Ever since I read Jane Kenyon’s poem Otherwise, I’ve thought how I might be otherwise myself. Or going back a ways, might have been otherwise than I was, that got me to this point where I am now, when I’m thinking I might be different, or might have been, and still could be if only. It matters where you start from I guess. We start alone, and add on from there. At least that’s the plan someone wrote. I never gave it much thought. For all the thinking I thought I was doing I never gave anything much thought. Not that changed anything anyway. To get otherwise you have to start somewhere, but that was the mystery, just as any otherwise now is a mystery. Seems like it’s one mystery after another, meanwhile, have a baby, fall in love, circumnavigate mountains and the produce aisle… Other people seem to do it. Like Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall made love and wrote poetry on a Vermont farm until Jane died. The ultimate otherwise there. And Don sat in a blue chair looking out the window at his barn and fields, until finally, he died. Or are all the others only illusion? What otherwise, I ask, would be anything other than this self same old mystery, and I don’t have an answer.
Beautiful, Tod. I love this: "For all the thinking I thought I was doing I never gave anything much thought." So funny and true. And you're so right--"it matters where you start from." I love Jane Kenyon (and Donald Hall). If you've not read "Let Evening Come," I think you'd like it.
Tod, in all your contemplation of “otherwise,” I love the details—especially circumnavigating mountains and the produce aisle. No matter what we believe about where otherwise may take us, there are mountains to climb and produce to buy! This is such a thoughtful piece!
Tod, your piece inspired me to look up the poem by Jane Kenyon. It is so beautiful and so true. I think your response to the poem is just lovely, a meditation on the mysteries of chance and of these lives we live.
I don't read much poetry, and hardly ever remember what I do read, but Otherwise is the exception and it keeps coming up in everyday life which is pretty cool. Donald Hall wrote a piece for the New Yorker about their life on the farm, and the loneliness of him outliving her. It's worth a look. "Between Solitude and Loneliness."
Tod, I did look up that piece and it moved me so much.The joy of day to day life with the one you love, and the "otherwise" of loss. Thank you for pointing me to this.
You're welcome. I barely knew of Donald Hall when I came across that piece, and was really moved by it too. I've read it several times since, and regard it as a model for relationship ! Glad it spoke to you.
Tod, I'm a huge Kenyon fan. Do you know she and Donald Hall used to play ping pong in the basement, transferring their competitive natures from poetry to little white balls?
I have no regrets - that’s what I say when the subject comes up. I say it out of philosophical conviction. I believe we are born with certain karma and what we do and what happens to us is what’s fated to happen. My brain believes this but my heart isn’t buying it. For example, I deeply regret that I lacked courage with the opposite sex. I was so shy, so terrified of being rejected, that I took no initiative. In fact, much of my youth was spent observing life rather than participating in it. You’re only young once and I squandered many of my best years out of timidity.
I regret the times I was cruel. It may have only been a handful, but they haunt me. In eighth grade I told Susan that Tony wanted to break up with her. I did it out of the sheer joy of inflicting hurt on someone I didn’t like. Susan’s face fell before it remade itself into a mask of scorn. Then there was cruelty by passivity. I want to think of myself as someone who would befriend the lonely and stick up for those who were picked on, but I never did. I wasn’t the ringleader but I followed along, avoiding the friendless oddballs for fear they would contaminate me with their sadness.
I am happily married. I have a child who loves me and a good job. Everything turned out ok, I guess. And yet karma and philosophical conviction be damned, I have regrets. Plenty of regrets.
Grappling with the idea of free will always fascinates me (and freaks me out, too). I always say I have no regrets, and i hold tight to that conviction, because everything I've ever done, I did with the tools I had in that moment. I was the person who made that decision in that moment, and I could not be someone else. I have wished I'd made different decisions at time, but I can't regret being me. That's what I always say, though i grapple with it. I'm happy you wrote this: "Everything turned out okay." Being happily married and with a child who loves you--to me that sounds better than okay. Thanks for writing this piece and sharing it.
I know what you mean, Wim, but observation is a form of participation I think. Without observation we would have no artists, writers, philosophers. Too often the participants have no sense of context or self awareness. Some do, and do good work. Others are only making money mindlessly.
But do you think that perhaps it might have been that very shyness and timidity with the opposite sex, as a young man, that helped to shape you into the kind of man who in his mature years could be a loved and loving husband and father? So that may not be a thing to regret? As for the petty cruelties, yes, we are all guilty of those. Only some of us are haunted by them, though. Isn't it better to remember and regret our past failings and keep trying to be better, than to brush them aside? So in this case, it might be a good thing that we have these regrets?
Wow. What an honest piece! Whether this is personal or a character you have created, it is a starkly honest that cuts to the quick of most of us, I think. I, too, have regrets, even though I love to say that I don’t. Nicely written.
I am a funny person. Today I was voted “Person of the Week” at work. My title is “Funniest Person in the Office”. Previous Persons of the Week have been awarded Tidiest Desk, or Most Efficient, or whatever, so I was thrilled to get Funniest Person.
I’ve always known I’m funny. My husband used to think so too. We used to laugh all the time. Not so much now we have three kids and two fulltime jobs. But the kids still think I’m funny. Apart from our oldest. She’s thirteen and these days when I’m being funny she just rolls her eyes.
So we’re all sitting round the dinner table tonight – I still insist on that, no phones – and I tell my family about me being voted Funniest Person.
My husband scoffs. “Do they mean funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?”
“I’m funny!”
“Say something funny then.”
Doesn’t work like that, I tell him.
