On catharsis.

And, once again, it felt like everything was falling apart. Like this, really. And, then, it didn't. Or, rather, it seemed like there was a possibility that it might not much longer.

The phone call came. And, I'm still reeling, but with hope. And, overcome with the amount of goodness around me. I'm adjusting and trying to simply learn to breathe again.

I cry a lot these days. I'm told this is healthy.

Motherly advice

On the phone with my mother today: "Normal is a vacuum that just gets filled with more and more shit."

I'm paraphrasing, of course.

The more things change...

The more they stay the same.

Yes, It's a trite expresson. And, yet, I'm finding it to be true all the same.

To wit: I keep telling myself that I'll write more when I have something to say. The truth is that I have plenty to say, but it's just more of the same. Patterns repeating and all the rest of it.

So, what's on my mind these days? Something similar to this essay, which I wrote about six year ago.

I'm nothing if not consistent.

So there's that.

Going Home Again

For the past few weeks, I've been thinking about a quote from Giovanni's Room. Paraphrased here: perhaps home isn't a place, but an irrevocable condition.

Fine.

The problem is, this seems to be the only thing about the book that I remember. This is particularly frustrating for me as I generally pride myself on my recall of literature.

Out of context, it's just, well, out of context. A reread is clearly in order.

At any rate, I think that it's safe to say that these words have been on my mind simply because of my recent trip back home.

Home.

What does that even mean? To be back in a place that's at once as familiar as it is foreign.

A few years ago, my parents were getting frustrated with the house and its cluttered rooms, and I suggested they move. Now, as I pad through the halls, I'm glad they decided against it. Each time I'm back, I remember something different—perhaps I'm getting sentimental as I age. This time, cleaning out the smaller closet in my childhood bedroom, with its raised floor and sloping walls, I'm suddenly transported to the age of 7, hiding in there with a flashlight and a Roald Dahl book, quietly reading, savoring the fact that I had my own private place. I was just that kind of kid, I guess.

I still love the idea of those private spaces. But, I also love having those spaces where you're known. This occurs to me as we're out to dinner for my father's birthday. We're at a place that we've gone for years, where R., the owner knows my family quite well, even gave my sister a job at once point. Nothing's fancy, just perfectly familiar. We'll order the same things, R. will come over, say hello and make a fuss over my parents.

And, he does. It's good for them—it's been awhile since they've been here. Anywhere, for that matter, as they were trying to process the current state of things.

Right. The current state of things. Soon enough the conversation turns in that direction. They're a well-oiled machine. Clearly, they've done this before.

I watch intently, as she looks on, lets him spin his tale. How he thrives in some ways on the telling. How the telling helps him make sense of it all.

After R. leaves, there's a silence, we're all deep in our own thoughts—it's natural, I suppose—there's also a lot of the meal left to get through. So, I do what I always do. Namely, attempt to use self-deprecation as a way to get the conversation going.

The discussion before turned to their friends' children. One's getting married; one's trying to buy a house; another, still finding himself. I ask them now what they say about me when these conversations happen with their friends. There's the start of a laugh in the back of my throat, forced, but then again I'm trying to bring back a sense of levity. This is a birthday dinner, after all.

My father laughs a little, jokes. Exactly the response for which I had hoped. Then, the conversation turns serious. You're the success story. The fiercely independent one. I find myself wishing that we were back to joking about how I was going to go through the hassle of getting a hotel room for a friend's wedding just so that I could have some drinks. Anything but this.

Partially, I think, it's because I see myself as anything but a success; I'm scared most of the time—that my stubborness has prevented me from doing things that I could've loved, that the choices I've made have all been wrong, you name it. I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. I'm also sure that I could write volumes on it, if I was willing to delve deeper into this particular neurosis of mine.

There's also this: I think we see ourselves reflected in others. He tells me I'm a success because if that's the case, I'll be okay, no matter what and, by extension, he will. That if the worst happens, I'm a capable woman, able to take care of myself. Able to manage because of what he's taught me.

Mostly, I think, that I believe him.

Mostly.

From the vault

I'm hoping to get inspired to really, really start writing again.

In the mean, here is one more recent discovery:


Summer of Sam

It's an old photo, the beginnings of their
collective history.

Can you tell what I'm holding, he asks.
I think a law book, think this is when he passed the Bar,
think it's the Summer of Sam
when he would ask her to pick him up— Main Street, Flushing—
despite her long brown hair and mounting fears.
So does she.

Of course, I remember it wrong, having
never been there. Having not even been a thought
to them.

It is my fault—their child—for refreshing her incorrect memory.

I see that now;
See how I've stepped in, disrputing the chronology.

It's a checkbook, he says. I was buying
your mother her engagement ring.

He cracks a joke
about his generosity. And,
he is generous.

I am not, with my false memories
of events I
have not witnessed.

They are so young, and
they are smiling
so broadly.

He, with his checkbook,
his first major purchase.
Later, more will follow:
mortgages, children, college educations;
the buying of a life.

And, she, gazing forward
with eyes burning, fierce. As dark
as her long chestnut hair.

Later, she will cut it, shorter
and shorter,
dying it, lighter
and lighter. Trading
cosmetics for youth. Seeking
the protection she lacked
so many years prior.

