion of that little girl, I have danced life-long with the forbidden.

Would this explain my odd lot of friends—each of them rare, remarkable, eccentric? Hell for me would be to live in a planned community where all shopping and entertainment are accessible by golf cart, an adult Disney World with smartly dressed Stepford People. They exist, of course, but none of my fantastics would consider living there.

Mrs. Jung is not the only object of my affection. As a young teenager living in Arlington, Virginia, my favorite outing was to the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C., where I could gaze upon bottled congenital abnormalities, plastic models of malaria parasites, tracings of the world's largest foot.

I was stunned and delighted to read Katharine Dunn's Geek Love, about a couple who revive their traveling carnival by breeding their own freak show, fetuses altered in utero by various means to create a boy with flippers for hands and feet, Siamese twins, a hunchbacked albino dwarf, a normal-looking baby gifted with telekinesis.

At the top of my list of intriguing movies is I Spit on Your Grave, summarily dismissed as a "rape revenge film." I love its over-the-top story of a woman raped and left for dead who survives and exacts a fitting end for each of her rapists, one by one. It could be a nightmare, or a dream.

My favorite photographer? Diane Arbus, also drawn to the off-beat, the exceptional. Her photos of marginal people—dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers, anyone whose normality seems surreal—show everyone unmasked. "There's a quality of legend about freaks," she wrote. "Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle."

The stages of my own life could be summed as a trip through the traveling show, my series of husbands and lovers—they of all ethnic groups, abnormalities of spirit, and size—having found me caged in various guises. I have emerged finally as a tattooed Eve unburdened by Adam.

(See companion "Side Show" poem)

Graduate School Jitters, 1975

2010-10-05T04:54:00.000-07:00

I cannot breathe. Strangling, my words sound like alien croaks. My heart hums like a didgeridoo, a sound split from its source. There is no ground beneath me, I am floating above myself and at the same time sinking.

I want to die. Now.

The professor clears his throat, praises my paper as the best one, trying to help. This does not help.

I've never before shared my opinion in public. I'm the only cross-over from sociology in the graduate psychology class, standing in front, facing everyone.

The professor coughs politely. The other grad students whisper, shuffle their feet.

How awful. They pity me.

I wish for the ultimate act of kindness, a lightning strike. I think this is the most humiliating moment of my life, not knowing yet there will be other, greater embarrassments, until I find my voice.

Cock-Eyed Clichés

2010-08-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

My ex-husband Dick called his badboy a dick. Did he think of it as a mini-me? Or was this meant to preempt jokes about his name?

We met sitting next to each other in the front row at one of those personal growth workshops where you're supposed to admit you're shit and always have been. We'd been there nine hours. I was desperate to leave, when the workshop leader announced a new theme: You're all story-ing. Starting with our row, he glanced one by one at name tags, saying You're Larry Larry-ing... You're Darlene Darlene-ing...

Dick and I made eye contact and grinned, but of course the guy paused and skipped past him, responding to his own story, no doubt.

Most men name their dongs. My pal Art called his King Arthur. Trust me, that was a bit grandiose.

I decided to call my own parts Star. I wish I could say this has a scientific basis—hot, dense, luminous—but I took it from Tarot: "Star, the card of hope."

Then I met Roger, who has an Oscar.

My sex life was becoming a cliché!

Seeking a fresh perspective, I took charge of the naming. Thus, when I laid eyes on a most remarkable member, I christened it The Cobra. You can see it: the wider head when erect, the way it weaves and dances in a Stevie Wonder sort of way, like it's blind and sweet on Motown.

Blueprint For the Nation

2010-07-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

My cousin Frank ran for U.S. president in the last election, choosing Dr. Bull Eagle as his public persona. I could stop right here and say "Another crackpot campaign!"

However, he earned the doctorate, and what if all political candidates took an Indian name? Couldn't we more easily decide between Talks As He Walks and Soaring Turkey Vulture?

If only America had known the previous incumbent as Misses with Arrows before votes were cast.

Dr. Eagle listed his publications among his political credentials. How Words Are a Limited Reflection of Reality is both a scholarly treatment of the arbitrariness of symbols and a poignant reflection of Bull Eagle's difficulty describing his eccentric world.

And I was assured of his executive savvy knowing he'd closely studied Labor/Management Relations in Yugoslavia.

I wondered, though, how on earth "Energy Artichokes and Energy Tongues" could be anything but the title to a poem.

Then I read the article, and understood it as a promise to support sustainable energy sources, including the too often overlooked Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus): "superior in yield of carbohydrates per unit area; a quality raw material for the production of ethanol."

Doctor Bull Eagle.
Scientist Farmer Politician.

One Who Cries

Bread and Butter

2010-06-11T21:35:00.001-07:00

Young couples used to say "Bread and Butter" if separated by an obstacle when walking together, to keep something from coming between them. This is based on the difficulty of separating butter from bread once spread.

My mother, Ruth, still has an old-fashioned beaded bag my father, Clovis, gave her for high school graduation, and I'm struck by how like her it is: small, pretty, many colorful pieces forming the whole, smooth to the touch, easy to love. I imagine my father saw this instantly. They were fourteen years old when they met, and neither time nor distance ever separated them in spirit.

Ruth's father, Lake Starkey, was a physician, her mother, Mary Bosworth Starkey, a descendant of early English settlers. Clovis Ritter was the rough-cut son of immigrant German stock—his mother, Ida, a short, fat, bossy sort and his father, C.H., a tall, skinny, quiet man, her Jack Sprat counterpart.