“Well, tell us a funny story,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
I make up a story on the spot, inspired by a mind-numbing symposium I’d just been at. My story’s about a middling sort of guy who’s at a conference for middle managers, and it’s so boring he falls asleep and slides off his seat and the venue staff think he’s had a heart attack and rush over with a defibrillator. (My husband doesn’t laugh, so I keep going.) So at the stand-up lunch in the venue foyer the middling guy notices there’s another conference lunch happening on the other side of the foyer, roped off from his. It’s a medical scientists’ conference and the food’s much better over there. So he waits until everyone’s gone back into the lecture halls, then he ditches his conference lanyard and hops over the rope and starts filling his pockets with pastries. (My husband’s still not laughing.) Then an official comes rushing out and says, “Dr Sorensen, we’ve been looking everywhere for you!” She thinks he’s the keynote speaker for the medical conference, and she bundles him up on stage, where he has to give a crazily scientific talk using Prof Sorensen’s slides. He wings his way through, and he’s loving the attention, but then his doppelganger appears – the real Prof Sorensen – and they gaze at one another in horror, faces like in Munch’s The Scream. Then all hell breaks loose.
I look at my husband. Still not laughing.
“That’s your best?” he says.
“So what’s your definition of funny?” I ask.
“Dunno. Slapstick?”
Slapstick? I walk to the fridge, pull out a cream pie, and slap it into his face. Classic!
It’s not really a cream pie, it’s yesterday’s leftover pizza.
The kids are laughing hysterically, even the thirteen-year-old. But my husband doesn’t see the funny side. No sense of humor at all.
I’m a funny person. Don’t you dare tell me otherwise.
Michael is unremarkable. He tells me that he moved into our apartment building three years ago and lives directly above me in unit 506 (I am in unit 406). I suppose that is true, because he also tells me that he drives the Hondo Fit that is regularly parked in space 5A, next to my space 4A, and I am aware of his car because it is the color of a not quite ripe blueberry, which I think is a ridiculous color for a car, so I did notice that. I chuckle every time I park next to that Fit. So, in that sense, Michael has been a good neighbor. He regularly injects a bit of cheer into my days without ever having any direct contact with me, which brings me to my point. Michael tells me that he needs some recommendations submitted with his application to purchase a condo in your building. I can say that he is a neighbor who has never disturbed me, has never offended me, and has actually never been in my awareness until he knocked on my door asking for this reference, which is precisely the perfect sort of neighbor for either an apartment building or a condo development. He seems unlikely to strew his garbage about, vomit in the hallway, trash the common room, make noise, or cause anyone to call the police, etc. If you have any further questions about Michael, please contact me, although I must caution you that I probably don’t know much more than I’ve shared here and do generally prefer not to be disturbed.
“the color of a not quite ripe blueberry, which I think is a ridiculous color for a car” and it is, but it’s a lovely idea for a color, a sort of purply green. Thanks for the image.
I am a very honest person. Telling a lie makes me physically sick to my stomach. Withholding a truth is nearly as guilt-inducing. Worst of all is being accused of lying. I blush, stammer, flail around for a response, and generally give the impression that the accusation is true even when, as is almost always the case, it isn’t. I’ve done this since I was a young child. This led to my being punished for a variety of things I never did.
One of my early memories is of lying in bed at night, thinking about something I’d done wrong during the course of the day. I don’t remember what it was, but how terrible could it have been? I was no more than six or seven years old. I hadn’t been given the opportunity to commit any major crimes. However, there were no peccadilloes in our household.
As I lay ruminating on my crime, I made up excuses for myself, trying out different possible defenses for when I was caught: It never happened; it was accidental; someone else did it; it didn’t really matter. I believed each excuse in turn as it crossed my mind. Then I stopped, aghast, thinking, You’re lying to yourself! What could be more absurd and useless than lying to yourself? I promised myself solemnly never to do that again.
i think there should be more language around not precisely telling the truth. More words for lying, like there are for snow. Because some kinds of lying are not bad, some might do good at times. but as soon as we use that word it sounds bad.
I agree. There are fibs, white lies, misstatements, evasions - but there could be lots more. There is also the option of "None of your business" - a concept I wasn't familiar with until I was about 30.
I wish I had known about "none of your business" when i needed it after my divorce. Good god, the things people asked and the way i tried to defend myself! Horrors
It's really amazing what people think *is* their business. I remember being asked by total strangers, "Aren't you ashamed of being a teen mother?" (which I wasn't, I just looked young). And of course I felt obliged to answer.
Hahahaha! mary g this: " And I love hearing this, it’s enough to hear it, must I really go there and eat the eggs? " Teehee. LOVE this. I have celiac disease, plus I don't drink anything but coffee and water and I don't eat sugar...so I don't want to go to anyone's house for food but I do want to be invited. It's really twisted. I love yours, mary. It's so good. Also: I don't want children, never have, knew when I was a kid that I didn't want kids...but now I want to be a grandmother. I wonder if there's anyone out there with a dud for a grandmother that would allow me to play that role? I can step in. I'm not a grandmother, but I play one on TV. I have so much grandmother or auntie energy to expend. Babies! So stinking cute.
My own son seems totally allergic to the idea of making me a grandmother so I had to find another way in. Fortunately my companion has two children who each have children. None of them seems to mind having an extra grandmother...
Being a grandparent is way easier than a parent. No stress. Show up when you want. One hopes. I guess I have it pretty good. Hope you can "adopt" one somehow Sea.
