In My Eyes

Cold splinters aching joints

The chill of nameless broken hearts

My arms are weary from displays

Of trying, when I miss

The boat I breathe

The cold air stings my face I sing

A tune to float away

But in the sunshine

Oh in the sunshine

It feels like California

Water-air press on lungs that

Grew in dry and heat and winds

I never thought the step

Through clouds would suffocate me so

That solid air abrades my skin

I’m blocked into the nothing

I am trapped in place by sticky

Eastward air

But in the cool breeze

Coming off the sea

It feels like California

In the lonely whispers

Of the broken city

I can hear snatches of melody

Pied piper’s flute

Got nothin’ on

The fingers of sun

Tugging me back home

Fasting forward starving on

diet cola’d heroine

The thicker air that breathes you in

You

Suffocate

In sound

But in roses carried on the air

The kisses of the breeze I swear

The sunshine feels like

The moonlight shines like

In my eyes like

California

I Have to be a REAL PERSON and do REAL PERSON Things, but I Totally Don't Want To

Today, I learned an important lesson in my attempt to do real-person things while enjoying a migraine that is doing its best to eat my brain. And the lesson, my friends, is this: don’t.

It’s one thing to sit completely still in your bed, in pj’s, drinking your second cup of coffee and hoping that this one will do the trick in getting rid of the brain-eating migraine, along with the Advil and the staying completely still (did I mention staying completely still? No? Stay completely still). It’s quite another to be lulled into a false sense of security (damn you Advil and coffee! No no…just kidding, I love you. Don’t ever leave) and decide that RIGHT NOW would be an excellent time to dress yourself in a t-shirt and beat up sneakers, throw your unwashed hair into an incredibly messy ponytail—aka The Hobo-Chic look—and attempt produce shopping at your friendly local neighborhood sketchy produce store that is jam packed with loud music and even louder patrons.

I am of the opinion that when you have a migraine, the world should sort of go out of its way to make things easier for you. I don’t think that’s so unreasonable. At the very least, it should inform every supermarket in existence that the shopping carts for the store should be located in front, in an easily accessible and visible place. Not around the corner and behind the checkout lines, where teenage boys loiter and block them while they flirt with the cashiers. This would confuse me on my best day. This was not my best day.

Also, trying to navigate a shopping cart through aisles that are barely wide enough (let’s read that again, boys and girls. Who the hell builds aisles that aren’t wide enough?! Build wider aisles, or buy smaller carts. I have a headache. Don’t make my life harder, please) is challenging for those of us (ie me) who have spatial relationship issues (think a complete inability to complete a Tangrams puzzle. I’ll stop with the parenthesis soon. I promise). Staring stupidly at the cart, and then at the aisle, and then at the cart again is not a good way to convince the world that you are not on drugs (which I am clearly always trying to do.) (Ok, I lied about the parenthesis thing. Sue me).

Speed ahead to check-out. My brain is pretty much cotton at this point, and my vision is starting to fuzz. I really, really want to get home. I put my 7 things on the belt (love the express lane. Or X-press lane. Do they realize they don’t actually save any letters by spelling it like that because the hyphen is a symbol and takes up as much space as another letter? Am I the only other person in the world irked by this?!). I approach the cashier, who seems to be a nice enough woman, until she looks at me, smiles, and says, “Happy Mother’s Day! Are you a mother?”

Due to the cotton/marshmallow mixture in my brain, my first reaction was, “Huh wuuhh?” I’m pretty certain I made those exact sounds. She smiled kindly and repeated the question. I was dumbfounded again. Has my migraine aged me so much that I look as though I am in the throes of motherhood? Maybe she just assumed that my zombie-like state was due to Little Timmy teething and being up all night. Or something. I don’t really know. I smiled and said (I hope I smiled. Shoot, did I smile? I didn’t want to antagonize the poor woman. I was just confused) no. Note to self: Do not shop at this grocery store with a migraine. It will shred your self confidence and otherwise ruin your life.

I packed up my groceries. I left. I managed not to get hit by a car, I stumbled home, I put away groceries. I felt mildly accomplished. I fell back into bed. Then I (for some odd reason) decided to make this a blog post.

Moral of the story: Don’t try to do real-person things while also suffering from a debilitating migraine. Also, Dan’s Supermarket is out to ruin my life. AND YOURS TOO.

P.S. I have been reading waay to much of this blog lately. If you don’t like bad language, don’t read it. If you like random things, violence, bears and swearing, enjoy. I wish I was as funny as she is, although I do think she’s affecting my sentence syntax.

Down on the Ground

I tend to conduct mental conversations with G-d at unlikely moments. I also don’t always adopt the most appropriate tone for the levity of the conversational participants.

