The End of Self Help Part 1

I started reading self-help books at thirteen years old, with appetite and fervor. But the true gateway was Women’s Day magazine quizzes at my grandmother’s house, age nine. Sitting on the couch which smelled like tongue, leafing through smoky pages quickly to the quiz section. My grandmother was endlessly patient with me as I quizzed her: Did she like A) bright colors and tango lessons, B) muted colors and waltzing or C) slow dancing and florals?

After tallying the answers into a final and definitive category of mostly As, mostly B’s or mostly C’s, I found out answers that were alternately intuitive and frightening. I learned that I was an introvert, I was naturally disorganized and my grandmother and grandfather were ill-matched and should seek marital counseling quickly. When I read aloud the results of their marital fate, they both laughed heartily with a bitterness and rawness that unnerved me.

As a blemished, tragic romantic of fifteen years old, self-help books held the key to salvation for me. All my awkward intense feelings of difference and aloneness could be changed by absorbing key principles of empowered living and authentic relationships. I could be unafraid or at least love my fear, be a model of self acceptance, financially secure (perhaps a millionaire), multiply orgasmic, ayurvedically balanced, gluten free and 100% creative and alive. I read the books in hopes of finding an antidote to the intimate and messy universe.

So, I accrued a lot of books, hundreds across the spectrum of self-help. I read them under the auspices that I wanted to be a therapist, that I needed to know how to help the socially anxious, ADD symptomatic, traumatized individuals of the world. But really, I read them all for myself. I filled bookshelves with Potatoes not Prozac, Codependent No More, Earn what You Deserve, If The Buddha Dated, also If the Buddha got Stuck and If the Buddha Married. Passionate Marriage and the Inner Child Workbook. Oh, and the magical wisdom of Spiritual Astrology, The Highly Sensitive Person and don’t forget the many tomes of Sark.

If I was bored, I would thumb through Radical Honesty, The Wisdom of the Enneagram or A Path with Heart. I stopped reading fiction altogether. Periodically through our years together, my writer-husband Ben suggested thoughtfully that I read some “real literature.” Let him read intellectual experimental fiction and prose poems, I thought defensively. That wasn’t me. I accused him of not accepting my true self. I had fought hard to feel okay about my self help library. I couldn’t read my books at the cafe without shame but at home, self help piled next to the bed. Eckhart Tolle, Parenting from the Inside Out and Healing Through the Dark Emotions were just my speed. On the bus, it was fine to read a Buddhist-type self book but totally inappropriate and shameful to read a book which genre straddled the self help/new age categories.I knew the rules.

Then one day while I chatted with a friend, she described me as a “distilled self help book.” Her tone was more admiring than judgmental but something inside me vomited, flinched and wilted as she said it. It’s true that I could describe in detail the process of “opening to a feeling” or explain the necessity of safety for trauma survivors. But inside I dreamt of being a wild woman, a self-trusting mystic who wrote poetry and manifestos by open water, did socially engaged art and followed inner promptings to adventures all around the world. Vanessa, the beekeeper, well maybe not beekeeper, but maybe Vanessa, the dancer, the artist and writer. Vanessa the Inner Child therapist, the mother, the herbalist, the wild one.

But I had become obsessed with other people’s wisdom. Other people’s visions of what the world was. My vocabulary was domesticated by self help and I turned away from my own inner-expert. I quizzed myself: Was I enmeshed with my mother? Was I practicing extreme self care? Did I need more mindfulness or to do a body scan? Was I differentiating enough from my husband? What the fuck was wrong and why wasn’t I happy?

I needed a big intervention, a massive change in direction. So I proclaimed AN END TO SELF HELP. Or rather an end to reading self help books. I got some boxes, packed them with all my self help books and got Ben to lug them to the basement. Then I sat on the floor of the echoing chamber that was my bedroom, gazing absently at the empty space on my bookshelves. What to do now? And this is when the shit hit the fan.


Vanessa Brackett
Feb. 2012
Vanessa blogs at increase the levels of radiance

Seth's Pond

An excerpt from "Bella and Bea," a novel for preteens

Bea got on her bike and went down the hill to the pond.  She put the bike down by the wooden railing and made her way onto the shady path; the coolness of the air inviting like a cloud moving across the hot sun. As she came nearer to the water’s edge she heard whistling.   She began to whistle back. Suddenly the whistling stopped and Bea stood still.

“Hey,” yelled Bea and then she let out a whistle. She looked down the shoreline but it was empty except for some big rocks and  course sand on the shore.

Suddenly, a shrill whistle screeched in the silence. It was so close that Bea jumped.

She turned around and saw Jono

“Hey, what are you doing? That hurt my ears,” said Bea a bit irritated.

Jono just shrugged his shoulders and scampered down the path towards a rock that was half in the water.

Without an invite, Bea followed him thinking that if he didn’t want her there, he would say so.  Near a tree on the shore, Jono had stashed a fishing rod and tackle box.  He took out a fishhook from his tackle box and attached it to his rod. He then held up some bait; a slimy, squirmy worm.

