NO IDEA WHAT WILL MAKE YOU FULL

Except for the background obsession with Fleetwood Mac that has been going on for a month or two, I cannot understand why I have Spare Me A Little going through my head (and currently my laptop speaker). I think it is the music more than the lyrics. There's melancholy hope in the song and that pretty much suits my mood. Plus, these lyrics, though referring to love, ring true to my sensitivity and sadness about the state of the world, from here on the home front, to the world, which I am convinced is sidling up to another huge war.

Now I know that I feel much more
Oh in every single way
And it's not the same as before
It gets stronger everyday

It's a drag being too empathetic and emotional. I guess I should put that on my list of character traits that need to be reformed. 

Okay, a big sigh here. I need to straighten up the house some as we are expecting Cousin Dan tomorrow. When you pretty much live by yourself but not, it is hard to see any positive or forward motion in your life. All you see is the dishes, the dust, the cat bowls, the unopened mail. More towels to be laundered. The ironing. The projects you have not made any headway on.

Writing does make me feel a bit better, more centered, even more alive. I suppose it is just being more connected to myself and not just reacting to all the negative stimuli in my life. For some reason, this makes me tearful. The reading and writing are some of my very favorite parts of me, where I feel best. 

These poems showed up in my FB feed today and I thought they were good ones. These are from Maggie Nelson who was a MacArthur genius winner in 2016.

SOMETHING BRIGHT, THEN HOLES

I used to do this, the self I was

used to do this

the selves I no longer am
nor understand.

Something bright, then holes
is how a girl, newly-sighted, once

described a hand. I reread
your letters, and remember

correctly: you wanted to eat
through me. Then fall asleep

with your tongue against
an organ, quiet enough

to hear it kick. Learn everything
there is to know

about loving someone
then walk away, coolly

I’m not ashamed
Love is large and monstrous

Never again will I be so blind, so ungenerous
O bright snatches of flesh, blue

and pink, then four dark furrows, four
funnels, leading into an infinite ditch

The heart, too, is porous;
I lost the water you poured into it

From THE CANAL DIARIES

Green

Screams from an Italian family up the street
That stupid kid hitting rock after rock with his metal bat.

I’d be a shitty boyfriend, you said, as if
making a promise. I said, It’s not the content

I’m in love with, it’s the form. And that
was tenderness. All last year

I planned to write a book about
the color blue. Now I’m suddenly surrounded

by green, green gagging me
pleasurably, green holding onto my hips

from behind, digging into
the cleft, the cleft

that can be made. You have no idea
what kind of light you’ll let in

when you drop the bowl, no idea
what will make you full

“WHAT IS IT?”

A sad dusk here, the water 
swollen with debris.

The blue wrapper of an Almond Joy; 
the hourglass of a Maxi.

Some of the garbage sinks, inexplicably 
but most of it just floats by

A bag of Lay’s, another Maxi. 
Today the man in black wears

glasses; I wonder how much 
one has to drink to achieve

that nose. Yet I get the feeling 
he doesn’t drink anymore.

He greets a filthy dog brought
by a skinny hippie. The dog’s teeth

are blood-stained, his hair 
falling out in clumps. He doesn’t
 
really know what he wants, the hippie says 
as his dog sniffs the water.

Join the club, says the man in black.
The hippie tells us his dog

has terrible luck. A week ago 
it fell into a silo; yesterday

it got electrocuted while peeing 
on a pole. We don’t really know

how to respond. The sky is amazing 
tonight, full of blurry swans.

Why should I keep writing you? I ask.
Because there’s a purity in it. And so

there is. When the hippie finally leaves, 
the man in black whispers to me:

It walks like a parrot, is scrawny, 
fishes, and has dark legs. What is it?

How the hell should I know? 
I’m living a lie.

WHAT WORK THIS TAKES, YOU THINK

Another tough day. Mom has fairly eschewed her philosophy/religion (Church of Religious Science), but she likes to go to post-cult lunch with her friends. Neither of us are much in the self-starting mode on Sunday morning, so unless she is feeling exceedingly chipper, it is a bit of a push to get her there. For me, it is just a slug of coffee and whatever I can throw on to drive her over. Although this morning, coming to any functionality was fighting up from the bathymetric deep. I wasn't sure I was going to ever make it to walk-around consciousness.

