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art, family, photography, travel

light & magic, voyage & subconscious

Posted on by littleREDelf

150 years ago, Charles Baudelaire expressed his passionate hatred of photography, for its scientific impression of reality, lacking any and all imagination, its Realism being a ” disgusting insult thrown into the face of all analysts.”

Diplomatically, he later on conceded to award the medium a supporting role, given proper castration;

“If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether….its true duty..is to be the servant of the sciences and arts – but the very humble servant, like printing or shorthand, which have neither created nor supplemented literature….”

In a discussion on photography, i recently read “in its purest form, photography is not creative, it’s reflective, it’s a perspective on what already exists. The artist creates, the photographer reveals.”

In essence, the photographer may not be a proper artist, not a true creator, but by taking in what conditions will produce, such as the angle of the photo, the lighting, the shadows, the weather, the composition of the image – having this understanding can be potentially both creative AND perceptive. The reproduction of something seen is not neutral — a selection is being made by the photographer and in this sense, aims to bring us something we may not have seen because of locale, or to recontextualize everyday objects and situations.

The photographer captures the image with a camera by way of lenses, film or digital media, shutter speed, aperture, additional lighting etc. That is the craft of photography. The photographer also sees things in the everyday world from a perspective and context that some people never notice. Therein lies the art of photography. Your own natural instincts often produce more in your photography than strict adherence to all of the rules and sometimes, you almost seem to conjure an image you didn’t intend, and it’s wonderful. That is the magic of photography and mostly, the reason i do it.

Yes yes yes. Craft. Magic. But ART? The word “art” comes from the Latin ars, which, loosely translated, means “arrangement” or “to arrange” The word “photography” comes from the Greek words phos (“light”), and graphis (“stylus”, “paintbrush”) or together meaning “drawing with light” or “representation by means of lines”, “drawing”. Indeed photography as art reveals it to be an arrangement of light intended to represent what is seen by means of lines.

Alfred Stieglitz, a U.S born photographer, married to Georgia O’Keefe, spent his career making photography an acceptable art form that could be considered alongside painting and sculpture.

i love all forms of photography and i appreciate ALL ways in which it is achieved from pinholes to digital SLRs and analog film. i am not a purist of, for or in anything. i simply don’t want to discount anyone’s ability or expression, nor do i want to insult them by claiming the tools or methods they choose are not acceptable or credible. And while, unlike Alfred, i don’t intend to spend my credit doing so – i am doing what most people do with their cameras whether it be snapshots of vacation places and family or some other more visionary, skilled pursuit: i am documenting life. My version of the human experience.

And speaking of a vacation with family . . .

If you recall my first trip to the British Virgin Islands, i embark on my return visit on the 5th of this month and will be gone until the 14th. I am looking forward to relaxation, to loosening the stiff, burning muscles in this back and neck of mine that heat pads and muscle relaxers barely take the edge off of, and of course – i plan to bring back plenty of art – uhhhhh . . . photography.

i just can’t get used to the idea . . .

family, nature, photography

homeland, heartland, the story & image

Posted on by littleREDelf

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I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They aren’t just entertainment.
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don’t have anything
if you don’t have the stories.

~ Leslie Marmon Silko – Ceremony

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god is RED

My mother has an affinity for the Native American People. As her daughter, i felt the same connection to the earth beliefs of those tribal people: the interconnectedness of all things. i was born on Whidbey Island near Mount Baker and a reservation. The first shoes i came home in from the hospital were moccasins, and in my travels, i remember the pair of fawn-colored moccasins my mother used to wear. My mother had long auburn hair that swept the back of her thighs and the wind pulled it behind her like the dark, red scream of a horse’s mane. i remember driving across country, kicking up sand, looking out over desert and prairie. Looking out for rattlesnakes.

My mother recently visited me here in Maryland after the holiday and before the other and final one just passed. She brought my little sister Angel, who is now 13. We visited The National Museum of the American Indian, a most impressive circular, curving structure Situated on a 4.25-acre trapezoidal site, and new in the Smithsonian area on the Mall. So much care was put into the 15 year planning of the structure and design, i encourage you to read about it . . .

We watched some native dances, with accompanying drumming and singing. This took place in the Potomac, the central gathering place in the museum’s entry point which soars 120 feet to the top of the dome and spans 120 feet in diameter. All the way up, curving stairwells are lined with the heads of people, peering over to watch the presentations & dances. The word Potomac, which comes from the Piscataway word meaning “where the goods are brought in,” honors the Native peoples from the Washington, D.C., area.

