My mother started going grey in junior high, was salt and pepper by thirty, and completely silver by forty. This is mitigated by the fact that time hasn’t touched her face in forty years, except for a few wrinkles just beginning to show around her eyes. My father’s genes have watered down this process in me, but I still found my first solo greys around the same age my mother did.
When you start finding grey hair shortly after puberty, it takes something special to shock you. Finding my first grey pubic hair at twenty-three was a shock. I couldn’t pluck that damn thing fast enough; ditto the two which popped up after. Every five years, my body marking off the passage of time like an odd flower that only blooms when the planets are aligned exactly right.
The last two years, it’s been nose hair. What fun that is. At six foot three, I need to trim vigilantly to ensure people aren’t looking up my nostrils and wondering what that white thing is hanging there.
The sides of my head are salt-and-pepper. Not Clooney salt-and-pepper, but give it time. If my brother is any indication, I’ll have a set of Reed Richards' wings in about five years. It’s never bothered me. It didn’t bother my mother until she found her first grey eyebrow hair. The last streaks of black clung to a silver mane on her head, but a single hair in her brow made her panic about getting old. She ran out of the bathroom screaming, “My hair is grey!” Well, duh.
This week, I found the first grey hair growing right out of my fucking hairline. Not away from my face, looking distinguished or manly or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be, but right from the top of my forehead. Old man hair, no way around it. The urge to pluck it is surpassed only by the urge to run screaming through the streets that God is not making an exception in my case.
I will not pluck; I will not dye.
It’s not the physical signs of aging which worry me. The admonition to be careful with your thoughts, for they become your words, be careful with your words, etc. etc; that worries me. In my short story, “A Beautiful Son,” I compare the young mind to fresh clay. As you age, the mind hardens, and eventually becomes set. Mindset, get it? Gosh, I’m clever. It worked in the story, I swear!
I want to be open, evolving, and learning as long as I’m wandering the earth. I’m amazed at how annoying I find children, when with each breath they personify that perfect, in-the-moment wonderment I break my brains trying to achieve. Probably I’m just jealous. You can only read your favorite book for the first time once, and children are going through everything in their lives anew.
Off the rails a bit there, but let’s get back to aging as personified by my first grey scalp-line strand. I hate it. I wish it ill. But it’s here to teach me something.
Looking from my eyes, I still feel like me. Every day, I discover new things to humble myself before, facts I had no idea about, and people I didn’t know existed. Life was that way pre-hair, and it’s like that post-hair as well. Maybe it’s telling me aging won’t dull my zest for life.
Or maybe it’s reminding me of my mortality, that I have limited time to make an impact with my life. Thanks, hair. Like the arthritis in my broken bones weren’t doing that daily. If that’s the case, you’re redundant, hair. Redundant, and years late to the party.
Maybe it’s asking one of those how many angels can dance on the head of pin questions, like how many greys before I’m old? More than one, anyway.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Reality Ain't Always the Truth
If you don’t count photography and cookbooks, the ratio of fiction to nonfiction on my shelves is about 3.5:1. My fiction stories outnumber my essays, the two books I’ve written (and all the ideas backed up behind them) are fiction, and I’ve only started writing a biography because one of my best friends likes to read them (working title? For Kim).
Something shifted as my marriage ended. I began devouring memoirs. I started writing non-fiction pieces. I’ve poured my misery and triumphs and self-loathing and anger and hurt and desires into long entries in my . . .what do you call an MS Word document that’s your journal? Not a journal. Not a diary. An E-journal? Ew. It’s a file called Mind Pissings, so let’s go with that.
My self-esteem is low. I need outside validation to pump myself up, so I’ve put my efforts into things which have gotten me attention. Sweet with Fall and Fish, for one. It’s great when friends tell me they’ve read and enjoyed my blog. It’s also amazing when complete strangers (two, now!) visit and find something worthwhile for themselves. The third pass at my first book, Scratch the Dead Places, has stalled at 319KB while I whine about my life in Mind Pissings, or gussy those whinings up and put them on my blog.
To put that in perspective, the second draft of Scratch was 1,000KB, 210 single-spaced pages with no chapter breaks. If I want to get back to what I’ve always considered my real work, I need to ease up on the nonfiction.