I don't know my maternal grandparents' view of this bright, farm-grown young man, because they died in a car crash before I was born. I can guess they hoped their middle daughter would find a better catch if they moved her away from La Feria, Texas—population 1,594.

Ruth tried to follow her parents' wish that she go to college in Chicago, where her aunt and uncle lived. Once there, however, she schemed to move closer to Texas A & M, where Clovis was studying agriculture. She went to three different colleges in as many years and finally—after her third year away—they were married, with fifty dollars between them.

My father, enforcer of his own rules, scared me when I was growing up. Determined to have his way, he'd paint himself into a corner where to say yes would be to give in, a loss of face he couldn't tolerate.

Mom, though, saw through his tough exterior, and would act as go-between—babying me without challenging his decisions. She has never liked conflict. Even now, at age 97, when we're out together if I walk on the other side of a post in the sidewalk she'll say, "Bread and Butter!"

My parents were not without arguments, however.

I wear the same size shoe as Mom, and on one visit I brought her a pair of discount store stilettos, just for fun. She pranced around in them for Dad, expecting something flirty, I guess. Instead he gave her a dour look and said, "You're not going anywhere with me in those shoes."

Mom wept. I was furious. When she asked me what she could do, I said "LEAVE the son-of-a-bitch!"

That was out of the question, of course. Until he died at age 69, when I was visiting and came into a room where they were sitting, I'd find them whispering, Mom on Dad's lap, her arm protectively around him.

Mmmm Good

2010-04-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

At our Gainesville Writers Alliance (yes, WAG) meeting last Sunday, Bev Browning talked to us about ghost-writing and her concept of shimmer — "how to craft a sentence to manipulate response and amplify meaning."

There's a huge difference between having a great story and being able to write it. The written words have to stand alone without the benefit of your gesture, facial expression, tone of voice, volume, eye contact, and feedback... "Shimmer" refers to the transparent layers that create subtle dimension in written work.

She said round words and mmmm sounds can create shimmer in a sensual experience, then handed out Belgian chocolates and asked us to add layers to this story:

Bev gave us chocolate. We ate it.

This is my shimmer:

She holds a chocolate
in blue and silver wrapper
close beneath my nose
and makes me wait
to open it or place
it in my mouth, but oh
I see it's round,
and notice first
its scent and then,
upon my tongue,
against the far back
of my throat,
how it softly,
slowly melts.

A humming starts
from somewhere
in my soul.

My Life is a Sitcom?

2010-03-31T05:52:00.001-07:00

Last night I dreamed I'd been acting in a sitcom that had just been canceled and we were at a wrap party.

I was talking to a small, dark woman with long black hair, and wondered aloud if our Nielsen numbers were really bad enough to cancel us. Sure, some people out there found the show too edgy, but weren't there enough who appreciated our sophisticated humor to keep the sponsors happy?

She stepped back from me, eyes wide, and sobbed, "We're canceled, and you're talking about statistics?"

I called out the same question to a heavyset man about 6'4" with shaggy, long, gray hair and a deeply wrinkled face.

He staggered a bit as he turned from shambling toward the door, looked back at me with his eyelids half closed, and slurred, "Mary, half the shows were crap."

"I know that," I persisted, closing in on him, "but the other half were prime."

He put an arm around me and tried for a slobbery kiss.

I slipped away.

Woman to Woman

2010-03-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

Twice in my life a woman has phoned and started the conversation with "Woman to woman":

"Woman to woman, I know my husband's in love with you and I'm asking you not to respond to him if he calls or sends you an e-mail."

What she really meant: "Back off, BITCH!"

"Woman to woman, I have to tell you your husband has been hitting on me. I, of course, have not encouraged him and I'm here for you if you want to talk about what a loser he is, cheating on you that way."

What she really meant: "Give it up, STUPID, he's in love with me. Divorce him so I can have him."

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine

2010-03-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

The first time I heard it, the murmur of muted cellos was sweet, haunting, the A minor chord augmented gradually by other strings, the chanting chorus. When the music shifted to A major, my eyes brimmed with the lyrical expansion of violins and voices. I was another instrument being mysteriously collected, gently hammered, my body resonating.

Verdi's Requiem.

I begged my friend Donna that night, "Please, if you survive me, play this at my funeral."

Kyrie eleison.

Then my son called, his voice choked, to tell me his dad — my ex-husband Dave — had died suddenly at age fifty of an apparent heart attack. I called in my Frequent Flyer miles to jet to Clearwater, Florida, and packed a cassette recording of the Requiem.

Lord have mercy on us.

The plane was late and I arrived only minutes before the service was to start. My son and daughter had left the music up to the funeral director, who was not pleased with my insistence on Verdi.

Lacrymosa dies illa.

The scene: an unctuous mortician who speaks too softly and keeps his hands folded in front at all times, a funeral parlor filled with the sickening, overpowering scent of flowers, the deceased in the open casket resembling someone we used to know but waxy and strangely colored. Dear God, they've gotten his nose wrong. It's much bigger than I remember.

Ah, that day of tears and mourning.

I learned that funeral music is meant to be white noise, to keep people hushed, emotions tethered, everyone miming the embalmer, eyes down, looking properly respectful. The Verdi was a mistake, an intrusion, far too beautiful, drawing our attention away from memories of a life. But it was too late, the service had started. The Requiem's urgent soprano and eerie choral murmurs seemed to admonish me for this choice, for all my choices.

Libera me, Domine.

Relentlessly the music soared, competing with the low murmurs, barely perceptible, discordant notes: "Was it really his heart?" "Why no autopsy?" "They say it might have been suicide."

Deliver me, O Lord.

