Tell Me, Are you a Christian, Child. I said, Ma'am I am Tonight

Be careful with the word deserve, my papa says. Don't throw it around. 

* - * - *

Yesterday, like every June 11th for the last 16 years, I acknowledged the dead. Sacrificed to the fire gods, gods of grief and chaos, to the quiet, to the natural order of life.
 I swallowed down so many 'what if's' and 'I wish' and 'but, why's' to turn my stomach sour. I kept my body still or slow, hands close to my rib cage, and my mouth closed.

* - * - *

Sixteen years ago on June 11th, I woke up to my dad screaming around 3:30 am. There was too much noise, too much smoke, too much tired to comprehend at that moment that my house was burning down. I stood up out of bed and immediately was forced to the ground -- smoke, as they say, is no joke. Confusion and incessant screaming forced me, on my knees, to the living room: rage, hot, orange, loud. Instincts said back door. I saw his legs at the front door. He did not see me. He had a mole on the back of his right leg. I watched those legs walk out to clean air.

They say he went back into the house. They say they found his body in the kitchen. I envision, even still, half a body.

When I was 14, living in the country with a step-dad and post-divorced mom, one of our pigs got out of his pen in the night. I came upon the body in the morning before school, ripped apart and bloodied. Back legs and haunches in tact -- mangled in the middle, but head, heart, face gone This is always how I think of my dad's burnt body abandoned near the pantry.

What happened in those last few minutes? Do I deserve to know?

* - * - *

What if he could say: go on?
Could I?

Tomorrow We Can Drive Around This Town

All these things and what to do with them/ we carve up the world all the time.  - Richard Siken

There are parts of me everywhere. Lost in slate along my favorite lake's shore, in the sunshine that sets my hair on fire, at the bottom of a Gin and Club Soda, the crease along the spine of my favorite book, on the curve of every word I write, under my husband's fingernails, balling up on late summer leaves, in the quiet fizz of neon... just everywhere. I'm noticing this more.

I'm doing a thing where I'm listening to those tiny parts of me scattered around this world. It's proving to be beneficial on many levels: heart levels, brain levels, social levels. It is a good exercise on what is right and what is well; I'm excited about what this means for me. But also, sad.

Leaving the winery was not an easy decision; the dissonance is (still) tangible. I learned so much under the guidance of Eric and Dennis,  blossomed with creative freedom,  honed skills I knew I had hidden somewhere, made incredible bonds with people I would have never come across... Two-EEs has been good to me. But lately there has been a fragrant and deafening pull for elsewhere. I noticed when the pull was more of a subtle tug, and now I'm listening.

So. Onward! as they say.  

Feelin' Myself

I put my bed by the window because why wouldn't I? Why not wake up and look right out to a virgin Vermont morning, Green Mountains in the background? Why not be taken with a baker's dozen of crow minding their own business against a hazy-blue sky?

Sorry I'm bragging again. But I can't stop.

This is hallowed ground. I feel like I paint it like this: writers and deer and birds frolicking and bonding around a crackling fire, a world where poetry is even more a blood line than usual - and other people acknowledge the importance while braiding a bear's fur... I mean, it's not REALLY like that, but kind of. And books stacked up to my knees wherever I walk. And (this is a truth) a Red Tailed Hawk living in the trees near my room. Chickadees screaming their names and hopping from branch to branch -- and me, a part of it.

When did it become a reality that I, a poor girl from flat-Indiana, might actually be a writer by way of the mountains of Vermont?

Amen.

You're a Human Thing

"I am, thank god, a writer and editor, not a father confessor. But I do believe that our culture is set up to maximize individual guilt, and that one needs to resist it. Whatever happened may or may not have been wise (you have to make that decision), but it is not unusual, or damnable, or changeable. Whenever we mess up--if that in fact is what you've done (I'm not so sure)--the only thing one can do is vow to change; nothing else is useful or doable. I've been married to the same person now for approx. 125 years. We don't think marriage is something ordained by god; it's something that two people decide on because they're happy with one another (despite of course ups and downs).