I'm out of sleeping meds, so that doesn't help. I took some over the counter pill, but I still woke up often. Vera and Butterscotch taking turns for pets and fighting did not help. And in my restless and distressed state, I fight the covers as with a mad sex intensity. No audio book nor podcast can bore me to a deep sleep. Perhaps I could try the British history one again. No reason not to resist the Roman occupation, right?

Mom is desperately sad about losing Ariel. This is no real surprise, but at this point, I worry about anything that affects her being. The other kitties are just not familiars, not to me nor her. They are perfectly fine, but there is generally only room for one familiar per person. Cooder was my familiar. Emmylou is too independent to care that much. And the others aren't that kind of kitty. Oona and Idris are young enough that they could grow into those roles, but I am not holding too much hope.

Hell, I don't have much hope for anything right now. The depression and anxiety have me nearly shaking in some cases, comatose in others. I vote for comatose if I have a choice. At least lying down to watch tv or read is a defensible safety measure at those times. 

I have been able to push on in small measure, thinking that almost any progress is something. I managed to get over to Staples for more bankers' boxes and staples so that I could pack up the extraneous books and cds for now. They are not housed in the best place for access or enjoyment. I am not sure what to do about that. I am listening to lots of music lately, Alicia de Larrocha playing Albeniz at the moment thanks to MW.

At least there is a breeze today. It is hot on the patio. It will be hot back here as the afternoon wears on. I think I will try for a nap or something. 

At any rate, Mom often complains of being unsure in the world and doesn't want to walk around. She says she feels tentative. She wanted to go back to bed and skip lunch, but I felt that one day in jammies was enough. Even when I dropped her off at the church, she flagged me down to see if I would take her home. I waited until I saw that she was safely inside and then a beat before I drove away.

Of course, she came home and was much more sanguine and philosophical. 

I know she is mourning herself as well as Ariel. And Carl and Verne and my father. There is a lot to mourn, even when you aren't all the way to 91.5. I think some of my nauseated malaise and panic is due to her imminent passing and, of course, my wasted life that has left me with very few options for luxe, calme et volupté somewhere in my future. I think many of us are suffering from intense trauma.

I have taken down my Diet Coke consumption and it is weird. Trying to drink plain old cold sparkling water.

A few weeks back, I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting the poet, George Yatchisin (and the most charming Chryss Yost). He happened to post a couple of his poems on his Facebook page and I think they are damn knockouts. I hope this is okay, George. Stolen from http://levurelitteraire.com/george-yatchisin/

A Reading

“We find the body difficult to speak.”

–Jack Spicer

My best poem would have no words

but now I am writing.

Vacant at the mike she eyed over

the crowd, letting love lap in—

what a room of listeners can do for you.

While her work was like

truth in its kimono at dawn, colors in full light,

I could only latch on to one word,

as she twice misspoke “epitaph” for “epigraph,”.

as if such gist, a hard-felt coming or going,

deserved merely a name.

There are numerous words one must weigh out like change,

that jingle on the tongue’s pocket

the way love tumbles

about us so much. My friend,

who had loved her alone but not for long,

he had to watch her words, the right and wrong,

leave lips his had touched. But no more for that.

Instead, he had to watch her with another,

watch hands at backs like fingers

at a typewriter, the alphabet

broken to keep favored keys from crashing,

and the first words coming slow.

That may be why we’re so eager to get in bed

with others, to hear one truth in silence,

to settle into that clatter of nothing.

That may be how she didn’t misspeak,

sensing words are for endings, epitaphs

when nothing else is left to say.

Auto Safety

Words, yes, them again. They’re always between

1.         And there’s no real need to mention love.

It waits on street-corners with four-way stops.

No one will give love a ride—they know.

It’s funny how strangers always want to

be friends, just to change their names, just to see

the four-speed transmission of your smile find

a new gear that’s then theirs. It’s all they want.

Until they want more—loose change, a brown button,

something like love. And unknown, it’s hiding

in the back seat, holding the lighter in.

Everyone’s in an unrecalled Pinto

when fate strikes for what must be the last time,

surely, until something else happens.