Scarab

2010-02-21T05:39:00.001-08:00

I've been distressed how frequently The Writer's Almanac features crappy poetry. While digesting this, I came across "The Philosophy of Shit" (Taoism: shit happens; Zen Buddhism: shit is, and is not; Hinduism: this shit has happened before, etc).

Of course, manure is necessary in the life cycle and dung beetles play a large part, as they roll animal waste away and bury brood balls to feed their young.

In ancient Egypt this was symbolized by the Beetle God Khepri, who was believed to roll the sun across the sky. Scarab amulets were placed on mummy hearts to profess them so unburdened of sin and corruption they would balance against truth's feather and enjoy the eternal afterlife.

This is my own brood ball.

Scarab

The beetle god of ancient Egypt
rolled the sun across the sky,
his sacred efforts so eternal
Scarab amulets bode immortality:

a mythic mirroring of earthly work.

Scarabaeidae form balls
of excrement to eat or roll
home for their brood
and fecundate the land.

Are writers not the same?
Scriveners Scarabaeidaeus
feed on cherished forms of ordure
(some, particular, seek carrion),

and sweat, struggle, bury crap
to keep it moist and brood upon,
fertilize each year
a ton of reader nutrients.

Conversation with a Ghost

2010-02-14T11:50:00.001-08:00

Dear Dave,

You, more than anyone, might find it strange that I write to you on Valentine's Day. You might even be amused.

I was frightened by your conviction that death is the end of everything, and amazed by your equanimity. You said it was simply the nature of things — to come into being, to age, to die — and you wouldn't want to live in a world without death. You thought something would be missing, a lack of drive to morality, perhaps, or insufficient passion to do what we believe we're here to do.

Yet you did everything your medical training suggested could keep you alive and in good health, paying rigorous attention to what you ate, playing racquetball, as though your body protested your concept of death and feared you would, as you did, die young.

We'd been divorced more than fifteen years when Dylan called to say you'd had a heart attack. I thought of you by then as an occasional friend or interested party when issues with the children arose. So I was surprised how much I grieved.

John Updike died recently and I wept over his death, too, even though — of course — I didn't know him. Through these many years I continued to read Updike's own progress through life, his fiction drawing, I felt sure, from experiences much like mine.

The phrase from one of his Rabbit books I remember most clearly is this: "In a hundred years we'll all be grass."

If that's what you have become, Dave, I see you as reed grass, tall, lean, somewhat spare.

Love, Mary

French Lesson

2010-02-05T10:52:00.001-08:00

Mallarmé, he writes, sought
nothingness that is truth.

Then translate this, I beg,
of his magicienne:

Une voix, du passé longue évocation,
Est-ce la mienne prête à l’incantation?

The hand, he scribes,
is quicker than the eye.

More charming, say I,
and now must bid good-bye.

From de Montaigne,
sixteenth century:

Une personne vous manqué
Et le monde est dépeuplé.

A person lacks you and
the world depopulates?

When you miss someone,
the world is a smaller place.

Moving Hearts

2010-01-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

Dick and David Monaghan and I arrived at Kennedy Airport around 4:00 pm on Friday, May 9, 1986 and rode by bus to the Aer Lingus terminal, excited about our ten-day trip to Ireland. Their dad Charlie hadn't arrived yet, so the three of us offered our tickets and passports, planning to reserve a place for Charlie next to us. That's when we discovered Dick had brought his old passport.

Mr. Fitzgerald, at the counter, was not encouraging. I said surely there must be a circumstance where one could travel without an updated passport. He insisted it was rare, "only in the case of medical emergency." The three of us quietly conferred, phoned the State Department minutes before its offices closed, and a Mrs. Finn arranged for Dick to fly on a waiver "to meet his sick father who was in Ireland visiting relatives."

We clued Charlie in when he arrived, and left New York around 8:00 that night, arriving in Shannon at 8:00 am Saturday (a five-hour time change). As we passed through customs it occurred to Dick that his father was right behind him, so he told the customs officer it was his aunt in Carlow who was sick!

I have many precious memories of traveling through Ireland with the three Monaghan men, and will tell a few tales, not necessarily in order.

The wind and rain were increasing as we made our way to the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. As described in the guidebook: "Situated 9 km. NW of Lahinch, the Cliffs stretch for nearly 6 km. from Hags Head to O'Brien's Tower where they attain a height of over 100 m." We made our way against 80 mph winds to these magnificent cliffs.

We stayed at small Bed and Breakfasts as we toured through Ireland, a wonderful way to experience the local culture. Here's what I wrote on Thursday, May 15: "The weather turned quite cold today. We had to ask our host to warm the room where we were having breakfast, though our meals are so silly it's a wonder we noticed the temperature. This morning Charlie recited a poem:

"I eat my peas with honey,
I've done so all my life.
It makes them taste quite funny,
but they stick well on my knife."

On one of our last nights in Ireland Dick and I went to a pub, and I had one of those astonishing moments — totally unexpected — when your heart is moved by utter and complete joy: we heard an Irish group performing, featuring what sounded like jazzed-up bagpipes, a haunting combination of traditional Irish and rock music. The group's name, appropriately, was Moving Hearts.

I found two of their cassettes before we left Ireland, which brought me great pleasure over the years and, more recently, tried to find CDs but Moving Hearts had disappeared. To my delight, they've resurfaced.

Three Wishes

2010-01-20T18:57:00.001-08:00

When I was fifteen, the only thing I ever wanted was to have a shape like Marilyn Monroe.

That's a lie. I also wanted to have perfect eyesight and curly hair.

