Jennifer Lauck's Blog, page 25
May 29, 2011
Fresh Writing: The Shadow
First draft
My Shadow died Thursday morning at eight A.M. Pacific Standard Time. But that's not how to tell a proper story, is it?
Let's start again.
It's Thursday morning, another day of the same thing: I'm up at five, watch the sun lift in the sky, say my prayers, drink some tea, eat a bit of lavender chocolate (okay, more like half a bar) and then it's seven a.m. and Spencer comes into my room first--a big lug of a man-boy--who bends down to give me a big bear hug.
"Are you enlightened yet?" he asks.
"Afraid not," I confess.
Ten minutes later it's little Jo Jo on my lap for a cuddle and she breathes morning breath on my face as she tells me about a dream. "It was weird," she says, in her light bright voice, "it was Christmas and Daddy was coming to give me a present but then my tooth fell out."
"Do you have a loose tooth?" I ask.
"Sort of but not really," she says. She moves her finger on her front canine. Mr. Wiggly, we call it.
The sky is blue and the sun is bright. Wind blows and it's cold like March. June is just a few days away.
I readjust her so the bone of her butt doesn't rub so much on the bone of my shin. I try to be careful though because too much jostling around and she'll be gone in a flash and I'll miss a moment more of holding her tight. How much longer will I be able to hold this girl on my lap? That's what I think and then more thoughts rush in: before we leave for school, will I have time to take a shower and clean the chicken coop?
"Sweets," I say as I set Jo on her feet. "What do you want for breakfast? Bagel and cream cheese or cereal?"
"Cereal!" she declares. She tugs down her pajama top--pink with a poodle sewn on. The poodle is black fabric. It's a shadow of a poodle. Dog in profile.
"OK!" I say.
One more hug and she's off. I blow out the candles at my alter and go down to take my shower, pull on jeans, dry my hair and check the time.
Spencer and I get into a fight--what is it about? He's on the computer, I think, and that bugs me or maybe he didn't clean his dishes. I don't even know but it's not good. We're both pissed off and I think he yells or I yell and that's how it is with my teenager these days. We're both fast to fire and that's no good with a teenager. We're doing therapy to catch this tiger by the tail.
"Let's just table this until we meet with the therapist," I say.
"FINE!" he yells.
He storms out of the house and I follow him down the steps and call out how he better come back and hug me because if something happens to either one of us before we see each other again--well, that would suck.
Spencer stops on the sidewalk, pauses for a second and then slouches back toward me--PISSED. He hates when I play the "this might be last time I see you" card but I can't help it. Death is real. The Buddhists remind us how life is a party on death row.
Spencer hugs me but it's a bullshit hug and as he storms away to school, I watch him go and get all in my head about what a bad mother I am and how I'm blowing it with him in 15,000 different ways and then I check the clock. 15 minutes before Jo needs to leave for school.
Jo is on the floor in the living room and she makes a world for a small rock she calls Rockie. It's her way to avoid the conflict that fires between Spencer and me. Jo disappears into fantasy.
She has this thing where she collects boxes and makes houses for all kinds of things--rocks, shells, pine cones. Rockie has a three box house. "Remember to pack your snack, sweets," I say.
"I will, Mommy," she says.
"And comb your hair," I add.
"Ok," she says.
Out back, the chickens are in the coop--one Brahma named Sunny (Jo's girl) and my girl named Shadow. Sunny is all aggressive and pesky at the door of the coop--LET ME OUT--the way she is. That damn chicken scares me to death. But Shadow, a Jersey Giant, sits in a self made hole at the back of the coop.
I know before I know.
A quiet chicken in a self made hole is a sick chicken.
In January, it was our other Brahma, Diamond. Spencer's girl. She was in a hole. 24 hours later, she was dead.
I scoop my girl into my arms and feel around her behind. Is an egg bound up there? Is she hot? Is it bacterial?
"Hi sweets," I coo.
This is a girl I raised from a tiny little chick. She was just a palm of beak and fuzz not that long ago. Two years? Chickens are supposed to live to be 11 or 12. That's what the damn urban chicken book told us but now--her she is. Sick.
Shit!
Shadow is a big girl, ten pounds at least and she's all black feathers that shimmer green when you hold her in the sunlight. She has dark brown eyes. She is a sweet girl. One egg a day, every day for more than a year. Her dark eyes blink in a slow, tired expression of surrender.
Denial throws up a wall and I tell myself she's not going to die. I'll think of something but first, first, I have to clean the coop right away. I ease Shadow into the top shelf of the coop, scoot that mean-bad-ass Sunny into the run and rake the sand clear of poo, vegi droppings and greens. I make a pile and lift it all into a recycling bin.
That's what happens when I'm scared. I move fast and clean everything in sight. I'm scared a lot--even when things aren't scary. My house is spotless because that's the way it is when you've been conditioned on terror. Everything, even nothing, is scary inside my brain and it takes a lot of work to calm that shit down. Yoga. Meditation. Breathing. I tell myself, "it's okay. It's okay. It's okay." That's the reason I'm up at five, everyday. Prayer is peace. Prayer is quiet. Prayer is hope that I can change this brain.
Add more food to the feeder, change the water and then check Shadow again. She's limp and I think about antibiotics I have in the house. I'll break one up, yeah, that's what I'll do but then again, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I carry her out into the run and she moves a little in my hands. I put her down on the ground, thinking maybe she'll just pop up and it will be okay but she doesn't.
