red cape! stand for my heart

june newton by helmut newton

gone to mrs. basil's files

maggie may ethridge

Isabella Blow: Distrust the Biography

People say, how are you? And you say, ' Fabulous.' But not Isabella. She'd say- ' Suicidal'

“I want to die,” she would tell her friends, in what seemed, perhaps, like more elaborate hyperbole. How could she, they wondered, as they stood amid the splendid world she’d created for herself, full of beauty and friendship with the witty and the famous, most of whom, quite literally, worshipped at her feet"

How could she? How could they- how do we end up with large pools of people
lying to themselves so often and so vehemently they forget
what it is to be alive? That they do not know
neither money
nor beauty
nor friendships based on parties
can give us meaning

Her friends were concerned, but they were also growing tired of her macabre side... ” As one put it, “Someone finally said, ‘Look, Issie, if you really mean to kill yourself, there’s a pool out back, go drown!’”

These. Are. Not. Friends.
This was a woman deeply, deeply alone.
She came from here:

When Blow was 4 years old, her younger brother drowned in a half-full swimming pool while, as she later recalled, her mother was upstairs putting on lipstick and her father mixing some drinks....Blow’s parents never recovered from the tragedy, and her mother eventually left when Blow was 14. “It was literally a handshake and then she was off,” says Detmar. “The stepmother came with three daughters and sort of said to Issie, ‘Okay, then. You’re out.’”

and ended up with this man:

“She said, ‘Samo,’ which is ‘same old shit,’ which is all that Basquiat ever said,” Detmar ( her husband) says. “It’s not the most original thing for her to have said, but that’s what she said. Samo. ( he comments on her ORIGINALITY )I finally said, ‘Okay, I’ll move out,’ and I rented a flat in Shoreditch, which is very fashionable.” He also had some affairs, most famously with Stephanie Theobald, a supposedly lesbian writer.

“I had a lot of loneliness,” he says, defending himself. “Issie was always working. I had to schedule time with her, so I always had these platonic crushes. Because I was married to Issie, I got much prettier dates than I ever could have on my own.” (!!!!)

Blow, for her part, retaliated with the gondolier and his bulging white pants, but in the end, she told her friends that he stole a lot of her money and wasn’t good for much else.

Blow by Blow: The Story of Isabella Blow, is co-written by Isabella's husband of 18 years, Detmar Blow ( would you like your cheating ex-husband to write your autobiography? ) due 2010

She could not have the babies she wanted. She thought of herself as hideously ugly. She was
abandoned by her father, cast out of her own home. She was cheated on and lied to and clinically depressed. She jumped off a bridge and shattered many bones in her long body. What is the real story of Isabella Blow? And how will we know if her husband tells us her life?

What is the real story of Isabella Blow?

* all quotes from NYT

my pain is self-chosen

sleepless in san diego

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i will not be confined by my own ( mind )
i will not be confined by my own ( town )
i will not be confined by my own ( fears )
i will not be confined by my own ( past )
i will not be confined by my own ( secrets )
i will not be confined by my own ( vanity )
i will not be confined by my own ( anxieties )
i will not be confined by my own ( sex ) *


there are certain words and those words
begin with capital letters and those capital
letters signify a specific person place or thing
that is why our names are capitalized
and maybe why i have always written poems
entirely in lower case.



i will not be confined by my own ( blog )

i am awake at almost five am. i have not been to sleep. this was completely by choice. no one made me do it. i made myself do it. i let myself do it? Mr. Curry has been out of sorts the last three days and although he is out of sorts i still came out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel and called him in from the living room and pulled him into the hallway and demanded sex. this is one of the major benefits of marriage. of my marriage, anyway. i am a scorpio. Mr. Curry was already in his swim trunks and there were three very excited children waiting to go swimming on a Friday night but Mr. Curry still followed me into the bedroom and shut the door and smiled at me and when we went to the pool i was happier and much more relaxed than before we left for the pool.

