My History of Fire

What qualifies me to talk about it? Perhaps it is the fear of it--a fear I have for no good reason. If only my fears were reasonable. There weren't any childhood fires. That's not exactly true. If memory serves, there were conflagrations, but they weren't of the actual sort. Let's just say, I never got burned.

Sure I played with it. Who wouldn't? It's so beautiful, burning like anger, burning like hunger. Burning like. Burning like.

Burning like a burning, if you know what I mean.

Sometimes I held the magnifying glass. Other times, I was the ant feeling the heat.

Most of the time, however, I played it safe. I kept it contained. In the stomach pit. In the fireplace. A letter charred and sifting to the sink's bottom.

But we don't always burn our letters in sinks. Sometimes you need a forest. Tender tinder of trees, swaying, and a breeze to help it along.

That's not my story.

In order, here's what I knew to be true: Pine pitch chews like gum. You can't wield the axe; you can only look at the axe. It's your job to stack. Don't bother a sliver; it will work its way out eventually. On the mantle, there's a starburst clock that radiates its own heat. The Sunday paper may be thick, but it's the daily doings that catch best. If it isn't old enough, it will smoke. Pull the damper out, or it will smoke. You can buy powder that teases a rainbow from fire. When the electricity goes out, the fire is the only God you pray to. Chimneys eat smoke and send it skyward, so long as it burns clean. The smoke will break from the house like an SOS. There are things that look like smoke but aren't, like the queen bee and her minions who abandoned their meadow boxes. The fire smelled like honey for awile. The volunteer fire department will burn the chicken coop down and then fight it for the practice.

And then you grow up.

Fires are few and inbetween. You live your days in front of a furnace. Forced air heat. Forced.
You romanticize it. In your mind, the campfire blazes, and every ember pop is an opportunity. You think you love the one who can build a good fire. The skies grow dark every summer. You can't breathe. You're told not to go outside. You are in a valley, and you are fully engulfed with the idea of being swept away by fire. But the fires are burning miles away. The lingo is acres, helicopters, buckets, retardant...and then it's gone.

The fires you know now are the stuff of 6 o'clock news. They are neat. The fires fit tidy between sports and weather. Hardly anyone ever dies. You light candles with an apparatus that may as well be a third arm. It keeps the flame far from you. Fire comes in a jar, sits obediantly on the wick, and sizzles out when you're sloppy with the bath water. You don't know when you felt a burn last, and because the mind likes it and knows it more than the skin, you fear it.

Your heart beats faster when something on the burner begins to smoke. The alarm sounds, and you beat it with your open palm and scream, "Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!" How do you extinguish it? Salt? Throw a towel over it? Water? Water and oil don't mix. Don't give it air. Yet it's over before you need to choose. It's always over before your knowledge is tested.

And what of that fear that makes you go back and check over and over the burner that is always
never on?

--W

Maya Angelou said anger is fire.

Winston Churchill invoked fire when he said anything that attempted to fly should be set on fire.

Thomas Jefferson used fire as a means of talking about war and being tenacious about defending ourselves: "If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it."

Benjamin Franklin realized that what makes a home is "food and fire for the mind as well as the body."

He also found fire a necessity in terms of finding a life partner: "Never take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in."

"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself," said Mark Twain.

"As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. " --William Shakespeare.

Mae West said, "A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him. "

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." --Robert Frost

George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."


"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience. " --George Washington

Napoleon knew of trial by fire. He said, "When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes."

Emily Dickinson used fire as a means of describing poetry: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

T.S. Eliot knows that history and its ghosts speak louder than the living: "The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living."

"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it. " --Tennessee Williams

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark." --Victor Hugo

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. "

"Every idea is an incitement... Eloquence may set fire to reason. " --Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. " Jorge Luis Borges

"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell," said Joan Crawford


"So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us." --Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard

"To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm." --Harry Houdini

"Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat." --Harry Houdini

"Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements." --Harry Houdini

"I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames." --Andy Goldsworthy

Shoots and Ladders in a Candyland World

In 1943, Abraham Maslow came up with his hierarchy of needs, and I was introduced to it in an educational psychology class. At eighteen, I had no idea how I was to use the data in order to be a better teacher. At 35, I see it less a teaching tool and more a tool of introspection. It can be an enlightening and scary proposition to sit down and take inventory of which of your needs are and are not being met.

