Raed called on Saturday while I was out.
“What did Raed's message say?” I asked my husband.
“He said it's urgent, I'll call him tomorrow,” he answered.
“Oh, do you think something's wrong?”
“No, he sounded cheerful, I think.”
“Maybe Simone is pregnant, or maybe they're finally coming to visit us?”
Sunday, coming back from a jog in the park, I heard muffled Skype voices from the study. When Chris came in he said, “Benjamin died.”
Benjamin, I remember meeting you and your girlfriend at the time at the little town in Switzerland. You were both accomplished skiers. Chris and I would only dare to try snow shoes. I couldn't understand your girlfriend very well and assumed my German skills were lacking. Chris later told me that nobody could understand her at times, she spoke a difficult dialect.
You were the kind of person who knew the use of every little thing at REI. You were a teacher, although I think you didn't like the rural area where you found a job.
You died doing something you loved, but what if you were cold? What if you knew the end was coming, and watched your fingers turn black? Did you think of your mother? But instead of that--I hope the mountain took you quickly.
Showing posts with label Jennifer's Thursday night workshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer's Thursday night workshop. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
A Real Charmer
Nigel lived on charm, easy affability. He looked better with a beard and when he let his hair grow longer, into silky dark lustrous whirls. Men loved going to soccer games with him and dueling over an Xbox. Hearty slaps on the back greeted him at pubs. No one ever noticed he never bought his own cigarettes, but he was a voracious social smoker.
Women loved him, period. He had heartbreaking cheekbones and peerless ivory skin. Married or not, their greedy fingers fished out for his under tables. As the wives winked at him without actually winking, the husbands waited for Nigel's impeccably-timed punch lines.
Nigel finally went home to his basement studio off Littleham Avenue. It was spoiling and dirty, as he had left it. He set down his battered suitcase amidst the gray squalor. He ran his beautiful hands through his luscious hair and was startled to be alone with himself again, at his actual address, with no plan of action. What now, what now he obsessively thought to himself.
Slowly, he went through all five pockets of his worn North Face parka. A battered ticket to the Central Park Zoo. A wrinkled receipt for two lattes at the Kant Café in Berlin. A small stub of a receipt to The Naam in Vancouver, BC. Half a cigarette, the other half broken off and lost. A tiny blue notebook filled with phone numbers and a well-marked calendar. He was a duck who migrated to keep himself well-fed and amused. Red lint. Key to a forgotten door. Someone else's Nordstrom gift card. A San Francisco library card. A shopping list with the following items: mangoes, pink champagne, green olives, water crackers. A pocket-sized rendition of the Prague bus system.
He pulled out these fragments, he excavated pieces of his life, an actual lived life, but everything was askew. He held the latte receipt from Berlin for a long time. The once perfect white paper with clear black letters had become gray and smudgy and shiny.
If you really looked at him, over a long period of time, you'd have noticed the bags under his eyes were getting heavier. But he never stuck around long enough for anyone to notice his history.
Women loved him, period. He had heartbreaking cheekbones and peerless ivory skin. Married or not, their greedy fingers fished out for his under tables. As the wives winked at him without actually winking, the husbands waited for Nigel's impeccably-timed punch lines.
Nigel finally went home to his basement studio off Littleham Avenue. It was spoiling and dirty, as he had left it. He set down his battered suitcase amidst the gray squalor. He ran his beautiful hands through his luscious hair and was startled to be alone with himself again, at his actual address, with no plan of action. What now, what now he obsessively thought to himself.
Slowly, he went through all five pockets of his worn North Face parka. A battered ticket to the Central Park Zoo. A wrinkled receipt for two lattes at the Kant Café in Berlin. A small stub of a receipt to The Naam in Vancouver, BC. Half a cigarette, the other half broken off and lost. A tiny blue notebook filled with phone numbers and a well-marked calendar. He was a duck who migrated to keep himself well-fed and amused. Red lint. Key to a forgotten door. Someone else's Nordstrom gift card. A San Francisco library card. A shopping list with the following items: mangoes, pink champagne, green olives, water crackers. A pocket-sized rendition of the Prague bus system.
He pulled out these fragments, he excavated pieces of his life, an actual lived life, but everything was askew. He held the latte receipt from Berlin for a long time. The once perfect white paper with clear black letters had become gray and smudgy and shiny.
If you really looked at him, over a long period of time, you'd have noticed the bags under his eyes were getting heavier. But he never stuck around long enough for anyone to notice his history.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
If You Were Here
If you were here, Mom, I don't know what you would think of me. People have been telling me to find you for 12 years now, ever since I turned 18. Everyone is curious, and I am too, but I am more scared. I keep thinking of great excuses to not look for you. I heard a couple years ago that the Catholic Childrens' Home Services agency shut down, so I thought maybe they'd lost my file.