which reminds me of trying on swimsuits last weekend. which reminds me to mention never to try on swimsuits when you are on your period, especially when your period is not really a period but a prolonged spotting that led to bleeding caused by losing our baby at thirteen weeks and so your thyroid which is already bad gets worse and your hormones are miserable and clogging up where they should be bursting and bursting where they should be showing restraint and so you are puffy and out of sorts with your body and when you try on the bikini over your underwear like a good girl you think to yourself with a shocking spite that if wal-mart cannot get better mirrors in their dressing rooms they had better not let hormonal women try on bikinis.

lola moon is lying next to me asleep. dakota and ian sleep in their room. Mr. Curry fell asleep on the couch. the air conditioner runs. the house is listening to me type with it's window eyes and vent ear and the hungry catching breaths of our dogs somewhere under the beds of teenage boys. weasley and bellatrix cried for twenty minutes tonight when we put them in the sunroom for bed because we have to because in the hour we let them in to play mr. weasley pooped twice in the corner and for his physical safety i think it's best if he and Mr. Curry are not too close.

lately i am wishing it would hurry up and be over. in my twenties i terrifically envied those women who were so stable and emotionally astute and practical that they marched on as they should regardless. i am marching on as i should and life must go on but if my body could just catch the fuck up a little i think i could stop feeling sad. this summer is beautiful and i am enjoying it and i am terribly, ( desperately ) grateful for my loved ones and my life but i feel sad all the time, even when i am laughing. like my mouth will be wide open in a huge laugh and i snort when i laugh, too, and i will notice that at the corner of my mouth there is a small trickle of sadness moving outward, and i will stop and think 'what is that?' and ' why am i sad?' and there are so many reasons possible that i have to stop and think. because my life is not easy or full of simplicity AT ALL. wow i wish it was. it's not. so i think about all the sad things and then i think about losing the baby and how pregnant i would be by now and i feel sadder and then i think 'oh'-

and then i try not to do what anne lammott talks about which i totally DO do which is let my hypochondria take over, and i think to myself even IF, even IF something IS wrong sweetie (because sometimes when i am very scared or sad i have to talk to myself like a nice mommy) you won't be spending your time wallowing in fear and despair but fighting it and moving toward health and life, so why let yourself do that NOW, when

suddenlyi think about how the last four days i am having the heaviest period ever, and how i am waiting for another round of bloodwork results to come back in ( blood count, pregnancy hormone levels, etc ) and i feel heavy in my stomach area. and tired. i'm very, very tired, all the time, no matter how much i sleep.

so tonight, i don't sleep.

tonight, i sit in my shit.

cozy.

* the author does not take responsibility for living these out to their full potential
but puts the intent out there with all sincerity

written on my body

Submitted by Katie:

I got the tattoo when I was going through a series of events I ended up losing a large number of those who were close to me. I got to a point where I was absolutely miserable and couldn’t find a good reason to wake up in the morning. I work in dorms and during my hard times some of my residents who I’d helped quite a bit throughout the year saw through my “I’m fine”’s and would come to me and would talk to me about all the different ways I’d helped them. In the midst of everything piling up it just reminded me that despite whatever BS I’ve gone through if I’m still able to wake up in the morning and help make someone else’s life better then my own will always have meaning. (The little flurries you see around the text are from a dandelion that’s on my back.)


IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
- Emily Dickinson, Not In Vain

I found this kick ass website, Contrariwise It's a collection of literary tattoos I adore the Harriet the Spy image- one of my favorite childhood books and inspirations

Women Writers In Photo- Guest Post at English Muse

The lovely English Muse is taking a summer hiatus; I am guest posting occasionally. Take a look at #1 : Women Writers in Photo

The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Ridiculous Endeavors

I am into small pschological adjusters.