She rolls on her side and jerks a few times and that's it. My girl just dies there in front of me and I'm fucking clueless about what to do. I call over my shoulder to Jo and ask her please, please to bring me the phone and while I wait, I kneel on the ground and tell Shadow how sorry I am as if this damn chicken is inside of her head blaming me for being a lame chicken farmer (which I am).
In no time, Jo is behind me with the phone in her hand. Her blue eyes are wide. Her tangled hair tumbles over her shoulders.
"Mom?"
"It's Shadow," I say and try to suck it up but I can't. I start to cry.
Jo drops to her knees but she doesn't really have an emotional response. She's not a huge fans of the chickens. When her bunny died, she wailed but the chickens are big and stinky and lizard like. Jo's more of a gerbil girl.
I dial my husband but then mis-dial and then dial again and I wonder why in the world am I calling him? He's at work and he knows less about these birds than I do. What's he going to do? And what does it matter?
The wind blows over us and Shadow's feathers shimmer dark green. Sunny hovers around, pacing in this half circle pattern. She keeps her distance but makes this weird squawk sound.
I drop the phone on the ground, giving up on my man. Jo touches Shadow's soft dark neck feathers.
"She's still warm," Jo says.
I sob, uncontrollable now. Such a bad mother. I shouldn't be losing my shit in front of my little girl. I'm supposed to be the strong one but I'm just overcome with a sense of total helplessness and regret and skill-less-ness in the face of whatever has taken this chicken away.
Jo puts her slim arm around my shoulders. Doesn't even hesitate and I think about how solid she feels.
I'm so sorry, Mom," Jo says.
When did I learn I wasn't supposed to cry? When was I told emotion was only the dominion of children and that adults were supposed to always, under all circumstances, keep their shit together? When did it happen that feelings were not allowed? I don't even know. I just know that I am filled to the brim with this story about crying and that I shouldn't be upset but I am upset. I am very upset. My damn chicken has died in a flash and I am in charge of her and this life was in my hands and I blew it. I don't know, didn't know, what to do.
As Jo holds her arm around me and I cry, I think about other times that death has come to call on me. My mother when I was seven, my father when I was nine and my brother when I was just twenty years old. Every single death felt the same--like defeat. I didn't know what to and I blamed myself for what I didn't know and I cried with that terror of someone who is sure, somehow, it's her fault.
It's just a chicken.
I know.
I know.
Later in the day, I will be told, "chicken's just die. It happens. It's not your fault. You're going to have to get a tougher skin if you are going to be a chicken farmer."
And I guess it's true but right now--I don't have a tough skin. I'm raw with sorrow and confusion. I didn't know what to do and the girl is gone and now Jo is late to school--something she hates more than anything.
"Honey," I say as I swipe my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. "I need to get you to school. You're late."
"It's okay, Mom," she says. "It doesn't matter, I can be late one day."
I nod and agree. It's just third grade.
Sunny pecks at the phone, like she wants to make a call and I realize I have to call Spencer. He'll be home for lunch to check the chickens and when he sees Shadow gone, that won't go well.
I wipe my nose on the tail of my shirt. "I need to call Spencer at school," I say. "And we should do something...with her body...we can't just leave her out here."
Jo nods like yes, that all makes sense.
"I have a box," she offers.
"Okay," I say.
Jo runs into the house.
I flip through the phone and look up the school number.
Ten minutes later, Spencer is home again and we all stand over Shadow, who has been wrapped in silk and placed in small box. Jo has added a plastic chicken and a few a shiny rocks. I covered her with rose petals. Spencer put in some leaves from a fragrant bush.
"It's like you said," Spencer finally says, "you never know."
"I know," I say.
We all stand there, stupid with nothing more to say. Life and death. They are here and happening and in the end, what can we do?
Finally, it's Spencer who says we need to put Shadow over by the statue of the Buddha--let her body rest like the Tibetan's teach--since it's believed the consciousness of a being, all beings, resides in the body for up to three days.
"Maybe she'll be reborn in a better place."
We all say a few mantra: Om Mani Padme Hung, the universal prayer of compassion and then Spencer and I hug, a real one this time, and he says he's sorry he yelled.
"Me too," I say. "Let's just start again."
My Shadow died Thursday morning at eight A.M. Pacific Standard Time. But that's not how to tell a proper story, is it?
Let's start again.
It's Thursday morning, another day of the same thing: I'm up at five, watch the sun lift in the sky, say my prayers, drink some tea, eat a bit of lavender chocolate (okay, more like half a bar) and then it's seven a.m. and Spencer comes into my room first--a big lug of a man-boy--who bends down to give me a big bear hug.
"Are you enlightened yet?" he asks.
"Afraid not," I confess.
Ten minutes later it's little Jo Jo on my lap for a cuddle and she breathes morning breath on my face as she tells me about a dream. "It was weird," she says, in her light bright voice, "it was Christmas and Daddy was coming to give me a present but then my tooth fell out."
"Do you have a loose tooth?" I ask.
"Sort of but not really," she says. She moves her finger on her front canine. Mr. Wiggly, we call it.
The sky is blue and the sun is bright. Wind blows and it's cold like March. June is just a few days away.