She is so judgey. She judges my, hair, my clothes, the hair and clothes of my friends, my personality, the car I drive, the way I walk, how I dance, what I cook-- although always eating what I put in front of her. She judges my living room décor, my garden, my dog, the TV shows I like to watch, my politics. I swear, yesterday, I caught her judging how I open my mail.
I finally lit into her. “You seem to have a deep conviction that the world requires you to have an opinion on every person, place or thing you come across, You incessantly find fault, evidenced by your sneers, merciless looks, and attitude of unequalled condescension. I’ve only known you a week, and I find you one of the most unpleasant creatures I’ve ever come across. However, I do love my girlfriend, and when she asked me if I could take care of her ‘sweet’ cat while she went home for a visit, I felt I had no choice but to say yes. Just know that I hate you as much as you hate me, and when I tell her you were no trouble at all, it’ll be a damned lie.”
Oh, don’t you know giving in is the new willpower? (Also, screen addiction is now attention-paying, procrastination is now present-extending, and algae is now ”revenge green.” All sorts of things changed while you were playing with your grandkids.)
We prided ourselves on being a town that sought the best in one another. Our children’s soccer matches were congratulatory irrespective of injury on the field. Our churches inclusive; the smattering of Jewish and Muslim residents invited to our baby’s baptisms and our annual Christmas Pageant. So inclusive were we that last year’s Jesus was in fact a resident Muslim recruited for his skeletal physique, long hair and beard! Not a single one of us has ever blocked our neighbor’s views or encroached on a property line. We have a volunteer-staffed food pantry that serves the less fortunate, and we never toot our own horns. Yes, this was our town, that is until last August, when a record-breaking heat turned our lawns and sport fields brown, soured our milk, curdled our manners and exposed a pulsing, strata of selfishness, pettiness and prejudice that ran like an earthquake fault beneath our feet.
thank you and: Ha! I've got one west coast grandson who could give you an argument on that. But maybe it counts that his mom (my daughter) was born in the Bronx? Anyway, sheesh, grandkids! I can hardly believe it, to be honest.
I am not a dog person but every MWF I am going over to my daughter Polly’s apartment when she is at her EMT class to give her new puppy Hollis lunch and take her for a walk. Sometimes we cruise down the alley and one time we saw a huge doe in a neighbor’s yard and another time we met a neighbor named Shelly walking her terrier mix Max. I’m the grandmother, I said. Hollis also likes to take me to the garden by the house. She likes to do her business there and I have become an expert at detecting from her sniffing and posture when she is priming herself for delivery and I have to say that having raised twins and changed SO MANY diapers dog poop is the rankest, hands down. Inside sometimes we get out all the toys and don’t put them back. Hollis likes especially a blue plastic pig that squeals when she clamps it in her mouth. She likes it even more when I step on it and make it squeal louder. So do I. Every time before I leave I sit on the day bed and Hollis puts her paws on my lap and I rub her between her ears and under her neck. Petting Hollis is almost addictive. Her coat is so smooth and supple, her ears are like velvet, and her eyes so soulful and understanding. I don’t know what Hollis may be saying when we lock eyes but it speaks to me.
Yesterday when Hollis and I were walking a big dog rushed its fence at us and Hollis turned around so fast and pulled me so hard back to Polly's apartment I felt as if I were behind the Budweiser Clydesdales.
Indeed. Visiting Hollis has become the highlight of MWF. Today we looked into the maw of a garbage truck and I gave her an extra handful of blueberry treats, spoiling her rotten. Me, too.
At 5 am, Opal woke up, unnerved. All night, across the terraced goat garden outside her window, the inky night sky framed one window high in the building adjacent. Outlined in neon blue and dark within—the wide pupil of a square blue eye with a golden orb of light offset in its depths. It watched her all night. She could have thrown her covers back, lurched across to her windows, and yanked the blinds down.
But doing so felt—disobedient.
She first encountered the watchful orb on her way back to bed from the bathroom. Paused for a moment gazing into the darkness and there it was. She crawled back into bed and pulled the covers to her chin with quavering hands. The eye did not feel benevolent. Not quite malevolent, but—why was it watching her? Even with her eyes squeezed shut, focused on her breathing, it was there: Blue. Black. Golden. Watching.
She fell into an uneasy doze in which an overlong freight train kept her car paused at a railroad crossing. Graffiti bedazzled cars crawled past as she waited alone, impatient to be on her way. Where? JOEL on the side of one in bright purple, rounded letters. HUG—black, squared letters and a small dog in gray and white. Jagged slashes in bright greens and purples blazed along the full side of one.
The scene changed, and she was standing in a long semi-lit hallway. A man approached from the opposite direction. Walking at his leisure. One arm. Dazzling blue eyes.
Her eyes flew open, she threw back the covers and grabbed her clothes and shoes. Outside. She needed to walk. Her footsteps led her up two breath-gasping hills before she paused and turned into an alley. The narrow passage was lined with still closed antique shops along either side. She gazed at a green rattan, high-backed chair, a bright orange starburst pillow, and a wooden bench adorned with forget-me-nots. Across the narrow walkway, a man pushed his fedora upward on his forehead and stepped into a doorway, a gold key flashing in his outstretched hand.
”You coming in?” He called, cocked his head and pointed his chin at her.
“Not now—“ She began before she noticed he had one arm and gleaming blue eyes.
The ongoing story on goes....!!! (Or something like that.) Thanks for the congrats. We are on our way home now--that little grand baby was seriously adorable and perfect!
Mary, you had me at “must I really go there and eat the eggs?” The impulse to have friends but—what is that other impulse to keep them mostly at arm’s length?
Exhaustion? I am a loner and although i appear very social with others--always joking around and blabbing--in truth, i can't wait to be home again, alone. I love people, but i can only handle about five minutes.