Coping Mechanisms Recently Utilized in the Curry Family

-Milk Duds
-Harry Potter Books, Repeatedly Read By Various Family Members Until Pages Fall Out
-Champagne with cran-cherry juice splash
-Swimming Pools
-Ridiculous Jokes, Obnoxious, Snorting Laughter ( "Mom you are the most without a doubt the most and without DOUBT the most embarrassing ridiculous mom ever in the history of time" )
-Parodies of shows, songs, and people ( " haha! ' New Poon' is the porn of ' New Moon' haha ) *
-Nightly wrestling in the living room/kitchen area to the point of knocking pictures off the wall **
-Admissions of guilt, ie 'confession' : " I ate the ice cream " " I farted " " I'm sorry I put Vagisil cream on your owie instead of Neosporin " " Damnit I broke another cup " " I chewed the entire pack of gum last night "
-Sex***

* No children involved in this joke
** Mr. Curry and the boys must own this one
***No children involved



I have given up smoking ( began: age 15 quit: age 30- also for both pregnancies ) heavy drinking, self indulgent pity over small infractions, self flagellation in various forms and other vices, all intended to control the chaos inside. What I need to be ' OK ' ( In AA, 'fine' stands for Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional ) has, over the years, morphed from what keeps me barely stable to what keeps me ' happy '. By happy, I mean grateful, looking forward to things, loved, loving, etc- to feel ' happy ' is not a constant state of mind for normal humans who are not Zen masters or stoned out of their mind. I haven't been stoned since 1990.

Having had an abusive, lonely childhood, I was transphormed by pregnancy as an unwed teenage mother, given a reason to live beyond myself. I had to have something else to live for, and Dakota, my boy, he was that, as easily and profoundly and clearly as a clarion call. I began to shed more vice, move toward a better life, but it was the steady, clear light of my love for him that was the headlight in the fog. I still felt depressed all the time. I was depressed, clinically so, for most of my life. I've only felt as good as I do now for the last three years. I had three years before then, after Lola, holding steady at another level of 'good', and then all the years after Dakota was born. The Before Dakota Was Born is a long, mournful howling of the soul. It still rings inside of me like a depressive's tinnitus. It is part of me.

The letting go of vice and moving toward a higher level of existence, of happiness, was based on the belief I had that I would see no immediate results, but instead a slow, long, excrutiating rehabilitation. Which is what it was. I put in so much work. Long years of therapy, teetering on the edge of my own abyss, long years of fear, shaking panic attacks in the middle of the night, staring at the clean unmoved sky smoking my cigarette with shaking hand, praying to God although I had no faith- only hope- and this was enough for me.

Some Things I Believed That Kept Me From Complete Despair

-Focusing on myself brought blurry vision and misery. Helping others, giving of myself through family and friends but also strangers and volunteer work, gave clarity, meaning, and relief from isolation. I knew early on that the answers did not lie in fervent self improval alone, but came as much, if not more, from what I could learn and receive from helping/connecting to those who suffered.
- Zoloft
- Excercise. I had always been exhausted, later to be diagnosed with various problems. But depression + physical problems means an urgent need for exercise, to help the body balance and detox. So I forced myself, after Dakota was born, for the first time ever. Bought a video, worked out five days a week, felt better. Less sad.
- Nutrional healing is key when mental problems exist. I'm sure that suffering, if it was a tangible thing, would eat sugar and white bread. In fact I'm sure it does.
- Hard, meaninful work clears the mind. The pilgrim thinking, the farmer mentality, so true. Hard work is the answer to many an ill, and important for a meaningful life, in whatever form it takes .
- Learning makes me happy.
- Mentors are important to growth. I found mine, for most of my years, in books.
- Yoga, when I finally gave in and tried it? AMAZING. It kills anxiety.
- Accepting, not submitting but accepting, that I was depressed and scared all my life, and stopping fighting against it, but moving forward accepting I felt it, knowing that the human condition was overflowing with people who felt like me and worse, was key to moving away from those feelings. I had to stop feeling deeply, deeply sorry for myself in order to begin healing.