But I was a late bloomer and Twiggy hadn't yet come on the scene. My skinny torso was a particular embarrassment.

However, there was a solution: padding my bra. Who would know? I didn't go crazy with this, just a small improvement. And that was working for me. I joined the cheerleading team. I was offered a part in the drama club production.

Then one day, without warning, the school secretary announced over the loudspeaker that there would be mandatory chest x-rays in a special bus parked in the school lot. They were starting with ninth graders. My class would be next.

I was afraid my Monroe breasts would show up in the x-ray and somehow the whole school would find out and make a joke of it. Slipping into the girl's bathroom, I looked around, frantic. All the stalls were occupied. I grabbed a fake boob in each hand and pushed both of them behind the paper towel dispenser, racing out the door as tenth graders were called outside.

When I came back from the bus two boys and a girl were playing catch in the hallway. I walked past them, heading for the bathroom, then looked again. They were tossing my falsies!

The Talking Cure

2010-01-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

Mary, have you read about
The Talking Cure? Speilrein?

Jung's decoding her hysteria?

I know of May's "psychotic
bundle of tics" on stage.
I feel decoded.

Do you find me crazy?

Dear, I find you half crazy,
like Leonard Cohen's Suzanne.

You are my Animus.
Or is that Anima?

Mistaking Anima and Animus,
dear Mary, is like screwing
with your Incubus and Succubus.

But unlike real-life lovers,
Incubus and Succubus
do not complain about the cooking -

for one always serves
their favorite dish: you!

(though they may fret,
if sleeplessness sets in,
that dinner's late).

Your angle on gastronomy's sublime.
My screaming soundtrack fades in
with a tight and faultless beat:
"Good God! A snack attack."

...

Walking Meditation

2009-12-30T14:11:00.000-08:00

"Om mani padme hum. This will bring the powerful, benevolent attention and blessings of Chenrezig," hums the teacher, "the embodiment of compassion."

I've been sitting on a prayer cushion for twenty minutes, eyes closed, feet tucked under my hips. Damn, my knees hurt! Please God, Buddha, all the gods, give me a break. The teacher rings the bell. I gratefully rise. Moving too fast. Follow his example and slow down, bow to the room, fingertips pointed beneath chin, backing out the door.

We are to clasp our hands waist-high, slip on our shoes outside the door, walk slowly, in rhythm, behind him.

"Om Namo Narayanaya," he chants, "releasing us from bondage to lower consciousness."

The woman in front of me stops at a bench to tie her lace-up sneakers, then steps back into the moving line.

"You're out of order," the teacher snaps. "If you don't walk in the same line as you were sitting, you'll screw things up!"

Om mani padme om, I mutter, and keep walking, all the way to my car.

Scissors, Paper, Stoned

2009-12-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

Sitting on the floor in a half-lotus position impossible when sober, guitar in lap. A faculty-student party, so I am surprised to be handed a joint.

A shared high, grad students smokily aware of our theses waiting on our desks, some neatly ordered and half started, some only loose papers thrown about in piles.

I sing in a reedy voice. Everyone smiles.

I remember this when sitting in the chair for my oral defense, legs scissored, paper ready, fearing I'll be stoned.

Chartreuse

2009-12-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

Envy consumed me whenever I looked at Grace. I had to practice being cool, but Gracie just did it.

I was fourteen years old and couldn't believe my luck when she admired the chartreuse sateen jacket I'd bought with babysitting money. This was before I decided synthetics were pseudo. I kept caressing the silky fabric, admiring myself in store windows. I knew the color was awful, close to neon, but it was "in." Either this or hurt-your-teeth fuchsia. I liked the Frenchy sound of the lustrous green: shartrooz.

Gracie liked the color, too, and I let her borrow the jacket. She told me later that was the first time she even noticed me, wearing something like that. I didn't care if I ever got it back.

Gracie's mother Millie was a drinker. You could count on Millie (we weren't allowed to call her "Mom" or "Mrs. H") to be out at a bar with someone when I stayed overnight. So we could come and go as we pleased.

My mother would have died. Not that she trusted Millie as a chaperone. But Mom trusted me. Whereas I was just itching to do something even a little bit bad.

One Friday night Gracie and I went to the movies and missed the last bus to her house. We knew better than to try to rouse Millie. They lived only a couple of miles from town, so we decided to walk. It was pitch dark. I was wearing the jacket and walked on the outside so any car's headlights would reflect off the chartreuse and we wouldn't be run down. What we didn't count on was the gang of boys on motorcycles who whizzed by, whistling. We were flattered at first, proud we came off as women in the dark. Then we saw the boys stop about a half-mile ahead.

"What if they come back?" I ventured.

"They'd attack us," Gracie assured me, high on the adventure of it.

We looked around for an escape route, realized we were surrounded on both sides by fields of corn with seven-foot stalks. We both jumped at once, first into the ditch and then scrambling on our hands and knees as far into the field as we could before we heard the roar of engines draw close. We sat silently for what seemed like hours, long past the time they gave up and drove off.

Then Gracie started giggling. "I was so scared I wet my pants!"

"Me, too!" I snorted, blissful tears dripping on our jacket.

Water Messages

2009-12-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

He sips water from my glass, this creature whose semantics I understand, laps so quietly I must nuzzle him to hear. When thirsty, he listens, holds his nose just above the surface of his own bowl, interprets it as if he'd studied Emoto's Hidden Messages in Water, though of course it does not speak to him of Chuzenji Lake springs.

But my water. Ah! He eyes it dripping slowly from my bathroom faucet, waits for my act of devotion: to see his longing, lift him gently where his arthritic limbs can no longer jump, and wait Zen-like while he drinks.