I loved Mary's piece too. There's a nice poem/song by Courtney Barnett called "Nobody really cares if you don't go to the party" that riffs on this same theme.
They also mean focusing and listening. I have learned how to do both, but it takes a lot of energy on my part since my mind really has a hard time with both.
The girl knew things were not heading in the right direction, she was small and an orphan most days. Her parents lived abroad but sent drops for her tiny walrus hand - and that was all.
The elephant made mistakes and forgot them before he had a chance to avoid making them again. A piece of mud had hardened between his toes. It was getting harder to walk.
He went to see a Fortune Teller
How can I get ahead in Life? If I dream of one more circus, I'll die waking up
What is unique about you, Elephant Seeker?
There's a space between my toes I could never explain. It collects mud on rainy days. Lately the mud has set
Fill the space, put up an ad at the tiny supermarket, on the board at the back, thats how you get ahead
The mud in the space has set like Cement.
Cry until the mud goes soft then jump into a pond
So the elephant put up the Ad at a local supermarket and wrote a sign on his breakfast bowl that said CRY
But the elephant couldnt cry because he couldnt remember anything except the Fortune teller
The ad came to the attention of a lady who took care of a little girl with a tiny walrus hand
Its a small space, between an elephants toes
Lets take it
Its not big but it'd be all ours
Say yes before someone else gets it
If we wanted we could take a small painting each
Please say yes, it's going to be gone any second
It'll take some re adjustement
Shut up and take it
Rudeness. Will not be tolerated
Please take it...aaaghhh...aAAAgHOUHHH!
I dont think we can live together,- you must be nearly big
Fair. I cant live with a snail between an elephant's toes. Thanks for trying.
The tiny girl raced to the address and said I'm here to take the space.
The Elephant extended his paw but pushed the girl over, and the tiny girl cried - the elephant tried to help her up but she fell and cried again, and while she was down there cried about a couple of other things she'd been meaning to cry about.
Her tears loosened the mud slightly, they decided, though it hadnt.
She got three sticks and spent 10 days cleaning out the space between the gradually glossening grey toes.
At dawn they took backstreets to the pond where the elephant jumped and turned happily.
This was the first time he'd fully seen her, through the pain.
I like the way you've never used your tiny walrus hand to make money.
The little girl was happy never having thought of it til then.
And she lived between the elephants toes and hadnt taken one painting so the place always felt huge.
They had a Storybook life - with no beginnings or endings. Like a lovely old book in the rain.
Wondrous, J.D.A. This line stands out somehow among the other gems: "while she was down there cried about a couple of other things she'd been meaning to cry about."
I am not a rotten egg. But I am the one who will be last over the hill to see the light glistening on the water, and who knows if I will jump in, because by the time I get there it may be dark on the water and it's not like I fear Jaws but I do measure myself against Jason, with his golden earring and pirate smile, Emma with her no doubt expensive underwear and flat stomach, Josh, who says words that could add up to a compliment, but no one knows for sure, and finally Kylie and Jane, friends since first grade who know more things for sure than I will, at least tonight.
Ever since I read Jane Kenyon’s poem Otherwise, I’ve thought how I might be otherwise myself. Or going back a ways, might have been otherwise than I was, that got me to this point where I am now, when I’m thinking I might be different, or might have been, and still could be if only. It matters where you start from I guess. We start alone, and add on from there. At least that’s the plan someone wrote. I never gave it much thought. For all the thinking I thought I was doing I never gave anything much thought. Not that changed anything anyway. To get otherwise you have to start somewhere, but that was the mystery, just as any otherwise now is a mystery. Seems like it’s one mystery after another, meanwhile, have a baby, fall in love, circumnavigate mountains and the produce aisle… Other people seem to do it. Like Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall made love and wrote poetry on a Vermont farm until Jane died. The ultimate otherwise there. And Don sat in a blue chair looking out the window at his barn and fields, until finally, he died. Or are all the others only illusion? What otherwise, I ask, would be anything other than this self same old mystery, and I don’t have an answer.
Beautiful, Tod. I love this: "For all the thinking I thought I was doing I never gave anything much thought." So funny and true. And you're so right--"it matters where you start from." I love Jane Kenyon (and Donald Hall). If you've not read "Let Evening Come," I think you'd like it.
Ok I'll check it out.
Such a great impulse to begin with a poet and end with another. Cool, Tod.
Thanks Sea.
Tod, in all your contemplation of “otherwise,” I love the details—especially circumnavigating mountains and the produce aisle. No matter what we believe about where otherwise may take us, there are mountains to climb and produce to buy! This is such a thoughtful piece!
Thanks Angela, and so many details go on and on !
Yes they do.
Tod, your piece inspired me to look up the poem by Jane Kenyon. It is so beautiful and so true. I think your response to the poem is just lovely, a meditation on the mysteries of chance and of these lives we live.
I don't read much poetry, and hardly ever remember what I do read, but Otherwise is the exception and it keeps coming up in everyday life which is pretty cool. Donald Hall wrote a piece for the New Yorker about their life on the farm, and the loneliness of him outliving her. It's worth a look. "Between Solitude and Loneliness."
Tod, I did look up that piece and it moved me so much.The joy of day to day life with the one you love, and the "otherwise" of loss. Thank you for pointing me to this.
You're welcome. I barely knew of Donald Hall when I came across that piece, and was really moved by it too. I've read it several times since, and regard it as a model for relationship ! Glad it spoke to you.
Thanks Tod, I will look that up.
"We start alone and add front there."
