Day 5 - Quote

Day 5 - your favorite quote

Being
Is Dying
By Loving

-author unknown (at least to me)

I came across this my freshman year in an impossibly difficult seminar on the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poets. JFC it sounded so cool in the course catalog, but I can't think of a class that made me feel more like a fish out of water. In fact, I just shuddered when I saw some of the writer's names in the wiki post. Scars, dudes. Scars. I left the class every single day thinking to myself "what the fuck am I doing here?" meaning the school in general. It was a dive face first into pretension - one I wasn't ready for. It is only now that I understand that every single other person in that class was talking as much shit as I was. That is a wonderful revelation, an ah ha! moment that I think only comes with age.

But back to the quote. The one cool thing about the class was that it gave us a reason to request access to the cool library on campus, the one where you had to wear gloves to touch shit, the one that was rumoured to house a book bound in human flesh!!! And pretty much the only place in North America I am guessing found a reason to hang on to the zines and self-published works of these "poets."

So there I am, locked in the reading room trying to find something ANYTHING accessible in the stack of stuff that prided itself on being inaccessible to mere mortals like me. And I came across this quote. And it hit my young impressionable mind like a brick. A ha. Now there's something. I can't even tell you I understood what it meant. It just....spoke to me.

And still does.

A 30 Days Cheat Sheet - UPDATED

Here's a quick-and-clean list of all the ladies in my Reader who are baring bits and pieces of themselves in the next 30 days or so. Did I miss you? Please tell me!

The Road Less Traveled - I blame (love) loribeth for planting the seed.
Still Life with Circles - altered the idea slightly to fit the lens through which I see most of the world

Some faves: (I almost said "old faves" but I didn't want you to get mad at me)
Between the Snow and the Huge Roses
Epic Fail
Glutton Button

And some blogs and ladies I look forward to getting to know this month:
Angel Baby Alexandra
Butterflies for Alexandra
Chaos Multiplied
Fly Away Home
Lazy Seamstress
Love love
My Insides, Out
Naptime Confessional
Only a Whisper
Raindrops
The Nature of Balloons
The Radar of Chance
Valentina in the Sky

Day 4 - Book(s)

Day 4 - your favorite book. has it changed since your loss?

Hard to say, since my book consumption post loss is pretty sporadic.

(Ok, ok, my book consumption before loss was pretty sporadic too.)

That's something and English and American Lit major and former English teacher probably should not admit.

But here's how I justify it - I spend all day every day ingesting enormous amounts of information and attempting to break it down into comprehensible forms. I read a LOT, just not the subject matter of my choice.

So when I get home, my eyes go straight to Lucky, "the magazine about shopping" (TM), or ReadyMADE, Bust, or the New Yorker (which kinda counts, no?) or any of the many, many mags we get along with our charitable donations to birds and nature and parks an'nat. but mostly Lucky. I want shiny pictures and stickers I can use to tag pages and things I can rip out and stick in an ideas book I have yet to put together. You get the picture.

But once upon a time, particularly those times living in countries where books in English were precious and a library card to the American or British Library in town was worth its weight in gold, I devoured books. Books I still love, still think about, books I am hesitant to read again because reading them the first time was such an emotional investment. Hesitant to read them again because I don't want my feelings about them to change.

And now, as I sit and type with this short stack next to me, I realize that most of them deal with loss, particularly, finding one's identity after loss and reshaping your life and your definition of love around this space that someone once filled. That's an insight I am fairly certain I didn't have the first time around.

So, without further ado, here are the books that almost always in my head:

The Bone People by Keri Hulme. I love this book so much I forced it upon one of my accelerated International Baccalaureate English classes in Poland, who dug it too, by the way.

Another Country by James Baldwin. This book is gorgeous. Read it.

Mating: A Novel by Norman Rush. This book is still a tease-point for M. since I had to renew it 3 times from the British Library, reached my maximum allowance, then had to ask M to check it out for me on his card. Its not that difficult a read, I was simply savoring it. What struck me the most about this book was how Rush so convincingly captured the voice of a young American female expat brazenly trying to define herself while assimilating (but not) into the foreign culture around her. My description isn't even coming close to explaining my full immersion into this novel.

The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker. I'm not saying that I liked this book. But it is one that I can't, to this day, get out of my head. It made me contemplate vegetarianism, question my thoughts on marriage and love and simply challenged me on a number of levels. This one I might just need to pick up again for a re-read, simply to see if it is a groundbreaking as I once thought it was.

And lastly, the granddaddy of all novels Infinite Jest by the late David Foster Wallace. I think the selection of this book pretty much solidifies the fact that being Gen X is my master status, the way I define myself above all other identifiers. I was crushed and angry when I heard of Foster Wallace's suicide. What did you do, man? Don't know you were writing for us?

This book is dense and some may say pretentious. I say genius. Some dismiss it as being too sarcastic, too insincere. I say it is so sincere it hurts. M read this first and then handed it off to me after saying he was "never going to read another book" because this one was the best he had ever read (he lied). This book was the prime suspect of the "infamous laughing incident** that took place when we still lived with M's parents. This book is the source of phrases and turns of words I have built into my daily existence (do I confess I sometimes refer to some of the more hardcore advocates in my field as "wheelchair assassins"?) This book is a bear to read without multiple bookmarks and heavy as shit but I don't know what my bookshelf would be without it.

**The infamous laughing incident took place sometime after midnight on a weekday at M's parents' house. I was reading a section of the book which had me choking down my laughter. My snorts woke M up who started to reread the section over my shoulder. Snorts turned into howls turned into M's mom furiously banging on the wall telling us the SHUT THE F UP. And yes, she did drop the F bomb. Which shocked us into even more uncontrollable laughter. The following morning, M found a copy of a decree from some country that I forget prohibiting a number of actions that could be performed in public. M whited out words a la mad lib style and turned it into the "NO LAUGHING DECREE" and hung it on the fridge. It was there for months.

