Limbo

I am in limbo, that place between Heaven and Hell where my unborn wait with me. In the world of limbo, there are dreams. In the first dream, I am back at our house in New Jersey. My father bought it back, some twenty seven years after he sold it, and it has been reconstructed with an indoor pool and expansive rooms with views of Lake Como (limbo dreams apparently have no sense of space). I was excited to go back and live there, to swim in the pool, call up my friend Noelle, go for walks in the woods. But despite this excitement, there was something inside me that said this was all wrong. I had no business being at the house anymore. I wasn't that person anymore, a daughter, a sister, and only these. I should, something said, resist the temptation to back to the past. Next thing I know, I'm riding a bus and Anne Sexton is the driver. She tells me to get off because I've got too much baggage. (I've got too much baggage, Anne?) I take my cart of baggage and roll off the bus into the green grass. I push the cart home, but then everything disappears. Next thing I know, I am at Lollapalooza or some other music festival and one of the musicians makes fun of my Italian heritage. I charge him and we fight, but the fight is more like a dance. I wake up with a horrible, sour taste in my mouth. I am sick again. I am pregnant with triplets.

If you look up the word limbo in the dictionary, you will see that it is a place between Heaven and Hell for the unborn and unbaptized. It's fitting for the triplets and me; they are unborn with respect to earthly life; I am unborn with respect to motherhood. I think we're all afraid. Or maybe they are not afraid and I am; they seem to know exactly what they are doing. But maybe I'm not caught between Heaven and Hell (although at times, it certainly feels like it); maybe I'm caught between the past and the future, between what I have known and what I will know. And what I have known is safe and glorified and what I will know is, right now, terrifying and unreal.

Somebody's Daughter, the Forgotten Entry

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Tear Down This Wall, Mr. Gorbachev

 

September 29, 2011

I sit on my mat and pull out my hair, make a little nest I can gather together and throw away. My husband is at the bathroom sink doing his male toilette. Josie lies like a slug on the chaise and sighs. I read, but am inspired by nothing. I am disheartened by the long day of nausea ahead, the gray skies, the predictable hours.

“Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev.” These are the words in my mind. 

  What wall?

Unhinged, then Hinged.

September 28, 2011

“The urge toward form is the urge toward God” Charles Wright says in his poem, “Scar Tissue”. I'm not sure I see that as true. God lies behind form, is formless. God is more like Mecca, a direction. We can angle ourselves toward or away. Away, and life can well as high as the morning sky and pummel you to the sand where you bob up, dazed, frantically searching for all of your lost items. I am learning, ever so slowly, to orient myself toward God. Only then, do I feel the ground beneath my feet.

So this morning I got out of bed and rolled out the mat and looked up at the light coming in through the window. I tilted slightly to the north; it was a symbolic gesture. I thought about hearts, opened hearts, awakened hearts, beating hearts. I said, “God”. I read some poetry. I tried to stare into the intergalactic space of my mind. Stars rushed at me. I became frustrated. I said, this is enough, and rose to go eat a muffin. As I rolled my mat, I thought of my father's faith in science. My father had a very logical mind, was an engineer for most of his life. I used to find scraps of his papers with his firmly pressed letters and numbers; his attempts, failures, successes to look for answers to his math problems. When he got sick with cancer, he treated the doctors like gods. Sure he went to church like a good Catholic (I still remember him singing the Holy Holy in a soft baritone voice to himself) but his true faith lie in science, and later, specifically, medicine. He spoke of those doctors with such...reverence. And I used to wonder why. So they're intelligent, so they have saved people, but they're men, just as you are a man, and men only go so far. My father did everything they told him to; he was the perfect patient. They told him to have radiation, he had radiation. They told him to have brain surgery, he had brain surgery. They told him to do chemo, he did chemo, and he did it with a smile on his face, believing in the doctors' command of life. He wanted so desperately to live. I'm not sure where my father's spirituality was back then. I'm sure he had his personal prayers and a private relationship with God, but I didn't get a glimpse of it. I saw a man desperate and at the hand of doctors and then ultimately furious his body wouldn't go the way they commanded it.