"For all the thinking I thought I was doing I never gave anything much thought."
"...circumnavigate mountains and the produce aisle…"
So many gems in this piece!
Tod, I'm a huge Kenyon fan. Do you know she and Donald Hall used to play ping pong in the basement, transferring their competitive natures from poetry to little white balls?
I didn't know that. Would that have been in Ann Arbor, or New Hampshire? Those would have been much different basements : )
Oh New Hampshire for sure.
I picture a dirt floor in that old farmhouse, but maybe he poured a slab.
they certainly would have been otherwise
Certainly a lot could be said about those two basements.
I have no regrets - that’s what I say when the subject comes up. I say it out of philosophical conviction. I believe we are born with certain karma and what we do and what happens to us is what’s fated to happen. My brain believes this but my heart isn’t buying it. For example, I deeply regret that I lacked courage with the opposite sex. I was so shy, so terrified of being rejected, that I took no initiative. In fact, much of my youth was spent observing life rather than participating in it. You’re only young once and I squandered many of my best years out of timidity.
I regret the times I was cruel. It may have only been a handful, but they haunt me. In eighth grade I told Susan that Tony wanted to break up with her. I did it out of the sheer joy of inflicting hurt on someone I didn’t like. Susan’s face fell before it remade itself into a mask of scorn. Then there was cruelty by passivity. I want to think of myself as someone who would befriend the lonely and stick up for those who were picked on, but I never did. I wasn’t the ringleader but I followed along, avoiding the friendless oddballs for fear they would contaminate me with their sadness.
I am happily married. I have a child who loves me and a good job. Everything turned out ok, I guess. And yet karma and philosophical conviction be damned, I have regrets. Plenty of regrets.
Grappling with the idea of free will always fascinates me (and freaks me out, too). I always say I have no regrets, and i hold tight to that conviction, because everything I've ever done, I did with the tools I had in that moment. I was the person who made that decision in that moment, and I could not be someone else. I have wished I'd made different decisions at time, but I can't regret being me. That's what I always say, though i grapple with it. I'm happy you wrote this: "Everything turned out okay." Being happily married and with a child who loves you--to me that sounds better than okay. Thanks for writing this piece and sharing it.
I know what you mean, Wim, but observation is a form of participation I think. Without observation we would have no artists, writers, philosophers. Too often the participants have no sense of context or self awareness. Some do, and do good work. Others are only making money mindlessly.
Good point, Tod.
Really admire the honesty and the reflection. It takes courage to have regrets.
But do you think that perhaps it might have been that very shyness and timidity with the opposite sex, as a young man, that helped to shape you into the kind of man who in his mature years could be a loved and loving husband and father? So that may not be a thing to regret? As for the petty cruelties, yes, we are all guilty of those. Only some of us are haunted by them, though. Isn't it better to remember and regret our past failings and keep trying to be better, than to brush them aside? So in this case, it might be a good thing that we have these regrets?
I think about that a lot - fate vs. will. You've captured that conundrum so perfectly here.
Yours has a lovely arc, and the regrets about childhood stuff is powerful. Good study on haunted and regrets...
Thanks, Sea!
Wow. What an honest piece! Whether this is personal or a character you have created, it is a starkly honest that cuts to the quick of most of us, I think. I, too, have regrets, even though I love to say that I don’t. Nicely written.
Thanks, Angela!
Not a new poem. But your prompt called it to mind.
Game for One
I want to talk about loneliness,
his loneliness, alone in the pasture, where
he places a small white ball on a wooden tee,
and swings. He swings. The ball soars.
Another. And another.
No witnesses. The field is silent.
No one sees. He is alone.
No caddy. No foursome. No play through.
No scorecard. Alone.
He wonders if the ball fell short,
or has it disappeared into the brook.
The brook gurgles. Bees buzz.
They are the only spectators
to a game for one, no one to say “well done,”
no one to lift a beer in the clubhouse.
I run my hand over his loneliness
like brushing a small boy’s crewcut,
bristly and golden like a new grown crop.
"I run my hand over his loneliness." Oh, that we all could feel that hand! Lovely poem, Christine. Thanks for posting it here.
Christine, I love the concept of running your hand over his loneliness like the feel of a crewcut. So nice.
Ah, another lonely ball in the brook. So goes the game.
I am a funny person. Today I was voted “Person of the Week” at work. My title is “Funniest Person in the Office”. Previous Persons of the Week have been awarded Tidiest Desk, or Most Efficient, or whatever, so I was thrilled to get Funniest Person.
I’ve always known I’m funny. My husband used to think so too. We used to laugh all the time. Not so much now we have three kids and two fulltime jobs. But the kids still think I’m funny. Apart from our oldest. She’s thirteen and these days when I’m being funny she just rolls her eyes.
So we’re all sitting round the dinner table tonight – I still insist on that, no phones – and I tell my family about me being voted Funniest Person.
My husband scoffs. “Do they mean funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?”
“I’m funny!”
“Say something funny then.”
Doesn’t work like that, I tell him.
“Well, tell us a funny story,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
I make up a story on the spot, inspired by a mind-numbing symposium I’d just been at. My story’s about a middling sort of guy who’s at a conference for middle managers, and it’s so boring he falls asleep and slides off his seat and the venue staff think he’s had a heart attack and rush over with a defibrillator. (My husband doesn’t laugh, so I keep going.) So at the stand-up lunch in the venue foyer the middling guy notices there’s another conference lunch happening on the other side of the foyer, roped off from his. It’s a medical scientists’ conference and the food’s much better over there. So he waits until everyone’s gone back into the lecture halls, then he ditches his conference lanyard and hops over the rope and starts filling his pockets with pastries. (My husband’s still not laughing.) Then an official comes rushing out and says, “Dr Sorensen, we’ve been looking everywhere for you!” She thinks he’s the keynote speaker for the medical conference, and she bundles him up on stage, where he has to give a crazily scientific talk using Prof Sorensen’s slides. He wings his way through, and he’s loving the attention, but then his doppelganger appears – the real Prof Sorensen – and they gaze at one another in horror, faces like in Munch’s The Scream. Then all hell breaks loose.