 Bea held out her hand, a gesture that made Jono raise his eyebrow with surprise and curiosity.

“Do you fish?” he asked.

“I have,” said Bea not offering more information.

“Okay, let’s see you hook the worm and set out the line.”

Bea smiled and took the wiggly worm out of Jono’s hand.   She hooked the worm and swung the rod overhead. Jono watched the arc of the line and the spot where the hook landed in the water.

“Nice,” he said.

Bea smiled again and handed the rod to Jono.

For a while all they heard was the soft rustling of leaves and bird songs. Bea broke the silence. “Where’s Lucky?”

“Dad took him to the vet’s,” said Jono looking out into the water.

“Is he okay?” Bea asked with concern.

“Yeah, needs his yearly shots.”

“You must love having him.  He’s such a good dog. So, why the name Lucky?”

Jono’s face darkened as if a stormy cloud covered it.   “Just because,”  he said more quietly.

“Because he gives you luck?” Bea asked

“Not really ...”

“Well, is it because he’s lucky, I mean like being a cat that has nine lives?” Bea persisted.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.  He was brought to the animal shelter when he was a pup. There was a fire and well his mother and another pup from the litter didn’t get out in time. But Lucky did and we got him. We didn’t name him; the people at the shelter did.” 

“Wow that is so sad and happy at the same time.  Lucky was sure lucky,” said Bea as she stole a glance at Jono.

“Yeah he is,” Jono said glancing back at her.

This time, Bea looked straight at him and said, “I hope he brings you luck, Jono,”

Jono did not say anything but looked out into the pond.  It was a beautiful summer day. The water was smooth, soft and still. Every now and then bullfrogs croaked and dragonflies skimmed the surface of the pond.  The blue sky and clouds reflected in the water. Bea looked out to the other side of the pond.

“Jono, what’s the pond like in winter. Can you skate on it?”

“Winter, yeah, you can,” he mumbled.

Before she could stop herself, Bea asked, “What’s it like here in winter?”

The dark cloud came across Jono’s face again. “Cold, icy. I hate it.”

“Oh,” she said softly and remembered  what Dad had told her about the accident  a few winters ago.  She was ready to change the subject when the fishing rod began to bend.  “Jono,” a fish, she whispered, “Reel it in.”

He stood there on the rock and held onto the fishing rod tightly with his left hand as he reeled in the fishing line with his right. He cranked and cranked as the rod kept bending.  Just as he was pulling back on the rod, Bea yelled, “Faster, Jono, faster. It must be a huge fish!”

And out of the water came a good sized bass flopping on the line. With a wide grin, Jono held the fish up high.  The dark cloud on his face was gone.

Marilyn London-Ewing
December 2011

A Person Can Break A Neck Trying To Write An Honest Poem*

*(With thanks to Charles Simic for this favorite line in one of his poems for the title.)

I have sat zazen my entire life

& committed every infant pink &

bruised purple morning to memory. I

have fasted & grown gaunt seeking visions,

having raised Presence to my soft red lips

as one lifts a chalice filled with Holy Blood

Of saviors, saints & the wisest madmen.

But it was not until the dim flicker

Of simple light, shadowless on the wall

of the cave that is my heart, scratched in an ancient

hand, that I was so stirred to finally

make out the blessing, once too blurry to read:

"let your writing be your practice,” it said,

let your practice be what you bleed."

Mike Biegner

Jan. 2012

Afterlife

That line is paper thin,
She told me.
I can hear the footsteps
Even when they fly—
They leave their footprints sometimes two chords deep,
They pass through me,
And when they reach my rib cage, I kind of fold inside,
I stop what I’m doing and I pay attention.
The trees look different when that happens;
They sway the way my grandfather laughed
When I showed him my crayons.
You know my father visits.
Sometimes he hides behind his dahlias
And poof he points out the dew drops
Just as if they’ve been there all along.
And sometimes the clouds spell words
Embedded in my memory

Now Karla, I told her.
This cannot be proven.
You die, I die, this much we know.
But at that point the buddhists think one thing
And the republicans another
And you know that priest
Who told me I was risking heaven,
Me, who follows 8 of the 10 commandments.
I dismissed him, but he could be right.
It would have to be two way communication,
Don’t you think, if the dead could speak?

You shouldn’t doubt, she answered,
Your friend Renee told you yourself
To say fuck as a prayer
And see astonish as a sign.
And I’ve watched you raise a broom to the ceiling,
Knocking a hello from here to there.
You told me yourself,
Time isn’t linear
And love outlasts a fleshy mess.

Why doubt it, she said.
Why be dead
When you might not die?
What mother would leave her children
 here floundering, trying to understand
how something holy cannot hold water?

You might be right, Karla,
i hope you are.
But even thin lines are still lines
And lines have two ends.
i can’t follow two ends.
I’d rather just one
I’m a circle girl, Karla,
And you know what?
Circles might be paper thin too





Karen Jasper
January 2012

Mindful Connections: It is time

It is time …

It is time to shift our focus from needing the attention to giving attention, needing healing to providing healing, approaching the horse through our wounds to wanting to heal theirs.