And I always think, maybe I'll wait until next year, maybe I'll do something impressive and you'll think “Wow, my daughter really has her act together.”
But maybe I don't have room for disappointments, no more room for more crazy family members.
However, all of my selfish considerations don't take you into account. Maybe you want to find me, the child that abruptly ended your childhood. Maybe my grandparents want to know me.
As for Chris and his family, they've always wanted to find a certain Claude Miller of St. Louis, a black American soldier, a quartermaster stationed outside of Stuttgart. But Chris' dad isn't interested. Let sleeping dogs lie. I don't want to bring up the ghosts of the past.
My own grandfather I've heard was a fair, blue-eyed German army doctor. How funny it is to think the two unknown grandfathers were on different sides in the war.
How many of us really know our parents, our grandparents anyways? One in every seven Americans don't really have the fathers that are listed on their birth certificates. A lot of us don't really know where we came from. But I guess it must matter, everything else in life is so uncertain, where do we stand if not on the backs of our ancestors?
And I always think, maybe I'll wait until next year, maybe I'll do something impressive and you'll think “Wow, my daughter really has her act together.”
But maybe I don't have room for disappointments, no more room for more crazy family members.
However, all of my selfish considerations don't take you into account. Maybe you want to find me, the child that abruptly ended your childhood. Maybe my grandparents want to know me.
As for Chris and his family, they've always wanted to find a certain Claude Miller of St. Louis, a black American soldier, a quartermaster stationed outside of Stuttgart. But Chris' dad isn't interested. Let sleeping dogs lie. I don't want to bring up the ghosts of the past.
My own grandfather I've heard was a fair, blue-eyed German army doctor. How funny it is to think the two unknown grandfathers were on different sides in the war.
How many of us really know our parents, our grandparents anyways? One in every seven Americans don't really have the fathers that are listed on their birth certificates. A lot of us don't really know where we came from. But I guess it must matter, everything else in life is so uncertain, where do we stand if not on the backs of our ancestors?
Monday, January 18, 2010
Dead in the Russian Snow
When we first moved here, mother took the blue mirror cross that hung over her bed in our old house and mailed a nail for it in the new bedroom of me and my sister. We had to leave the center of town because mother started hosting the black American soldiers. The villagers kept harassing her, so she found an abandoned farm farther from town and closer to the military base. Ever since mother got the letter that father lay dead in the Russian snow, my school mates grew distant from me. Irmgard and Ulrike used to be my best friends, but now they say they can't go pick cherries with me. They say mother is now a fallen woman. I am the oldest, and I help watch my younger sister, Yvi, while mother laughs all night long with the soldiers. I miss father, and mother says it's alright to cry as much as I want. The soldiers give me chocolate bars to comfort me.
At school, the other children said they had no sugar and no flour and no chocolate. They ate cabbage. Just watery cabbage soup. They dreamt of cake and cookies and bread and butter.
“We have all that,” my sister told them proudly. “The black Americans bring lots of supplies to our mother.”
“That's because your mother is a whore. Your father probably wasn't even frozen in the Russian fields before she started being a nasty whore!”
“Shut up!” I shouted. “My mother's not a whore! And we eat cakes made with a dozen eggs and honey and half kilo of butter every day! We still have meat! You wish your house smelled of Thueringen sausages!”
The school yard was silent.
“I'm sick of seeing your dirty rags and of listening to your empty stomachs.”
I grabbed Yvi's hand and we marched home to the farmhouse full of food, laughter, and father's handkerchief still rests under my pillow every night.
At school, the other children said they had no sugar and no flour and no chocolate. They ate cabbage. Just watery cabbage soup. They dreamt of cake and cookies and bread and butter.
“We have all that,” my sister told them proudly. “The black Americans bring lots of supplies to our mother.”
“That's because your mother is a whore. Your father probably wasn't even frozen in the Russian fields before she started being a nasty whore!”
“Shut up!” I shouted. “My mother's not a whore! And we eat cakes made with a dozen eggs and honey and half kilo of butter every day! We still have meat! You wish your house smelled of Thueringen sausages!”
The school yard was silent.
“I'm sick of seeing your dirty rags and of listening to your empty stomachs.”
I grabbed Yvi's hand and we marched home to the farmhouse full of food, laughter, and father's handkerchief still rests under my pillow every night.
Fear
Prompt: A time when you felt fear...