Maslow divided our needs into five categories: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

Basic needs are the tangible ones. In a story, they'd be the showing and not the telling details. They'd be the props on the theater or movie set. Sort of. The most basic requirements are those that allow us to survive. They allow the body to function properly. We need air, water, and food. We need clothes for our bodies and a roof over our heads. And, interestingly enough, Maslow placed sex in this category. Of course, he meant the basic sex act--the sort needed in order to perpetuate the species. Nonetheless, he drew criticism for placing sex as just as important as the air we breathe.

If we think of Maslow's needs theory as a ladder, then the next rung is safety. Safety is equated to predictability. We want things to be consistent and fair. We are drawn to the familiar and are scared by the unfamiliar. This safety applies to all areas of life: personal security, financial security, health and well-being, and protection against accidents and illness. When we are young, we cling to blankets that are special to us. We cling to our mother's leg and peer out at strangers. When our mothers serve cake, we get mad if the slices are not even. We get angry if someone doesn't play by the game rules. As adults, we are supposed to be better at this. I might be stuck here, to some extent. I still cling to the familiar. I build a world and know how it works and am off kilter if something or someone doesn't act as they generally do. I get angry with the world and cry "No Fair!" to no one's ears in particular about all the atrocities in the world. But it is what it is, and you either adapt, or you are stunted--left behind.

After those two levels are reached, we want to be loved and feel like we belong. We work to establish friendships. We value family. We crave intimacy. We begin our search, if we are monogamous, for The One, the one we want to spend our days with. We start to join groups and clubs. Or maybe take our place as one sheep in a flock at a particular religious gathering. Maybe we play on an athletic team or at the very least fervently follow a professional team. Maybe you join a gang. When we go to work, we don't just go to do our jobs but find ourselves seeking out relationships with co-workers. At the very least, we want someone to pass the time with, to joke with, to gossip to, to commiserate with. At the most, maybe we get real friendship or even a mentorship.

Maslow broke esteem down into 2 types: the type that others can give you and the type only you can have (i.e. self-esteem). So does your identity rest on the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention? Maslow labeled that "low" esteem, as opposed to the "high" esteem--the ability to gain strength, to be competent, to master, to be independent, and be self-confident. Of course, Maslow saw the two types of esteem as interrelated. Neither, it seems are healthy in and of themselves.

Finally, there is self-actualization or realizing your full potential--becoming what you are meant to become, whatever that means. Maslow said that full potential varied from person to person. Maybe it's your gift to be a damn good stay-at-home mom. Maybe you're meant to be a painter. Or a waiter. Or a teacher. Or a construction worker.

The trouble is, we can spend our whole lives trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. And then we are grown ups and still wondering why life doesn't feel right. Well, Maslow would probably say that, in the board game of life, you've got to lose a turn and go back to START, or at the very least, he'd say that you have to be honest about whether your other, "lower" needs are truly being met.

That said, Maslow acknowledged that there are people who actively operate in phenomenal ways at the higher needs levels, despite the fact that their most basic needs aren't being met. I'm fascinated by his concept of metamotivation. This term describes the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of basic needs and strive for constant betterment. You've encountered those people, right? Throughout my life, I've met people who, as my grandmother would have said, "don't have a pot to piss in," meaning they were poor. They had no money, no things, or at least none of the things those around them had. Yet, they seem happy, content even. Or maybe they are the fighters of the world--the scrappy ones--the ones who ignore the hunger gnawing at their own bellies in order to fight for the basic freedoms of others.

I look at the colorful depictions of Maslow's pyramid and am reminded that it bears a striking likeness to the food pyramid. I realize that's not an accurate comparison. In the food pyramid, the highest point are those things we should avoid--the things that are abundant and tempting yet which will kill us. In Maslow's pyramid, the highest point is something we should strive for, though seemingly very, very hard to reach. The bottom rung for both is building blocks--the origins of energy. And of course in both, there is the murky middle ground between bottom and top. In that murky middle ground, most of us struggle. We cheat. We take more than we need. We starve ourselves, both physically and metaphorically. Or perhaps we act mechanically, treating our bodies and minds like a machine. We abide by the serving size but the goal--the perfect dress size or the enlightened mind--remains out of reach, either by a hair or by a mile.

Linguistically Limited

Recently, as a getting-to-know-you activity, and because the students are getting ready to write an identity essay, I asked my English 101 class to write a Six-Word Memoir. This isn't my brainchild. Ernest Hemingway's version is probably the most quoted. Though his wasn't memoir, I think the idea was that you could embody all the necesary elements of fiction or story in six words: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

The online magazine, Smith, continues to provide a cyber nest for those who feel compelled to try to encapsulate their experiences. While the entries aren't pouring in as they initially did upon the launch of the project, they still trickle in HERE. And the newest entries seem to have morphed from trying to capture a lifetime to trying to capture artistically the moment or the day.

