Monday, September 29, 2008

...For The Belief Of Alchemists

The following is a topic addressing "Why I Write". I submitted this, along with five others, for one of my classes. I chose to frame each idea around a story, or stories. This one concerns my 2000 trip to South Africa.

I got off the plane, in the uniform of the Salvation Army and proceed to lie to the alchemists at customs who, either ignorant or full of hope for us, granted us entry. Our lie, or story or narrative was that we were tourists only – dressed in black polyester with white shirts, shoes, back packs and jet lag under our eyes. The Bibles were packed away. The cameras were out. The first story or warning I heard was on the trip to the house we would dine at that night: “Don’t stop if you see anyone on the side of the road, especially when it looks like a dead or wounded person. You’ll be killed if you do.” So much for being able to look at this trip with that sense of ignorant bliss and sheltered existence I had secretly prayed for. My life may be at risk if I do something stupid. I did plenty of stupid things, only one that put my life at risk. We were told never to walk out of the church compound in Charlize Theron’s hometown after dark. We did one night. Myself, a ten-year-old girl and a fellow, black, “tourist” who I had come to know marvelously well over the summer of “touring”. When the militia came crawling out of the abandoned gas station, sawed-off uzi’s at eye level, dressed in black jackets, pants and boots, we simply froze against the wall. It was less a “Halt, who goes there?” and more a “Get the f*** against the wall.” I complied aloud. My accent lowered the guns itself. But only a little. “We were walking the girl home from a church function at the Salvation Army down the street.” “She lives just around the corner.” “I have a copy of my passport on me.” They needed to see it. I did all the talking. They were uniformed and armed, even when the guns lowered. They let us pass. I never once was worried, concerned, nervous or scared. I almost laughed out of sheer paradoxical peace. Like the alchemists at the airport, I knew what was going on, there was no hiding it. The alchemists relinquishes control at some point because the reality is something greater is at work, greater than magic but much like it. Either at airport terminals or at gun point, I share in that belief.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My Little Gremlin

Cries in the night are never welcomed. Especially on the second night. Especially when they are not easily pacified by back rubs, naps in our bed, soothing words. No. Isaac wants to sit in the blackness of the living room, illuminated unnaturally by the LCD lights of the wireless router, the rise and fall white, glowing hum of the iBook charging and the moon, in its tireless shining through the blinds. He wants to remain quiet, possessed by the night, awake and alive in its aura. He never sits on the couch; he does at night. We sat there for awhile last night. He couldn't and wouldn't sleep, neither could I with him awake and alive with unrest and the evening coffee still in my blood and breath. So we sat there on the folds of the couch, quiet, silent, encouraging each other in our nocturnicity.

I blinked first, I had to get him to sleep. I offered him juice to no avail. I changed his diaper to the chagrin and mocking of the darkness. I tired more quickly, I was more languid, I was the one who needed a warm blanket to shield myself from the open window blowing cool air. Isaac stared at the natural and unnatural lights. We looked through the windows on the door, at the A.M. night of our street: the star lights on the fence and in the sky, the trash cans like black monsters coated with the effervescence of the moon, the stillness of it. He was curious, bending his head between the window slats, between the recesses of glass that opened the night to his eyes. He would not go easily into this good night.

Finally I offered him food, unfinished yogurt from breakfast. I would not yield and fill the room with lamplight, the LCD display, blinking, was enough. I returned from the kitchen in the black hallway, hearing a movement, not seeing a thing. I almost ran into him, his stealth and invisibility his greatest strength; he was able to escape. I saw him scatter away, scuttle across the carpet, short and quick, awake and fast in his steps. He ran past the light spilling in from the door, past the pulsating hum of the computer I saw him again, I heard his matching footfalls, bursts of speed falling like rain drops. He cut the light from the router and I saw his full form, scurrying full tilt to the couch and in one step leaping upon it. Like a little Gremlin, hiding in the open, in the shadow of a darkness battling with the light he sat upright quickly.

I carry the rhythm of those footfalls today, those harbingers of insomnia, treading quickly across in the Bible-black night. My little Gremlin, my little creature of the night, illusive, almost illusory save for my unnatural lights. I caught the Gremlin, put him to bed, but I still see him there, scurrying quickly, seeing me before I see him. Alive in the night, eyes open, a creature of the quiet and cool, camping in my lap with blankets and lights and darkness all around us. It was the stillest Isaac has ever been, the most fragile, the most contingent and independent and daring and wondrous he has ever been. The night does not frighten him. The darkness does not frighten him.