Horses have been in service to humankind for century after century. Building our roads, logging our woods, fighting our wars, the horse has patiently and diligently helped us evolve. In more recent times the horse has become less utilitarian and more recreational and status enforcing. Nowadays, the horse is part of humanities self-inquiry, therapy and personal healing process. The willingness to reflect back to humans what the horse is faced with provides tremendous help and support for the individuals’ development.

Yet I wonder, what are we doing for the horse? Who is in support of their well-being? Horses have physically adapted to the inadequate housing and keeping arrangement of most domestic settings, mentally adapted to the predatory approach by humans, emotionally submitted themselves to the ongoing domineering and fight for, or lack of, leadership, all while being spiritually broken down for the sake of service. Are we just so used to their kindness and willingness to adapt that we don’t feel for them, of them?

Why, I wonder, do only a few people see the opportunity for all to be well and wholesome?  If we were to take care of the horse, if we were tuning in to the intrinsic need of both, human and horse, to connect mindfully, heart to heart, humanity, the world, would be such a better feeling place.

As I heal the wounded carriage horse, I expand my wisdom.
As I preserve the spirit of the young horse, I expand my abilities to guide and learn.
As I see life through the herd leaders eyes, I understand his role and responsibility for the herd’s wellbeing, and thus I support him by putting my needs second.
As I am mindful with the horse, I become mindful for all.

I believe if humans take care of the soul family of the horse, they will be changed too. They will be lighter, more knowing.

When you see through their eyes, feel of their body, connect spirit to spirit, healing occurs naturally.

Nicole Birkholzer
http://www.mindful-connections.com/

Broken

"You piece of crap."

 

He said it quietly, deliberately, as he looked me in the eyes then walked away.

 

I took a deep breath, rubbed one of his classmates on the head, and turned to walk back inside the school.

 

He was having a bad day, my boy. He's called me names before -- stupid, ugly, dumb, old lady and, most recently, the scum between his toes. I've gotten good at letting it roll off my back.

 

"It's not about me," I tell myself. "I'm just the one standing in front of him, and he doesn't know what to do with all of his anger, frustration, rage, and sadness. He's broken."

 

That was in September, October...but it's December now, and "you piece of crap" kicks me in the gut. Not because of the words, but because it feels like all the work we've done -- all the work I've done -- these past few months has been for nothing. We're back to Square 1. He doesn't trust me.

 

It's a gut check too because we live in a world where an 8 year old boy can be this damaged, this broken.  He is funny, smart, so freakin' charming, sweet even...but sometimes, the light in his eyes goes dark and he is gone...far away in an instant and I can't get him back.

 

"You piece of crap."

 

The words echo on my heart. All the positive recognition, all the playful teasing, all the sideways-secret smiles, the sing-songy "JJ has his homework" on mornings when he approaches the homework bin, all those moments that he raises his hand voluntarily and I dare to hope we've made it -- all of that is dashed on the rocks with those 4 words.

 

It's not about the words -- I'm tough -- the words roll off my back. It's about the look in his eyes that says, "I don't trust you. You can't win this fight. I won't let it happen."



Kristin McCue
Nov. 2011

Before I knew my name

Before I knew my name, my soul was touched by God.
Before my tongue had words, my soul was touched by God.
Before I drew a breath, before I had a face,
Before I nestled in my mother's blood,
My soul was touched by God.
Before my parents clasped their hands,
Before their parents suckled milk,
My soul was touched by God.
Before the rain and ground conjoined,
Before the moon could tend the tides,
Before the sea and land were struck,
Before divine light split the dark, my soul was touched by God.
Oh, my soul        forgive me for the times I do not know you.
For you have been faithful, steadfast       more enduring
Than time itself. 


Anne Lindley
anne.lindley.writes
8/2011

A Fine Year for Moss

In the end, Anne came to a decision. She chose the larger of the two stepping stones and moved on, snapping out of her frozen footsteps and on down the steep and treacherous path through the woods. She now passed through an untouched part of the forest. Lime green ferns laced the edges of fallen logs, Astroturf moss padded comfortable old stones. This moss was thicker and somehow longer than any Anne had ever seen. This was no delicate moss. It carpeted any hard rock or tree trunk it could settle on. It was, thought Anne, a fine year for moss.

Her destination was a particular point by a small brook, which she had discovered at the beginning of the summer. She rarely visited this spot because the path to it was a linear one. She preferred to walk in circles. Usually her hikes headed out from the day’s beginning in one direction and ended by coming home from the opposite direction. Straight lines bothered her. Retracing the steps she’d already taken was redundant. Anne found little grace in the shape of the back-and-forth walk.

But sometimes it wasn’t grace she sought. On some days, she sought solace. And little or no spot offered comfort and solace, and protection, on quite the scale as the little spot by the brook before which she now found herself standing, all underfoot slippery leaves and wobbly rocks forgiven as she stopped and breathed and let the water fall in on her ears, slowing her, soothing her so much, and so swiftly, that in an instant before she knew where she was, she wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees and then to her belly and then to curl up for a deep, deep nap there by the brookling brook.

