Penguin refrigerator, frog stove.
Fisher Price merry go round
With cranky plastic carnie–
How they afforded it
All cash then.
No plastic.

Day 2, July, A River of Stones.

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Grateful this morning, at 4:30 a.m., for Colin’s choice of 52″ inch HD.

Eschewing Jon Stewart’s cynicism, for blogs on exotic millinery.
Sharing the Royal Love feels sweet, pure; held whole
A soft, cold, unpeeled orange.

I am a Londoner again, today, splayed spread eagle
In St. James Park at noontime–
Between meetings–
Hogging first slices of sunshine
After a long winter’s damp.

I’ll go back to work.
I’ll go back to arms’ lengths and
Cigarette laced multi-pint dinners and
Hiding myself inside the Metro
Inside the Circle Line.

But today I am
Lying still, veins hot,
American-open and streaming the beat
Of squawking tourists,
Greedy pelican, and diesel revvings.

Beyond the ice cream cart queue
Where I’m knocked flat by pageant and love
Buckingham winks and waves.

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The #reverb10 final prompt from Molly O’Neill asked “What is your core story?”

Being a huge fan of The Moth, and Eddie Izzard, and loving to hear people rattle off stories about their hilarious trip here and there —  and being a writer naturally — I am perplexed and in awe of storytellers.

I can WRITE something. I can BLAH BLAH BLAH about whatever and it usually ends with me saying “So then it was so funny because I saw the cow and it ATE the shoe but it wasn’t mine but I guess you had to be there…hehheh”

But I am not sure I would yet call myself a Storyteller.

So this prompt, when it hit my inbox, stopped me in my tracks. First yah gotta KNOW the story, then ya gotta TELL the story. And I am wondering which part of that I fear so much that I am dancing around it right now.

Well, we’ll see. I am just going to try it out and see what come out. I have NO IDEA where this is going to go.

Here goes.

Enough is Enough

by me.

Once Upon a Time…

…lived a young girl named Elizabeth who came from a big loud fun family. All Elizabeth ever wanted was to be NOTICED.

When she was little, Elizabeth acted out dramas at the dinner table over the prospect of eating a piece of lettuce. The drama always ended with a loud bedroom door bang! The family LAUGHED at her, but she couldn’t hear it over her mournful wails.

When she was older, realizing that nothing she did at home would get her what she desired, she put on her best “DRAMA QUEEN!” sash — awarded to her by her mother — and went to the local Junior Theatre productions in search of what she needed.

Like most girls, Elizabeth wanted to be the star, the PRINCESS in the dramas, but she never got those parts. She always ended up playing the scullery maid, the one-liner queen, the silly eagle, the dancing donkey. Oh my! How would she EVER get noticed dressed as Sam the Eagle under this enormous beak?

In high school, Elizabeth sang in the choir (MEZZO-soprano). She got a part in “Annie” (as a homeless Hooverville-ite) and was made CO-editor of the school newspaper. It was the same song and dance. With everything Elizabeth did, she felt proud at first, but when she looked around, no one seemed to notice. No one cared. She would never be the best.

Years passed and the girl grew up and went out in the world. She still wanted people to notice her. So after college, she took a job she didn’t really like at ALL. But EVERYONE thought the job was very important. Even her brother LOVED to tell his friends that his little sister was a “TELEVISION DIRECTOR!!” She worked the late hours gracelessly, shouting at her colleagues in her in misery. Exhausted, she realized that STILL no one was paying any attention. No matter how loud she got.

So the girl drove around in her car and cried and cried. And after looking back at all her desires and her so-called failures, she decided:

Enough is enough.

And she told the moon-faced Chinese executive producer that she quit.

He hardly noticed when she left.

Then girl wanted to write, so she took up freelance work.

The girl preferred to be of service, so she started waiting tables.

The girl liked school, so she studied and completed a Master’s.

The girl wanted her own space, so she bought her own house.

