Crystal's Ramble & Roam

RIP Paul Violi, RIP Manning Marable

2011-04-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Lots of people I knew and admired have died lately. But that's no surprise. People are always dying. Dying is what seems to motor so much of our living: new face creams, new diets, new longevity concoctions, Joan Rivers' endless surgical procedures; what is an obsession with youth if not also an obsession with or, if you prefer, against death. I get it. Believe me. And I've grieved enough to know it in all of the ways a body and spirit can know grief.

But recently a group of people who I've known as acquaintances has started to die and somehow death seems to be becoming more real in a way it did not even when my mother died. I think this is because these acquaintances are closer in age to me, and I am closer to the age they were when they died. Fifteen years is not much of a difference, you come to realize, when you're forty, as am I. Forty-eight year-old people are dying. By my calculation, Paul Violi was sixty-seven when he died. Manning Marable was just sixty years old when he died this week! When fifty-five year people start to die one's life and choices seem to invite a new kind of introspection and consideration.

But this, too, is nothing new. I suppose what I am most struck by is that it is not new, that we can know that people work chronically against death, push and push and scratch, get dragged kicking and screaming along. We know that people are always surprised by the rapidity of their own aging. We know grandparents who have seen all of their friends die and count themselves among the lucky. And yet, even with that knowing so bound up with all our other knowings, the visceral knowledge and understanding that one is rubbing against death's shoulder everyday never quite fully makes its way into our bodies until it makes its way into a body who we know.

And this sort of knowing/not-knowing is of deep and meaningful interest to me. I mean: what else in our lives is like this? What else do we know but don't know? And what is the function of this sort of knowing? Having children must be like this. My friends with children say they knew their lives would be different, but they didn't really know. I understand grief to be this way. I long ago stopped trying to describe to friends who have never had a death in their immediate family what loss feels like, though they know if feels bad and isn't something to want.

When, today, I heard about Paul Violi's death, I was again struck by how brilliant our machines are. For I take this knowing/not-knowing to be some sort of physiological fact that keeps us motoring along. If we knew everything we simply could not be functional. So, ultimately, this comes down to a feeling of deep gratitude that some knowings are simply not mine. I don't want them. And I won't seek to claim them for now. I have learned through the years that what's for me will be mine in its own time--and just in time.

What I am left with is a feeling of great loss. We've lost two tremendously talented young men this week, in two days, really. One was a poet. The other a historian. If ever the world needed those two things, it needs it now. We can barely afford their loss. I do know that with all of my body and all of my heart.

Here's a poem by Paul Violi who died today.

Appeal to the Grammarians
by Paul Violi

We, the naturally hopeful,
Need a simple sign
For the myriad ways we're capsized.
We who love precise language
Need a finer way to convey
Disappointment and perplexity.
For speechlessness and all its inflections,
For up-ended expectations,
For every time we're ambushed
By trivial or stupefying irony,
For pure incredulity, we need
The inverted exclamation point.
For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,
For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift
Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,
Or felt love or pond ice
Give way underfoot, we deserve it.
We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,
The child whose ball doesn't bounce back,
The flat tire at journey's outset,
The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.
But mainly because I need it—here and now
As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
Staring at my espresso and cannoli
After this middle-aged couple
Came strolling by and he suddenly
Veered and sneezed all over my table
And she said to him, "See, that's why
I don't like to eat outside."

A History Lesson For Chris Brown

2011-03-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

There isn't really much more to say than this. For those of you who don't know what this video is responding to, check out this Washington Post article. Essentially, Chris Brown physically assaulted his then-girlfriend, Rhianna, and two years later, after a morning television show interview during which he was asked about that incident, he again flew into a rage, throwing a trash can and becoming violent, though this time he didn't hit anyone. After that incident, he's been doing a PR campaign and complaining about how the media has treated him. The poor dear.

#32--Heading Back to Portland via These United States

2010-08-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

So I’m heading back after a blissful and eventful year away. It occurred to me, oh, somewhere in the tenth month, that I would have been smart to collect those locale bumper stickers (oh, you know, like “Boise, Idaho!” or “Atchafalaya, LA”) to put all over the Thule Cargo box. They would have been a good representation of the many places I’ve seen. But also, they would have covered up the gaffer’s tape which isn’t looking so hot, though it is miraculously still doing its job--namely keeping the elements out of my too-much-stuff. For those of you who have been keeping up with this very infrequent blog from the beginning: No, it has not escaped me that my dealings with vanity have not yet been settled.

Somewhere along the way (in Detroit, go figure) someone stole a bag that contained my most favorite summer clothing. That sucked. I had a U Michigan tee shirt in there, a “Detroit Soul” tee shirt in there, these fabulous bell legged work out pants that are irreplaceable. People are so mean. Sigh. Also along the way I battled and battled illness for nearly four months and am still not sure I’m done with that battle. But all in all it’s been a magnificent year. I finished a manuscript titled, “Walking the Cemetery: Detroit Poems” (yay!), met loads of terrific people (this photo is of me and Nayef Homsi who I met at MacDowell), saw places I’d not seen in a long time or ever (like CT, for example, or Atchafalaya, LA), and lost weight, gained weight, figured out my back problems, and on and on.

I’ll be forty in another month or so and I can’t imagine a better way to have exited this decade, which has been trying. My thirties started (literately), with my mom’s death. I think it’s fitting that my forties begin with a journey—physical, emotional, and spiritual—in which my life seems full of (oh, how hokey can you get, Crystal Williams?!) potential and the world full extraordinary places and adventures.

In the past month, here’s where I’ve been:

Hamden, CT:

Where I was house and dog sitting for some new friends. I’ve got nothing quippy to write about Hamden. It was sweet. I was in Hamden for the month of July, finishing up the manuscript and chilling out. Hamden is the town closest to New Haven. And the neighborhood I was in, Spring Glenn, is so sweet. Everyone I met there was fantastic. Really. It was a little frightening, actually. The only complaint I have is that it was miserably hot. So I saw a LOT of really awful movies. (To the right: Eddie (l) and Sadie, the little white dogs. I lived with Eddie for nearly a month. Sadie came and stayed over for a long weekend. They had a thing. And Sadie was such a snuggle muffin. Made me think hard about a little dog. For real.)

East Hampton, NY:

After leaving Hamden, I took three ferries (!!) to Long Island Sound where I stayed with my good friend (and old boss), Jo Ann McGreevy, in her sweet farm house. It was the first time I’d ever been to The Hamptons. What can I say? Um: Wealth. And lots of skinny women with pony tails. Oh, and eight baristas behind the counter at Starbucks on a Saturday morning. I think that says it all.

Charlotte, NC:

I drove on down to Charlotte because A) I keep hearing good things about it and wanted to see it but it’s not the kind of place that I’d ever just find myself in or passing through so this seemed my one good chance, B) it’s close to Asheville, NC, another place about which I’d heard many good things, and C) I’d decided to go the Southern Route back to Portland so I-5 South seemed like the thing to do from NY. Anyway, Charlotte was cool. A sort of newish, modern city. I admit that I didn’t have much of a chance to really look around because the 12 hour drive down turned into a 15 hour ordeal. Let me just say here: Virginia sucks. Virginia traffic sucks. Why folks slow down for NO REASON just bewilders me. I was so hot under the collar that I called my friend Daryl who just kept saying, in her Alabama twang, “Crystal-girl, you’ve just gotta get okay with it.” Please. She’s known me for too long. I don’t even know why she tried. We crawled for about 2 hours straight (and, again, for no discernible reason). This, of course, made me curse, yes, but more importantly, reconsider whether or not I like people at all.

The real treat in Charlotte was the Alan Michael Parker (who lives in a fantastic little hamlet outside of Charlotte) had me over for dinner (he's a spectacular cook!). What a lovely, lovely dinner. He and his wife Felicia have two dogs, Bella and Isa (probably misspelling that). The latter is incredibly shy. But we managed to strike up an understanding such that she popped me with her snout a couple of times to tell me to keep petting her. Joy!

Also, an old acquaintance drove in from outside of Columbia, SC and we had an early lunch. She’s an artist and an arts administrator and she managed to, when none of my other photog friends have, get some shots of me. She was so smooth about taking out that damned camera. Sigh. I hate photos of myself. Really, really. I always look like a pumpkin head. Anyway, we had a nice lunch and chatted with this fantastic and exuberant waitress named Mozelle. Mozelle. I want to write a novel just to be able to say/see/read that over and over, “Mozelle watched the woman with the white-stitched pants work her way across the room...”, “Mozelle yawned, her mouth bigger and darker than...”, “Mozelle said, ‘...”

Atlanta, GA

I didn’t like Atlanta much (actually, at all) because the humidity was outrageous and none of my very dearest friends who have spent any time there like it. I went in with bad ideas which just grew and grew and grew. By the time I left, I would have argued anyone down about the faults of a city I barely saw. Doh! It didn’t help that I found myself at some mall that was full of badly dressed folks primping and walking around like they were the be-all-end-all. Yuck. But I did hook back up with a dear friend of mine who I’d not seen since at least 1999. We had a fun dinner.

On my way out of Atlanta I stopped at the Tuskegee Airman National Historic Site, primarily because my dear friend Mary James' dad is an Airman and he's super cool and I wanted to see A) history, but more locally, B) where he'd been. Besides crying some, I kept thinking, "How'd they survive this heat?!!"

I want to take this moment to lodge a public complaint about the damned Stern-Road Food people. On this trip and up to this point I’d been going around to places they suggested on their site (www.roadfood.com) in an attempt to get some good BBQ and soul food before returning to the BBQ wasteland which is Portland, Oregon. On the morning I left Atlanta I stopped at The Silver Skillet for some biscuits and ham. Well, when I walked in I was the only brown person in the joint, which, normally, especially when I’m in Portland, isn’t a problem, it’s just sorta the way things are, but in Atlanta made me a tad suspicious. Just sayin’. It didn’t help that everyone in there but the waitresses (with their eyeliner applied such that the line--if you could call it a line since it was inconsistent and looked oddly like those “country road” lines in the Atlas’ legend--wasn’t really related to the eye, but rather the upper cheek, if you can visualize what I mean) was some version of Wally Cleaver’s dad. Anyway, I soldiered up and ordered my food. The waitress was sweet after all and we got to chatting about New Orleans, which I planned to go through later that day. She said, “Honey, stay away from there, it’ll only make you sad,” which sounded about right and which I obeyed. As I was leaving, and here’s the rub, I look at the signage and stick-em-ups above and around the register. Besides one that was about OJ (which I take to be about race only tangentially in that I don’t know that anyone would have been particularly interested in the case were he a white guy ala Specter or even Polanski, the bastard), was the following: Hillary Clinton’s face on the body of a cow with the caption, “New York State’s first case of mad cow disease,” which, of course, made me nauseous--and not because I’m any Hillary fan. My beef is this: all of those things combined told me that this probably wasn’t the kind of place just anybody goes to. Brown folks have to be careful, especially in the south. And I know folks think that isn’t real. Folks will argue that we Northerners are just overly sensitive. And that might be true. But shit still happens. People are still dying in this country around race and racism. And these days, especially these days when everyone is so scared, I was scared a bit. I wish the Sterns would have said something about the stick-em-ups, even if they can’t legally say, “Well, we’re not sure about whether this place is friendly to all people.” I wish they had because if I had been in some back woods-off-the-grid kind of joint and been caught unawares (me there on my road-trip by myself), the results could have been traumatic. That’s my beef with them. I’m going to write a letter. Anyway, it was a fitting thing to happen in a town that already made me feel a little at odds.

Baton Rouge, LA (and the Gulf Coast)

Baton Rouge is sort of a pit. Sorry. The buildings seemed like an incoherent Savannah, without the beauty, which is logical in that Savannah is one of the only southern towns (I think I remember this correctly) that wasn’t burned or damaged in the war. Or, if you’ve not been to Savannah, The French Quarter works as an equivalent comparison.

Mobile is also sort of a pit. Sorry. But there is a BBQ place there that is worth a 100 mile drive, for sure: the Brick Pit is gooooooooood. I mean, those ribs were goo-ooh-o0h-ooh-ooh-oooood. (The photo to the left is of their BBQ ribs, coleslaw and beans. Oh, good, good Lord.)

The drive through the Gulf Coast was super interesting. I detoured from 10-W and drove along the water for some time, through Baton Rouge, and along through Gulfport, etc. What’s amazing is the beaches are absolutely empty. I saw four bodies sort of sitting on the sand in about twenty miles. But what’s equally amazing is that all of the beach front property I could see is vacant. The entire coast is just sign after sign after sign reading: “Land for Sale.” Every now and again you’ll find someone who has rebuilt their house, but 98% of the land is empty. Folk can’t afford to rebuild. This devastation is all from “The Storm,” as it’s called down there. (I learned this from a man in a post office in San Antonio; he also told me about an online book-swap sight where people trade paperbacks via the United States Post Office; see: paperbackswap.com.)

I found the landscape of the area particularly compelling. So much water, many bayous. In one area you could see where The Storm had savaged so many trees that the swamp seemed to be a graveyard, the remaining trunks headstones. Highway 10 is, in many places, an elevated four lane deal (divided by water, so two lanes in each direction). This gives the effect of not being on a highway at all but on a prolonged bridge (and often these elevated sections would actually turn into proper bridges where larger bodies of water intersected smaller bodies of water over which we’d been traveling). Being there, driving there, allows one to quickly and easily realize how much the water informs the life of the residents of the region. It’s a different sort of knowing than one gets from the creepy movies about the bayou wherein there’s some obvious Bayou expert taking around some idiots at night on a boat with a single light or some such. It hit me suddenly and sharply. In the movies it’s easy to think that the water is important but not integral. Not so.

