Marion committed suicide, my mother tells me this morning. Her daughter just called to give me the news. I hear the quiver in my mother’s voice. Her friend of forty years gone—the link to her own young motherhood, her own lost beauty and youth. Another reminder of her gnawing mortality. My mother up there in that tired, vanquished town, waiting for her turn…
And I’m sick of suicide. Ed’s parents, my uncle, and now Marion. Most people don’t know suicide like this, and I get to claim three. Marion with pills; and the other two choosing a basement beam and a tightly knotted rope.
She was a Welfare mother, too, living next door to us in the housing project just off Seneca Hill. What I remember about her apartment was the large family portrait that hung above the couch, with Marion posed like one of those women in an old Elvis movie. Her long blonde hair brushed seductively over one eye, and draped to the side of her angled, bare shoulder. Her four kids arranged like props around her. We had no money for such things as family portraits, and so I remember staring longingly at that airbrushed photo with the fake pink blush across Marion’s cheeks. My mother was beautiful, too, in her dark curly hair, her sinewy frame. But when people came to our apartment, our walls boasted only the free pin-up calendar that Barrett’s Insurance gave out each year, and the paint-by-numbers picture of a matador and his bull.
Despite the blonde hair and white lipstick, her hips, her travels, and the men who orbited her life right up until she swallowed the pills last night and went to bed, Marion was always on the run, always on the move. It was her idea that she and the kids jump off the bridge that day--into monstrous snow banks deposited by yet another Lake Effect snowstorm. Huge white cushions of snow covering the railroad tracks below, the snow still tumbling from thick gray clouds; schools closed for the day because of the storm. And when he jumped—her only son, her first-born—they heard the crush of bone, but did not hear the quiet snap of spinal cord, his neck breaking... At 17, he spent a full year in rehab, learning how to brush his teeth and dress himself, his wasted limbs indifferent to the struggle.
And what is a Welfare boy to do in a wheelchair in a town where it snows from October to May? Marion understood that, and did what any desperate mother would do: she used the only resource she had to help her son. And so at night, under the cover of shadows, the men came knocking. She moved her Elvis-movie body, shook her provocative hair. Until eventually she saved enough in a plastic bin that she kept hidden under the bed. Then she took her children to Florida. Bought her boy a house, had it fitted for a wheelchair.
The next time I saw her, Marion’s long blonde hair had been bleached to straw. It was also the day after her facelift when my mother and I arrived. Marion in her movie star sunglasses that she removed each day just long enough for me to take her picture, wanting to chronicle her healing. The purple stitches like hyphens on her eyelids, tucked into the recesses by her ears; I tried not to gag as I held the camera steady. She was a nudist by then, too, and when she asked my mother and me if we wanted to see her photo albums, we both declined…
And she had a ridiculous house, even by Florida standards. A Spencer’s Gifts house, with toilet tissue rolled off a penis shaped holder; hand soap nestled in the exposed bosom of a ceramic figurine. She laughed as I recoiled. You’re too uptight, Rachel! she teased that week while we were there. Yet I knew she was hiding behind all that...
And now she is dead, and I wonder if they will drape her hair off to the side, if they will put her in the ground as she wanted to be seen: in her nakedness, her Avon lipstick. And her son will wheel himself to her funeral next week, say goodbye to his mother—never knowing what I know. Not knowing exactly how much she loved him. How much she suffered because of that day in the snow.
And here in New York, they report on the news that a 38-year-old woman jumped last night from the Tappan Zee Bridge. Left a note in her parked car. Marion and this young woman—two strangers—choosing a hushed and sober evening in September to end their pain.