I look at my husband. Still not laughing.
“That’s your best?” he says.
“So what’s your definition of funny?” I ask.
“Dunno. Slapstick?”
Slapstick? I walk to the fridge, pull out a cream pie, and slap it into his face. Classic!
It’s not really a cream pie, it’s yesterday’s leftover pizza.
The kids are laughing hysterically, even the thirteen-year-old. But my husband doesn’t see the funny side. No sense of humor at all.
I’m a funny person. Don’t you dare tell me otherwise.
oh my god. This is so good.
Thank you Mary!
Hilarious!
Thank you Sandra!
That's funny.
Thank you Tod. Tell my husband!
Michael is unremarkable. He tells me that he moved into our apartment building three years ago and lives directly above me in unit 506 (I am in unit 406). I suppose that is true, because he also tells me that he drives the Hondo Fit that is regularly parked in space 5A, next to my space 4A, and I am aware of his car because it is the color of a not quite ripe blueberry, which I think is a ridiculous color for a car, so I did notice that. I chuckle every time I park next to that Fit. So, in that sense, Michael has been a good neighbor. He regularly injects a bit of cheer into my days without ever having any direct contact with me, which brings me to my point. Michael tells me that he needs some recommendations submitted with his application to purchase a condo in your building. I can say that he is a neighbor who has never disturbed me, has never offended me, and has actually never been in my awareness until he knocked on my door asking for this reference, which is precisely the perfect sort of neighbor for either an apartment building or a condo development. He seems unlikely to strew his garbage about, vomit in the hallway, trash the common room, make noise, or cause anyone to call the police, etc. If you have any further questions about Michael, please contact me, although I must caution you that I probably don’t know much more than I’ve shared here and do generally prefer not to be disturbed.
Hahahaha! Love this!
Hilarious!
“the color of a not quite ripe blueberry, which I think is a ridiculous color for a car” and it is, but it’s a lovely idea for a color, a sort of purply green. Thanks for the image.
You had me at “So , in that sense, Michael has been has been a good neighbor” Love it
Honesty
I am a very honest person. Telling a lie makes me physically sick to my stomach. Withholding a truth is nearly as guilt-inducing. Worst of all is being accused of lying. I blush, stammer, flail around for a response, and generally give the impression that the accusation is true even when, as is almost always the case, it isn’t. I’ve done this since I was a young child. This led to my being punished for a variety of things I never did.
One of my early memories is of lying in bed at night, thinking about something I’d done wrong during the course of the day. I don’t remember what it was, but how terrible could it have been? I was no more than six or seven years old. I hadn’t been given the opportunity to commit any major crimes. However, there were no peccadilloes in our household.
As I lay ruminating on my crime, I made up excuses for myself, trying out different possible defenses for when I was caught: It never happened; it was accidental; someone else did it; it didn’t really matter. I believed each excuse in turn as it crossed my mind. Then I stopped, aghast, thinking, You’re lying to yourself! What could be more absurd and useless than lying to yourself? I promised myself solemnly never to do that again.
I wish I could say I had kept that promise.
This is great--could actually be turned into a longer essay. That last line really nails it.
Thanks, I'll give it some thought. There's plenty of material, as you might imagine, but how to make it compelling is another question.
That's always the question!
Such an honest self-examination of dishonesty! Love it, and I can identify so much with it.
i think there should be more language around not precisely telling the truth. More words for lying, like there are for snow. Because some kinds of lying are not bad, some might do good at times. but as soon as we use that word it sounds bad.
I agree. There are fibs, white lies, misstatements, evasions - but there could be lots more. There is also the option of "None of your business" - a concept I wasn't familiar with until I was about 30.
I wish I had known about "none of your business" when i needed it after my divorce. Good god, the things people asked and the way i tried to defend myself! Horrors
It's really amazing what people think *is* their business. I remember being asked by total strangers, "Aren't you ashamed of being a teen mother?" (which I wasn't, I just looked young). And of course I felt obliged to answer.
Wow. What a terrible thing to say to you. People can be so dumb.
None of your business = boundaries! Can't live without them or, rather, can't live a good life without them.
Hahahaha! mary g this: " And I love hearing this, it’s enough to hear it, must I really go there and eat the eggs? " Teehee. LOVE this. I have celiac disease, plus I don't drink anything but coffee and water and I don't eat sugar...so I don't want to go to anyone's house for food but I do want to be invited. It's really twisted. I love yours, mary. It's so good. Also: I don't want children, never have, knew when I was a kid that I didn't want kids...but now I want to be a grandmother. I wonder if there's anyone out there with a dud for a grandmother that would allow me to play that role? I can step in. I'm not a grandmother, but I play one on TV. I have so much grandmother or auntie energy to expend. Babies! So stinking cute.
Come on down to LA and be my grandson's dotty Grandma Number Four! (There are three of us already. We can always use another one!)
"Hi kid, you don't know me, but now I'm Grandma number four." Sounds fabulous.
