We glide easily through the melting light because it's spring and we're young, afterall. The trees are bursting with the miracle of chlorophyll and from time to time I look over at the man walking beside me and he is smiling his crooked cinnamon grin. It's not hard to be alive, I think, and I calculate as best I can on just this day when sun and air intersect at such right angles that even Newton would forget gravitational forces in the sheer joy of each breath of apple blossom from underneath his tree. And I figure that out of the 4 and 1/2 lbs (that's 9.9 kilograms) of sunlight hitting the earth each day, much more than my fair share is landing on the bridge of my nose
(It's not really correct to speak of it in terms of weight, you see. It's more closely related to the force of momentum. But science makes way for poetry graciously enough most of the time.)
And then my phone rings. And it's my mom (mother's donation: one X chromosome and a hatred for entropy)and she's telling me something's wrong even though all she's asking is how my day has been. And I say what's wrong? DID SOMEONE DIE? because her voice is that grave. And she says I can't talk about it right now so I press her on it anyway. At your dad's school she says (father's contribution: a gene for green eyes and an appreciation for George Will&HARPER LEE) and I ask if it's a student or teacher and she says the former and I marvel at her ability to differentiate between former & latter so fast and think how she would've made a good astronaut, floating out there all alone in space and still knowing what's what. DEAD? I ask and she says yes and jumping to conclusions or maybe just being human I wonder how it will affect me. I look over at the man walking next to me and wonder when it's appropriate to cry in front of a stranger, even if he is your friend. MURDER? SUICIDE? I ask. The latter she says. It's going to be bad for your dad for a while she says. And so I tell her I'll do what I can on the home front as though there is a war on and I'm a member of the USO propping up troop morale with my cheery cherry lipstick smile and a patriotic song made popular by Bing Crosby. I can smile in the face of a faceless death.
And then I ask HOW? and she says Freon. And I think FREON: a trademark name for any of the refrigerants belonging to the chlorofluorocarbon family; composed primarily of chlorine and fluorine, group 17 elements, 7 valence electrons. Each atom looking for an 8th electron to lend stability and completion -- a non-polar covalent bond the most romantic attractive force in the universe, I think stupidly...and wish for less poetry and far less science and for a lot more answers floating around the cosmos.
And so I hang up and keep walking because nobody wants to fall over in the middle of a busy street for no apparent reason even though I know that someone has just boiled over with the desperation I always manage to hold at bay. And I don't want to say another thing because there's too much of that going around and no one has patented an antibiotic for HELPLESSNESS. So I'm silent until the wave of emotion splashes over the afternoon's calm shore. And I say something vague about it all being too much and the man walking beside me makes his own sort of sympathetic statement. And then for some inexplicable reason I smile, because I don't know what else to do and it take a damn fine novelist or a very strong microscope to diagnose the undercurrents and overtones of a moment's smile and no one will detect that mine is laced with cyanide, arsenic, and trace elements of hope under the copper sun.
13 July 2007
09 July 2007
overheard
I'm just not sure why he likes me, what he's got to go on at this point besides physical appearance. She shouts this over her shoulder because I am a few steps behind, trying my best not to intrude on the family portrait setting itself up in front of me. Lately we've taken to wandering the streets, walking it off as she likes to say and today we've ended up in front of the White House, stepping into the frame of who knows how many Christmas cards along the way. SEASON'S GREETINGS from OUR FAMILY ( don't mind the suspicious looking girl in the sunglasses) to YOURS! HAPPY NEW YEAR!
What do you mean you don't know why he likes you? Why wouldn't he like you? I stop and she keeps going, my words chasing her down because a Japanese man has handed me a camera. He is wearing white shoes and pressed white cotton shorts. His white polo shirt and a white visor are made from the same white terrycloth. His socks are brown though, and his short wife, also dressed toe to top in white, has a red carnation pinned to the (white) band of her straw hat. She looks plucky so I tell her so and when she hears the words in her own language she smiles, looking up into the frozen face of her posed husband, I snap a couple shots. There, I think, finally, a picture with a smile. They bow and I bow and then we all bow again before I'm able to push the camera back into the man's hands, the hair on his knuckles very black and sparse. I picture these same hands holding chopsticks, reading the newspaper on a crowded train, as I dart ahead through the crowds to where my friend stands, talking into the air beside her. I'm not like "oh woe is me, why would anyone ever like me?" because you know I'm not like that. I think I'm pretty great. I have a lot to offer, right?