***
Friday, September 25, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Memphis
It is a quiet summer night in the city a few years ago. There is a light rain. I am walking the narrow streets of the Village with Susie, a delicate Korean woman who I met in my writing program. Susie has moved here from California with her boyfriend, and they don’t yet know a lot of people. And so Susie is slumming it with me. She likes to tell me about her degree from the University of California at Irvine; and because she feels compelled to remind me of this so often, I know my response disappoints her. I did my undergraduate work at the University at Albany, I tell her, with appropriate emphasis, but she rubs her nose. Suggests we stop for tea. Which we do. Susie and I are in the writing program in Brooklyn—a flunkie program with an old bearded director who neither reads our work, nor pretends to. But that night as we walk down the West Village street, we are writers, Susie and me. Talking about writing. And we are going to see Lucille Clifton read…
We find the place and step through the wrought iron gate and down several cement steps. It is an auxiliary building of NYU. Inside, off the foyer, is a room benignly set up for us--and already a number of people have settled themselves into their seats. There is the rumble of hushed discussion, nervous anticipation. By the door, Ms. Clifton has her books on display on a small table. I own all but the newest one—the Terrible Stories—which I know I will purchase tonight. Susie does not know Lucille—perhaps they do not study her at Irvine—but we are writers, and so she is here with me tonight.
I pick a seat a few rows back from the lectern where Clifton will stand to read. Susie wants to move closer, but I have never liked sitting in the front row in these situations. When I want to hear something, feel something, I like some distance. I need room to move my response around a bit. And so I tell Susie to go ahead and sit up front, but that I am going to sit right here. Instead, she settles into the seat beside me.
Many months later, Susie and I will sit at a long wooden table in a pub in Park Slope. There are a number of writers clustered around the table that night—including Suki, a young woman newly admitted to our program. Suki is all long black hair, all scarves, all things Japanese, all things Asian. Susie sits beside her, and I overhear her tell Suki that her real name is Sujin. Sujin? I say. You told me your name was Susie. And she is fierce that night in claiming her identity, sitting next to Suki and all those scarves; she laughs haughtily and says, Did you really think my name was Susie?
People continue to filter in that night in the West Village, until all the chairs are filled with people needing whatever Clifton has prepared to give us. She is not a scary poet, like Olds. But she delivers truth as she knows it, as she has lived it. A truth delivered in single syllables, in just 4 or 5 lines. She trusts the reader, Clifton. And she is a confident poet. A confident writer. In the way that Susie and I will never be…
We fidget. Tug at our pant legs, clear our throats, look around the room. Wait. Then finally Clifton appears from somewhere, and she is at the lectern—and her white hair surprises me. Whatever she says by way of introduction, I do not recall. I remember only that a lump immediately lodges itself in the back of my throat, like one of those lottery balls that gets spit up into the cylinder. I try to force it down, but it lets me know who’s boss, and so there it stays.
And Lucille Clifton reads… Her voice is what I imagined it would be. Not like seeing Gwendolyn Brooks, who sang her poems in hills and valleys—when I had read them flat and measured. Clifton reads from Good Woman, New Poems, The Book of Light. She is courageous in her revelation. In this room full of strangers…
Then Clifton reads poems from her new book: consulting the book of changes: radiation; 1994; scar; amazons… The lump in the back of my throat sits there quietly, not moving, not causing any disturbance. Until. Clifton reads her Memphis poems. The room is silent, all eyes directed toward the imposing figure with the shock of white hair and her quiet, husky voice. She reads, “in the latter days/you will come to a place/called Memphis…” Which is a city I have visited many times. Walked Beale Street up and down. Heard music. Ate BBQ and pecan pie. Felt the history. But. Not. Like. Her. When she reads her Memphis, her Beale Street, I see right away that it is not mine. I sense her antennae—palpable in this sterile room tonight—sprinkled like tiny, sensitive hairs along her fingertips, her toes, her tongue. She tells us she feels the footsteps of her people “throbbing up through [her] shoes” on auction street; that she understands the mud of the Mississippi hides what should be revealed; of another “dusky woman/weakened by too much loss.”
Beside me, Susie Irvine sits as still as stone while the inside of me tumults, while my legs quiver, while stubborn tears drip saltily into the corners of my mouth. And I am ashamed. Self conscious. Try everything to make myself stop…
Later, I wait in line for my book to get signed. My nose runs and I am without tissues. I am mad at myself for this response. I keep my head down. Hand Clifton my book. Utter my name. And when I am composed enough, back on the West Village street, I open the book to find that she has written “For Rachel. Joy!” with her lovely name--Lucille Clifton--spelled out below.