To the right of the path, the water welled up in a small pool, into which the brook spilled from a series of rock-formed waterfalls. It was the pluck-pluck call of the water from the far side of the mossy rocks into this small pool that Anne found so mesmerizing. When she had first seen this spot it had been enough for her to stand on the path and admire the tiny waterfalls and crystal-clear pool, shrouded from the glare of high noon by the indigo hemlock fronds rising in a military stand on the northern flank of that damp and shaded slope.

But today she stood on the path and weighed the force of her urge to nap against the solid attraction of one particular rock higher up the water fall against the risk of the treacherous leaves that lay in between her fatigue and the rock’s attraction. She knew not what lay underneath those leaves. Just to sit, that’s all she wanted. To sit. To not think, for just a minute. To not think.

She toed the ground.

What would the scarecrow man with the orange jacket do? What would Rachel do? What would dear Richard do?

And so pretending she was anybody but herself, Anne Dexter stepped off the path.

It took her ten minutes, but she did reach the rock higher up. She was a careful person, that much was certain. But finally she attained her destination. She stepped onto the flat rock ledge, looking about her at the falling water, the hemlocks, the pale blue sky peeking through.

She lay down on the rock. Without thinking, she fell asleep

When she woke up just a short while later, she felt something different. Aside from her sore hip, she felt, just, different. She felt alone, most definitely, but also ready to not be alone.

From her spot, she could see a green that hovered just beyond the reach the of the hemlock trunks. The forest floor? She squinted. She dropped back her head. She widened her eyes. She took in her breath, lest it be stolen by what she saw.

What she thought might be the forest floor rising through the trees up a steep hill was no forest floor. It was a rock. The largest of all the rocks around. The largest of all the rocks she’d ever seen. A house was the first thing that came to mind. The rock was a big as a house. Maybe not Jim’s new house or Rachel’s old house, but possibly the size of her little middle-aged house by the Green River. And she hadn’t seen the rock at first because it was entirely grown over in a thick coating of heavy green moss. It was a fine year for moss.

There the rock was. There the rock had always been, staring her in the face. She had not even seen it. How could there be such an impossibly large rock just tossed here in a jumble of already very large rocks beside this wee little brook meandering on the far side of her feet.

For the first time in a long awhile, she found herself wishing Richard were with her. Her mate there, to help her to make her way across the ditches and sinkholes to the large rock, someone who could help her to climb the rock, to best it, to sit astride it.

As it was, she could get nowhere near it. She had her limits, even on this extraordinary day, that she did know.

And so she stared and stared at the rock, trying to memorize the heft and weight and looming impossibility of this moss-covered behemoth.

The path homeward, when at length she regained it, suddenly seemed entirely beside the point. There was now only one way to go and that was back where she’d come from. For the first time since she could remember, she would retrace her steps and redo the thing with pleasure and with grace. Never a word used much in her vocabulary, again had become a word she would begin to use more often.

Linda Stevenson
November 2011

In Between

a space with wisdom
a space with green
I think every one of us
should get to know
our in betweens

ripe moss sinking
darker and darker
earth’s musk, weeping
like crippling desire
another root’s energy
beckoning a demise

still, the lime green shoot
creeps and slithers
the brownish moss
and weakened spirit
a reminder of the haunts
from past and future

it grows
chokes the old
and finally emerges
into the land
of in between

imagine yourself there
steady, what hurt you before
will always transpire to be
but you can refuse
it’s gripping return
and instead
discover
how you can be
the only connection
between the spaces

how long can you linger
in your in-betweens

Jenn Drumm
November 2011

Peaches

Robert leaned back from the well-scrubbed oaken table that took up the sunny side of the kitchen, his bad leg propped on a stool, cushioned by Katherine's folded shawl.  He watched her confident hands as they emptied the dirt-encrusted basket of its cargo of late-season peaches, building a rounded pyramid on the counter by the sink. Water splashed.  Then the afternoon sunlight began to flash against her knife, which quartered and pitted the peaches faster than his eyes could follow. Mesmerized, he sat motionless as the pile of damp golden pieces grew, until he could count the few whole fruits that remained: 6, 3, then one. The knife sped up as it pressed towards the end, chattering against the wooden board. A splashing sizzle from the stovetop drew Katherine away from the impromptu still life, but Robert stared fixedly at the heap of peach slices.

With a sharp metallic clang, Katherine dropped the huge lid she'd been holding while she surveyed the boiling glass jars.  The sound galvanized Robert, whose hands jumped to the table's surface of their own accord, cupping taut air as his finger strained towards the absent trigger.  His eyes roamed the kitchen, alert and wary, and he didn't hear Katherine resume her cheerful humming as she began to line the glass jars up on the clean white towel.

The splintered peaches gaped at him, sprawled helplessly in their massed pile. Each lay at an impossible angle from the next, as if unable to recall what it meant to be whole. Arms, legs, curved against the black ground, blue and khaki and grey pieces of uniformed waste.He felt himself teetering on the edge of a deep chasm, while an invisible tide drew away the sand beneath his feet, bit by bit, each departing grain disrupting his balance that much more. He could only put up token resistance as it eroded the ground on which he stood and the familiar internal contours of self. 

