first day

I was like a nervous mommy today. Only mommies don’t make their kids four-egg omelettes…well, maybe their teenagers. Nervous wife…only I’m not nervous, really…my guts are full of butterfly promise. Ben usually makes breakfast for me, but today I stuffed him with an omelette, apologized that I didn’t have time to put vegetables in, only cheese, bugged him about whether he had enough warm clothes, fussed about the long day ahead (he has classes, and then work), asked about books and notebooks. He fell right into step: bleary-eyed fatigue, too tired to be excited right now, looking forward to classes but perhaps not to the 14-hour day ahead, not exactly thinking about the fact that today is the first day of the rest of his life. But at one point I put my hands on each side of his dear face and looked into it, and saw little Ben swimming up out of the years of his life, saw the open hope in the way his eyebrows turn up in the middle, in the way his face is relaxing and opening like a window…

I am so proud to be his wife. I am so proud he is my husband.

Poem, ya’ll. Brand new. Comments and suggestions invited, including title suggesions…

I just wanted to talk.
At first, anyway.
So that’s what it feels like.
That’s what I thought,
that’s what went through my head
when my fist connected with her pretty cheek,
So that’s what it feels like
to hit a woman.
as the hot blood flooded into my skull.
See, we were stopped on Orleans,
me and my boy, and this fucking
moreno, he hit my boy’s car a little
and we stopped him, we got out,
just to talk it out, man to man, like.
But this guy, he wouldn’t get out
of his fucking car, right?
And he’s on his phone,
and I tell him to get out,
Roll down your fucking window,
I tell him,
Roll down this fucking window right now
or I’m gonna bust it out.
And he doesn’t, and so I, like,
spit on the dude’s window–
that’s what my boy tells me, anyway;
I don’t really remember that much,
I guess I was probly afraid
to break my hand, ’cause that’s what happened
the last time I punched something.
Then I catch sight of this girl crossing Orleans all alone,
and I start walking over, you know,
just to talk, like,
Hey, girl, what’s going on,
But she had to be all fucking bitchy, like,
Look, I’m not even tryin’ to talk to you,
sweetie.
It was the sweetie that really got me.
I just wanted to talk to her.
And she turns away and walks faster, and this fucking pink stripe
she got in her hair blows back and up,
like a, like a, pink piece of flame or something.
And I start to walk away, but I think about
the dude who won’t get out
of the fucking car, and my boy waiting,
and my spit dripping down the window,
and I hear her heels going clik-clik-clik
and her cute little ankles crossing back and forth,
and I just turn back around
and don’t even know what I’m going to do
until I do it, and I get that rush,
that rush that you get when you’re doing something bad,
something bad that you really really want to do,
but then all of a sudden you get terrified–
like when me and my sister were real real little,
and I’d lose my head and pop her,
and in about a split second the satisfaction wore off, and the fear of God
came into me, otherwise known as Mama,
knowing what was coming.
Well this time,
the same thing happened,
except after the fear of God,
there was no punishment.
Nothing happened.
I ran up on her,
I punched her on the side of her face,
ran back to the car,
but no one came to help her,
no boot up my ass to teach me a lesson.
She yelled, hard,
What the fuck is your problem, you fucking cocksucker?!
And, I don’t know–
this is gonna sound weird,
but if I didn’t know better,
I’d say that she wanted me to come back.
Come back and fight, or explain myself.

I don’t know, though.
I can’t say for sure.

talk

There’s a part of me that says I can’t complain. A part of me that tells me to be grateful for the past six months of such glorious poetry, such wonderful groups, such growing trust, and better staff than we’ve ever had. And I AM. But I can’t ignore the struggle I’m engaged in right now, the nitpicking and mistrust (which seems to get worse with time) I’m getting from my boss, the yuck. I don’t think that she sees it, but I know the rest of the staff is, the staff which assures me that I am indeed competent (“Is she on your case again? What is it this time?”). It’s classic founder syndrome, for those of you who’ve worked with people who’ve started their own companies or organizations. Sometimes there’s a stage where the organization needs to grow beyond the founder’s hands, which still want to be poked into every pie. That’s where we’re at, ladies and gentlemen. Poking and micromanaging, and it’s not a pretty sight, and it’s sucking the joie the vivre right outta me, like so much cherry pie filling.

