The birth of Lola Moon. February 7 2002/ Best Start Birthing Center, San Diego, CA. Late evening, stripped down naked, first on bed, then floor, then bathroom floor, finally in the tub, grunting and moaning, howling, pushing her out into the water, candles flickering all around in the darkness as if I were birthing her into the sky surrounded by stars. Her cry. Her blue eyes, nursing mouth, my daughter. Dakota cut the cord.
Marrying Mr. Curry on the shores of La Jolla Beach. My grandma Elizabeth and Grandpa M.D. both still alive, standing stiffly but joyfully against the cliffs, wind in their hair. Lola, an infant, in my arms, eating the rose petals from my organic bouquet. Ian Oliver and Dakota Wolf, 6 and 8 years old, awkward but thrilled, suited and brothers at last. As it was meant to be. My second mother, Corinne, asking me If I do and responding 'I do! I definitely do! ' Mr. Curry and I, best friends since I was 7 months swollen with Dakota at age 19, together at last. As it was meant to be.
Losing Mr. Curry after one year of marriage. Breakdown, swift descent. Fear, failure, confusion.
The slow understanding. The stubborn, stubborn healing. Love blossoming fiercely in desert conditions. Adapting. Surviving. Thriving. Healing not only the immediate rift, but deeper, unspoken and childhood rifts. Becoming each other's sanctuary. A deeper, more profound and mature understanding of love. Peace.
My first publications, but more importantly to me, the rejection that gave me confidence. Submitted my novel in the most stupid, unprofessional way possible: fiction not even completed,several chapters in, still raw, a mess, but I too eager for some kind of outside response to wait:Submission to the major fiction agent on the West coast, Sandra Dijikstra:Waiting.The slow realization I had been a fool, an idiot, a child, to submit so soon, without completion.Then the mailed rejection- personally written by Sandra. Her assertion that I had talent. That the writing was very good. My disbelief. I email her, asking ' Did you really write this? ' And even more amazing, her email back ' Yes, I took the time... ' and more! I have the letter saved, the email saved, to remind me both of my stupidity and of the hope that I can make it. I ruined my chances with this novel and this agent, but her words gave me confidence when I needed it, after years and years of completely isolated writing with no response. I don't join writer's groups. I read, I write. So this human response from this particular agent-- gold.
My sister Lura, moved away over 7 years ago. I haven't had any contact from her since. I wrote her for a year before realizing she didn't live in the apartment anymore, and hadn't for who knows how long.
Mr. Curry building his own business. The long hours, the hard work, the paperwork, the IRS,the pride, the employees, the money. The laws change: workers compensation goes up fivefold. Mr. Curry loses the business.
Our family vacation to Nashville, Tennessee. Lola is 2. She is an angel the whole trip, dissipating my worst fears about the plane trip, the waiting in airports. Tennessee works it's dark Southern magic and we all fall in love. My Aunt and two cousins welcome us into their home for five days. We visit the Jack Daniels Distillery, the thermometer registers 104degrees . Homes cost less than half of what they cost here in San Diego, WITH land. Mr. Curry wants to move. The last day we spend at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel, with it's no holds barred jungle enclosure inside the hotel, complete with birds. We swim in the hotel pool, eat at the restaurants, shop, order movies. The sound of cicadas follow us home.
I am diagnosed with endometriosis, Stage 4. Two years of chronic pain and health issues are revealed as an autoimmune disease which has taken part of my left ovary. I change my lifestyle. We begin to eat almost all organic. I remove all parabens and chemicals from cleaners, laundry detergents, shampoo, soaps, lotions. Three surgeries follow, eventually with a specialist in San Jose for a final and successful surgery. My ability to get pregnant is unknown.
I become pregnant with our much wanted baby. June, 2009.We lost the baby
I get and keep a preschool job that is the best working environment of my life. My boss is an Orthodox Jewish woman born in South Africa who is in her late fifties and more energetic than I, in my thirties. She is brisk and intelligent, conservative and politically my opposite, but I love and appreciate her integrity, compassion, honesty, work ethic, devotion to her staff. My work is close enough so that when I crash and total our car, I can walk to work in fifteen minutes. I am allowed to bring my children to the school whenever I like. Lola attended Pre-K there while I worked, before moving to kindergarten. The girls I work with are fantastic. I have insurance through my work. I love my job.
