I think about it sometimes
when I am driving.
I think about crashing
in reverse. The smell of metal
scraping against a concrete wall
in a basement parking lot.
I think about the lie I told my parents:
And the other lie I never told them.
I think about truth
when I am driving and what
might have happened to the secret
had I kept it.
I’m giddy with excitement to let you know my first feature column went up on District Lit yesterday. “My Time, Your Place” is an ongoing exploration of the boundaries between reality and dream, time and timelessness, place and wandering. (The title is borrowed in part from the Yehuda Amichai poem, “In My Time, In Your Place.”)
I hope you check it out from time to time, and share with your friends if the writing moves you to do so.
As a tribute to Amichai, whose poetry inspires me in so many ways, here is the poem the title references.
A thing
grew inside me once.
This was during a time I can’t return to.
Not that I want to return
except on days I do want to
in order to observe the thing growing
with a wholeness I grew inside me in the time
since.
I don’t know if I said it because of the dream or if I dreamt it because I was bound to say it later, but I said it and only after did I realize that it didn’t matter if the dream preceded the belief or the belief the dream.
* * *
What matters more than the man in the dream — a composite of men I have loved — is the woman who jumped so high as to be seen from the carved out window of the plane I was flying in.
She is not me. She was too tall to be me. And yet her hair …
What am I supposed to glean from her loose and long dirty blond hair, from the bohemian dress that floated up above her knees like a parachute each time she leapt from the valley as if the earth below was her trampoline? And what about the mountains, which were not the mountains of Denver, Colorado or the Golan Heights, mountains I have seen directly, both from above and below, but were, I am certain, the mountains of a European country, Spain or Portugal, a country in which there are less Jews than in the countries I am familiar with, countries I might even dare to call my homes?
What matters more than the man in the dream — who brought me to near tears with his collection of short stories recognizable as anecdotes from his childhood — is the woman who was sitting in the row ahead of me on the plane. She, too, saw the leaper, but she was not fazed. “I’ve seen her before,” the woman ahead of me noted. “We’re friends.”
She is not me, either. She was not Jewish enough. And she was also tall, even when seated.
Perhaps, what matters more is the man in the dream — perhaps, he is me.
* * *
Perhaps, I believed it and dreamed it both. Neither one before the other. Neither one bound to be first.
I asked you your name
Shahar
because I knew the only way to repay you
would be to write you a poem —
that there would be no handing over of cash,
no exchange of phone numbers for future use.
I knew I could never collapse in your arms there
and weep as I might have had we been alone
or had you been an inch taller or wider.
Could not even touch your shoulder tenderly
to let you know that I know
that you
Shahar
are the human in humanity.
Your black knitted cap, a tad too wide for your delicate skull
may be what stopped you from continuing along the dirt road
when you saw me waving my arms from the highway above.
Your black knitted cap was certainly what stopped me
from wrapping my arms around your 54 kilos when you finally
succeeded in screwing on the spare.
I asked you your name before we parted
Shahar
because I knew then what I know now
which is that all there was between us is all
there ever will be, that once you changed
my tire and afterwards I asked you your name.
What is a classic?
The Giving Tree in English. But not in Hebrew.
What is a classic?
The Wonder Years. Especially the one in which Paul becomes a bar mitzvah. Or any episode with The Byrds as background music.
What is a classic?
Mighty Love. Let My Love Open the Door. All You Need is Love. In My Room.
What is a classic?
Cornbread. Warmed.
What is a classic?
Square dancing in gym class. Sorry, more Wonder Years.
What is a classic?
I don’t know. Classics are supposed to be timeless and yet some classics have changed for me with time. Like, The Giving Tree used to be IT for me and now I suppose The Missing Piece is. But that just happened 15 minutes ago. Can it be a classic already? Moby Dick is not a classic, and yet it is, just not for me. Not yet. But it might be one day and then I will look back at today and realize I was ignorant of the classics. The Wizard of Oz is a classic, but I’ve watched it too many times and now it is a classic, but stale.
Like The Shawshank Redemption.
Like TBS.
Like Apple Pie.
I suppose if I had to say, a classic is that which makes me cry when I am not sad.
What is a classic?
The tune to My Darling Clementine.
Mint.
Feet in the sand.
The Barbie Dreamhouse with the elevator.
Jim Croce.
Half-burnt marshmallow on a stick.
Josh and Jodie.
My dad’s green fiat.
Pepsi Free.
Yesterday.
That time my Bubbi cried at Denny’s because her eggs were runny.
That time my brother threw a rootbeer bottle at me.
That time the car was stuck in the mud in a rainstorm, but I only remember that one in a dream.
What is a classic?
Forgot my locker combo.
Forgot to study for the final.
Left my passport at home.
What is a classic?
“These poems do not live: it’s a sad diagnosis.”
What is a classic?
“In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves reduced to I
and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible.”
What is a classic?
“It is startling
to realize that
some of our most cherished memories
may never have happened — or may
have happened to someone else.”
What is a classic?
What is a classic?