I've been writing a poem...and in it I quote David Ignatow, who says to himself after a stretch of self-loathing: 'so finally I wave myself back in.' Good advice."

***********
One day I will die. Right? And hopefully my shortcomings are overshadowed by the good things - I'm not sure they will be, but I have no control over that. I just know that until I can come to peace with my fuck ups and failures, I will try and try and try to surround myself with people who still see me as a human, and a deserving one at that.

The two paragraphs opening this post are two paragraphs from my current professor/mentor. I've read them a million times.  If there was a way to steep my body in these words, I'd do it. And I have a list forever scrolling in my heart of the handful of people who surrounded their wagons around me when I was shivering in the darkness -- one day, when this thing isn't defining me, I'm going to write each of you a love letter. (I've started composing them already)

And here's what I want to say and I mean it: Right now I don't have enough bones in my body to carry what's on my back, but little by little (some days not) I'm learning to.

I'm learning a girl can keep it together.

I Wish I Could Be Alone but Not Lonely

My cat, Greg, caught and ate a moth yesterday. He's heroic. He knows how much their erratic flying causes me panic, so he marches downstairs from his swanky spare room, bats them around and then, inevitably, eats them.

I'm usually grateful. I was yesterday, too, don't think I wasn't, but I felt pity for the moth. There was a point when the dusty creature was still alive, barely, and Greg dropped it on the floor to investigate it before chomping it apart. Broke my heart.

When Greg relinquished it, it hobbled towards his foot. Greg moved his paw away. Then, the tattered moth did it again - ran towards his attacker. I had to put my head down; the poignancy of the moment was worth regarding.

I'm still seized by the entirety of that minute. It was a micro-world, life changing bit of the universe. I'm stuck there, swirling in pain for the living.

I am living, but slowly dying. 

Don't Expect Me to Cry

In middle school, I tried to learn to sew. It didn't work out too well - my  Home Ec. teacher, Mrs. Bunner, looked at one of my seams and, defeated (as one must get teaching middle school kids how to sew), asked me: "What are you doing at that machine, Erica? Riding the wave?" (Don't worry, guys. I told her No.)

I won't forget Mrs. Bunner. Honestly. She taught me how to write a check. And to clean up the kitchen as you go. And that it was just fine that boys wanted to take Home Ec. She was a good lady, really. I shouldn't have called her Mrs. Bun-Head. Not only did it NOT make sense, it wasn't very nice. She also practiced a thing she called Uppers. If she heard a student say something negative about another student, she made the sour-puss say 3 nice things about the other kid. It's a nice ritual, you know? I can get caught up in negative shit so easily. And I do. Even if it was just to make Mrs. Bunner happy, the naysayer would have to buck up and pick out good stuff.

It's a goddamned attitude changer, I'll tell you that much. So, today I'm going to find some Uppers in my life - and even though, instead of being grateful, I want to be mad, I'm going to Mrs. Bunner the fuck out of today. You ready?

1. I have a bike. I have a bike that I love - It's sturdy and big and it folds in half. I inherited very little from my dad -among strong teeth, a slight problem with alcohol and easily toned muscles, he, also, left me this bike.  I ride this fucker with a serious outlook.  I ride it with a backpack and cutoffs and look like a 12 year old boy. I ride it with dresses on. And through high water. And to the bars. I'd ride it to hell and back.

2. Nirvana's Unplugged Album exists. It's so good and it's so good every single time I listen to it. I remember when I first bought this cd. Sirens started sounding: "Alert! Alert! This album will outlast most albums for you, young Erica." It has. I've grown with it. And who would've thought some punk-ass young kids from Seattle could do an acoustic set that would resonate with so many people for so many years? Jesus Christ, you know? Just listen to it. Listen to the first 3 seconds of Oh Me and tell me you don't feel it in your bones.

3.  One day I know I will be far from the spot I'm in now. And that's the best Upper I can think of.

You Want to Be Free

Goodness is everywhere: under my pillow, in the far corner of my 'fridge, under the mixing bowl I haven't used since I baked that last batch of cookies, down the hall, under my fingernails, at the bottom of that bottle of wine. It's in that blues riff that always makes you want to die. Exchanging coupons at the Bed, Bath and Beyond, inside peanut shells, quietly typing in the morning all alone - these are places, too. What about the dust on your bookcase? And your split ends? Hardware stores, between aisles 3 and 6, and with country boys named Mark.