We have created a language where intonation is everything. My voice rises, rings like a temple bell; I call him mameki-neko. He has learned to mimic with a chirp: "You are my goddess of happiness, my Kissyoten" I imagine he is saying.

He beckons with his moonstone eyes, moves toward the bed. This is the syntax of our relationship: in his sleep the soft fricatives of his snores punctuate my dreams. If he dozes on the couch, I am restless until he jumps up next to my pillow.

I consider catelepathy.

I spoon with him, hold my hand around his belly. When he awakens, he rolls onto his back, eyes darkened, paws folded as in prayer, inviting my cheek to rest on his head, his purrs matched by my own.

The Night I Quit Being Saved

2009-12-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

Mama was a Methodist and Daddy was a Baptist but he never went to church. He went fishing on Sundays for the big old catfish Mama would roll in cornmeal and fry in bacon grease the way he liked it, but then she wouldn't eat it and neither would I. Mama had me baptized a Methodist.

I was real serious about church. I liked to listen to myself sing the hymns and then I wondered if that was sinful, if it was bad to love singing and especially the sound of my own voice, but I knew Jesus loved me because the Bible told me so.

My friend Bobbie Sue was a Baptist, so when I slept over at her house I kept my ears peeled, hoping I'd learn something about Daddy. There I was at dinner with Bobbie Sue and her older brothers and her parents, and they started talking about how the Lord had directed their missionaries to Africa to build Christ's church and save all the Poor Savages there. I knew something was fishy because they weren't wishing just to heap blessings on those Poor Souls. They told me flat-footed that anyone who dies without being saved goes straight to Hell.

That kind of took away my appetite. After dinner Bobbie Sue and I played paper dolls with my Lucille Ball set and I let her pick out Lucy's outfits but my heart wasn't in it, still thinking about those Poor Slaves to Idolatry and how I just could not believe so many people were going to Hell without the Baptists. But Bobbie Sue's brown hair was thick and soft and naturally curly and that's where I fixed my thoughts. How could she be so pretty and still be so wrong?

We slept together in Bobbie Sue's bed and the next morning she asked did I remember what I did. I said what do you mean and she said you kept stroking my hair and talking in your sleep, mumbling poor soul, poor soul. I guess I knew who needed saving.

Heads Up

2009-12-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

I don't know where my head is today. If I had it on straight I'd be writing something inspirational like Kitchen Table Wisdom. Instead, I think of death, depression, sex - not necessarily in that order.

When I say my second husband was Mr. Potato Head to me, I mean that in the most loving way. Dick is a gruff man with a surprisingly simple sense of humor, the kind of guy who considers The Duct Tape Book a perfect gift.

His granddaughter gave him the original Mr. Potato Head one year for Christmas and he made such a fuss over it, the top of our bedroom armoire was gradually filled with a Tuber Town community.

Mrs. Potato Head was there, of course, and the usual combination of parts. With our divorce, I barely escaped the upward marketing trend in Potato Heads. Otherwise I might have found more of them looking down on me — Pirate Potato Head, Trick or Tater, Spud Bunny, and my favorite: Darth Tater.

What about my first husband, you ask? A talking head. To be more exact, Dave was a headshrinker. Psychiatry was not, in those days, so far removed from the original practice perfected by clans in the Amazon river basin, where shrinking heads had religious significance. With modern shrinks, harnessing the spirit of the enemy became harnessing the energies of the id. I tried it myself, when our marriage was dying. After nine months of therapy it suddenly dawned on me that I had my head up my ass.

The only other arena where "head" comes to mind would bring me full circle: death, depression, sex. Maybe next time.

Translation

2009-12-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

When Dick and I went to Mexico for our honeymoon, we almost didn't make it back. The ferry to Cozumel hadn't even reached the Muelle Fiscal pier when we started arguing. He wanted to rent a motor scooter. I reminded him of our SCUBA trip to Grand Cayman Island where we had a scrape on mopeds.

After we found a small hotel, Dick — ignoring my concerns — went out to get a scooter. Traffic was light because October was off-season and to my surprise we did fine. Until the last morning. I was packing while he returned the bike. When I walked down to the desk to check out, I saw two policias. "Senora Monaghan? Accidente."

Mierda.

I had only a few standard phrases of Spanish, but managed to translate their rapid-fire assurance that my esposo was not muerto; rather, on his way in an ambulance to the hospital a few blocks away. He'd run a stop sign, been hit by a truck.

Estupido!

The hospital formed a square around a central courtyard with azaleas, a beautiful Mexican plum tree, a few benches, and walkway access to each room.

The medico enhanced his scant English with drawings and gestures indicating a broken right arm and three crushed ribs. The break in the arm would require intricate surgery to avoid permanent nerve damage, even paralysis. He communicated this while rubbing his hands together, as if he couldn't repress his delight over such an unexpectedly interesting day.

The surgery was two doors down from the room where Dick would recuperate and where I could stay, as well. This was more than a convenience, because there were few services and no food for patients. A nurse would visit on occasion during the day, but I was to provide general care and feeding. No one among the staff spoke English.

Dick — looking like a giant, bruised papaya — slept fitfully after the operation. His first groggy request was to pee, but he could barely move from the pain in his injured ribs. I hailed a nurse on the walkway. But como se dice... bedpan? "Contenedor?" I tried, after rifling through the dictionary. I pointed to the toilet in the nearby alcove.

She gave me a split-toothed grin, and returned quickly with a standard bedpan. Poor Dick. It took awkward maneuvering for me to catch even his small trickle without sloshing. When the doctor checked in the next morning, he immediately saw the problem. "Urinario," he explained, and shortly returned with a gourd-shaped pot.