Diminishing Returns

My sister and I, when we talk, talk in the language of loss, of things that haven't happened, choices that should have been made.

We don't mean to, really. It just kind of happens.

I suppose it's who we are.

Admittedly, we were raised better than this. Raised to know our intrinsic worth. Somehow that's fallen by the wayside these days. Then again, these days have been tough to say the least.

Tonight, she's talking careers. The gist is this: there was a contract, not signed for good reasons. Or, at least for good reasons when it was in the offing. You work with all of the information that you have at the time. What else can you do?

A year or so later, she's second guessing herself: What has she lost in the meantime? Was it worth it? Is it better to do without? To hope for the ideal situation, the one that may never come? Or, when it does, turn out to be a disappointment like all the rest?

Maybe the best thing is to take what you can get and work within those parameters. To compromise.

I see myself doing that very thing.

I'm making minor adjustments, but they still add up.

Perhaps it's an issue of too much change all at once. For now, I'm content to see how it all plays out.

Passive, yes. But, an option all the same.

words, words, words

Here's how it works:

You add up the words, string together some phrases. All in an attempt to create some coherence, a form of narrative, a why this has happened. The beginning and ending are firmly in place. But, it's the getting from one point to another that matters. We exist in our stories.

After particularly harrowing experiences, my mother used to tell me, "but, think of how you'll tell it."

Good advice, indeed.

I spoke to an editor with whom I work yesterday. She's editing a project that started out online but is now becoming a printed book. Apparently, one of the people featured within its pages decided to opt out of the latter version. The idea of appearing in print was too frightening for him, felt too permanent.

It was refreshing to realize that these things do matter, that there is still some power in the written word.

I say I do it for myself, but, really, this is why I write.

When I do so, that is.

I'm still working on the writing itself. It's something that comes with time and practice. A little like learning to drive, I suppose.

And, I remember those days all too well, perhaps because they went on far longer than was necessary (or not nearly long enough, depending on who you ask). Just me and my father in the empty parking lots of Long Island, all of them covered with a thin dust of snow. His mounting frustration as I drove through the spots, taking short cuts. The constant refrain being, "do you know how many parked cars you would've just hit?"

Yes, but there were none there.

It's hard to argue against emptiness.

So, I'd wait, still in the driver's seat, staring into the warning on the side view mirror —objects are closer than they appear —until he told me to switch seats so that he could drive back home, the car's tires making strange patterns in the powder, tracing our path back.

Like a severed head that finishes a sentence

It's no secret that I'm not doing well these days.

It's been two weeks since I've known, one since I've been back here.

And, it's hard being here. But, really, it's hard being anywhere these days.

At this point, the only thing that I know is that I have no idea what I need. Or, to put it a clearer way: I'm a black hole of need, and I'm worried that I'm going to suck everyone around me dry. I'm afraid that I'm already doing it. Intellectually, I know that I need support and to be around other people. But, the reality is that I don't know how to even begin asking.

I want to tell my friends that I understand, I wouldn't want to be on the other end of the phone with me, either. I wouldn't know what to say. And, those that do, well, they've come by that knowledge in a way that I hope not to in a long while.

I'm learning, though. Or, trying. Whatever that means.

I'm being cryptic, yes. Mostly because it's just too hard to talk about and because, well, I really just don't know which end is up.

I'll be more coherent and articulate soon. Promise.

In the meantime, happy 2009.

May it be healthy.

So, this is Christmas

Spent part of yesterday with JB, helping him and his brother try to clean out the house they grew up in. It's a daunting task, to be sure, and after a few hours, they felt like they hadn't made a dent at all.

It stands to reason. Years and years can't easily be dismantled in a few hours time. With the discovery of each object or old photograph, there's another story to be told, another chance to bear witness. And, isn't that all we have, really?

Maybe that's why I'm writing. Not to make sense of everything, which seems more and more of an impossibility with the passing of each day.

No, it's not that.

It's simply for the record.

Sunday Morning

Spoke to my father this morning; he's still sick, and there are still no answers, although plenty more tests to come, it seems. He sounds marginally better, and says he's improving, but I worry that he's not letting on how bad it may be, as he did six years ago when the first round of serious health scares came.

It was only when it was all over--and his prognosis so much better than we had all initially feared--that I truly realized the severity of it all. Perhaps I just wasn't capable of processing it before then. After all, I was barely capable of talking about it. Just saying the words was too difficult, made it too real. I don't know that it ever really gets any easier.

There we were, many months later, driving back from my college graduation to pack up my house, and he started to tear up because, for a time, it didn't seem like he would be alive to see any of that day. The light was red, and we both trained our eyes on the street ahead, afraid to break our gazes, afraid to say more. It was a hard moment, but one I'm glad we had.

A few years ago, I told a friend of mine, a doctor, about my father's diagnosis from six years prior. He breathed in slightly, looked down at his feet, and said, that's not good.

Yes, but it could be so much worse.

And so, the altering of expectations continues. The trying to make sense of it all.

I wanted something different, but this is what I got.

You'll have to forgive me. This time of year always makes me far too reflexive for my own good.