Scarred By Love

At first glance, my demographic can be sized up pretty quickly - middle class, suburban, modest, white woman. Labels have always defined me. But as Kierkegaard said, "once you label me, you negate me." I think that's why I love my tattoo.

My crowd would assume I must have had a roaring drunk moment in my youth, or that I am a loose woman prone to impulsiveness, not giving much thought to permanence.

But my tattoo is not a novelty. It is holy ground. It was etched by one worth dying for; it symbolizes one worth living for. It hails a four year old child, my grandson Parker, who died two years ago from a tragic fall from a two story window.

My son and I were stunned in grief. I needed a way to touch that place; to touch it together with him. We had danced around his profession, a tattoo artist. I had come to accept his artistry and vocational community, but I hadn't yet found a way to embrace it that said, "bless you my son."

A few days after Parker's death, steeped in sorrow, aching the loss of my grandchild and the brokenness of my son, I found the touching place. Stroking the inside of my wrist, I knew I had found the place to meet my son, the place to connect in a combination of ink, tears, and hearts.

He designed it for me; he etched it as we clung together in love and loss, remembering a precious little boy who giggled his way into our lives and left his mark in our souls.

Yes; I am scarred with an eternal stain - the stain of Holy love.

Bless you my son(s).

Last Choice

NOTE: This entry is fiction. It's the result of a writing assignment from the Tolovana Arts Colony writing group I've linked into - an exercise titled "If this were your last day, how would you spend it?"

It is NOT autobiographical. However, as a novice fiction writer I am drilled to "write what I know." So, though I draw from life as I know it, and while this is not a real incident nor are these characters real people, I have to admit if you know my life, some things are, I apologize...so very familiar. I like how a classmate and new friend puts it (citing Joyce Carol Oates) - "I'll tell you my truth, but it will come out as fiction."

At some point, I hope to become skilled enough in fiction that nothing I write is recognizable; except what is universally human. And there we are. All in the same camp.


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She knew this was her day.

Yes, there'd be more days ahead, but they would become clouded, vaporous. This was her day that she chose for herself, while she still could. Choice had become her most sacred companion. This friendship with self-design had become...how could she explain it? Delicious. Yes; that was it - sumptuous; delectable; sensuous even. This time there was no default; no fall-back plan-B arranged around appeasement, the safe-guarding of others' needs at all costs. This was about pure, unadulterated self-comfort. And it was luscious.

Like the melty, chocolaty, marshmallow-gooey graham cracker mess sticking to her grandchildren's fingers as they leaned into the campfire, setting their smore-ish concoctions ablaze. They were cherubic, those fingers. She wanted to lick them, to keep forever in her mouth the taste of babies, toddler-hood story time, rocking and singing together in the big gold chair, racing through the play-ground monkey-bars playing tag-you're-it, squeezes and giggles and wrap-their-scrawny-little-arms-around-her-neck hugs that stole her breath and heart.

"Mom. How you doin'? Are you warm enough?" Mark reached over and tucked the blanket tighter around her.

He looked at her, his eyes soft, but straight on. He always made sure they connected. Even at times when it would've been easier not to, he did. She looked up at him and once again they smiled at each other deeply, as if to reassure each others' soul; to reassure their own.

"I'm doing great, honey."

She leaned back in her chair digging her toes deeper into the sand and gazed up at the Dipper. Earlier Venus had been the show, had hung brilliant and solitary, dancing for the longest time between light and dark; between indigo and tangerine, sky and horizon, chasing the sun, changing partners, but now, rollicking among the crystalline chorus-line - a part of an incandescent anthem. She understood this Venus-dance; she was coming to know this song. She took a deep breath and inhaled the notes.

And there they were: the campfire; the sea; the sand; her children and grandchildren, their voices as aroma penetrating her senses clean through to her cells. Their laughter now, around the campfire - a love potion.

"Mom, remember the time...," Leigh was laughing so hard she couldn't finish. Her luxurious doe-eyes, those eyes that seemed to behold and reflect wisdom, that could shimmer mischief, that could ooze love right back onto itself, were now crinkled in tears and whimsy. Leigh was pulling her youngest son, Samuel, onto her lap, wrapping her arms around him and burying her laughter into the nape of Samuel's neck.

She could smell that neck with Leigh.

"You guys were so mean," said Scott. "Giving me head-swishies in the toilet. I was a little kid! Freakin' scared me to death."