I watched several dances including the Welcome Dance and a Fancy Dance. In some dances, performers imitate the movement of warriors sneaking up and killing an enemy or of them – Counting Coup, which was a way of bettering an opponent, almost teasing him, sneaking up on him, frightening him without killing him. The children volunteered to line up in a circle as a dancer performed the Counting Coup, startling them when he leapt in front of them randomly, then taking a “gimme five” slap to show they stood their ground and did not move. The act of touching a live enemy and getting away from them, touching rather than killing the enemy, was a way to show bravery. This was called Counting Coup and Eagle feathers were awarded for this act, the Grand Coup.

WWII

The WWII Memorial, newly erected in Washington, D.C., was something my mother wanted to see especially, out of all the monuments. Her father, my grandfather, Andrew Joseph Paull, who i was named for, would’ve been thrilled to see such a site, finally honoring those veterans. He was a POW in Tunisia, North Africa for two years before he finally came home. From him, my love of music, my knowledge of the guitar and Blue Grass, love for gardening and nature, the sour taste of crab apples, the sweet taste of creamed coffee and pancakes, buttered corn on the cob, and falling asleep to John Wayne Westerns.

Remembrance

Every time i visit, Arlington National Cemetery, i see and learn something new about the place itself and about American history. How “the remains of the Vietnam Unknown” at the Tomb of the Unknowns “were exhumed May 14, 1998 and based on mitochondrial DNA testing, DoD scientists identified the remains as those of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, who was shot down near An Loc, Vietnam, in 1972.” (the year i was born) He is no longer a soldier “known only to god” as the white marble sarcophagus declares. Of course we visited the Eternal Flame where John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis lie, flanked by two of their children, and the simple white cross at the Robert F. Kennedy gravesite. Something i had not seen before was the Nurses Memorial. A bone white, smooth granite statue of a nurse in uniform overlooks a rounded burial plot, her hand gesturing lightly from beneath a cape as if to say, “look at all these women who served alongside and cared for you.” The plot of grass where the nurses are buried is curved and concave, like a spoon where medicine is delivered, a bowl where food is given, a basin where the body is cleansed, a cupped hand to hold the head and hand of the dying, and a womb, a place to hold you and deliver you back.

My mother loves the Native American people and its history, my mother’s father was a WWII veteran, my mother treats men who are veterans at the VA hospital in Detroit, Michigan, my mother, the nurse – i wondered if she saw all of this.

All creatures great and . . .

There were birds: geese flying over the frozen Reflecting Pool before the Washington Monument and black squirrels everywhere we went on the path to the memorials. On the way back to the Metro a boy and his father sat on a park bench. My eye was drawn to the small, brown mouse sitting between them, eating a tiny, gold ball of caramel corn, shuddering. “His name is Buster,” said the boy smiling, “i think he’s cold,” he then said, adding a frown.

As for me . . .

This year. Wait. Last year. Right, the day has past already. All is quiet on New Year’s Day. This will not be my Year In Review, but more my time for reflection. It was a year for growing, for losing, for gaining. I lost three friends – i gained three others back. i lost a beloved pet, i welcomed a new one to love.

My Photos. My Pictures. My Scrapbook. My Informal Online Gallery. i am not brave enough to use phrases like my “work” or my “art.” Eugghh . . . no offense to anyone who feels comfortable with that sort of language, but i would just see myself as some wildly pompous assclown to go around touting myself as some grand photographer. I don’t even get PAID to do this stuff unless it’s a wedding. And i intend i think, to keep it that way, unless i sell it to someone who truly enjoys the image enough to hang on the wall, fridge, bulletin board, etc.

Have i gotten any better? i think so. And more – i SEE things better now and understand the tools and am getting better at conveying the basic and emotional element contained in the images i see and try to capture. Which means with more time (and MUCH more $$$) i will go about improving the tools i have to truly render the images i can see, but not perfect.

i try very hard to explain why and what i see when i take a picture as sometimes, the content is not fully expressed until perhaps you know what you are looking at and why. “Why did i want you to see this?” and “Do you see what i see?” is a game i play with all of my photos.

There’s not enough space or time here, but in my next rant – i will be sure to tell you what i think photography has done for me (and others) as an [art]form. People like to squawk about that one, and also like to argue about how digital technology is an abomination to the process. Lest we forget, any artform is documentation of the human experience and the human experience is a vast story book upon which everyone wishes to scribble on the pages. It is all proof we existed.

