a poem for Mike

My Husband Burns the Yard Waste After His Father Dies

The Fire Marshall came, looked, shook his head, nope.

Seventy-five feet from any structure. Not possible in this yard.

Then he turned on a half-wink, sniffed the breeze, said,

Nice spot for a little camp fire.

All morning my husband stands with it, the burning.

He stares, like one does, into the fire

until the winds shift in his direction

and his eyes begin to water.

Safe Passage, Ray. July 28, 1931 - April 28, 2012   

family portrait

must update that sidebar.

 

notice the steps we're sitting on go nowhere. entries on more of such charms of the new house and more baby-related life coming soon. also notice surrounding us are some of the succulents I dragged 5,000 miles on our cross-country trip. they make me happy. those wacky boys pictured have also been known to do same. 

the living and the dead

She has two rhythms now

Another heartbeat

Almost too delicate

To dance to.

-- Taelen Thomas

My friend and colleague, the ineffable Taelen Thomas, wrote that for me spontaneously when he found out I was pregnant with Isaac back in 2004. He wrote it on an index card while we stood off stage together at the performance poetry show I was hosting at the time. I doubt he remembers it. But I always have, and when we were packing and moving I found the card. It's now taped up in the van; it traveled across the country with us, a new dance its purview these days.

As confused as I sometimes become about our decision to have another child, there is a need. It's large and small and touches many circles that don't always touch each other. I think it's safe for me to write with philosophical wonder about some things that have driven me to distraction in the last 5 weeks in Massachusetts because very soon we will actually be in our own house and I won't have to deal with it as my daily reality anymore.

Since we've arrived I feel like we've been infused with the dead. We are staying with someone whose long-time partner is critically ill with cancer. We get updates several times a day after her visits. An understandable obsession of hers these days, death and dying are also what we are regaled with stories of as she sits out the heatwave in front of the newspaper. A couple killed in a car accident. “Isn't it terrible??” A priest who shot himself. “Can you imagine??” A life apart from this black-shrouded barrage of facts? I hope I still can.

Then, amidst other more removed deaths – someone's daughter's husband's father, a guy who used to go dancing with so-and-so... – that we nonetheless hear about often and in detail, a couple weeks ago, Mike's uncle passed away.

We mentioned in casual conversation that we have promised Isaac a bunny for his 7^th birthday next year and he's very, very excited. “We used to have a bunny,” our host started. “A cute, black and white bunny. It lived out by the shed. Until one day a raccoon came – I think it must have gotten in through the top of the hutch...” You get the idea. Isaac and I sat shell-shocked at another blood-strewn tale where once there was just a furry pet.

The apparent “serendipity” of death, if you will, has reached such a fevered pitch that even the most seemingly innocent interactions steer in dangerous directions: “Have you ever seen a June bug, Isaac? Look, it's too fat to turn over again from its back!” “There are ants eating it,” my son informs her, taking a closer look, “It's dead.”

Even when we arrived here was curious timing. It was the same weekend I flew in to Jersey last year for my mom. The one-year anniversary of her death on June 19 came 2 days after we got here and continues to shadow me.

As you may or may not imagine, being pregnant, in a new town, grieving, buying a house, blah blah blah blah blah, has brought on more than one meltdown to this poet's constitution. At one point, Mike said, “Do you think you can ask your mom for help?” To which I snapped “NO! I'm tired of dead people. I've had enough of dead people!”

Of course I want her to walk with me, but at the same time it's especially painful right now. And of course the dead and the living can be in conversation, but even Persephone got to come the hell back from the Underworld for part of the year.

It is time for life. New life. Why do you think I am so addicted to farmer's markets? It's about abundance, a coming to fruition, displaying beauty, Demeter restored.

In a few weeks I get to hold the new. I get to feel brand new life, right there in my arms. And I remember this much, the wave of hope will be bigger than all the rest of this. It's time to clean things up, sweep away the June bugs. 

“Don't pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living.” - Albus Dumbledore

holiday greetings

 Every year since Isaac was born, Mike and I shun all those cool templates at Snapfish to make our own holiday cards. The wisdom of this tradition is under investigation and has some interesting predecessors – build your own wedding invitation anyone? Make it a size and shape that you are forced to also make your own envelopes? See bride and groom. See bride and groom fume. See bride leave in a huff. See groom finish envelopes alone. See this pattern repeat – For. The. Rest. Of. Their. Lives.