Take my latest rambling, mental dialogue with the one on High. After a hellish day of travel (on an airline that we shall call… PlaneGreen) I found myself waiting at baggage claim. Landing an hour late and desperate to be home, I waited as the carousel began to spin and the giant mouth at the base of the conveyor regurgitated luggage like so much chewed cud. “Come on, G-d,” I begin, silently cajoling. I know it’s crazy, but there’s a subversive satisfaction in talking to the Ultimate Being as if He’s a wayward three-year-old precariously bearing the rings at your wedding. It's like, you're rooting for him, but a screwup just might be inevitable. “Come on, G-d, please, let my bags come through. Come on, I was on time. In fact, I was the first person to check in for the flight. There’s no way they could have lost them. If they’re lost, it would be all You. And you don’t want that, do you? Come on…” I spot a cherry red bag in the distance and my heart lifts for a moment…until I realize it’s a classic style suitcase, not my own large duffel style bag. “That wasn’t very nice,” I mentally grumble skyward. I imagine somewhere great big G-d chortles are billowing across a big blue sky.

Grumpily, I look around. It suddenly occurs to me that I am not the only one wrapped in my own mental barter for my essential earthly belongings. I’m standing before the great equalizer of mankind—the baggage claim carousel.

No one is safe. No one is untouched.

I look at my fellow former passengers who are undoubtedly more sane than I. I see a family with two little children squabbling, a harried mother, and a father talking frantically into a Blackberry, a crazed, sleep-deprived glint in his eye. I see a woman in three inch heels, long blonde hair swaying with every step, toying with sunglasses as watches for her bag in a stance laden with ennui. The occasional fingernail bite is her tell—she’s nervous about her bag too. But she’ll be damned if she’ll frown and ruin the Botox.

I see teenagers chatting, older couples waiting, a businesswoman making small talk with the chauffer picking her up, leaning on the SmartCart. All of us watch and wait who the fates have chosen to favor, and who the fates have spurned.

Later, as I wheel my laden red duffel out of the airport and into the sunlight to wait for a cab, I ponder the odd things that bring us odd creatures together. Something as random and arbitrary as waiting for luggage, and suddenly, the playing field is leveled. It does not matter if you’re rich, poor, ugly, pretty, have 6 toes on one foot, or are an Olympic athlete. You are just as subject to the whims of the airline baggage system as the rest of us.

Life is an individual adventure, but there are roadblocks and signs and bumps and bruises that everyone can relate to.

And as I get into my cab, my bag safely in the trunk, I send a grateful smile heavenward.

Home for the Holidays

“My hands hurt,” she sighed.

I, a mere shadow of the kin, of the son that comes first and always will. I was never her favorite, nor her mine.

But before, heirloom recipes were fiercely protected from prying eyes of the younger generation.

I am asked to help where before I was shooed away. I glimpse pain where before I was shown only strength. The chink in the chain-link of armor is widening, and I glimpse the passage of time where I naively thought there was none.

I joke away forgotten ingredients, momentary lapses in speech. I smile to reassure, to steady hands, and offer my own when mind succumbs to matter, and trembling will not cease.

Spices are substituted in tribute to failing organs, parts meant to last 30, 40 more years, but worn down with abuse and neglect.

There is a bittersweet knowledge in finally knowing the secrets of those who were your giants.

You can always go home again.

But nothing, nothing in the world, remains unchanged.

I am here to make them forget that they are forgetting. I am here to help them remember. I am here so they will not be forgotten.

Sides of the Coin

The End

The breeze; a whiff; a scent

Winds its way around your daydream.

Snapshots, illusions,

Of remembered past

Imagined future -- lost.

Your soft stolen sleep-shirt

Suppler now, upon return

Embedded with her skin

Handled with care

Fear at crushing

Fibers of memory and hope.

But so carefully,

Neglecting foundation.

And so, ash disintegrated

Into the wind.

Apple shampoo

Clings to the collar

Crushed shirt slipping like sand

Through cupped hands

You could have known scent and

How perfume faded

In the crook of her neck

Lingering warm for days

Could have seen color

Chip off, know the

Unwilling nail nibbling.

Could know that midnight conversation

Overcomes her need for sleep

Inhale, face buried in fabric memories

Haze, aroma is all that you’ve abandoned.

You gave it up, regretfully rejected

You will never know.

You’ve left the mysteries

For someone else to uncover.

All you have

Is your t-shirt--no longer,

Woven with memory,

And lost possibility.

********************************************************************

let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love

~ e. e. cummings ~

The Forgotten

Breakups suck.

Seriously.

Having only been on the heartbreaker's side of things before, I whimsically wondered about the songs, the poems, the vast amounts of sheer...emotion that seemed to generate from this phenomenon of getting your heart smashed to smithereens.

That situation was kindly remedied, and I have achieved the enlightenment (in a manner of speaking) of the dumped.

More importantly, and more relevant to this post, are the various reactions relating to men that occurred afterwards. After posing the ever-ambiguous "Am I ready to start dating again?" question in various forms, reactions varied from, "Yes! Jump right back in and find someone who deserves you!" (my mother) to, "Are you crazy?" (just about everyone else). Unfortunately, there is no rubric for getting over the boy you thought, however briefly and incorrectly, that you were going to marry.