So, I’m having a hard time, and I’m going to wrap this e-mail up as quickly as possible, so as not to take up more of your day and mine with any more shop talk than is necessary. I have a lot of thoughts going through my head. I have fierce love thoughts of my girls, and their stony little faces when I tell them that I’m leaving, and of course I have to leave SOMEday, but still…I have fearful jello nauseous thoughts of looking for another job, and those lists and lists of things that I don’t want to do, perils and bosses unknown. I have thoughts of applying for an MFA in Creative Writing in a year or two (simultaneous with thoughts of utter inadequacy), I have thoughts of going abroad with B… Oh Glorious. (Do you know that he wants to study abroad for a whole school year and be a bilingual teacher? A bilingual art teacher? And he wants to go to Mexico and learn about weaving? I just found this out myself.) I have thoughts of walking out of my office right now, without a word to anyone, and getting on any plane labeled Somewhere Else. But I think we both know. Yes.

And there’s a tiny core in me, about the size of a chopstick, a toothpick, smaller, smaller, that knows that I’m being moved toward some greater strength, some greater character, that I’m not simply tossed around at the whims of my boss and a free market economy. That I’m going somewhere. That I’m being moved and changed. That I’m being worked through, worked out. I know this and yet I go home and cry my bleeding eyes out, and have the same conversation over and over again. “Lord, I believe! Help me in my unbelief!” I am so that guy. This is the difference between, say, confidence and faith. Between feeling and faith.

Overheard in Andersonville a few minutes ago

On Clark Street, we passed a woman and her young blonde toddler girl, who was dressed to the nines and gnawing on something. They were apparently in the middle of a conversation, or a lecture maybe. We overheard the woman saying, “It’s a really good thing to learn how to say goodbye without screaming.”

We laughed a lot. B thought the toddler was in a habit of literally screaming, “GOODBYE!” when it comes time to leave. I thought that maybe she threw tantrums when she had to part ways with people and wasn’t ready to. We laughed a whole lot. And then I got very quiet. It is. It is a good thing.

winter poem

I might chicken out and take this down eventually, because I’m sure that I’m not really supposed to do this kind of thing, but one of my girls wrote this poem in the last session before break. We read The Polar Express, cut out snowflakes, and I asked them to write a haiku about some winter memory. One of my most mind-blowingly talented poets wrote this. Not a haiku, but look.

Snowflakes in my mind
Coldness in my heart
Sadness in my eyes
Not like this, not tonight
these winter nights
arrived

First moments

Driving home from the party last night, I listened to U2 and Mary J. Blige singing a live version of “One.” Always loved U2, keep them in a little spot behind my ribcage right next to my heart; and I like Mary too, but out there somewhere on the radio, if you know what I mean. But I love this recording. I fucking love it. You would love it more than you would think.

We’re one
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
ONE

(Last night someone told me that they like reading my journal because it’s compassionate, and because not a lot of people are compassionate like this. Or something like that. I hope I am. It made me feel better.)

It is a hidden track on a mix CD that Ian made for me, entitled White Stripes and Blues. It is inspired. A track listing later. Just as we were pulling up, the CD started over, and the first song began, “Glory, glory, hallelujah, when I lay my burden down.” Something about that song starts a deep ache in my guts. I’ve been thinking ’bout burdens, what that means. What my burden is, how to carry it with joy. How to keep my eyes up and be so dazzled that I forget that I’m carrying anything. My dad gave me a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress when I was home for Thanksgiving. I’m going to read it soon. I’m reading A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf right now.

I got a lot of compliments on my stockings last night. I responded each time, “Thank you; I’ve decided that I have nice legs.” I am done with false modesty and self-hatred. In 2005 I stumbled over my sexiness. It’s about damn time. In 2006 maybe I will dissolve it into my psyche and forget it, I hope, like a meal that you eat and becomes part of you and disappears. I think that C.S. Lewis said something like that it was better to know that you’re a good poet and then forget about it, than to try and convince yourself that you’re a bad poet. Or something like that. I could use that lesson, too.

I got to record music with my friends yesterday, a tiny long-held dream that God dropped in my lap like a plum in the waning hours of 2005. I would like some more.