This year, I'm having more trouble than most working on the card. I had decided to do an original linoleum block print for the design after an old interest in the art form was recently rekindled for me. Months ago I snapped up some paper on clearance at the craft store. It was still spring and juices were flowing.

Oddly, my plan for a block print Christmas card was one of the few things I got to tell my mother the last morning before she died. I didn't tell her how beautiful she was or how I wished we'd stayed longer in April after our flight to Ireland was canceled. I didn't tell her about the miscarriage. But, as she lay bloated and laboring to breathe in a hospital bed in cardio-ICU: “Hey, mom, we're gonna do block prints for our Christmas cards!”

It was June. Did I think that might be the one thing to keep her hanging on? Maybe elect for surgery or heavy duty cardio meds so she could be around to get some winter wonderland scene in the mail pressed onto sale paper?

At the time, I think she nodded. With that, her job was done. Child number four had arrived at her bedside while she was still breathing. She'd beckoned the nurse, calling her into the room by name to show her the 11x14 print I'd brought of Isaac grinning out from a tangle of tree branches and subtitled “I love you, Grandmom! Feel Better!” What else was there to do?

I was starting to get the idea that our usual personalized greeting could become something of a tinder box this year when I tried to come up with a tag line...

“Hope maybe your mom is still alive this holiday season.”

“This year sucked, the new year should be better because at least my mom can't die again.”

“Wishing you joy – somebody might as well have it since it appears unavailable to me.”

“Keep family close this holiday season, unless of course your mom is dead, then, it'd be a little weird.”

I keep hearing from people how my mom “would have loved...(Fill in the Blank).” There's a block print in it for you if you can come up with a card slogan that she would have loved.

going back to clean out the house, part 2

I stop at the bank to give my brother one less thing to do. “I need to leave some information about my mother's estate...” I tell the woman. “And when I say 'estate,'” I mumble to myself minutes later as I head back out the door, “I mean the 650 square-foot rental full of dust and expired toothpaste coupons.”

Most of the sorting, of course, is paper. The things I found in my mother's house. I really can't decide what is more precious:

The envelope addressed to the White House, stamped and ready for battle, or maybe the DVD titled “Life or Debt: Simple Steps for a Lifetime of Financial Freedom”...still unopened.

The business card of a “Middle Eastern dance artist,” or mom's current membership card to the NAACP.

Mom's passport, renewed and up-to-date, without a single stamp in it other than the invisible seal of optimism, or –and this could be the topper— the lyrics to “Born to be Wild” handwritten on looseleaf.

Magazines about living with Diabetes, wrist braces, neck braces, canes, walkers, prosthetic breasts, I toss each in turn into the donation pile, with the same mantra: “Well, mom, you don't need these, or these, or these. You're free now.” It should make me feel better, but it doesn't.

The phone rings and I see from the caller ID it's the consolidation company that paid out on her bills. They aren't collectors, no harm in talking to them, and so, I do. When I inform the woman that my mother is unfortunately deceased, she stops short and sounds genuinely sorry. I leave her with my brother's phone number. When we're ready to hang up, she expresses her sympathy once again, but then just can't help herself, “Have a great day!” she effuses.

I find an old Polaroid of mom from some Halloween past, dressed as a devil and hamming it up for the camera. I tape it at eye level to the door jam so devil-mom can watch over us as we sort through her books. In my delirium, I find this somehow hilarious, though my siblings don't get the joke. “What is that? Why is that there?” one or the other of my sisters keeps asking. “Is that Rita?” Better it were a photo of her with the same impish grin holding a whiskey sour instead of a pitch fork and toasting us while we sweat in the hell of her tiny house, the ceiling fans all dangerous blades, the monopoly game up for grabs.

going back to clean out the house

Mike and Isaac drive me downtown to pick up the shuttle. And, as my ride departs, it first takes me through the same territory I just traveled to get to my starting point. I see this somehow as significant. But I am weary of metaphor, worn out by searching for signs within signs, really just glad at the moment not to be listening to anyone's cell phone conversation.