I readjust her so the bone of her butt doesn't rub so much on the bone of my shin. I try to be careful though because too much jostling around and she'll be gone in a flash and I'll miss a moment more of holding her tight. How much longer will I be able to hold this girl on my lap? That's what I think and then more thoughts rush in: before we leave for school, will I have time to take a shower and clean the chicken coop?
"Sweets," I say as I set Jo on her feet. "What do you want for breakfast? Bagel and cream cheese or cereal?"
"Cereal!" she declares. She tugs down her pajama top--pink with a poodle sewn on. The poodle is black fabric. It's a shadow of a poodle. Dog in profile.
"OK!" I say.
One more hug and she's off. I blow out the candles at my alter and go down to take my shower, pull on jeans, dry my hair and check the time. Spencer and I get into a fight--what is it about? He's on the computer, I think, and that bugs me or maybe he didn't clean his dishes. I don't even know but it's not good. We're both pissed off and I think he yells or I yell and that's how it is with my teenager these days. We're both fast to fire and that's no good with a teenager. We're doing therapy to catch this tiger by the tail.
"Let's just table this until we meet with the therapist," I say.
"FINE!" he yells.
He storms out of the house and I follow him down the steps and call out how he better come back and hug me because if something happens to either one of us before we see each other again--well, that would suck.
Spencer stops on the sidewalk, pauses for a second and then slouches back toward me--PISSED. He hates when I play the "this might be last time I see you" card but I can't help it. Death is real. The Buddhists remind us how life is a party on death row.
Spencer hugs me but it's a bullshit hug and as he storms away to school, I watch him go and get all in my head about what a bad mother I am and how I'm blowing it with him in 15,000 different ways and then I check the clock. 15 minutes before Jo needs to leave for school.
Jo is on the floor in the living room and she makes a world for a small rock she calls Rockie. It's her way to avoid the conflict that fires between Spencer and me. Jo disappears into fantasy.
She has this thing where she collects boxes and makes houses for all kinds of things--rocks, shells, pine cones. Rockie has a three box house. "Remember to pack your snack, sweets," I say.
"I will, Mommy," she says.
"And comb your hair," I add.
"Ok," she says.
Out back, the chickens are in the coop--one Brahma named Sunny (Jo's girl) and my girl named Shadow. Sunny is all aggressive and pesky at the door of the coop--LET ME OUT--the way she is. That damn chicken scares me to death. But Shadow, a Jersey Giant, sits in a self made hole at the back of the coop.
I know before I know.
A quiet chicken in a self made hole is a sick chicken.
In January, it was our other Brahma, Diamond. Spencer's girl. She was in a hole. 24 hours later, she was dead.
I scoop my girl into my arms and feel around her behind. Is an egg bound up there? Is she hot? Is it bacterial?
"Hi sweets," I coo.
This is a girl I raised from a tiny little chick. She was just a palm of beak and fuzz not that long ago. Two years? Chickens are supposed to live to be 11 or 12. That's what the damn urban chicken book told us but now--her she is. Sick.Shit!
Shadow is a big girl, ten pounds at least and she's all black feathers that shimmer green when you hold her in the sunlight. She has dark brown eyes. She is a sweet girl. One egg a day, every day for more than a year. Her dark eyes blink in a slow, tired expression of surrender.
Denial throws up a wall and I tell myself she's not going to die. I'll think of something but first, first, I have to clean the coop right away. I ease Shadow into the top shelf of the coop, scoot that mean-bad-ass Sunny into the run and rake the sand clear of poo, vegi droppings and greens. I make a pile and lift it all into a recycling bin.
That's what happens when I'm scared. I move fast and clean everything in sight. I'm scared a lot--even when things aren't scary. My house is spotless because that's the way it is when you've been conditioned on terror. Everything, even nothing, is scary inside my brain and it takes a lot of work to calm that shit down. Yoga. Meditation. Breathing. I tell myself, "it's okay. It's okay. It's okay." That's the reason I'm up at five, everyday. Prayer is peace. Prayer is quiet. Prayer is hope that I can change this brain.
Add more food to the feeder, change the water and then check Shadow again. She's limp and I think about antibiotics I have in the house. I'll break one up, yeah, that's what I'll do but then again, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I carry her out into the run and she moves a little in my hands. I put her down on the ground, thinking maybe she'll just pop up and it will be okay but she doesn't.
She rolls on her side and jerks a few times and that's it. My girl just dies there in front of me and I'm fucking clueless about what to do. I call over my shoulder to Jo and ask her please, please to bring me the phone and while I wait, I kneel on the ground and tell Shadow how sorry I am as if this damn chicken is inside of her head blaming me for being a lame chicken farmer (which I am).
In no time, Jo is behind me with the phone in her hand. Her blue eyes are wide. Her tangled hair tumbles over her shoulders.
"Mom?"
"It's Shadow," I say and try to suck it up but I can't. I start to cry.
Jo drops to her knees but she doesn't really have an emotional response. She's not a huge fans of the chickens. When her bunny died, she wailed but the chickens are big and stinky and lizard like. Jo's more of a gerbil girl.
I dial my husband but then mis-dial and then dial again and I wonder why in the world am I calling him? He's at work and he knows less about these birds than I do. What's he going to do? And what does it matter?
The wind blows over us and Shadow's feathers shimmer dark green. Sunny hovers around, pacing in this half circle pattern. She keeps her distance but makes this weird squawk sound.