He squeezed his fingers around edge of the thick oak slab that formed the table's top, clutching until the sinews in his fingers stood apart from the white knuckles. He sent his index finger probing the board's underneath, seeking a sharp splinter that he could drive into his eager flesh, craving the pain that would anchor him in this kitchen, on the chasm's rim.   But his finger only caressed the satin-smooth grain of the ancient wood, generations old.

It belonged in this scent-infused kitchen, as he did not. The ripe, fruity smell of cooking peaches had spread through the room, fortified by the smoky tang of smoldering logs, all without Robert noticing.  He was startled to see that nearly a dozen jars of glistening round peaches now stood at the end of the table. Katherine stirred a final batch on the stove, her mouth moving.

"… and I've kept enough to make us a nice, large cobbler for supper. Your favorite." Her lips continued to move, as she turned her head to smile at him.  

With an internal scramble, he tried to find words that would not alarm her. He was spared the effort when a frothing hiss and sudden acrid smell warned her the pot was boiling over and she swung back to the stovetop and began to stir the mixture. He quivered, relieved that he need not force his throat to shape insubstantial words, but aware once again of the lapping tide.

To forestall it, he shoved himself back from the table, lifted his leg to the floor and fitted the splintering crutch under one arm.  He heaved himself up, stood in precarious balance for a few seconds, and then took one tentative step.

"I'll just go and check on Sophie's progress, then."  

He took her answering murmur as assent, and turned towards the doorway.  As he moved slowly down the hallway, he passed the pantry where columns of round tomatoes and pickled cucumbers already stood massed for the oncoming winter.  Their cheerful colors dizzied him, and a heady, yawning darkness opened in his mind.  He felt sand slipping away beneath him. Scrambling for purchase, Robert gripped the crutch more tightly and kept going, down the long hallway that led to the library. 

Liz Bedell
November 2011

Mirabai at 513

When I was in the body of Mirabai
I would brush my long black hair every night,
108 strokes, one for each of the names
of my Beloved.
Down by the river where I filled my jug
I was overcome with longing...
the flowing of the river was the
moving of his hips was the wind
moving in the trees was his moving hand
on the nape of my neck.
The unmarried girls giggled and splashed
and their gold bangles gleamed in the sun;
I was silent with thoughts of Him.


During the monsoon season,
maddened by the peacock’s cry
in the courtyard, I scarcely noticed
when they tried to poison me.
with their black stares and
their lectures on duty, their
chapatis that stuck in my throat,
and the intolerable talk of marriage.
What do they know about marriage
who have never met Shyam?


Later I followed a band of beggars
out of the palace, out of the
stone gates; and never looked back.
All day the hills called to me, away, away,
and the grass was singing
his names for me, my names for him.
I walked for miles, enraptured
by the sudden sight of his smile
on the face of a simple cowherd boy--
oh no, I must have been mistaken,
I must be deluded again,
it comes from always thinking of Him.
the one who lives inside me.


When I was in the body of Mirabai
I knew nothing but this rapture,
and the pain of this rapture,
of the cracked red earth before the rains came,
I did not know it was possible to suffer so.
The peacock’s cry piercing my
heart in the dead of night,
my bed always on fire.


No one can say I wasn’t faithful,
who has lain on a bed of flames,
who has not known a single moment of
peace since you touched me that way,
who has kept on dialing the phone
long after you stopped taking my messages,
who has tried to commit suttee
a thousand times but always come back
to this poor solitary self.
Oh my midnight blue lover,
why didn’t you come back
to finish what you started?


When I was in the body of Mirabai
I did not have a smartphone
If I had I would have sent you texts to
die for; would have followed you on twitter
wherever you roamed, would have blogged
about your perfections, would have
worked out my perfect body in Curves
and seduced you on a tropical cruise. 
But I was a Rajasthani princess then
and I gave up everything for love.
You remember me--
your humble servant, Mira



Judith Hooper
November 2011

The Stars Are Either A Giant Word Hoard of the Universe or Venerable Ancient Monks

Into	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --	Automatic
The	- - - - - - - -	As
Taciturn	- - - - - - - -	Swallowing
Blue	- - - - - - - -	Face
Black	- - - - - - - -	Them
Sky	- - - - - - - -	Stars
Speak	- - - - - - - -	Child
Your	- - - - - - - -	Them
Piece	- - - - - - - -	Yellow
Stringless	- - - - - - - -	Winking
How	- - - - - - - -	Monks
We	- - - - - - - -	That
Were	- - - - - - - -	Glare
Meant	- - - - - - - -	Back
To	- - - - - - - -	At
Pass		Our
Through	- - - - - - - -	Gelatinous
Unafraid	- - - - - - - -	Monkey
	- - - - - - - -	Brains

Mike Biegner
November 2011

The Grand Gathering: Wednesday meets Monday

On December 7, a Grand Gathering of Nerissa's Wednesday and Monday writers came together at the Big Yellow House for food, festivity, and sharing our writing out loud. It was great. We've revitalized the Writing It Up in the Garden blog to keep up the connections we made that night and to cultivate the generous urge we felt to share our best work.