——–
The above contains poetry by Sylvia Plath (“Stillborn”) and Adrienne Rich (“In Those Years”), and commentary on memory by Oliver Sacks
Oh how I wish I was in your bedroom right now and could place inside your tiny paper plate ears a pair of plastic headphones so you could close your eyes and hear what time travel sounds like at least once before you die.
Since I can’t or, let’s face it, you won’t let me no matter how nicely I ask or how sane I try to sound, I will settle for the next best thing which is to request that you click through to this link and turn the volume up as high as it will go, press play and close your eyes.
The next 27 seconds is what time travel sounds like; and the three and a half minutes after is best suited for singing out loud. No, not lip syncing, but, singing out loud. Or (this part is optional and only for the truly possessed) pretend you are slow dancing — with me, or with someone else not me, someone you won’t let put headphones into your ears even though you really want to because you think she’s a little off or a little too sorrowful or a little off.
Close your eyes. Then, cross your arms. Rest your hands on opposite shoulders. Sway back and forth. Back and forth. Until
If it was a color, blogger fatigue would be mustard yellow and it would be caked on to the countertop like a booger.
You stare at it. Ponder it. Consider your options. You could walk away. Leave it for someone else, but in the end, you’re compelled to scrape it off with the nail of the middle finger of your right hand. (Or the other, if you’re a leftie.) Then, you use your thumb to extricate the pieces of blogger fatigue caught beneath the nail. You flick the hardened flakes into the sink — if you’re the kind of person who cares where boogers land. If not, you flick your blogger fatigue into the air where it floats down to the kitchen floor. You’re going to have to sweep it up anyway.
Blogger fatigue — by which I mean the temporary aversion to sharing any more inner thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, dream analyses, stream of consciousness poems about childhood shopping malls, lists of tomorrow’s tasks, casual references to cool things you’ve done or celebrated people you’ve met, tips for new moms, tips for old moms, tips for moms who wish they were lesbians, recipes with pretty Pinterest pictures, links to other bloggers whose interests I might share or not but who might link back to my blog and increase my traffic by two — is bringing me down. But not down enough to shut down. Not forever.
If there was a cure for blogger fatigue, it would be temporary, like sweatpants are a temporary relief for seasonal affective disorder. I promise, once my region of the world lights up again, I’ll return to wearing skinny jeans and telling you all about the time I touched Matt Dillon’s butt in the basement of a bar whose name I forget on the Lower East Side.
If I collected pretty purple waves of light every time I said the word “free,” perhaps I’d be the kind of free i really want to be. not gluten free, not nut free, not sugar free, fat free, or buy one get one free, not
Groupon free, but really free. Worry free is close, but not close enough. My desire is the kind of free at least three meters away from a hyphen. mine must be at a certain distance from a noun in order to avoid possible cross-contamination. mine, I’d tell the chef, burns easily, so keep it in a cool, dry place like the yellow bowl high atop the counter where little hands covered in Play-doh can’t reach it.
It’s sad, really, how we’ve corrupted free, compounded it, like mad scientists preparing the liquid version for the old man who can no longer swallow pills. It used to be so pretty: wide orange all-caps. Now free is a deflated nude, the letters warped like old records left too many years in the back storage room of my parents’ basement. I wish I had the key
to free her.
I wrote a poem
I wrote a poem
I want to shout it but I won’t
I wrote a poem.
*
I wrote a poem
A simple poem
I ache to cry but hold it back
I wrote a poem.
*
I wrote a poem
Just a poem
It’s not my best, but it’s not half bad
I wrote a poem.
*
I wrote a poem
Thank God, a poem
Was almost sure the well’d dried up
But I wrote a poem.
*
It’s just a poem
I know, a poem
but I dare believe, it’s cleared the way
for another poem.
There are days
(like today)
when emails from teachers
with names beginning with
Aleph or Ayin or Chet
or long-winded reminders
via Google group
from neighbors whose
fresh-baked challah
I truly do enjoy
or the main menu
of the University’s
Babylonian student information station
all make me want to
gouge out my eyes
with aluminum skewers
left over from
last weekend’s “al Ha’Esh”
or eat Whoppers in front
of the movie Clue —
either of the three versions
released in December 1985.
Basically,
I need my information
spoonfed, please, from
the Confection Stand.
I want each request and update
to melt in my mouth like
candy did once
like Tim Curry
in 1985 before
Rocky Horror Picture Show
before heads went missing
before someone said to me,
No one moved to Israel
because it’s easy.
There are days
(not today) when
I am proud that science
has proven that my brain
works better now that it
needs to decipher whether
my daughter requested
dag or dog for dinner.
But today
I just want to suck it all
through a straw.
At Jennifer’s First Birthday, 1975
In this big picture, find the locket, the John Lennon spectacles, blue eyeshadow, bangs trimmed straight, August, yellow #5, a red balloon (not to be confused with The Red Balloon), a tray wiped clean, a downward glance, an elephant, love, another elephant, motherhood, hints of a Bubbi in a baby’s breath, a candle blown, “she looks like you Mom,” uncertainty, a glassy iris, love, the end of an exhale, one year, 26, 11 in between days, a hidden picture, gingham.
In this big picture, find
* * * * **
Happy birthday, Mom.
Hidden Pictures is a trademark of Highlights Kids magazine.