Here we are. Flying to get to the people we love and left. Or to where they used to be. The man across the aisle gets on his phone and my reprieve is broken. “Ron's plane is delayed,” he says into his cell. “I'm on my way. I'm on the bus.” And then, “How'd the night go?” I sense something right away. He continues: “How's the breathing? (pause) Vitals?” Ridiculous and apropo. Really, can't we just take a break from signs and synchronicity for a while? What to make of it all?

Here we all are, at the final moments, at the big transitions, relying on the same technology and futuristic inventions that allowed us to get this far apart to begin with to rush us back to see the people it separated us from. It either makes perfect sense or none at all.

Take a look at Sharon Old's poem called “The Race.”

In Marina, a girl gets one the shuttle – 20? 22? Her mother is there seeing her off, three big curls of hair just out of their forms sit on her head for bangs. Her daughter wears a pink baseball hat. She climbs aboard the bus and takes the free front seat, greeting her seatmate in the quick, jovial way of her age – heavy with optimism and expectation, vulnerable, not yet touched by too much grief. The girl promptly buckles her seatbelt and turns her head to catch the gaze of the mother, who is staring back. The two keep eye contact with each other for 30 seconds or more while I watch. Finally, a tiny, audible gasp trains my eyes away from the mom and back to the girl. She wipes her eyes and straightens her pink cap. She is late to take in the reality of the leaving, and I envy her. For my part, I have been long awash in tears.

stasis and movement in the summer of 2010

The following might be an odd pairing of topics. Welcome to my world. These days I am jolted between everyday stuff and tragic memories, between the joy of a five-year-old who just won't stop learning and the enveloping worry that tugs at me when I think he might not remember his grandmom. So let's just get started.

How do you define peace?

There are people in my life that think of peace as a state of stillness – not necessarily equilibrium, just mostly quiet. A place where no one is rocking the boat. I see peace differently, as something that must be worked toward, as something in motion and sometimes thorny. I see authenticity as essential to it, and I believe that when authenticity or fairness is violated, one must speak out, and, contrary to what some would believe, I never do this lightly.

Peace is not a static place. Peace is a collaboration, an exploration.

In March of 2003, when the world showed up to protest the imminent invasion of Iraq by the United States, Mike and I went to San Francisco to join in. We did not stand, flatly in one place, we walked, all of us, washing down the streets of the city.

Now, if what you are interested in is a static place, you are in luck, there is such a place. A place where nothing changes, ever. I'm talking, of course, about the boardwalk. Any boardwalk, take your pick, as long as it has funnel cake and men trying to swish a basketball through a hoop to win a giant stuffed smiling banana for some chick in short shorts and MC Hammer blaring from the speakers and people screaming as they dive however many stories in a rickety car down a track and people displaying tattoos on all kinds of body parts and skeeball, there must be skeeball.

And the truth is that I'd give a lot if more of life were like the boardwalk - unchangeable. Peace? Sure! Peace need only show up and it would take its place next to Love and Friendship and all the other immutables in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl. It's just that that kind of Peace sometimes makes you throw up.

 

details

Honest to god, I was not looking for a fight.

Details. It's all in the DETAILS.

Some EIGHT days ago, I called the funeral home about getting my mom's obituary in. The person we'd worked with wasn't in, but they gave me the email address and assured me he'd get it. I emailed it, along with a question or two. I heard nothing back. Today, I call the funeral home again and get their answering service. Mr Director is out to lunch. She assures me a call back. I then find out from my very helpfully communicative brother that it ran already. Friday. Oh. Okay. Was anyone going to let me knooooowwww? And what about those questions I had?

So I go online to find it. I find it. I think, SHIT, I forgot to include a picture. Had asshole funeral guy ever actually spoken to me, I might have figured out that I had left out this piece. HE DOES THIS ALL THE TIME. Could he not know that perhaps someone who has just experienced the death of someone close to them night need some more assistance? Since it's his, uh, JOB. The kind of assistance he swore to offering while we stood in front of him and signed the estimated bill?? Or possibly, I dunno, a response saying he bloody GOT the stupid email???? Okay. No picture.

Then I read the copy. THE BASTARD CHANGED TWO OF MY SENTENCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of them, so that it reads as if Mike and I have the same last name, which – I fucking hate to break it to you again, America, WE DON'T.

