Better Than Dead

Precious Pearl

In the gray expanse of
living
there sometimes come
moments
of incandescent pearl:
rare,
precious enough to be
strung
on filaments of shimmering
hope.
if the strand can
hold
if the strand can
endure
they may be enough to
adorn
the soul, lending strength and
sustenance
beacons in the graying days to
come

18 Dec
So I just downloaded the few pix I had on Instagram and deleted my account. Don’t need no Facebook storm troopers in my life.

19 Dec
Mom’s back in the hospital. She needed a transfusion because she’d gotten so anemic. Things were going too well, I guess. She’s getting taken care of and has good doctors. Hopefully it’s just overnight. We’ll know more by morning. Sometimes I wonder if we’re the beneficiaries or the victims of our medical establishments. Caregiving is a rollercoaster in which you’re always braced for impact.

20 Dec
Mom had her transfusion and is doing better. Later, dialysis and another transfusion. Then hopefully back to rehab. I haven’t talked to her yet this morning, but I’ve talked to the doctor and the nurse.

Some day, if I’m really lucky, I’ll write about all this.

20 Dec
Mom has pneumonia now. Still in the hospital. She had it when she was in the ICU and they gave her antibiotics but apparently no one x-rayed her lungs again. Just dealing with the wonderful world of modern medicine and very old people. Shit happens.

21 Dec
It’s so easy to blame the devil because it’s so hard to blame ourselves.

21 Dec
Predictions of Apocalypse always have the stink of the trickster gods all over them. The trickster gods are there to keep us humble.

21 Dec
Is the day over yet?

22 Dec
Life breaks you open when you least expect it, both good and ill.

26 Dec
I’m celebrating Boxing Day by working where I managed, before 9:30 a.m., to get a plastic knife stuck in the toaster.

27 Dec
Mom out of the hospital and back at rehab on Christmas Eve where her spirits and physical well being are much improved.

27 Dec
Just bought two more tarot decks with my last gift card. Blame it on @FBodStudios whose Bunnies of the Tarot Calendar http://bit.ly/VkgT6G  inspired me. I think I have about ten decks at this point, which is ironic since I don’t have time to do readings anymore. But each deck speaks to me in a different voice and I buy them as art objects as much as anything. I also buy in anticipation of another time, a time I’m in no hurry to get to, but one I know will inevitably have its season.

27 Dec
The Santa Monica mountains were a dark, dark purple and black against the sky this morning. They wore a shawl of rose and white clouds as a backdrop. Just above a slash of brilliant blue sky and above that a bubble roof of altocumulus clouds in dark rose, white, and lavender.

30 Nov
Huh! With everything, I completely forgot about the looming Mayan Apocalypse. I wonder if I’ll even notice?

30 Nov
Mom is being transferred to the rehab center this afternoon. That was fast! Such a bundle of conflicting emotions right now. She’s feeling much better and they’ll give her the help she needs. But I’m still twisted in knots. This isn’t a logical I thing, it’s an emotional one. I’ve been her only caregiver for a long time and have to remind myself I’m not abandoning her but getting help.

2 Dec
God save me from people who think being an artist excuses all manner of bad behavior. Mom’s roommate is an Artiste and the most self-absorbed tyrant to her children and everyone else I’ve met in a long time. They’re talking of moving her Monday. Hallelujah.

3 Dec
There are people who will return your phone calls and others who are never going to be able to do that. You have to let go of expectations.

4 Dec
A horror show in the Marina: http://bit.ly/XDkS1D  It broke my heart to see those gorgeous old trees taken down, some 40 years old or more. I have to drive by the stumps of 50+ cut down trees every morning and evening and I keep imagining them crying out in pain and horror. Sometimes a good imagination is a liability.

4 Dec
Your decision: try to help a man off the tracks before he’s hit by a subway train or take a picture of him as he’s about to get hit? Then sell it to the NY Post, of course. What is wrong with some people?

4 Dec
The physical therapist at the rehab center thinks that with some therapy Mom may be able to get back on her feet. This would be a very good thing.

5 Dec
I hope it’s not an omen of Apocalypse: yesterday while sitting at the gas station a dismembered pigeon wing dropped in front of my car. A crow came along presently to fetch it and fly away.

5 Dec
The girl bicycling in a thigh length beige fake fur coat. (At least, I hope it was fake.)

10 Dec
Just when I thought I could relax a bit, the medical transportation company decided to clusterfu*k my mother’s dialysis appointments. Foolish me. You can never relax in the caregiver biz.

11 Dec
Exhausted, desperate for rest, don’t know when that’s going to happen. And the Christmas carolers are here. The happiest time of the year.