WIUITG writers! If you have something you've started in one of Nerissa's classes or workshops that you'd like to share with the rest of the Big Yellow World, send it to me at anne.lindley.writes@gmail.com and I will get it posted for you.


--Anne Lindley, blog consigliere

The Last Time You Were Here

The last time you were here You were driving on highway five in California Trying not to smell the cities of cattle Fetid and groaning with institutional dharma. He was riding shotgun And you wanted him clean of it. “Look over here,” you said, pointing to the birds, to the west, to the ocean. But he turned and saw And you could not offer an explanation. You stopped in a small town Hoping the flowers would distract him. You found a salon and got a hair cut Which made you look like your sister. You left the hair on the cutting room floor. Over lunch, you told him about the time You were on the fifty-first floor Washing your hands at a sink This was when you were in a wheelchair The bathroom had no walls And the drop was a roll of the dice away. He said, “You were lucky. But why do you take such risks? Stay here next time.“ And later, after mouths full of chicken cooked in wine with artichokes and olives, “Did you save your hair? It’s good luck to save your hair.” You kissed him goodbye and got back into the car and kept driving south Cresting a hill, there was the snow shimmering off the mountain Larger than life Larger than Hollywood So large it might be all a dream Or a film Or the afterlife And you turned around, back to town, To convince him to come with you, That this time it didn’t have anything to do with luck. Nerissa Nields November 14, 2012

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Double or Nothing, Part 1

Mark keyed in the code to lock the scooter down, and hopped off. The garage's automated machinery swallowed it down as if it were a tasty morsel. Mark always felt a pang watching that happen, for in his mind the scooter was a tasty morsel, a sleek, fast machine he'd spent long hours rebuilding and tuning until it was more an extension of his own mind and body than a separate piece of hardware. He knew the garage would disgorge it on command when he returned in a few hours, for Harvey's Hangers and Hot Pads was the most reputable garage company on Iskandar. Resolutely he turned his back on the garage's Acceptor pad and walked toward today's goal: The Riviera. The Riviera spread itself over a thousand square feet of the outer shell of Iskandar, and projected two floors beyond the shell. Prime real estate. Mark walked across to its innermost floor, styled to look like the top deck of a world-bound riverboat, complete with railings and things called life-preservers, which served no practical function here on the inside of Iskandar, but certainly added ambiance. The Riviera's owners had installed a full motion holoplate on the corridor's ceiling and walls, and the illusion that one was sailing down a river on some wild planetary surface was spoiled only by the fact that you couldn't actually lean over the railing. Mark nodded to the greeter standing by the staircase on the otherwise deserted "deck". "Evening, Frisk," he said. "Evening, Mark," Frish replied, nodding back politely. "Come to try your luck again?" Mark grinned, "Sure, it's got to turn sometime, doesn't it?" "That what they all say," Frisk replied, shaking his head in mock concern. "Just have a good time, and don't bet it all." "I only bet it all on a sure thing," Mark replied, and added silently to himself, or when I have no choice. Descending the stairs, the boat theme continued, with the vast, mostly open expanse of the second floor mimicking a riverboat casino. Tables were spread out at comfortable intervals, and every one was surrounded by well dressed people either chattering excitedly, or watching the turn of a wheel or the fall of cards in a quiet hush. Beautiful, scantily clad men and women circulated through the crowd or hovered at the elbows of serious gamblers in a tradition as time honored as that of the Gambling House itself. Mark walked over to the outer wall, looking out through the diamondite windows across the surface of Iskandar. There were no other projections in the immediate vicinity of the Riviera, for which the owners paid quite a premium. A little farther away similar two and three floor projections could be seen, and in the distance were the long extrusions of the heavy grav industrial towers. Beyond them, clearly visible through the crystal clarity of full vacuum, soared the mile high tower the residents of Iskandar called the Light House. At its tip strobed the beacon that marked Iskandar's position to all craft that might be navigating through local space. Mark looked downward and outward, searching for one such that he had been told would be arriving at this time. He accessed the data feed from Worster's, one of the firms that handled traffic control around Iskandar, and his inner HUD drew a flashing circle around a tiny dot making its way from the horizon toward the Riviera. Mark watched long enough that his auxmod could calculate the trajectory itself, and confirm the data from Worster's, and then headed for the stair to the third floor, where the dock was located. As he emerged onto the outer deck he was assailed by a barrage of advertising. Unlike the single purpose deck above, this level tried to be everything to everyone, providing shops and outlets for any conceivable service an incoming arrival might have, from restaurants to a furniture showroom.

