Road Trip

Well, not exactly a road trip since I'll be flying, but I'm in a road trip state of mind. A falling-in-love-with-Jack Kerouac state of beginnings. An anything-is-possible state of anticipation. At work, I've reached one of those creative deadends brought on by too many deadlines, too many time-sucking meetings, too many nights of final-exam anxiety dreams. It's happened before, and I know it will go away, but in the meantime, my idea bank is overdrawn. I need new scenery. I need to realize I have an identity outside of my job (don't I?!). I need to turn off the necessity to create in order to rediscover the desire. I'm remarkably fortunate to have work as a writer, a job that encourages me to be quirky, controversial, offbeat--but when sitting down to the computer starts to feel like showing up for work at the Lucy and Ethel candy factory, I know it's time to hit Refresh.

Behind the Scene

I don't know when this was taken of my grandfather, my father and one of my brothers. The '50s, judging by the car and natty suit my father is wearing. Our family portrait shattered soon after like a mirror that couldn't hold any more lies. Years passed when I didn't speak to my father or see him. Years when we ignored each other's existence, because he was never father material and my mother was bitter about that for as long as she lived. A bitterness she passed on as part of our inheritance. She hated him and obsessed about him, and our loyalty to her demanded no less of us. So many years passed without him in my life that eventually I stopped missing him, lamenting only the loss of  an idea of a father. And then my mother died and my father's second wife died and he became a born-again parent. Eventually it became too much trouble to go on carrying the torch of my mother's anger, to be pissed off about missing something that was just a shadow memory. My father was just a lonely old guy who happened to share my DNA, and it cost me so little to be kind. So why do I still feel like I'm betraying my mother whenever I call him "Dad," or send him a card or check in to see how he's doing? It has caused a schism in our little leftover family, with the brother in the photo refusing to speak to anyone who has dealings with our father. This small personal dilemma makes me realize how easy it is for nations, races and religions to hand on a legacy of hatred from one generation to the next.  If my brothers and I can't make peace, can't separate our love for our mother from the tragedy that was her marriage, can't lay down our arms, how much harder is it for countries to let go of ancient feuds and resentments?

Then and Now

My little girl is all grown up now, a Fulbright Scholar finishing her Ph.D., going on job interviews. Her older sister managed to get a degree in psychology while raising three children. Their brother struggles to make a living and be a good dad. I worry and wonder what will happen to them in this crazy, new Mad Max economic world we have crashed landed on. With Obama's election, I think America is growing up at last--just like my little ones. But adulthood, for countries and children, is not without growing pains. For so many decades, we believed that all we had to do was work hard and dream big and we would be rewarded. We would pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We would find work that fulfilled us emotionally as well as financially. We would qualify for mortgages and get raises. We would have flat screen tvs and happy endings. But it's not that simple now, for Obama or our kids or us. Still, daily life goes on, and we wake up and try to keep our balance as the ground shifts so violently beneath us. I look at photos of my grandparents and remind myself that these dirt-poor farmers, small town merchants and isolated share croppers were simply working to survive, to get a bit ahead, to put food on the table and keep their families intact. No health insurance then or pension plans.  For my mother, growing up poor during the Depression meant a lifelong memory of endless meals of dried beans and potatoes. I want to be as strong as my ancestors in adversity, and I don't want to sit and pine for better times, for the stock market to rebound, for all my easy comforts and little luxuries to return. Like everyone else, I worry about losing my job, losing my health insurance, taking a paycut, cutting back. But I hope I will be mindful that every minute is precious even when it's edgy and sharp with less security, more fear, attacks of panic--in fact, maybe precisely because of that.

My Inner Heroine

An adventuring friend just sent me this photo she took while traveling around South America on her own. I want to be Heroina. Not the heroin that someone just told me this wall graffito refers to, but the original meaning of Heroine. I don't want to blush when I'm nervous, stutter when confronted, start weeping when I'm angry. Maybe there's a glitch in my wiring, but my emotions always seem to get shorted out on the way to being expressed. Somewhere between feeling and releasing, a Good Girl gets her hands on the switch and powers them down or dilutes them with tears. Good Girl says no one likes an angry bitch. Good Girl says sugarcoat that outrage. Good Girl says people are staring. It's easy to say I want to be Heroina, but I don't think all the Oprah self-talk in a year's worth of issues can kick Good Girl to the curb overnight. I'm not quite sure how to get there, but I will never stop aiming for it. In the meantime, Heroina tshirts, anyone?

Vote for Us

Vote for the underdog, the voiceless, the worker bee, the laid off, the laid up, the one who doesn't have a chance, the one who comes from behind, the chronic loser, the underestimated, the quiet one, the last in line, the hopeless, the helpless, the unfamous, the one who can't afford a doctor, the can't-get-a-grip dreamer, the immigrant, the migrant, the luckless, the unlovable, the lowly, the illiterate, the cynic, the teacher, the cashier, the single mother who cries herself to sleep, the kids who leave for school hungry, the ones who hope against hope. We voted for us for a change.