You don’t have anything
if you don’t have the stories.

dreams, nature, weather

sweet songs of winter sparrows

Posted on by littleREDelf

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her breasts like birds
that shape upturned
he likes to call sparrows
and “stand there by the window”
narrow, profiled shadow
he commands and clothes like cages
open, free him under the gentle press
of birds upon his feathered chest.
kisses for the small of the back
the foreign curve of hip
on your collarbone she perches
purses her lip and before the rest
can come undone
the sparrows take their leave
in December’s twilight sun.

~ Andrea E. Janda

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snowfall. first of the season here. white-throated sparrows gather in bare thickets and dig at the ground by hopping backwards with both feet, scratching at the surface and uncovering food.

i haven’t felt much like eating, though i do like sleeping. something about winter sets me into hibernation. squelches my desire for anything besides warmth and quiet. a grizzly-bear stupor. a need for nuzzled affections and nesting places.

outside the snow drift spackles the window and surprises the spider webs with its glittery gather, hanging under the eaves like pulled out sweater strands. you’ve seen raindrops this way – but have you ever seen snow in a spider’s web?

silvery mists of powder catch the wind – aimless, circling, whispering cyclones. the icicles begin to weep from the edges, long witchy, translucent fingers pointing the way down, showing the snow where to land.

i am scratching at the surface. i am looking for the unknown hunger in the fallen leaf bed. i am sleeping in unlocked dreams. my blanket is snow, the web is taut, my fingers reach, begin to weep, i set my nest, warm to the affections and look for directions on the place to land

Uncategorized

Home? for the Holidays . . .

Posted on by littleREDelf

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“There are homeless people everywhere.
This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.
I was about to give it to him and then I thought
he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.
And then I thought, that’s what I’m going to use it on!
Why am I judging this poor bastard?”

Greg Geraldo

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The above quote comes from New York comic Greg Geraldo (a regular on the David Letterman & Conan O’Brien shows) as featured in the ‘Rhythm‘n’Speak’ song called Underwear Goes Inside The Pants by Lazyboy.

With that being said – this journal is not what you think it’s about. I don’t want to wreck your Holiday Spirit, but I want to share something I recently experienced. i have to apologize in advance for NOT discussing tinsel laden trees, twinkling lights, and hot cocoa by warm hearths. That’s not the home for the holidays I mean. I am talking about the concept of “home” as a term of reversal – as in when you don’t go over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house, but when you go to the nursing home where grandma now lives.

Also – if you get through this LONG journal, you are truly a friend who understands the necessity of my having written it.

We are in an America where an ever-increasing aging population is going to put an enormous stress on health care systems, care facilities, and eventually, the major retirement system, social security. For one of my recent projects in my Psychology of Adulthood and Aging course, my task was to visit the dreaded “nursing home” for a “reality experience.” It was a humbling journey and truly got me to thinking about how we will live as older adults, what we will call home, and especially, being the maker of homes, how women live.

Just as there is a “feminization” in poverty rates, meaning that women command lower salaries in the workforce and are more likely to be single parents with full custody, care and financial responsibility, there is a feminization in aging populations due to lower mortality rates among women. The sex ratio leaves a lot of women as widows, less likely to remarry, living below the poverty line and in many cases, in subsidized, institutionalized or hospitalized (assisted) housing and without benefit of spousal support.

My mission/assignment was to visit a nursing home and spend an hour with a resident. I was not to grill them with questions or conduct any investigative reporting, but more read to them, make pleasant conversation, push a wheelchair – whatever was required. Just visit someone for an hour of volunteer work.

I should begin this by stating that I had the opportunity and benefit of visiting two different care facilities, whose names I will not dislose. I did this primarily for comparison and easy locale. Also to be frank – the first place I visited was so utterly dismal and desperate for any volunteer work, I think they misunderstood my mission and asked me to come back the following day to help run a game of BINGO.

For the reader’s benefit I will refer to the first facility as ANRC and the second as SSLA.

The ANRC is located in a small neighborhood very near to where I work on the border of nice housing where they are trying to gentrify the area butted up against a straight-up ghetto of projects. I stopped there first around 5pm, as it was closest and I was always curious about the ghosts I would often see breezing past the windows. It would be kind to say that the summation of my visit bordered upon the depressingly surreal. At first glance, I felt very much like I just walked into a step-down intensive care unit in an understaffed hospital.

The woman who greeted me at the front desk, while polite, was a bit unkempt, slightly unprofessional, and well – this is no direct call on her character, but she was missing quite a few teeth. I explained to her what I was there for and she lead me through a grim sitting area where one man sat in a wheelchair. He reached out to me and mumbled a garbled greeting like “hello.” It was clear I was a new face he’d not seen before and he was looking for some kind attention from a new stranger. I stopped, smiled and said hello to him. I then went into a relatively sizeable room where a majority of the people seemed wheelchair bound, or mostly immobile. Some sat dazed, others talked quietly, a few were singing along with a particularly creepy rendition of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” as being played over the speakers. It was dim and dreary, and smelled acutely of urine. An old wooden hutch housed a TV, squawking static, competing with the singing. Honestly – the film “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” is an immediate comparison.

