Self Subversion

My uncle has come to stay with us for a while to further recover from a head injury he suffered several weeks ago after a fall. He's been in a rehab facility in the deep dark valley, and yesterday I went to pick him up. I'd like to say that it all went smoothly, that the medical system worked well, that all family members participated, that I never once lost my cool or spoke in the tone of voice I have acquired, somehow, despite myself, that lies somewhere between Stepford Caregiver cheerful and a dripping condescension. I'd like to say that getting lost in the facility and finding myself for a few minutes wandering through several rooms filled with disabled adults who milled about muttering or sat staring and nodding was at the very least, familiar.  Except that the medical system did not work well, all family members have not participated, I lost my cool a couple of times, and my tone of voice didn't just drip but splattered with irritation. And my wander through the halls of adult institutionalization resulted in a bout of sadness about nine hours later that I told Carl was something that just happens, sometimes, this wave of emotion that is best dealt with by assuming a kind of dead man's float, the better to not be drowned. The morning light brought so much relief it felt nearly funny, and I made blueberry muffins that I ate with the three men (one old, one in the middle and one young), along with pancetta that I scrambled with eggs. I cut up two blood oranges, and we ripped the flesh from the rind.

As the hours tick by and the caregiving continues, I think of self-regard, of self-care, of the illusion of the self.


Question: What do you have to look out for? 
Answer: Resentment. 


Resentment. If I could give it a shape, it'd be the infinity symbol or something impossible. If I could give it a color,  I think of something burnt red. Like the gray of embers with bursts of light. The word implacable. Women. Keeping our mouths shut. Resentment is not to be mistaken for anger which is the open mouth or red lips drawn into a smile.

White Sheets

Sophalette Silhouette
May 2018
Los Angeles

to Allison, Heather, Christy and Bonni

This morning I lay on my back in my bed barely woke, my son rummaging around the bathroom on his way to work out and then the sound of Sophie seizing from her room and his bark Sophie's having a seizure! even as he walks out the door (the quotidian) and my sigh and hobbled walk (I'm working out, still) down the hall at no great speed because I've done this before and again and again. That I was lying on my back thinking about seizures and Sophie and what to do next and how very tired and sick unto is irrelevant, redundant, mundane and tedious. I settled my girl and climbed back into bed with my thoughts, my incessant thoughts, what to do, how to do, a kind of solipsistic world except that it's not me my mind but, literally, Sophie, her mind. Or brain. Or not -- the solipsism, that is. Then the world broke through. I had conversations right then and there, as we do in the world's mind, that vast space that some call unconnected but we know better, conversations with a friend in Maine and a friend in Colorado, both of whom struggle with their sons' seizures, both of whom know everything there is to know about cannabis in addition to seizures, both of whom fiddle and adjust, grow and learn as they go, as we go. The world broke through the way it does (the universe is abundant) in the form of these women and another who spoke to me from Greece, and another from San Diego who was the last person I spoke with the night before and who figures in my dreams. In the moment of the morning, flat on my back in the bed, post-ictal, I willed myself toward signs, out of the pull of darkness and toward light and lightness, acknowledged in my mind the miracle of these connections, our wisdom, these women. I made my bed. I lie down in it. We lie on our backs in these beds, this bed, next to one another, I feel them there, white sheets, these women, and we are connected and everything is ok. It's going to be okay.

Ode to

I know, I know, I know, I know. I am barely coming round the mountain these days, much less here on the old blog. I'm writing, though, quite a bit offline, so don't leave me. I might be asking you to buy my book one day. I might also ask you to find me the perfect job -- one that I can do at home while tending to Sophie as she goes through her ups and downs, pays hooky from school, gets hives, has her medications reduced, gets her THC and CBD dosages tinkered with -- you know the drill. I think.

Last night, as evidenced above, I went to the downtown library to hear the magnificent poets Robin Coste Lewis and Sharon Olds read from their books and then have an inspiring conversation with the moderator and writer Louise Steinman (she actually has my dream job as curator of the ALOUD program). I don't even know what to say about how fantastic Robin and Sharon were -- how inspiring and funny and moving and strong. It was one of those nights when I felt exhilarated to live in this city, to be a woman and a writer and feminist. It was especially cleansing after the clusterf*&k Presidential debate the night before.

Good Lord, ya'll. My status update on Facebook got about five million silly "likes" and as many shares and comments, and all I said was:

It makes me want to weep that our first female candidate for President has to debate this colossal piece of shit.