San Antonio, TX
This was my first and not my last trip to San Antonio. What a beautiful little town. Here is a picture of the River Walk. Wow. I’m coming back in October. It’s a fact!!! Also, the photo of the Rosa Parks bus seat is from San Antonio. How cool is that. There's a sign above it that describes Parks' efforts.

El Paso, TX
Another pit. Ugh. As if there was no city planner ever in the history of humanity and certainly never ever one in this “town.” Blech. Maybe I missed something? Though, it was sort of cool to be driving up on a hill going west and to look south and think, “Hunh, those houses built into the rock like that, the way they’re all sort of jammed up like that, that reminds me of a third world situation,” and then to look down and see the wall and then to realize: Damn, that’s Mexico. The difference is just that stark and close. All the way from El Paso to Las Cruces, which is where I am tonight, I was thinking about the Immigration debate and how close we actually are. So sad.

Las Cruces, NM
I’m not sure I have much to say about Las Cruces. I didn’t find the center of town. The folks on Chowhound appropriately dog the city, claim it’s a culinary wasteland. I had a good taco salad. Taco salads, I suspect, are not Mexican food, Tex-Mexican food, or any other type of “authentic.” But it was good anyway. There seems to be a lot of sprawl. What I can say is that as soon as I got far enough into west Texas, the weather started to dry up and get appreciably better. By the time I got out of my car today in Las Cruces where the temperature was 102, I was quite happy to walk around. It’s dry here. And the mountains are so gorgeous. And the light, the light is outstanding. I walked a bit in San Antonio and the guy from the restaurant took one look at my sweaty self and said, “Oh, we need to put you inside, inside definitely.” No lie.

Tomorrow I’m off to drive up the 101 on California’s coast to Portland. It’s going to take me another 3 nights and four days. But I’m heading on home. Indeed. More from somewhere in Cali.

My Love,
C

#31—Travel, Travel, and Stuff I've Learned Along the Way

2010-04-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, let’s see. I just came from the nail salon where I found—after trying on five different nail polish colors (and I know this because the nice man had to remove a "tester" color from each finger and a thumb on my left hand)—the perfect color for me. It’s name, you wonder? “High Maintenance.” Sigh. Save your snark. I’m already on it.

Other than that, things have been quiet, though I have loads of travel coming up. Last week it was Denver, this week Hartford/Boston, at the end of April NYC. I’ve canceled a trip to Detroit in between because I think being gone every weekend for five weekends is too much travel, even for me.

Anyway, as I said, I just came from Denver where I didn’t drink nearly enough water and slept more than usual. I’ve since been told that both hydration and sleep cycles are affected by the ultra high altitude. I thought I was slacking off. Now I just feel like a victim: someone should have told us before we got on the ground in Denver the dos and don’ts of high altitude living! Harrumph.

I was there for the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. Every year four to five thousand folks attend these events. It depends, really, on where the thing is happening. For example, last year it was in Chicago and so everyone and their momma (and that’s literal) was there. Denver is a bit away from the East Coast which is writing program heavy, and so there were fewer people (or at least it felt like there were fewer people). It’s harder for students to get to places like Denver, for one. Also, as you know, the economy is terrible. There’s a lot of wallet-watching going on. Next year, however, the conference is in Washington, DC so I know it’ll be a madhouse. Wallet watching or no wallet watching.

As for the conference: it was good. While those of us who have been going for years chronically complain about how big the conference has gotten over the past seven or eight years, how much professionalism has become the order of the day (read: people checking out who is who and who can do what for them--blech!), it’s still always nice to see one’s friends once a year in a strange city and talk about writing and teaching and listen to the work of people you admire. I’m trying to get a new friend of mine, not a writer, but a reader, to attend next year’s conference. I think he’d be like a pig in slop. There are so many great readings at AWP. Dunno if he’ll do it. But he should.

I don’t have much to report other than that. I have run across some oddities this week. Here’s a list of what I know and/or what I’ve learned:

1. It’s probably not a good idea to have your hair cut in an airport hair salon.

2. The dog across the street, a very beautiful Doberman Pinscher, is communing with his inner wolf, the poor dear. He howls and howls and howls. But, man is he one good looking beast!

3. If you want to walk two miles between terminals, carting your luggage and with a shoulder bag that is unpleasantly heavy, make sure you get a ticket which requires you transfer flights in Minneapolis. Ugh. Whoever designed this airport was a creep.

4. Writers drink A LOT of liquor. But then, I knew this from MacDowell. It was further confirmed at AWP-2010.

5. When a woman in a bar asks to sit with you and a friend and proceeds to talk nonstop for ten minutes, never once asking for any information about you (other than for your business card, which you should not give her), do two things: 1) feign illness and beg your angels for forgiveness if they begin to rally for no reason, 2) walk quickly away.

6. Doh. When a good looking man in a bar asks if he can buy you a drink, say “Yes,” and “Thank you.” I just found out that that works nicely. Who knew.

7. If you’re ever in Denver, it’s worth the cab ride to get dinner at Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant. (and by the way, why is there always a Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant in every single city?!)

8. When going to a writer’s conference, pack sensible shoes unless you want your dogs to bark, howl, and pass out from exhaustion. (Or, if you rather, don’t try to be cute at a convention center where the goal of the space is actually to have you move over looooong distances on hard surfaces in bad lighting. No one can see your cuteness and, more importantly, no one cares.)

9. When on an airplane, thank God every time the guy sitting next to you isn’t scratching, picking, slurping or otherwise making himself completely disgusting.

#30--Random Info/New Work yadda

2010-04-01T03:08:00.000-07:00

Hi there. Happy National Poetry Month!

So for those of you (ahem, Martha) who have been checking in and finding me woefully absent, I'm really going to try to update at least once a week. I could come up with lots of excuses, but ultimately I think I'm just terribly, terribly undisciplined.

The good news is that poems have started clearing their throats and making themselves known again!

Why this should surprise me, I don't know. It's always like this: I don't write for months and months and then I write furiously. I've talked about this phenomenon with friends, in interviews, etc...so I know it exists. But somehow I do forget. I do this with allergy season, too. Go figure.

I was talking with a new friend yesterday--a scholar--who has this same thing happen. He's working on a critical introduction to his book and each time he goes back to it, he has to relearn the stuff, struggle with whether he knows how to write critically, etc... It's a very knuckleheaded way of engaging work, we surmised. But we do it. So odd. Proof that people are pretty weird.

For those of you interested in the new work that I'm into, it's featured on the connotation press website which you can find by clicking that link. They put up three of my poems, an interview, and me reading the poems, which was a whole ordeal not worthy of recounting. Yipes! I'm excited. I don't think I've ever had poems (well, with the exception of having one animated on Born a loooong time ago), online. And I know I've certainly never been the featured poet, which is what I am on connotationpress.com. It's especially nice to be on the site this month (National Poetry Month) with poets I like and admire. Wahoo!

I'd like to officially announce that I am going to be one of those poets who uses their publicity shot from twenty years ago for ever and ever and ever. Just so you know. I know full well I don't look like that photo they've got posted on ConnotationPress.com. I don't think I ever did. But whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Harrumph.

Anyway, I just wanted to poke my head in and say, "Hi!" I'm in Indiana still. The weather is beginning to nicen up (I know nicen isn't a word, but the hell with it). There's also a coffee shop here now! And it's a fairly nice one. By nice I mean it's great by small town standards, by city standards not-so-much. But it'll do. And it's just around the corner from my place. So that's good.

Okay, that's it from me. Since it is National Poetry Month, do me a favor, if you're not a poet (or perhaps especially if you're a poet!) and read a book of poems. Maurice Manning and Terrance Hayes both have new ones out this month. Those would be a good place to start, I'd say.

Peace and Blessings,
C

#29--A Trip to Southern California and other yadda.

2010-03-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this entry from Southern California, Santa Monica to be exact, where I’ve been for a little less than a week. I came out here in search of sun (good Lord is the Midwest dreary at this time of year!) and found some, though it hasn’t been hot which would have made me happy because I have very cute hot weather shoes and my toenails are done. Nevertheless, it’s lovely here. And my toenails can hold out for May and June. Still, hot woulda been nice.

We (me and friend Kim) rented a small cottage off of VRBO (http://www.vrbo.com/88630) which has been delightful. The owner, Deirdre, has something of a compound: two houses and a studio apartment on an over sized plot in a lovely neighborhood in Santa Monica, about six blocks up from the beach. Right now I’m writing in the lovely garden. And she has two lovely dogs, Hannah and Mickey, who I especially like. Lovely. Yes. Everything was lovely (past tense now because I'm leaving early in the morning).

This is my first time in Santa Monica and only my second time in the LA area. I like this time MUCH better. The first time I was visiting my friend Ava and we seemed only to be driving around LA’s vast labyrinth of freeways--the entire time! This time, Kim and I are just sort of bumping along Santa Monica on foot. No traffic. No hassle.

So far I’ve had a small Korean woman walk on my back and knead her high-arched feet all along my body, a man with his very beautiful and very young wife stop us to ask us if he was a catch, to which I absolutely agreed by holding up both thumbs, listened to the better part of John Edgar Wideman’s newest collection of short stories (See here) be read by some very yummy actors among whom was Gary Dourdan (and can I just say, as you can see in the photo, that: Holy smokes, some things just aren’t right and that some men are just too pretty for words!), watched a little boy dressed in a gold super hero costume complete with black mask and thunderbolt strut up and down the boardwalk, and had a woman who looked and behaved very normally sit next to me on the bench for ten minutes before turning to me to say very quietly, “I’m hungry.”

It’s been an interesting couple of days for sure.
Mostly, I’ve been thinking about how different we are in the United States of America. That is say: coming here on the heels of being in Michigan and Indiana definitely highlights how different people’s lives are. This is pretty, svelte, slightly urban, full of beautiful trees and even prettier vegetation, folks seem easy-breezy, there’s so much wealth here even the Prius (or Prii, if you prefer) are being pimped out. We saw a black on black with black rims and a spoiler of sorts driving around Santa Monica and it looked gooooood! Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many bentley coupes, mercedes, bmws, etc. Actually, I could easily argue that there’s a direct analogy: I see as many benzes here as I do cars that are held together by duct tape in Detroit. And that’s no lie.

That is to say: it’s no wonder there’s such a divide in the way people think and talk about politics in this country (click here to read Bob Herbert's excellent editorial on the political discourse of the day). One need only look at Detroit and Santa Monica to see very clearly that there are two Americas at play. That’s what I’ve been thinking about; how it is that Sarah Palin, for example, appeals to so many people, who those people are, how easily they are dismissed by those of us who claim to be more informed, be smarter, kinder, wiser, etc... (interesting study on this). It’s only to suggest that it’s a mistake to think that Portland or Santa Monica or even LA or Chicago or Madison or Austin in any way represent the kind of American experience most folks are having. I think it’s a dangerous assumption and one I’m trying to stop making. For real.

Anyway, here’s what else I know:

1. If you ever go to The Counter in Santa Monica (a burger joint): DO NOT be greedy and order the 2/3lb burger. It’s ridiculous and impossible. Really.

2. If you’re ever in LA and able to get to a cuban joint called Versailles, go. Order the chicken. And if you can, pick up a bottle of sauce for me. This stuff is so good it’s obscene and made me want to inappropriately kiss the waiter.

3. The canal streets in Venice are sweet. But Venice sucks. Yuck. Yuck. Double yuck. Think ratty kitsch
in a sunny place.

4. For a place so sunny, they don’t make walking in Southern California easy. All the sidewalks are for people with really small feet, evidently, and smaller behinds. I managed, but barely.

5. Don’t count on me to update this blog. You know how bad I am. But I’ll try harder. I promise. Really.

6. Look for some of my new work (on April 1st) in an online deal at connotationpress

7. I did an hour-long interview with Emily Harris of Oregon Public Broadcasting. Folks said I didn't sound like a horses ass.

8. Girls with long feet who like shoes should go to barefoottess.com:

Okay. That’s quite enough from me for now.

Sending love,
C

#28—Post No Ills Review of "Troubled Tongues"

2010-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

Hey, Y'all. L. Lamar Wilson wrote a review of Troubled Tongues which can be found here: http://www.postnoills.com/main/

More very soon.

xoc

#27—Bye-Bye MacDowell

2010-01-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

So I'm coming to the end of a two month stay here at MacDowell. And, as I suspected, my behind is a little less holy than it was when I landed in New Hampshire. Too many cookies, I dare say. Too much, well, I don't quite know. Too much everything. Also, my hair is sort of a mess. I'm trying to grow it out and don't really do "sort of a mess" well. So I'm chronically worried that this punky afro is never ever gonna work itself into something reasonable.

The time here has been oddly fruitful, though I've done not-so-much as it relates to my book. In fact, I tried not to write Detroit poems here. Something about the energy of the place I didn't want informing that Detroit work. Or, maybe I could say that the Detroit work requires a particular kind of energy I didn't find here. So instead, I was paying attention to what people said, did, and to what I was saying and doing. I spent a lot of time just looking at the ceiling. Very, very good. Too, I've met some extraordinary artists. (And a bunch of bubbleheads, too. But, as I travel around, I find bubbleheads everywhere--and I am not discounting myself in this grouping.) The extraordinary artists, though, are for keeps. I can't believe the folks who have been here. Really impressive.