Champaign, Illinois, Spring 2002, bitter cold, screaming wind outside, a turgid hothouse of jewel-toned sweaters inside the bar. It's another weekend night, I'm there with my gaggle of fellow grad students getting as fucked up as I possibly can. I'm so lonely, I hate this place. Even though I'm getting paid to work on my PhD, I've never been so unhappy. Everyone has let me know they assume I'm on scholarship for being Native American. This is the Chief Illini school. Most people here are assholes to me.
We've all had enough. I'm dizzy, I need air.
“Guys,” I say, “I'm gonna go wait on the cab outside.”
It's probably 20 below, but I'm on the deserted street sitting on the bench like it's a balmy Fourth of July.
I listen to the wind howl.
A black car pulls up in the alleyway.
I'm so wasted I can hardly remember my name. I love this feeling. I want to forget myself.
Four huge men step of the car. The exhaust pipe steams as the engine still runs.
Where the fuck is our cab anyways, I'm thinking with annoyance.
“Hey sweetie, why don't we go for a ride?”
“What? No. I'm waiting for my cab.”
“All alone, are we?”
“Fuck no. My friends are inside.”
I'm bluffing confidence. My friends are in the martini hothouse, it's loud, they won't come out until I go fetch them. I am alone.
“You should get in the car and party with us.”
“No fucking way.”
They are closing in on me.
I hate the Midwest. It's scarier than I ever felt in East LA, in the barrios of Tucson.
Being a tinge bulimic, I can vomit on command, and I do so. I spew all over them, their expensive shoes in the snow. The contents of a night out steaming like oatmeal on their pant cuffs.
The bastards curse me out, but they leave. I am laughing hysterically.
Now my friends are finally here.
“Where's the cab?” they ask.
Pantoum - Thursday class poetry exercise
Pantoum – poetry exercise
I see traces of you everywhere
the apartment holds artifacts of your daily life
So many years we've now worked opposite ends of the clock
Sometimes you reach for me at night as we both sleep
the apartment has evidence of your activities
your soccer clothes lay upon library books
sometimes we reach for each other while dreaming
I eat dinner alone every night
your dirty clothes stink up the library books
we share a marriage, but not daily life
you eat breakfast alone every morning
our friends are all strangers to each other
we are married, but don't share a daily life
post-it notes and text messages are the glue
our friends are strangers to each other
they say distance makes the heart grow fonder
sticky notes and voice mail are the glue
all these years we've lived in separate hours
distance makes the heart grow exhausted
There are traces and proof of you everywhere
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Horse Accident
Prompt: Guilt
I was the archetypal horse-obsessed girl. I read every horse book in the library, had armies of model horses lined up across the shelves of my bedroom, made bridles from shoestring and jump ropes. When I was 14 my parents finally got me a horse, a tall bay mare we paid $500 for. I was to share the horse with my older sister, but she didn't feel it the way I did and was not a particularly skilled rider, not ever very confident or comfortable. We boarded the horse up the road at a ranch run by a stringy cowboy named Bill. A blind woman named Diane also lived there. My dad had represented her in a lawsuit. She had been kicked in the head by a horse as a child and lost her sight. She was a skilled horsewoman and trainer and rode her tall paint gelding all over the countryside even though she couldn't see a thing. Her relationship with the cowboy who owned the ramshackle place was unclear and seemed sketchy even to my 14 year-old eye. Attached to the decaying red barn was an outdoor riding arena, dusty and bare, baked hard as concrete in the summer heat. One day my sister and I were at the barn and took the horse into the arena to ride. Rather than put on a proper saddle and bridle I made a makeshift hackamore out of rope and climbed on bareback. When it was my sister’s turn I boosted her up. Her uncertainty and lack of confidence was immediately evident to the mare. She bolted away across the hard-packed arena, my sister bouncing unbalanced on her back. As if in slow motion I saw my sister fly off and land on her head on the ground. I ran to her side to find her barely conscious, moaning and rolling slowly in the dirt. She turned her head and there was blood in her ear. I screamed for help and Diane came running blindly across the yard. I told her my sister had fallen. She went directly to the horse to find my inadequate homemade bridle. It was instantly clear it was my fault that we had had no control when our mare bolted. My parents were called. Soon thereafter an ambulance roared down the road, lights flashing and circling in the dust. My grandfather wanted to get a gun and shoot the horse dead on the spot. To this day I feel bad about being more worried about that than about the fate of my sister.