Before Sweet with Fall and Fish, there was Lip Service. I decided to pony up after their last showing at Books & Books some months back. Of the ten shorts I wrote, some were new, but most were edits of older pieces I’d written as palate cleansers between fiction. I submitted four, and Andrea Askowitz and Esther Martinez picked “Kelly Cook” (what I called “We Are More Than These Pale Shells” on the night of the reading). To get four good pages, you start with ten to twenty. You pare the excess and leave the image. You pass those four pages so often you have them near to memorized. A lot of effort went into sixteen pages, four stories I felt were worth sharing, effort that part of me wishes I’d spent on Scratch.
But the result! Reducing total strangers to tears! Total strangers touching my arm as I walked by, wanting to speak with me! Oh, sweet, anonymous admiration, filling the void leftover from childhood. Full disclosure, I had the benefit of two humorous performers before me, a laughing audience vulnerable for my poignant piece. I doubt my reading will hold up to the scrutiny of being on Andrea’s website. That’s part of what makes a live performance special: the magic is on the night. But I’m glad I worked toward it, I’m glad I was chosen, I’m glad it was successful, and I’m especially glad to have been given the opportunity to workshop with people who respect the craft.
Before Lip Service, there was Book Junky, my column in Moxxi Magazine. Another nonfiction avenue which garnered more attention, even on the scale limited by its short run, than all of my fiction combined.
I guess if I really wanted attention, I’d submit a story for publication. But that’s a topic for a different day.
I’ve retreated into fantasy my whole life. Books, art, and stories are much better than a family dynamic built on abuse and alcoholism, or being ostracized by my peers, or working ten hours in the steam of a dishwasher, elbows deep in people’s leftovers. Marriage done, living alone for the first time in my life, what better time to escape into the odd corners of my head, where people I’ve never met lurk and ask me to talk about them?
It hasn’t happened. Instead of losing myself in stories, I’ve held the mirror to myself and my life. I’ve found it embarrassingly self-centered and unbelievably helpful. But I am honestly afraid. I’m afraid my imagination has gone on permanent vacation.
Reality can be beautiful, but it’s a lot more fun when rules don’t apply.
Something shifted as my marriage ended. I began devouring memoirs. I started writing non-fiction pieces. I’ve poured my misery and triumphs and self-loathing and anger and hurt and desires into long entries in my . . .what do you call an MS Word document that’s your journal? Not a journal. Not a diary. An E-journal? Ew. It’s a file called Mind Pissings, so let’s go with that.
My self-esteem is low. I need outside validation to pump myself up, so I’ve put my efforts into things which have gotten me attention. Sweet with Fall and Fish, for one. It’s great when friends tell me they’ve read and enjoyed my blog. It’s also amazing when complete strangers (two, now!) visit and find something worthwhile for themselves. The third pass at my first book, Scratch the Dead Places, has stalled at 319KB while I whine about my life in Mind Pissings, or gussy those whinings up and put them on my blog.
To put that in perspective, the second draft of Scratch was 1,000KB, 210 single-spaced pages with no chapter breaks. If I want to get back to what I’ve always considered my real work, I need to ease up on the nonfiction.
Before Sweet with Fall and Fish, there was Lip Service. I decided to pony up after their last showing at Books & Books some months back. Of the ten shorts I wrote, some were new, but most were edits of older pieces I’d written as palate cleansers between fiction. I submitted four, and Andrea Askowitz and Esther Martinez picked “Kelly Cook” (what I called “We Are More Than These Pale Shells” on the night of the reading). To get four good pages, you start with ten to twenty. You pare the excess and leave the image. You pass those four pages so often you have them near to memorized. A lot of effort went into sixteen pages, four stories I felt were worth sharing, effort that part of me wishes I’d spent on Scratch.
But the result! Reducing total strangers to tears! Total strangers touching my arm as I walked by, wanting to speak with me! Oh, sweet, anonymous admiration, filling the void leftover from childhood. Full disclosure, I had the benefit of two humorous performers before me, a laughing audience vulnerable for my poignant piece. I doubt my reading will hold up to the scrutiny of being on Andrea’s website. That’s part of what makes a live performance special: the magic is on the night. But I’m glad I worked toward it, I’m glad I was chosen, I’m glad it was successful, and I’m especially glad to have been given the opportunity to workshop with people who respect the craft.