I drop the phone on the ground, giving up on my man. Jo touches Shadow's soft dark neck feathers.
"She's still warm," Jo says.
I sob, uncontrollable now. Such a bad mother. I shouldn't be losing my shit in front of my little girl. I'm supposed to be the strong one but I'm just overcome with a sense of total helplessness and regret and skill-less-ness in the face of whatever has taken this chicken away.
Jo puts her slim arm around my shoulders. Doesn't even hesitate and I think about how solid she feels.
I'm so sorry, Mom," Jo says.
When did I learn I wasn't supposed to cry? When was I told emotion was only the dominion of children and that adults were supposed to always, under all circumstances, keep their shit together? When did it happen that feelings were not allowed? I don't even know. I just know that I am filled to the brim with this story about crying and that I shouldn't be upset but I am upset. I am very upset. My damn chicken has died in a flash and I am in charge of her and this life was in my hands and I blew it. I don't know, didn't know, what to do.
As Jo holds her arm around me and I cry, I think about other times that death has come to call on me. My mother when I was seven, my father when I was nine and my brother when I was just twenty years old. Every single death felt the same--like defeat. I didn't know what to and I blamed myself for what I didn't know and I cried with that terror of someone who is sure, somehow, it's her fault.
It's just a chicken.
I know.
I know.
Later in the day, I will be told, "chicken's just die. It happens. It's not your fault. You're going to have to get a tougher skin if you are going to be a chicken farmer."
And I guess it's true but right now--I don't have a tough skin. I'm raw with sorrow and confusion. I didn't know what to do and the girl is gone and now Jo is late to school--something she hates more than anything.
"Honey," I say as I swipe my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. "I need to get you to school. You're late."
"It's okay, Mom," she says. "It doesn't matter, I can be late one day."
I nod and agree. It's just third grade.
Sunny pecks at the phone, like she wants to make a call and I realize I have to call Spencer. He'll be home for lunch to check the chickens and when he sees Shadow gone, that won't go well.
I wipe my nose on the tail of my shirt. "I need to call Spencer at school," I say. "And we should do something...with her body...we can't just leave her out here."
Jo nods like yes, that all makes sense.
"I have a box," she offers.
"Okay," I say.
Jo runs into the house.
I flip through the phone and look up the school number.
Ten minutes later, Spencer is home again and we all stand over Shadow, who has been wrapped in silk and placed in small box. Jo has added a plastic chicken and a few a shiny rocks. I covered her with rose petals. Spencer put in some leaves from a fragrant bush.
"It's like you said," Spencer finally says, "you never know."
"I know," I say.
We all stand there, stupid with nothing more to say. Life and death. They are here and happening and in the end, what can we do?
Finally, it's Spencer who says we need to put Shadow over by the statue of the Buddha--let her body rest like the Tibetan's teach--since it's believed the consciousness of a being, all beings, resides in the body for up to three days.
"Maybe she'll be reborn in a better place."
We all say a few mantra: Om Mani Padme Hung, the universal prayer of compassion and then Spencer and I hug, a real one this time, and he says he's sorry he yelled.
"Me too," I say. "Let's just start again."
Chicken Shit
My Shadow died Thursday morning at eight A.M. Pacific Standard Time.
But that's not how to tell a proper story, is it?
Let me start again.
It's Thursday morning, another day of the same thing: I'm up at five, watch the sun lift in the sky, say my prayers, drink some tea, eat a bit of lavendar chocolate (okay, more like half a bar) and then it's seven and Spencer comes in my room first--a big lug of a man-boy--who still loves a good bear hug. "Are you enlightened yet?" he asks.
"Afraid not," I confess.
He's off for a shower and to make pot stickers for his breakfast and then it's little Jo Jo on my lap for a cuddle. She breathes morning breath smell on my face as she tells me about a dream. "It was weird," she says, in her light bright voice, "it was Christmas and Daddy was coming to give me a present but then my tooth fell out."
"Do you have a lose tooth?" I ask.
"Sort of but not really," she says.
The sky is blue and the sun is bright. Wind blows and it's cold like March. June is just a few days away.
Jo is nine now, long legged, tangled hair and her butt is boney on my lap. I readjust her so the bone of her butt doesn't rub directly on the bone of my shin. I try to be careful because too much jostling around and she'll be gone in a flash and I'll miss a moment more of holding her tight. How much longer will I be able to hold this girl on my lap? That's what I think and then more thoughts rush in: before we leave for school, will I have time to take a shower and clean the chicken coop? Y
"Sweets," I say as I set Jo on her feet. "What do you want for breakfast? Bagel and cream cheese or cereal?"
"Cereal!" she declares. She tugs down her pajama top--pink with a poodle sewn on. The poodle is black fabric. It's a shadow of a poodle. Dog in profile.
"OK!" I say.
One more hug and she's off to get ready. I blow out the candles at my alter and go down to take my shower, pull on jeans, dry my hair and check the time. Spencer and I get into a fight--what is it about? He's on the computer, I think, and that bugs me or maybe he didn't clean his dishes. I don't even know but it's not good. We're both pissed off and I think he yells or I yell and that's how it is with my teenager these days. We're both fast to fire and that's no good with a teenager. We're doing therapy to catch this tiger by the tail.
