pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOWN BY THE RIVER (Monday) PBS's Voices and Visions series on American poets included, in its Elizabeth Bishop profile, breathtaking footage of a spot where two rivers—one with blue water and one with brown water—converge. The bird's-eye view of this colorful convergence is incredible. Then there's Cambodia's Tonie Sap River, which flows north for half the year, then reverses course during the rainy season and flows south for six months. When I am at the end of one emotional journey, when one way of thinking or being collapses around me and I feel the tug of strange new forces that could disrupt every process that has grown around me like a habit, blend my colors into a whole new palette and change the course of my journey, I try to think about those merging rivers. It is so difficult to just go with the flow, to absorb the pull of new and powerful presences in my life and allow the waters of my old self and these new colorful forces to converge just as they will. Talking with Poetgrrl yesterday really made me long for the space to write, and reminded me of just how much my commitments limit my ability to find the brain space to do that. These last nine months have been a gift to me in many ways. I have been almost unbearably lonely sometimes, but have gotten back to that bare, polished emotional place where my words are. Much of what I write these days is raw, but the structures I used to prop up myself and my life were exposed as flimsy constructs. What I believed in most, what I trusted—and I have trusted so few things in my life, always expecting the other shoe to drop—collapsed, right along with me. I know now that I had become comfortably numb, that this shake-up exposed me for settling and living so comfortably that I was forgetting to actually live in a way that feels authentic to me. This has been a hard lesson, but a good and necessary one: I cannot go to sleep and miss my life. Talking with Poetgrrl also made me realize just how much I miss conversations with other writers and artists who feel as passionate about their work and their creative process as I do, and who make art a central part of their lives. She also struggles to carve out time to devote to her work and agrees that teaching is rewarding, but makes it hard to find any space for your own work. Her enthusiasm as I described the structure of my novel also reminded me that it is good, that the layers I have linked together with so many disparate threads really do create a moving, tight story that I need to complete so that I can do what I hate to do most—send my creation out into the world. I am sad that she may have to come here this summer because her father is so ill, but am also excited by the prospect that someone with such creative passion may be close by soon. My grandmother used to say Let go, let God. Since I think of God as a web of connections between things—as a verb and not a noun—I like this advice. New connections are converging in my life and some parts of the old me don't want to let go, but I must and let what happens happen, must trust the process and my own ability to grow and change and thrive. And I hope I'm learning to trust my heart's capacity to accept such stunning loss and still seek love. CeeCee could arrive here in less than three weeks. She could be here for four months or for the rest of her childhood. Her mother, my fragile little sister with her undiagnosed propensity to see demons and hear angels and other less-generous voices speaking to her, could soon be holding an M-16 in hand. And she could find herself in Iraq because of circumstances that have left her unable to earn enough money to pay off her student loans. She may soon be in very real physical danger soon and on a daily basis . . . and with her minimal coping skills. Her childhood was spent in a strange and dangerous place where her older brother swung an ax at people when he was drunk and her father lashed out violently at the people he loved, where our own mother blasted off part of her head in our bloody kitchen. From the time Glittergrrl was seven until sometime this past fall—with the exception of a few years of a bad marriage and holiday means in the dining room—my sister ate her meals in a room that still had the bullethole and dark splashes of blood on the ceiling, a daily reminder of our violent landscape, of that numbing and awful experience. Strange new forces pull at her now too, as she tries to decide whether or not to join the military and uproot her life, to throw caution to the wind and trust that something entirely new may yet save her. I worry that she does not have the coping skills to withstand this experience, that she has no coping skills, in fact, because she grew up in a world that didn't provide them. I really don't know what other options are open to her at this juncture though, and so am trying to trust that this could be exactly what she needs. Most of me hopes that Glittergrrl does not join the military, that CeeCee does not come live with me, that I can continue to have isolated time in which to write, but I also recognize that having CeeCee with me could be an amazing gift to her and to me. Children offer such uncomplicated, sweet love in between their infuriating tantrums, remind us to see the world through astonished eyes, to see wonder. I am ready to assume this responsibility, but not especially eager to do so. My sister gave away her younger daughter a few years ago at birth. Knowing that this younger niece—who no doubt looks just like the rest of us, since we all bear such a strong resemblance to each other—is in my hometown and being raised by the conservative Catholic parents that Glittergrrl hand-picked, and knowing that we will eventually encounter each other when I run into the drug store for some Certs or something—that Glittergrrl was so homophobic that she gave this baby to a stranger instead of letting me raise her when I offered—is painful, and the thought of this niece being raised in another family, of her growing up without her family even knowing her, still bothers me. I would never let that happen to CeeCee. I have worried about CeeCee growing up in South Carolina surrounded by so much dysfunction every day since she was born. And I don't understand why Glittergrrl has suddenly forgotten what a homophobe she is, but maybe it's just that I'm single now, so she thinks this means that CeeCee won't be exposed to my, um, lifestyle. I believe I would be a good parent who would expose CeeCee to a much broader world and to new and diverse experiences that could help her grow. I believe that I can provide creative space where she can discover her own ideas freely rather than have them handed to her cloaked in a Baptist flag. Operagrrl convinced me to borrow her single bed instead of buying a full-size one—at least until we know how long or if CeeCee will be here. I walked around the house this weekend trying to figure out how to childproof it—no more chemicals and poison beneath the kitchen sink; no more knives sitting out by the stove, reachable by little fingers; no more fast driving in my zippy little car or yelling Fuck You when someone cuts me off in traffic. I guess I'll have to move my nudes into another room too, since the pictures in my studio are not appropriate for a six-year-old's room. • After Poetgrrl and I talked for hours, I came home and cut the grass, hauled two very large pots containing two new crepe myrtles down from the deck to the yard, dug two holes, and planted them by the storage room, then stuck heirloom tomatoes and chives into pots and set them up on the lower level of my deck. Then I planted more herbs in one of the raised beds and moved some furniture and other plants around. I also hauled my very full recycling bin out to the street. (Those chorus board members sure can drink a lot of beer.) 12:16 p.m. - 2005-05-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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