9-11. I am pregnant with Lola, walking down the stairs, when I see my Grandfather with his hands on his drawn, drooping cheeks, watching the news, my Grandmother with tears rolling down her face. A building is collapsing on the screen, over and over. The camera cuts to the male reporter, who stands with the microphone at an awkward angle, running his fingers through his hair over and over. ' What? I- I- it appears... ' he cannot get himself together. I know something enormous, something horrible, is happening. The single most lasting impressions of that day remain the total confusion on the faces streaming through the streets of New York amidst clouds of toxic dust and fire, and the small, black specks falling through the air- I soon after saw, in a magazine, a close up of one of these images, revealing the very blurry details of a black woman, her skirt, her build. I will never forget her.
We buy our first family dog: Bodie. His family is military and moving to Hawaii and cannot bring him. We surprise Dakota with his dog. They immediately fall in love. Bodie becomes completely and totally and neurotically devoted to Dakota. Dakota is 8. Now Dakota is 15 and Bodie still sleeps on top of him at night, follows him around the house ( with Wolfgang, our next dog ) and mopes at the door while he is gone.
We enter a new and terrifying phase: life with teenagers. Letting go becomes a convoluted and blurry idea.
I stop Myspacing and begin blogging. I never look back. :)
Thank you all for blogging, for being there to read and for reading. I love this world we create together.
Happy New Year!!!!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
My Year in Mississippi
I grew up poor, at times literally poverty stricken- collapsed into tears over our lack of money for basic necessities, food, electricity, housing; we spent one year living, the four of us, in one room of a mousy beach hotel, and another in the four bedroom home of our best friends, which already housed their five family members, two dogs, birds and a few cats. My parents slept on the foldout couch in the living room. After that long, crowded year my mother moved my sister and I back to our birthplace in Jackson, Mississippi while my father stayed working in San Diego.
Lura and I took turns sleeping in bed with Mom, while the one out slept on the cot placed horizontally at the end of the bed. This was my 4th grade year: the year I read Pet Cemetery, made friends with Julia, whose father had died of cancer the year before, the year I moved into a home at the end of a cul-de-sac where my sister and I were the only white girls on the block. We were the only white girls for miles of blocks. The first day of school, where I was one of maybe three white kids, I felt no fear being the only white girl, just my personalized brand of constant fear, the companion of every year I could remember on Earth. I walked into the hallways bustling with black girls, chubby cheeked and bright eyed, hair glistening with scented oils, braided in fantastic loops on top their head or pulled painfully back into ponytails, girls who looked curiously at me, but not cruelly. My teacher was a soft spoken black women who bent down and looked directly into my face. I distinctly remember having the thought that she had eyes like crackling fireplaces. She smiled at me and explained how my desk and books would work, where I would sit, and patted me on my skinny freckled arm with her warm hand. I sat down and looked directly at the round, bland clock hanging on the wall for the next ten minutes, terrified to look around. Overt glances at my classmates showed nothing too terrifying, other than Jim McCracken picking his nose to third knuckle; Myrna Hellslinger appraising me dubiously. The rest of the kids were chatting, catching up after a long, hot Mississippi summer.
The only difference I ever took note of in that Mississippi elementary school was the use of corporal punishment. In San Diego, a teacher would be fired for laying a hand on a student, much less taking a thick wooden paddle, much like a ping pong paddle- perhaps it was a ping pong paddle- and laying it firmly into the submissive asses of pre-teen children. I still remember walking down the enclosed hallway, past the principal's office, and hearing Jessie Ketchinger, a sweet honey-eyed boy from my class I had a small crush on, crying out in a high pitched yelp after the short swish and smack of the paddle. I would never put gum underneath my desk.
Grandpa M.D. ( M for man, the D is a family mystery ) and Grandma Elizabeth lived at the end of a short cul-de-sac. The right side of the house had a side, enclosed porch with a screen door that opened to the grass, where Grandma and I would walk down the side of the house, to the backyard, to hang clothes on the line. The backyard was really more of a field of grass, with trees lining the left side as you faced it. The trees were tall and gorgeous and had been planted when my mother and her sisters and brothers were children. At the lip of the field of grass lay the forest, a sudden thicket of trees under which lay a carpet of leaves. Some of the most magical, carefree days of my life were spent in the field, that forest.