That's all I'll say about that -- oh, except that if you're still "on the fence" or "voting for the lesser of two evils" or any of that balderdash, I hope you spontaneously combust.

I'd post one of the poems that Sharon Olds read aloud last night called Ode to the Clitoris, but I haven't gotten my copy of her new books, so here's one of my favorites from an earlier collection. Prepare yourself.


I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges, 

I see my father strolling out 

under the ochre sandstone arch, the   

red tiles glinting like bent 

plates of blood behind his head, I 

see my mother with a few light books at her hip 

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks, 

the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its 

sword-tips aglow in the May air, 

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,   

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are   

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.   

I want to go up to them and say Stop,   

don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,   

he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things 

you cannot imagine you would ever do,   

you are going to do bad things to children, 

you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of, 

you are going to want to die. I want to go 

up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it, 

her hungry pretty face turning to me,   

her pitiful beautiful untouched body, 

his arrogant handsome face turning to me,   

his pitiful beautiful untouched body,   

but I don’t do it. I want to live. I   

take them up like the male and female   

paper dolls and bang them together   

at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to   

strike sparks from them, I say 

Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Sharon Olds

Break My Leg

I'll be reading/performing this Saturday in Los Angeles for Expressing Motherhood, along with ten other women. We had a rehearsal on Monday, and I'm just honored to be in this group of talented, engaging, moving and hilarious women.

The show is sold out, but you can evidently watch it on Babble's Periscope, streaming live at 7:30, Holy Pacific Ocean Time. I'm actually first up (holy shit) and can't promise that I won't have a double chin, but I will promise to have a good time. Word is that the music I walk up on stage to is Motley Crue. Who knew? Oliver just screamed when I told him that I would dance up to the stage.

Lindsay Kavet, the creator of Expressing Motherhood, is a rockstar and either produces or helps to produce shows all over the country. Check out their website for announcements on submissions. She's also beautiful, has three adorable children and has supported me for years. This is my fourth time doing the show, and I can't over-state how great an experience it is --

Here's a link to the live-stream thing:

Expressing Motherhood on Periscope @babble

Hedgebrook, Day Twenty-one

Last night, three of us walked over Deer Lagoon to Useless Bay when the tide was going out and the sun was going down. The water was literally rushing out with the wind. No bugs last night and the coolest of breezes, Mt. Rainier right there in the distance. I know I'm gushing, but it was glorious.

I don't have much to say, to tell you the truth. It's been an incredible three weeks, and I leave tomorrow evening from Seattle. I've met an extraordinary group of writers, I've finished a rough draft of the book, I've read two novels, one memoir and a pile of New Yorkers. I've re-read To the Lighthouse, the collected stories of Lydia Davis and some William Carlos Williams. I've received a pile of letters -- thank you to Missy and Carolyn and Rebecca and Mary and Liv and Mary Lou for your beautiful words and old-fashioned stationery. I arrived three weeks ago and spent a glorious day and night with Karen. Thank you for showing me this beautiful part of the world that you call home. I spent a lovely afternoon with Kari in Langley, including a delicious lunch and conversation that could have gone on for hours. Thank you, Kari, for taking the time to come out here and for sharing your life with me. I met Lynda who has been reading my blog for years and with whom I've only exchanged emails. She drove me around Whidbey Island and showed me the sights, introduced me to her beautiful family and shared the most delicious mussels I've ever had, harvested right here on Whidbey. I am grateful for your friendship.

So, I did have something to say.

I'm saying my good-byes today to Hedgebrook Farm, to my little cottage, Willow and to the extraordinary people who work here. I am replenished and filled with gratitude for the experience. I'll never forget this time and the work I did here in solitude, even as I was cared for and nourished.

Podcast for Expressing Motherhood

I had such a good time doing this podcast for my friend Lindsay Eller Kavet of Expressing Motherhood. It's always a little disconcerting to hear your voice -- do I really sound like that? -- but I'm definitely a talker, and I just love Lindsay and really admire how she supports creative women and mothers. Check out her site and consider submitting and doing one of her shows. Upcoming ones are in San Francisco and South Dakota.

Thanks, Lindsay, for this opportunity!

Listen here.