Her life wasn’t perfect and she was still unhappy sometimes and wanted people to notice her. But instead of looking out, she started to look in. The girl used writing like a mirror and it helped. SHE noticed, after all.

She started to slow down sometimes. To sit and do yoga. She started to listen to friends who cared about her and believe them when they said: “you are fine the way you are.” She also started to listen to herself.

The girl was done playing the field, but was lonely. So she went out looking and brought home the perfect husband.

And one day, she and the husband decided they’d grown tired of their workaday life. They put everything on the lawn and sold it. And moved with nothing but a couple chairs and their favorite pants to London.

The girl and her husband were sad they couldn’t make their own family, so one day they said: “Let’s make a family anyway.” And they found a way to bring that family home.

The girl still wishes people would notice her now and then. Now and then she still tunes her singing voice and busks for a compliment when she feels the need.

But more often now she is pretty sure that enough is enough.

*****

This post is one of my favorites ever and is part of my “For Writers, By Writers” series.

What do you think? Who or what would you like to hear from? Let me know!

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1. No One is Looking: On Letting Go
2. #reverb10, Day 29: Tearing Down Walls
3. Lullaby for a Head Injury

I’m on the train on the way to meet two old friends in New York. A part of me is terrified to put my foot on the platform at Grand Central.

I am a traveller. I don’t stay put. I go places.

Yet in the last 8 years I’ve mostly been with my travel companion, who has excellent sense of direction. He never once panics when he pops up out of the Tube in London, wondering which way to turn my face.

So I know I am not afraid of the city or getting lost.

I am suddenly aware that I love my husband a whole lot and depend on him. Even if I know I can get by for a day without him.

It’s a beautiful sunny day for meeting friends in the city…

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Walking is joy. I love walking like I love Ira Glass and peanut butter cups.

I am surprised that since I moved back to America from London, that I have given it up.

Just basically decided that even though it is one of my favorite things to do in the world, I am not even going to bother to try.

Except for now walking the kids to school, I don’t walk anywhere anymore. (Because between the house and the car does not count).

I hate that.

Day 12, #Reverb10

Prompt: Body integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Thanks Patrick Reynolds!)

I do yoga, which I “count” as exercise. But the problem with “life” is that somehow me must “add” exercise into the lives we are currently living. Unlike the life I lived in London, where walking was the only viable means to transport oneself.

Which leads me to the answer of Patrick’s question. which is simple: my body sighs and disappears into the surf of ecstasy with its mind lover whenever I am OUTSIDE. Not flipping the pages of my iPhone. Not Tweeting. Not writing. Not thinking at all. My mind takes the wagon ride, laying back and watching the birds fly and the leaves shudders. Deciding nothing more than whether the sky is cerulean or cornflower.

One summer morning, I was procrastinating some work, so I decided to wander out to the backyard and have a look at how things were growing in the garden. I knew there’d be weeds, so I brought the bucket and my weed tool.

I started with the lettuces. The morning was cool, but the sun beats down ceaselessly in this veggie patch. By the time I made it to the shadier row of the tomatoes, I climbed under their arms and kept going. They hid me and cooled me.

Two hours disappeared this way. I forgot to remember to check the time or to even care to. My fingers were coated with dirt and my tongue reminded me I’d gotten thirsty a while ago. But the rhythm of the work was perfect. I moved until the momentum of my body slowed naturally.

I love to walk… but I don’t. I miss the grey and brown and brick and stone London streets, where I could be alone singing in my thoughts. But I am not doing THAT right now.

So other things are blooming. Now little children ask me if they can ride on my back. And half hours are lost being horsey and tumbling and tickling and rolling around. Mindessly and delightfully.

There’s the “monster” game too… which has no rules other than to chase and catch, and to run and to laugh. And to lose time again, to delight.

I do miss my feet– but I do skip and gallop more these days.

THE CHILD MEDITATES

The oak-tree in front of my house
Smells different every morning.
Sometimes it smells fresh and wise
Like my mother’s hair.
Sometimes it stands ashamed
Because it doesn’t own the smell
It borrowed from our flower-garden.
Sometimes it has a windy smell,
As though it had come back from a long walk.
The oak-tree in front of my house
Has different smells, like grown up people.