There have even been books published which compile the 6-word offerings of the everyday Joe as well as well-known writers. And you certainly can find the cinematic versions online via YouTube.

These are the versions I came up with:

"Vintage girl in
the modern world"

"Wore her heart
on her sleeve"

"She always noticed
the little things"

"She taught; they
taught her more"

"Yoga mind even
off the mat"

"For art she
purposely made messes"

"Collaged mind
collaged heart
collaged soul"

"Hummingbird heart
Eagle eye
Ostrich body"

"She whispered often
to the animals"

"Poet at heart
not on page"

Some have described the six-word memoir as like Postsecret, but with less angst. I see them as freeform Haiku. Or perhaps they fit the bill as A River of Stones material or perhaps the abbreviated version of Three Beautiful Things projects. Ultimately, they are impractical, yet I'm tempted to continue this as a daily project, perhaps an art journal project. I think it would be beautiful to look back on 365 of these little bits in which I tried to sum up what resists summing up.

...So, which six words would YOU choose?

On Waking to Robert Burns

I woke this morning thinking about Robert Burns. I don't typically have these literary awakenings, but I went to bed knowing that my friend, Nancy's birthday was the next day. And I kept thumbing through the filing cabinet that is my brain, remembering a snippet of a poem I'd once read in which the poet addresses a Nancy.

By morning, I'd found the missing file: Robert Burns. Don't get me wrong. That particular folder is a thin one. I may be an English teacher and a lifelong lover of poetry, but Burns never did it for me. In fact, the folder held the two poems that everyone--poetry lovers and non-poetry lovers, alike--knows: "O My Luv's Like a Red, Red Rose" and "Auld Lang Syne." And of course commercialism is responsible for us knowing those two poems when appropriate to the season. The dust is shaken off the first poem around January in preparation for its use for Valentine's Day. And we know the second and sing a version of it on New Year's.

At other times of the year, poor ol' Robert Burns sits waiting in the tissue-paper thin pages of literature anthologies, only read by Scots, students who are made to read it, and by scholars.
So why doesn't Burns enjoy the rock star status that Billy Collins enjoys? Hmm. Well, of course modern man and woman are anti-rhyme, unless said rhyme comes in the form of a Hallmark card or a song trapped in one's Ipod. But I don't think that's the only reason. If I had to guess, I'd say cynicism disallows us from relating to most of what Burns has to say. We are a culture that disbelieves in true love, and we are at a Patriotic low.

No matter what our romantic status, we resist something that says love is like a rose or a tune. Ick, we say. And we are a culture that quits when the going is good. We are a culture of throwaway marriages and divorces done via website, so why would we believe, as Burns wrote, that someone's love could last "Till a' the seas gang dry...And the rocks melt wi' the sun!"? The cynic comes out when reading the last few lines of the poem:

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

We say, "Ah ha! Of course you can love her that much because you aren't even with her. You are 10,000 miles away!"

If you read Burns, you know he loved the ladies. Let's just say there are many bonnie lassies who didn't escape Burns's attention. The modern day thug would be labeled a playa if he was caught thinking about multiple ladies and their fairer qualities. There's Jean, who has made Burns' speaker love the West because that is where she lives. Incidentally, this makes me think of my man, who though he is from the East, is often caught saying the West is the best, though his reasoning has nothing to do with me and everything to do with The Doors' "The End." This Jean of Burns's takes up all his mind: "But day and night may fancy's flight/Is ever wi' my Jean." Flowers and bird song remind him of her.

Maybe we resist Burns because we have never had that experience. We have never been so infatuated that every damned thing leads our thoughts back to a particular person? I'm not THAT cynical, especially being 7 months into a relationship. I can't say that I think of My Man when I see flowers or when I hear birds singing, but I suppose there are modern-day versions of that because, let's face it: I'm not exposed on a daily basis to flowers and birds. My triggers are decidedly more urban: NFL football commercials, can openers, seeing a truck that looks like his, tie-dye, bacon. It is those things, not birds and flowers, that trigger a smile and a warm feeling in my belly.