These days I have no belief that I am safe from emotional furies. I have felt them ebb and flow, and my life with Mr. Curry has been very difficult. We are extremely poor, both of us have to manage emotional problems, we are a blended family, and I have had serious health problems and surgeries which in addition to the obvious stresses have ruined me financially. But the perspective that I have on my life is priceless to me. Priceless. I know that when the skies clear at night and the wind stills and the earth is letting out the bats and owls and tigers, my cries are not the loudest, and my pain is not singular. We are not alone. We have each other in this life. For me, that is the majority of what blogging is about.

-
love, maggie

The Evening Swim

San Diego is curling in on itself like a Southern cat around her kittens. She purrs on the porch, a dog barks in the distance, bugs hizz and floss through flowers and children. The heat knits and purls, knits and purls, I am a salt lick for husband. The air throbs, an atmospheric heartbeat.

After work, Mr. Curry shuts the bedroom door softly and watches the kids while I stretch out

from head to toe, Lola's stuffed dog on my belly. I close my eyes and drown in sleep, heat, the happiness and joy of my family's voices within my reach, murmuring and cracking throughout the house. I fall asleep to the sound of Lola's voice ' Dadddyyyy! '

A half hour later I wake, bleary eyed and stumbling. I pull on my polka dotted bikini and Mr. Curry ties it in a knot in the back, because the plastic clasp has broken and I don't have time or inclination to run down the street to Target and buy a new one. For one night, this will do. It is almost 7pm. Lola and Dakota smell like sunblock, this is how hot the sun is. We leave the front door wide open to air the house out, because Bellatrix and Weasley peed in the corner. Again. Mr. Curry slides his hand up my dress and thigh and we drive in silence to the community pool, barely a ten minute drive.

The pool is enormous, one area for children at 4 feet, a large free area, laps roped off for exercise, and another, deeper area on the far side with the diving boards. We pay the 2$ per person and slide gratefully into the lukewarm water. Birds dart overhead. There are a small handful of people for all this wide water. My family all swims to the middle of the large free area. This is possible because our Lola Moon, the baby of the family at 7, just learned how to swim LAST WEEK. We are so proud of her, so excited to see her wiggling and turning in the water like a big girl. The four of us bob and float in a square, grinning stupidly at each other. The young life gaurd watches us with a look on his face like he is thinking maybe one day, he will have such a thing as a family of his own. Watching us to see what it's like. The sky is enormous and unhurt by buildings, open and clear and blue. The air breaks as Michael Jackson's ' Billie Jean ' pulses from the loudspeakers. Mr. Curry begins to dance in the water. I slide my legs around him. Lola and Dakota pile on. We don't have Ian this day. We all swim through the music and the evening begins to set on the water and the light is beautiful and I slip into the embrace of the blue blue water and swim like a mermaid underneath the kicking feet of the most beautiful people in this world.

My family.

The Prayers of Nonbelievers

There is no Church for nonbelievers. There is no prayer circut for the poets who don't believe in God, the intellectuals who do not accept religious doctrine, the scientists who do not engage in a community of worship outside their microscopes. There is no laying on of hands or group mission statements for nonbelievers in a certain God or divine spirit. No wafer or blood to drink, no sins to confess to priests, no ' special religion ' as Anne Sexton said, to keep our spirits moving toward enlightement and our daily lives moving toward the divine in ourselves. Mr. Curry and I drive by the churches, their white painted walls and enormous wooden crosses and startling proclamations on rectangular billboards ' GOD WILL NOT FORGIVE IF YOU DO NOT ASK '.
We drive by a Catholic church often that has an entryway into the parking lot with twin winged lions on each side, rising up in their righteousness, and I feel a keen longing for a homecoming of a kind I do not think likely I will ever have. A mass of people desiring to serve without irony, to love without mocking or dividing or excluding, to use the oldest human traditions to ' keep the mind safe ', as Kate Mcrae's mother says in an absolutely heart wrenching and beautiful CaringBridge journal - the traditions of prayer, of song, of beauty to lift up the potential of man, of repetition to divine the energy, of art to see the angles of the elephant, of gatherings with common goals to nourish the infant cry seed of human desire to bond, to find safety in the net of community, friendship, family. We are in this together. We are all going to face demons.