My heart and head switched on in ways they were not when I came. Well, on and on and then off. And I'm leaving it at that. Y'all don't need to know all my business. Suffice it to say, I leave Peterborough a woman more fully herself.

Last night I was asked, "How are you?" and the only answer I could come up with was, "Fantastic." I am fantastic. Even with the turbulence of the last two months, my life seems exquisitely blessed, and that fact emerges ever more clearly day-by-day. So much so, frankly, that even when I have cause to be blue, blueness just sort of wicks off me. This fact, to me and given where I was at the start of 2000, seems like a miracle. At this time in 2000, I was burying my mother, attending to a new job, a new city, finding my way in the world--alone. Very dark. Very difficult. So all this lightness is sort of blinding, I'm suggesting. And it makes me a little slaphappy. The woman next to me last night (the questioner) thinks I'm strange, I do believe. Though, we were laughing and laughing as I told her I was fantastic and that my angels are strong.

As you know I'm on my way to the Midwest where I hang out for a while. I'm happy to be back on the road, meeting new people, leaving old people, moving back towards Detroit where the poems seem to rest. That's it for me for now. Oh, well, that's it except for the $900 grumble which is the fact that I'm sitting in a coffee shop on the side of a road waiting for the guys to get finished putting new tires on the Beast. Pft. Why can't they make Forever Tires? $900-tires sucks.

Onward!
C

#26—Christmas is Coming

2009-12-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

So right now I'm typing this update in the MacDowell Colony library where there's a very (and I mean very) thorough woman who is vacuuming everything in the joint--the floor, the tables, the chairs. She's been vacuuming for about forty minutes. Really. And so that you can gain a fuller appreciation of just how ridiculous this is (she must be being paid hourly), the library is about seven hundred square feet. I wanna throttle her—with the damned vacuum cord.

That's how MacDowell is going.

It's should be no surprise that I'm a little cranky. I mean, cranky beyond my normal cranky. It's cold. It's New Hampshire. All of my new and fabulous friends who I just adore are gone and/or going. Remaining are a series of new folks who are, if interesting, less interesting than the old folks. But then this is the way of things, no? At some point what was is always better than what is.

In this case, though, it's true. For real.

Okay: let's see, not much is going on other than:

1. I'm finding it difficult to write poems about Detroit in New Hampshire. Go figure.
2. I still wanna throttle the vacuum lady who is still vacuuming.
3. I'm undecided about Christmas. A friend offered me his lovely apartment in New York. But I think that going down to the city for Christmas and walking around by myself wouldn't be much different than spending Christmas here among folks who I know a little but not a lot. I suppose the food would be better in the city. I could, for example, go to Katz' Deli and flirt with the men behind the counter, but, well, I'm just not sure.
4. I could fly into Detroit and spend Christmas with Amanda and Nate and Clementine.
5. I could fly into Chicago and spend Christmas.
6. I could spend it in Vermont.
7. I could fly back into Portland and spend it with any number of sweet people.
8. Aaaack: struck dumb by indecision which, I'm fairly convinced, means I'll be here at MacDowell and watching movies on Christmas.
9. It does not escape me that I am incredibly lucky to have had so many kind offers. Folks are good to me. That's for sure.

So that's it, folks. Those are the major conundrums of my life right now. Poems are hiding themselves. My head is full up with a coming change that feels certain but remains mysterious. My heart is moving around its cavern and so is working. I'm sick (again) so my brain isn't really working fully. I'm cloudy and easily swayed and indecision seems a real way of life for me right now. I'm learning new things about what I'm willing to tolerate and what I'm not. And what I'm not willing to tolerate is growing by leaps and bounds. So now would be the time to ask for favors because when I'm feeling better, forget it: Nedda. Non. No. Nyet. Nein. ;-)

Okay. Enough from me. I'm wishing you and yours a happy and loving holiday season. Hug someone close to you and tell them you love them. They probably need to hear it.

xoxo,
C

#25—Thanksgiving at MacDowell

2009-11-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

Things are quiet here and I've nothing funny to report. The sky is gray and dim, the woods are still. And I too seem gray, dim, still and reflective. It's an Oregon day in New Hampshire. I hope it is not a trend. This sort of grayness is difficult to endure, especially when I am in a melancholy mood. Nevertheless, beauty abounds: yesterday a family of deer were munching apples outside my studio window. And earlier in the day I came across a tribe of wild turkeys. But today after brunch, people seem to have receded into work or some other private space. Perhaps they are all of walking together or visiting in each other's studios. I don't know. The library is deserted, Colony Hall is empty.

I'm just back from driving a fellow colonist to the train station in Brattleboro, VT, which is about an hour away. She is really lovely. Her mother was going to name her "Crystal Nevada," which is a hoot. She wound up with Renee and she's a California based artist. Very perceptive, very kind. So it was good to have her energy in the car, to be able to be quiet with her, though we were talking. To be able to be calm.

As we drove we passed the small town of Dublin which is sweet and mysterious at once: big houses on the hill, a fog covered lake, not a single person outside. The town of Brattleboro (our destination) is much bigger, a town proper, I suppose you could say. Anyway, it was nice to be on the road, driving, the car humming. I get lots of thinking done in the car. The folks here tease me about being in the car so much, going to town as I do, getting "off campus." And yet, it's in those excursions when I feel most able to think clearly, to brush aside whatever melancholy is making a pest of itself, to be as quiet and still as I care to be.

Anyway, I find this time of year peculiar. This month between mom's birthday (late Nov.) and the date of her death (23 Dec) used to be excruciating, interminable, a chronic reminder of what I no longer/didn't/don't have. These days it is mostly full of contemplation, as you can no doubt tell. I've come to learn (and I state that because it's a recent realization) to be so very thankful for my good friends.

Indeed. I am thankful and exquisitely blessed. My angels are strong and in good health. I know it. It's a fact. This year could have been very lonely, out here in the big wide on my own. But you are checking and thinking about me, something I thought I'd lost when my mother died. Thank you for the good wishes and for checking. It means a lot. More than I can say, really.

I wish you and your family beauty and blessings today and in the year to come.

My love,
C.

ps--Yes, yes. They are making some fabulous food for us: a big 30lb turkey, yams, potatoes, etc. But, as is my way, I went into Keene yesterday and got KFC in case I don't like the food, which is quite possible. Plus, Carnivore Robert has good cheese. And I've popcorn. Rest assured, you foodies, it'll be alright!

pss--BTW: The Loud Library Lady is gone! She left yesterday and took with her her slurping, smacking, gum popping, and other annoying tendencies. We've retrieved the library! We're in the silence again. And the silence is extraordinarily delicious.

#24—Meat

2009-11-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

The Meat-man is back!! Hallelujah, hallelujah!!

For a whole week the Colony's chef was out in the woods (ostensibly on vacation, though I don't know why you'd go to the woods from the woods, but hey...). So we were left in the very capable (and, evidently vegetarian) hands of his support staff. Now I like tofu as much as the next person. Don't get me wrong. But just not tofu everyday. And, as it turns out, I somehow got myself on the vegetarian lunch list. So while my fellow colonists were living it up on pulled pork sandwiches, I was given tempeh. Yeah. Not so much.

I've met another trouble-maker here named Robert who is as carnivorous as am I. Hallelujah for that. And he drinks Coca-Cola! So I feel healthy in comparison. The two of us had taken to sneaking off the hill and into town for meat. He for a burger, me for fish or really bad, crusty lasagna. It's all very funny, though one of the other colonists said, in response to our objections to the lack of meat, "I like the food." Sigh. I tried to tell her how ornery I can get if fed on a tofu diet, but she sort of looked at me as if I wasn't telling the truth, which, as you know, I was. All of which is to say: I was spending too much time contemplating my diet, which is, I think, counterproductive and one of the reasons they make meals for us. We're not supposed to be thinking about this stuff at all.

So yesterday when this big guy (and by big I mean this dude is like all of 6'5'' and 250lbs of muscle) stepped out of the kitchen, I blurted, "Are you the Meat Man?!!" to which he responded, "Yes, I am. I am the Meat Man. My name is Scott." I swear. That's exactly what he said.

Scott. Scott (she says wistfully). Who woulda thunk the name Scott would sound so lovely. Sigh.

;-)

Y'all all have a grand Thanksgiving. More soon.

My Love,
C

ps--I cut the braids/weave hair out on Monday and to great encouragement. I now suspect that though people did not say it, the hair was really beginning to look like a bird's nest. Either that or this sort punky afro is really the best hair style on the entire planet, so enthusiastic are my artists peers. It's a shame, really. I liked the hair. I may get the hair again. But better hair. Bigger hair. Beyonce hair.

#23—Report from MacDowell Colony

2009-11-18T13:31:00.000-08:00

First, let it be said that there is absolutely no danger of starving to death at the MacDowell Colony. None. My behind is in jeopardy of growing into something altogether unholy. In fact, I’m not sure how any art is getting made here by anyone but the vegetarians. My arteries are clogging as I type. This is clogged artery art, at MacDowell, fatty, cellulite, big-assed art. And I’m snickering at all these young whippet-like art-women who will not be so whippet-like when they leave. Ha! (Oh, I know, it’s not nice. Whatever. Sue me. See what you get.)

So here’s the food deal: We get up in the morning and come to communal breakfast wherein you go into the mega-kitchen and put check-marks under what you want. So, for example, yesterday you could have had any combination of omelet, eggs, bacon, oatmeal, blueberry pancake or steak-and-eggs. You could have, as did one colonist, ordered an egg, steak-and-eggs, a pancake, and then went and gotten fruit and juice from the buffet table. Holy Blue Cheese, Batman! Bring on the clog!! Then for lunch we are delivered a basket into which they stuff all sorts of yumminess. Again, yesterday: a Mediterranean stuffed wrap (feta, olives, yummy dressing, greens), an evil chocolate cookie, beef noodle soup, an apple, and coffee (for those who drink it). In my humble opinion, today’s lunch left a bit to be desired (Hummus on the sandwich which rendered it inedible to me), pudding between the cookies which, again, rendered them inedible, a pureed soup that smelled suspiciously like some sort of vegetable I don’t eat, again, inedible, and an apple. So maybe the thing evens itself out. One day, deliciousness. The next, eh, not so much. But that’s not me complaining. No, no. I went into the sweet, sweet town and had spinach and mushroom and cheese in some sort of flaky goodness. So I’m a happy, albeit wasteful, camper. 'Cause you know I didn't touch the apple either. Anyway, we then make our fattening-as-we-walk way over to dinner, which, like breakfast, is communal. I won’t bother to outline what dinner is. It’s wonderful and ridiculous and all together too much.

Factoids: There’s a liquor shelf. Folks who drink (everyone, it seems, but me) all go into town and buy liquor and then label (with labels provided by the colony) their liquor. (The labels are these hanging tags attached to string, by the way, not sticky labels.) Some folks get very fancy, port and all sorts of madness. There’s a laundry in the basement. Again, folks label their detergent (lots of labeling going on which makes me think that artists are, fundamentally, moochers). There’s a swag cabinet into which we can reach for sweatshirts and tee shirts and bags, etc... There’s a tally list onto which we mark what we have done and/or taken that costs money. We settle up when we leave. There are many, many bikes, though it’s now gotten a bit too cold to be biking. Evidently, you can ride your bike into town (about a mile’s walk) and leave it anywhere unlocked and no one bothers it. But as far as I can tell, everyone who is not old and cranky (read: me) walks everywhere. And they do this at night.

A moment about night at MacDowell. It gets really damned dark here. And folks go walking with these puny flashlights. What’s great about the flashlights is that because it is the country and it is so dark, you can see so many more stars than in other places in the country. So the puny flashlights meld with the magnificent stars and one can, for all intents and purposes, consider oneself one with the heavens. However, Crystal Williams is not one to be walking around in the thickest black night. No sir. No one-selfing with the universe for me. I tried last night and got about a good twenty paces into the walk before some small creature peeped and I high tailed it back to my car. The hell with that. Pft. I'm from Detroit. Small creatures peeping in the black night sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, thank you very much.

My studio, by the way, is really lovely, though it faces north so I don’t get tons of light. In every studio is a series of placards on which other artists write their names. As it turns out, my dear friend Ben was in my studio last year! So I'm really happy to be in the space after him. It's kind of sweet, that. Also, I know plenty of other writers who were in my space too. Sweet. So, technically, my studio most closely approximates a one-bedroom apartment. It’s furnished in a sort of quirky eclectic style that suits the place. Though, clearly, were I designing it...Alas. Anyway, because it suits the place, it’s cool. I have a victorian-era couch that’s propped up by some pieces of wood and which is probably one of the lumpiest and uncomfortable sofas I've ever sat on, two chairs that also aren’t particularly comfortable, a big rug, a huge and very lovely wooden desk at which I love to sit, a fireplace, a computer desk, and some tables.

I have one of the few live-in studios which means I have a full bathroom in my space as well as a full bedroom. Most other colonists have a bedroom in a dorm building and then a separate work studio. So their work studios are big rooms whereas mine is two distinct rooms with a bathroom. I’m learning that many folks live in their work-studios and just come back to their dorms to shower. I’m so thankful! Boy, did I luck up!!

Anyway, I haven’t gotten any of my work done. Yesterday, my first full day, was full of personal business that required the use of the internet. And that was made difficult because there is really very little internet access here. You have to go to the colony's library to get a signal. And the library, while lovely and full up with work by previous fellows, is still a public space. For example, two of my fellow fellows are in here with me right now. One is slurping her coffee. The other is pounding the keys of her computer such that I think she might be killing the thing. (And I wonder why I'm single...sigh). On campus, as they call it, I get damned-near-no phone reception. Though, it’s not like that matters much. I don’t particularly like using the phone. So mostly I’ve been sort of wandering around and detoxifying from the internet and e-mail addiction that I’ve formed over the past several months. (And why didn’t someone tell me? One of y’all could have hipped a sister to the fact that I’m always on the damned contraption...an intervention would have been nice...).