12 Dec
Ironic juxtaposition: Driving to work I followed a rusted, corroded, bondo-enhanced “personal pleasure craft” full of fishing poles being towed by some guy to the Marina del Rey. Just as I wondered if they had life jackets on board that mess NPR announced, “Forty years ago today The Poseidon Adventure premiered in theaters.”

13 Dec
So the fire captain of my local fire house called to say he was meeting with the Chief about my mother’s 911 call that they botched. I have no beef against their house—they’ve helped us many times. But this call was not their finest hour. Glad it’s being addressed. The hospital and Mom’s doctors filed a complaint against them. Still, I appreciate the outreach.

13 Dec
Some bright spark asked at the official timekeeping meeting about the tradition of sending us home early the day before a holiday. No more early exits for us. Don’t ask and we won’t officially tell.

13 Dec
Free-floating anxiety. Tried all day to reach Mom on her cell phone. She had her headphones on and couldn’t hear the phone. I’m exhausted. It makes the imagination a wee bit crazy sometimes. I managed to calm down after I talked to her. I need to take up meditation or something.

14 Dec
Obviously handing out a high-powered weapon to anyone who wants one is a great idea. /bitter irony

17 Dec
On the drive back from visiting Mom at noon I couldn’t take listening to tragedy anymore so punched the button for KUSC. Just in time for Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. And yes, I sang along!

18 Dec
The clouds this morning a fuzzy gray blanket lying heavy on the tops of the Santa Monica Mountains and tucked in over the foothills and city.

18 Dec
Driving around yesterday I saw several celebrities. Robert Pattinson (not really) was driving towards the airport at Lincoln & 83rd in a late model muscle car that had been primed gray but not painted. Edgar Winter (not really), dressed all in black, crossed the street at Lincoln headed towards Marina del Rey Hospital. Stephen Fry (not really), his hair grown out long, crossed in front of me at Pacific and Windward heading towards the Venice Circle. At that point I really did begin to wonder if there was a celebrity lookalike convention in town or something.

What a morning. The first of these was written right after I got out of the shower where I spent my time thinking about the state of things and feeling the full weight of it all. This time of year is wearying and I am weary, sometimes prone to despair and fits of self-pity. There is at least one profane word in this poem, if that sort of thing offends you.

The second poem was written after I’d gotten my mother out of bed, fed her, joked about the cat with her, helped her with a craft project. Being with her took the edges off my despair, made me realize what was important.

But I present them both, as both are slants of the truth.

Not for the Faint of Heart

It’s hard for the brave to be weak.
Like any wounded tiger, my mother
lashes out at those who come closest.

Most days I let it pass.
She’s old and frail and hurting and afraid,
angry and confused,
and willing to admit to none of that.
I know it’s hard.
My mother, once as mighty as the
slow-churning thighs of the earth,
has to rely now on little wheels
to get across the room.

Most days I let it ride.
Except on the days when I myself
am tired and hurting and afraid,
angry and confused.
Then I defend myself—because I’m human
and frail of spirit.

But it’s not a fight I can win.
Guilt shuts me up and down
as surely as love.
I make amends. I take the blame.

I know the real guilty party is
old age,
that cold-hearted motherfucker
determined to diminish even the strongest
and bravest,
dedicated to grinding each last particle
of dignity
from our bones
while it turns us to dust.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Like a young child she has trouble

Like a young child she has trouble
with openings and closings,
clumsy hands bungling at things;
leaves messes behind her wherever
she goes, unaware, moving on;
totters, toddles and tests her feet,
escaping the prison of the walker,
grabbing furniture to steady herself;
lights never turned off, cabinets never closed.

These things evoke my tenderness,
the mothering core of my heart,
wanting to make safe, wanting
her to feel loved and appreciated,
supported and valued.

These things evoke my frustration,
moving along behind, a steadying hand,
cleaning up, making tidy, never done,
weighed down.

I live in perpetual opposition,
love and frustration, guilt and innocence.

In the end, love trumps all.
In the moment, it is sometimes
hard to remember,
but the truest expression of my heart:
love trumps all.

11 Sep
Vegetarians sure do spend a lot of time concocting meat substitutes. That isn’t a judgment, just an ironic observation.

12 Sep
It’s amazing how much our sugar bill goes up this time of year as the hummingbirds get ready to migrate south and tank up on our feeders.

13 Sep
Editing. After all the years and the disappointments, I still hope. I don’t know if that’s my folly or my strength. Why can’t it be both? I suppose it can.