I was introduced to two women and I re-explained myself and my purpose to them. They were just re-organizing a small office: the doorway stood blocked with boxes, towering papers, and what looked like art supplies and activities. The equivalent of Rainy Day supplies for a school day’s indoor recess. They seemed to hear no other word except “volunteer” and the younger of the two explained she had just started two days ago. They both rifled through some folders and newly compiled binders for a Volunteer Form for me, asking each other, near the verge of argument what one or the other did with the said form. All of this, I felt was unnecessary considering the scope of my visit. One hour. Just to talk to someone who could use the company.

I sat down at what functioned as a table with one of the residents and filled out the form. The card table rocked on its legs and the small, crumpled man sitting with me, hunched over, perched like a bird, never looked over at me once. To my left was another man, slumped in a chair, his clothes disheveled, and to be blunt, his pants were undone at the button and half unzipped. Only his eyes moved. He also did not seem quite there, though he smiled at me when I looked over, and also muttered something incomprehensible followed by a light chuckle.

Across from me two women sat with coffee cups. Each of them had one hand on their cups and their free hands held each other in prayer, the end of which I overheard. “And I thank you Jesus, for my friend here and for my life.” Her friend prodded, “and don’t forget the coffee.” “Oh yeah – and for the coffee, Jesus.” The first woman added.

In the middle of me filling out this form, the toothless woman wandered into the room, thumbed some change into a vending machine, took her treat from the dump bin and trotted back to the desk. A sad tinsel tree leaned against this vending machine for support. She made no eye contact with anyone in the room; there were more 20 people sitting there. She made no motion to help anyone, to move someone or attend to them. They were all furniture to her. A room full of stinking chairs. Leaning like propped up tinsel trees, with worn out bases and broken strands of lights.

I returned the form to the two women mired in the office space, so mired in their own self-appointed self-important bureaucracy; they too failed to help anyone. Deciding where things would be kept was more important than keeping the people kept after in the next room. They practically looked hungry to see a new person there – they would’ve sopped me up like gravy on a dry biscuit. They begged me to come back the following evening to help run a game of BINGO. I knew I would not be speaking to anyone, but perhaps, they would put me on crowd control. I am sad to report, I never returned.

From there I went to the SSLA. It was on a main road, newly developed and shielded by a surrounding wooded lot. This place was worlds away from the ANRC. It is close to a large Medical complex, a shopping mall, the state capital, Annapolis, which is a beautiful tourist site, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The facility is more or less a monstrous house that resembles a Southern Victorian estate. A circle parkway with an awning, brass trimming on doors and archways, a porch where residents were sitting enjoying the cool, foggy night after a light rain.

It looked like a grand hotel: there was a TV room to my right with a fireplace and fish tank, cozy chairs, tables and ottomans. To my left, a curved bar area stood covered in balloons and both Christmas and Hanukkah decorations that led into a beautiful dining area. In the foyer was a large winding staircase with all the walls lined with fine art, and at the base of that, an attractive, young woman sat behind a large cherry desk, drawing holly leaves in dry-erase markers for an announcement board. Her name tag read “concierge.” The rooms where residents live are called “suites.” Behind her was a large white cage with the door open upon which sat an African Grey Parrot with red tail feathers. The bird wolf-whistled and said “welcome to sunrise.” I couldn’t have made this shit up if I tried!

She explained that the residents were dining and they usually finish up at 6:30. I told her I would return at 6:45 to sit with someone for a visit.

When I returned she introduced me to Barbara Moore, who never revealed her age and instead offered, “I am an old woman, but don’t tell anyone.” I sat down with Barbara and a man next to the fireplace. The man, in a stroke of gallantry, told her to put her feet up, hurriedly clearing off some newspapers and magazines off a large, round ottoman in the center of us. Barbara shot me a very funny glance that seemed to say, “chivalry is not dead, but it sure acts silly.” He stayed quiet while Barbara and I “made friendly conversation,” as she put it. She was funny and sarcastic, but also, spoke in a way that sounded like she was reading directly from a book of platitudes, Chicken Soup for the Soul flavored recipes for living.