There are battles to pick from, and let me tell you, a long time ago I picked this one. MY NAME. My name is my name is my name. Learn to spell it. Learn to say it. Learn to love it. I am kind of invested in it. I have reasons, very personal, important ones for caring about my name. My first name is Kathryn. That's K-A-T-H-R-Y-N. Not a C or an E to be found. REALLY. Not even if you want one there. And my last name is NOT my husband's last name. I could give a RAT'S ASS how you feel about that. If there's something that would imply caring LESS than a RAT'S ASS, then, THAT is what I want to say here. It is for me to choose and everyone else to RESPECT..

Dear Mr. Funeral Director:

I am 1) a grieving family member and 2) a writer. Therefore, it would be in your best interest NOT TO FUCK WITH MY WRITING.

What kind of ballsy bastard just takes it on himself to randomly edit someone else's obituary ??????

So when you finally do send a message back to me instead of extending me the professional courtesy of calling, and include (ironically) the proof of the obituary from the newspaper as an attachment, why not misspell my mother's name on the attachment, too? Just for good measure.

I can remember approaching my grandparents' grave for the first time with a healthy dose of trepidation. I was afraid their name would be spelled wrong on the gravestone. Experience is a strong teacher. Luckily, that one was correct.

In my family, I get the angry label. I'm the angry one. So now I get to play into their expectations once again. Whatever I do will fulfill them. Fine. Then for the sake of not rocking the boat any fucking more, I'd love to play the part. They can think what they want to and bite me. Something tells me if I wasn't their sister, and one of their friends was pissed as hell about someone fucking up their mother's obituary, they'd be sympathetic, empathetic even. Tell me just this: What do I do with this feeling? Where do I put this?

the revised stages of grief

Forget Kübler-Ross. She is sooo 40 years ago.

Here are my revised stages of grief.

1. 
   
   
   
   
   Bad Grammar. That phase where you constantly blend your verbs, mixing the present and past tense in close proximity, as in “Mom wanted us to go together... Mom always pays him on the first...”
2. 
   
   
   
   
   Idiosyncratic Awareness. When you become painfully self conscious of all the sayings you and others use involving death until it becomes dangerous to have any conversation. “I'm starving to death!” “I looked like death warmed over!” “This is gonna kill you!” Etc.
3. 
   
   
   
   
   Non Sequitur Confluence of Sadness. For example, one minute you are dragging around the Acme in your hometown looking through their pathetic excuse for produce, the next you tune into the music playing over the PA system. Hey! Is that the Hooters?? And though either would qualify for a spring board into deep depression, you aren't sure if you are crying about the state of the cucumbers or the crappy 80s band that played at your high school before they made it “big.”
4. 
   
   
   
   
   Contained Maternal Rage and Breakdown. The day you decide to play the audio tape your mom made for your son when he was born that includes stories of when she was little, her singing rainy day songs for him, and her talking about how after she's gone she thinks she will still be able to watch over him and he gets almost to the end before he says, “Can we turn this off? It's giving me a headache.”
5. 
   
   
   
   
   Concession to Outreach. When a book arrives in the mail – poems about grief and healing – and you are deflated and incredulous because you thought this friend knew better than to send this kind of shit. But then despite yourself you open to the table of contents where many familiar, contemporary names pop out at you and instead of setting it on fire, you set it on your nightstand.
6. 
   
   
   
   
   ABD. (All but dead.) The strong desire to call your deceased loved one to tell her about her own death (“Mom, you'll never guess what happened!)” accompanied by the rational acceptance of all the circumstances leading up to and following from the death of the loved one except for the fact that she will still not be here tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Or the next day after that. Or the next.

and then there were four

That's me. The one wrapped up in the green and white blanket. I still have that blanket.

My mother has left us careful instructions. Or, more like strong directives. Okay, the woman left a paper out for us in her bedroom titled “When I Die” which basically yells at my siblings and I to take care of one another and stay in better touch. (Who writes stuff titled “when I die??”) Bitching at us from beyond the grave. She admitted as much in the note. Only my mother.

We are doing our best, the four of us, to honor her wishes. We've called each other more in the last ten days than we may have in the last two years. Of course it's early on, the real test still to come...

I once compared our family to the metro system in Budapest – It's built like the petals of a flower, the lines don't cross, you have to keep going back to the center to change directions. Now our center is gone, and we are in need of practice getting around.