***
We find the place and step through the wrought iron gate and down several cement steps. It is an auxiliary building of NYU. Inside, off the foyer, is a room benignly set up for us--and already a number of people have settled themselves into their seats. There is the rumble of hushed discussion, nervous anticipation. By the door, Ms. Clifton has her books on display on a small table. I own all but the newest one—the Terrible Stories—which I know I will purchase tonight. Susie does not know Lucille—perhaps they do not study her at Irvine—but we are writers, and so she is here with me tonight.
I pick a seat a few rows back from the lectern where Clifton will stand to read. Susie wants to move closer, but I have never liked sitting in the front row in these situations. When I want to hear something, feel something, I like some distance. I need room to move my response around a bit. And so I tell Susie to go ahead and sit up front, but that I am going to sit right here. Instead, she settles into the seat beside me.
Many months later, Susie and I will sit at a long wooden table in a pub in Park Slope. There are a number of writers clustered around the table that night—including Suki, a young woman newly admitted to our program. Suki is all long black hair, all scarves, all things Japanese, all things Asian. Susie sits beside her, and I overhear her tell Suki that her real name is Sujin. Sujin? I say. You told me your name was Susie. And she is fierce that night in claiming her identity, sitting next to Suki and all those scarves; she laughs haughtily and says, Did you really think my name was Susie?
People continue to filter in that night in the West Village, until all the chairs are filled with people needing whatever Clifton has prepared to give us. She is not a scary poet, like Olds. But she delivers truth as she knows it, as she has lived it. A truth delivered in single syllables, in just 4 or 5 lines. She trusts the reader, Clifton. And she is a confident poet. A confident writer. In the way that Susie and I will never be…
We fidget. Tug at our pant legs, clear our throats, look around the room. Wait. Then finally Clifton appears from somewhere, and she is at the lectern—and her white hair surprises me. Whatever she says by way of introduction, I do not recall. I remember only that a lump immediately lodges itself in the back of my throat, like one of those lottery balls that gets spit up into the cylinder. I try to force it down, but it lets me know who’s boss, and so there it stays.
And Lucille Clifton reads… Her voice is what I imagined it would be. Not like seeing Gwendolyn Brooks, who sang her poems in hills and valleys—when I had read them flat and measured. Clifton reads from Good Woman, New Poems, The Book of Light. She is courageous in her revelation. In this room full of strangers…
Then Clifton reads poems from her new book: consulting the book of changes: radiation; 1994; scar; amazons… The lump in the back of my throat sits there quietly, not moving, not causing any disturbance. Until. Clifton reads her Memphis poems. The room is silent, all eyes directed toward the imposing figure with the shock of white hair and her quiet, husky voice. She reads, “in the latter days/you will come to a place/called Memphis…” Which is a city I have visited many times. Walked Beale Street up and down. Heard music. Ate BBQ and pecan pie. Felt the history. But. Not. Like. Her. When she reads her Memphis, her Beale Street, I see right away that it is not mine. I sense her antennae—palpable in this sterile room tonight—sprinkled like tiny, sensitive hairs along her fingertips, her toes, her tongue. She tells us she feels the footsteps of her people “throbbing up through [her] shoes” on auction street; that she understands the mud of the Mississippi hides what should be revealed; of another “dusky woman/weakened by too much loss.”
Beside me, Susie Irvine sits as still as stone while the inside of me tumults, while my legs quiver, while stubborn tears drip saltily into the corners of my mouth. And I am ashamed. Self conscious. Try everything to make myself stop…
Later, I wait in line for my book to get signed. My nose runs and I am without tissues. I am mad at myself for this response. I keep my head down. Hand Clifton my book. Utter my name. And when I am composed enough, back on the West Village street, I open the book to find that she has written “For Rachel. Joy!” with her lovely name--Lucille Clifton--spelled out below.
***
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Caution
My friend Stephanie jumped out of an airplane. It was something she longed to do, and one day, she just did it… Later, at my house, we watch the video they made of the jump. Stephanie stands, weighted down with goggles and backpack, at the gaping hole in the side of the plane, the wind and open sky beckoning. Just standing there on the precipice of that hurtling plane, she gets further than I would have. And then after several moments of indecision, she pitches herself into the sunny abyss, shrieking I can’t do this!, her voice trailing off as she plummets down toward the earth, back down to her uneventful life in a small white house with a husband named Fred and her dark green mini-van.