More Than Anyone Cares to Hear about Cashews

So I followed the link

to the “list of culinary nuts” but

it wasn’t as bitchy fun as I’d hoped.

It did lead to the mystery

of the cashew, which dangles

from its fruit like an appendix,

something waiting to be removed.

Poor pseudo-fruit, the actual cashew apple,

in Central American called the marañón,

shaped more like a pear, anyway,

its nut protrudes from it

like a tilde off an “n.”

The locals brew that easy bruising fruit

into a spirit, sweet, but not so much

you don’t want more.

Of course we’re in it for the nuts.

In consumerland they come clean,

shorn of the shell that’s kin to sumac

and rich with noxious oils that sicken

at as much as a touch. So for you,

others will roast them, outdoors,

hoping for their cents an hour

to avoid the acrid smoke.

What work this takes you think and

devour another, salt on your tongue

like Portuguese tan and fat,

roasting on a beach in Goa.

WHERE'S MY DIET COKE?

It is entirely within the realm of possibility that I am just being overdramatic (or is that overly?). Lately, Janet complains of being light-headed and out of it. Note to self: check her blood pressure. But then again, she usually comes up with this as we are about to get into the car to go somewhere. Today, I am feeling faint, bereft, and tearful. Oh, did I mention thoroughly inadequate and overwhelmed? Over-demanded upon? To the point that even trying to focus on writing seems like too much. I always have somewhere else to be, something else do. I guess any degree of happiness, joy, and contentment are as far out of my reach as the American Dream. 

Well, we all know what a crock of shit that is, was, and ever shall be.

Sometimes, chatting with you grounds me. Today, I think I would sign up for annihilation if the pain wasn't too bad.

Oh, don't worry, I am not feeling at all self-destructive, just, you know those words: despondent, hopeless, crushed.

Some of it is the country we are now awake to. I was pretty sure we were headed that way when reality tv become so acceptable and lauded. That probably sounds radical and wait! overdramatic, but   such a celebration of the banal and crass seemed like a clear warning sign to me. 

But the depression and lethargy of my mother really doesn't help.

I feel dizzy myself. Unsure. Unable to operate heavy machinery like my life or anyone else's.

I try to shift my focus to the pretty flowers in the window boxes outside my desk. I did manage after years to get those installed. But wait! They need watering. Hell, I need watering. Where's my diet coke?

Maybe I need to cry out the poison.

IT IS RIGHT THAT TEARS FALL

I wonder where one gets grieving lessons, other than by experiencing it repeatedly. I will say this much, it is most difficult for a novice who isn't threatened by imminent war down the street, or waiting to be deported. 

I think not only of myself, but of those friends whose parents are close to the end. 

I can see the loss of Ariel is increasing my stress and sadness so that my cold is re-asserting itself. I know some of this is allergy, but I have had enough stress colds in my life to know the specific feeling very well. Nonetheless, I will go to yoga today as I haven't been since Thursday. And perhaps some Claritin might alleviate my symptoms. And I can get in a little lie-down before I go.

For some reason, Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust comes to me. Maybe it's the "Well, I'll be damned/Here comes your ghost again..." 

Grief is like the ocean as it comes in waves. Does surfing, therefore, make the grieving easier to manage?

Now it's Thursday. I am just about to head out to my yoga class. I keep wondering why I don't feel well, besides the lingering cold/allergy. Then I remember the maple bar doughnut. Janet and I were hurrying out of the house to get to her macular degeneration surgery when she decided she wanted to eat. If she makes toast, she has to butter it carefully, eat it slowly, then brush her teeth, and she will undoubtedly need to use the toilet again. However, tempting her with a maple bar will get her right into the car. If only I could resist. 

Ariel did reappear, but she doesn't seem to be eating. Poor kitty. I will call her vet tomorrow to get her take on it.

Oona did not come in last night. She showed up this morning after breakfast. I found her sleeping in the garden when I watered. She looks as if she were in a fight, a bit. Plus, it is full-on flea season and 'though we have been assiduous in their flea meds, those fucker fleas are outside. I think that's what's biting me in when I am out in the yard.

Weeks later.

I talk to you all the time, just know this. Especially as I am relatively isolated, the commentary to all of you, particularly those who respond, goes on nonstop, Impressions, sentences, observations collect. Themes to discuss with you. 

