Two Women in One

One of the blogs I'm following, Applehouse Poetry Workshop, had a lesson plan of sorts: write a poem about ten things you've not done, maybe wanted to do, never wanted to do, too scared to do, being sure to end with "But once I did...". I read through the poem comments they received and thought I'd give this a try for my two Selves. The first is for Toni, Woman of Letters and the second, for Joni the Barbarian.

The Missing Five or Ten
I never felt the free fall bliss
or silken parachute catch me up
from jumping from a perfect plane.

The rush of gratitude and love
from giving birth I've never known
but didn't miss, this time around.

Deepest blue green water scares me
I haven't dove the coral reefs
or breathed air bubbles from a tank.

I cannot say I'll ever know
the thrill of heights that others crave
to see the face of Everest's might.

A hairy legged tarantula
won't gaze at me upon my arm
I could not be as one with it.

As thrilling as it seems to be
I've never galloped free and wild
upon a horse who'd love it too.

Jamaica's where the rum is sweet
my sweeter husband wants to go
I just can't make my mind say yes.

The roller coaster tempts me Come
You won't fly off to Heaven yet
but I say no, I'm chicken still.

I've never stood upon a stage
with Karaoke mic in hand
I'd rather sing the Requiem.

I know too much about raw fish
to eat it in a sushi bar
I've pulled out squirmy worms myself.

But once I stood and braved the day
and said enough, I'm done at last.
I am a writer from now on.

Okay, now let's do one for good ol' Joni the Barbarian. Here are some things she did and shouldn't have, and one final thing Miss Joni regrets she's unable to do today.

That Ten That Made Me

Trajectory is everything when throwing
rocks at hornets' nests. So as I ran they
too could fly along, following air streams left
behind me, getting vengeance on the way.

A lovely cobalt bottle full of worms,
seemed a good idea one summer day
found, uncorked but strangely gone to liquid
Lost forever, sadly killed by little me.

Muttered "Stupid" when angry teacher stormed
had a temper tantrum in our classroom.
He had heard me, made me answer why, I
made up some excuse but wasn't sorry.

Flying Etch-a-Sketch sails through the antique
china hutch, and Thank God! smashing side glass
Meant to injure sis, but both of us will
suffer badly now when Mom and Dad get back.

Naked man with pecker-recktus picnic
table posing pictures, he's defendant
we're for plaintiff, wished I'd never seen them
Time cannot eradicate him from my mem'ry!

"You and your husband may come in now please."
My faux pas catching me too late, oh damn,
as hardened voice said "I'm a woman, too,"
the f--king ground refused to swallow me.

Warm champagne and hot lasagna, salad
with Italian dressing, seemed so very good,
Me drinked whole bottle. Riding, riding, homeward
Sick and spinning, porcelain is hugging me.

In my awful utter haste I stepped through
what I thought was solid ground, up to my
waist, my shoes and clothes all slick with slime.
Why can I never take the path more traveled?

"Geronimo!," I cried, as blue and deep the
ocean water called me from the wharf. My lover
said don't go, I jumped, he shook his head and
like a silly frozen fish gaffed me back in.

Summer party, kiddie pool, all done,
but tipsy me would do the trick. I lifted high
up on one edge, with weighty water pushing back,
to knock me down and souse me for the crowd.

But once I wish I'd known my Self enough
and slapped a privileged face real hard who
only wished to stall my life with talk of
love, far Lake Nipissing, scotch and little else.

Ta DAH!!!

The Pink Album

I'm currently reading Stephen King's, On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, as my walking-on-the-treadmill book. The book begins with his high praise for Mary Karr, and her novel The Liar's Club. He writes with shades of awe and envy for the "totality" of the recollections of her childhood being "an unbroken panorama." As a prelude to the story of his own childhood, which he says was "herky jerky," it seems to me self-preservation had a say in his choice of memories.

This first part of the book he says is "not an autobiography" but calls it the "C.V." He gives the reader snapshots of his life. After reading all about his childhood and his early struggles to write and succeed, I felt this was an author I never knew much about, only that I loved his work. By the time I reached the passages describing his mother's death, I was bawling and howling for the pain it laid before me. I just kept walking, sobbing, with my head down, tears falling on my sneakers and the black "ground" moving ever backward.

"Forget your personal tragedy. We are bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it - don't cheat with it." Ernest Hemingway.

The word "snapshots" reminded me of a project I've launched headlong into. I started scanning hundreds of photos from one of our oldest family albums, "The Pink Album." Making sure everyone in the family has access to these pictures on CD as real film degrades, pictures are lost, torn and fade, is important to me as the youngest child of nine. It's one of the little things I can take care of, seeing how I'm "aimless and fiddle-diddling" on the computer all day anyway. Picture five hundred eighty-eight or so has hit my hard drive with a thud and I'm looking forward to being done. I've four more albums to conquer yet. Wish me and my hard drive luck.

When I began the project I didn't expect the head trip it would take me on, filtering through memories - - The Pink Album Time Machine. This album starts back when my folks were in their mid-thirties, 1950-something. The black and white film does great justice to the time, way more than color film could have. There are pictures that make my parents look like something from The Grapes of Wrath, sans the dust storm. They were certainly as hard-pressed, poor and struggling, with too many kids.

Each child growing up, picture after picture, there's an evolution of each happy kid to teenager. Then some change would occur in each one. It was the sixties then the early seventies, the hippie days with alcohol, marijuana and worse. You could almost see the moment when the times and some "thing" overtook their lives. From one Christmas to the next, a once great, smart kid turned drunk or drug-addicted, or somehow now despondent, or uncaring about themselves. Then they'd just stop being in the pictures altogether. The older siblings then gone from the house, away on their own. They were either running off across county to escape responsibilities or desperately wanting to simply be gone from a small mill town. The worst of all? Getting married to cover the cost of a life carelessly tossed like a coin without first checking to see whether it landed heads or tails. All of us girls did that, me included.

"Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life with everything in place." John Muir

I remember in these photos my parents turning from what I understood to be loving and responsive to no more pictures together, and no more kisses good-bye in the morning. Each picture showing how far apart, the body language now so obvious to my seeing eyes. A picture of our old kitchen reminds me of the day Mom threw a plate full of breakfast and an orange and white coffee cup at Dad's head across the room and missed. I loved that cup. It was iridescent when held up to the sun, all shimmery like an eggshell with orange stripes. I might have been five and I just couldn't understand why. She was always doing things like that, but there was no one to make her stand in the corner for being naughty. Dad never gave up but he knew when to walk away.

All the screaming and yelling was nothing compared to the silence, when I'd hide under the dining room table until Dad got home. I was so little at the time, I fit in the small space where all the inside legs came together, maybe eighteen inches square. Fear was a big part of my life before I started kindergarten and my days became filled with something other than soap operas. At this point in time, my oldest sister would frequently visit Mom with her children in tow. She always had a slap for me like I was her kid and not Mom's, and I hated her for it. She always had a lie to tell, too, and she and Mom were perpetually on the outs. Perhaps if she'd realized I'd become a writer, she might have thought twice before laying a hand on me and lying her ass off? Too damn late now.

"Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!" John Irving

This album takes me through my entire early life and family history as I look at the snapshots. Experts on family dynamics say that the youngest child does not have the most accurate memories of events. Mine may not be accurate, but they formed who I am today. These memories are where I live in my head and what sets me howling on my treadmill. They are why I write.

"It's surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time." Barbara Kingsolver.