Now I go headfirst into my own dilemma and I am wary of doctors, their onslaught of statistics, their professional, stoic dispositions. I have yet to meet one doctor I consider to be whole, to be of scientific mind, yes, but spiritually inclined, or maybe not spiritually inclined, that's too dangerous for this society, maybe just truly compassionate. When I leave their offices, I am unhinged. Jelly. Fearful. I'll do anything they tell me to, just like my father. I start to convince myself I can handle watching the needle puncture that beating heart and silence it. Hell, I never wanted three babies and sure as hell not all at once. I'm no mother-woman (credit Kate Chopin, The Awakening). And then a little voice says, how do you know what you are? The tide of opposite thinking always washes back in. I hinge myself back together. What if they're wrong, I start to think. What if I can do this?

What disgusts me most about these fertility doctors is their complete disrespect for life. They pump us up with zygotes according to some chart and feel no qualms about going in and “reducing”. There are some doctors who spend day in and day out “reducing”. And I want to say, Well do you have to be so fucking cavalier about it? Shouldn't there at least be a moment of silence?

There must be a middle road, one where you walk with an open mind and an open heart. Only then will I find the answer.

Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C

September 27, 2011

Three Blind Moles Attach

Three blind moles attach

to my uterus, their luminescent

heads subtly bob, their bodies

curl and tuck. My silent world

closes on their soft round skulls.

Help. This is the word

choked out, then swallowed. Help.

The sedum, ubiquitous in September,

is pink with nausea, the crab apple tree

has forgotten its fruit, the sky,

wrapped in Lazarus's shrouds, holds

out both arms to Mother Earth

who thrusts open her legs. I retract

from their lovemaking. Slumber is

as thick as weeds.

The small pat, the unleavened bread,

beats in each blind mole,

a tap tap tap telegraph to souls

whose wings darken rooftops

and valleys. I lay this body down

toss out statistics and pitch the head

of Science on a stick.

I must be still. The oracular,

the subtle clink and hush

of reflection, the ruddy-colored bird

with a sideways eye, the stinted bud

with a slice of stitched lip, is among us.

Where is that place of truth and trust, where perception isn't amped up with worry and worst case scenarios? Once again, I feel as if life is happening to me and not with me. I carry the weight of this decision like a ten pound watermelon. It starts to spoil and I smell eggs. Rotten eggs. And then I am depressed. Hopeless. My mind deems no solution. I collapse like a supernova into a black hole. How can I not do that? Where is the door to new thinking? Writing poetry helps because I can express the depths of me and not have them fester. That's step one. But the higher power thing has me conflicted. Catholic guilt and old Catholic mores say I am being tested, or worse, punished. I didn't put my faith in God in this situation, I put it in science and now I must deal with the ramifications. But the Buddha in me says otherwise. There are no mistakes, just life. Make this decision first out of compassion and make it with the awakened heart.

But it's the heart that bothers me the most. Their tiny beating hearts. If they were a conglomeration of cells and only this, I would have no problem having the doctors remove one. But they are no longer just cells; they have that heart and that heart, I believe harkens the soul. I am one for hearts; I can't help it.

The risks of having triplets are numerous. Babies born at two pounds, NICU for weeks, gestational diabetes, not too mention how I will progress to the size of a cement truck. I never wanted three babies, ever. The doctors are anxiously waiting for me to say the word, reduce, and my worries will be instantly lessened. But there is that already beating heart and its holy momentum. Who am I to stand in its way?

Where are the Visionaries?

If you look up the word 'visionary' on dictionary.com this is what it will give you:

1. Given to or characterized by fanciful not presently workable or unpractical ideas, views or schemes; a visionary enthusiast.
2. Given to or concerned with seeing visions.
3. Belonging to or seen in a vision.
4. Unreal; imaginary: visionary evils.
5. Purely idealistic or speculative; impractical; unrealizable: a visionary scheme.
6. Of , pertaining to, or proper to a vision.
7. A person of unusually keen foresight.
8. A person who sees visions.
9. A person who is given to audacious, highly speculative or impractical ideas of schemes; dreamer.