Then comes some reality creeping around. Once again, I am derailed. Taking care of Janet, the cats, going swimming and to yoga take the forefront. Some new, small tragedy needs immediate attention. Or I am just felled by local, national, cosmic events into a drooling mass of binge watching.

This week, I stepped off the wagon. I haven't fallen, to be sure. Plus, after six months of minimal alcohol intake, a beer can trash me. What will all the stress, I am surprised I haven't sought more solace in food and drink.

THE TRAVELING ONION

It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt, it was an object of worship—why I haven't been able to find out. From Egypt, the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe, thence into all of Europe.

— Emma Bailey and Editors of Prevention, Better Living Cookbook, 1974

When I think how far the onion has traveled
just to enter into my stew today, I could kneel and praise
all small forgotten miracles,
crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
pearly layers in smooth agreement,
the way knife enters onion, straight
and onion falls apart on the chopping block,
a history revealed.

And I would never scold an onion
for causing tears.
It is right that tears fall
for something small and forgotten.
How at a meal, we sit to eat,
commenting on the texture of meat or herbal aroma
but never on the translucence of onion,
now limp, now divided,
or its traditionally honorable career:
For the sake of others,
disappear.

— Naomi Shihab Nye, Yellow Glove, Portland, Oregon, Brietenbush Books, 1986 

SORROWS MUCH KEENER

Well, I’ll be damned if I haven’t managed to stress out and cause a relapse. Perhaps this bout will be more short-lived (although life/lived are a sore subject today). And damned if I didn't wake up at 5:30 again. Sleep beckoned, so I staid in bed. Since returning to yoga, I have begun, again, to focus on my breathing to fall asleep. Breathing practice, like sun salutations, are part of yoga I have never much liked.

This morning Death Don't Have No Mercy (Hot Tuna version) has been in mind. Hot Tuna was one of the loudest bands I ever saw. Then again, I was once sitting upstairs at the Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland listening to the Dead. I looked down and saw that the sound was moving the material of my jeans. And then I wondered what that level of sound was doing to my ear drums. (Stuart was with me and did some nice drawings.)

Update!

Ariel lives to fight another day!

A week later.

Can or is broken-heartedness just a simple thing? Is it complicated or just a basic fact like breathing.

Today, right now, I am, I seem to be, broken-hearted. I am still breathing and moving around, but I really want to lie down and sleep or get lost in some nice long narrative on a screen.

We haven't seen Ariel for a day. I have looked all around the garden and house, but no kitty.

Last week, the vet could not find anything overtly wrong with her. We came up with a treatment plan to make her more comfortable. Ariel's life had another plan.

My mother is taking this very hard.

My mother has been depressed since Anthony Bourdain killed himself. I know his suicide has affected so many of us. My mother cannot shake her sadness over this. I've tried to get her to talk about it a bit, but to no avail.

Just all the loss right now.

Our personal, smaller losses in life, but the bigger loss of our sanity, our integrity, our country. And the trumpeted (no pun intended), televised spectacle, nearly a celebration of depravity batters our souls. Staggering is how it feels. And staggering feels like how I am getting through life at the moment.

This winding down of life is excruciating. These losses take their toll on my mother, who seems more frail, resigned, and distant. Where and how can we comfort one another? What is the lesson? Is there a lesson?

I sit here looking at life and death in the garden outside my window. And the struggles (my hibiscus needs food badly). In my immediate view are the impatiens and penstemon in the newly installed window boxes. The butterfly garden effort must be succeeding as there are yellow and monarch butterflies almost always in view. A red rose crowns a plant in my neighbor's yard, towering over the yellow-painted brick fence. Butterscotch, the kitty that will probably die of a recurrence of cancer is stretched out in the window beside me. A breeze blows through the hot day.

THE BLUE BOWL

Like primitive we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole. It fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on this long red fur, the white feathers
that grew between his toes, and his
long, not to aquiline, nose.
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows much keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

— Jane Kenyon, Collected Poems, Graywolf Press

IT'S JUST THAT

Dead flowers?

