A Tree Poem/a Love Poem, Alexandra Fletcher 2010

inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke

I’m no beautiful flower, sweet and delicate, swaying in the breeze.

This here is a trunk.

Run your bike into a flower, and it’s the flower who will lose.

Run your bike into me, baby, and I’ll stop you cold.

I’ll bend your rim.

This body is not slender and green. I am all knots and broken-ness.

But just see if you can move me.

Go ahead.  Try.

You’ll breakasweat bendyourback blisteryourhands

digging so deep deep so down

fighting to unloose me from places you didn’t know I could go.

It’ll take all day.  Don’t bother.  Just rest here where I rest. Stand.

Lean. String a bed up in these branches and let go. Sleep.

You see, I don’t love like a flower loves, with just one season of life behind me,

the future uncertain, all heady fragrance and shocking beauty in the right now right now.

Love like sap and history floods my body.

I have survived the fire

the drought

the blight.

Something every year.

Even so love rushes up from one thousand long and tangled places, wills me to make something familiar yet entirely new.

So yeah, that’s right.

I have birds in my hair and

I eat light for breakfast.

But when I turn it on, I’m the interplay of death and life,

I’m shelter,

I’m shade.

You could do worse.

But I’m back.  Say that all is forgiven.

Two weeks of summer vacation left before we jump into a new school year.  I never feel ready, and yet when the day actually arrives, we begin.  I’ve been blogging with my students all summer, and much of my energy has been directed there [AP Blog].

It’s been a busy summer, and as I look down the barrel of the last two weeks, I see just how much I did not do.  Many goals and aspirations left unrealized.  It brings to mind a poem about a woman about to undergo a dental procedure — gosh, the title is sitting just outside my peripheral vision, and I can’t think of the first line either  — in the poem, the woman is gripping the chair, but as the dentist administers the gas, she begins to loosen her grip.  She does not just let go of the chair; she lets go of her fear, her worry, her preoccupations, and she realizes,  This must be what it’s like to die.  Unrealized goals, unrealized aspirations — wave gently goodbye as they get on the train, and depart for a small fishing village in the south.  Bye bye.  “How nice the happy gas,” she says.  Although, now that I’ve said that bit about the fishing village, I believe I’m combining the dentistry poem with the Billy Collins poem on forgetfulness, which under the circumstances seems particularly apt.   Caramba. Someday, the dental poem will come rushing to mind, and I’ll run right out here and post it.

I’ve always been a relational thinker — not linear, but clusters, bubbles, concentric rings spreading in all directions like a pebble tossed onto a glassy pond.  I’ve read that menopausal women become spacier, less linear, more relational.  Well, here I am.  I’m definitely at some stage of menopause…not the tidy part where the menses actually ceases, but the part where I feel myself losing my familiar, list-making mind in favor of another calmer, weirder one.  Oh, and the waistline.  The waistline is spreading even further afield.

THIS IS A DRAFT.  I WILL RETURN TO FINISH THIS.

Remodeling the house required me to pack everything into boxes, and in the process, to touch and consider (albeit briefly) each and every thing.  HOW did I acquire so many fucking THINGS?  It befuddles me.

I moved into my parents’ home after my mother’s death; I shared time and this space with my dad for the last ten years of his life.  I inherited their home which I have made into my own (living without a kitchen as I write, but I SHOULD be up and running by next week), but along with the roofed structure with two flush toilets and a mailbox,  I inherited their THINGS, many of which hold no meaning or value to me.  A service plaque.  A gigantic rosary.  A pair of matched table lamps.  A framed photo of my dad standing, smiling among strangers.

Some things found new homes in a couple of garage sales, and I’ve already forgotten exactly what those things were.

We land in this world, wet and naked, and we leave in roughly the same way.  The things we acquire, without the animating force of our narrative, become someone else’s problem.

A small, painted porcelin candy dish, a cast iron turtle, a small squishy penguin toy — these objects have a story and a meaning that I know, and that my sister knows.  But when we are gone, how will anyone understand why we saved these particular objects?

It is with this mindset that I consider my own things.

I will live 30-40 more years, IF I’m lucky, and then, Maddy will be somewhere between 50 and 60  (as I am now ), and she will have to sit with a melancholy heart to sift through a pile of mysterious material objects. I’m there, Darling Heart. I know the impulse to take a wide swipe and junk the whole mess, and the impulse to hold each thing, to turn it over and try to decipher its meaning.

So: the vase, the photo collage, the doll.

This vase standing on my desk is approximately 18 inches tall.  Who knows what it is made of?  Let’s say clay.  Porcelin clay?  Very girly in shape.  Tight waist, big ass.  It must have caught my mother’s eye in the medina, a Moroccan market, and she bought it.  Did she haggle?  Did she pay with francs?  (Now that Europe has gone to the Euro, has Morocco cast off the currency of the colonizer — the French franc? Suddenly I recall currency with Arabic characters on it.)  The vase, painted in geometric shapes in rose, yellow, green and navy blue, is older than most of my friends.  This vase is at least 40 years old.  On the bottom, it says “SAFI.”  Is that the creator?  Who was SAFI, and is she alive? I doubt it.  The vase has been from Kenitra, to San Diego, back to Spain, back to Los Alamitos: in case you’re counting, that’s 24000 miles, or roughly the circumference of the Earth.