He storms out of the house and I tell him he better come back and hug me because if something happens to either one of us before we see each other again--well, that would suck--and he slouched back toward me--PISSED. He hates when I play the "this might be last time I see you" card but I can't help it. Death is real. Life is a party on death row.
He hugs me but it's a bullshit hug and now I'm all in my head about what a bad mother I am and how I'm blowing it in 15,000 different ways and then I check the clock. 15 minuntes before Jo needs to leave for school.
I rush out the back door, Spencer on my mind, Jo at the table with a bowl of cinnomin chrispy cereal and a strawberry bar. "Remember to pack your snack, sweets," I say.
"I will, Mommy," she says.
"And comb your hair," I add.
"Ok," she says.
The chickens are in the coop--one Brahma named Sunny (Jo's girl) and my girl named Shadow. Sunny is all aggressive and pesky--LET ME OUT--the way she is. That damn chicken scares me to death. But Shadow, a Jersey Giant, has always been a gentle quiet girl. This morning, she sits in a self made hole at the back of the coop.
I know before I know.
A quiet chicken in a self made hole is a sick chicken with one lizard like claw foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Shadow's eyes are tired. She is on the way out.
In January, it was our other Brahma, Diamond. Spencer's girl. She was in a hole. 24 hours later, she was dead.
My heart doubles a beat and I cannot breathe.
Oh shit.
I scoop my girl into my arms and feel around her behind. Is an egg bound up there? Is she hot? Is it bacterial?
"Hi sweets," I coo. This is a girl I raised from a tiny little chick. She was just a palm of beak and fuzz not that long ago. Two years? Chickens are supposed to live to be 11 or 12. That's what the damn urban chicken book told us but now--her she is. Sick!
Shit!
Shadow is a big girl, ten pounds at least and she's all black feathers that shimmer green when you hold her in the sunlight. She has dark brown eyes. She is a sweet girl. One egg a day, every day for more than a year. Such a good girl.
Denial throws up a wall and I tell myself she's not going to die. I'll think of something but first, first, I have to clean the coop right away. I ease Shadow into the top shelf of the coop, scoot that mean-bad-ass Sunn into the run and rake the sand clear of poo and vegi droppings and greens. I make a pile and lift it all into a recycling bin.
That's what happens when I'm scared. I move fast and clean everything in sight. I'm scared a lot--even when things aren't scary. My house is spotless because that's the way it is when you've been conditioned on terror. Everything, even nothing, is scary inside my brain and it takes a lot of work to calm that shit down. Yoga. Meditation. Breathing. Telling myself, "it's okay. It's okay. It's okay." Thats the reason I'm up at five, every darn day. Prayer is peace. Prayer is quiet. Prayer is hope that I can change this brain.
Add more food to their feeder, change the water and then check Shadow again. She's limp and I think about antibiotics I have in the house. I'll break one up, yeah, that's what I'll do but then again, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I carry her out into the run and she moves a little in my hands. I put her down on the ground, thinking maybe she'll just pop up and it will be okay but she doesn't.
She rolls on her side and jerks a few times and that's it. My girl just dies there in front of me and I'm fucking clueless about what to do. I call over my shoulder to Jo and ask her please, please to bring me the phone and while I wait, I kneel on the ground and tell Shadow how sorry I am as if this damn chicken is inside of her head blaming me for being a lame chicken farmer (which I am).
Jo is behind me, the phone in her hand. Her blue eyes are wide. Her tangled hair tumbles over her shoulders.
"Mom?"
"It's Shadow," I say and try to suck it up but I can't. I start to cry all over again.
Jo drops to her knees too and she doesn't really have an emotional response. She's not a huge fans of the chickens. They are too big and stinky and her girl, Sunny, just isn't that nice. Jo's more of a gerbil girl.
"Oh no, just like Diamond," Jo says.
I nod and sniff and dial my husband but then mis-dial and then dial again and I wonder why in the world am I calling him? He's at work and he knows less about these birds than I do. What's he going to do? And what does it matter?
The wind blows over us and Shadow's feathers shimmer dark green. She is limp and laid out. Sunny hovers around, she makes this weird squawk sound and tries to peck at Jo.
"Shooo," Jo says with a wave of her hand. Sunny backs up, unsure.
I drop the phone, giving up on my man and my girl--my Shadow--is 100% dead now. Jo touches her feathers, stroking down her neck.
"She's still warm," Jo says.
I sob, uncontrollable sobbing. Such a bad mother. I shouldn't be losing my shit in front of my little girl. I'm supposed to be the strong one but I'm just overcome with a sense of total helplessness and regret and skill-less-ness in the face of whatever has taken this chicken away so fast.
"I'm so sorry. I know you loved her." Jo puts her slim arm around my shoulders. Doesn't even hesitate and I think about how solid she feels. True care. True compassion. This girl, my girl, isn't upset I'm upset. She's just here with me and with Shadow and this terrible thing. Death.
When did I learn I wasn't supposed to cry? When was I told emotion was only the dominion of children and that adults were supposed to always, under all circumstances, keep their shit together? When did it happen that feelings were not allowed? I don't even know. I just know that I am filled iwth this story about crying and that I shouldn't be upset but I am upset. I am very upset. My damn chicken has died in a flash and I am in charge of her and this life was in my hands and I blew it. I don't know, didn't know, what to do.