One can't help but wonder why the definition in number 7 isn't the first definition, the one most used, most relevant. One may think having put this definition so low in the ranking it really doesn't have much value, that the term visionary isn't taken very seriously. Could this be indicative of a larger problem, something, perhaps happening in our society right now?

I asked myself who I thought were visionaries. The first person I came up with was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He had a vision (a dream, as he called it) amongst rampant persecution and he orchestrated an alternative way to live a life, preached about it despite all the animosity toward him and his philosophy. I think many people thought his vision wasn't very practical, wasn't very possible, but in January of 2009, we witnessed that dream, that vision come to fruition. So there's one, MLK. Picasso too was a visionary. Who knew life could be interpreted in shapes? What sort of mind creates something like that? What was the point of that? Was it practical? Did it do anyone a bit of good? Yes it did and does do the world some good because it teaches people to “see” differently, and learning how to see differently means stepping out of yourself, out of your own mindset and embracing someone else's. This “open mindedness” is the stuff of empathy, of appreciation, of change.

One might even say a visionary, a good one, sparks something in others and a “movement” is created. In the case of Martin Luther King Jr., it was the Civil Rights Movement. In the case of Picasso, it was Cubism. This “movement” calls an entire collection of people to jump on the bandwagon of the visionary, to think and create and connect with one another by the sharing of ideas.

James Joyce, another visionary. Who would think to write down the jibberish the mind churns? The “stream of consciousness” bandwagon included writers like Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and Henry Miller. Our minds are not refined like a Jane Austen novel. The first thoughts, untethered, and unfiltered, are alive with hunger and energy; they contain the raw us and illuminate the very root of emotion, intention, and action. But then again, Austen too was a visionary. Her vision bandwagon said Women Have Brains Too, women can challenge men by intellect and spunk alone.

Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez...visionaries. Who says the dead can't be a character? Who says people can't go around eating dirt? Was that practical? Visionaries know we are not only about practicality; we are not only about paying the bills, mowing the lawn, feeding the children. We have entire worlds inside us; some people have foresight into those worlds. This is why we should listen, this is why we should read, this is why we should create. All artists, all creators must be visionaries. Vincent Van Gogh once said, “it is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper understanding.” That deeper understanding is called vision, and if you are rightly close to your work, this naturally develops and leads the way.

I think now, more than ever in our overanalyzed, overpopulated, overstimulated existence, we need visionaries. We need people who can lead, who can come up with better ways to live (not just faster ways, better ways), who make us see life differently, who challenge us, who make us less afraid.

I read this essay to a writer's forum I used to run and asked the audience who they thought were modern day visionaries. One person said Barack Obama. Another Al Gore. Another the people at Whole Foods. No one had mentioned a contemporary writer or artist or musician. This worried me.

Why is definition number 7 so low on the totem pole? Is it because society values efficiency, practicality and economy more than anything else? Is it because things have become so complicated that no one person can truly make a difference? Or has the energy of creativity become less refined and more dispersed so that we have many facebook pages and websites with a smattering of ideas but no one prominent visionary, no one Gaugin or Ghandi or Woolf. Or are these visionaries embedded in the communities, making small change here and there, speaking their voices at open mics or by way of blogs or publishing books with small presses, or selling their paintings on the street, or under the discerning eye of academia? If this is the case, has the true artist, the visionary become marginalized and are we afraid to admit that to ourselves and do something about it?

The Stuff of Suffering

August 5, 2011

I had a student ask me once why literature is depressing. “Almost everything we've read, quality literature, but depressing as all hell.” It's a fair question. I can't remember what I told him, but I hope it was this: Yes, most of good literature is depressing because it is about suffering. And there is a lot of stuff in suffering. Happiness and contentment is fairly straightforward. Suffering is always unfolding, facet upon facet. Suffering and all its stuff, is about transformation and transformation is growth and I have to believe this is why we're here, plopped down on this planet and all its head-scratching experiences, to evolve spiritually. There is this great scene in the movie Little Miss Sunshine where the characters discuss suffering. Here it is:

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

Suffering also allows for empathy. We recognize in others what we have felt ourselves and this produces immediate community. No, I am not alone with these dark thoughts and here's the proof, right here in this book. Great literature is true empathy that exceeds the confines of time and space. It helps us change, and by this, it moves humankind to a higher plane. This is why it is more important than religion, because religion tends to divide. Great literature breaks down barriers. Great literature spans borders and unveils the same human experience, albeit in different shapes in colors, but that's what makes the fabric of life so interesting, yet not so foreign, we cannot recognize it. I think of the muslim poet Rumi; he lived thousands of years ago, in a different country, a Muslim and a man. I am a Christian woman living in the twenty first century and I see myself and what I know of humanity in his poems. That's success in literature right there, when a writer and a reader connect like that.

This is also another argument agents should not get so caught up in plot. They're always looking for a plot that sells (they may tell you they are looking for strong characters, but that's hogwash). Look, agents, there's only so many plot lines out there. We got the coming of age plot line, the person in a bad marriage plot line, the love story plot line, the demented killer plot line, the missing persons/mystery plot line yada yada yada. And yes, these plot lines degenerate into genres, but only if the characters are lacking. It's characters that connect us, not plot lines. And good characters make good literature. They get us thinking about our own lives; they may even set our course.

August 1, 2011

Some poems exist still on the other side of our lives

And shine out

but we'll never see them.

They are unutterable, in a language without an alphabet.

Unseen. World-long. Bone music.

These are stanzas from Charles Wright's poem “Body and Soul II”. It got me thinking, if there are unwritten poems kept in a secret vault, perhaps there are children there as well, and love affairs, and the socks you lost in the laundry. And maybe this place runs by different rules, and maybe we carry this place with us where ever we go.

55. Death and I

I stop at a lemonade stand

at the side of the road

and Death is counting his money.

His skin is draped

over his bones like an oiled

hide. I see his lackluster

sockets, dirt underneath

his fingernails, his felled

limbs.

The flowers around him

are turning out seed

and birds fly in to rampage

the withering stalks.

Hurry up! Hurry up!

my dog says, her tongue

dancing over the glass.

I spy the iced pitcher,

and my mouth waters.

Ask how much for a cup.

Ten dollars, Death says,

and his arm falls off.

My dog laughs.

Ten cents, I barter, like

every other kid on the block.

Inflation, Death replies.

Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Nothing I can do about it.

Damn right. (Small talk)

Everyday, something

bruised or busted.

Battles inside us, forged.

Death drums his good fingers

on his knee. Fetches the arm

and tosses it to the compost pile,

which is everything.

(On second thought)

I know the deals you make.

I've seen you crouch

and whisper in ears like a lover.

Now wait a minute, Death says

picking at his teeth

with a splint in his good hand.

You wait a minute.

My father's swan song.

For hours and hours.

What did you say to him

to make him quit?

If I told you, I'd have to kill you,

Death says.

Oh yes. Perhaps a hard wired

bolt in the brain? Or the heart?

I've thought about

that moment.

A lump, a spot, an ache, a steering

wheel filleted and fried?

Ay, aware of every last inconsistency,

Jesus. I would hate to be you, he says.

Do you stir when your

knife whittles away at the pith?

You coo, then dice us to pieces.

Sallowed, well yes. (Death clears his

throat, ahem ahem).

Blood retreats to the four corners,

The mind says to the heart: you're

fired. Get your shit and get out.

The heart telephones the soul,

Listen, there's a train leaving

in an hour.

The soul, that quicksilver dash-

(Death clears his throat

` a second time, ahem-)

that aeroplane with its engine

tagging five miles behind, that

pinhole of ricocheted light- he smiles

and spits out a tooth.

I remembered then, the angels

tapping at the windows and doors.

The stone rolled away from our

front door. The bed sheets empty.

That glorious October sky.

My dog hiccups then whines.

A cloud burst of birds, now

their wings speaking in tongues.

The grass behind me whispers

and people come

dressed like Mennonites in

black hats and bonnets. They barter,

settle, and drink it all down.

Through the fields they go,

children again.

Death packs up his imaginary wagon,

tips his imaginary hat.

See you later alligator, he says.

In awhile, crocodile.