Barbara had just arrived there as of two weeks prior. “Two weeks on Monday,” she told me, and she sounded a little pained, as if she’d been keeping close track of it, a bit like a prison sentence, marking black lines in rows of five on a wall and much less like a new move or vacation time. She revealed several things about her life and arrival there. “They thought I would feel alone in the house and wanted me to be cared for more.” Her daughter and her daughter’s husband had suggested she give this “assisted living” a try. While I didn’t pry as to the details or the time frame, Barbara had recently lost her husband and retired – both of which happened simultaneously as he was a lawyer and she worked for him at his firm. She laughed and said she kept her maiden name, which allowed her to be privy to all the gossip in the office, including the good (or bad) things said about her husband.

While we sat and talked a nurse came by and helped another resident in the room take some medication and monitor her blood sugar. Current new events on the war in Iraq were running on the TV. This prompted a discussion on how fast life moves now and where our families were from. I discovered both of our relatives hailed from Pennsylvania and had similar occupations. She said that her house hadn’t been sold but that her daughter was caring for it and had it been mostly shut-up. It is in a place called Sherwood Forest – a wooded, gated, affluent community near Annapolis where all the houses are brown and green to match the deeply wooded area and I assume, to keep an attractive, uniformed appearance.

Barbara was very kind; we laughed and she warmed to me as our conversation went along. There was a bit of an underlying tough side to her. I asked about the food and what she had for dinner and she said, “oh, the usual fare,” and waved her hand. When I pressed with, “what does the usual fare consist of?” She rolled her eyes and made a slightly disgusted face. We both laughed. She said she was always one to speak her mind and that it was important to her to tell it like it is. She conceded that even though it had only been two weeks, she was giving it all shot and was hesitant to make any quick-snap judgments. “They mostly leave you alone here, and you don’t have to make friends or get involved in things if you don’t want to, but it’s a nice place.”

Barbara mentioned that she has three grandchildren who are “all grown, like you,” she said. Then she asked me for the first time what I did and why was I there. I explained all of this to her and she delivered me a kind compliment. “You’re a very intelligent girl, you’ll do just fine, just keep your nose pointed.” She talked about her own mother and some of the things she used to tell her that enabled her to keep her nose pointed, smiling reflectively for a moment. The conversation flowed naturally and ended at the right pause where we shook hands warmly in parting as we wished each other well. “It will all work out the way it’s supposed to,” she said. And we both agreed that was the case for each other.

On the way out the door I talked to the concierge a bit who explained some of the finer points when I asked her about resident care. She pointed in the direction of other areas where Alzheimer’s patients and those residents requiring more assistance with daily living stayed. She said the parrot was donated from a resident who had lived there. And she frowned, so as to indicate the resident no longer LIVED there. They avoid death terms in places like these. You go here to live in dignity, not to die.

There were also residents who owned dogs and cats. It was refreshing to learn of so many ways that enable residents to feel more autonomous as well as help them to establish a sense of home that includes more of their personal effects and animal companions. I always imagined terrible little rooms with chintz and ratty bed sheets and tinfoil TV antennas and maybe a picture of a grandchild or deceased spouse on a small night table.

From these two places, the ANRC and the SSLA, I was able to see a full spectrum in capability and available care. Clearly, it is difficult to draw lines as there are major differences between a poorly funded, understaffed facility serving a lower socio-economic bracket and people with profound needs and a well-developed assisted living community geared towards a more functional adult with service and amenities and actual nursing care all of which is most likely planned and certainly paid for.

The SSLA boasts an atmosphere that “preserve(s) each resident’s dignity, encourages independence and best enables freedom of choice.” No matter what level of care our loved ones are able to acquire themselves or through family, the standard should focus primarily on kindness, appropriate medical attention, and dignity. How else can anything ever come close to being home?

So strange to imagine not having a place to that is strictly one’s own. So sad to imagine leaving a building where all of your memories, dreams, moments, life, death, lovemaking, food smells, laughter, tears – everything that is you is impressed into the walls, reverberating in the foundation, seeping into all the rooms like constant sigh of breath.

Some of us spend all this time amassing (or blowing) fortunes on a lifestyle. We even smash the words LIFE and STYLE together so that we forget to accomplish both. We grow into our 30s and 40s still using words like “roommate,” “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” squandering our time and love on people we don’t end up with in any meaningful way, investing our energy into fair weather friends who sap our resources and trust, and cramming our belongings into a series of apartments we hate: too small to erect a tree, toss a string of lights over an awning, or run garland up a stairwell, too busy to even think about it anyway. We forget to make home every day so that it is even more so when it becomes holiday.