Jumping out of a plane is not something I’ve ever felt called to do. I suppose because I don’t like heights; and also because I can’t imagine having the courage to jump. I would need to be pushed—which, I understand, they will not do. But there are days—many days—when I desire to live my life a bit more incautiously, a bit more dangerously. I want to jump out of a metaphorical plane; I want to live out the danger a bit more in the abstract. Stephanie has her plane, and I have mine, too.
I have many dreams, many hopes, that play themselves out in my head as I drive along in my car, as I am folding laundry, as I cleanse my face at night before crawling into bed. When I’m feeling brave, I lean in close to the mirror, examining the porous nose, the crinkled skin collected like paper fans at my eyes, the lines between my eyebrows that remind me how I knit my brows together when I am considering things. My face. The one I show to the world, and the one the world interprets and judges. It’s a scary thing to consider, when you stop and think about it. Putting your face out there like that everyday…
Yesterday I tried bourbon and whiskey for the first time. We are standing in a converted barn, in the Catskills, on a warm afternoon in September. A short young man explains the science of distilling; he is knowledgeable and passionate about the making of spirits. I read their story in a magazine: two young men who took a chance. Who threw caution to the wind. Who tried something entirely beyond their experience and now have this. We are a small group, listening; most of us catching only part of the science of how grain and fruit get transformed into something special. Later, in the tasting room, I will sample the “baby bourbon,” made of corn, and stored in an oak barrel. After that, I swallow the distillery’s house specialty: whiskey. And it does a deliciously slow burn down my throat and into my belly. I am with someone who hurries through the process—of this, and the tasting of wines at two other places we stop—but I stand there, feet planted solidly on the wide plank floor, wanting to savor the moment, my new experience. Feeling that whiskey burn…
Most days I live very tepidly. I wake up, shower, coax my son from the warm folds of his bed, make breakfast, put him on the bus, go to my office, come home from my office, make dinner, read to my boy, read to myself, and go to sleep. And the next day loops around for me to go at again, just the same way. And suddenly many weeks have gone by, many months, many years… Things get broken up, of course, with Christmas, with trips to the ocean, with something brand new carried home from the store. Just enough distraction to keep me from recognizing the banality of life, of the quiet, uneventful way most of us go about living it. Just enough to mask the absurdity of it.
My mother often told me when I was a young girl that I had too many dreams, too grandiose a plan. And this when I never fantasized about the stage, or the road, or the underbelly. I wanted simply to get out of a place where the snow silenced everything, where the winds of change never blew. My mother shook her head at this and cautioned me against such thinking. You will be sorry, she said…
And yet, as I stand before the mirror this morning, I am sorry only that I have not lived more, loved more, and taken more chances. Outside the window, there is the harmony of birds answering each other—and I am savoring the moment because it is, after all, late September, and mornings will soon be quiet with winter… Last night as I drove home from the mountains, there were three text messages saying come into the city; be my guest tonight—and it is a lovely night, the sky littered with stars, a lively Manhattan just a few short miles down the road. But instead I turn on to my own familiar street, park my car, come inside. Kick off my shoes, drink a tall glass of cold water, hang my sweater alongside others in my organized closet; settle into bed. And it’s not long before I am drifting off to sleep, thinking of the new home I plan to buy, of the smoky blue walls I will paint, with creamy white trim, and a new chocolate colored couch; of the brownies I will make tomorrow for my son; of a quiet Sunday afternoon with him and the Times; of the walk I will take around the fountain after dinner.
***
Jumping out of a plane is not something I’ve ever felt called to do. I suppose because I don’t like heights; and also because I can’t imagine having the courage to jump. I would need to be pushed—which, I understand, they will not do. But there are days—many days—when I desire to live my life a bit more incautiously, a bit more dangerously. I want to jump out of a metaphorical plane; I want to live out the danger a bit more in the abstract. Stephanie has her plane, and I have mine, too.