I was the archetypal horse-obsessed girl. I read every horse book in the library, had armies of model horses lined up across the shelves of my bedroom, made bridles from shoestring and jump ropes. When I was 14 my parents finally got me a horse, a tall bay mare we paid $500 for. I was to share the horse with my older sister, but she didn't feel it the way I did and was not a particularly skilled rider, not ever very confident or comfortable. We boarded the horse up the road at a ranch run by a stringy cowboy named Bill. A blind woman named Diane also lived there. My dad had represented her in a lawsuit. She had been kicked in the head by a horse as a child and lost her sight. She was a skilled horsewoman and trainer and rode her tall paint gelding all over the countryside even though she couldn't see a thing. Her relationship with the cowboy who owned the ramshackle place was unclear and seemed sketchy even to my 14 year-old eye. Attached to the decaying red barn was an outdoor riding arena, dusty and bare, baked hard as concrete in the summer heat. One day my sister and I were at the barn and took the horse into the arena to ride. Rather than put on a proper saddle and bridle I made a makeshift hackamore out of rope and climbed on bareback. When it was my sister’s turn I boosted her up. Her uncertainty and lack of confidence was immediately evident to the mare. She bolted away across the hard-packed arena, my sister bouncing unbalanced on her back. As if in slow motion I saw my sister fly off and land on her head on the ground. I ran to her side to find her barely conscious, moaning and rolling slowly in the dirt. She turned her head and there was blood in her ear. I screamed for help and Diane came running blindly across the yard. I told her my sister had fallen. She went directly to the horse to find my inadequate homemade bridle. It was instantly clear it was my fault that we had had no control when our mare bolted. My parents were called. Soon thereafter an ambulance roared down the road, lights flashing and circling in the dust. My grandfather wanted to get a gun and shoot the horse dead on the spot. To this day I feel bad about being more worried about that than about the fate of my sister.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Prompt- Most Scary Experiences
Laurel Canyon. Just the place itself -it's full of history, myth, legends, stories. And right across from the old Houdini mansion, right off Lookout Mountain- was the house. It was owned by an old man-Parker Cole, who let all us Hollywood juvenile delinquents hang out there. We called it Cole's Hole or just Parker's. I'd always wanted to live up there. And now, just a year or two after I would have graduated, we had the opportunity to rent it for like- nothing. It was up a winding, dark path. Not really a street and the path was filled with rocks and stones planted by a mean old woman-the only other person who lived on the path. It wound around 'til there was about a thirty foot drop right onto Laurel Canyon Blvd. No fence, no lights, it was perfect. We moved right in- me, my two best friends and my boyfriend. And found that we had roommates. A young boy named Craig and his boyfriend, a very clean cut ex-marine. Very straight looking, kinda scary.
The house was huge, log cabin style, stone fireplaces-all wood. At least 5 bedrooms. Craig's boyfriend was apparently suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and he had a gun with a bayonet. Craig didn't seem in the least bit fazed......
Friday, October 16, 2009
Herbs and Salt - Adolescence
Sam tugged the edges of her blue, one-piece bathing suit down a little farther to cover her butt cheeks and smoothly rolled over onto her stomach. Her red Coca-cola beach towel was hot and rough against her cheek and through it she could feel the prickle of the grass against her sun-tender skin. It was the height of summer; one of those long, lazy days where there's nowhere to be and it doesn't matter what time it is.
The muggy air seemed to cover her like a blanket, and she felt a little surge of joy at being comfortable outside with naked limbs. The still, summer air was so close to her body temperature that it almost felt like part of her. She flexed her hands and feet for a moment just to feel the distinction between herself and her environment.
A neighbor was running a sprinkler, and the steady chick-chick sound coupled with the heat was making her drowsy. She began to wonder if Marcus would call her tonight and whether they'd have another chance to go to the beach together this summer. She thought for a moment about his lanky brown hair, how the fuzz in the middle of his chest smelled like herbs - clean and spicy, and the salty taste and softness of his lips. Sighing she turned her head, aware that the towel had likely carved a pattern into the side of her face.
The muggy air seemed to cover her like a blanket, and she felt a little surge of joy at being comfortable outside with naked limbs. The still, summer air was so close to her body temperature that it almost felt like part of her. She flexed her hands and feet for a moment just to feel the distinction between herself and her environment.
A neighbor was running a sprinkler, and the steady chick-chick sound coupled with the heat was making her drowsy. She began to wonder if Marcus would call her tonight and whether they'd have another chance to go to the beach together this summer. She thought for a moment about his lanky brown hair, how the fuzz in the middle of his chest smelled like herbs - clean and spicy, and the salty taste and softness of his lips. Sighing she turned her head, aware that the towel had likely carved a pattern into the side of her face.
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