Before Lip Service, there was Book Junky, my column in Moxxi Magazine. Another nonfiction avenue which garnered more attention, even on the scale limited by its short run, than all of my fiction combined.
I guess if I really wanted attention, I’d submit a story for publication. But that’s a topic for a different day.
I’ve retreated into fantasy my whole life. Books, art, and stories are much better than a family dynamic built on abuse and alcoholism, or being ostracized by my peers, or working ten hours in the steam of a dishwasher, elbows deep in people’s leftovers. Marriage done, living alone for the first time in my life, what better time to escape into the odd corners of my head, where people I’ve never met lurk and ask me to talk about them?
It hasn’t happened. Instead of losing myself in stories, I’ve held the mirror to myself and my life. I’ve found it embarrassingly self-centered and unbelievably helpful. But I am honestly afraid. I’m afraid my imagination has gone on permanent vacation.
Reality can be beautiful, but it’s a lot more fun when rules don’t apply.
Monday, October 5, 2009
A Poem by Marge Piercy
For the Young Who Want To
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
Marge Piercy, a poet, novelist, and social activist, lives on Cape Cod. This poem is from her collection The Moon is Always Female (1980).
Friday, October 2, 2009
Why We Can't Be Friends
The question I get most is what it feels like to break with someone after so many years. Some people flat-out ask. Others say, “I can’t imagine what it must feel like…” with arched brows and a sideways glance, leaving me to fill the ellipsis. If there’s a perfect answer I haven’t found it yet, but this metaphor is close enough for government work.
It’s like I used to be a world-class athlete, but now I’m paralyzed. Looking at Andi is like looking at all of those amazing things I used to be able to do.
Oddly enough, I’ve barely seen her in months. Now that I’ve finally moved out, she’s calling and texting every day. If there’s a path to ensuring we’ll never be friends again, asking for a lunch date every week is a good way to begin. I’d rather hear from a bill collector. Not because I hate her, as she seems to think, but because it’s just too painful.
Adaptability is one of my strengths. I’m enjoying my new life, but I don’t want my face rubbed in the old.
It’s like I used to be a world-class athlete, but now I’m paralyzed. Looking at Andi is like looking at all of those amazing things I used to be able to do.
Oddly enough, I’ve barely seen her in months. Now that I’ve finally moved out, she’s calling and texting every day. If there’s a path to ensuring we’ll never be friends again, asking for a lunch date every week is a good way to begin. I’d rather hear from a bill collector. Not because I hate her, as she seems to think, but because it’s just too painful.
Adaptability is one of my strengths. I’m enjoying my new life, but I don’t want my face rubbed in the old.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A Series of Firsts
The first meal was takeout some weeks ago, sitting on the Ikea shelving unit / bench in the window, looking at the trees and the kittens frolicking in the yard, eating Asian chicken salad from Salad Creations with plasticware.
The first brewed coffee was Starbucks’ Anniversary Blend in a French press, nothing less than the finest bean on the planet brewed with the best method. I drank it black, in a mug from Starbucks Mexico City, a gift from some friends.
The first dump was over an issue of PEN America. You might not think a bowel movement is significant in a lifetime of bowel movements, but it is when it’s a step toward making your new apartment feel familiar.
This move has been a series of firsts. First items in the fridge, first nap, first guest (when a visit stops being “help me get this place clean” or “help me move some stuff” and becomes “take a load off, use my wireless, and keep me company while I get this place clean,” that’s a guest), the first tooth-brushing, first time naked, the first shower. More firsts will follow. House Warming? First party! All the boxes gone, all the pictures hung, everything clean and organized? First time I can relax! First date? I finally get to use the line, “Hey, wanna come up and watch some TV?” Then once we’re upstairs, “Oh, I forgot. I don’t have a TV.” Dim the lights, cue the funky-cheese bass guitar riff and the smoke machine and the disco ball.