Remember that one time we were at that one bar and you played Willie Nelson? It was there, too. Walking near churches late at night in the rain. Crying until your young lungs are tender. Standing up with a sore back. Burdens tucked deep in the muscles somewhere between the scapula and spine. All of those places. There and everywhere.

Don't kid yourself, though, you know? Other things live there, too.

Share My Bread and Wine

I am not surprised. I'm the kind of girl who gets rabies. And who breaks her foot before the race. I'm magnetic in all the wrong ways. I feel things too much in my bones. I fall in love with all vibrations. I feel that blue collar catastrophe, personally. I want a sharp hair line and the kind of collar bone that perfectly spills into shoulders. Maybe beer on the couch is best. Or red wine in the morning, in a coffee mug. And stars beaming through electronics. I'm that kind. The ruiner kind.

Things end.


That's how my book would start.

If You Knew How Much I Loved You, Baby, Nothing Could Go Wrong With You

In a few minutes, I'm going to walk through the kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom, put on sunscreen, my swimsuit, pack up Ted Kooser and my journal then walk to the beach. I started a poem and finished a re-write yesterday while my family conquered gulf waves. I was breathing in sand and salt and good vibes; healing up these cuts in my soul. I collected no less than 45 shells, but not perfect shells, partial shells. Because if we're honest, who likes anything that's perfect?

I mean, besides my boobs.

and here's something else I want to say, I went swimming early this morning around 3:30 and Jupiter was hanging out with me. Venus and Jupiter in the same night. I'll take it.

All the roads we have to walk are winding

What about this skin I have? What am I supposed to do with it once it's clean from a perfect September? And, while I'm asking questions, what does it mean to wash the shadows off? Where do we go?

But what about the unkind?

But also, the divine?

These questions are irrelevant.

Irreverent.

This Old House Is Falling Down Around My Ears

I'm doing the most graceful pirouettes in this dizzying time of interim. A year from now seems blurry. A week from now is blurry. But right now, it feels good to pick up the fruits and eat them, to get red faced with whiskey, to pick apart the scales of the freshwater mermaid.

Life is myth. Or some lives are myth: superstition buried in the sand of Utah, love swirling around, tap dancing with the Tropic of Cancer, destruction with a fancy paper mask.

(Destruction with a fancy paper mask.)

We Will Never Die

Few things are barely connected; most things are.

Two things fucked me up real bad today. If they happened to you, maybe it would have been a passing breeze. And if it happened to me yesterday or maybe if it even happened tomorrow, maybe it'd be just nothing, but today: today, these two things were everything. And somehow, I know they are interconnected by delicate strings.

Here they are:

I watched a beetle die today. Much to my protest, this beetle died. And his life ended in front of me. I watched it. Do you get it? I FUCKING WATCHED IT.

I saw a lonely man today with a lame arm.

goddamnit. both things made me want to die. but somehow afterwards, I felt more. Just.. more.

like the warmth from the sun

Some days are days that last forever. Some days are days that last forever in the best way. In the way that you accidentally smell like sweat because playing in the sand with a bunch of kids is something not to be taken lightly. I mean, you have to start at the feet and end with the shoulders. Covering every inch of a 10 year old with Indiana sand at a swimming hole is harder than you think.

Then, you're not even finished. You have to bulldoze sand under their little necks so they can (comfortably) watch their friends in the water. Do you even get it? Today, it wasn't about the sand. Well, maybe it was about the sand for them. But today, it wasn't about the sand for me.

Little moments, right? Isn't that what it all kind of comes down to? Little moments and reminders and sand on your scalp and giggling kids and connecting in the sameness and falling asleep on the bus ride home and counting Jolly Ranchers. And living and loving and being happy? Right?

I know I'm right. I just know it.