"Ah," said Dick.

Outside the Margin

2009-12-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

For the first half of my adult life, I lived in the margins, staying in one place until my feet itched to go somewhere else, never settling in.

At parties I watched people stand with legs comfortably cocked. When I tried to copy their loose limbs, I'd stumble. Overhearing conversation about a new book I'd make a note to read it. By the next party, they'd be onto something else.

Girlfriends would read my poetry and say, "Maybe you need a therapist." Guys would say, "It has no balls." Even my signature lagged.

When I was a girl, Mama told me, "Don't be ugly." Sometimes she and Daddy called me "Sister." "Don't be ugly, Sister." Stay on the straight and narrow is what they meant.

My hair was straight — and lank. When it wasn't French-braided and pulled tight, it hung like damp straw. My grin was lopsided. I know this from my first-grade picture. That was the school where all the elementary kids met in one big room and the teacher made us stand up, starting with the oldest, to tell something special that happened during the summer.

I was bug-eyed by the time it was my turn. "Lice!" I blurted. "I got lice this summer at the public swimming pool and Mama had to pour kerosene on my head." For weeks afterward, boys would run up and poke cootie-catchers in my face.

When I was thirteen I read a novel about a woman who learned she was part Black. I fantasized that my mother was my grandfather's secret love child with a beautiful wild woman. I wanted some insurgency in my blood, freedom from demands to be quiet at meals, to not sing in the car, to wear shoes when I'd rather be barefoot.

I'm still hungry to sit cattywompus, to run untamed, to roam crooked and wide.

What I Don't Want Death to Be

2009-12-15T11:16:00.000-08:00

I don't want to be greeted by the poet who came to our writers group several times, whose only subject is her dead mother and her wonderful childhood. First of all, I don't believe it, although life must be tedious for her if she'd rather be playing jacks. God! Is that what she'd be doing, in my heaven? With others just like her? I'm too cynical for this. Could I choose another door, please?

OK, this door's an obligatory option, the one that's hot to touch, smoke coming off those red rocks. But this is my afterlife and I've already walked on hot coals, so the prospect of hopping for eternity isn't the least appealing. It's better than playing jacks with that sappy poet, though. I'd rather hop than gag. But it's my death I'm imagining, so I can veto anything.

What else don't I want? Honestly, as much as I've been a shoe freak, I wouldn't want a line-up of stiletto heels I had to wear. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to try on on a pair of Jimmy Choos. But, no, not for eternity — think of my screaming arches. Actually, no fancy clothes, either. I've gotten used to comfort. No reason to change that just because I'm dead.

I'm kind of thinking no men. But even I am not that stingy. Of course, men could go to their own heaven. I don't mean segregated. I'd like a place with all sizes, shapes, colors, and yes, genders. But no sex. That would be stupid. In my heaven, at least, no complaining, no jealousy, no looking in the mirror at the latest wrinkle.

So, unless it's completely different from earth, the men in my heaven would have to be gay. No straight men. Straight men tend to lack a sense of humor, and they just can't help looking down their noses at someone or something. Yes, I know — that's what I'm doing right now, but like I said, I'm making this up so I don't have to be nice. I did that the whole first half of my life and I'm done with nice. Pleasant? Occasionally. Bitchy? Often.

But, see, in my heaven nobody gets upset. So your ego can just be outrageous. Wow. I could do anything I want and nobody would care, because it's my heaven. But why am I calling it "heaven"? Not sure about the alternatives. Calling it "my death" sucks.

How about "my eternity"? Surprisingly that sounds a bit ominous. Yikes. To have to be or do anything forever? Too damn long.

Okay, here it is. I want my eternity to be in flux, and each new version will be like reading the latest novel by my favorite author. No, even the author will change periodically. No, I'll be the author. Wait a minute! I think I am.

The Gig

2009-12-15T07:10:00.000-08:00

It always begins with pop-up story figures. Like the books young children love. As you open the covers, a two-dimensional scene unfolds.

The first time it happened I was in an airport, surrounded by hundreds of people as I walked toward my gate. Suddenly these were not people. They were figures fixed in time, two-dimensional paper cut-outs. I was completely alone among them. The sensation passed and I boarded the plane. As I looked down the aisles, there it was again — the seats were filled with cardboard passengers. I thought I was going crazy.

A friend assured me this was a spiritual vision — a realization that all is illusion — and I was relieved. Then the depression hit. I felt as if I'd been given a part in a play without script or rehearsal. And no other actors; only stand-up figures to represent other players in my life. I dreamed of death, of nothing following nothing. And wondered how I could be so afraid of nothing.

Strangely, this play was backwards. At 4 pm on a Monday afternoon in June, while sipping tea and chatting with a friend in her living room, the curtain descended as if the sun had suddenly disappeared. I excused myself and went home, already sorting through remedies for depression: hot fudge sundae, long nap, meditation, journaling.

But every force of will was puny against this blanket of melancholy. It felled me for ten days until the curtain lifted at 8 pm on a Thursday night, as unexpectedly as it had dropped. I was again on the stage of my life.

This has happened frequently enough that I no longer question my sanity. But each time, I experience the sense of disorientation, though somewhat attenuated as the years pass.

When I heard Steve Martin read his autobiography, Born Standing Up, I laughed aloud at his closing to one show:

Okay, folks! I think that about does it. We've had a good time tonight, considering we're all going to die.