Modern man and woman could not get away with some of Burns's poetic actions. For instance, his actions in "Mary Morison" are the modern-day equivalent to stalking. I'm not sure any of us really remember the idea of admiring someone from afar. What, with all our modern-day love warfare, we simply go forth and conquer. We add someone as a Facebook friend. We text someone. We subscribe to online dating services and write ads that read as recipes for what we want in a partner. Or, if we are me, we walk up to the fellow we are interested in and admit that we've been eavesdropping on a conversation he was having with someone else. We say, "Why would someone choose to live in Moscow, Idaho when one has previously spent the rest of his life in Connecticut?" Come to think of it, maybe I am not that different from Burns. Burns's speaker admired Mary Morison from afar. He spies her from her window and thinks just being able to see her makes him rich. She is gold! I feel that way sometimes--like I've won the lottery.

Even if you are a scrooge, miserly about the idea of love, at the very least I guess we can hoist a glass Burns's way regarding his celebrations. He celebrates the friendships of men. He celebrates women. He celebrates past and future. He celebrates country. He celebrates love won and love lost. He celebrates arrivals, and he celebrates departures. He hoists his share of glasses. "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet," is his motto, and that cup filleth over with the four important things: "Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!"

Wait! Aren't enjoyment and pleasure saying the same thing? God damn, yes! Cheers to hedonism. Raise a glass to the idea that this writer didn't listen to his inner editor and erase one of those words. There is room in life for enjoyment and pleasure both!

It doesn't take long for me to like Burns. Don't tell any of my colleagues, but I like to conjure him much like Mel Gibson. I'm not talking crazy Mel Gibson of late, the one who spews racial slurs and the one who allegedly knocks out his woman's teeth. I'm talking Braveheart Mel Gibson. I like to imagine Robert Burns astride a horse and screaming, "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

I suppose what really gets me is the idea of this macho man who marches off to battle. His speaker is not afraid to die for what he believes: "By Oppression's woes and pains!/By your sons in servile chains!/We will drain our dearest veins,/But they shall be free!//Lay the proud usurpers low!/Tyrants fall in every foe/Liberty's in every blow!/Let us do or die!"

Yet for all that warrior swagger, he is also the poet touched by the little things--mice and daisies turned over while plowing. Burns helps me recognize the type I like: the gentle giant. His poetry is testosterone-filled yet every bit as much filled with the awe part of Bush's "shock and awe" war sensibility. He is pleasantly surprised--moved--by the things most wouldn't notice.

I raise my cup of Joe this morning to those barbarians who let themselves succomb to love and all the other "wee beasties" in the world.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, APRIL, 1786

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I




EE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

Thou bonie gem.




II




Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,

The bonie lark, companion meet,

Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!

Wi' spreckl'd breast!

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet

The purpling east.




III




Cauld blew the bitter-biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth

Thy tender form.




IV




The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,

High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;

But thou, beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.




V




There, in thy scanty mantle clad,

Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,

Thou lifts thy unassuming head

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!




VI




Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust;

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid

Low i' the dust.




VII




Such is the fate of simple Bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!

Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er!




VIII




Such fate to suffering Worth is giv'n,

Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,

By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink;

Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He, ruin'd, sink!




IX




Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,

That fate is thine -- no distant date;

Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,

Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall by thy doom!

TO A MOUSE

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I




EE, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!




II




I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion

An' fellow-mortal!




III




I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss't!




IV




Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!




V




Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.




VI




That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!




VII




But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!




VIII




Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

I guess an' fear!

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

I recently gave my students a writing exercise in which they are to take inventory of the contents of a small space (a wallet, a purse, a gym locker, a desk drawer, a kitchen drawer, or perhaps their car or glove compartment) in order to see what the contents say about them. Likewise, the idea is to consider what people might miss or NOT KNOW about you if they relied only on the objects.

I'm going to try my best to complete the assignments along with my students. For this exercise, I'll use my purse contents. The purse itself is a beautiful black leather purse my boyfriend gave me for Christmas. He knows I like girly things, and I think it's quite special that he entered into testosterone-deficient atmospheres where such items are sold. I can only imagine the discomfort his big macho self felt when ensconced in purses and perfumes and jewelry.

This purse has two outer side compartments. Additionally, there's more storage on the inside of the purse in one zippered compartment. There are also three "pouch" areas sewn into one side where you can place glasses, a phone etc.