My Nana gave me a prayer book she dated next to her signature as 1976, when I would have been 2 years old. It's called Just A Minute, Lord and has prayers like this one:

Make Me Well Soon

Lord,
I hate being sick
even it's just the flu
or a bad cold.
I get panicky thinking
about what it must be like
being in bed
for weeks or months.
Give me the strength you had
when you suffered pain.
Remind me of the people you healed
while on earth.
If it is your will,
make me well soon.
Soon, Lord,
If you don't mind?

This may be a book written by Christians for very small children, but the simple and earnest prayers that fill it's pages touch my heart deeply, because they are the cries of not only the very young but the teen, the middle aged, the elderly- of human beings. Crying out to the Universe in prayer, oftentimes in our most vulnerable place, our beds, for relief from the pain of rejection, for the strength not to judge others ( Help Me Unlabel, Lord ), the courage to help those in need, the love to love even when it's the last thing we feel we can do.

I remember vividly: laying open the yellow prayer book with it's 70's style illustrations, reading the prayers in my mind, silently, or whispered out loud, cautiously, and hoping beyond hope that somewhere, someone was listening and loving me. If not me, at least the idea of me. That would do. Someone, something, somewhere, who cared. I did not have high expectations.

One of the prayers in this book brings tears to my eyes. The nostalgia is overwhelming, the memories horrible and tender, and the message still so true for me today. It's called ' Lord, I'm Worried About People. ' I am worried about people, this week, all the time. I think I could use a prayer for a nonbeliever. Are you worried about people= Would you like to pray with me to the enternal Universe and to the central Spirit and dignity and love and suffering inherent to human existence? OK.

Yo. This Is The Prayer of the Nonbelievers Who Believe In Love

Babies in their bassinets, in cancer wards, NICU, NeuroUnit, homes, without the spiritual ferocity of love translated into the constant presence of touch.

- love, i give myself to you, to your pain, your suffering, your humble servitude. Love, I ask
you to give me the strength and will to reach out and make a difference, even when I am
afraid of looking ridiculous, unforgiveably sincere, unflatteringly pedantic.

(Love, hear our prayer )

Elderly people stuck in nursing home and long care facilities and hospitals and hospice who
feel scared, humiliated, abandoned, ridiculed, abused or generally given the raw deal at the end
ofsee in the face of an elderly person the face of my future, to see the face of a human being,
not just a set of ideals I'm already sure I don't agree with.


- Love, i ask you to help me reach out to the elderly in my community. Love, please help me
the elderly go before me in line, even when I do not want to because my children are fighting
and I'm late to work. Love, help me to smile, to touch a hand, to pick up a fallen object, to
help bring friendship to older people, not leaving them out of the community because of prejudice,
not excluding them from aside comments, jokes, knowing looks, or other forms of human bonding,
but instead becoming more increasinly inclusive.


(Love, hear our prayer )

Mothers and Fathers dying before their children are grown. Michelle L, with metatastic
breast cancer and son Connor and daughter Chloe and husband, to every woman and man
having to say the hardest goodbye.

-Love, I ask you to help me to have the courage to reach out even when I am afraid of saying
the wrong thing, of insulting, or of embarrasing. Help me to remember that connection is
not embarrasing, that love is not reduntant or unecessary for anyone, and that I, just as
much as anyone, can offer it. Help me to be unselfish and face my own fears of death or
leaving my children as I see this pain and hear this agony.

( Love, hear our prayer )

Soldiers wounded, exploded, shot or disabled, soldiers mentally unstable or spiritually ravaged,
soldiers young and middle aged and old, soldiers man and women, and Love help us, children
and adults. Soldiers who never make it home.

- Love, I ask you to help me find ways to show soldiers my gratitude and compassion. Small
though they may be, help me to remember that nano is sometimes the largest compound.

( Love, hear our prayer )



May Love Be With You

( And Also With You )