Lost and Found

2009-12-14T11:17:00.001-08:00

A few years ago I sold my guitar; my rosewood Alvarez, my beloved, resonant, androgynous instrument, its woman-shape touching like a man. Arthritis had finally ended my ability to embrace or stroke it properly.

When I was 21 years old I heard a Julian Bream recording of Rodrigo's "Concerto d'Aranjuez." I had studied piano as a teenager but had not been in love. This music smoked of passion. Even the composers' names were transporting: Albinoni, Carulli, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and my favorite, Villa-Lobos (vee-yah low-bus, pronounced with a long caress on the first syllable).

The Alvarez was not my first. I learned on a Martinez student guitar. Like the piano, it created melody from strings pulled taut and pressed with precision. But the Martinez vibrated with more emotion, begged for greater sensitivity. Held properly against my chest there was no distance between hand and chord. No keys, no hammer, only the immediate and sensuous rapport between fingers, strings, heart. I was an avid lover.

My first husband and I moved from Boston to Indianapolis to San Francisco and finally to Cincinnati over the six years of his medical internship and residency. In each city I found a teacher and a companion with whom I could play duets. Other relationships were incidental to these musical rendezvous. I was very good for a beginner.

By the time our daughter was a year old, however, I was expected to be socially gracious, to cook gourmet dinners for guests, to go to teas with other doctors' wives and chat about potty training, to volunteer for community service. I had no time for these activities, which bored me. Grateful that my daughter took substantial naps, I practiced two hours a day, first exercises to limber up my fingers, then pieces like Carcassi's "Andantino in G," even some flamenco riffs.

I wanted so much to excel. I'd heard all the masters, knew what was possible, yet lacked the spontaneity to improvise; my fingers would not fly. My fervor was admirable, my capability serviceable, my dedication commendable, but I was not a talented musician.

For more, see shaking like a mountain

A Sign

2009-12-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

I think my Dad loved me. He said it once when I was thirty-two years old, shortly after my first divorce. My mother had come to take care of the kids because all I could do was weep. One evening after dinner I told her Dad never said he loved me.

Later that night she handed me the phone: "Your father wants to speak to you."

"Hello, Dad."

"I love you," he growled. We were both embarrassed.

I wasn't surprised, then, at his funeral — having prayed for a sign from him — to see among the all-white casket sprays of glads, carnations, daisies and the crosses of red roses bordered with lemon leaf, one exotic anthurium thrusting a yellow stamen semi-erect from its red, heart-shaped flower.

I was my father.

It was my father grumbling, "Fuck this!"

Digression

2009-12-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

My dear,

I am intrigued by your command of Arabic and on Tuesday (Aththalathaa) found a course that promises to teach me in three hours.

I am to associate with images, and shall apply myself: "MOUTH is FUMM, in Arabic" (I imagine your thumb in my mouth).

From the poem "In Arabic" by Agha Shahid: This much fuss about a language I don't know? So one day / Perfume from a dress may let you digress in Arabic?

I pray that one day perfume from my dress may lead you to digress, in Arabic.

Tempted to sign with a smiley WAJH,
Mary

Sense and Nonsense

2009-12-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me about sense of place. I can remember people's deepest secrets but forget their names, what year it was, or even what city we were in.

The first time I was challenged to write from a sense of place was in a poetry workshop. Our assignment on day one was to walk around the grounds, settle on one spot, and spend an hour noticing every detail — no notes — then write a poem describing what we saw.

I chose daisies. Daisies, I'd been told, represent simplicity and innocence. And of course I knew their prophetic powers. I did not know their name is a corruption of "Day's Eye," thus anointed because they close at night and open in daylight. Nor did I realize their family includes such exotic cousins as artichoke and endive, their healing kin Echinacea and Arnica.

Really, though, wouldn't you want to know Henry VIII ate daisies to relieve ulcer pain? I, frankly, am glad he suffered something for his ill treatment of Anne, and wish he'd also drunk crushed daisies steeped in wine - an ancient cure for insanity.

My Day's Eyes were not historians. Daisies with sense might have bragged of stems and leaves, colors or varieties, dispersion. Mine were an intuitive lot. They gave me the finger, said Screw with me if you dare, declined to be members of a simpering bouquet, and pled For God's sake / do-not-tear-me-apart-piece-by-piece / to find out if you're loved.

Framing

2009-12-10T09:25:00.000-08:00

I examine a completed canvas in my art teacher's studio, surprised to see what happens when she holds a frame around it. Covering the four sides, instead of enclosing the scene, gives the illusion that this is a moment of a larger view. Imagination tells us the field, the flowers, the hills and trees in the distances are real, part of something living beyond the compass of our eyes.

This is why a cut camellia on the judge's table of prize winners will be seen only for its singularity, remarkable to the observer's mind like a queen elegantly gowned but without a cathedra, or scepter.

The same blossom sitting on the throne of its branch, the branch on its trunk, and the whole flowering bush, will always bring a catch to the breath. Because the heart has heard a companion rhythm, the soul of the flower's beauty part of something bigger, a living reminder of all creation.

Repast

2009-12-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

Because my Dad was in the military, I was a gypsy child, moving from South Texas to Alabama, to Virginia, and then to points around the world. But our eating habits followed us like ghosts.

"Fish" meant catfish rolled in cornmeal and fried in bacon grease. With scary foods we encountered in our travels, like fish-eye soup in Tokyo, I mulishly refused to eat anything new. In Paris, the dreaded special was Escargot — no matter how much butter and garlic, they were still snails to me.

At 18 I left home for college. Invited to stay with a classmate over Thanksgiving, I was undone by her mother's announcement that we'd have swordfish steak for dinner. I imagined the fish's long, wide snout and bill displayed in the marine version of a suckling pig, with God knows what in its mouth instead of an apple. But I'd been taught to be polite and knew I'd have to eat and smile simultaneously.