And as Jo holds her arm around me and I cry, I think about other times that death has come to call on me. My mother when I was seven, my father when I was nine and my brother when I was just twenty years old. Every single death felt the same to me--like defeat. I didn't know what to, when the end came and I blamed myself for what I didn't know and I cried with that terror of something who is sure, somehow, it's her fault.
It's just a chicken. I know. I know. And later in the day, I will be told, "chicken's just die. It happens. You're going to have to get a tougher skin if you are going to be a chicken farmer." And I guess it's true but right now--I don't have a tough skin. I'm raw with sorrow and confusion. I didn't know what to do and the girl is gone and now Jo is late to school--something she absolutely hates more than anything.
"Honey," I say, swiping my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. "I need to get you to school. You're late."
"It's okay, mom," she says. "It doesn't matter, I can be late one day."
But that's not how to tell a proper story, is it?
Let me start again.
It's Thursday morning, another day of the same thing: I'm up at five, watch the sun lift in the sky, say my prayers, drink some tea, eat a bit of lavendar chocolate (okay, more like half a bar) and then it's seven and Spencer comes in my room first--a big lug of a man-boy--who still loves a good bear hug. "Are you enlightened yet?" he asks.
"Afraid not," I confess.
He's off for a shower and to make pot stickers for his breakfast and then it's little Jo Jo on my lap for a cuddle. She breathes morning breath smell on my face as she tells me about a dream. "It was weird," she says, in her light bright voice, "it was Christmas and Daddy was coming to give me a present but then my tooth fell out."
"Do you have a lose tooth?" I ask.
"Sort of but not really," she says.
The sky is blue and the sun is bright. Wind blows and it's cold like March. June is just a few days away.
Jo is nine now, long legged, tangled hair and her butt is boney on my lap. I readjust her so the bone of her butt doesn't rub directly on the bone of my shin. I try to be careful because too much jostling around and she'll be gone in a flash and I'll miss a moment more of holding her tight. How much longer will I be able to hold this girl on my lap? That's what I think and then more thoughts rush in: before we leave for school, will I have time to take a shower and clean the chicken coop? Y
"Sweets," I say as I set Jo on her feet. "What do you want for breakfast? Bagel and cream cheese or cereal?"
"Cereal!" she declares. She tugs down her pajama top--pink with a poodle sewn on. The poodle is black fabric. It's a shadow of a poodle. Dog in profile.
"OK!" I say.
One more hug and she's off to get ready. I blow out the candles at my alter and go down to take my shower, pull on jeans, dry my hair and check the time. Spencer and I get into a fight--what is it about? He's on the computer, I think, and that bugs me or maybe he didn't clean his dishes. I don't even know but it's not good. We're both pissed off and I think he yells or I yell and that's how it is with my teenager these days. We're both fast to fire and that's no good with a teenager. We're doing therapy to catch this tiger by the tail.
He storms out of the house and I tell him he better come back and hug me because if something happens to either one of us before we see each other again--well, that would suck--and he slouched back toward me--PISSED. He hates when I play the "this might be last time I see you" card but I can't help it. Death is real. Life is a party on death row.
He hugs me but it's a bullshit hug and now I'm all in my head about what a bad mother I am and how I'm blowing it in 15,000 different ways and then I check the clock. 15 minuntes before Jo needs to leave for school.
I rush out the back door, Spencer on my mind, Jo at the table with a bowl of cinnomin chrispy cereal and a strawberry bar. "Remember to pack your snack, sweets," I say.
"I will, Mommy," she says.
"And comb your hair," I add.
"Ok," she says.
The chickens are in the coop--one Brahma named Sunny (Jo's girl) and my girl named Shadow. Sunny is all aggressive and pesky--LET ME OUT--the way she is. That damn chicken scares me to death. But Shadow, a Jersey Giant, has always been a gentle quiet girl. This morning, she sits in a self made hole at the back of the coop.
I know before I know.
A quiet chicken in a self made hole is a sick chicken with one lizard like claw foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Shadow's eyes are tired. She is on the way out.
In January, it was our other Brahma, Diamond. Spencer's girl. She was in a hole. 24 hours later, she was dead.
My heart doubles a beat and I cannot breathe.
Oh shit.
I scoop my girl into my arms and feel around her behind. Is an egg bound up there? Is she hot? Is it bacterial?
"Hi sweets," I coo. This is a girl I raised from a tiny little chick. She was just a palm of beak and fuzz not that long ago. Two years? Chickens are supposed to live to be 11 or 12. That's what the damn urban chicken book told us but now--her she is. Sick!
Shit!
Shadow is a big girl, ten pounds at least and she's all black feathers that shimmer green when you hold her in the sunlight. She has dark brown eyes. She is a sweet girl. One egg a day, every day for more than a year. Such a good girl.
Denial throws up a wall and I tell myself she's not going to die. I'll think of something but first, first, I have to clean the coop right away. I ease Shadow into the top shelf of the coop, scoot that mean-bad-ass Sunn into the run and rake the sand clear of poo and vegi droppings and greens. I make a pile and lift it all into a recycling bin.
That's what happens when I'm scared. I move fast and clean everything in sight. I'm scared a lot--even when things aren't scary. My house is spotless because that's the way it is when you've been conditioned on terror. Everything, even nothing, is scary inside my brain and it takes a lot of work to calm that shit down. Yoga. Meditation. Breathing. Telling myself, "it's okay. It's okay. It's okay." Thats the reason I'm up at five, every darn day. Prayer is peace. Prayer is quiet. Prayer is hope that I can change this brain.