Side note: HUGE congratulations to my friend, Elizabeth Hull (darkspires), who after many years and many disappointments just sold her novel, Darkspire Reaches, to Holland House.

13 Sep
A little wild finch landed on the table next to me and looked up expecting a snack. I felt guilty. Meanwhile, the old asshole at the next table is throwing water at them.

14 Sep
You know, I don’t use ellipses enough in my…writing.

16 Sep
Day 3.5 of Crud on Earth and I’m watching UFOs Over Earth. Perfect crud-brain viewing. At least the record breaking heatwave has temporarily abated. Fans and head colds are not a happy combination.

18 Sep
Somewhere a Romney sings but not for me.

I have too many show tunes in my head. I blame it on MGM, Gene Kelly, and Donald O’Connor.

18 Sep
Now my mother has this damned cold. She’s sick as a dog. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

19 Sep
Lindsay Lohan is looking about 40 these days—and that’s in her glamour shots. What the partying life does for you.

20 Sep
The space shuttle is supposed to fly over Santa Monica pier, quite near our building at work, on its farewell tour of L.A. tomorrow. We’re hoping the west side of our building doesn’t sink as everyone rushes to that side, or the balconies don’t collapse.

20 Sep
Last Monday, the 17th, was “Respect for the Aged Day.” Which is ironic, considering at least one phone conversation I had.

21 Sep
The Endeavour fly over anticipation here at work is very high. We expect it to buzz right by the building when it passes Santa Monica Pier.

21 Sep
AWESOME! Endeavour flew by Santa Monica Pier about 1 minute ago! So close! And apparently I don’t know how to take pictures of space shuttles with a cell phone. 🙁 My work compadres are sharing their photos, though, so it’s all cool. 🙂 Some of the talented photographers here got great close ups and even a really awesome movie.

24 Sep
Rule of thumb: any 365 calendar or book that describes itself as “hilarious” probably isn’t.

26 Sep
The view of the Shuttle Endeavour from my ‘hood. I live about 5 blocks due west of here (the direction shuttle is flying).

27 Sep
It’s amazing to me how otherwise smart people think you can be infected by the same cold/virus twice. Not how the immune system works.

29 Sep
Being alone with Caregiving 101 is the worst thing. No one can help me, really.

30 Sep
My neighbor brought over a surprise belated birthday cake and champagne! It was very sweet of them. And great cake. Steve is a great baker.

1 Oct
A literal wall of fog: coming down from the Playa del Rey bluffs this morning the L.A. Basin was completely covered in fog, only the very tips of the tallest mountains in the Santa Monica range showing. Down in the basin, driving through the Marina, the trees were shadows behind rice paper walls until I came within twenty feet of them and they emerged, soft-edged. It’s supposed to burn off and bring record heat in its wake.

I’ve been trying to dig myself out of the mounds of acquired stuff that have begun to seem more a burden than preserved treasures. Part of this has been cleaning up and getting rid of old paper files and odds n’ ends in filing cabinets and boxes. Sometimes I actually throw them away; sometimes I digitize them then throw them away. Other times I run across relics of my past that aren’t really worthy of preservation—except, maybe, as personal historical documents. Signs and portents from a much younger me which now and then have messages for the present.

I came across one of those today, something written on a scrap of paper when I was about fourteen or fifteen. There was some scribbling in imitation of a novel called Jesus Christs by A. J. Langguth that made a big impression on me back then. Not great writing on my part, but I find it as hard to be disdainful of that child who was me as I would find it impossible to be disdainful of any fourteen or fifteen-year-old child trying to find their way in the creative world. I will digitize this page, even though it isn’t “worthy.”

We need to protect our young selves because they still exist inside us, still need to be nurtured and told it’s okay to come out of hiding. They are part of us, no matter how we may deny them or what sophisticated masks overlay their faces.

On the bottom of this same preserved page was another message, scrawled in a different pen and in obvious distress—not the fat, rounded characters of my “artistic” handwriting.

Why am I so cruel and impatient? He’s old and needs help. He needs someone to listen to his stories and make him feel good.

That one sent a chill through me. That young girl was speaking of her biological father, already a senior citizen when she was born. What chilled me? It made me realize that my life has been bracketed by the care and consideration of two old people. When I was young, my father—much older than my mother, and now, of course, as the wheel turns round and round…it’s my mother.