I have many dreams, many hopes, that play themselves out in my head as I drive along in my car, as I am folding laundry, as I cleanse my face at night before crawling into bed. When I’m feeling brave, I lean in close to the mirror, examining the porous nose, the crinkled skin collected like paper fans at my eyes, the lines between my eyebrows that remind me how I knit my brows together when I am considering things. My face. The one I show to the world, and the one the world interprets and judges. It’s a scary thing to consider, when you stop and think about it. Putting your face out there like that everyday…
Yesterday I tried bourbon and whiskey for the first time. We are standing in a converted barn, in the Catskills, on a warm afternoon in September. A short young man explains the science of distilling; he is knowledgeable and passionate about the making of spirits. I read their story in a magazine: two young men who took a chance. Who threw caution to the wind. Who tried something entirely beyond their experience and now have this. We are a small group, listening; most of us catching only part of the science of how grain and fruit get transformed into something special. Later, in the tasting room, I will sample the “baby bourbon,” made of corn, and stored in an oak barrel. After that, I swallow the distillery’s house specialty: whiskey. And it does a deliciously slow burn down my throat and into my belly. I am with someone who hurries through the process—of this, and the tasting of wines at two other places we stop—but I stand there, feet planted solidly on the wide plank floor, wanting to savor the moment, my new experience. Feeling that whiskey burn…
Most days I live very tepidly. I wake up, shower, coax my son from the warm folds of his bed, make breakfast, put him on the bus, go to my office, come home from my office, make dinner, read to my boy, read to myself, and go to sleep. And the next day loops around for me to go at again, just the same way. And suddenly many weeks have gone by, many months, many years… Things get broken up, of course, with Christmas, with trips to the ocean, with something brand new carried home from the store. Just enough distraction to keep me from recognizing the banality of life, of the quiet, uneventful way most of us go about living it. Just enough to mask the absurdity of it.
My mother often told me when I was a young girl that I had too many dreams, too grandiose a plan. And this when I never fantasized about the stage, or the road, or the underbelly. I wanted simply to get out of a place where the snow silenced everything, where the winds of change never blew. My mother shook her head at this and cautioned me against such thinking. You will be sorry, she said…
And yet, as I stand before the mirror this morning, I am sorry only that I have not lived more, loved more, and taken more chances. Outside the window, there is the harmony of birds answering each other—and I am savoring the moment because it is, after all, late September, and mornings will soon be quiet with winter… Last night as I drove home from the mountains, there were three text messages saying come into the city; be my guest tonight—and it is a lovely night, the sky littered with stars, a lively Manhattan just a few short miles down the road. But instead I turn on to my own familiar street, park my car, come inside. Kick off my shoes, drink a tall glass of cold water, hang my sweater alongside others in my organized closet; settle into bed. And it’s not long before I am drifting off to sleep, thinking of the new home I plan to buy, of the smoky blue walls I will paint, with creamy white trim, and a new chocolate colored couch; of the brownies I will make tomorrow for my son; of a quiet Sunday afternoon with him and the Times; of the walk I will take around the fountain after dinner.
***
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Snake
There is a snake—long, thin, shiny—that lurks in the walls of his basement. He tells me this recently, standing up to demonstrate his composure at finding it there. He moves to the corner of the living room, his lanky arms and fingers easily touching the ceiling. He is poised, still; curious at his discovery. And I believe him.
But who would not recoil from an unexpected snake? Who would not drop the putty knife, still wet with mortar, when the snake revealed itself, metallic and powerful, its hungry tongue licking at the shadows down there? That snake with its potency, its ability to coil around something many times its own size and squeeze it into lifelessness… Instead, he shows me how he stood there, just inches away from that probing tongue, and studied the iridescent etchings, the quiet black eyes—he and the snake alone in the hushed, dark basement of his farmhouse. Of course it was only moments before the snake disappeared behind the concrete walls, into some unknown nest, and he stood alone, as cool and measured as that hungry reptile.