Outside compartment #1, I found the following:
*a Christmas card I was supposed to send to a swap partner (in a Ziploc bag and with postage sticking to the Ziploc bag)
*another Ziploc bag filled with ATCs I made
* two ATC's made by Shawna (for which I still owe her two ATC's in trade)
* Seven self-adhesive foam thingies that I saved from the garbage during a crafting session with my friend, Shanda's little girls. They were making foam gingerbread men. They used the little circles for buttons on the gingerbread mens' bellies. I saw them as something to repurpose. I thought i could stick them to a base, paint each rectangle with a different color paint or ink and use the resulting print as interesting background for art projects.

Outside compartment #2, I found the following:
* Three pens (a Sharpie Ultra-Fine Point, a blue Uni-Ball, and a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine in black)
* a package of Eclipse spearmint gum with 6 pieces left
* checks , starting with #2001. It should be noted that I rarely use checks (who does?) but chose to order them. I ordered them via phone. They sent the checks to my previous address, so they never came to me. Thus, this caused panic when the checks never arrived. It caused worry as to where they where sent, who had them, if anyone used them, etc. So, long story short, the whole series was cancelled and reported stolen and a whole new batch had to be made and sent. I haven't used one since the whole drama unfolded.
*silk mittens I bought at the Moscow co-op which were to expensive but I'd coveted them every winter and had recently lost my gloves, so I bought them on impulse. Alas, I suppose my punishment was that I didn't try them on (who tries on mittens?), and they are really large...like sloppy, can't feel my hands kind of big. I've only worn them once as a result. I wonder if I could shrink them. I wonder if I could sew them in....but I'm afraid to try.
*a Moleskine notepad in which I tracked my sales for farmer's market this past summer, in which I write recipes, in which I make lists of books I'd like to read, movies I'd like to see and CD's I'd like to have. Additionally, the notebook contains notes for my first visit to Natalie and concert information on Michael Franti concerts this summer.

Inside Zippered Compartment contains:
* a jar of pistachio golden shea butter by Baublebath.com that I bought at the Women's Work craft fair.
*Lancome Juicy Tube lip gloss
*Revlon Color-Stay Ultimate Lipcolor in Platinum Petal
*eye glasses
* Mucinex pills
*two bottles of Warfarin (2 mg and 10 mg, since I am supposed to alternate taking 12 mg one day and 14 mg the next)
* a barette

In the compartment with three compartments, I have one black bandana belonging to my boyfriend, which I used to tie around my hair prior to Christmas, which I keep intending to give back (sorry honey!)

Finally, in the far reaches of the purse, in the dark, cavernous maw, I found the following:
*one wallet (the contents of which would merit another separate inventory and posting, perhaps...or perhaps not)
*4 Tampons
*1 apple
*1 bag Halls Triple Action soothing cough drops in cherry
*1 bottle Tussin DM Cough and Chest formula (this is contraband, as I'm not supposed to use anything other than Mucinex and a Nettipot to fight my cold, which is currently in its third week)
*a strip of gradebook paper, on which I've written the prompts for an online PAD Poem-a-Day challenge (for which I never wrote a single poem)
*a notepad (with magnetic closure) given to me for Christmas which reads: "The problem with doing nothing is you don't know when you're done." I got it on Monday, and I've yet to write in it.
*an orange notebook with turquoise elastic cord closure which apparently was a free gift with the purchase of REAL SIMPLE magazine. I bought it at Goodwill for 49 cents. I also got this one on Monday, and I've yet to write in it.
*a set of monogram sticky notes that I found in the dollar bin at Michael's. I've lived for 35 years without seeing a use for sticky notes, and suddenly I decided, apparently, that I would need to leave notes everywhere.
* a black and white photo of a family of 4 that I rescued out of the Staple's recycle bin. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but I didn't feel like it should be destroyed.

If I look at the contents in a positive light, I'd say that I'm a woman of many passions. My mind teems with ideas the likes of which require multiple pens and notebooks. I never stop thinking about art: creating it, trading it, selling it.

If you had only to look at the contents, you might suppose that I am the luckiest girl in the world with a boyfriend who treats me like a princess because I am a beautiful smelling goddess, with nary a rough patch on my body and pouty lips that cause car wrecks.