In between these brackets existed a time for me, a precious and fleeting time, but I didn’t realize that. I piffled it away, had some fun, worried too much about inconsequential things, thinking my time infinite and solely my own. I don’t believe I’m alone in this kind of behavior, this illusion, as many a human seems incapable of grasping the passage of time. I have done a lot of gazing in crystal balls in the course of my life, consulting with the tarot and the runes and the lines in the palm of my hand. I got quite good at telling fortunes. I could really sell it, you know? Weave a good story for the marks…

Like many and many a fortune, my own held good and bad, steady going and crumbling steps, the expected and unexpected—none of which, really, was picked up by the crystal or the cards or the lines or the runes. Like many and many a future, mine held a large dose of irony that oracles seem very poor at ferreting out of the aethyr.

Lately I’ve only been taking half-hour lunches at work because I need to get on the road home earlier than I used to. A half hour doesn’t seem sufficient to get any writing done once I’ve gone down to buy lunch and come back upstairs. But I’ve managed to squeeze in some “research reading,” which makes me feel as if I’m keeping my hand in as a writer. Between caregiving, a full time job, and exhaustion there is no other time slot for actual writing. I realize my research-reading-as-extension-of-writing is something of an illusion, but it’s been quite a creative illusion for all that.

Currently, I’m reading a fascinating book called Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar by Robert W. Lebling. It’s sparked all kinds of ideas. Curiously, most of them have been for existing stories rather than new ones, fleshing them out, solving plot issues, broadening character. None of these stories are about djinn, but the book brings up many wonderful cross-cultural themes. Anytime I read mythology of any sort it sparks loads of ideas for me, and the fact is, most Western mythology has roots in the Middle East. We share a profound cultural connection, an archetypal basis, with that part of the world, whether we care to acknowledge it or not.

This week the book sparked a ton of ideas for the Annia Sabina book I mentioned the other day. Last week it pumped out goodies for a novel I’ve been playing with for several years. Before that, I was reading The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture by Walter L. Williams specifically to do research/get ideas for my historical fantasy, The Numberless Stars. That book did its job well and I got plenty of ideas. Before that, it was yet another something that had my mind clicking away at yet another novel.

Which is all well and very good, but it does mean I’m bouncing around a lot. That’s not an unfamiliar pattern for me when I’m between projects. I tend to bounce until something takes a firm hold and I commit a substantial amount of writing to the page. Then momentum takes over and I work through the idea, generally, until it’s finished.

But, as I said, I’ve got maybe a half-hour a day to dedicate to anything me-related, to my writing, and research reading, and cozening the muse. Unless I’m stealing time from something else I should be doing to do…this. Or something like it.

I’m itching to write. I have moments when I speak with such confidence about what the next project will be! But in truth, I’m bouncing. I may bounce until I splatter myself unless I can figure a way to steal or carve out what I need and still meet my honorable commitments.

Writing requires sacrifice. Art requires it. We’re always stealing from something else in order to do that thing which makes us feel whole. Generally from time with family and friends, from our social lives, etc. There is no easy way to do this and do it well. Even if you manage to achieve full-time artist/writer status, there will always be something you have to give up in order to do that which makes you feel whole. The question of what and how much is an individual thing. No one can make that decision for you, and sometimes the circumstances are very hard indeed.

For me, I can’t go forever with my creative channels choked off. Something has to give, but it’s impossible for me to say what at this point. In the meantime, I’ll continue to bounce and steal and hope that something anchors me before I splatter. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, “Just do it, for God’s sake!”

Just do it. Sometimes it’s as simple and as hard as that.

Remembrance

Every new thing she see reminds her of the past,
or loved ones long gone, she the last of her line:
the way things used to be, how we did things then,
the funny thing her brother did, the tricks they played.

How much has changed.

A different world, consumed by history, lost
except in a few pale memories locked in spirits
headed away from Now and into the past tense.
The days wind down, grow fewer—whether
short or long we cannot say—
but not miles, not miles left to travel.

I listen for as long as I can,
stories told again and again,
trying to bear witness,
trying to let her know
someone still cares.

I try, but memories don’t get the laundry done,
the dishes put away, the dinner cooked.
The Now is relentless, unsentimental, unforgiving.

Someday you will regret not having these conversations.

Yes. Someday, someday, someday.

But for Now
I have many duties in my way
and steps or miles before that day.
Steps or miles before that day.

This ain’t much, but it’s all the creative output I’ve got these days. And I’m glad even for that. I call them day poems for no particular reason except that they crop up during the day while I’m dealing with other stuff. They are roughly haiku in form, though I wouldn’t call them haiku.

Trapped

between love and
aching responsibility
there’s no room for me.

***

Stress

My skin is tinder:
one tiny scratch brings a
conflagration of itching.

***

Life

will burst you wide open
though the locks on your soul
would frustrate Raffles.