They'd be so happy
My own son seems totally allergic to the idea of making me a grandmother so I had to find another way in. Fortunately my companion has two children who each have children. None of them seems to mind having an extra grandmother...
The more, the merrier. More love is always a plus!
Being a grandparent is way easier than a parent. No stress. Show up when you want. One hopes. I guess I have it pretty good. Hope you can "adopt" one somehow Sea.
Me too!
She is so judgey. She judges my, hair, my clothes, the hair and clothes of my friends, my personality, the car I drive, the way I walk, how I dance, what I cook-- although always eating what I put in front of her. She judges my living room décor, my garden, my dog, the TV shows I like to watch, my politics. I swear, yesterday, I caught her judging how I open my mail.
I finally lit into her. “You seem to have a deep conviction that the world requires you to have an opinion on every person, place or thing you come across, You incessantly find fault, evidenced by your sneers, merciless looks, and attitude of unequalled condescension. I’ve only known you a week, and I find you one of the most unpleasant creatures I’ve ever come across. However, I do love my girlfriend, and when she asked me if I could take care of her ‘sweet’ cat while she went home for a visit, I felt I had no choice but to say yes. Just know that I hate you as much as you hate me, and when I tell her you were no trouble at all, it’ll be a damned lie.”
Cats! They are so judgy! This is really hilarious and well done.
Thank you! Been awaiting your comment, but thinking how great that your grandkids must have been enough to keep you off the internet.
Maybe I need more grandkids. (Or willpower)
Oh, don’t you know giving in is the new willpower? (Also, screen addiction is now attention-paying, procrastination is now present-extending, and algae is now ”revenge green.” All sorts of things changed while you were playing with your grandkids.)
Let me know when French fries are the new whole grain
Brilliant! You had me going as I was convinced I knew this “person”
Hahaha...Cats always seem to think they know better !
We prided ourselves on being a town that sought the best in one another. Our children’s soccer matches were congratulatory irrespective of injury on the field. Our churches inclusive; the smattering of Jewish and Muslim residents invited to our baby’s baptisms and our annual Christmas Pageant. So inclusive were we that last year’s Jesus was in fact a resident Muslim recruited for his skeletal physique, long hair and beard! Not a single one of us has ever blocked our neighbor’s views or encroached on a property line. We have a volunteer-staffed food pantry that serves the less fortunate, and we never toot our own horns. Yes, this was our town, that is until last August, when a record-breaking heat turned our lawns and sport fields brown, soured our milk, curdled our manners and exposed a pulsing, strata of selfishness, pettiness and prejudice that ran like an earthquake fault beneath our feet.
Lovely story, Mary, and felicitations on the new grandbaby. East coast infants are the best.
thank you and: Ha! I've got one west coast grandson who could give you an argument on that. But maybe it counts that his mom (my daughter) was born in the Bronx? Anyway, sheesh, grandkids! I can hardly believe it, to be honest.
The simmering craziness of small towns rises to the surface and boils! Love the use of the communal voice here.
“Soured our milk and curdled our manners” :)
Oh, I'd like to know more about this!
I Am Not a Dog Person
I am not a dog person but every MWF I am going over to my daughter Polly’s apartment when she is at her EMT class to give her new puppy Hollis lunch and take her for a walk. Sometimes we cruise down the alley and one time we saw a huge doe in a neighbor’s yard and another time we met a neighbor named Shelly walking her terrier mix Max. I’m the grandmother, I said. Hollis also likes to take me to the garden by the house. She likes to do her business there and I have become an expert at detecting from her sniffing and posture when she is priming herself for delivery and I have to say that having raised twins and changed SO MANY diapers dog poop is the rankest, hands down. Inside sometimes we get out all the toys and don’t put them back. Hollis likes especially a blue plastic pig that squeals when she clamps it in her mouth. She likes it even more when I step on it and make it squeal louder. So do I. Every time before I leave I sit on the day bed and Hollis puts her paws on my lap and I rub her between her ears and under her neck. Petting Hollis is almost addictive. Her coat is so smooth and supple, her ears are like velvet, and her eyes so soulful and understanding. I don’t know what Hollis may be saying when we lock eyes but it speaks to me.
Love the first line and then the absolute contradiction of that first line! Although perhaps this person really is only a dog person for one dog.
Yesterday when Hollis and I were walking a big dog rushed its fence at us and Hollis turned around so fast and pulled me so hard back to Polly's apartment I felt as if I were behind the Budweiser Clydesdales.
Yes, that is I.
Sounds like you might be revising your dog person status.
Indeed. Visiting Hollis has become the highlight of MWF. Today we looked into the maw of a garbage truck and I gave her an extra handful of blueberry treats, spoiling her rotten. Me, too.
Mary! Congrats on the new grandbaby! Have fun.
At 5 am, Opal woke up, unnerved. All night, across the terraced goat garden outside her window, the inky night sky framed one window high in the building adjacent. Outlined in neon blue and dark within—the wide pupil of a square blue eye with a golden orb of light offset in its depths. It watched her all night. She could have thrown her covers back, lurched across to her windows, and yanked the blinds down.
But doing so felt—disobedient.
She first encountered the watchful orb on her way back to bed from the bathroom. Paused for a moment gazing into the darkness and there it was. She crawled back into bed and pulled the covers to her chin with quavering hands. The eye did not feel benevolent. Not quite malevolent, but—why was it watching her? Even with her eyes squeezed shut, focused on her breathing, it was there: Blue. Black. Golden. Watching.
She fell into an uneasy doze in which an overlong freight train kept her car paused at a railroad crossing. Graffiti bedazzled cars crawled past as she waited alone, impatient to be on her way. Where? JOEL on the side of one in bright purple, rounded letters. HUG—black, squared letters and a small dog in gray and white. Jagged slashes in bright greens and purples blazed along the full side of one.