The black girls on my block were not as nonchalant about my white skin as the kids at school. A few lame, failed attempts to join their games of hop-scotch or jump rope left me confused. I assumed they could sense my otherness, and this was not being white; my otherness had always been born of my families secrets. I found I was wrong: It was that I was white- a white gurrl, as they said. I was thrilled! They despised me because of my skin color- This I could work with.
I decided to approach them one cold, overcast day. Five of them jump roped in the sloping driveway of the house next to mine. ' Can I play? ' The tall girl with two braids on the side of her head and a large, knobby nose shook her head, popped her gum. ' Nah, ' she said. I spoke up, ' Well I wanna. ' She stopped jumping and appraised me. ' Look girlie, you wanna play with us, you can fight us, each one like, in your Granmama's back yard. You fight all right, we'll play with ya'll. ' She gestured toward my small sister, on the porch. ' All right, ' I said immediately. These girls had run down homes barely kept together by rusting nails, bathrooms spotted in mold, tubs with brown and gold holes sprung in the sides like sores on a mouth, accents as thick as molasses and long standing friendships based on a culture I hardly remembered, and another I could never claim. But they were the only friends to be had, and I wanted them more than anything.
We solemnly filed to my Grandma's backyard. The girls stood in a small black knot, and I stood attached by only the hem of my dress touching the hem of Janice's dress. ' Ready? ' she asked, fists raised. Janice was chubby, with short hair and perfectly round eyes like buttons. But she looked kind. I raised my hands. Janice took a swing at me, hit my arm, I winced and tears filled my eyes. The girls laughed. ' Haw white girl! Haw! ' I filled with rage, plenty on hand in my little heart, the rage of the helpless and suffering, a rage I had carried like worms in meat for as long as I could remember. I screamed a half throaty shout, like a crazed bird, and pummeled Janice in her arms, her chest, her smooth soft throat. She made a cross with her arms, she was done.
I panted, sick to my stomach. The next girl, a petite and beautiful princess named Joyce, put up her brown skinned knuckles and smiled. Each fight afterward was playacting. At the end, we put our arms around each other in a circle. ' You all right now, ' Janice told me. And I was. We spent the rest of my year in Mississippi playing- swinging on incredible vines from trees into the rain made swimming pools of Jess' backyard, the spot her father had purposefully dug out to make a giant mud pool for the children to play in, or driving for ice cream at Baskin Robbins in the back of my Great-Grandpa's red Ford truck. I have pictures of myself with the girls, laying back in the truck, perched on the gutters, arms round each other's shoulders, best friends.
Lura and I took turns sleeping in bed with Mom, while the one out slept on the cot placed horizontally at the end of the bed. This was my 4th grade year: the year I read Pet Cemetery, made friends with Julia, whose father had died of cancer the year before, the year I moved into a home at the end of a cul-de-sac where my sister and I were the only white girls on the block. We were the only white girls for miles of blocks. The first day of school, where I was one of maybe three white kids, I felt no fear being the only white girl, just my personalized brand of constant fear, the companion of every year I could remember on Earth. I walked into the hallways bustling with black girls, chubby cheeked and bright eyed, hair glistening with scented oils, braided in fantastic loops on top their head or pulled painfully back into ponytails, girls who looked curiously at me, but not cruelly. My teacher was a soft spoken black women who bent down and looked directly into my face. I distinctly remember having the thought that she had eyes like crackling fireplaces. She smiled at me and explained how my desk and books would work, where I would sit, and patted me on my skinny freckled arm with her warm hand. I sat down and looked directly at the round, bland clock hanging on the wall for the next ten minutes, terrified to look around. Overt glances at my classmates showed nothing too terrifying, other than Jim McCracken picking his nose to third knuckle; Myrna Hellslinger appraising me dubiously. The rest of the kids were chatting, catching up after a long, hot Mississippi summer.
The only difference I ever took note of in that Mississippi elementary school was the use of corporal punishment. In San Diego, a teacher would be fired for laying a hand on a student, much less taking a thick wooden paddle, much like a ping pong paddle- perhaps it was a ping pong paddle- and laying it firmly into the submissive asses of pre-teen children. I still remember walking down the enclosed hallway, past the principal's office, and hearing Jessie Ketchinger, a sweet honey-eyed boy from my class I had a small crush on, crying out in a high pitched yelp after the short swish and smack of the paddle. I would never put gum underneath my desk.