And I wonder what that says about him? About us? I imagine my own wild response, coming face to face with that snake: the spontaneous screech, tools jettisoned, feet that carry me, like a skiff riding the waves, straight upstairs. To light, to safety, to warmth. My uneven breathing, terror howling from my eyes, sweat in the palms of my outstretched hands. And him, anchored quietly in that basement, half smiling, hammer gripped securely in his working hands, hoping to catch another quick glimpse. Intrigued by the science of it…
Today I push an obstinate cart around the smooth, well lit aisles at Target. I toss things in the cart to ward off my fears: face cream, body shaper panty hose, Children’s Tylenol. I am looking at the lacy bras, in black, cut low the way I like them, when I hear her yelling. Loud enough to pull me away from the delicate fabric that will cleave to my heavy breasts and give them shape, form—and as I step out from behind the rack, she is there, bent over a little girl. And then she slaps her. Hard. Then yanks a fragile arm so that the pigtails shake. And the little girl cries. You come when I fucking call you, the woman barks, standing up in her adultness, her motherhood, her conviction. Her hand on a stroller where a smaller baby sleeps. You fucking hear me? she says, answering her own rhetorical question with another slap. And I am terrified of this woman’s power, and her powerlessness, her poverty. I glance around to see who else is there, but I am alone with this young mother in the brightly lit aisle, living my own troubled life, making my own bad choices. What are you fucking looking at? the woman hisses at me. I think I am looking at fear, I want to tell her. But please is all I manage to say before a dog-eared man appears from nowhere, lifting the pigtailed girl to his chest. Don’t fucking comfort her, the woman tells him, as she muscles the stroller down the aisle, mad at me, at the little girl, at the world. But I know it’s really fear—of a different kind than mine; but fear is fear, I’ve come to realize. And we are never at our best when we’re afraid…
And I watch him, even in his strength and height--even as he stares down reptiles--erecting walls, puttying over cracks, building doors out of wood and wrought iron hinges with his own ample hands. Closing things off. Boxing things in. Sealing things tight. And he goes about his construction methodically, patiently—confident in his workmanship and exactness. As fearful as the rest of us…
***
But who would not recoil from an unexpected snake? Who would not drop the putty knife, still wet with mortar, when the snake revealed itself, metallic and powerful, its hungry tongue licking at the shadows down there? That snake with its potency, its ability to coil around something many times its own size and squeeze it into lifelessness… Instead, he shows me how he stood there, just inches away from that probing tongue, and studied the iridescent etchings, the quiet black eyes—he and the snake alone in the hushed, dark basement of his farmhouse. Of course it was only moments before the snake disappeared behind the concrete walls, into some unknown nest, and he stood alone, as cool and measured as that hungry reptile.
And I wonder what that says about him? About us? I imagine my own wild response, coming face to face with that snake: the spontaneous screech, tools jettisoned, feet that carry me, like a skiff riding the waves, straight upstairs. To light, to safety, to warmth. My uneven breathing, terror howling from my eyes, sweat in the palms of my outstretched hands. And him, anchored quietly in that basement, half smiling, hammer gripped securely in his working hands, hoping to catch another quick glimpse. Intrigued by the science of it…
Today I push an obstinate cart around the smooth, well lit aisles at Target. I toss things in the cart to ward off my fears: face cream, body shaper panty hose, Children’s Tylenol. I am looking at the lacy bras, in black, cut low the way I like them, when I hear her yelling. Loud enough to pull me away from the delicate fabric that will cleave to my heavy breasts and give them shape, form—and as I step out from behind the rack, she is there, bent over a little girl. And then she slaps her. Hard. Then yanks a fragile arm so that the pigtails shake. And the little girl cries. You come when I fucking call you, the woman barks, standing up in her adultness, her motherhood, her conviction. Her hand on a stroller where a smaller baby sleeps. You fucking hear me? she says, answering her own rhetorical question with another slap. And I am terrified of this woman’s power, and her powerlessness, her poverty. I glance around to see who else is there, but I am alone with this young mother in the brightly lit aisle, living my own troubled life, making my own bad choices. What are you fucking looking at? the woman hisses at me. I think I am looking at fear, I want to tell her. But please is all I manage to say before a dog-eared man appears from nowhere, lifting the pigtailed girl to his chest. Don’t fucking comfort her, the woman tells him, as she muscles the stroller down the aisle, mad at me, at the little girl, at the world. But I know it’s really fear—of a different kind than mine; but fear is fear, I’ve come to realize. And we are never at our best when we’re afraid…
And I watch him, even in his strength and height--even as he stares down reptiles--erecting walls, puttying over cracks, building doors out of wood and wrought iron hinges with his own ample hands. Closing things off. Boxing things in. Sealing things tight. And he goes about his construction methodically, patiently—confident in his workmanship and exactness. As fearful as the rest of us…
***
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