My doll hides behind her pink cheeks,
So that you can’t see when she moves,
But it doesn’t matter because
She always moves when no one is looking,
And that is why people think she is still.
People laugh when I say that my doll is alive,
But if she were dead, my fingers
Wouldn’t know that they were touching her.
She lives inside a little house.
And laughs because I cannot find the door.

The colours in my room
Meet each other and hesitate.
Is that what people call shape?
Nobody seems to think so,
But I believe that lines are dead shapes
Unless they fall against each other
And look surprised, like the colours in my room.

– Maxwell Bodenheim

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Moral: Don’t Write Drunk.

Day 8, #reverb 10: The Beauty of Different (Thanks, Karen Walrond.)

I live on the East Coast, in the glowing gutters of the GOLD COAST.

I am not from here, however, and that makes me “different.”

That’s right. I’m not from these parts.

I’ve traveled and lived all over, but moving to “The Small State” was my biggest culture shock.

I came back to America after having lived in London for three years. DYING for a decent pizza and, finally, some warm-heartedness. Well, the pizza here just plain disappointed (no, I WON’T drive two hours just to eat) and the people, in general, were cold, cold, cold.

After all… I am from the Midwest. More specifically, from Iowa. This is home to the “State Fair” and Cloris Leachman: What could be more wholesome and sweet?

(I’ll pause here to let you Etch-a-Sketch me and Cloris  in your mind, wearing overalls, chomping hayseed, milking the butter cow.)

Iowa: You Make Me Smile (with Wonder).

Iowa is fly-over country and I like that. I can tell you, because I’m surrounded by old friends who are amazingly talented Iowans, like her and her and him, they aren’t a bunch of hayseeds and ignoramuses. The perception of the Midwest by East Coast is perfected into a hardened candy of despicable disdain: a combination of political angst and pure assumption. But it is wrong. Oh well.

So people evade the obvious and just ask about my years in London. No one ever asks what Iowa is like.

(Caveat: When I started hanging out in the Slow Food movement, I got a cache with the Iowa thing. When it comes to heritage pork, it’s hip to be corn fed. Ironically.)

I’ve been pretty defensive about it, all along. I am proud to be an Iowan (and a CYCLONE!… no stinking Hawkeyes!). But that is difficult to explain to the set of people who are busy training for the regatta and arguing over which Ivy covered institution should receive its half a million dollars and generally uninteresting 18-year-old. (Yes, I too have an Etch-a-Sketch!)

I don’t turn my nose down at this life and the people on the East Coast. It’s got its joys, especially the established towns and the history. Also, I’ve learned in living all over — from Long Island to London to Kissimmee to Waterloo: every place has its idiots and its beauty.

So yeah, I miss the simple joy of lounging in the garage with my brother-in-law, drinking beers while the kids ride their bikes, well, wherever.

But I wouldn’t trade all the things I have learned and earned along our journey.

(Here’s Where It Gets Random)

Like, did you know, for reals, you should not tip in British pub?

And that “all y’all” is plural for “ya’ll”?

And that a “patch” is a completely different drink request from  ”fresh ice?”

Because I am feeling generous, I’ll share with you a recipe for a popular drink drunk of the underaged, in England.

Snakebite

- Take one Imperial Pint Glass, mostly clean.

- Pour in 1-2 Tbs. of Black Currant syrup.

- Fill the glass to half with fermented Irish cider, such as Magners

- Top the pint with some kind of lager. Carling is fine, or Kroeneberg if you are feeling fancy.

- Serve by shoving across the table/bar and spilling/sloshing liberally. No bev nap should garnish (too de classe) .

– Slam entire pint immediately and leave without paying.

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This story starts with yoga, but it is really about being gone.

Because, let’s face it, we all have the desire to be gone now and then. Sometimes more than we want to be here.