Yesterday I went into town and bought THE UGLIEST PAIR OF BOOTS on the planet. I mean to tell you, they are UUUUUUGGGGGGAAAAAALLLLLL—E. But the guy at the store, a man named Ira, claims that every one of his employees wears them. They are neoprene and, evidently, keep your feet warm and dry. The real problem is that I have Fred Flinstone feet which are really long and really wide and which don’t look good in winter boots. But that’s not me complaining. On my body, my feet are among the things that do not give me hassle. So I like them lots. But that doesn’t mean I have to say they are pretty. They are not. Were they, I’d really give Imelda a run for her money. You can put money on that.

Anyway, I was worried that I was coming down with something because I’ve been so muddleheaded since getting in on Monday evening. But a fellow colonist told me last night that the first week is always a little odd. Right now everything feels very cloudy, as if no poems exist or will ever exist, as if no creative anything is or will ever find its way to my door again. Very discombobulating. Scary, actually. I want a Starbucks Black Tea Lemonade. I want to know what other folks are doing, but there’s some sort of complicated etiquette to do with people inviting you to see their work, not the other way around. (For example, I think it’s a no-no to ask to see someone’s work. Or, maybe I have it the other way around.) I should have taken more photos of Detroit. If I had regular internet access I would be able to get them. Maybe with photos something would hit me. I miss Oliver. Maybe I should write another poem about him. Oh, there’s a lovely, bony and very old cat here. That makes me happy. Maybe a poem about the bony cat...sigh. You see? This is what my world has been for the past two days. Very odd.

In any event, that’s what I know so far. Besides this last little bit, I’m ecstatic to be here. I do think I’ll get work done. I think when I settle down and into it, the work will expose itself. Everyone I talk to seems to be counting down their time as in, “I have ten more days before I have to leave.” That’s a good thing. I’m on the first week of eight. So I have a little time to acclimate and to find poems and/or whatever else will get made while I’m here.

I’ll update soon. And, as I always say, I’ll post pictures soon, too. (Ha! I hope by now you know not to hold your breath.)

Much Love,
C

#22—Off to New Hampshire!

2009-11-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

So I'm in DC where I've spent the past five days with my dear friend Barbara. On Thursday I got to see two of my favorite people—Kenny and Brian, both poets, both really wonderful guys, husbands and fathers. (It's funny that I only lived in DC for two years, but am still friends with the folks I met during that time). Today I saw my girlfriend Daryl who I met while at Nail School (Yes, I was a manicurist, and a good one, actually).

Barbara is like the Energizer Bunny: She goes and goes and goes. And I'm tired as hell. And my feet hurt. (And did I say that I'm tired as hell?!) If you know me, you know I'm quite happy to go to bed at 10:00 (9:30 if I'm honest), and I don't think Barbara sleeps--at all. Ever. So you can imagine what a lot of this visit has looked like: Barbara Anderson marching as if a baton twirler through the streets of DC and me dragging my slow moon self behind her. Sigh. It's a really good thing that I'm off to the woods of New Hampshire where I can recuperate. Whew.

Anyway, yesterday (Saturday) we spent the morning in her church's basement making Thanksgiving baskets for needy families. Our group made 28 of these. The church will give away 135 baskets. And in the baskets: a turkey, corn bread, yams, green beans, Kool Aid, corn, sugar, cake mix, cake frosting, apples, oranges, pears, stuffing. Oh, you know, everything you'd need to feed six folks for Thanksgiving. How cool is that?!

Equally cool was Yuri, the five year old grand daughter of one of the volunteers. She was a quiet child and I had to ask her her name twice. But she was wonderful. And she had on a sweet brown corduroy dress with pink tights and brown shoes. Yuri took her job of filling up baskets very seriously. She'd place each item in the box carefully and then move over to the next box. Each box seemed, to her, its own world. Each item, something special.

Something about her really caught me. I think it was that while she didn't understand why she was doing what she was doing (she was too young to fully understand how meaningful these boxes are to poor families), she did it joyfully. It was enough for her that the baskets needed filling. So she put cans of corn in each box and was delighted when she finished her task. And she put apples and pears in each box. Again, equally delighted. In fact, she skipped (I'm not making this up) back to the stock-table to get more corn for the boxes. Skipped!

I found myself watching her and wanting to find a way to reacquaint myself with that kind of joy.

I tell you, I'm on a mission to figure out a way to let go of what needs letting go of. Whatever it is is heavy and weighs me down. I want to be like Yuri and do my job and have that be enough and be happy knowing it was done. Happy enough to skip. So in this year of firsts and shedding, I've found another goal: skipping like Yuri.

Maybe I should start a side-bar list of goals?

Anyway, first thing in the morning I hit the road and drive up to New Hampshire. I don't really know what the internet situation is going to be like up there. Or, for that matter, I don't know what the telephone signal will be like up there. But I'll be in touch. I will. I promise.

Shine,
C

#21—OBA redux (Yikes!)

2009-11-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

Yikes! So the blog I started so that my intimates would know where I am in the world and would stop haranguing me as to the details of my trip has found, evidently, a wider audience. What's odd about this is that it would be odd to me. I'm from Detroit and watched with morbid fascination and disgust as Kwame Kilpatrick and his Chief-of-Staff, Christine Beatty, both graduates of my high school/my year, were caught in a text message scandal. I think I remember clucking something like, "The fools! Don't they know nothing is private??!!!" There must be medication for folks like me who fundamentally understand the danger and proceed as if the danger doesn't apply to them. Sigh. So here we are: me having written something that folks outside of my cadre of friends are reading and posting and sending around to God Knows Who (Hello, God Knows Who!)

Thankfully, Jeff Baker at the Oregonian wrote to tell me he was going to link to the blog today. So I've excerpted the stuff about the OBAs below (in part so that no one has to read through the rest of my life/thinking/craziness). I'm also removing the comments section for now because from what I see and understand about the internet, anonymity allows people to be, besides thoughtful, also mean, cruel. I'd rather give up the opportunity to interact with the thoughtful people than to have to hear one of the mean/cruel voices. Sorry. That's just me. I'm on sabbatical and am in a good mood today (after having gone to see two fantastic plays this weekend—Fela! and Let Me Down Easy).

Anyway, what follows is what I wrote. I've expanded a bit at the end (noted by the "UPDATE"). The original post is #19 and is, as I wrote, really long.

Excerpted from post #19: I have to admit that I sneaked into Oregon last weekend to attend the Oregon Book Award ceremony and promptly got so freaked out by the composition of the audience that I went out into the lobby and ate cookies (which were really very good). So I missed most of the ceremony including the poetry awards. It's a good thing Matt Dickman won. I was clear at the back and peeking in from the lobby.

I’m always struck, and Lord knows I don’t know why I should be at this point, by how lacking in diversity is Oregon’s arts community. Normally I’m in smaller groups of people or at more intimate events. But the OBAs were at the Gerding auditorium so there were a LOT of people and that I could tell, there were three black folks in attendance—me, Chris Poole-Jones and Bill Rutherford. And those guys were there to support me.

Besides the requisite anger, I felt hurt. The lack of inclusion is hurtful, frankly. And as I age, I find it more so because I'm less willing to accept the "Well, it *is* Oregon" excuse I so often hear.

At this point and having seen so much of how the arts are sustained, promoted, and developed, I don’t actually accept that the lack of inclusion is not willful. Now I certainly don't mean to suggest that people are excluding folks of color. But not excluding and including are different principals. One is passive (that is, if you come, we won't exclude you) the other is active (we're going to do something to make sure you're included). At some point we have to take credit for the composition of our groups, institutions, etc. Composition doesn’t just happen. It’s developed. Just as a Board is developed and an audience is developed. So it is hurtful to know that the patrons, Board, and community that supports Literary Arts doesn’t develop a more diverse base of support, doesn't think it's worth the effort (and it would be an effort because Portland is in general challenged this way, but not that damned challenged). Anyway, I won’t be going to another of those ceremonies and I won’t support Literary Arts until they actually do decide to develop in ways I think are important for any healthy and vibrant arts community.

UPDATE:

As I said before, I'd thought that only my small group of friends was reading this blog. As it turns out, so was Andrew Proctor, the (very) new Executive Director of Literary Arts. How he got wind of it I have absolutely no idea. But he did. And he emailed me earlier in the week to reach out, offer to have lunch and talk about what I'd written. The point about passivity is, I think, where he paused. As I told him, I am traveling around this year (hence the blog) and won't be back in Oregon until middle-August 2010. But I'm quite happy to chat on the phone and/or via email.

I once did talk, at great length, with the former ED of Literary Arts about the kinds of writers they bring in. In particular we talked about the lack of writers of color and youngish, hip writers and youngish, hip writers of color. I gave her a long list of folks to think about. And we did, as a way of talking about authors, talk about audience development. Those two things seem inextricably bound to my way of thinking. For example, we talked about alternative programs that might pair emerging writers with the more famous writers Literary Arts is known to book. We talked about this as a possible way of enticing a younger and more culturally, ethnically and racially diverse audience base. But more programming in difficult financial times seems to me an unlikely proposal. Anyway, I did talk to her. She was nice and I liked her a lot.

I speak so firmly about organizations being passive or active because as someone who has been on the boards of two Oregon arts organizations and is affiliated with a college not known for its ethnic and racial diversity—at the faculty or student level—I know a great deal about passivity, have fought and continue to fight against it. If you simply wait for things to happen, they won't. That's a fact. Well, okay, things will happen like Mother Nature might drop a tree on your car or the sun might shine for ten days in the middle of January, but people of color aren't suddenly going to decide that they are going to join the board, buy season tickets, involve themselves in your school or organization. One or two might. But in this instance, we're not talking about one or two who might stumble on the thing. We're talking about attracting and involving a group of folks. People—all people—involve and implicate themselves in organizations and institutions that they feel are working for them and with them in mind. I find this, too, to be a fact.

This last point is a little sticky because fundamentally it suggests that there is a direct correlation between, in this case, which writers the organization brings in and who supports the organization. I'm a little lopsided on this and should probably broaden the argument a bit.

As a long time patron of the arts (I have photos of me and mom in matching formal wear--that's how old I am, you dressed to go to the theatre when I was little!), an arts organization does not have to bring in African Americans and or art made by African Americans in order to interest me. That is clearly not the case. Nor would I want it to be the case. How boring. Likewise, the opposite is true: I don't think that white people (oh, I'm using the most simple and dominate race-based terms here, but you can certainly think about this in terms of any racial/ethnic group) stop supporting a theatre because one season it boasts a couple of plays by people of color.

But I do think that patrons of the arts fundamentally understand what the artistic mission of an organization is and we get that understanding by who/what is put before us.

Oh, let me try to articulate this another way. One of my favorite theatres in the country is Steppenwolf. It's my favorite because while I don't always love what I see there, the artistic mission—to be inclusive, to bring new, interesting and talented voices to the fore, is so evident by their season line-up that I get excited. As a person who loves the arts, I want to see art by everybody and Steppenwolf does everybody magnificently. So I buy a season ticket. So I send them money. So I stomp and shout, "Steppenwolf." I suppose you could also say it is a mater of trust. I trust that Steppenwolf's artistic mission is in line with my vision of what the world is: a diverse, complex, exciting place full of many, many kinds of people. I wish I could feel that about a Portland based arts organization (and I'm only talking about the mainstream ones in this case. I'm fully aware of Milagro Theatre and IFCC, for example...). Instead, I sneak back into town to attend an awards ceremony and am struck by how not everybody it is.

Or, more broadly, when I came back to Oregon from having lived in Chicago in 2005, I looked at the season line-ups for Portland theatres and thought, "Okay, but clearly, not particularly inviting or inclusive (and because it wasn't inviting or inclusive) or interesting." So I don't go to theatre in Oregon. I fly to Chicago or New York. And boy does that get expensive. Probably I should be going down to Ashland more. Inviting, interesting, inclusive: Ashland. Yes. So if Ashland can do it, um, why not Portland.

Anyway, the original point from three paragraphs above is that while I feel unsteady suggesting a reductive correlation between programming and base of support as it relates to race and ethnicity, (reductive like saying: only black people read Alice Walker, which is goofy), when it comes to arts organizations which proffer a product (a play, a reading, a dance performance, a concert, etc...), I do feel that programming represents artistic vision. And artistic vision is directly related to audience development. So I can imagine a theatre saying, for example: if our artistic goal is to represent the best of American theater, then we bring to our stage the best, most diverse (because if we're representing America and America is diverse...) range of plays we can find that support that mission.

And that sort of inclusiveness requires that that theater take an active role in programming plays that represent its mission. It means their artistic director has to have big eyes, wide arms, reach for things and ideas that might not be in their normal repertoire. Artistic vision is something to take very seriously. There's lots at stake. And it means that either Portland arts step up to the world's stage or it doesn't.

I've tried to broaden this argument because I don't think it's at all and/or only about Literary Arts. I think most of Portland's arts organizations fail in this regard. And fail miserably. And that, I have to say, is still hurtful. It will probably always be hurtful until something significant changes, someone broadens their arms, some Board decides to make a real effort (which of course, requires hard, hard work and some pie in the face, and then more hard work).