You Belong With Me

Can you even believe I learned how to water ski in a cove named Lick Run? And a few years later, my Papa taught me to slalom in a bight we call Paradise. My dad caught his last catfish in the green waters across from Message Beach. Kingfishers nest off of Hummingbird Hill and the most coveted arm of our lake, of course, is Cell Point.

The hills above Indian Creek were bought by an old man who cleared the trees, promptly died and now his estate is all for sale. Cedar Hill Marina sells the best deep fried pickles. Wolf River Cliffs tested my guts every year until someone banged his head and died. The Milky Way trail and meteor showers make my brain explode out in the middle of this lake.

This lake belongs to me like my gray shirt belongs to me. But also, like the universe belongs to me. The summer my dad died, we wondered if it'd be a place of grief. It was, but the water cleaned our wounds. We wondered, this winter, if this summer would be different because my nena's health - but we're anticipating the clear water to work it's magic. It will. We know it will.

The limb lines will hang after the fisherman chore the shore. The slate rocks will lay until we pick them up. Poison Ivy will eat up our flesh. The sun will bake us. And we will drink Grey Goose in our orange juice and Bailey's in our coffee and listen to Billy Joel loudly.

And even though it's just a summer place, Dale Hollow water pumps through all the Andersons' bodies. We know the lake like we know ourselves.

I Said Things I Meant to Say

My papa tends to things in a way no-one else can.

He is making bat houses this spring. He raises worms. He feeds his birds. His flower garden is unparalleled. He adopts stray cats. He heals my heart whenever I'm anxiously sad. He makes sure his wife doesn't forget her evening pills. He is attentive when anyone is speaking. He loves to watch a good game of ping pong and always cheers for the winner. He might disagree, but it's always respectfully. He compliments servers. He sends me newspaper articles he thinks pertain to me. He lectures about life lessons (I listen).

He shares what he has - all the way from his worm-tea to bean dip to space on his houseboat in the summer, any summer. He fixes things, and paints things, and hangs things for my nena. He knows just when to hug me. He says the phrase, "grab and growl" before any meal. Sometimes, if we pray, he says: "So mote it be" at the end (which might be a freemason thing, but who knows? more importantly, who cares?) He listens to the Babs. He taught me to water-ski, to cry in public, to drive, to shoot free throws, to be kind and most importantly, to be happy no matter my circumstances.

I'm still really working on that last one. I suppose that's one that comes with age.

Have I told you lately that, basically, I'm the person I am because of him? I'm sure my dad was just like him - I never got a chance to know that. But if I'm anything, it's lucky. And loved.

Whenever you call, baby, I'll roll up

I have a tiny family - two non-humans who are reliable only about a few things and one boy who is, to a fault, loyal.  So loyal and loving and devoted that most of the time, I just can't believe it.

Here's a tiny example: Last weekend, after an emotional trip and tired flight, when I landed in Fort Wayne 25 minutes earlier than my itinerary said we would, I turned on my phone quickly to text him and plead for him to hurry, a text pops up on my screen: "Don't worry. I'm here."

And I suppose, deep down, I was worried. That's where I live - in a perpetual haze of anxiety. But I shouldn't, not with him anyway.

The first time he and I interacted with one another, he saw me flip my top on this shit head in the lobby that connected the boy's dorm with the girl's dorm in college. I was a chubby freshman, short hair and bad skin. I remember what the fight was about, but trust me, it's not worth it. And from afar, I'm sure it seemed like my points were insane (they were) and that I was insane (I wasn't, just fat). Point is: he still gave me a chance, even after that.

Super late one night, I get a heavy phone call from my brother - he needed me and I was hours and hours away, newly married to a boy who was sleeping next to me and broke. I couldn't get to Wisconsin to save my life. I was a hopeless, sobbing mess - volatile and raw. I lost it -all recognition of sanity: made my throat bloody and broke my phone into one hundred pieces on our hard wood floors. He stayed put.

A few summers ago, I lost my job to Mitch Daniels, I lost weight because of stress and I sacrificed my mind to grief.

I drink too much. I gossip too much. I complain and overreact and get depressed with the ebbs and flows of life too much. I can't seem to settle down. I don't read novels, just comics and poetry. My favorite bird is the King Fisher (who has that as their favorite bird? For real, though).