Day 3 - TV

Day 3 - a television program that helped you either get through hard times or that moves you.

One summer when I was a camp counselor at the Best. Camp. Ever, my recently divorced co-counselor dropped this knowledge onto my young heart and brain:

"Don't ever, EVER think you can change a man, m. What you see is what you get. It's just like buying a pair of pants on sale with the intention of taking them to the tailor later to make them fit. It never happens. Off the rack, m! That's my motto! Off the rack!"

And we laughed and laughed until we realized we were missing campers and went our separate ways to retrieve them from the shadows of the campfire and out buildings.

Twentysome years later and I have heeded that lesson, and probably fared much better in love and life because of it. M. is complex in some ways, transparent in others. He's a Gemini so that keeps things interesting. While we are so alike it is scary in some aspects, there will always be matters where we diverge. He will never convince me his brief stint as a Britney Spears fan was not ironic. I will never be able to explain to him the sex appeal of the Afghan Whigs. He hates sour cream. I love it. Potato. Potahto. It's all good. There are some things I love I assume M will never "get".

But wait! What's this? My hip hop husband singing Galaxie 500 with me????? Gasp. The water-averse landlocked man pulling my ass out of the river as he kayaks along with me??? Shudder. And hang on....is the same man, the one that once proclaimed, "why are you watching this shit? These people are assholes. Is this funny for you?" now coming home with the first four seasons on DVD of....wait for it....

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

This show is my shit. And now it's M's too. I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere between loathing it and being baffled at my chuckles, M started to see the magic too. Here's the premise: 5 friends own a dive bar down an alley in Philadelphia. They are assholes. They do asshole-y things. To each other and to other people. And it never ends well. And it is always hilarious. And I love it. Because I, dear friends, am an asshole, and sometimes I do asshole-y things. And the show, as its name implies, embodies all things Philadelphia which is, in essence, our second home and a place we hold great, great affection for. Pennsy! My residency! I can't recall a show that spoke to me more. And I am thrilled that rather than sneaking episodes off of the DVR while M is working, he now howls right there with me. Even better.

Off the rack? Not so much. I mean, shit's gotta fit. But there's always room for a little hem.

Day 2 - Movie

Day 2 - a movie that helped you get through the hard times, or one that jumps out at you after your loss.

Oh now, this one's easy. You already know how I feel about Pineapple Express because I've told you here.

Full disclosure: I have an enormous soft spot for stoner comedies. Half Baked and Dude, Where's My Car will always sit safely in my top ten movies of all time. I will never say no to a Cheech and Chong flick. But this, this right here, made us laugh when I didn't think it was humanly possible. And for that, I will be forever grateful.

Day 1 - Song

Day 1 - a song that reminds you of your child, or one that you can't listen to anymore and why.

Crunching through freshly falling snow, making my way to the Department of Public Welfare Building to request birth and death certificates for my daughters, Nick Drake's Pink Moon played over and over and over again in my ears as I cried and walked and cried and walked.

And even at the time I could help but think, "Fuck you, Juno. This, this right here, this is a scene is out of a god damned movie."

And wishing I wasn't cast as one of the main characters

When I was young, younger than before
I never saw the truth hanging from the door
And now I'm older see it face to face
And now I'm older gotta get up clean the place.

And I was green, greener than a hill
Where flowers grew and the sun shone still
Now I'm darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be.

And I was strong, strong in the sun
I thought I'd see when day is done
Now I'm weaker than the palest blue
Oh, so weak in this need for you.

And just like Catherine W., Nick Cave's Into My Arms is a song I listened to when I had the house to myself. The one I put on to bring on the tears, to stop from feeling numb. Because hurting is better than nothing when nothing is what you have.

When I was pregnant, I would try to take daily walks along the river. I remember stopping in my tracks one afternoon, absolutely overwhelmed by Radiohead's (new, at the time) album. Particularly this song. (christ, I am tearing up as I embed the damn video. Play with caution)



I just can't let go of this album, but this song is one I need to skip every now and then. Because its all too much.

And it goes without saying that Bjork's Isobel is one that is so beautiful, but now so painful I won't be linking to it here. If I had to choose one song, erased from my playlist forever, not because I don't love it, but because I do, this would be the one.

**
wondering what's going on here? Here. Read this.

Let's Do This

Posting after an extended break from writing feels a little like sliding back into the kayak after an unfortunate incident. Oh you know you can navigate the waters, you've done it before. But you've spent so much time thinking about it, rehashing, replaying that now there's a hesitation where there wasn't before. A pause when there would have been a Publish.

But dude, you can't stand on the shore forever, right? Right.

Watching Loribeth share lovely glimpses of herself with the 30 Days Meme has been like a friendly prod. Don't you want to write a little today? Doesn't this look like a nice project to work on? Don't you want to do something like this?

And while I was contemplating, Angie came up behind me and shoved me in, clothes and all, when she put this new twist on it. So yeah, I'm in.

And by "in" I mean over the next 30 days, in line with October as Pregnancy Loss and Awareness Month (newsflash: babies die. Boo!) Oh god, that was crass, sorry. Where was I? Yes. Over the next 30 days, I'll give you a little of me, bit by bit, day by day, building from Angie's master list. We'll laugh, we'll cry. We'll wonder how m. still has real life friends that put up with her, particularly considering the amount of shoegazing early 90s music she still listens to.

We won't use the third person again. Sorry about that.

My list starts today and will spill into November, and might even be interrupted here and there with non-meme posts and updates. Because once I get my feet wet again, look out.