I’ve mostly been with the same man, (with some interruptions) over the last seven years. I don’t know that we’ll be married. I don’t know that we want to be. Children? I barely survive caring for cats! But his parents built a house that we designed and helped with. Their house is on the same property and so we are all kept close. Neighbors. They retired and we assumed their mortgage to pay them back for taking care of us while we built. They still take care of us and we care for them. His mother tells me “we did it for selfish reasons, too.” They don’t want to end up in a care facility. A nursing home. An old folks’ home. A home that is NOT a home.

We could all do better by sticking together, and investing in each other and the places where we probably, spend the other half of our time that does not consist of our trying to escape an imagined boredom or the time spent away earning the money to pay for it all. Perhaps if we were turtles, carrying our homes on our backs, always with us for warmth, sleep, protection we would better understand the necessary burden of having a place that you would find yourself naked and vulnerable without.

We should have an obvious affection for the word home whether we mean a postal code, a childhood residence, a neighborhood, a wooded sanctuary, a far away country. Home is where your shit is. Home is where you come from. Home is where you hang your hat. Home is a place where when you go there they have to take you in. A home is not a place, it is people. A good home must be made, not bought. Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. Home is where you’ll go when you die. Home is where the heart is.

books

make mine sparkly

Posted on by littleREDelf

i typically go to Barnes & Noble Booksellers, but happened by the mega 2-level Border’s Books & Music & Café & Dogwash and Small Business Loan Center & Foreign Dignitary Meet-n-Greet. Fuck that place is HUGE! Anyway, i walk down the winding hallway to the restroom seeing multiple red STOP Signs, asking me “Did you get your token?” and informing me to “Pick one up at the Information Desk.” Here i am, assuming they are talking about some Holiday giveaway or some Frequent Flyer Reader crap, until i get to the bathroom door and find a lock entry system. Requiring a TOKEN. Like a vending machine with a turn crank.

Now i have to wander back down the snaky hallway to find the Token Keepers that permit me the coveted entry to the Magical Border’s PissPot. i briskly approach the two men standing behind the café counter, both of them looking more like they could change your oil before they could make a decent latté. “Right,” i begin, “so i need a token to go potty, then.” They both nod and one of them palms me a gold coin, smaller than a dime. “Fabulous,” I breathe and turn on my heels, flipping my scarf theatrically as i depart back down the hall. i mean – what are they trying to prevent? Less wear and tear on the bathroom? A once over to assess whether or not you are a vagrant who wants to freshen up?

After this adventure, i picked up an audio CD copy of Chuck Palahniuk’s latest, Diary: A Novel. i have heard part of this and found it so-far, a masterful re-invention of the horror novel. For those of you who are women, a waitress, and/or an artist/painter, perhaps caught in a dead end job or relationship, you may find some of the initial observations in this one, painfully astute. i ripped it and dropped it into my iPod for bedtime “reading.” This audio book is read by Martha Plimpton. You may remember her from such films as 200 Cigarettes, Pecker, Beautiful Girls, I Shot Andy Warhol, Parenthood, and our ever-beloved, The Goonies.

i was also amused on the way out the door to find a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy hanging out in the travel section. Funny how Douglas Adams continues to be a daily reminder in my life . . . Some people have a great sense of humor, sticking a sci-fi fictional story about a faux-intergalactic travel guide right next to BELIZE.

Going to a store that big and thinking on the heels of travel, i have to admit – i am not particularly looking forward to the Holidays. i wildly applaud Wal-Mart’s slumping sales, and i could give a snot rocket less if K-Mart has acquired Sears in the weirdest merger of two of the worst throwback freak shows passing themselves off as department and low-cost retail stores. i don’t really want to buy presents, nor do I want them bought for me. what i’d really like is a wicked fucking snowstorm to just slow people right the hell down. And to just call all of my friends who i can’t be with on Christmas and New Year’s Eve and tell them i miss them and i care about them and ask them how they are doing and actually listen to a response from them beyond, “fine and you?”

Some of the magic seems to be missing out of the madness in the season. i do like the solstice, though i don’t care for winter sports. i rather like watching it from a warm spot behind the window glass, much like my cats. We all pray for a little red cardinal to light upon a snow drift so i can snap a photo and they can chatter away, wishing they could capture the bird differently.