I fell down the rabbit hole of despair today. The fever of depression took ahold of me. Oddly enough, I had just ordered a new copy of Sticky Fingers which arrived today. And boy does this lyric fit:

It's just that demon life has got you in its sway

It's just that demon life has got you in its sway

I woke up at 5:00 or 5:30, which was okay, but I didn't really want to get up. After some less than pleasurable time spent listening to Morning Edition (Trump! Guiliani!), I finally fell back asleep. I probably should have bitten that bullet and gotten up. (I think one of my neighbors is smoking pot.) 

Saturday, I was out fighting the good fight in the garden. After three years of relatively pest free gardening, the snails have figured it all out. Would that I were up for an escargot experiment as I had more than enough for a meal. I found them every which way, fornicating, sleeping, eating, sliming. S

 First Pork Chop tomato.

Sweet potato extravaganza.

My mom came out to tell me that she thinks it is time to put down her favorite kitty, Ariel.

Ariel is the sweetest, nicest kitty, and has been my mom's best companion. Ariel has lost weight and slowed down, which is no surprise given that she is about 15 or 16. Ariel's companion kitty, Max, died three years ago, just a couple of weeks after I re-arrived on the scene. 

I was already feeling extra sad as the father of an old friend had died on Thursday or Friday. I carried some of that sorrow as she clearly adored and enjoyed her father. And every time a contemporary's parent dies, I recall that I am somewhere on that line. 

Janet's mortality and vulnerability came into sharper focus. Inasmuch as she drives me utterly nuts, I dread her passing for any number of reasons. And her pain at losing her sweetest Ariel cut me. Although I don't spend much time with Ariel, I have grown accustomed to, and fond of, seeing her sleeping next to my mom, or at her head. We recently acquired a second rocking chair so that both Janet and Ariel had rocking chairs to sit in.

We are taking her in to the vet tomorrow to see if there are palliative measures to be taken to make her more comfortable, as she still has a will to live, or if she is better served by euthanasia.

I feel as if I would be better served by euthanasia at the moment. The political situation is so dearly untenable. I don't want to be uninformed, but the constant onslaught of depravity, cowardice, gluttony, well, you all know the list, — soul AND sanity crushing. 

I try to remember something(s) of joy and pleasure: the setting sunlight on my orange bougainvillea, the perky gladiolus I unburdened from sweet potato and tomato vines, the breeze, Mick Taylor's soulful playing (the Stones should have never let that guy go). 

Did you all know about Oizys? The Greek goddess of misery, anxiety, grief, and pain? Well, I know her well, though I never called her by that name. The personification of Woe. Woe might be related to grief and pain, but these things are not all the same.

Butterscotch among the Veras.

SWAY

Did you ever wake up to find
A day that broke up your mind
Destroyed your notion of circular time

It's just that demon life has got you in its sway
It's just that demon life has got you in its sway

Ain't flinging tears out on the dusty ground
For all my friends out on the burial ground
Can't stand the feeling getting so brought down

It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway

There must be ways to find out
Love is the way they say is really strutting out

Hey, hey, hey now
One day I woke up to find
Right in the bed next to mine
Someone that broke me up with a corner of her smile, yeah

It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway

It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me

It's just that demon life has got me

— Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Sticky Fingers, 1971

HOW DID THAT FEEL?

I may well have mentioned this before in these posts. As I child, I can distinctly remembering some fears about history repeating itself. Volcanoes were one thing that gave me nightmares. Given the current activity in the Pacific Ring of Fire, perhaps the San Andreas Fault and its family can't stand the United States either. Time to blow this pop-stand.

The Great Depression and abject, hopeless poverty frightened me. Now, I get to live just barely above the poverty line. Those images of food lines, Dust Bowl migrants, and general desperation terrified me. I thought by choosing to work in the larger "entertainment" industry, I would be employed. Wrong again. It's pretty hard to accept misery in the face of all the glamorous consumerism surrounding us. You know, there should be some financial threshold below which one is exempt from telemarketers and push advertisers.

And I was afraid of Nazism and Fascism, once I understood them in the larger context besides persecution of Jews (don't misread me, that was beyond the pale of horror and unspeakability). How did that feel, to watch that all go down? Like watching the Bush and Trump presidencies, you say? Yes, that is how I feel. Here we are at the bonfire of the vanities of law, kindness, sanity, compassion, selflessness, generosity, equality, equanimity, art, truth, and beauty.