Right. Of course. So what's the problem? She didn't notice, so I don't break her stride.
Well, I just don't understand. Why does he like me? What's he basing this on? A bus barrels past and her words get whipped up and swirled around in the hot air gushing by us. He doesn't know me. He barely knows me. Her face is red now, from the sun and the hot air, but also from the exertion, the emotion behind the words. It's real confusion. She wants to understand so the color rises in her cheeks.
Why do you like him? Why does anyone like anyone? We are waiting to cross the street. The Japanese couple sidles up to us. You do like him, don't you? Even though they don't speak English, I lower my voice. You kissed him and you weren't even drunk. That means something, right. Doesn't it? I want desperately, irrationally to appear respectable for these people -- to fix myself in the album of their memories as that upstanding young girl who spoke their language a bit, took that great picture in front of the White House. The white mother pours some tea for her son or passes a tray of pastries to her neighbor and tells the story again. She smiles up at her stern husband and he smiles back, remembering the red carnation in her hat.
I do. I do like him. She is forging ahead, through a group of middle-aged Italian men who whistle and stare and gawk. They make comments and gestures but she ignores them. The Japanese people turn left, toward the Mall, so I exhale and settle back into who I am today: someone who is wrung-out and and a bit lost in her own town. The sort of girl who finds consolation wandering the streets. I like him she says, and then turns around, all the way, to look at me straight on for the first time all morning. I like him, right?
Sure you like him. I'm not sure what to say because all my answers have been wrong lately, but I keep talking, like a shark who will die if it stops moving through the murky water. Let's put it this way -- you like something about him. There is something you like that keeps you going back. And he likes something about you and it keeps him coming back. That makes sense, right?
Is that enough? She isn't moving. She's just standing there, waiting for an answer. We are smudged and dripping and almost shouting, surrounded by a mill and flow of people who came here to relax, to spend some time with the family, to experience history first hand or didn't know where else to go.
Do you remember when I fell for Martin? Do you remember what it was that I liked about him? She nods her head and turns, walking again and I'm glad that motion relieves the pressure of the moment. She doesn't say anything though, so I go on. I liked his teeth. He had the deliciousest, most toothy grin in the world and I loved it. I loved it. I fell for it.
She does not look convinced. So you liked his smile. I see a million people a day with nice smiles. What does that mean?
It's a starting place. You take something and you go with it and then you add on to it. I liked his teeth. And then I liked the way his teeth fit in his mouth when he smiled and then I liked how he smiled at me when I talked about killing every plant I've ever had. I'm about to be lost, about to be broadsided by a busload of memories, but I keep going. And then I liked the way he wrote with his left hand in the library and the way his left hand wrote a note like an 8th grade boy asking me to the movies. And then I liked the way that we laughed all through the movie and the way his left hand grabbed my right hand and the way he kissed me by the back door. I am shouting now and a mother in squeaky clean tennis shoes, purchased for this trip, gives her daughter a look -- a God-forbid you should grow up and wander the streets, shouting like a crazy person look -- and again I am overcome with a desire to appear ok, hinged and functional for these people, guests in my city.
I don't know. It's such a big gamble. I mean, look how wrecked you were by Martin in the end. Whatever. It will sort itself out, right? We are in front of a coffee shop and her hand is on the door. Wanna get something to eat? This walking makes me ravenous.
Right, I want to say. Right. It will sort itself out. I repeat it to myself because she is already inside, in line, and because suddenly, standing in the confluence of men, women, their children, of history, commerce, love, country, summer I am the one who needs convincing, not her. We only have words and images, projected and gathered, to go on-- only eyes and ears to take them in. And what can they hold? I want to shout. What can you build out of light and sound? Out of nothing?
What do you mean you don't know why he likes you? Why wouldn't he like you? I stop and she keeps going, my words chasing her down because a Japanese man has handed me a camera. He is wearing white shoes and pressed white cotton shorts. His white polo shirt and a white visor are made from the same white terrycloth. His socks are brown though, and his short wife, also dressed toe to top in white, has a red carnation pinned to the (white) band of her straw hat. She looks plucky so I tell her so and when she hears the words in her own language she smiles, looking up into the frozen face of her posed husband, I snap a couple shots. There, I think, finally, a picture with a smile. They bow and I bow and then we all bow again before I'm able to push the camera back into the man's hands, the hair on his knuckles very black and sparse. I picture these same hands holding chopsticks, reading the newspaper on a crowded train, as I dart ahead through the crowds to where my friend stands, talking into the air beside her. I'm not like "oh woe is me, why would anyone ever like me?" because you know I'm not like that. I think I'm pretty great. I have a lot to offer, right?