When it comes to gift-giving, i am more of the random type. Not your birthday or our anniversary or the publicly, religiously sanctioned, Hallmark branded and invented spend-fests that govern the seasons and give us reasons to spin our GoodYear tires out of a snow bank and into whatever storefront our car happens to crash.

i don’t mean to be cynical – i believe giving is a fine idea. i think Santa is as fine a faerie tale as any. i think Jesus was pretty cool . . . “i love his work” as Hedwig (and his Angry inch) would say. i don’t think i am too old to experience the wonder that is Christmas in the way i did as a child – after all, as an adult i am still required the (token) equivalent of a hall pass to use the bathroom. i am just holding out for a good dinner, some good wine, maybe a new music CD, some good conversation, laughs & storytelling, that wicked snowstorm . . . and maybe a sparkly little miracle.

friends, weather, writing

let. me. clear. my. throat.

Posted on by littleREDelf

you know – i am not one to meow meow meow
and my even having to preface it now, you can fully
expect a little hissing, but more, i implore you:

tragic darling dears, get out of your beds,
off your couches, your haunches, your
hands and knees and for fuck’s sake PLEASE
point the camera out the bathroom, the window,
outdoors, out of self-respect, his, hers, mine
the worried cat and dog and yours
take into consideration that we’ve no need
to bear witness to your public bleeding
i have seen every configuration of stocking
stunt-cocking, macro of labial fold
(god DAMN that shit gets OLD . . .)
and your face pulled down into mask of despair
mascara, wings, and blood everywhere
and more tits than i could ever use.

Now, mind you, i like my dark days too,
and these things can be done in 32 flavors
and then some, but it won’t make me come
find you in your self-absorbed hip-o-drome
it’s just more i have to scroll past –
to find actual, breathing, human
photographs.

i believe you – you are real and so are
the rest of the enhanced blanched
oversaturated things you possibly feel
but i’d like to see more of your real life
pooled at your feet, than a pair of your
panties, your bathtub, the Xs & Os the
utter lack of prose and pause and thought
given to the extended forearm-as-tripod
still in the shot and those webcam eyes
so tenderly wrought.

i am not asking you to find/define your depths
i am not trying to damage your emotional
intelligence – i see the dress pattern you
are after, but i’m afraid you’ve dropped a stitch.
i will allow you the feline quality of female
i will ask you, however, to remove your ears
and that silly tail. There is NO pair of
breasts or handcuffs or shoes that will fix
what your expression
and vision
and your camera
will never do
in ultra-uncandid
clicks.

writing

Casting the Deeper Reflection

Posted on by littleREDelf

She bends into the pool of water with softer expectations.

She has come here to know what the others must see. She wishes to throw off her feathers and know grace. She wants to leave the rippling wake of the Swan. It is not what she sees, but what she feels when she sees it. She drinks deep of herself, pulling down the stones that hold the water back, untying those ribbons that make her simply, “girl,” and she understands these things for the first time:

the shape of her hands as instruments, not locks,
the curve of her mouth as sugar, not starch,
the lilt of her speech as power, not prattle,
the set in her gaze as intention, not ignorance,
and movement of her body as purpose, not presence.

She leans inward, she takes inventory, unearths the wreckage, and blossoms. They will see her differently, now. They must. For she has come to reclaim what she had before not recognized.

I am She.
. . . And i have always been.

I realized my own life force — my own powers.

There was far more in the reflection than a creature with dimples and delectable features. i was no longer a map of fine shapes to plunder. No circles. No Triangles. No lines. No jutties. i was more than a giggle and a hair toss. More than a Mistress and a Maiden. i was something with wings. i was fire and water and magic and truth, and it came from me in waves: out of my fingers, out of the breaths i spoke, out of the voice i lilted and thrust into song, and from the burning tendrils of silken-red hair when i turned to listen.

When the change occurred, they stood watching. Some came to embrace. Some came to crush. Some came to borrow and to bathe. And still some others came to steal. Always, there are those that want to get close for their own intentions. Both come into your night, both come into your Garden to feed on things that grow and fuss, blink and bluster. But some come on white-dusted looms to leave only glitter on your finger when you touch their wings, and some come elusive but gorgeous, with their own space and light, vanquishing dark, green and etherly. But most important the change delivered my sight, my strength to recognize dark moths from fireflies.

I wasted my time kissing villains.

i knew what a lover was but i did not love. i saw it in black and white and red. What i knew of love taught me how to leave one slowly and to tear flesh as i went. i did this only to fill the open mouths, the holes, the digs in my own flesh that were missing. When dark angels move in, you cannot see that under their cloaks are wings and within their wings are pinions and any one feather, small and sable, can be fashioned into a fine dagger or an ink well to scribble their name from head to hip in long red letters the length of your paper white canvas. But wings can be bound, as hands. Or cut. And wounds as words can be sewn and stifled. i allowed few wings to brush my cheek and fewer still, the hands that cut through my skin and left weeping scars.