Its divine texture and flavors changed my life.

I know now that much of taste depends on smell, that beyond sweet, sour, salt, and bitter, "flavor" is really "odor." Small wonder that as I stand by the ocean my scent-memories awaken a souped-up palate.

Improvisation

2009-12-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

I was living a Young Frankenstein existence, experimenting with a new life form after my first divorce. My Igor, however, was feline.

Marty was rescued by my son Dylan from a litter born outdoors on my first husband's property — the new wife wouldn't let cats in the house.

Marty Feldman had recently died, so when Dylan said the kitten's pop eyes reminded him of Feldman's, we agreed that naming the kitten after our favorite comedian would be a fitting tribute.

When my son left home, Marty stayed with me. My apartment at the time was in downtown Cincinnati and I became a regular at Joe's Bar on the next street, where I made friends with Mike, a jazz promoter. I traveled for my work, and Mike didn't have a car, so we struck a deal: if he drove me to and from the airport and took care of the cat, he could use my Honda Prelude while I was out of town.

When anyone asked where he got the Prelude, Mike would say, with no further explanation, "Oh, Mary lets me use her car in exchange for feeding Marty Feldman."

Ursus Minor

2009-12-09T15:06:00.000-08:00

Dick padded to the window to look at the rain, his feet and toes oddly graceful for such a stocky body.

"Were you a dancer?" I asked.

Grey eyes narrowed in his Irish face. It was the morning after our first night together, however, and he knew I wouldn't take him for a sissy. "No," he finally answered, obviously holding something back.

Later, when he knew he could trust me to keep my mouth shut, he told me he'd been a mercenary: "My wife took our three kids and ran off with a neighbor. Didn't see it coming. Not much to live for. Lost thirty pounds. Then took up taekwondo. Got pretty good at throwing knives. Hung out with some tough guys. I still watch my back."

"Seriously? Somebody might still be after you?"

"It's not easy to walk away from that line of work. We were going after some bad people. Guys like us... we knew too much."

"How did that end?" I asked.

He looked out the window. "Couple of years later I was walking down a narrow street with a woman, past a bunch of teenagers goofing off. One of 'em reached out and touched her. Basically harmless. But without thinking I backhanded him hard in the face, grabbed the woman's arm and kept walking. Didn't kill the kid but might've broken some bones. I knew then something in me was becoming damaged. Asked myself who I'd be if I kept on that path. No one I could live with."

Sure, he was playing a Mickey Spillane character — and as Spillane said of his own stories, yes it was garbage, but it was prime garbage. I was approaching fifty, dreading another date with a "nice" guy. Dick would be a good antidote.

The night he moved in with me he looked through the newspaper for TV shows. "Return of the Living Dead! We've got to see this." I was game and set the alarm for 2 am. We necked, ate popcorn, and poked fun at the movie. "They're back... They're hungry... And they're NOT vegetarian!"

After the movie I slept like a baby. Dick snored fiercely but I didn't mind. It was like finding refuge and warmth next to a grizzly.

The next morning we talked for hours. As if our brains had to wake up together before lumbering out of bed. He brought up Jerzy Kosinski. Not his novel Being There, not even the controversy over his possibly having plagiarized, but because of what Kosinski said before he committed suicide: "I'm going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual."

"Why did that stick with you?" I asked.

"Because he knew when it was time to go. If I'm ever incapacitated, just push my wheelchair over a cliff and walk away."

It ended a different way, and we were nowhere near a cliff...

Dick Doc

2009-12-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

I wanted Dick to myself. But he was a charmer, a storyteller, and there was always someone else around. So when he suggested we go camping, just the two of us, I was thrilled, even though it was October in Ohio. We’d had a long Indian summer, with every reason to believe we’d have at least one more weekend of warm weather. Anyway, he assured me his tent was waterproof.

There weren’t many people at the campground, and none where he and I decided to park our gear. We grilled hamburgers in the barbecue pit, heated beans, and were enjoying some Peach Schnapps straight from the bottle when it started to sprinkle.

“Not a problem,” Dick grinned. “We’ll get the tent up and be dry as toast.” Let me digress here for a moment. For all his seductive storytelling abilities, Dick was a sucker for clichés. If he found a woman attractive, she was “cute as a button.” But I didn’t know then that “dry as toast” meant “at least we’ll be out of the rain.”

It was beginning to get dark, so we hurried about our tasks and had the tent up and our sleeping bags zipped together over a spongy pad when the storm hit, one of those Midwestern thunderstorms, “a thing of ragged violence,” I’ve since read.

I was delighted, the same cozy feeling I remembered as a child listening to the rain on the tin roof of my grandmother’s porch. The temperature had dropped abruptly so we’d kept on our clothes, but my warmth of contentment and his satisfaction at having provided a safe den from the rain outside had us laughing and talking into the night.

Until I noticed a squishy sound beneath me. I turned a bit, slipped a hand out from the sleeping bag, pressed down on the mat beneath us, and felt water oozing up through my fingers.

“Uh, Dick, I think maybe the tent is leaking.” It was midnight now, getting colder by the minute. But it was still pouring rain, no moon, pitch-black outside, so we couldn’t take the tent down and leave. Ever the resourceful hunter, Dick pulled a poncho from his gear bag, which we smoothed out between the mat and our sleeping bags. The poncho was round and about five feet in diameter, so we had a small circle in the middle where we could keep relatively dry.

It was the best time I’ve ever had in a tent.