Eyes of the Soul

The gate to my backyard used to have this round opening cut in it before I had to replace the whole fence and the contractor decided it was a mistake to be rectified. When I looked through to other side, it was like a magical viewfinder, framing a slice of my prosaic property in a brand new way. I wish I could remember to use that framing device more often during the course of a day. The "eye" was there when I bought the house, and I loved it because it reminded me of a Chinese moongate, which was conceived as the opening to a spiritual garden. My backyard is far from spiritual unless my fight against fire ants and sandspurs is a metaphor for my ongoing battle with my worst character flaws. But when I first moved into my house, I began planting  bamboo, a plant that symbolizes strength and resilience--qualities I long to have. From small plants, they have quickly grown into luxurious trees. My dream is eventually to have a living wall of bamboo around the perimeter of my property, swaying and rustling in the wind, casting shadows of poetry under the full moon. One small spiritual step at a time.

Tied Down

Before the economy crashed in on us, it was a sign of courage and spunk to leave a job that made you crazy. Now it's considered crazy to leave any job that offers health insurance and isn't located on top of a toxic dump. Actually, any job that offers health insurance will make you forget the toxic dump. Employers hold the winning hand.  "You want to leave? Don't let the door hit you in the ass because there's someone I can pay less to take your job." I worry I might end up The Mayor of Crazytown, afraid to take a chance because I'm too old or might be broke again. I think often of Mary Oliver's line--"What will you do with your one wild and precious life?"--and I know that every day I need to be able to answer that question with more than just saying "present." 

The People from Porlock

The story goes that Coleridge composed his poem "Kubla Khan" during a dream but was awakened out of it before he finished by a "person from Porlock" knocking at his door on some stupid errand. Today, I was working steadily away on an important presentation to my bosses tomorrow, when I was interrupted by my own People from Porlock. First, I answered a phone call from a complete stranger who had tracked down my phone number on the internet and called me to solicit advice about the magazine she had started and was trying to sell to the company that bought mine. She almost asked me what they had paid me, but some vestige of manners made her stutter and hesitate. (Not enough and the stock market ate it, I wanted to yell!) On a Sunday! I don't understand why she didn't wait and call me at work tomorrow, but even more, I don't understand why I didn't say I was busy. What spinelessness afflicts me that I can't tell people their behavior is inappropriate? Goodbye, an hour of my life.  Next, an old lover called to tell me his idea for a new magazine and pick my brain. I could watch closed-caption tv on mute while I uh-huhed at appropriate points, but it made me realize that I probably drone on about my own projects to my friends and fail to cut myself short when I can sense the mental snore from the other end of the phone. Or get caught up in a narcissistic swirl and find myself unable to tear my gaze away from my own navel. When I got over being annoyed and full of myself,  I started to wonder if these particular People from Porlock were bringing me messages from my subconscious. It's too odd to have two calls from people out of the blue on the same day about new projects they're starting. On a day when I'm wrestling with my own angel about what to do next with my life.

In Search Of

 What's my style? I think I've been trying to find it all my life, experimenting and searching for a personal uniform. I've learned that I hate bright colors and pastels. No Lilly A-lines or swirling peasant dresses, please. Maybe it's a result of my mother dressing me in red so often, but I love muted colors that are variations on a theme--black, gray, cream, camel, wheat, olive. Plain lines, classic cuts. No ruffles, drapes or flowing jackets. In clothing as in life and writing, I  am always trying to pare away, to simplify, to find the Platonic ideal of a shirt or a sentence or a soul. But in clothing as in life, I inevitably go off the rails, buying a swirling gypsy skirt that doesn't go with anything in my closet, conjuring a florid phrase I can't bear to prune or inflating a small setback into a storm of tears. The vision of perfection is always there but tantalizingly out of reach--and maybe my life would be oh so drab without the occasional drama.

Asking Myself...

Amazing, the things we pass day in and day out and never notice. This is carved on a bench set into the side of a fountain in a park by my office. I've walked by it dozens of times and never noticed that the sides are incised with questions. I think they're related to some sort of civic organization that paid for the fountain, but when I finally "saw" them, they seemed like gnomic questions designed to probe the conscience of a passerby. I know I should ask myself this much more often than I do. Is what I've written authentic, or just easy filler that approximates the truth? When I have a difficult conversation with my one of my adult children, do I say what's on my mind or bite my tongue in order to maintain the peace? Do I turn the light on my own behavior or do I automatically think problems or disagreements are my coworker's fault? Do I love unselfishly enough? I need to stop and sit on that bench every now and then.