My friend Martha told me that all things happen for a reason and that it was a good thing that I went. It certainly didn't feel like a good thing. But then sometimes good things are like that, I suppose. They feel crappy, but turn out for the best. Go figure.

For now, I'm quite happy to be immersing myself in NYCs arts/theater scene, which is magnificent and feels as if I've stepped into America, full blast and lovely as it is.

To my old-timer-blog cohort: My Love. To God Knows Who: My love, too, ;-)
C

#20—On the Road

2009-11-06T04:16:00.001-08:00

So right now I'm in New York City in what folks are calling "The Village of Harlem." I don't really know how I feel about "The Village of Harlem" moniker. Village suggests a sort of intimate enclave in which camaraderie and friendliness is the norm, which, frankly, is so outside of anything I experience while in New York City that it's almost funny. Maybe The Village of Harlem is meant to be ironic? Mostly I think it's that someone thought it sounded good without thinking about what they hell they were saying. In that way I do think it's probably pretty appropriate for NYC: over the top, a wee bit pretentious, badly planned, and oh, you know, just a little too too.

What more I can say about The Village of Harlem is that folks are crazy. They walk out into the middle of the street with such frequency and so boldly that you'd think the city had made Lennox Avenue a pedestrian walkway. Old men in the corner store try to get you to change their five dollar bills into singles and when you won't, they try to take your singles off the counter, the woman's whose guest flat you stay in seems allergic to heat, and, in general, chaos abounds.

Meanwhile, I got here after driving to and spending the night in Pittsburgh. Let me first caution everyone to stay out of Ohio if at all possible. And if you can't stay out of the state, drive 40 miles per hour. Contrary to reports, I suspect Ohio actually has absolutely no unemployment. Every single Ohioan must be a State Trooper. Good Lord, they are everywhere! And they've made these evil little crevices and cutaways along the highway such that they can pounce on you. Okay: I'm being a little hyperbolic. Oh, wait, that's not Ohio, Ohio is flat as hell and boring as all get-out. No, the crevices and cutaways is PA. Yes, now it's coming back to me, the nightmare two days of driving...

On with my tirade: I've figured out, now that things are coming back to me, that all Ohioans can't be State Troopers. No, no. They must divide the jobs between two sectors. The ones who aren't Troopers walk around in sagging pants on the edge of the freeway and pretend to be doing some sort of road work (across the ENTIRE state!). Aaargh! Anyway, do heed my advice and take care. You should know that driving 40 miles per hour won't be that much of a burden and you won't find there to be significant difference between yourself driving 40mph and the folks driving the maximum speed limit, which is 55 miles per hour. I'd like to suggest that one of the reasons so few Ohioans leave the state (I mean, really, how many folks do you know from Ohio living outside of Ohio) is that they can't get out of it for having to drive so damned slowly. Wow.

I went to Pittsburgh for the night in order to see Ua and Aaron and Yona and Terrance. Ua, all ten years of her, is 5'2"". And oh is she gorgeous. Aaron is obsessed with Legos and Legoland and spent the night printing out his Christmas wish list. Would that when I was five I could have printed out a wish list. Would that I could print out a wish list today. But, alas, to whom would I give it?

Then yesterday I drove from there to here. Let me also say: Stay out of Pennsylvania if you can. Pennsylvania is the crevice/cutaway state. It too is a state in which you can walk faster than you can drive. Ugh. I'm beginning to learn to appreciate the c'est la vie-ness of the Rocky Mountain West where you can drive like you have a place to go.

Finally, a short update on the Thule Cargo Box. The Thule has been retired (and thankfully so, I'd say). It's now sitting in Amanda and Nate's garage where it has been all summer. In fact, I know I'll need to remove it, but metaphorically and literally, it's nice to be in the world without something over one's head all the time. I've been trying to decrease the amount of crap I'm carrying around. That hasn't really worked so well. I mean, I did take some summer stuff back to Portland and put it in the storage unit. And I did leave some more stuff with Amanda and Nate (the poor dears). And now all the stuff I have is stuff that fits in the back of the car (in Oliver's area, which I have to say feels oddly empty). So it's not like I've learned my lesson about having too much stuff. But I'm learning it. I do know that if I can't see it, I forget it. And if I forget it, I don't need it. So....

I will go and pick the stuff up from Amanda and Nate. But already I don't know what the hell is in those bags. What I want mostly is like six pairs of jeans, ten tops (this is so that I don't have to wash on a specific day every week, I can have overlap), and maybe five colorful sweaters. Everything else I want to be done with. So that's one of the goals for the new year: decrease, simplify, get on with living as lightly as possible.

Now if only I could stay away from the $4.99-a-pound soul food buffet down the block. I mean, if I'm to be living lightly, that probably should include my behind. And their mac-n-cheese is not helping. Not at all.

My Love,
C

#19—Reporting from Detroit

2009-11-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

[INSTRUCTION: Oh, hell. Go get something to drink and some nibbles. This is a looooong post.]

So I’m writing this from the “Ghetto Starbucks,” (so named by Terrance Hayes). He called it that because the cast of characters here is particularly colorful and fun and odd. First, let me say there are two (TWO!) Starbucks in Detroit, and one is on Wayne State University’s campus so it doesn’t really count. This is the only one grown folks come to. Or, maybe not. But it’s the only one I come to.

Anyway, the numbers runner wears a ponytail and gaudy glasses and velour tracksuits. There’s a really sweet-looking old couple that were dealing drugs under the tables in the back. Kenny Johnson, another regular, watches porn in the corner. I know that because one day he showed me what he was watching as a way of explaining why he was jacked into the corner and couldn’t come up to the front and sit with me. Recently there’s a character named Apostle Brown whose been coming in. He’s visiting from Boston and is starting a real estate business here. He’s been told by God to come to Detroit and do this particular work. When talking to him one gets the sense that he’s always on the precipice of a sermon. For someone who doesn't like sermons this is particularly troubling. Yikes. And a couple of weeks ago, a regular named Keith and the sweet barista Charles got into fisticuffs because they were arguing about whether or not someone should have stepped in to help a woman (another regular) who was robbed at gun point of her computer. I think the irony escaped them. It was made doubly ironic because Charles kept saying, “Man, I don’t want to talk about it,” and Keith kept saying, “Man, just notch it down a bit.” So neither of them wanted to be arguing about the thing (that, by the way, had happened a week prior to their fight). Sigh.

I have started coming here in the afternoons and sitting for hours and hours. How could I not? I get so much good information. For example, Kenny Johnson is rigidly tied to the notion that Catholics are not Christians. Though, when I press him as to his definition of Christian he won’t give it. I think it’s that Christians are what Catholics are not. He's gotten Brian in on it. They argue at me and shake their heads.

Detroit is interesting like that. A friend last night sat with me for an hour and talked to me about his job. He teaches DPS’s troubled children. In his words: The students "...are off the chain.” Many of them can't read. They come from homes that are beyond broken. He told me last night about one of his female students who hooks with her mother. When her mother had to come up to the school in order to re-enroll the daughter in classes after having been suspended, the mother was found in the parking lot turning tricks. Off the chain like that. Detroit. Wow. So, yes: poems.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I updated the blog. I’ve found that when things are interesting enough for me to want to write about them, I want to write poems about them—at least here in Detroit. So and because of the relationship I have to poems and energy (that is, writing about the thing once dissipates the energy I use and need to generate poems), I’ve been hoarding the Detroit stories. I think I’ve a good chunk of the beginning of a book. For now the working title of said collection is “Walking the Cemetery.” We’ll see if I can maintain this energy once I leave the place or if the place is fully informing my ability to write about it. I’m hoping for the former as I’m soon off to New Hampshire for two months.

In any event, I was up for a prestigious arts award (with a hefty purse attached to it) this year, which I would have used to go to Africa next summer. But alas, no fancy pants award for me. So I’m planning on coming back to Detroit next summer. This, actually, works out nicely (though Africa would have been fabulous). I’m eager to complete this collection of poems and think spending another group of months here will allow me to do that. So I suppose one could say that all things work out as they should. Still, it would have been nice to have had my work acknowledged at the National level. Oh, and by the way, Troubled Tongues didn’t win the Oregon Book Award. Onward!

I have to admit that I sneaked into Oregon last weekend to attend the Oregon Book Award ceremony and promptly got so freaked out by the composition of the audience that I went out into the lobby and ate cookies (which were really very good). So I missed most of the ceremony including the poetry awards. It's a good thing Matt Dickman won. I was clear at the back and peeking in from the lobby.

As for what I will be doing: In the coming weeks, here’s where I...

1. leave Detroit on Wednesday, November 4^th and go to Pittsburgh for the night. I want to see Ua and Aaron and Yona. Terrance claims I want to see him too. I don’t argue with him. I think the poor chap should be allowed his delusions ;-)

2. go to NYC from Thursday, November 5^th to November 11^th. Already I have tickets to Fela and the new Anna Deavere Smith play. Plenty of folks have offered up all sorts of opinions as to what else I should be doing in NYC (mostly because I asked them to on Facebook). I have to admit, my impulse is to just camp out in front of Katz’ Deli on E. Houston and eat until I explode. I’ve been having a pretty severe case of longing for good brisket and corned beef for over a year. Truth be told, Katz’ is the main reason I’ve going to NYC. I don’t really like NYC much. It’s so busy and expensive and dirty. I mean, really dirty. It’s so dirty that when you wash your ears in the morning, the cloth looks like you wiped an ashtray. Blech. But I’m going and plan to, as of Thursday night, have a belly full of brisket. Just so you know.

3. leave NYC on Nov. 11^th and go down to DC to visit the very fabulous and lovely Miss Barbara Anderson (or, Baba Wawa, as we call her). I have no idea what we're going to be doing. More eating, probably. For certain I’ll see some old poetry friends who are even crankier than am I, which is super exciting (it’s both exciting to see them and that they are more cranky).

4. then leave Barb and head up to Boston for two days. I’ll visit Lisa and Spike and sweet Essex. Then, ta-da!,

5. go off to MacDowell on November 16^th.

As for MacDowell:

I’m super excited and, of course, obsessing (for those of you who want more info on what the hell MacDowell is: http://www.macdowellcolony.org/about-Mission.html). If you know me, you know I’m stupidly peculiar about my surroundings. So I’ve been obsessing about the studio in which they’ll place me (insane to be worrying about this as I have absolutely no say and I do realize I need to get a grip and a life and be a little more Buddha-Baby about the entire thing!). Mostly it's that I have absolutely no sense as to what the place will be, what it’ll look like, if it’ll be a live-in studio or not, who will be there, if I'll like them, if it'll be like high school or, God forbid, my college dorm. I had a roommate once who was a stone, cold trip. Sigh.

Logistically: at MacDowell most folks have a bedroom in the main building where they share a bathroom. That's their sleeping area. Everyone has a work studio that is available to them 24/7. The work studios vary based on what sort of art a person is making. For example, visual artist often have tall ceilings, especially if their work is big. Writers have what I assume are normal sized rooms, more like a cottage. But all studios have fireplaces and a bed for napping (because, you know, we artists need to rest from all that creativity slapping us upside the head). Some folks, however, are assigned live-in studios. These are self-sufficient spaces complete with a showered bathroom. Anyway, my sense is that a live-in makes more sense if you’re going to be at the place for as long as I am going to be there (2 months!). So I’m freaking out. (I’m coming to realize that “freak out” is a general state of being and that I do it too often, sigh). I’m also freaking out because in my obsessing I found a series of really funny YouTube videos about MacDowell made by a former resident who, as you see, suggests that my two months in the woods in New Hampshire might not be such a good idea. And, let me be clear: I cannot afford to be crazier than I already am. I really can't.

Okay, enough from me for the moment. I’ll return to this blog in a bit to tell you where I am and what I’m doing. I've been taking photos and will, as I promised to do some bit ago, post them.

I should also admit to those of you who don’t know that I now have another head full of someone else’s hair. It's not quite a weave. But it is weave hair again. Though it looks better. Murl and Amanda like it. And boy oh boy do the men like it. Very interesting what a difference a couple of inches of hair can make. Anyway, I went and got these bitty braids called “tie zillions,” and am having loads of fun having long hair again. I’ll write on “tie-zillions” soon. The women who braided my hair were funny as hell.

My Love,
C

#18—Oregon Book Award Finalist and other yadda

2009-09-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

Hey, Folks.

Just a really brief update on some general things that have been going on:

1: Just found out today that Troubled Tongues is a finalist along with poetry collections by Alicia Cohen, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Matthew Dickman, and Andrew Michael Roberts, for the 2009 Oregon Book Awards. That's amazing.

2: I am waaaay too young to have a jacked up back and yet...sigh. I've started going to physical therapy to see if she can figure out how to get me beyond this craziness. Mostly it's that my muscles are really tight (hip flexors and lumbar) because I do everything with my lower back. For example, EVERYTHING. Ugh.

3: If I see another grungy kid roaming around this neighborhood (where I know they didn't grow up because, guess what, no one grew up here) with an easel, a camera or some other form of documenting medium, I'm going to scream. People around here have started calling this phenomena "Poverty Porn," which I think is appropriate. I keep wanting to write a poem about it, but I don't know what I think about the whole thing yet. On the one hand it's art-making (or so they claim). On the other hand, art-making by documenting ruins and plight seems troubling to me, especially when the ruin and plight is not "yours," which is, itself, interesting and complicated. In the interim, I hope some of you lovely people would be so kind as to keep a bail-Crystal-out-of-jail fund handy. No, I'm not going to hit anyone. But I do think about it. Just a little pop on the head. A really light one. And a "Shoo!"