But obviously, things in my world aren't as smooth as my skin. I'm less a goddess and more a pale-faced, pale-lipped sickie and a pill popper whose boyfriend deserves a medal of honor for his sweetness and patience. I was hospitalized at the end of August, where they found a blood clot which they blamed on my oral contraceptives. As such, I was taken off birth control and placed on bloodthinners in two forms: shots administered to stomach fat and pills. My life has changed drastically. In addition to incurring 2 ER visits sans health insurance, I am now ruled by regular office visits to make sure my blood is just right (kind of the Goldilocks and the 3 Bears things: so hard, too soft, just right). It gets thinned. It gets too thin. They thicken it. They experiment. And the Warfarin is poison. It's dangerous and touchy. I have to avoid foods with high levels of Vitamin K. Everything has vitamin K. I'm not supposed to drink, though I occasionally do. It's changed my heating and cooling system. My circulation is bad, so my feet and hands get cold easily, much to the chagrin of my boyfriend who knows too well the feel of ice against his skin at moments when he's seeking heat.

And most recently, Warfarin has compromised my immune system. More accurately, I got sick Christmas Eve, and I've been fighting the good battle since then to get rid of a cold that I would normally be rid of instantly. Normally, I'd either go to the doctor and get a prescription or get an over-the-counter cold medicine. I no longer have that luxury, as everything reacts poorly with Warfarin. Thus, when I felt I was going to die from this sickness and called my doctor for help, she "prescribed" Mucinex and a Netti Pot.

So I eat apples to keep the doctor away. I two-fist the cough drops. I nurse the cough drops and drink the cough syrup in secret like the bum on the street corner with his forty in a brown bag.
The bum description isn't just for dramatic effect either. I feel down on my luck in terms of health, and I use the illness and lack of energy as my excuse for not finishing things. I am a dreamer. I have high aspirations and best of intentions, but the contents of my purse say that I don't often follow through on the things that matter most to me. Empy notebooks are useless. Pen collections are useless. If I want to write, I have to write. Period. The same is true of my commitment to art. If I want to have a business, I need to be more regimented. I need a daily art practice. Though farmer's market is not until May, I need to work NOW on building up inventory. I need to produce things leisurely rather than stressing myself right before deadlines.

All this would discourage me, except the purse reminds me daily that these things are possible. It says I am loved. It says I've got the tools and supplies to do what I want to do. I've got the skills. Now I need to make the time and stop making excuses and START.

The Young and the Combless

Bob Marley

John Butler Trio

Michael Franti

My sister, Tori

My Man and the peachy footed kitten

One of the most hurtful statements my grandmother ever made on a fairly continuous basis was, "Are you going to comb your hair?" And the thing that made it sting the most was, I had inevitably been in the bathroom combing my hair.

Let's just say my naturally curly hair didn't always cooperate. Sure, I went through an 80's phase where people coveted my hair. Others braided their hair and then combed it out. Or they crimped it. Or they spent $100+ on spiral perms to get my ringlets. But that was short-lived and haphazard at best. It definitely couldn't be counted on, and like some sort of mythical beast, it was only captured in perfection in my senior pictures. On any other given day, it was just a glimpse of Bigfoot or just the tail of Lochness. It was a fleeting measure of coolness often squelched by the seemingly always en vogue straight hair style.

To be honest, most days I looked more like Slash from Guns n' Roses or triangular perfection like Alice in the cartoon Dilbert. Combing didn't help. Add to that a propensity for knotting, and what you get is a girl who fantasized about just giving up on it. I considered starting a hat collection. But trying to conceal an abundance of curly hair with a hat is kind of like trying to hide an at-term pregnant belly with a bikini.

I also considered letting my hair go wild. Back then, I sort of envisioned the dreading process as a matter of giving one's self over to nature. I figured the hair formed itself into those glorious hanks of hair, much the same way that a blackberry bush was a tangled, dark, dangerous mass of delicate tendrils abuzz with life. They beckon with their fruit, but they say, if you pick this fruit, you might get hurt, which makes the fruit all the sweeter. And isn't that what teenage girls do anyway? Don't they emit hormonal come-hithers while at the same time with a jail bait, Lolita-esque risk?

Though I managed to unintentionally rock some pretty mean tangles which eventually I had to cut out, I never officially partook of the dreadlocks. I just admired them from afar. I remember falling for a man, not because he had dreadlocks, but because he had done his doctoral work in the mountains of Jamaica. Once finished with his studies, he found that he couldn't leave and so bought a cobalt blue house in the jungle. There he spent his days listening to reggae, smoking ganja, and counting as friends and mentors the old men who had dreadlocks down to their knees. He showed me photo after photo. The hair looked like tree roots. They look like cigars. It looked like a mop. It looked like bungee cord. It looked like Predator. They tied it with one strand. They piled it atop their heads like a geyser. They tucked it into a crocheted version of what looked like a cross between fishing net and cafeteria worker hair net.