Add more food to their feeder, change the water and then check Shadow again. She's limp and I think about antibiotics I have in the house. I'll break one up, yeah, that's what I'll do but then again, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I carry her out into the run and she moves a little in my hands. I put her down on the ground, thinking maybe she'll just pop up and it will be okay but she doesn't.
She rolls on her side and jerks a few times and that's it. My girl just dies there in front of me and I'm fucking clueless about what to do. I call over my shoulder to Jo and ask her please, please to bring me the phone and while I wait, I kneel on the ground and tell Shadow how sorry I am as if this damn chicken is inside of her head blaming me for being a lame chicken farmer (which I am).
Jo is behind me, the phone in her hand. Her blue eyes are wide. Her tangled hair tumbles over her shoulders.
"Mom?"
"It's Shadow," I say and try to suck it up but I can't. I start to cry all over again.
Jo drops to her knees too and she doesn't really have an emotional response. She's not a huge fans of the chickens. They are too big and stinky and her girl, Sunny, just isn't that nice. Jo's more of a gerbil girl.
"Oh no, just like Diamond," Jo says.
I nod and sniff and dial my husband but then mis-dial and then dial again and I wonder why in the world am I calling him? He's at work and he knows less about these birds than I do. What's he going to do? And what does it matter?
The wind blows over us and Shadow's feathers shimmer dark green. She is limp and laid out. Sunny hovers around, she makes this weird squawk sound and tries to peck at Jo.
"Shooo," Jo says with a wave of her hand. Sunny backs up, unsure.
I drop the phone, giving up on my man and my girl--my Shadow--is 100% dead now. Jo touches her feathers, stroking down her neck.
"She's still warm," Jo says.
I sob, uncontrollable sobbing. Such a bad mother. I shouldn't be losing my shit in front of my little girl. I'm supposed to be the strong one but I'm just overcome with a sense of total helplessness and regret and skill-less-ness in the face of whatever has taken this chicken away so fast.
"I'm so sorry. I know you loved her." Jo puts her slim arm around my shoulders. Doesn't even hesitate and I think about how solid she feels. True care. True compassion. This girl, my girl, isn't upset I'm upset. She's just here with me and with Shadow and this terrible thing. Death.
When did I learn I wasn't supposed to cry? When was I told emotion was only the dominion of children and that adults were supposed to always, under all circumstances, keep their shit together? When did it happen that feelings were not allowed? I don't even know. I just know that I am filled iwth this story about crying and that I shouldn't be upset but I am upset. I am very upset. My damn chicken has died in a flash and I am in charge of her and this life was in my hands and I blew it. I don't know, didn't know, what to do.
And as Jo holds her arm around me and I cry, I think about other times that death has come to call on me. My mother when I was seven, my father when I was nine and my brother when I was just twenty years old. Every single death felt the same to me--like defeat. I didn't know what to, when the end came and I blamed myself for what I didn't know and I cried with that terror of something who is sure, somehow, it's her fault.
It's just a chicken. I know. I know. And later in the day, I will be told, "chicken's just die. It happens. You're going to have to get a tougher skin if you are going to be a chicken farmer." And I guess it's true but right now--I don't have a tough skin. I'm raw with sorrow and confusion. I didn't know what to do and the girl is gone and now Jo is late to school--something she absolutely hates more than anything.
"Honey," I say, swiping my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. "I need to get you to school. You're late."
"It's okay, mom," she says. "It doesn't matter, I can be late one day."
May 27, 2011
May 24, 2011
If You Knew By Ellen Bass
Stunning poem by Ellen Bass
What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line's crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say Thank you, I don't remember
they're going to die.
A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
- Ellen Bass
What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line's crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say Thank you, I don't remember
they're going to die.
A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
- Ellen Bass
May 23, 2011
May 19, 2011
On the Road: Coming Home to Teaching & Website Launch
Last night, pre-summer heat, there were bare arms, sundresses and Bermuda shorts. People lounged at sidewalk cafes, before them were glasses of wine and plates of food.And still others were packed, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, knee to knee at The Press Club for the monthly reading at The Mountain Writer's Series. Smiling, shining faces. Lover's of poetry and prose.
I stood at the podium, after the lovely Cindy Stewart-Rinier and read from Found. Again. Since the release on March 1 of this year, I have been reading and reading and reading a little more, from that story of stories, that summation of my long Hero's Quest to the home I lost at my birth. Oh Lord my journey home to my mother and her original love has been a bumpy one indeed. And this is how it is. Some days, I am too often like Dresden after being bombed at the end of the war. My first experience is of brutal separation and emotional stifling. My mind has been nursed on fear. The Buddha called it Maya. Where there is mind, there is Maya. Suffering and more so when the body and brain are ravaged from the moment of birth.
And I am like a brilliant lotus flower emerged from that mud. I am bright, impossible colors and beauty--not because another tells me so but because it is true. We are all this and more--not the mud, not the bloom, not not the mud, not not the bloom. We are gorgeous and perfect and Buddha and, as sweet as all that sounds, our brief life is also a party on death row. I read that phrase in a book on Buddhist teachings last week and it's true. Death is coming and with that in mind--what matters? What really matters? Well, of course, healing the soul is what matters...healing the self and becoming whole! That is what matters above all else.
