The World As It Is

Artsparker has a gift for connections: verbal, visual, artistic, personal. She pointed me toward a startlingly lovely poem at the Larabee and Liza site a couple days back to read Carolyn Miller's poem, copied below. There are "no ladders, no descending angels" in my worldview, so it had some resonance with me, in particular the comfort found in sideways Orion, trembling Venus, firefly Jupiter. Or, to use John Prine's more plain language, "to believe in this living is just a hard way to go."

The World as It is

No ladders, no descending angels, no voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only
water rising and falling in breathing springs
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie grass
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans. Only
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion rising sideways,
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a great firefly,
Venus trembling and faceted in the west—and the moon,
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, brimming
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly, deliberately,
wobbling slightly, while far below, the faithful sea
rises up and follows.

-Carolyn Miller

Thank you Susan. Thank you Laura. Thank you Carolyn.

Ol' Shorty

My Dad told me last week that his grand-dad, Papa, referred to death as "shaking hands with ol' Shorty."  I've been turning this delightful bit of information around in my head ever since, looking at it from different angles.  It is unclear whether ol' Shorty is God, Jesus, or Satan, though my Dad's money is on God.  I'm less certain.

Papa would occasionally go into town in a horse and wagon and get drunk.  When he fell into the wagon and passed out, his horses knew to take him back home.  His wife would lead him out of the wagon, put him to bed, sometimes read to him - old western novels, by the light of a coal lamp - til he fell asleep.

My Dad had some of his memories of growing up in Oklahoma published in a magazine called Oklahoma Edge.  Here's a short bit on Papa:

"Quite often when we left church on Sunday we would go by and get Papa out of jail. One night he came into the church and sat quietly on the back row. Someone from the church called the police and they came and arrested him. I always thought this was hypocritical on the part of the church people. I thought at the time, and still do, that Jesus would not have done that."

You can get the entire two-part series from Oklahoma Edge here - order the March and April 09 back issues.  Or just come back to the blog, I'll be posting excerpts on a regular basis.  It's a great read.  He's a good writer.

Comet McNaught

There is a brand new comet in the dawn sky, one that'll max out in brightness next month.  You'll probably still need binoculars or a telescope to see it, but still.  Comets make me giddy (admittedly I am easily made giddy).  They are leftover bits from the beginnings of the solar system, chock full of water and amino acids and at least partly responsible for bringing those things, and possibly life itself, to Earth.  Plus, they come from...wait for it...the Oort Cloud!  The Oort Cloud is a largely theoretical sphere of ice and rock chunks at the very fringes of the solar system, about a light year away.  The comets lurk out there in cold storage, slowly revolving, unseen, until something tugs them out of orbit and sends them hurtling toward the sun.  As they get close to the sun they form tails, as solar wind boils off ice from the main body of the thing.

This one is on its first trip in from the Oort Cloud, so no one knows quite what will happen.  Comets are notoriously unpredictable.  They might fizzle out, they might soar in brightness, they might disintegrate as they swing around the sun and gravitational stress rips them apart.  Stay tuned.   This one is already slightly brighter than predicted.

Below is a chart telling you where to look in the dawn sky (I'm never up at dawn, but will set my alarm one or two mornings mid-month to look for it).  The star Capella is very bright, so using it as a guide will help.  Comets are fairly easy to pick out from the surrounding stars.  They have fuzzy, indistinct edges, unlike the pinpoints of light formed by stars.  They are dimmer, larger than stars.  Sometimes you can even make out the tail.  So get up early, get out your binoculars and search the sky.  Even if you don't find the comet,you'll probably find something cool.  There's lotsa cool stuff up there.

No (pause)

I’m not sure what this is. Not a poem, exactly. Not even fiction really. It’s based on conversations we’d hear the girls have on the baby monitor late at night as they lay in their beds, years ago, when they first came to us (an earlier version of this appeared here a couple years ago).

Been thinking about adoption quite a bit lately. About the notion of the Other Mommy. Of sisters having whispered conversations in their beds. I believe a New Novel may be taking shape around this.

No (pause)

Are you sleepin?
No.
(pause)
What’re you thinkin?
About Other Mommy.
What about Other Mommy?
Where she is.
Where is she?
In the Other House. She lives there.
Can we go there?
Yes.
Will you take me there?
No.
Why?
We live here now.
(pause)
Can we go there tomorrow?
Yes.
Where Other Mommy is?
Yes.
(pause)
Where is Other Mommy?
Across the ocean. She lives there.
Where the war is?
Yes.
Can you see her?
No.
Is she in a hole?
Yes.
Can we go there?
Yes.
Will you take me there?
No.
Why?
We live here now.
(pause)
Are there holes there? Where the war is?
Yes.
Is that where the dead people go?
Yes.
In the holes.
Yes, in the holes.
(pause)
Will you take me tomorrow?
Take you where?
Where Other Mommy is.
Yes.
When?
Tomorrow.
To Other Mommy?
Yes.
(pause)
Where is Other Mommy?
In a hole.
She’s in a hole?
Yes. She lives there.
She lives in the hole?
Yes.
In the Other House?
Yes.
A hole in the Other House?
Yes.
Can she talk to us?
Yes.
What will she tell us?
It’s time to go to sleep.
(pause)
Okay.
(pause)
Are you sleepin?
No.
(pause)
Is that other man with Mommy?
No. He’s gone.
Is he in a hole?
Yes.
In the Other House?
Yes.
In a hole in the Other House?
Yes. He lives there.
With Other Mommy?
No. He’s in another hole.
A different hole.
Yes.
Different from Mommy’s.
Yes.
Can he talk to her?
No.
Can he talk to us?
Yes.
What will he tell us?
It’s time to go to sleep.
(pause)
Okay.
(pause)
Are you sleepin?
No.
(pause)
Is it time to go to sleep?
Yes.
I’m going to sleep now.
(pause)
Okay?
(pause)
Are you sleepin?
No.