Grandpa M.D. ( M for man, the D is a family mystery ) and Grandma Elizabeth lived at the end of a short cul-de-sac. The right side of the house had a side, enclosed porch with a screen door that opened to the grass, where Grandma and I would walk down the side of the house, to the backyard, to hang clothes on the line. The backyard was really more of a field of grass, with trees lining the left side as you faced it. The trees were tall and gorgeous and had been planted when my mother and her sisters and brothers were children. At the lip of the field of grass lay the forest, a sudden thicket of trees under which lay a carpet of leaves. Some of the most magical, carefree days of my life were spent in the field, that forest.
The black girls on my block were not as nonchalant about my white skin as the kids at school. A few lame, failed attempts to join their games of hop-scotch or jump rope left me confused. I assumed they could sense my otherness, and this was not being white; my otherness had always been born of my families secrets. I found I was wrong: It was that I was white- a white gurrl, as they said. I was thrilled! They despised me because of my skin color- This I could work with.
I decided to approach them one cold, overcast day. Five of them jump roped in the sloping driveway of the house next to mine. ' Can I play? ' The tall girl with two braids on the side of her head and a large, knobby nose shook her head, popped her gum. ' Nah, ' she said. I spoke up, ' Well I wanna. ' She stopped jumping and appraised me. ' Look girlie, you wanna play with us, you can fight us, each one like, in your Granmama's back yard. You fight all right, we'll play with ya'll. ' She gestured toward my small sister, on the porch. ' All right, ' I said immediately. These girls had run down homes barely kept together by rusting nails, bathrooms spotted in mold, tubs with brown and gold holes sprung in the sides like sores on a mouth, accents as thick as molasses and long standing friendships based on a culture I hardly remembered, and another I could never claim. But they were the only friends to be had, and I wanted them more than anything.
We solemnly filed to my Grandma's backyard. The girls stood in a small black knot, and I stood attached by only the hem of my dress touching the hem of Janice's dress. ' Ready? ' she asked, fists raised. Janice was chubby, with short hair and perfectly round eyes like buttons. But she looked kind. I raised my hands. Janice took a swing at me, hit my arm, I winced and tears filled my eyes. The girls laughed. ' Haw white girl! Haw! ' I filled with rage, plenty on hand in my little heart, the rage of the helpless and suffering, a rage I had carried like worms in meat for as long as I could remember. I screamed a half throaty shout, like a crazed bird, and pummeled Janice in her arms, her chest, her smooth soft throat. She made a cross with her arms, she was done.
I panted, sick to my stomach. The next girl, a petite and beautiful princess named Joyce, put up her brown skinned knuckles and smiled. Each fight afterward was playacting. At the end, we put our arms around each other in a circle. ' You all right now, ' Janice told me. And I was. We spent the rest of my year in Mississippi playing- swinging on incredible vines from trees into the rain made swimming pools of Jess' backyard, the spot her father had purposefully dug out to make a giant mud pool for the children to play in, or driving for ice cream at Baskin Robbins in the back of my Great-Grandpa's red Ford truck. I have pictures of myself with the girls, laying back in the truck, perched on the gutters, arms round each other's shoulders, best friends.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
A List
A list of letters, by Maggie May Ethridge
1 Dear Percy ( Percy the dog 1980-1990, died of unknown causes in our backyard, Shetland
Sheepdog, black white brown color, remembered for the clip clip clip noise of his nails on
the floor as he ran to my bedroom, the snuff of his wet nose, the retrieving of any sizable
object, 4am runs with Mom, licking tears of sisters faces while parents screamed )
2 Dear Lura ( Disappeared sister, born 1976, very high IQ, excruciatingly soft-spoken,
gorgeous, tall, tortured )
3 Dear Baby ( Lost Curry baby, lost June 2009 in the early morning hours at 13 weeks old )
4 Dear Unnamed ( Possible higher power, God, Allah, Buddha, Nature, unknown address
and existence )
5 Dear Bridget ( Former best friend from ages 13-16, boyfriend killed in drunk driving accident
at 21, last known qualifiers, meth addiction, alcoholism, despair )
1 Dear Percy ( Percy the dog 1980-1990, died of unknown causes in our backyard, Shetland
Sheepdog, black white brown color, remembered for the clip clip clip noise of his nails on
the floor as he ran to my bedroom, the snuff of his wet nose, the retrieving of any sizable
object, 4am runs with Mom, licking tears of sisters faces while parents screamed )
2 Dear Lura ( Disappeared sister, born 1976, very high IQ, excruciatingly soft-spoken,
gorgeous, tall, tortured )
3 Dear Baby ( Lost Curry baby, lost June 2009 in the early morning hours at 13 weeks old )
4 Dear Unnamed ( Possible higher power, God, Allah, Buddha, Nature, unknown address
and existence )
5 Dear Bridget ( Former best friend from ages 13-16, boyfriend killed in drunk driving accident
at 21, last known qualifiers, meth addiction, alcoholism, despair )
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
i've got a crush on this woman
Frances McDormand the name Frances *Francie* is on our baby girl list
she's in 2 of my favorite movies, ever:
Fargo and the fantastic, totally marvelous, compulsively watchable Wonder Boys, based on a book just as marvelous. If you haven't watched either or one, I recommend,
I recommend!