We lived in Morocco from 1966 through 1968.  Robert Kennedy was assassinated; so was Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. It was in Morocco that my mother received the news of her mother’s death.  Those were the years that my father’s drinking really caught fire.  I rode horses, and had a spectaculr bike accident.  We lived just 100 yards from the Chief’s Club, and five hundred miles above the Sahara Desert.  The heat was crushing.  We lay on the floor, on the Navy housing linoleum, in the air produced by a oscillating fan positioned behind a block of ice that my dad brought home from work.  Our couch was naugahyde — fake leather — and I remember sticking to it.

This must have been in 2005 or 2006.  Dad’s first surgery was in September of 2006.

He recently switched from a cane to a walker, thank God.  In the years of his terrifying virility, he stood 6 feet 5 inches — long arms, long legs, and hands as big as plates.  Even now, stooped, frail, and failing — the muscles of his once powerful arms and legs stringy and loose — his falls are spectacular:  two hundred and thirty pounds falling in five directions.  The world is momentarily displaced; I hear the dull thud of bone and flesh even in my sleep, and run to find him.

Always, the ribs crack.  Recently, I stood studying his bright white pelvis, bigger than my head and floating nonsensically in a field of black, partially obscured by mysterious grey clouds (arthritis, scar tissue), while a white coat traced a hairline crack with a perfectly manicured finger, dispassionately reeling out his careful analysis:  nothing we can do. Age is degenerative, unstoppaple, inevitable. Thank you, Dr. Science.

Once, to save himself from falling, he slapped his huge hand down on the coiled red burner of the stove.  The blister covered his entire palm; it rose up slowly like the Houston Astrodome — a big bubble of skin, a leather balloon.

After the last fall — a catastrophic one that required a midnight ambulance, hospitalization, convalescent care, and appointments with physical therapists — I outfitted our house with supportive acceessories, reflecting on how much we take our mobility for granted.  I appreciated anew the horror of the bathroom: a nightmare combination of precarious balance, tile and water and soap — and gazed darkly into the future.  When I stand perfectly still, I can hear the crack of bone on walls, the shattering of safety glass.

So when I came home last week and saw the walker, I struggled with relief and sadness.  Without it, his gait is startlingly familiar, evoking childhood: he staggers through the house like a drunk, catching himself on furniture, counters, door jams.  His size thirteen feet drag along as if he were wearing cement shoes.  He cannot feel them, he says.  They are blind, stupid appendages on the ends of his legs, laced into bright white athletic shoes.  He prefers the cane, thinks the walker is for sissies.  For him to have it out is an acknowledgment, a white flag of surrender. He needs to surrender, maybe.

Of course, I want his safety, but on another level, I need him to resist just a little bit longer.  I rode his shoulders through the helplessness of childhood.  I was suddenly 7 feet tall, and invincible.  He swung me in wild circles, holding just one hand and one foot.  And on the other days — Bad Daddy Days — I learned to avoid his bad smell, his sloppy affection, the slurred insults he hurled at my mother.  First I was a mouse; I grew into a liar. I found ways around the threat of him and his swinging, punishing hands. I resisted him; I subverted his agenda, threw secret obstacles his way.

Tonight, my champion and my foe grips his walker, and drags himself on a senseless round from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen to recliner.

Today in my big classroom cabinet, I found the notebook that I kept in the summer of 2002, when Maddy and I went to Puebla, Mexico to study Spanish.  It’s a pleasure to see my old notes: vocabulary, diary entries, exercises, idioms and tongue twisters, all in Spanish.  Here’s a couple of tongue twisters, or trabalenguas:

Tres triste tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal.  En un trigal tragaban trigo tres triste tigres.

Erre con erre cigarro/erre con erre barrile/rapidas corren y rueden/las rapidas reudas del ferrocarril.

I left the notebook out on a table, and began my teaching day.  During 5th period, my student Jonathan Fajardo handed me my notebook, open to a poem I wrote, and said, “I like this.  You ought to publish it.”  I had completely forgotten it:

I would like to be in a circus,

a circus of middle age.

If I could, I’d wear a long red wig

purple stockings, and my heart

on my sleeve,

like now, but more obvious.

I would blow kisses to babies

frighten the young

and tenderly embrace the old.

If I could, I would dance on a wire

to express my hopes and fears,

gaze down at upturned faces

and throw candy

into their midst.

I would sing a song

to erase regret

and teach it to everyone.

I would throw the balls high into the air

to remind the young

that in the midst of constant change

and on the verge of chaos

fun is always possible.

Needs work, but I like the sentiment.  The language has a ways to go yet.

Two reasons I am leaving my classroom now — one: there is a rat in my classroom, and our attempt to trap it in a humane trap last night did not work, so the exterminators are coming.  And two: I have a leak in my sprinkler system and when I left for work today, the earth was soaking wet and water was bubbling up as if from an underground spring.  Charming, but not a good idea during a drought.  Expensive, and wasteful.