The scene changed, and she was standing in a long semi-lit hallway. A man approached from the opposite direction. Walking at his leisure. One arm. Dazzling blue eyes.
Her eyes flew open, she threw back the covers and grabbed her clothes and shoes. Outside. She needed to walk. Her footsteps led her up two breath-gasping hills before she paused and turned into an alley. The narrow passage was lined with still closed antique shops along either side. She gazed at a green rattan, high-backed chair, a bright orange starburst pillow, and a wooden bench adorned with forget-me-nots. Across the narrow walkway, a man pushed his fedora upward on his forehead and stepped into a doorway, a gold key flashing in his outstretched hand.
”You coming in?” He called, cocked his head and pointed his chin at her.
“Not now—“ She began before she noticed he had one arm and gleaming blue eyes.
“I’ll buy you something…” He teased, grinning.
The ongoing story on goes....!!! (Or something like that.) Thanks for the congrats. We are on our way home now--that little grand baby was seriously adorable and perfect!
Mary, you had me at “must I really go there and eat the eggs?” The impulse to have friends but—what is that other impulse to keep them mostly at arm’s length?
Exhaustion? I am a loner and although i appear very social with others--always joking around and blabbing--in truth, i can't wait to be home again, alone. I love people, but i can only handle about five minutes.
I loved Mary's piece too. There's a nice poem/song by Courtney Barnett called "Nobody really cares if you don't go to the party" that riffs on this same theme.
"I wanna go out but I wanna stay home" sums it up perfectly!
Friends mean compromising, accommodating.
They also mean focusing and listening. I have learned how to do both, but it takes a lot of energy on my part since my mind really has a hard time with both.
Perhaps the way people cook their eggs...
True. Nothing worse than leathery scrambled eggs. Or runny yolks?
I like a runny yolk if the white part is fried and crispy. I know that's gross to some! I fry mine in a cast iron pan on high heat with avocado oil.
Walrus Hand
The girl knew things were not heading in the right direction, she was small and an orphan most days. Her parents lived abroad but sent drops for her tiny walrus hand - and that was all.
The elephant made mistakes and forgot them before he had a chance to avoid making them again. A piece of mud had hardened between his toes. It was getting harder to walk.
He went to see a Fortune Teller
How can I get ahead in Life? If I dream of one more circus, I'll die waking up
What is unique about you, Elephant Seeker?
There's a space between my toes I could never explain. It collects mud on rainy days. Lately the mud has set
Fill the space, put up an ad at the tiny supermarket, on the board at the back, thats how you get ahead
The mud in the space has set like Cement.
Cry until the mud goes soft then jump into a pond
So the elephant put up the Ad at a local supermarket and wrote a sign on his breakfast bowl that said CRY
But the elephant couldnt cry because he couldnt remember anything except the Fortune teller
The ad came to the attention of a lady who took care of a little girl with a tiny walrus hand
Its a small space, between an elephants toes
Lets take it
Its not big but it'd be all ours
Say yes before someone else gets it
If we wanted we could take a small painting each
Please say yes, it's going to be gone any second
It'll take some re adjustement
Shut up and take it
Rudeness. Will not be tolerated
Please take it...aaaghhh...aAAAgHOUHHH!
I dont think we can live together,- you must be nearly big
Fair. I cant live with a snail between an elephant's toes. Thanks for trying.
The tiny girl raced to the address and said I'm here to take the space.
The Elephant extended his paw but pushed the girl over, and the tiny girl cried - the elephant tried to help her up but she fell and cried again, and while she was down there cried about a couple of other things she'd been meaning to cry about.
Her tears loosened the mud slightly, they decided, though it hadnt.
She got three sticks and spent 10 days cleaning out the space between the gradually glossening grey toes.
At dawn they took backstreets to the pond where the elephant jumped and turned happily.
This was the first time he'd fully seen her, through the pain.
I like the way you've never used your tiny walrus hand to make money.
The little girl was happy never having thought of it til then.
And she lived between the elephants toes and hadnt taken one painting so the place always felt huge.
They had a Storybook life - with no beginnings or endings. Like a lovely old book in the rain.
Oh, that last sentence--because as I read, I saw it as a lovely storybook and wished that it really was so
Wondrous, J.D.A. This line stands out somehow among the other gems: "while she was down there cried about a couple of other things she'd been meaning to cry about."
thanks Kevin
I can’t write right now
I’m visiting friends upstate
Their cat is nineteen.
Hope you're having a lovely visit and giving that cat whatever she wants
I am not a rotten egg. But I am the one who will be last over the hill to see the light glistening on the water, and who knows if I will jump in, because by the time I get there it may be dark on the water and it's not like I fear Jaws but I do measure myself against Jason, with his golden earring and pirate smile, Emma with her no doubt expensive underwear and flat stomach, Josh, who says words that could add up to a compliment, but no one knows for sure, and finally Kylie and Jane, friends since first grade who know more things for sure than I will, at least tonight.
"I am not a rotten egg" is a great opener. And then the breathless sentence that follows, detached and yet connected. Great job.
Friends, here’s a short video of David Hockney flipping through his sketchbook. Aside from the sketches themselves, prompts galore.
https://youtu.be/mYK94FUpqEY?feature=shared
Loved that! Thanks for posting
Thanks Kevin, saved to My Favorites.
Thank you Kevin. That was mesmerising. What a brilliant human being he was. And age did not weary him.
Brilliant!