4: I'm going to post a little more regularly on this blog. And I'm going to upload some photos soon.

#17—Public Option video

2009-09-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Hi, Folks. Sorry that I've been away. I've been writing and thinking--a lot! So I'll update on the happenings shortly. But for those of you who haven't seen this, I think it's worth watching and, depending on your political persuasion, passing along.

xoc

#16—OTP Lesson #3

2009-08-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I went into the Starbucks for my usual Black Tea Lemonade. And again that woman, her name is April, walked around the counter and hugged me. She handed me a card. They'd got me a card! Pft. If she doesn't stop being kind, I'm going to stop going into Starbucks. I mean, shit, who needs it: crying, hugging, communing with other people. Blech.

Also, and this is in the same lesson number, Clementine has taken to waking up, pointing to the sky, and saying, "Good morning, Oliver!" Likewise, she pats the ground, looks very seriously, and says, "Oliver is doing okay."

People. Pft. If they don't stop being kind to me, I'm going to explode. Do you, by the way, notice the glowing, glowing heart?

#15—Let the Lessons Begin

2009-08-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

OTP Lesson #1:

This morning at the Starbucks on Mack and Woodward in Detroit, the young woman who normally drives me crazy with her chatty-cathyness and general slow tea making self, asked, as she had taken to doing this last month, "Where's the puppy?" "I had to put him down yesterday," I responded to which her eyes immediately teared, to which she stopped what she was doing and came around the counter and hugged me.

And the young man making my drink who is stiff as a rock, instead of passing me my drink as he normally does, also came around the counter, handed it to me, and then hugged me.

Three unlikely people. Indeed. I should probably stop counting people out. I should probably ask, "What would Oliver do?" from here on out. I should probably just lay my stupid judgments down, my quick-quick-quick-now down, and sniff folks, and then wag at folks. I'd be a better, more generous person for it.

OTP Lesson #2:

Yesterday afternoon my almost four-year-old god-daughter Clementine, as I was getting ready to leave her house, knocked on my car window, her blue eyes big as orbs. "Yes, Clementine?" I asked. "Um, Auntie Crystal, why did Oliver die today?" (Her emphasis).

The question has to do with fate and destiny, no? Why today and not last year? Why this year and not next? I don't believe that events are completely arbitrary. Nor do I believe that everything is preordained. Mostly I believe something in between: that we, energetically, are more powerful than we know, that other beings are too, that we are capable of hearing and knowing in ways we (especially Americans) sometimes can't consciously recognize, and that our actions are a complex series of reactions to that subconscious knowing.

So OTP Lesson #2 (Thanks to Clementine): Spend time trying to understand what about this time, this moment in our lives together, made his passing probable and possible, and what, if anything, should I do about that.

Children are amazing beasts.

#14—Alas, Oliver

2009-08-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Oliver had a grand mal seizure on Saturday night and I decided, given that the cancer had spread to his brain, to ease his way this morning.

We took our last road trip this morning and went up to East Lansing, Michigan where Michigan State University has a teaching hospital. Oliver, while no longer with us, will add to the current knowledge about cancer and dogs. The tumors will be studied and added to a national data bank. And the autopsy will help the doctors and students there learn a bit more about the locus and path of his unusual type of cancer.

His final moments were as gentle as he was. His snout was in my hand. And then he was gone.

I don't think I will ever fully believe how lucky I was to be able to care for him—and to know him. He was magnificent.

Love,
C

#13—Why Exercise Won\'t Make You Thin

2009-08-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

Why Exercise Won\'t Make You Thin

#12—Hair Redux

2009-08-06T04:12:00.000-07:00

Chris Rock has a new documentary coming out in October about Black Hair. Here's the trailer. For the record: I CAN'T WAIT for this thing to come out. Ahem. As some of you might imagine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-4qxz08So

#11—On Takers, Givers, and Oliver

2009-08-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about something singer/songwriter Alicia Keys mentioned as she was accepting a humanitarian award at the recent (and unfortunate) BET Awards show. She'd heard Maya Angelou say that you can't go through life with two catcher's mitts on your hands. You can't always be receiving. You have to have one hand free so you can throw stuff back out into the world.

This struck me as a perfect and timely analogy. For a good part of this year I'd been thinking about people who take. "Takers." These are folks—and they can be sweet and charming and usually are or people wouldn't want to give them anything at all—whose hands are permanently afflicted by catcher's mitts. They take without regard to reciprocity. They take and smile. They take while saying, "Oh, thank you, thank you," but the mitts never come off. The clever among them feign reciprocity when they sense that they've been taking too much; and usually the sort of reciprocity they offer is strictly relegated to them saying, "Oh, let me know if you need..." when there is no real danger that you will let them know if you need anything. I've met more than my share. Believe me. They get on quite nicely, from I can tell.

Also it struck me because I'd been considering how to be rid of the takers in my life (but not before identifying what it is in my behavior that facilitates their "gimme, gimme"; I mean, yikes! Maybe I'm a "here, take, take, take" kind of person). Anyway, they drive me nuts. No. Actually, they infuriate me. This, in part, because I try to be as giving (and Lord knows I'm not perfect in this respect) as I can be. I try because I think of my mother as a particularly giving person, having watched her over the course of my life help families and people and groups. Giving or trying to help makes me feel like mom would be proud or happy that at least something she tried to instill in me took. But constantly throwing a ball (to keep with the Angelou analogy) makes one's shoulders hurt and I'm getting older and have developed rotator cup issues. They infuriate me because it's so easy to be reciprocal. I guess maybe it's easier for some to not?

Anyway, the point is, I've been thinking (and grumbling) about takers without any real sense of how I might be chronically taking from others, the ways in which I chronically receive and what I receive. It's really easy, especially as a single woman and an only child with no living parents or siblings, to feel fundamentally alone in the world, to believe, principally, that your mitt is fairly dusty and small. And that's been okay. Probably it's a complicated type of survival mechanism, this belief. Plus, I figure the feeling of being alone won't always be the case. Life is too dynamic and ever-changing for that. For example, maybe I'll meet some fabulous guy (yes, Uncle Bob, I'm working on it!) who thinks I'm a reasonable sort of woman to deal with and things might broaden, ease, the pointed heels of the world won't be quite so sharp on my shoulders. At least, that's been my thinking.

And then Oliver was diagnosed with cancer. And your emails. And your calls. And your concern and generosity. Oh, boy.

I have been humbled and astonished by how lovely you guys are, how concerned and giving and willing to let me be as I am during his final days. I imagine this is what it feels like to have a big, broad family, to know folks are at your back and on your side. I am at once overwhelmed and deeply, deeply thankful. That's it, really. I am just really thankful. It's a new feeling, this support at my back. Oh and is it beautiful! Thank you for throwing and letting me catch for this time.

Oliver right now is sleeping. His feet are moving as they sometimes do when he dreams (I do believe he dreams). He's walking this time. Sometimes he seems to be running, so quick are his feet moving. My hope is that he's walking someplace beautiful, one of his favorite places, maybe at Reed, maybe on his way to Eliot's 2nd floor where the treats are spread out and the greetings were very warm. I think that's what he's dreaming now.

My love,
C

#10—Oliver Update

2009-07-25T03:29:00.000-07:00

Well, we went to the oncologists who tell me there isn't really that much they can do for my boy. The tumors are atypical, too big and too invasive. So I brought him home yesterday since he's able to breath and is not in pain. The doctor thinks Oliver will be among us for less than a month. And I think that's probably right. Even last night his breathing seemed a bit more labored than it had in the morning.

I think I'm beginning to figure out why this dog is so special, at least to me: In order to deal with who he was and who he is, I need to be my better self—more gentle, more loving, more patient, kinder, and more accepting of everything.

I want to thank you all for your very kind comments. Folks have been emailing me. If here now in these next few days/weeks I don't respond immediately, please bear with me.

Peace and Light,
C

#9—Oliver The Poodle

2009-07-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve been trying for years to write about my dog and have never been able to. In part, this inability is related, I’m sure, to how close I am to him, the distance one needs to use to see and re-see an object clearly enough to describe it honestly and accurately. Also, I’ve not tried to write about him to any degree because there’s something deeply spiritual about him, which makes him unique among the many dogs we both know. He has an unusual quality that is nearly impossible to describe. There is probably something to do with his quiet, watchful demeanor, something to do with his brown eyes which, when the sun flecks off of them, glint a little, maybe, too, something to do with how regal he looks—not pretty like so many standard poodles can be, but handsome, the most handsome dog in the park—and pretty much always the most handsome dog in the park.

So instead of trying to describe him to people, I figure that it’s better just to say, “My dog is extraordinary” and allow people to roll their eyes (because what dog owner doesn’t think their particular dog is the bees knees?) until they meet him. When they meet him, they understand. When they meet him, they almost always say, “Oh! I see now what you mean, he’s…he’s….” and then a body can watch them reaching for a word that will articulate the very thing that is so difficult to articulate. That’s what my dog is: He’s the word you reach for that’s all goodness and expansion but which doesn’t really exist because even it feels not quite precise enough. The nearest and most accurate description of Oliver the Poodle I’ve ever heard is from my poet-friend Ross Gay, who, shortly after meeting Oliver said, “He’s a miracle to the core.”

The thing that is so extraordinary about Oliver, this lovely boy who is napping beside me, is that when I got him—calm, gentle beast that he is— he was so fearful that other people couldn’t touch him. He’d jump way up in the air, or cower behind me. He (and this isn’t hyperbolic) could not walk down the street ten feet without quick-acting Prozac to calm him. I'd gotten him from Missouri and suspect he was used in a breeding situation and had no sense of city life, city folk, nothing other than a crate and other dogs (evidenced by his front teeth which are completely ground down from, the Vet thinks, him trying to bite his way out of bars). So, yeah: it took us six months to work our way around the entire block, for his tail to move from completely tucked to half tucked. I have to be honest: I didn’t think I’d be able to keep him in the beginning. He was too far-gone, I thought. It was way too much work. I even sent the Hearts of America Poodle Rescue woman an email saying just that, that I thought I'd bring him back. And too, it was just incredibly sad to see the incarnation of what some other human being’s nastiness had caused. But little by little he shifted. It took hours and hours of sweet talk, just me and my boy on the floor in Chicago overlooking the lake for him to begin to trust.

Today, and everyday, I look at him in wonder: to have had so much go wrong in one’s life, to overcome all of those fears, to trust, not just the one person who you know, but come to trust every person, against all of your early-life proof, to feel confident enough to bound down the hallway, visiting Anya, Margot, Lena, everyone with an open door, to beg for a treat, to play, to me is a stunning example of a way of being in the world that my dog seems to have perfected much more thoroughly than have I. So, Oliver to me isn’t just any dog. He’s really special. He’s symbolic and metaphoric and literal: three humdingers bound up in a really beautiful package.

It’s been me and Oliver in the world, in the park, on the street, in the car, across the country, on the campus, in the class for the better part of three years. And I guess me and Oliver at the Vet's office. Today I watched the Vet point to an x-ray which shows four plum sized tumors in my boy’s belly. Tomorrow I go to the oncologists at Michigan State where, hopefully, they will tell me something unexpected and miraculous and worthy of Oliver The Poodle, my Buddha boy.

Until then, it’s OTP and me on the carpet in Detroit, watching the sunset.

xoc

Rachel Maddow challenges Pat Buchanan on race (Video)

2009-07-23T05:09:00.001-07:00

Hi, Everyone.

I added this to my blog because I was talking with Uncle Bob yesterday who had not seen this clip and thought others of you might want to see it as well. This just makes me crazy. But I think it's important for us to watch, listen, and think about. Maybe more on this later. Maybe not. She, in a clip from a show two days later, revisited this exchange with some facts that Pat had gotten, er, um, wrong.

xoc

Rachel Maddow challenges Pat Buchanan on race (Video)

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#8—Thankfulness, Hair Redux

2009-07-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

So, as some of you know, not long ago I was kvetching about my hair (see # 6--The 27hr Hair Weave Post). Oh, I was obsessing about all sorts of things and wound up with a really unfortunate weave, which my dear friends Murl and Van have both seen. Or, rather, they have seen the remaining hair tracks which I am saving as a reminder to cut it out with the vanity brouhaha. Murl's eyes nearly bugged out of her head, "No, unhun!" she admonished. Van simply sighed (as he often does in response to some silliness I have proffered) and said, "That's just not you, Crystal." Anyway, the tracks I've put in a bundle in a decorative bowl. I imagine I could, if I presented it in the right manner, get some curator to believe it's a conceptual piece of art: Silver bowl, big red, plastic hair, entitled something simple like, "Consumption" or "Mental Constipation."

I happily—and thankfully—went back to wearing my hair, sans product (since I still haven't picked up a good batch of Foaming Pomade) in a sort of juicy, baby fro with little tendrils which kind of coil and pop out here and there. Whatever.

The point is, in the hospital the other day, on my way to the doctor's office because that cough wouldn't go away, a woman called to me. I stopped, turned, and found myself face-to-face with a thin, black woman who looked to me to be in her late forties, though, she could well have been sixty (if my friend Bill Rutherford is any mark, she was probably 95 and just looked really young for her age). Anyway, she wanted to know if my hair was naturally curly like that and what I did because, "It's soooooo cute!" she exclaimed. When I told her it is indeed my natural texture, her face shrank a little, which saddened me. So I offered up some general facts I know about hair products and a website (nappturality.com), etc... We chatted for a bit more.