Here’s the story: So I go to yoga and I am in some inversion: sun salutation, moving through upward dog and back down, when my mind jerks me away.

And this is the place (pictured) is where I end up.

This Holborn Tube Station in London. The escalators, which are VERY LOONG. My mind and I are riding them up,  up, up.

My yoga brain does this often. I am not sure why. It jerks me around. Sometimes I arrive in the pool at the Dominican Republic. But lately, I’ve been ending up often in London.

I’m always alone. I am someplace familiar. Walking down Delaware Road. At the soup kitchen. Swaying on the Bakerloo Line In the case of the Holborn escalator, I went there whenever I went to my writing workshop. I’d take the Central Line home after having beers at the Shakespeare’s Head with my fellow writers.

We didn’t want to stay in London. It wasn’t right to be there for us at that time. I suppose some would say that was because our family was over here, waiting for us.

I don’t know that I believe in determinism. But I do know my mind has been taking me away often. To faraway places. To London, to Iowa, to the Athabasca Glacier. To places where responsibilities were much lower and life belonged to just me.

I suppose yoga (in this case) is like a safety valve. The mind splits and lets go of expectations. I can return for a moment to that one place where I have nothing to do but breathe, stand still, and maybe just people watch.

Beyond yoga, I grab for moments to do this in my life now. I knit to breathe. I sing to breathe. I bake to breathe. All of it takes me up, allows me to be gone, if even for a couple minutes.

We all need that.

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… And Processed Cheese

I have this group of women friends that I, well, sort of worship. I knew them from college. We all worked together on the daily newspaper.

It only recently occured to me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t actually friends with them.

Maybe it was that friend-ish-ness, where you later see yourself in a photo with them and realize: Weird, I am standing next to them, but not with them.

(Of course, we’ve all re-connected on Facebook and I am reliving that feeling again.)

This is true insecurity. That sudden feeling that one might not be what one believed all along.

When I was in London, working at the Warrington, I had a case of lucky ignorance. I had no idea that I was foisting myself upon a pack of wonderful and unsuspecting people that I now call friends. I was so sure that anyone would want to be friends with me that it didn’t occur to me for a minute that they wouldn’t. Or that the social norms of British tradition had been well trampled upon in my quest to join their table. Even in my awful yellow shirt.

The outcome, however, was wonderful. My British (some French, some South African, some Australian, but all Londoners) friends took me for who I was, because I was guileless. Ignorant is the other word for that, you know.

But when I feel AWARE, that’s when I suddenly find myself stumbling… and overthinking everything.

Like with this wonderful posse of writer-friends from my past who have reconvened. I am anxious to make someone happy to see me, yet, I keep missing the bus altogether.

Which is to Say…

Life is awkward and messy. Especially when overly processed.

Cheese is the same way.

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The fog and the mugginess this morning reminds me of London.
Previously posted on Jan 16, 2006


Everybody’s got a darkness
They’re not going to show it to you.

It’s Monday and grey again in London.

I dreamed of you last night. I sat in a cafe over cappuccinos with some friend. He told me the flat I used to live in on Randolph Avenue was going to occupied again soon. By you.

Everybody’s got a shadow
Following them around
Clinging, clinging to their footsteps
Dragging them to the ground.*

In the dream, I felt you coming here like a rocket shooting to the moon. I thought, in the dream, that suddenly you realized you could not be away from me anymore.

Darkness…
Shadow…
Secret…
Hear them rattlin’ bones

My friend, well, he didn’t know I knew you. He said your name like he was reading it off a marquee. I listened, then I blurted it out. Who you were to me.

Darkness…
Shadow…
Secret…
Hear them rattlin’ bones

There was silence over the wobbly wooden table, as we stared down into the dregs of our foam. It was strange to him — as it is to everyone — the thought that you were mine once. He stumbled a laugh, one that I mimicked. We changed the subject. But I wanted to leap up and run to 115 Randolph Avenue and sit on the step, petting Missy the cat, and wait for you to arrive.