I still cry about my dad. I talk too much, especially about Anakin Skywalker and Dean Winchester and Fox Mulder. I make terrible Iced Tea. I'm never happy with my job. I fall in love with fictional characters. When I cry, I don't just cry, I sob. I have terrible road rage - the likes of which you haven't seen...

But, here he stays. Next to me. I'm crazy, but he loves me anyhow.

Somehow.  

my heart feels unprotected

I do the things I need to do, you know, to function. Brush my hair, wear clean underwear, pet my cat, blow out the candles at the end of the night, drink wine, occasionally dust, wash out my cuts, eat some fruit, smile at strangers, text, sit criss cross applesauce, and work on my posture.

I wear a bra mostly, I cry alone mostly (except for Fat Tuesdays. On Fat Tuesdays, I cry to boys who let me), I shave my legs (sometimes) and listen to sad songs on lonely nights. I breathe heavy as I fall asleep. I remember nice things and feel nice. I try not to remember bad things, but, like everything, that's hard to do.

I fall in love. And out of love. But mostly, in, at least 3 times a day.

I participate in normal human activities. Sometimes, I even enjoy it.

Sometimes.

She could hear the highway breathing

Can you even believe all the opportunities available to us to just fall right the fuck in love? Make no mistake in these words, I'm mostly talking about non-humans and poignant moments in time that just look you in the eye and give you the what-for. They are, mainly, set apart by heart beats.

And I can't begin to explain the interrelation of the things and the moments, but I don't have to. If you know about the heart beats, you know about the union.

These little baby companions are there, you know, always.

I can be in a car, and the minute I tell someone about what vacant lots do for me, specifically about the loneliness and the beauty and the desire to stand for days (and maybe decompose), I become aware. There they are. Right there, making my blood move, my skin pulse and my nose a little ruddy button. Falling in love with vacant lots or blue mittens or being called a heifer, those are the moments - being intentional about these moments, that's the love.

It's all very circular. But I suppose, life is like that.

Aint that the way.

let's talk over mai-tais. waitress, top it off

Life shifts often. My skin comes off everyday and my hair falls out and my finger nails grow, get dirty and I bite them off, but here I am, the same human. Kind of.

The shifting. The death. The life. It's all too much at times. The standing up tall and watching everything change, that's something else, too. I barely can stand it.

All of this to say: I'm getting old. I can see it around my eyes and in my blood. And with the friendships I've cultivated for so long. The shifting. The slow transfer and melting away and putting our hands into the cold river that never stops - these things tell me, you know, nothing fucking stays the same.

And I mean it: nothing.

every body likes to cha-cha-cha

This weekend was ridiculous. Somehow I was invited to perform twice. IN ONE WEEKEND. Holy god, guys. What a wonderful honor to be esteemed enough, and trusted enough, to entertain a varied group of strangers at an event that has been a working part of the coordinator's soul.

It's magic, really. Magic.

The first event was for a young, community centered church. (yep, you heard me right: church). But guys, they're doing things right. They turned a parking lot into a GARDEN. Where they grow veggies to share with the community. SHARE, COMMUNITY, FREE ORGANIC FOOD. In order to do this, they need a tad bit more money, a tad bit more awareness, so they threw a benefit. And asked local bands and local poets to perform. Local talent, local food, local love that could (depending on how you feel) transcend time and space. I agreed immediately. I agreed and I was honored. Deeply.

Next, we had The Bomb Shelter. Standup comedy for very very amateur comedians. Pye,Brown is the creative force behind many swanky events in Fort Wayne and this one (as well as the first Shelter), I was invited to participate. They landed a beautiful space, a legit filmmaker and 10 amazingly brave (and funny) people to tell jokes like we really knew what we were doing. Let me just tell you... the entire night was full of wine, laughter and lots of anxious embarrassment. The perfect combination. Pye,Brown is genuinely interested in Fort Wayne, inspired individuals and how the two can make each other better by being celebrated together. Locally and creatively togethering. And me. I got to be a part of the A-list line up. And, how can a girl complain?