And yet, that question lingers, the proverbial carrot dangling from a stick, the ambiguous goal I seem to be working towards by not really doing much of anything except wondering about it constantly.

When will I be ready to start the search anew? And how will I know when I'm ready? And why, oh why, does it seem to occupy so much of my, and everyone else's, thoughts? (Ironically, these questions can be applied to finding the person himself. How will I know it's him? Will I be ready when I find him? **rolls eyes**). Why the obsession with knowing when I can jump back in?

I think it stems from this: we are afraid of being forgotten.

We are trained so long and so hard to view the dating scene as a girl-eat-girl sharkfest, that even while we're still pulling together the scattered pieces of our disoriented emotions, there's a teeny, niggling voice that whispers, "Get yourself out there, get seen, get heard from, or the world will forget about you. And you'll be alone forever."

I think there's a lot of craziness in the dating world. A lot of misconceptions that are damaging, and a lot of attitudes that are harmful. But I really think this is one of the worst.

The fact that we have trained ourselves to be so paranoid means that we lose bits of ourselves in the effort to shake off the pain of ending a relationship so we can start a new one. Emotional health, healing, all become secondary to being visible and "kept in mind." And, in the long run, makes for far less satisfying emotional relationships. How can you recognize the rightness in someone else if you haven't taken the time to cultivate it in yourself first?

I don't know how much time anyone needs to heal. It's a personal thing, and very hard either way. But I kind of resent the fact that I don't feel the freedom to do what it takes to make myself OK because of the cultivated idea that all the "good ones" will get snapped up while I'm not looking.

Fine then. Maybe I'll be forgotten.

But at least I'll be whole.

And you know what? That might be enough for now.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

I'm salivating over heels. Over impractical heels that I can only wear with one dress I own.

When did I become that girl?

And when did it start to feel sodamngood?

I have been shunning my L.A. childhood for as long as I can remember. Even before I moved there, I sneered at it in disgust, vowing I would never give in to the clothes/shoes/handbag/shiny things hysteria. It is. Not. Me. My weekend uniform was a long sleeve shirt, denim skirt, and flip flops. I frequently wore eyeliner, mascara, and nothing else on my face (except for lip balm). Actually, I still do this a lot.

I find myself wondering how much of that was just resistance to a place I didn't want to be and a lifestyle I didn't want to lead. I took pride in being different. I was from NorCal. I was the tomboy.

And there is a certain amount of pride in standing strong against the waves of scented girliness pressing in from all sides. Lipgloss, perfume, and Gapbody products all have a heady scent of commercialized femininity, but as a teenager, it didn't appeal to me. I wanted to be my own girl, and have my own type of femininity. Yes, I wanted to smell nice and have smooth skin, but I also wanted to kick box and take karate. Yes, I had my toe shoes and beautiful leotards (there was this maroon one that was half velvet that I still dream about...) but I also took guitar with a stoner teacher (Oh Scott...he would frequently say things like, "Yeah, try tripping on DayQuil and listening to Vivaldi...it will blow your mind!") and watched movies like, "Half Baked" and "Empire Records" and "Grosse Pointe Blank". I eschewed the Los Angeles Hollywood stereotypes because I didn't want to be that girl: the girl who had more in her handbag than in her brain.

As I moved through life, spending more time and more time with girls, (I studied for two years in an all girls school in Jerusalem, and then went to Stern College, an all womens Jewish university. There was so much estrogen, you could have harvested soybeans) I questioned my committment to going against the grain. What was the harm in indulding my girlier tendencies? What was I so afraid of?

I think the answer is that in giving in the the things I so resisted during high school, I was redefining parts of myself that I thought were solidified--and in some cases, completely overhauling routine and comfort levels to explore what might continually make me more satisfied. The prompt for self-exploration comes from the most surprising--and sometimes, the silliest--places, and in my case, it was coming from hair products, high heels, and very shiny eyeshadow. I felt a bit silly to have existenial angst come from squealing over a pair of patterned turquoise open toe espadrilles. But there it was. I was forced to really think about my reluctance to participate in some admittedly shallow, but ultimately harmless feminine rituals. I surprised myself by tracing my reluctance and unearthing insecurities I'd thought I'd left behind. I was holding on to old rituals as a sense of comfort, my role of tomboy like Linus's security blanket, something I clutched to prevent the past from getting away from me and fully stepping into myself. Tomboy was my shield, but it was also my mask. And as I slowly allowed that part of myself to become alive, I realized that, much to my dismay, I actually took comfort in indulging in all (well, most) things feminine.

I do still like my action flicks, and I like to horse around and tell dirty jokes. I still register astonishingly low on the girl-shriek Richter Scale, and I don't put on tons of makeup every day. I'd rather sleep the extra ten minutes then look like I put the extra ten minutes pulling my outfit together. But that's just me, and it will always be me.

But it's fun to realize that "me" is also sometimes saying things like, "Oh my gosh, those shoes are GORGEOUS!" or "I wanna make cupcakes!"

Randomly craving: Cupcakes, sake`, veggies and dip