This Just In

My Godzilla Haiku was posted. Such sweet satisfaction.

Putting the AZ in Nazi

This is funny, funny, funny. I like that he appears as if he is going to literally explode at any second.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Kitty Treats

The first sentence is non-fiction.  Everything else spun out in my mind as I was putting away the ladder.

Kitty Treats

Toby’s daughter was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing because her beloved cat was trapped on the roof of the three story apartment building next door and he tried calling it, then shaking a can of kitty treats to lure it down but no cigar, so he grabbed a ladder from the shed, lugged it up the three flights of rickety wooden stairs built on the back of the building and climbed up, holding onto the lip of the roof with one hand while shaking the kitty treat can with the other until the cat strolled unhurriedly over.  He had the animal comfortably in hand just as the woman living in the upstairs apartment flung open her back door to find out what the ruckus was all about, and the bottom fell out of the world.  He was tossed three stories down onto a gravel driveway, spent eight weeks in the hospital, and over time developed a taste for Oxycontin and the handy workers comp check that came in the mail every month.  His wife left him about a year later, took the kids, let him have their house, the three stories of the apartment next door looming over him like an Old Testament God.  His daughter is in college now, though he doesn’t talk to her much anymore.  But she calls him on his birthday every year, and always remembers to thank him for saving her cat.

Secret Garden

The girls and I were at one of the criminally underused neighborhood pocket parks last week (and as an aside: a beautiful day in a neighborhood full of kids - why is almost no one playing in the park?) when two little girls walked up to us.  I don't quite remember how the subject came up so quickly, but within a few sentences the older one told me they were both foster kids.  I told her brightly that my daughters were adopted, and for a brief moment an intense, inward stare clouded the face of the girl.  All the girls ran off to play together, they all got along well, while I read under a tree. 

But that expression that crossed her face has stayed with me.  I have seen variations of it on my own children.  It wasn't loneliness, or sadness, exactly.  It was, I think, an "aloneness" particular to adopted kids and foster kids.  Everyone feels alone, I know, in some way or another.  You're born alone, you die alone, yada, yada, yada.  Some feel it more acutely than others.  Writers and artists might feel it more than others, or maybe they are merely better at exploring its depths.  But the lack of a biological family creates an emptiness I can empathize with but never fully understand.  It's different than coming from a dysfunctional family.  Different than family members dying. 

I don't think it's my job as a parent to fill that empty space.  I don't think I should, or even can.  Rather, I think my job is to acknowledge it, protect it, to make it a safe place, a welcome place, a part of their identity they can one day embrace, and nurture, and cherish.

Sci Fi

I don't generally read much science fiction, though I watch quite a few sci fi movies.  Don't know why that is.  I prefer, for instance, reading crime fiction to watching it.

While writing the last novel, which had some sci fi elements, I read none, not wanting to pollute the waters.   Now that I'm finished I've been reading lots of it - new writers, not the old masters - to get a sense of the current state of the genre.  Most have not been very good (though Caitlin Kiernan has some game).  But I just finished Charlie Huston's Sleepless, and was impressed with it.  I think it's being marketed as a zombie apocolypse, but that's just commerce: there are no zombies, no undead, no brain eating.  It's sort of a sci fi/noir hybrid, concernings a mad cow disease type prion finding its way into the food supply.  What it lingers on is a crumbling American infrastructure.  The growing gulf between rich and poor, the digital and the real.  It's a good book.  Thoughtful and disturbing.  I recommend it.

If anyone out there knows of any other good current sci fi writers out there, gimme a shout.

1001 Uses

Our youngest daughter has plantar warts.  The doctor told us to put duct tape on them, and they'd go away.  Who knew?

 

Fragment

Our daughters are adopted.  A few months after they came to live with us, we went over the Sangre de Cristo's to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, and stayed in a motel there.  They tumbled into the room, jumping on the beds, excited that they had a new home, convinced they were going to live there.  Youngest had been in three homes by then, the Eldest in five.  They thought that's how life was lived, that you changed homes every few months.

Spiderman was on television that night.  They were convinced for years afterward that Spiderman played on all motel television sets, every night.