It's not as if this boyfriend was the first to introduce me to dreadlocks, but I think he was the first to make me see their beauty. His admiration for the men helped me understand that the dreads are less a hairstyle and more a way of being. And so it goes without saying that I am an admirer of the dreadlocked ones: Bob Marley, John Butler Trio's lead singer, Michael Franti. My sister has them. My boyfriend has them.

I am compelled and repelled.
I am in awe and dubious.

I'll admit, my boyfriend's dreadlocks are the first I've touched or been in contact with on a daily basis. And I feel sometimes like Jane Goodall must have felt when studying the apes. Among my findings:

* Dreadlocks can be like a rosary or worry stone. He fiddles with them, sometimes absentmindedly and some times methodically. Sometimes he rolls them between his big palms in order to compact them and to make them more distinct.

* Do not ever expect to run your fingers through your lover's hair in the way made popular by movies and paperback novels. The result is less than romantic. You must be careful how your hands and fingers operate in the head vicinity. An errant finger can snag, catch, pull, or put pressure on them and cause pain, which makes for a grumpy macho man. It's kind of like a self-induced cock blocking. The lady goes in for a sweet or sexy gesture, accidentally causes pain or discomfort and is thus DENIED. Therefore, approach with caution.

* He uses a special shampoo that makes me feel like a koala in a grove of eucalyptus. The bottle has a picture of a cartoon black kid that looks very much like the main character in Boondocks. It is expensive and must be special ordered, so don't go using it like a hotel courtesy sample bottle of Prell. Above all, if you do snitch a little, under no circumstances should you put your hands near your eyes or your genitalia. If you disregard my friendly reminder, the unfriendly burn of the shampoo on those sensitive parts will be your punishment.

* It's an ordeal to wash them every day, so on days when he doesn't, he gets into the shower with a neon green shower cap. This is the least attractive he will ever look but also the most vulnerable and thus cutest.

* He doesn't dry them with a towel. Instead, he shakes his head like a dog or more accurately, like a heavy metal head banger. He does this outside, in the midst of winter even, and I find it sinfully sexy. Some day I expect him to come back inside looking as if he's returned from Everest expedition, with frost on his beard and icicles hanging from his....rock pick.

* When he scoops the cat up in his arms, the cat sees the locks as toys. Likewise, every once in awhile you'll find her playing animatedly with something. She'll bat an unidentified object about the kitchen linoleum until you take it away from her. Upon further inspection, you'll see it's a tuft of hair . I might lose a strand of hair, but he loses little knotty furballs.

* They come with presupposition and judgment. People naturally associate the hairstyle with other behaviors. Thus, when he travels through the airport, he'll be the one they "randomly" search. Likewise, they'll be the subject of awkward dinner conversation for old ladies who mistake them for cornrows. People will associate them with being dirty, no matter how many showers you take. The subject of bugs and critters will come up, both as joke and in all seriousness. When he travelled to meet with his conservative grandparents who live in Florida, he worried that his grandfather would disapprove.

* They are most beautiful
when he hovers, my night sky:
display of Peony, Chrysanthemum,
Dahlia, Willow, Horsehair, Spider, Palm.
A visible trail saying: This
is where we ascend. This
is the descent. This
is the spark, flash powder,
the stars, he, me long-burning
glowing, free-falling in the glitter
trail, named for the shape of its break.
It is a timed rain. A salute, nightly.

December Metamorphosis

I was an equal opportunity Scrooge. For several years, I banned Jesus, Santa, snowmen, trees, lights, blow-up polar bears, snowglobes, ugly sweaters and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." The year MY grandmother died, I thought, "Keep it." Keep the absence. Keep the sadness. Keep away the rift that developed in the remaining family members. Keep the loneliness. Keep it all.

But THIS Christmas is different. I feel a bit of a buzz. A high. I feel light-hearted and smiley and able to propel myself through crowds I'd normally shun. I dig deep in my pockets for change to give the Salvation Army bell ringer. I open doors for people whose arms are filled with consumerism. I don't automatically change the channel if I catch a whiff of Charlie Brown and his sad little tree or a little boy wanting a bb gun or some little twit talking about angels getting their wings.

It's the sort of thing that makes me want to wrap cardboard boxes with Christmas wrap and then fill those boxes with loads of homemade baked goods a la my grandmother's tradition. I won't go so far as to say that sugarplums are dancing in my head, but I'm teaching and grading and buried in paperwork, yet also salivating over the idea of peanut brittle and peanut butter fudge and pillowy clouds of divinity and sugar cookies and, and, and...hoping the notes I'm writing on students' papers won't look like recipes.