Right. Of course. So what's the problem? She didn't notice, so I don't break her stride.
Well, I just don't understand. Why does he like me? What's he basing this on? A bus barrels past and her words get whipped up and swirled around in the hot air gushing by us. He doesn't know me. He barely knows me. Her face is red now, from the sun and the hot air, but also from the exertion, the emotion behind the words. It's real confusion. She wants to understand so the color rises in her cheeks.
Why do you like him? Why does anyone like anyone? We are waiting to cross the street. The Japanese couple sidles up to us. You do like him, don't you? Even though they don't speak English, I lower my voice. You kissed him and you weren't even drunk. That means something, right. Doesn't it? I want desperately, irrationally to appear respectable for these people -- to fix myself in the album of their memories as that upstanding young girl who spoke their language a bit, took that great picture in front of the White House. The white mother pours some tea for her son or passes a tray of pastries to her neighbor and tells the story again. She smiles up at her stern husband and he smiles back, remembering the red carnation in her hat.
I do. I do like him. She is forging ahead, through a group of middle-aged Italian men who whistle and stare and gawk. They make comments and gestures but she ignores them. The Japanese people turn left, toward the Mall, so I exhale and settle back into who I am today: someone who is wrung-out and and a bit lost in her own town. The sort of girl who finds consolation wandering the streets. I like him she says, and then turns around, all the way, to look at me straight on for the first time all morning. I like him, right?
Sure you like him. I'm not sure what to say because all my answers have been wrong lately, but I keep talking, like a shark who will die if it stops moving through the murky water. Let's put it this way -- you like something about him. There is something you like that keeps you going back. And he likes something about you and it keeps him coming back. That makes sense, right?
Is that enough? She isn't moving. She's just standing there, waiting for an answer. We are smudged and dripping and almost shouting, surrounded by a mill and flow of people who came here to relax, to spend some time with the family, to experience history first hand or didn't know where else to go.
Do you remember when I fell for Martin? Do you remember what it was that I liked about him? She nods her head and turns, walking again and I'm glad that motion relieves the pressure of the moment. She doesn't say anything though, so I go on. I liked his teeth. He had the deliciousest, most toothy grin in the world and I loved it. I loved it. I fell for it.
She does not look convinced. So you liked his smile. I see a million people a day with nice smiles. What does that mean?
It's a starting place. You take something and you go with it and then you add on to it. I liked his teeth. And then I liked the way his teeth fit in his mouth when he smiled and then I liked how he smiled at me when I talked about killing every plant I've ever had. I'm about to be lost, about to be broadsided by a busload of memories, but I keep going. And then I liked the way he wrote with his left hand in the library and the way his left hand wrote a note like an 8th grade boy asking me to the movies. And then I liked the way that we laughed all through the movie and the way his left hand grabbed my right hand and the way he kissed me by the back door. I am shouting now and a mother in squeaky clean tennis shoes, purchased for this trip, gives her daughter a look -- a God-forbid you should grow up and wander the streets, shouting like a crazy person look -- and again I am overcome with a desire to appear ok, hinged and functional for these people, guests in my city.
I don't know. It's such a big gamble. I mean, look how wrecked you were by Martin in the end. Whatever. It will sort itself out, right? We are in front of a coffee shop and her hand is on the door. Wanna get something to eat? This walking makes me ravenous.
Right, I want to say. Right. It will sort itself out. I repeat it to myself because she is already inside, in line, and because suddenly, standing in the confluence of men, women, their children, of history, commerce, love, country, summer I am the one who needs convincing, not her. We only have words and images, projected and gathered, to go on-- only eyes and ears to take them in. And what can they hold? I want to shout. What can you build out of light and sound? Out of nothing?
02 July 2007
today's poem
e.e. cummings
let it go-the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
go
let them go-the
truthful liars
andthe false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must
let them go they
were born
to go
let all go-the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
so comes love
let it go-the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
go
let them go-the
truthful liars
andthe false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must
let them go they
were born
to go
let all go-the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
so comes love
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