Stand in front of the mirror naked and admire what you see. Whatever you see. This flesh that curves and rolls like the earth. This decorated canvas upon which the world has painted the story of your life. 

from Sing Your Body by Brittany Tuttle 

The other evening when I sat and talked for hours with Brittany of Vesuvius at Home, at some point I lamented my lost girlhood, my aged-over beauty, the weight I'd gained, something dull and self-absorbed to that effect. Brittany was quick to chastise me for denigrating my body, and then we spoke of the brilliant piece she wrote a while back on her blog called Sing Your Body. Go read it now if you haven't, yet, and then come back. Brittany told me that I reminded her of a Bouguereau female. Bouguereau is a late nineteenth/early twentieth century realist painter of whom I knew nothing. Tonight, I remembered Brittany's comment and looked him up, found a series of beautiful paintings -- lush women, lovely children, portraits of great serenity and sometimes amusement. The first painting that I pulled up was this one:

What struck me was not my resemblance to the woman pictured (there isn't much) but the title of the painting which is Pleasant Burden. I thought, of course, of Sophie and my life with her, the paradox of burden and honor in the carrying of it. I then noticed this painting and thought of Sophie again:

When I saw the following painting, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might have been a Bouguereau in another life, when flesh was exalted and burdens honored. This year I might just possibly exalt my own flesh, and at the very least, be amused by it. I will also honor my burdens more, recognize and reaffirm the dignity of carrying them lightly.

A New Start

I forgot to tell you that I started a new job today. I'm working with a non-profit foundation that provides services to children in foster care. I'll be helping them to build a core of medical and mental health providers to do assessments to support their advocacy. It's a part time job, but I'll be busy, and I'm thankful to have it. There'll be no more bonbon eating or lounging around -- I'm thankful to have a head tightly screwed to my neck; otherwise, it might have flown off by now.

It seems like a fresh start, doesn't it today?

Witchy Women

The other day, I was talking to a friend who spends a good bit of her time cleaning up her eighteen year old daughter's poop, among other things related to her daughter's disability. I talk regularly to my friend Erika, who's wrapping up another prolonged visit to the PICU with her daughter whose Angelman syndrome causes not just seizures, but strange bouts of cyclical vomiting and complications that warrant breathing machines and long, sedated weeks in the hospital. I write ad nauseum of the trials and tribulations of uncontrolled epilepsy in my daughter Sophie, but probably less so of the conflict better known as why sweat the small stuff? You know what I'm talking about -- the mindless aggravations of modern, in my case, urban life -- the traffic, the school situation, the incessant driving around of our children, the agony of it all.

Erika and my other friend roll our eyes, generally, at this regular stuff that consumes our days and those of our regular friends. We don't sweat the small stuff as a rule, until we do. Sometimes, it is the small stuff that breaks the proverbial back, and yesterday as I drove around the city, while the terrible devastation wreaked by hurricane Sandy and my good friend's dying sister occupied my heart, it was the small stuff that occupied my brain and, eventually, drove me to, if not weep, then at least scream.

It was the couple being interviewed on NPR whose faith in the Southern Baptist God informed all of their decisions, including their recent "problem" of whether or not they could afford a new bookcase for their living room.  They also expressed bemusement at why they were so financially successful when others -- even family and friends -- were not. Why the hell were these people being interviewed?

It was the woman yakking on her phone while standing in line at Trader Joe's, who dismissively spoke to the cashier bagging her groceries and flicked her hair around her finger. I sunk to the level of contempt when I looked at her long, skinny legs and her three-inch heels and imagined her going up in a blast of fire and smoke.

It was the crap lying all over the Halloween store and the tortured indecision of my son over what to wear for Halloween. Am I a spoiled brat? he asked, as we left the store. You're a spoiled brat if you complain one tiny little bit for the rest of the day, I said, feeling justified given the 1/2 hour wait on line to pay for the costume, the screams and wails of the Halloween sound system and the haranguing I did with the cashier over the price of the Halloween pumpkin mask that was missing one bobble eye.

So, now it's Halloween, and I'm feeling particularly witchy today. I promise, though, to have some cheerful photos of the children frolicking on our urban streets, collecting candy filled with chemicals while I eat chili and drink wine with my good friend, Cara before heading back home to stand at the door and drop candy into the tiny outstretched arms of neighborhood ghosts and goblins and princesses.

Witchy women sweat the small stuff AND handle the big stuff with guile and cunning and sometimes, rarely, uncommon grace.