He drooped his eyes, pouted his lips way out and despite his tattoos and dangling cigarette, managed to look every inch the innocent. But he couldn't stifle glee; couldn't hinge a mirth rescued from flames, re-born from angst, and throwing his head back he cackled from such a deep and lavish place that everyone around the campfire was captured with him; even the little ones joined in, their giggles like harmonized tinkling bells. His laugh was contagious, just like his spirit.

"Aww; come on little brother...we weren't really mean. That's just, you know, sibling protocol," said Mark, his laugh deep and long, like a sigh that had waited a long time, and now reveled in its release and goodness. He saluted Scott with his beer.

Scott raised his, which sent all the grown-ups into motion.

"Here's to us," said Leigh, raising her wine glass.

"To us," they chorused.

Yes, she thought, to us.

There were a lot choices they had all made through the years. Choices that made them who they were. Some choices came from places that drove them; drove them to survive; to just make it through. Some came from recoil; some were scripted; and some, yes by God, some were freely decided - rationally, deliberately, selected in grace.

Her daughter-in-law leaned over and whispered to her,

"This is so fun. I'm glad you planned it."

"Yes. Me too, sweetie."

She felt her scarf start to slip off her head, felt the chill actually, and reached up to adjust herself against the night. Her fingers brushed the scar in her naked scalp, but she refused their usual impulse to linger. She knew its line by heart. No need. Not now. No.

The fire popped. Its glow warming the remaining strands of night. They were all there, around the campfire - warming the night with her.

"Gramma?"

"Yes, darlin'."

"My fingers sticky."

She looked at them.

"Ohhhh, yes they are!" she said, as she cupped Samuel's hand, licking his fingers, savoring the gooey messiness of love, sending him into squeals of laughter as he wriggled away.

"Nah, nah. Can't catch me Gramma!"

"Oh yes I can! You better run, Samuel. Gramma's gonna catch you and eat those tasty little fingers right up!"

And she leapt out of her chair, chasing Samuel beside the dune.

Yes. While there was still a dusky campfire light.

Yes. While the sea hummed; while the sky glittered.

Yes.

To us.

Yes.

A Picasso-ian Family Portrait

My family is attempting to re-assemble. It feels like a Picasso.

There's a leg over here; a cracked face hanging over there; broken composition lines, un-tethered figures floating around with no clear spatial relation to one another. All the familiar pieces are there (though looking strangely unfamiliar) within the composition. But fitting them together in a familiar way has been obliterated like a mega-bomb.

Some Picasso canvases are soaked in color, bleeding passion like the slap of a furious lover. But this one, Guernica, is black and white, creating a different kind of slap. It's like a shock of cold water that startles you into sobriety. Guernica is a portrait of horror - the horror of violence, chaos, war. Some wars are political; some are within ourselves, flailed out on family ground. We see the wounded, the maimed laying strewn; grasping, arching for rescue and placement. We see bullish monsters and groaning steeds; but more than anything we see madness.

Next week my children, grandchildren, myself, and (here I go again, attempting an appropriate label I'm comfortable with) my former spouse (the father and grandfather of these mutual offspring) are getting together in our first post-divorce vacation-like thing. Now, to say that we're ALL getting together at the same time and place is a stretch. Various arrangements of us will be together at various times, but there will be a few over-lapping instances when most of us will be together. The planning of this vacation-like thing has already gone through several drafts, been sabotaged in a grenade-like implosion, reconstructed with smudgy lines that could dribble off the page any moment, yet is still attempting to wobble forward. We are desperately trying to reconnect, to reconstitute some kind of family beyond semblance. We want to be together; we just don't know what together is. And, there is still a lot of bleeding on the field. We are all, still, very raw.

We are struggling to gather onto this post-bombed canvas - to hang onto a portrait. All families have those studio-portrait moments of assemblage - the arrangement of tall to short, girl to boy, which baby is upon whose lap, whose hand is on which shoulder....now smile. There is a placement; a kind of artistic structure, no matter how arranged, which says - we are family. Walk in any office or cubicle and from across the room in a glance, you know exactly what that framed, matted, people-grouping is hanging on the wall - it's a family portrait. It says this is the collective from which I come; which places me; of which I am. This is us; this is me.