My little Gremlin.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Mrs. Byers

Mrs. Byers had a full head of gray hair by the time I enrolled in her third grade class. It was frizzy too – almost transparent near the top it was so thin. She wore big green dresses that flared out and sloshed around wherever she walked. Her glasses were always chained to her neck, and I rarely saw her use them. Only, I think, whenever she checked the Bruins win-loss record on the board. It was in chalk and every day someone had the responsibility of erasing it and writing up the new record. You always knew when someone didn’t change the record because you could hear her moving to the blackboard, glasses jangling around her neck. You could see the new record through her hair, without fail.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

My Cup

Why shouldn’t I love this cup? It’s some 27 ounces deep. That’s a lot of coffee and I like a lot of strong coffee. It’s green and yellow, not my first choice of color, but I can get past that. After all, it’s just a cup. My son, for Father’s Day, led by his mother, went to the ceramic store and put his hand prints and fingerprints all over it. All in a deep green with "I love you" running vertically near the handle. The prints are fading now– they say a kid’s fingerprints fade over time. And I drink a lot of coffee so I have to wash it and I guess that doesn’t help. But I’m not about to stop drinking coffee. Besides, your son giving you a coffee cup with his prints on it is a memory and a love that just gets stronger.

Monday, September 08, 2008

It's My Fault

Last Tuesday morning I awoke with a start, in a panic, stressed out. I got up and walked around the house. I told myself it was all a dream:

Tom Brady was injured. It was either the Super Bowl game against the Giants or the first game of the season against the Giants -- there was some confusion in the dream itself due mainly to the blinding catastrophic nature of the event. It was revealed his left knee and ankle had been severely injured and he would miss the entire season.

I awoke, convinced myself it was only a dream, that it hadn't happend, that all was not lost and all was still right.

Then there is the fact that for the first time ever I fantasy drafted a Patriot; I drafted two: Tom Brady and Maroney. Oh, and my team name is TomBradyManCrush. Well it was, now its TomBradysKneeCrushed; I am a masochist.

Blame it all on me. My actions in the fantasy/dream realm have caused this horrible catastrophe. I gave up watching football and fantasy yesterday as soon as I watched the play. I will now stop dreaming as well. I will look forward to Sundays for Meet The Press and it being the day before the work week starts. All is lost.

The thing of it is: Is this what Magical Realism is? Dark, Black, Bad Magic.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Network: TV

So I was flipping through the channels last night and discovered that 90210 was in the middle of it's first airing. They say time is cyclical; history too. All things eventually repeat themselves. It's is no shock that T.V. repeats itself, we've been aware of this for awhile. But have we really come full circle now? Can we say we're back at the beginning. For my generation that time is now.

Sure, Password, Pyramid, and every other gameshow (except Press Your Luck? Why? Whammy. That's why) have been remade and recycled to the masses in recent years. But that was infant T.V. Starsky and Hutch has become a movie, along with every other mildly successful T.V. show from the 70s. Again, pre-me. Enter 90210. A continuation remake of the hit O.C. of my life. I watched it at times, missed it more often than not. I remember very, very little about it. But it's back on T.V. now.

I have long given up caring about T.V. Ever since reality T.V. made inroads into the culture. I still do not care. I do not watch dramas; I prefer comedies. My shows are: 30 Rock, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Pushing Daises. And Scrubs -- whatever channel that's on (DVR!).

I express this in the interest of full disclosure. I'm not on the outside looking in. I'm also aware of the large plank in my own eye. Recently I watched Definitely, Maybe. Somewhere I'm sure it was billed as a Romantic Comedy. How romantic comedies have changed. How they less and less represent the ideals of love and more and more represent the accepted reality that love is malleable. I'd say it's sad because it is.

As for television and movies then I am fascinated by the prescient and absolutely brilliant Network, a mid-70s Oscar winner:

Max Schumacher: It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love.

Now, with the recycled 90210 television has touched my time and is well on it's way to destroying that. Unless, of course, they bring back MacGyver. That would be awesome.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Sad Brave Eyes

Recently we've had to move Isaac to a new daycare/school (his sitter had a baby recently and is unable to watch him). It's more like a school than it is a daycare: Rules, curriculum, field trips. It's the end of whimsy, regardless of what it's called.

Anyway, dropping him off in the morning has become difficult. Not only for him, but for us as well. It's not the same. It lacks the emotional welcome we were used to -- he was used to. There are kids moving about, dragging bean bags, crying, eating snacks, parents moving in and out and teachers miraculously happy. Each day I drop him off I feel like this as he begins to cry the moment we enter the building. And the moment he sees me at the end of the day, it's more tears and not relieved, happy tears either.

Today, perhaps the saddest of all the days. He stopped crying as the teacher picked him up while I set out his essentials for the day. They looked out the window together near the door. As I left I turned to look at him. No crying, just quiet tears streaming down his cheeks and eyes that looked brave and sad.

I know it will take time to adjust, for all of us.

I don't know what that means.