Ossuary

So calcified, so calcified. Robbed of marrow, rung and hollow. Bleached and dried. My bones sing inside. Sharp and brittle, flute and whistle. Deossified. Such music is undignified. Yellowed relics, cap and tunics, cut and tied. Muffled, cracked, metasticized. Planed and honed. Bone de-boned. Unsimplified. -Michael Mercurio

Dead, Again

Oct.2007 “A coward dies many deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Ceaser. Boy, Shakespeare had it so wrong. This weekend I journeyed to my childhood home for the last time. I went down to gather with my brothers and sisters to help my Mom move from her house of fifty plus years to another house further out on Long Island. Where suburban spread had scattered my siblings who remained on the Island, my Mom stuck fast to the small house in Franklin Square, a suburb just outside of Queens and a short 35 minute train ride into New York City. When I spoke with her earlier in the week she mentioned how everyone was going to be stopping by to help with the move. I told her, of course, that I would be down to lend my back and heart to the move and I could tell she was relieved. “Oh, that would be great!” she said. I could tell that she had landed the answer I knew she had been fishing for. I drove down Saturday morning over the same route I had for the last twenty years. When I pulled up to the house the movers were just finishing closing the truck and I could see my Mom sitting on the stairwell that led to the upstairs with the front door wide open. It was a very warm October day and the sun drenched the house with a sort of golden-amber hue. With my old Minolta 202 slung over my shoulder, I took some pictures of the outside of the house. “You a photographer?” one of the movers asked me. “Nah, just one of the movers,” I replied. When I stepped into the living room it was bare and the emptiness caught me completely off guard. I heard myself wheeze lightly, as if I had been sucker punched and my breath was drawn out against my own will. For the years I’d lived here, I had never seen the rooms so barren. I hugged my Mom and thought how stoic and frail she looked. She smiled, but it was a smile of duty. She had been through a lot over the months with the sale of the house. I know the physical strain had taken its toll, but there was the emotional toll that we really never talked about. I had seen this look once before. It was at Daddy’s funeral a million years ago she wore that look: that look of uncertain weariness. Thank God my sister Denise was there, directing the movers and my mother with the skill of Patton moving his tanks against German Panzer divisions. Together we cleaned up what remained: some clothes, a mirror, some plants, some switch-plates. We stood by the wrought iron railing that led to the upstairs, the same railing we used to slide down when we were kids. We were considering what else had to be loaded into the last of the cars when Denise unscrewed the decorative brass finial that adorned the end of the banister and tucked it into her bag. We used to do the same thing as kids but then we would use the brass ornament like a microphone and sing into it. “The new owners won’t mind if we take this,” my sister said. We kept finding pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters on the floors of the empty rooms. We would pick them up, only to find more later on. “It’s Daddy,” Denise said. “He’s trying to tell us something.” When the movers and Denise left, it was just my Mom and I. I went from room to room and took pictures. Then I just stood in each room and recalled some event that took place in each of the rooms. I touched the dark pine paneled walls of the upstairs rooms where Joe and I lived through our high school years. I stood on the exact spot where my trundle bed stood and recalled as if it were yesterday that morning when my brother-in-law climbed the stairs to wake Joe and me to give us the news about Daddy’s passing after his stroke on that day that changed everything for all of us. I went into the garage where I had once destroyed my sister’s ten speed when I was first learning how to drive. As I was backing out of the garage one day, I accidentally hooked the frame on the car bumper onto her bike and rather than get out of the car to see what was holding it up, I simply gave the car more gas. I still owe her a bike to this day. It was in this garage that my brother Dave and I took apart the engine of an old Pontiac Le Mans Grand Prix that our neighbors gave us. I helped him do a valve and gasket job on the engine. He actually knew what he was doing; I just liked getting dirty. It was in this garage that the old Dodge Plymouth Valiant given to us by our cousins Sam and Rena lived – my Dad loved that car. I went down the basement and found some of my old high school poetry scribbled in chalk onto a wood panel by the washing machine. There on the wall was the remnant of a Mari Evans poem: “If there be sorrow” was all that was left – the first line of the poem, the rest of the poem was all washed out but I remembered it and I recited to myself it in a dark, moist whisper: “If there be sorrow/Let it be for things/Undone, unachieved, unrealized, unattained/To these add one:/Love withheld, love restrained.” I went outside and said goodbye to the multi-stemmed Black Birch tree in the back yard. It looked like a hydra with its many thick trunks. The many stems made it ideal for building a tree house and I remember nailing boards of plywood between the trunks, and two-by-four steps climbing high to the top of the tree. I touched the tree and said goodbye to it like it was a person. Just next to the tree was the concrete patio extension that jutted out from the main patio that my Dad poured when he bought that brick façade barbeque pit. He built it during an era when barbeque pits were the rage. I recalled how as a kid I stood at the other end of the yard and pretended I was pitching for the Mets hurling a heavy sponge ball against the brick backstop of the pit until the brick began to give way and the façade started to crack. The barbeque pit is long gone but the concrete extension is still there, intact and as fresh as when the concrete was first poured. I went back inside and loaded my car with a few more things. My Mom hadn’t eaten breakfast and it was 10:00AM. She was starting to shake. “Ma,” I said to her, “you’re diabetic!” Then I mouthed the words in an exaggerated deliberateness: “You have to eat!” I drove up to Dunkin Donuts and got her a croissant and cup of coffee. Afterwards, I went outside and finished off the roll of film, then put my camera into the car and walked back in. She was on the steps again, with that same look: overwhelmed but resigned, uncertain but sure, tired but anxious. I hugged her again and tried to say something wise, offer up some verbal balm that would soothe whatever anxiety or doubts she had. Up to this point, I had been cool, nostalgic, but not really sad. I felt grateful, really, really grateful - for being able to say goodbye to this place, this sacred place in my life that had harbored me all those years. Growing up here had been nothing if not a safe haven. Whatever interior, spiritual life I possessed now as an adult was formulated here, within these walls. Then I felt the lump in my throat and that burning behind the soft of my eyes. I said nothing – I couldn’t - but my Mom did: “We had some good times here, didn’t we?” I wanted to say “yes” but I was crying. I hugged her again, nodded and turned to leave. I got in my car and drove off sobbing past the nicely trimmed Long Island lawns. As I was composing myself in the car, trying hard not to seem psychotic (now the picture of some man sobbing in his car, alone, would barely raise an eyebrow in New York, I had been living away from New York a long time so naturally I felt self conscious) it suddenly hit me what it was that I was feeling: I was dying. I knew that I would never be back this way again. The friends I had in high school are no longer in this town; they are all over the world now, and now my Mom too would be gone. I had no business being in this neighborhood ever again. I was experiencing grief, not for the loss of some good times or old memories – but the real and actual death of who I was back then. The person I was, the one who grew up in this house, was gone – actually had been gone for some time but now the last tie was severed and it was like mourners throwing their handful of dirt onto a coffin. This was my way of experiencing the death of me as something real, something tangible. In a way I felt a little relieved. We would be retelling the stories of the old neighborhood on any occasion we could – our family life is built around this sort of story telling. But I was free to feel sad for the loss of who I was back then. The words of the mystic Julian of Norwich suddenly came to mind: “All shall be well, and all shall be well. And in all manner of things, all shall be well.” As I heard these words bubble up from my heart, words that often comforted me, I eased into the loss like a pair of new jeans. I headed over to the new place where in true Biegner fashion we made (what else?) but a party of the event, moving my Mom’s things into the new house thus opening another chapter, starting yet another story, beginning another epic tale to be told at some later date and time. We worked hard and ordered out for dinner together and got her settled into her new home. Like an old fashioned “barn raising”, we were tired but happy, really happy to be able to be together for something like this. Not everyone can say this. Not everyone has the ability to be together and celebrate the passing and comings of old and new things in their lives. We do not die once but many, many times over – coward or courageous soul. During these threshold moments when we are afflicted with the blinding clarity of truth, it hits us square between the eyes and we are defenseless to stop it. When we are forced to give up our childhood home it forces us to give up at last our identity of who we thought we once were. Once we accept this identity as the sham that it is – for we are never really who we think we are, anyway - we are free to pass. It is not until we recognize these moments in our lives that we finally understand the freedom of this sort of loss. With just a bit of pain and a bitter hint of melancholy, we can let go as we move on and allow ourselves to grow just a little bit more.