“The Sensuous Pleasures of a Celibate Woman”  Poems and essays.

Just gave the blog a facelift — had to upload the Ahmisa files one by one, which was a drag, but now that it’s finished, I think I am in love.  It’s so bright, but it loads quickly and the sidebar is nice and fat…all my tags and badges fit nicely, and the rounded corners are sexy.  The developer reports that the word “Ahmisa” can be taken to mean”nonviolence,” so that’s bonus.

I think I’m beginning to hate this fence layout.

But since I’m here, let me post this link to one of those LOLCheeseburgercats.

I’m allergic to cats, but sometimes these photos inspire me.

When I start to live in my head too much, and neglect my body because of the Dance of a Hundred Things to Do, my body slides down the hill FAST.  This is a surefire sign of aging:  take a walk, and every joint hurts:  toes, hips, shoulders, ankles.  Clothes feel tight.  Negotiating small spaces is awkward.  Simple everyday yoga poses are a challenge.

I think, somewhere Alex, there’s a woman your age training for a marathon, a triathalon; she’s swimming laps, she’s riding her bike.    Somewhere there’s a woman my age who is a competitive body builder.  She’s got her body fat percentage down low.  And although those women might not have — as Annie Lamott suggested once — rich inner lives, I’ll bet they are pretty grounded.  When you care for the body, the spirit and the mind calm down.

Anyway, I can’t write a blog post right now that is simply a repeat of the most boring litany in the world:  “I’m going to get myself back in shape.”  Ho hum.

I was talking in class about the urgent getting in the way of the important.  That’s a Steven Covey idea:  the urgent needs to be done now, but does nothing to advance the goals I have set for myself.  Writing, sitting zazen, stretching and strength training,  playing golf, gardening, taking long rambling walks…these activities have to supercede the Dance of a Hundred Things.  And yes, I know the trick of putting those things on the Dance Card, and marking them “A” for top priority.  So I will do that, but I always laugh a little in my head when I look down in my Franklin planner and see on the list, “Sit Zazen.”  It seems like a funny little zen joke.

Anyway, now it’s back to work.  First, I have to run out and buy cream for my coffee.  Very important.  And cook the chicken, and iron the blouse, and wash the dirty clothes, and make the Powerpoint, and send the email, and check my homework, and get myself ready for a busy day tomorrow.  Calling the city inspectors to come out and look at the sheeting on my roof so we can purchase roofing material, and get a roof on the house before the rain falls.  If it ever does.  We are in a drought, but still.  Why tempt fate?

Took out a loan so Maddy can finish her senior year.  We didn’t want to, but we had to.  I wonder where we will be next year, as she tries to enter the job market.  Chemists are eminently employable, but Maddy has something specific in mind (brewing), so we’ll see how it goes.  She has lived a charmed life thus far, and there’s no reason I can think of that this good luck and wind-at-her-back needs to change.

Here she is — cute as can be.  The truth about parenting is that it is the same as running a long race.  You look out at the tree in the distance and say, “I just want to get to that tree, and I’ll be OK.”  Then at the tree, you set a new goal, “I’ll just run to where that red truck is parked up ahead, and then I’ll let myself rest.”  So, I thought getting her through high school was the biggest challenge:  the challenge of the driver’s license, the parties, all of the trouble that can waylay a young person.  Then, the goal was just to get her settled at a good college.  But now, as she approaches graduation, I worry about her work life.  “Worry” is the wrong word — Maddy has proven herself to be a smart and resourceful person.  But I do want her to land somewhere where she will be able to use her skills & her education; where she will be appreciated and valued, and where her work will be interesting and engaging.  That she will be surrounded by people who “get” her.  What a luxurious thing to think about, though.  So many mothers must carry much deeper concerns for their children, and here I am hoping people “get” my daughter and that her work will be interesting.  I understand that I am blessed.  Nobody can love a child as completely as a mom, but of course, children don’t really get that; they are not supposed to, or they could never move out on their own.  I know I didn’t understand how hard my mother prayed for me.  Loving my daughter taught me to reconsider my own mother anew. 

My dear friend and colleague Kristy always starts the new school year with Starburst…she gives the kids a Starburst candy, and then the kids respond to speaking prompts that are associated with each color as a way of introducing themselves.  It’s a pretty common practice; my daughter and her friend Hannah report that they have both encountered this in college classes — Cal Poly SLO and UCSB respectively — so.  It’s not a new idea…and that is part of its beauty.  There’s familiarity coupled with the capacity for surprise.  I saw a big box of Starburst at Costco, and I threw it into the cart.

The thing is…I don’t know what the questions are.  No problem, though; I’m smart enough, aren’t I, to make up questions of my own?  But as I began, my dark and twisted self took over the task:

PINK:  Describe a law that you have recently broken, and discuss the circumstances.   RED:  In what ways have you been a disappointment to your parents?  YELLOW:  When was the last time you betrayed a friend’s trust?  ORANGE:  Discuss a time that you made your mother cry.