When I made up the day bed (for the first time!), turned off the ceiling fan lights (the first time I did that and stayed!), and got under the covers, I realized I have never lived alone. I grew up with my parents and an older brother and sister. I even shared a room with my brother until Junior High. When I left my childhood home, it was to live off-campus with my girlfriend. Then back home for several weeks which felt like a few years, then off-campus with Andi.
Sometimes we had roommates – Marcus in Syracuse, Thor in Virginia, Kim in Miami – but mostly it was the two of us. I have never lived under a roof I haven’t shared with someone. I guess I share this one, too, if you count the dude renting the converted garage beneath me and the couple renting the main house, but behind the door carved with flowers and free-form designs, I am alone for the first time in my life.
I used a blanket I didn’t need for the comforting weight. I sent a few no-need-to-answer-text messages which were really disguised pleas for companionship, messages in a bottle. I watched Seinfeld on my portable DVD player. Exhaustion made slipping off easy.
Once I have the place just so, I’ll aslo have a dilemma. I will reward myself with Stephen King's Under the Dome over strong, black coffee. Few things are better in life than taking time to enjoy a good book, and my co-workers assure me it’s a beaut, so this is the fun part. But the work of moving will be done, a routine will be established, and it will just be me and my thoughts. I hope my work ethic will kick into high gear, and that my friends will keep me from becoming a hermit. I fear that I’ll sink back into depression. The virtue of solitude vs. the despair of loneliness.
Of course, the only way to find out is to keep moving forward.
I had another first this morning. For the first time, I thought of the Treehouse as home.
The first brewed coffee was Starbucks’ Anniversary Blend in a French press, nothing less than the finest bean on the planet brewed with the best method. I drank it black, in a mug from Starbucks Mexico City, a gift from some friends.
The first dump was over an issue of PEN America. You might not think a bowel movement is significant in a lifetime of bowel movements, but it is when it’s a step toward making your new apartment feel familiar.
This move has been a series of firsts. First items in the fridge, first nap, first guest (when a visit stops being “help me get this place clean” or “help me move some stuff” and becomes “take a load off, use my wireless, and keep me company while I get this place clean,” that’s a guest), the first tooth-brushing, first time naked, the first shower. More firsts will follow. House Warming? First party! All the boxes gone, all the pictures hung, everything clean and organized? First time I can relax! First date? I finally get to use the line, “Hey, wanna come up and watch some TV?” Then once we’re upstairs, “Oh, I forgot. I don’t have a TV.” Dim the lights, cue the funky-cheese bass guitar riff and the smoke machine and the disco ball.
When I made up the day bed (for the first time!), turned off the ceiling fan lights (the first time I did that and stayed!), and got under the covers, I realized I have never lived alone. I grew up with my parents and an older brother and sister. I even shared a room with my brother until Junior High. When I left my childhood home, it was to live off-campus with my girlfriend. Then back home for several weeks which felt like a few years, then off-campus with Andi.
Sometimes we had roommates – Marcus in Syracuse, Thor in Virginia, Kim in Miami – but mostly it was the two of us. I have never lived under a roof I haven’t shared with someone. I guess I share this one, too, if you count the dude renting the converted garage beneath me and the couple renting the main house, but behind the door carved with flowers and free-form designs, I am alone for the first time in my life.
I used a blanket I didn’t need for the comforting weight. I sent a few no-need-to-answer-text messages which were really disguised pleas for companionship, messages in a bottle. I watched Seinfeld on my portable DVD player. Exhaustion made slipping off easy.
Once I have the place just so, I’ll aslo have a dilemma. I will reward myself with Stephen King's Under the Dome over strong, black coffee. Few things are better in life than taking time to enjoy a good book, and my co-workers assure me it’s a beaut, so this is the fun part. But the work of moving will be done, a routine will be established, and it will just be me and my thoughts. I hope my work ethic will kick into high gear, and that my friends will keep me from becoming a hermit. I fear that I’ll sink back into depression. The virtue of solitude vs. the despair of loneliness.
Of course, the only way to find out is to keep moving forward.
I had another first this morning. For the first time, I thought of the Treehouse as home.
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