When I look at Guernica I feel it more than see it. Frankly, I don't know what the heck I'm looking at. But I can feel it. I feel the bombastic lack of structure - like jagged glass it tears at my sense of order and sanity. I don't feel safe in it's shadow. I feel the vapid loss of color and life, a canvas screaming for a gigantic crayon swatch, while declaring at the same time how this sallow pallor is perfectly appropriate. It feels drained of warmth. There are no soft lines, and I feel that too; the angular, weirdly juxtaposed planes shoving me off footing. I feel my arms flailing, flapping at something, anything. I feel the pain, the angst, the horror, not only as my own, but as ours; us - sprawled disjointed across the canvas. I feel us groping, clawing at pieces, trying to create some kind of composition that says something about us other than we are a flayed out mess. Some kind of assemblage that says, we ARE still family; we are more than the horror.

And perhaps,
this is the redemptive point of a Picasso.

A Jolly Holler-y Christmas

One of the definitions for schizophrenic is -
a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.
Do you have any idea how discordant Il Divo and Rascal Flatts are?

All of my household goods are stored in a POD - including my Christmas music. We all have those standard CDs we slip into the background as we decorate, wrap, bake....emotionally enfolding ourselves into the season with each jingle bell melody. By the end of the holiday we're sick to death of the little drummer boy and the twelve days of Christmas, but until we've reached that saturation point, we hum along merrily. It's part of the way we manage a gambit of yuletide minefields.

Because my Christmas music is unavailable, I'm depending on the radio, and there's always a station somewhere that plays non-stop Christmas music. The trouble with remote areas like the coast, is that what's available is static-y and limited......and in my case, country-western. I somehow didn't associate the coast (fishing industry, fishermen) with cowboys. I wouldn't have been surprised with, oh, I don't know, Burl Ives, Gordon Lightfoot oldies, Irish ditties.....but, country-western?

So, as I'm navigating this emotionally loaded season differently, I thought, why not? Why not Dolly, Reba, Sugarland, Brad Paisley, and Keith Urban? The standards are there in mega-supply, White Christmas, Frosty, O' Little Town of Bethlehem, and O Holy Night in twangy harmonious variations. Every once in a while, a little Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole is tossed in for merry measure. And while the holly-jollyness does create a festive atmosphere to set up a teeny weeny tree in the window seat, hang a stocking just for me thank you very much by my cozy fireplace, wrap presents (well, I stuff them now into decorative bags with all that sparkly tissue paper), and arrange displays of pine cone and greenery, I noticed something. I miss my music.

It's not that I'm anti-country-western. It's just there's so much about this season of my life, this season of the year, that's requiring a foreign experience. My traditions have collapsed upon themselves. Others who have been through this kind of transition have encouraged me to create new traditions for myself; and my country-western venture is a stab. But there's only so much of a Texas-swing arrangement of Deck the Halls that I can take. New, different, diverse is great.....but now and then, I just need a dose of familiar, to feel like Christmas.

So I drove up the coast to Fred Meyer in Warrenton and bought myself the Il Divo Christmas CD to kind of balance things out. Big, bold voices.....deeply textured orchestration.....arias that bust down the ceiling.....and after several listens in a row, I felt both satisfied and, irritated? I can't explain the conflict, other than to chalk it up to this crazy time in my life. But I definitely could only take so much of Il Divo. So, I'd turn the radio back on......and believe me, the shift from Panis Angelicus to grandma got run over by a reindeer was like being jerked from one reality to another in one swift yank. Kind of schizophrenic.

And you know....that's a pretty good definition for the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements reflecting my state. On the one hand (now picture Teviah in the Fiddler on the Roof), I want tradition; while on the other hand (Teviah again) "tradition" is changing. I want the traditional, family stuff of Christmas, and yet, I've intentionally isolated myself from my precious, wobbly, family structure to sort things out. I feel the edgy rawness of wanting, needing, both - what's been familiar, and what I must create anew. Everything is redefined; weirdly juxtaposed. What fits? What doesn't? I'm swung from the far edges of Ave Maria to Honky Tonk Christmas. Where's the mid-range in all this ripping back and forth?

........the other day, while sitting in Sweet Basil's, a little lunch spot in Cannon Beach, enjoying a robust cup of portabella/onion soup, I noticed the background Christmas music. Well, I didn't really notice it at first. What I noticed was that I was tapping my fingers, in a really involved way, and that made me notice the music. It was bluesy.....rhythm and blues Christmas music. And I thought....hmmmm....why not?