It turns out, she's a breast cancer survivor and lost most of her hair. What's growing in is really thin, she said. She's been wearing a wig, which (and to no surprise) was beginning to get hot. Actually, she said, "I don't know how these women wear wigs all the time. My head itches!" She wanted to stop using chemicals on her own hair (hence her interest in my little afro), but that the cancer treatment had left her hair in such a state that she was unsure how to proceed. Oh, I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation. It was brief and really just an exchange of information.

What struck me and caused me to really stop was that the thing I didn't want was what she wanted more than anything. Or, maybe and more fully, the thing with which I had grown bored and dissatisfied was, to her, amazing. That to me is amazing. I mean, I know this lesson, right? The grass is always greener. Be happy with what you have. Yadda and yadda and more yadda. I grew up hearing these lessons, understanding them in some theoretical way. I've even had moments in my life where these sorts of lessons are clear and bold-faced. I've had moments that are more subtle—a friend, for instance, reacts negatively to something great that's happened to you because they want that great thing, have worked as hard, maybe harder and the luck of it didn't cast on them. But, fundamentally, bold-faced or not, they are the same lessons. And Lord knows, I've been there, been that, know it. For sure.

But never before have I known it this way. Maybe it was due to her proximity to death and therefore the potency of her desire, the way her eyes twinkled, her humility, her curiosity, how fully in her life she seemed, her willingness to be so open to a perfect stranger. This seemed a model of the manner one should walk in the world: open, curious, humble, thankful.

Anyway, it was also amazing that after we talked she asked me for a hug. But it was I who owed her my most deep gratitude for being reminding to be mindful of what I have, of every small bit that I have—my knees and back and toes, and hair, and nails and dog, all of it. If anyone should have been asking for a hug, it should have been me. People are so amazing. I am really, really happy that sister is alive. And I'm really happy that I told her that too.

#7—Detroit Style, Or Another Thing I've Learned Along the Way

2009-07-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

There is a particular combination of clothing worn by men in Detroit that I would like to propose be banned. Permanently.

Said style (and here I use the word "style" as a means of identifying a trend, not as a means of suggesting its merits, ahem) consists of a pair of slacks—typically some rayon concoction which is meant, I suspect, to simulate the loose fitted look of real linen pants—and a matching shirt of the same color and fabric. This outfit (and an outfit it is!) is typically followed by a pair of color-matching shoes. In some cases those shoes are allegedly made of alligator skin and are known, as we affectionately call them in The D, as "Gators." In other cases, they are simply plain leather shoes dyed to all extremes of the rainbow. Oh, you know, nothing like a man strolling down the street in bright, bright yellow from head to toe. Or, perhaps you prefer purple, blue, lime green, green and black (fancy!), beige, beige and black (fancier!). You dream it, we've got it. Let no person among you say black people aren't colorful dressers. Indeed. Plus, we're sharp, to boot: there are always two heavy-duty creases running down the pant legs and down the arms of the shirt. And there is almost always an unfortunate sheen to the fabric—to all of the fabric.

A little history: This is a style that has morphed from a style the boys in my high school used to wear in 1985! Back then, when I was a wee-child and this look was actually considered cool, it consisted of jeans (let's go with the red outfit my ex-boyfriend from high school used to wear) with bone straight legs, a red silk shirt, a red hat, red socks and red underwear. I dunno. Maybe twenty-five years is enough time? Maybe some things—the Jeri Curl I sported in high school, for example, or the year of wearing nothing but sweat pants, or the MonChiChi hair cut—are best left in the past. That's my conclusion this week. That's what I know.

Metaphorically and literally, leave some stuff where it is. Don't pick it up. Don't reference it. Don't remember it. Just leave it right where it is. Without the proper context (and context contains) things/ideas/styles get unruly and regrettable. Or, if you rather and will indulge me mixing metaphors a bit: wipe that 1985 stuff off your desktop. And if you can't bear to put it in the Trash, put it in a "Do Not Open Under Any Circumstances" folder. You'll be better off. Believe me.

More soon.
xo,
Coco

#6A—Happy 4th!

2009-07-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

I hope y'all had a great holiday. Mine was quiet. OTP and I walked and walked and walked. 5 miles today. We also went to Detroit's Eastern Market and got ribs (!). I bought a bouquet of stupendous buttercups which promptly died, a drunk man befriended me in order to cut in line at the rib booth, OTP was a big hit, though it was hot and he was tired from the heat/smoke/walking, and some poor slob mangled Michael Jackson's "I'll Be There" at the public karaoke at the Easter Market.

In all it was a fantastic day except I think I've a minor case of bronchitis or some such. If this shortness of breath persists (just started today), I'll find a doctor next week. I promise, Martha. Sigh.

All Best,
Coco

#6—The Incredible 27hr Hair Weave

2009-07-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of things I vowed to do this year: 1) write, 2) write some more, 3) do things I've never done before, 4) go to at least three places I've not yet been (and preferably fabulous places, not, say, Fargo--so sorry Fargonians, but you gotta admit...).

(And here let me take a moment to apologize to those of you reading this blog and thinking I should be talking about, as I said I would, where I am in the world. This is, in fact, very much about where I am, just not where my body is. I'm still scratching around the vanity issue, frankly. It's fun here, for the time being, and I'm unclear as to whether or not I've found whatever robust answer I need to move on. Anyway:)

In an effort to keep myself honest (re#3) and to engage myself in a bit of irony, I embarked on obtaining my first hair weave yesterday!

Mostly I did this because I bought a bad batch of Foaming Pomade—which neither foamed or acted as a pomade—and had been growing increasingly dissatisfied (to the point of near hysteria) with my hair. I suppose you could say a red Brillo Pad comes to mind.

Anyway and because of the Brillo-padness of my do, I'd been obsessing about hair styles for the better part of two weeks: what I wanted to do differently, how I would go about that, when I would do that, etc...And, as usual, it--and it here being the amount of information I'd obtained trolling the Internet clashing with the desire to do something about/to/for the red Brillo-- all came to a head (sigh, not intended) yesterday as I found myself in search of a couple of hair braiding shops.

Oddly, after all that obsessing, I didn't really know what I wanted. So I said to Ewanda (who was very patient with me), "Something cute and natural looking, maybe something with cornrows, and something I can take out in two weeks without feeling bad about wasting lots of money."

Here's the thing: I like natural hair on black women and think it's a good way to go. And I think well cared for natural hair is about the most beautiful thing on the planet. For those of you who don't know what "natural" in this context means, it means (and here I'm talking specifically about this term as it applies to African American women), hair that isn't chemically altered and/or amended. Mine has been natural for the better part of 20 years, though it's been in different styles over that course of time. Natural also means that weaves (which can consist of human hair) don't really count as natural, although there are some fabulous Afro-Kinky textured weaves that simulate natural hair so I don't really know if that counts or doesn't or who the hell has the damn tally book anyway. But whatever. The whole weave-as-a-not-so-natural-style is a minor point. Ahem.

Yeah, so this is what I wound up with: Yikes! Um, and that's tamed down. Truly. And it was red. That looks about as natural as the late MJ's nose! Even OTP didn't know what was up and kept looking up at me like he does when I'm carrying an umbrella: he knows I'm carrying something unusual and, to his way of thinking, suspicious. That's how my dog was looking at me. Ugh. Plus, today in the grocery store I was shedding! Yikes! The only saving grace is that every single female body in Detroit seems to have some sort of weave going on. Still, can you say, niet.

The thing is, I said to her: Saucy (which is an appropriate adj., I think) and big (again, also appropriate). But I did not anticipate those two words coupled with the synthetic nature of the "hair" would result in what she sewed on to my head (or, more technically, what she "wove in" to plaits which are under all that mess).

So, here's what I've learned about me and weaves: I may try another one. Go figure. But. And it's a big but, I will withhold all intensifying adjectives. And I will insist on human hair, which is a little creepy, but whatever. This stuff is, she claims, a mix of human hair and synthetic hair. I think it was all plastic. It moved like a helmet. I moved my head to the left, the entire conglomeration moved to the left--en mass, no independent movement going on at all. Anyway, the second trial won't be soon. I'm going to go get some proper braids so as to be done with the whole hair drama trauma for a while. Sigh.

In case you don't quite understand the magnitude of the saucy bigness she wove into my hair, here is a final picture of the stuff I cut out, a bit more than a day after having had it put in. Sigh. a 27hr weave. I feel very much like Beyonce right now, oh she of the super duper mega weaves—but my Beyonce is without the stylists, the rich husband, the fantastic legs, and the great voice.

Back (happily and unscathed, pretty much) to the Brillo,
Coco

#5—In The D

2009-07-02T03:14:00.001-07:00

For those of you who read Post #1 about my vanity and propensity to run into things with the Thule cargo box, you'll especially appreciate that I now have--in tow and in a location of honor--a HUGE roll of gaffer's tape. The guy at Central Camera in Chicago was very amused when I told him what it was for and suggested that, over the course of the next 14 months, I might find the entire role useful. Everyone's got jokes. Pft.

So I got myself to The D. Indeed. I'm listening to Dune on audiobooks and was driving around yesterday, needlessly, because I wanted to hear what happens next. Rocks!

This is a photo of the view from my place in Detroit. I'm in the metaphor of all metaphors. This is a neighborhood, if you can call it that, in Detroit that used to be one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. So the mansion (bottom center) was probably one of three that should be there. The patches to the left and right of it are what folks here are calling, optimistically if you ask me, "Urban Prairies." Or maybe they mean to be ironic. But irony isn't really a characteristic I equate with Detroiters. So I think someone was trying to make lemonade.

Anyway, metaphoric because all around me are the remnants--some refashioned, some not--of beauty: burnt out mansions, mansions falling in on themselves, rebuilt and fabulous mansions, dirt lots, new condo buildings, etc. And in the not-so-distant distance is good stuff going on. I sit directly in between downtown Detroit and the museum/university campus (Wayne). Up the street is the Detroit Medical Center. It's a great location and yet, urban prairie abounds. This seems to me to be Detroit in a nutshell: you can always see that better stuff was here, could be here, is just over there. But right next to you: "urban prairie."

So while I was warned away from this neighborhood--and the building is a little ghetto, I must admit, though the apartment is hugely nice (please feel free to stop and visit!)--I'm glad to be here. (Let me elaborate: the building, too, is a metaphor: there's nice stuff here, the entrance has some lovely marble tile, for example, but when you get to the elevator, you could be in the former Cabrini Green...okay, maybe not that bad, but Trump tower it ain't. And the 7th floor has no finish carpentry going on. So no door frames, no floor molding, etc...ghetto.) Anyway, my view is fantastic and my head is in the right space. I mean, if you can't write from within a metaphor, you might as well go shoe shopping. And God knows, now that I've unpacked my car and three duffel bags later, I don't ever, ever, ever need another pair of shoes.

In fact, the next time you see me, don't even look at me. Just look at my feet. That's what everyone should do. Just look at my feet wrapped in whatever leather they'll be in and say something nice like, "Oh, my, what lovely shoes you have on, Darling." Geesh.

More soon,
Coco

Things I've Learned Along the Way

1. Don't park at the lot on Balbo and Wabash in Chicago UNLESS a guy named Chris is working. The other characters aren't very bright, as Chris will tell you, scowl, and, well, you already know, run into things with your car (or cargo box).

2. Try to match the throw rugs you put in your bedroom to the bedspread--in some small way. Any way. If not, people like me will come and call you nasty names behind your back. If in doubt, do away with throw rugs or ask a friend for help. Really.

3. The Jewish bread my friend Carol introduced me to, Babka, is so wonderful that I'm on the hunt, in Detroit. Watchouttherenow!

#4—Marilyn and Richard Williams, circa 1967

2009-06-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Today I decided to dedicate this year of writing to my parents, these good, good people. The lessons they taught me continue to shine and glimmer and I still want to pick them up—as if stones, as if jewels. So I begin with joy, which you can see evidenced here in our basement on Lauder, in Detroit, on their wedding day. Joy.

My love,
C

#3—Detroit or Die

2009-06-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about what it means to be from Detroit. Mostly when I tell folks I'm from Detroit, their eyes glaze over in the way that student's eyes glaze over when you're explaining something they don't know, don't care to know, wish you didn't know. I liken it to a physical manifestation of incredulity with a healthy mix of skepticism. It's as if people want to say, "Oh, come on, not really. Where are you really from?"

So this is the thing: Last fall sometime I was at a meeting in Vermont where I met this extraordinary man who was something fancy at Williams College. Anyway, he had a very handsome car. Very handsome. And he parked it along the backside of the building as I had my not-so-handsome rental car. We both exited our respective vehicles and approached the hotel's entrance, which was around the corner, at the same time. Once around the corner and closer to the hotel's entrance, it was clear to see that he could have parked directly in front of the hotel. And he said that. Handsome car. Handsome hotel. It made sense. But "here" was on a busy circle of the sort they have in the upper northeast, one of those public roundabouts that isn't particularly safe to park on because folks cell-phoning or make-uping or eating burgers could tap your handsomeness too easily with their hoopties. And that's what I said, or something akin to it. I don't think I used hoopty. He agreed and said it was better to stay where he was.

Later in the lobby, he looked at me and said, "Sister, where are you from?" "Detroit," I replied, a little warily because of the whole incredulity/skepticism thing. He smiled. "Why're you smiling?" "Because I thought to myself, 'this sister is from Detroit'" When I pressed him, he wouldn't elaborate on how he'd gotten to "Detroit," as an answer other than to say his best friend was from there and it was a compliment.

I dunno if I believe him. If I see him again, I'm going to press him again. Believe that.