It's the sort of thing that makes me want to shop. It's the sort of thing that's making me MAKE my own goddamned wrapping paper. I bought a stocking for the cat, and I'm SEWING his stocking out of old jeans. A few times I've caught myself humming the normally annoying soundtrack to the season.

And when My Guy returned from his trip back East and admitted that he kind of hoped that I would have surprised him by decorating his apartment for the upcoming holiday, I realized I was a true Christmas sap because I had considered doing so, despite his self-labeled Atheist.

Don't judge. Atheists can have other reasons for the season. Perhaps he misses family Christmas. Or perhaps it's just another step in this thing called US. And I'm down with that. So there I was digging through my storage unit for a faux tree and decorations. Eventually, I found it: box warped with age, broken open at the bottom, cobwebby. Perfect.

And this is how Christmas threw up at Mike's (cue sitcom laugh track):

He held the cat (currently an escape artist because she's randy--due to be spayed and thus wanting to get out and get some tail--or get her tail gotten, I guess) while I maneuvered a 3 foot long box with its contents spilling out...inside his small apartment. And then it turned out that 2 of the 3 feet on the tree were missing. Apparently, they'd dropped somewhere between the storage unit and Moscow.

We had discussed the idea of a real tree but had "exnayed" the idea for two reasons: 1) I'm a semi-serious tree hugger who likes the smell of a real tree when the tree is planted in a forest but not the idea of killing and wasting a tree for a month of our own satisfaction and 2) we feared the aforementioned escape artist, crazy-with-sexual-energy kitty would climb it, chew it, topple it, etc.

So with no option to go out and buy a real tree and with being too stubborn to consider my faux tree crippled with one of three legs, I went into engineering, make-do mode. I brought out My Guy's mop bucket, tossed in the tree, some books I'd gotten from the recycling bin to weight the tree down, and filled in the other areas with bubble wrap. I then covered the non-festive bucket with festive tablecloths.

Did I mention we decided to put the tree on the kitchen table? (SEE hormone-crazed cat section above)

Did I also mention that the faux tree is comprised of 3 sections, but we were only able to use 2 sections before the tip of the tree hit the ceiling?

Did I mention that tree section A didn't fit properly into tree section C and thus required some sort of security measure for which My Guy offered up SCOTCH TAPE? He did. And of course I had to tease my football-watching, chest pounding, macho man club member for not having any MAN TAPE i.e. duct tape. [Epilogue: he came home the next day with man tape, as I had immasculated him with my joking.]!

Did I mention that I have apparently entered into a new writing phase in which I (sometimes randomly) emphasize certain words by typing them all in uppercase letters? IT'S THE EQUIVALENT TO YELLING, YOU KNOW!

So I decorated the tree with a new set of LED lights, which My Guy pronounced as "trippy." And they are. They are piercing and annoying as the newer cars you meet on the highways who have the NEWER, BETTER headlights...the ones that blind you and make you sick to your stomach and trigger Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (or treat PTSD) with their white hot lights. And then I hung the blue balls, the balls with harbingers of peace (a.k.a doves), bears with log legs and pine cones for feet, a football, a panda bear with a basketball, a snowman just chillin, African American angels. You know. Standard Christmas Decorations. And then the moment came when I placed the topper on. The topper sort of resembles a gingerbread cookie star. And the whole thing nearly toppled under the weight. So no gingerbread cookie star.

My Guy came home later with a lighter topper, which he ceremoniously placed atop the tree. He turned off the lights and commanded me to do the honors of plugging the topper in.

Nothing.

His brand-new topper didn't work. He said a Christmas curse, which is like a Christmas carol, only with a different sound than Fa-la-la-la-la-la. I took out and replaced every bulb in the topper and then plugged it in. And it shone with all the pomp and circumstance of the star of Bethlehem. And there was no manger, no crib for a bed, but there we were in My Guy's crib, chillin', looking at this little tree.

And at that very moment, I looked down and I swear there was a puddle beneath my feet. Hello metaphor! Yes, this man has taken December and warmed it. He had thawed this heart...Shut up!

I can say it. If Frank Capra can have It's a Wonderful Life, I can too.

Well, maybe a Decent Life.

A Pretty Good Life.

A Partly-Cloudy Life with a Chance of Wonderful.