Buddha Moon

Pin Oak, Hemlock, Black Walnut: When the great Chaos named these trees The Wind that touches us all carried these names to us. In utero, before I even knew what words were - Before I learned how names could disjoint and categorize, Before I knew Song, there was Wind In the flirtations of mosquitoes, In the graceful applause of flapping birds in flight., Before I knew the hammering of the clock There were acorns dropping through Forest canopies Tapping at the feathery bed of raw umber pine needles That is Forest's floor below. Tree Frog sings of Night to come As Holy Dusk fills space left by vacant leaves And craggy branches as they wave madly about. A Buddha Moon rises to rest its belly Over the closing lids of Sunlight’s eyes And skips Horizon’s rope to wake me wide.

Reasons I Can't Sleep

Two cats squall in the dark trees behind the house. They sound like—what? A pair of alien babies raging at their lazy parents On and on it goes, they must be tearing each other to ragged furry bits I’ll find bloody fluff on the lawn. Beside me you lie listening too. The bills are due. The leaky tub. The mysterious must in the downstairs hall. And a number of nagging phone calls, some we made, some we should have but didn’t, some that come ringing when we’re just about to get out of the house, bringing news from various fronts from the west, reports on the latest tragedy—a double mastectomy, a fractured pelvis (she slipped on an airport floor), a mahogany breakfront that nobody wants or needs (call the salvation army, please!) From the east, it’s the child’s school calling, you didn’t send enough food for his lunch, she refuses to sit at the peanut-free table she used a four-letter word during writing time Shit, who wouldn’t It’s 3:14 The cats have stopped. You’re snoring. I’m spiraling endlessly from worry to memory and back dreams I should have let go everything I should have let go last time I saw him, my father looked so old I remember him driving his convertible GTO, driving us for ice cream with the ragtop down and now there’s only one thing I’d like to know how does it all go so fast when the night is so long so slow Debra Jo Immergut