She leaves the water to the wild.

Silver fish with golden eyes. They must know something about breathing from a mutable element that she does not. How can you drink what can tear down the shore? How can you bathe a sharpened something in a fluid that will tumble a stone, a shard of glass, until it is safely smooth and delicate? What did Narcissus see but an Echo? And what does an echo teach but to love only the song of yourself, though the body shrivels and the bones become stone. A flower is nothing that cannot wither while the eye inside denies this death.

She wishes . . .

to be blind as Tiresias, as the twin thoughts of a soft, penetrable creature; worry and pleasure slither over each other as cool as snakes. And when those mouths open to swallow, to draw breath and blood, when all of love repeats, a tongue can trick. To taste is to suffer, and the resounding “yes i will i can i do i am” doubles back. She swims away into the depths of the next breath, and she leaves a rippling wake. Her feet do not touch the bottom stones and she draws the water, a nectar for nymphs. Her eyes light in golden flame, two suns on the lake, and her skin smoothes out silver, her hands web to fins. She will not crawl wild-eyed, with her fingers in dirt, she will wait underwater for her hands to break and her wings to grow back, and then —

Emerge.

writing

Insolent Kitty Haiku

Posted on by littleREDelf

Wicked Haikus for the Cat

At last morning dawns
Your lashes are fluttering
I poke your eyeball.

The food in my bowl
Is old, and – more to the point –
Contains no tuna.

So you want to play.
Will I claw at dancing string?
Your ankle’s closer.

There’s no dignity
In being sick – which is why
I don’t tell you where.

Seeking solitude
I am locked in the closet.
For once I need you.

Tiny can, dumped in
Plastic bowl. Presentation,
One star; service: none.

Am I in your way?
You seem to have it backwards:
This pillow’s taken.

Your mouth is moving;
Up and down, emitting noise.
I’ve lost interest.

The dog wags his tail,
Seeking approval. See mine?
Different message.

My brain: walnut-sized.
Yours: largest among primates.
Yet, who leaves for work?

Most problems can be
Ignored. The more difficult
Ones can be slept through.

My affection is conditional.
Don’t stand up,
It’s your lap I love.

Cats can’t steal the breath
Of children. But if my tail’s
Pulled again, I’ll learn.

I don’t mind being
Teased, any more than you mind
A skin graft or two.

So you call this thing
Your “cat carrier.” I call
These my “blades of death.”

Toy mice, dancing yarn
Meowing sounds. I’m convinced:
You’re an idiot.

Finally! She’s home!
Absence intolerable
I’ll crap in the tub.

What wakes you better?
A soft and gentle head butt
or claws across face?

The Big Ones snore now
Every room is dark and cold
Time for “Cup Hockey”

family, nature, pets, photography

snuggling in . . .

Posted on by littleREDelf

here kitty . . .

i’m just as proud as a new mommy
and quick with draw of the camera too . . .

forgive me if i innundate you with photos of Odin.

Right now, he is snuggling my butt, i am sitting on the front edge of my office chair and he is parked behind me. i don’t know what will happen when he becomes too big for this practice. My right hand is a bit shredded and full of miniscule scratches and bites. Odin thinks i am his litter mate and this is the hand i use to taunt him with. He also likes to pounce on my face in the morning, and push his paw into my eye to see if i am ready to rouse. Wicked little thing . . .

Pixel, my other Bengal spent the last week looking out the front door, waiting for Miles to return, howling a little sad song he reserves for the departing of one of us – Brooks or i on the way out for the day. Pixel still comes to bed quite late, but he is adjusting.

Odin has tried to nurse Pixel (who is a BOY cat) and Pixel has tried to drag Odin around by the scruff as if it were his own. It’s really great to see the cats getting along, and i love waking up with them all piled together and sleeping on me.

speaking of – i am sleeping better, dreaming more, and finally eating.

the sky looks strange today . . . it has been warm the last week, unseasonable for November. but today has the look of winter: lemon yellow & pale grey skies. i bought an overabundance of soup, bread, butter and tea at the grocery store yesterday.

i think i will start hibernating . . . i have plenty of furry snuggle buddies.

smallish

family, pets, photography

the breath of life (smells like a kitten)

Posted on by littleREDelf

nose 2 nosea new small creature . . .

Brooks is a very wise man . . . he told me we could be miserable for 6 months and then get a new kitten, or we could get one now, and i could affix my love to some beautiful new creature.

We chose the latter.

A new life does not replace the old, but instead, fills the gaping wound left by my sweet Miles.

May i introduce, Odin.

Odin

this is but a quick introduction – more soon . . .