This is the thing: I LOVE being from Detroit. It was a great city to grow up in. They play the O'Jays on loudspeakers at the Main Post Office. Come on, who couldn't love that?! The O'Jays. But I didn't grow up listening to the O'Jays so that's not really why I love being from Detroit. I loved growing up there as a sort of reflective thing. That is: we were the original chocolate city. Everyone is city government, with the exception of MaryAnn Mahaffey it seemed, was black. The Mayor, most of the high ranking city employees, everyone. And every one I knew had a house with a patch of grass in the front and in the back. The house could have been small or large, but everyone I knew had one. And everyone had a car. And everyone had a job. I grew up among middle class folks, it's true, but mostly, I experienced Detroit as a sort of city of abundance. So it troubles me and often flummoxes me when folks suggest being from the D must have been some sort of hardship. It was the opposite. From my perspective, growing up in Detroit would have been akin to, for non-black people, growing up in Seattle, for example, or some other bustling city. I gathered up a tremendous amount of self-esteem from growing up in The D: There wasn't anything I couldn't do. I had models all around me that said so. And let's not forget the amount of great artists that came out of Detroit.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll write more about being from The D in other posts. But I outline the above story because I think there was something in my response to him, the suggestion (and without his asking for it, which now that I reflect, may have had more to do with his assessment than anything else) that to move the handsome car to the front of the handsome building and risk its handsomeness didn't make sense, was something a Detroiter, any Detroiter would have said.

When I go home there's a kind of flat-footedness that folks from The D have that I find in few, if any, other places. And mostly, though you won't believe me, I find myself holding my tongue most every place I go. But not at home. Oooooh, weeeeee, not at home! That doesn't mean that we're rude or nasty (ahem, necessarily), just that to offer up one's opinion without having to couch it or quell it or, alternatively, to solicit honest feedback and know that what you're gonna get is going to approximate the truth insofar as that person can offer it, is enormously compelling to me. It happens so rarely. Maybe this is a southern quality that folks in The D retain (we do call ourselves Little Alabama). I don't know since I've not been in the south for any significant amount of time.

Whatever the root cause of it: I am most happy to be returning to my sad, depleted city if for no other reason than to document what's going on, and to be able to unleash my tongue, unfurl the poor thing. It's shriveled and angry at having been bound thus--and for so many years.

Onward!

xo,
Coco

#2—Ways the Brain Doesn't Work

2009-06-25T03:56:00.000-07:00

I think it was in one of the Dakotas where I saw a guy in one of those huge, souped up pickup trucks (replete with pickup cover bed or whatever they call those things). I originally noticed it because those cars make it impossible (and some of your will recognize the hypocrisy and irony of my complaint) for folks behind them to see what's up ahead. But also I noticed it because I have odd associations with souped up pickup trucks. Namely, they always make me think of James Bryd Jr.

Anyway, I'm driving behind him, searching for that MacDonald's Sweet Tea, and I notice this joker has a bumper sticker that he has pasted to the upper right of his rear window which reads, " Impeach Obama." And I stare and stare and stare. I stay behind him for awhile, pass the Sweet Tea, actually, because while I'm a little scared (and scared because this guy is from another planet as far as I'm concerned and may be dangerous or something), I'm not wanting to forget the looks of the thing and think, "maybe I can get a photo." Photo for what I don't know. Anyway, it freaked me out, but I was following.

I've been thinking about that moment for the better part of a week. I've been trying to understand why people think Obama should be impeached and can't find one. So that makes me think about how the brain, or maybe my brain, doesn't work, how many corners there are that I simply can not turn. Typically I can find a way into what I think is irrational thought. Ease in, poke around, check out the terrain and then ease on out. This was like a 6foot concrete wall. And that scares me too. I'm unclear if this is a function of age or perspective or some other thing that I'm unable to name. But it occurs to me that whatever it is is one of the few important reasons we seem, as a democratic nation, to be unable to engage in real, non-partisan conversation. This may also have to do with the extremes to which both parties have moved. That is, when folks are on the fringes, the mind is less capable of easing in and out of the other side's position. Still, I suspect there's something here to do with imagination and lack thereof.

Anyway, I took all of this thinking with me into the cleaners across the street where the nice man has steamed a dress to me. After some initial chitchat, we turned to CNN which was reporting the death of a security guard. That turned our chitchat into a real conversation about the value of life and his country, Iran, where most of his family remain. He told me that people are reporting that the protesters have been overtaking the military when they can and are taking weapons from them, just taking them away and saying, "You are our brother, our neighbor. We love you," and are sending them on their military way.

This sort of generosity is what I understand the Koran teaches: that killing any man or woman is like killing all men and women, which is why the suicide deaths, the jihadists, etc., are so non-representative of the religion. Sort of like the many Christians in this country who kill in the name of their God. Or, religions anywhere, really. I'm not aware of one which advocates killing people. I think mostly they all suggest we get along, accept and try, if we need to do anything, to convert folks to our way of thinking or some such, but not kill. Anyway, I was very moved to hear from him that Iranian protesters are living their beliefs in ways that are dangerous and necessary and which may cost them in the long run. I mean, this strikes me as real belief, something you practice even if it seems against your best interests in the immediate term (that is, those guys can go and get more guns, no?).

And I started thinking about the Pick-Up truck man and the Iranian protesters. I don't really have any answers about what I think about my own inability to be as forgiving (which is an interesting word in that he'd not done anything that would require my forgiveness except for the fact that he expressed an opinion which seems so illogical as to be dangerous, but his ability to do so is one of the reasons America works) except to say that I know that forgiveness requires understanding of some sort. That started me thinking about all of the people who have been significantly wronged, whose lives have been jeopardized in some way and who forgive their attackers (I use that word broadly). And I wonder what sort of understanding the Iranian protesters who have been engaging in this taking away of weapons have. It amazes me. That's all. That's what's on my mind. Maybe this year I'll try to get my head around--maybe not ease into, maybe I'll have to jack-hammer into--certain ways of thinking in order to understand. I don't like darkness so much. And that bumper sticker maybe lit a new path.

Some Things I Learned Along the Way:

1. If you've ever wondered about how blind people with seeing-eye dogs pick up their dog's business (and, for those of you who aren't dog people, that's a common doggie euphemism, "business"), suffice it to say: there is a baggie involved, and a hand which follows the back's trajectory. I'd been wondering about this for years and years...

2. Being sick in Chicago in 90degree weather sucks.

3. The MacDowell people did exactly what I would have done were I scheduling: put my unencumbered, single, no-family-with-whom-to-celebrate-and/or-to drive me crazy-over-the-holidays behind there over both winter holidays. Yay! (not snarky, yay, real, yay!).

More Soon,

Coco

#1—Things begin, or how to rid oneself of vanity

2009-06-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

So because I'll be gone for a year and a month, I thought I'd buy one of those Thule cargo boxes for the roof of my car. Seven hundred and some odd dollars later (and this is because I had to buy both the rack and the bars upon which the box sits and they, of course, had to look good, not like some of those crazy Home Shopping Network deals you see on the road in Nebraska, for example), I asked the man, "What do I need to know," and he replied, "That you have a cargo box on top of your car." "Pft," I said, "Of course, I do. What bubblehead forgets something like that?" He smiled. I smiled. His name was Kevin Kline. I swear.

Onward. I go home (chatting to a friend on the cell phone, which, of course, I should not have been doing but was doing because while normally I am not on the cell phone because it drops calls faster than Tyson dropped opponents, the nice AT&T man told me that if I turn off 3G my calls should persist--so I was testing and it was working) and promptly pulled into my garage. The thing about my garage is that it a 7' garage. But my car--bars and box included--is 7'3". Um. Yikes. Scrrreeeeeeee (going forward), screeeeeee and s***!!! (going backwards). More cursing. Laughing. Off the phone after being chastised by conversation-mate about being on the phone. Call Kevin Kline: "Um, you won't believe what I did..." "No! Really?!" "Yeah. Really." More two-sided laughing. Sigh. Did I say bubbleheaded?

Meanwhile, I should confess that while in the store buying the darned thing, I was (and some of the more naive of you won't believe this) a real pain in the patoot about the original condition of the box. It was a floor model and had a scar. God forbid. I got them to give me a not-pretty-as-new-discount. Now, after my garage incident, it had not only the scar, but two longish stress fractures along each side and white paint from the garage (I won't go into the gasket I tore off the garage that had to later be replaced) streaked inartfully along, well, everywhere. Vanity. It'll bite ya. I mean, it'd been like thirty minutes...Anyway, I take the box back, the boys at RackAttack are smug, peeking out from behind the back door to get a visual on the latest bubblehead. The rack/box they keep it in order to put some goop on it.

I get the thing back. The goop has been so crazily applied as to be funny. I mean, really. They just slathered some epoxy on and it looks a hot mess. But they assure me it's gonna do its job which is to keep my belongings--and here I really do have to digress to explain that every single pair of shoes I own is in my car and most of my clothes, too--dry. Why I was unable to get rid of the shoes I don't know. Really I don't. They are with me now in Chicago and I'm glad to have them, though I've only unpacked the summer bag. The winter duffel bag is in the car. Given my crazy world (read: head), it'll turn out that I'll wear three pair and shed the other forty-seven along the way.

The last few weeks in Portland were incredibly busy: I was a multitasking fiend. So much so that there are many folks I didn't see. Sorry about that. But I was packing up the house, selling furniture, selling clothes, lightening my life in general, dealing with tenants, vacating my office at work, and packing that damned car and that gooped-up Thule cargo box.

Finally, after four weeks of general craziness during which I'm sure I said really goofy stuff (or even mildly offensive stuff), me and Oliver The Poodle hit the road.

I decided to take the northern route this year in part because I'd not seen Montana and the Dakotas since I was a very small child, and because I don't like the rest stops in Wyoming. There are these rowdy rodents that pop out of holes and bark eerily. They freak me out. The dog (hereafter named OTP or Big Daddy) doesn't seem to mind them. But I don't like them at all, and the woman at the dog park who moved to PDX from Bozeman last year assured me that the rodents aren't on the northern route. So: you betcha, North.

It was a really lovely drive. There was a tragedy to do with a duck and her ducklings that I'm still trying to get my head around: very upsetting, devastating actually, and along the lines of the thud my dad's van made thirty years ago to do with a dog. Ugh. But mostly things went well. The dog-park woman (who has a fabulous three-legged dog named John Wayne) was on target, too, by telling me to stay at Best Westerns along the way. They were great. I stopped in Missoula (so beautiful!), Fargo (not so pretty, but nice folks who have really great accents), Madison (again, so sweet; I really liked it) and finally got into Chicago.

A brief moment to return to the box and the notion of vanity. So because of the box-drama, I was very careful to find a garage that had a higher clearance than 7'3". In fact, I found two. The first charged me a price and then called and told me I'd have to pay forty dollars extra because I had the box. I got a refund, but not without letting them know that they shouldn't have been fooled by the Oregon plates. I'm from Detroit and am not that nice. This, of course, is a huge stereotype, but I'm convinced the manager came back and saw an opportunity and figured someone from way West wouldn't know to say, "Take a hike, bub," which is what I sort of did-- but not so nicely. Went on down the block where the young man charged me a hundred dollars less and scoffed at the other guy. His name is Chris so I really like him. But today, as Chris was off, the sweet faced weekend guy--after I asked him if he could park my car "in a spot that wouldn't rain down this (pointing) white debris (vanity)..."--decided to take the car upstairs as opposed to downstairs and, guess what, screeeeee, screeeee. Now the goop fixing the original crack needs to be gooped. Sigh. That's what I get.

Yes, Bill. I should have taken a roll of gaffers tape with me. Now I'm going to go buy a roll of black duct tape and call it a day. There will be no looking good on this trip, at least not insofar as the Thule is concerned. This is what I should have surmised from the beginning. This is the lesson about vanity: it's a ridiculous pursuit.

I have really small ears is the thing. So though the Universe is telling me stuff in its odd and very blatant way (oh, say, like running into a garage less than an hour after buying a thing), I didn't hear it. Though, to my credit, I was cheerful. Still didn't hear it. Now I do, 2400 miles and another crack on the perverbial head later. Probably the lesson sounded like: Not only do you not need all this stuff and therefore the box, you don't need to be worried about the looks of the box. So I'm going to try a bit harder, this year, to listen more accutely to what is being offered. That's a promise.

All of which is to say, welcome to my first blog post. I'm only writing this so y'all will know where I am and that I'm alive and kicking (and let's hope not somebody). We'll be in Chicago until July 1st when we go to Detroit for three months. More soon.

Some things I found out along the way:

1. Portland's slow drivers are all from Minnesota and Wisconsin.
2. The waitstaff at the IHOP in Fargo have never heard of a Kindle, though they are very curious and nice.
3. Everyone likes Oliver and I get special treatment when he's around. I think I'll keep him.
4. The woman who wrote "Twilight" overuses the word, "Safe." In fact, she used it so much that I wondered if she'd been in therapy or something. It became troubling in a very short amount of time.
5. The man who narrates (Peter Giles) Michael Connelly's "The Scarecrow" was so offensive when he narrated the black woman's voice, that I couldn't listen to more than ten minutes. Ugh. Yuck.
6. I got into MacDowell and am looking forward to spending eight weeks in a studio in the woods in New Hampshire. Though, after obsessing about it for some time (read: Googling until the Google people called to say, "Cut it out"), I found someone's blog who claims there are many spiders there. So the shine isn't so shiny right now. But I'll get over it, I'm sure. You know, of course, I'm going to take some raid with me (secretly).
7. I miss my friends already.
8. I plan to not answer Reed email. Indeed.

Much Love,
Coco