Everybody’s got a little secret
Something they never gonna tell
Gonna take it right down to their grave
Up to heaven or maybe to …well,

I tried to go back to sleep after that dream. It was 2:53 a.m. I flipped on the blue pinlight of my booklight and tried not to wake Colin. He rolled over and reached for me but did not wake. I read for a while, then got up, and laid on the couch. There was a rumble, deep inside of me, pulling down, down.

I watched BBC. In the middle of the night, they rebroadcast shows with a sign language interpreter in the corner. I watched the face and the hands and didn’t listen. I watched until 4:15. Then I went back and read some more.

I finally slept, maybe around 5:15 or so.

There is a skeleton in your closet
Do you hear, do you hear it rattlin’ bones?
I think you better look the thing in the eye.
It’s never gonna leave you alone.

This morning, I walked from our flat on Delaware toward the shops at Maida Vale. I carried my laptop on my back, heavy and full of stories I am having trouble telling. A thin, dark man walked toward me. His coat was too big for him, his eyes looming large behind his glasses. The weight hanging from my heart swung and loomed, pulled down again. I walked by 115 Randolph Avenue under lead skies.

I wondered what that man, walking by me just then, carried inside him, the color of his darkness. “Tell me your secret,” I whispered to myself, a dirty proposition. I wondered what he dreamed last night.

Darkness…
Shadow…
Secret…
Hear them rattlin’ bones.

*Lyrics from “Darkness” by Kelley Hunt

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A Guest Post by Contributor Lisa Hill, American expatriate living in Switzerland.

I walk through the room, topless, anticipating… He waits for me there, ready.

I climb onto the table and my doctor begins the examination.

Nudity. Nakedness. Not always the seductive, titillating state we Americans have infused it with.

Sometimes, it’s just being without clothes.

I have experienced this new clarity since moving to Switzerland and visiting the doctor here.

Pieces of Me

Back  home a doctor never sees the whole body of a patient. They sneak glimpses through peeled-back paper or under cottony gowns. One breast, one arm, a portion of rib revealed then covered again as if the light would somehow damage it. We are parts, not a whole. And those parts must not be associated with a body, with a person, lest we are overcome with….what? Lust? Embarrassment? Desire? Shame?

The first time the nurse here asked me to remove all clothing above my waist and the doctor would be in to see me, I peered around, searching for the johnny. The paper top. A robe. I inquired as to their whereabouts and was told to just undress. The doctor would be right in.

So I did with the dawning realization of something cloistered in my mind. Something I’ve always known but hadn’t stopped to consider. The doctor is a doctor. He needs to see these parts to examine and diagnose. There is no need for “Hide and Seek” in these circumstances. How had it become thus in the U.S.?

“Here is what I’ve come to see you about. Please. Look.”

Naked Practicalities

I also consider the huge savings in laundry and disposable gowns that this attitude affords. Lower cost of health care through nudity!

And I have become comfortable, to some extent, with the nakedness. At the beach on the lake, women will frequently doff their tops and stretch out in the sun. In public. With people around. And no one seems to be overwhelmed by this act. I haven’t seen anyone staring, or acting untoward.

The woman is topless because she is not wearing a top. And the world spins on.

I don’t speak for all American women or their attitudes. I know only my own impressions and motivations. For me, the narrow context in which we see the nude body back home has colored what is “appropriate” and what is “beautiful.” What is beautiful is the perfect. The perky. The American super-sized portion.

The Swiss woman doesn’t seem to be bound by the same indoctrination. The bodies lazing in the sun are perfect in their comfort, but not in the narrow view of beauty to which we are somehow held accountable. My imperfect self would be unremarkable among the other bare breasted bodies on the beach.

Not that I have overcome my ingrained modest tendencies. I endure strap lines in my tan not because my nakedness is significant to others, but because my naked body is still private territory (and somehow unworthy of display) in my American subconsciousness. Unless I have a doctor’s appointment.

Then, I walk through the room…

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