and
she is just one of those people that makes everything three times as more interesting because she is saying it or she is doing it. it's the metre of her voice, the quirk in her eye, the intellect mixed with mysterious weirdness, the adult woman sexual confidence, the turn in the corners of her mouth, the frankness of her speech- her interpretation of life is fascinating.
Fargo and the fantastic, totally marvelous, compulsively watchable Wonder Boys, based on a book just as marvelous. If you haven't watched either or one, I recommend,
I recommend!
and
she is just one of those people that makes everything three times as more interesting because she is saying it or she is doing it. it's the metre of her voice, the quirk in her eye, the intellect mixed with mysterious weirdness, the adult woman sexual confidence, the turn in the corners of her mouth, the frankness of her speech- her interpretation of life is fascinating.
Monday, December 21, 2009
People In Your Neighborhood: the amazing Fiona Watson
I came across Fiona's Flickr stream at Daydream Lily's lovely blog, and found Fiona's website through that
the etchings are amazing. i also love the beautiful names she gives her pieces.
'waterwings' is one of my favorites. it gives me shivers and ache, in the soul place.
tadpoles has a similar effect on me. how can a simple glass of tadpoles speak to the mystery and beauty of the world? well, just look.
In addition to her prints and etchings, Fiona also does commissioned portraits. I adore her work and will be visiting her images again and again. I think tadpoles might have inspired a short story from me.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
goodbye to all that
Goodbye then. Goodbye to all that, baby. baby. no. No more nurtsie momma. No more rubbing my flanks from behind when you are nervous, or tittering with the mole in the crest of my throat for comfort. No more kissy lips like fish. no more flubber. no more Pokemon and the endless recitals of each character's prowess, powers. but most of all, what is filled there. The anger not made in my body or my hands but brought up in the kiln and fired in the kind of blaze that burns to bone and then even deeper into the cells of the bone so that your bones are empty and you are knock-kneed and sock-eyed and left to fill yourself with what you can create in your cave with what he has given you which is all stone, and fire, and stone, and fire, and the way you fly into the air is on the lip of the flame. Which I watch in self absorption thinking ' how did this happen when I was so sure it wasn't going to happen because I did everything, everything different and in the name of love? and again. how did this happen because i did everything they told me and the therapist gave me four years and I went on bended knee to show the wrong of me and make it right, all in the name of love? and again. how did this happen when I begged borrowed and worked every day and every night to burn it down and build it right and give it to you? only so that you would not hurt like this. only so that you would not self-destruct like this. and again. ' How can I make what isn't mine or scoop the mud clay from your chest and replace it with something else, something that does not leak from your eyes and mouth at night and leave you calling out in your dreams for it to stop! stop. I hadn't planned on the other love of your life, sweet boy. I hadn't calculated the weight of a father. Me. Of all people. Me. Not calculating the weight of a father. It's the same great play and I blinked when his part was announced in the opening and coughed and yawned and thought only of my hand in yours on the stage, your eyes looking at me, your little spirit and mind so fine, so fine, and so safe in my care. Me. Of all people. Not calculating the weight of a father. Or the weightlessness without.
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