The day after my mother passed, I sat on the futon in her house next to my sister, trying as hard as I could not to hate said sister for swallowing so freak-ing loud-ly. Like I said, we need some practice.

We may have a lot of ground to cover, but I know we are doing a hell of a lot better than some families. From her bed in the hospital my mother pointed at my sister Rita, “I want you to have my computer. You need a computer.” Then she turned to my sister Ruth, “You get my car.” The closest thing the woman had to a will. And so it will be. Not a problem.

A couple days after the futon scene, I get out of the shower and hear through the door my older sister trying to instruct my other sister on the computer she has just come into. I freeze. All the little red flags start popping in my head. I consider never coming out of the bathroom. I have water; I could hold out forever if I needed to... My sisters are different. Anyone who knows us will know that that is possibly the understatement of the century. And things haven't always been, shall we say, smooth between them. I listen nervously for a safe moment to emerge, but everyone is on their best behavior and the coast remains clear.

Communication is a challenge, but stuff? Not an issue. At one point as we gathered a few bags of recycling from my mom's house I announced, “I want the lighthouse photo (a framed black and white of the Cape May Light with a bolt of lightning striking behind it).” My sister shrugged and gave me a look that essentially communicated, “So take it already. Whattaya want outta my life?”

At the funeral home, the four of us sat around the requisite polished dark wood table and mock-argued about our “inheritance” -- half a dozen rolls of toilet paper, at least eight sheets of stamps (she kept losing them and buying more), and $35.56 in cash we found in mom's wallet. The funeral director peers up over the umpteenth form in front of him and tells us he's seen four fist fights already this year on his porch, although to be fair he also said that was slightly above average. I asked him when his memoir was coming out. Then, I revised my implied advice and suggested he take his stories on the road in a one-man show. He didn't seem that interested, so I told him I'd write it then and it would suck for him when it hit Broadway. My siblings rolled their eyes and shifted in their seats, but did not raise their voices or threaten to take away my share of the Charmin.

hair

(Mom, this is for you.)

“Your daughter...”
“Son.”
“...Uh, your son has such beautiful hair.”

Top ten pieces of evidence on how groovy men with long hair are/why I shouldn't cut my son's hair.

10. Long hair plays a part in animals' natural selection since it is associated with health.
9. Zeus, Achilles and Poseidon are all depicted with long hair.
8. Many Native Americans prized long hair in men.
7. Chinese men wore the culturally identifiable long braid down their backs (called a “queue”) beginning in the 17th century.
6. Samson.
5. Orlando Bloom, Owen Wilson, and Johnny Depp (Okay, two out of three isn't bad.)
4. Counterculture movements such as the Rastafarians and the Hippies used long hair to separate themselves from the establishment.
3. Sikh men refuse to cut their hair as one of the most important parts of their religious practice. Their hair – “kesh” - is allowed to grow naturally out of respect for what god created.
2. The hair salons all give out candy.

And although I, frankly, could go on and on, the number one reason, I shouldn't cut my son's hair...
1. He doesn't want to cut it.

grandmom

Alright, I'm starting to feel guilty.

My mom keeps blogging away about our visit there last week and I'm talking about gophers and urine-soaked carpet.

She kept asking me if we should “get together” on what we were going to blog about regarding our experiences. Ain't she cute? Thinking our ideas might overlap.

My mom writes about days and lives and lifetimes. I write about moments. It's the same thing, really. And not.

I can't believe she didn't post this picture of laughing Isaac from the trip; it's my favorite.

We see our families so rarely it's difficult. It's difficult not to have them. It's difficult figuring out how to see them. It's difficult to leave. I've written about past encounters with grandmothers and the like when Isaac was an infant. The real reward of this trip was that Iz is finally at the age when he can start remembering all these far away people who love him.

We have our photos running as a screen saver on our computer. All I have to say about the matter is, if it's been once it's been a thousand times this week that Isaac has called to me frantically “Mama, come! Come, Mama!” Thinking the cat must be on fire, I race into the living room where my son is leading over the arm of the couch grinning like he's waiting for the parade to pass by. He points to the computer screen where inevitably some picture ancient or recent of my mom is fading onto or off of the screen. “Look, Mama!” he squeals, “It's Grandmom!”