And so, as I come home for the summer and look at my schedule for what is ahead, I am thrilled to announce our new Teaching Site has launched. A Free Teleseminar on Memoir writer's is coming May 26th and you are invited to listen in. Come sign up and make your reservation. Learn how to tell yourself the story of your own great suffering and transcendence, learn to set your priorities and love yourself as you find your way back to that original wholeness and love that is there--just past all the mess of Maya.
May 10, 2011
On the Road: The Gift of Memoir
This is the continuation of a talk given at the monthly meeting of the Willamette Writers.
Great conversation about memoir and the transformational promise of the genre.
Great conversation about memoir and the transformational promise of the genre.
May 9, 2011
Fresh Writing: Mother's Day
They explode through the door, my children. "Moooooom," they cry, her voice high, his voice low. A dozen roses from him, a box of chocolates from her and behind my children, there on the porch with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, is their father. Steve. I call him the Dorse-man.How long have we known each other now? I'm forty seven, he's forty nine, we met on his twenty seventh birthday at an auction where he was celebrating another year gone. All those years ago, like it was yesterday, Steve sat at the table with a group of guys, who wore dark gray suits and white shirts. Ties were loose and drinks were in front of the men--whiskey on the rocks, tequila straight up and of course, bottles of beer. Steve had the flush of a man was a couple of drinks gone.
Handsome? My goodness, he was so handsome to me. It wasn't his looks which were fine--better than fine--it was the energy that snapped off him and fired from his eyes. Twenty two years ago, a total stranger and still I could see it.
Snap.
Crackle.
Pop.
Steve's about as tall as I am, his dark hair has gone to streaks of gray and his eyes--a metallic blue--still snap the way they did. Steve has the sharp eyes of a man who makes plans deep inside himself. He is on a path to his own dreams. I saw it then and I see it today as he waits his turn to say Happy Mother's Day in his own way.
"This is the day that changed my life," Steve booms in his big voice as he steps across the threshold of my house and offers me a package which is one of those wine bags from Fred Meyer and it's decorated with a thousand corks. Inside is a bottle of wine.
"That's right," I say. "I went into labor with Spencer on Mother's Day."
Spencer--dark hair and darker eyes--looks from his father to me and back to his dad again. Steve pulls his son into an embrace. "Those were some long nights, Buddy," Steve says. "Man did you take your time getting here."
Roses, chocolates and now a bottle of wine are in my arms and I set everything down on the table in the entry way. Jo has run up the stairs to her room, she says she'll be right back and I nod with how it's true. Spencer took four days to arrive. My water broke on Mother's Day and finally he arrived on the fifteenth.
"And things have never been the same," Steve adds.
Spencer bear hugs his dad back and lifts him off his feet. My son, our son, is now strong enough to carry the man who gave him his life. Amazing.
Jo tromps down the steps and then makes a leap to clear the bottom three steps. She has long wavy blond hair, which she hates to comb and filly long legs that make her the tallest girl in her class. She rattles an envelope between us.
"I made you a card. I made you lots of cards," she announces. The front of the envelope reads, "MOM!"
I get down on my knees to look inside and there are three cards to be exact Jo overflows when it comes to art and messages of love.
"And this one was conceived on Mother's Day too," I say, nodding my head over at Jo as I fish out her beautiful art--hearts, drawing of the two of us holding hands and little poems that address her love. "You are so nice to me, Mom." "I love you, Mommy." "You are a nice Mommy."
Steve nods like he remembers that part too, how three years after Spencer was born and we had finally figured a tiny bit of parenting out and surprise. We are pregnant again!
In the foyer of my house on spring day in May--we are all here--together and it's funny how there are four humans where there used to be just two. We are intertwined by the mystery of attraction and DNA and time. We were once strangers to each other--me to Steve and Steve to me and when Spencer was born, wasn't he a stranger too? Wasn't Jo? Haven't I been getting to know these people--these little mysteries--more and more each day as they grow into the fullness of themselves? Aren't they getting to know me? And what of Steve? Isn't he a still stranger in so many ways? Aren't we still a confusion to each other even though we are together in this adventure of raising two human beings to adulthood as we turn the other way and head towards the end of our own lives?It's my 14th year of being a mother--my 14th official Mother's Day. It's hard to believe, me, the motherless one has children, celebration, good health, safety, happiness and a little more time. I have time to celebrate being a mother and being alive and watching everything as this mystery of being continues.
The kids give me big hugs and are back out the door with their dad. He's taking them to school today and I'll be the one to pick them up. The routine of raising children, a few days a his house, a few days at mine, school and homework and taking baths, that's what we do. Everyday. Until we stop for a moment and celebrate and remember and give each other hugs and cards and roses and chocolate and wine.
Next stop Spencer's birthday, then Steve's and another holiday where it will all go the other way--Father's Day--is just down the line.
May 4, 2011
On the Road: Portland Events all Month Long
First, last night was a FAN TAB ULOUS event at The Willamette Writer's Monthly meeting and I want to thank everyone for coming up to me after, offering your stories and having me sign your books! I hope everyone WRITES A MEMOIR.And here is an even BIGGER thanks! If you were at the Willamette Writer's Event please write to me with Willamette Writer's in the Subject Heading and I will get you a FREE copy of The Writing Life audio book on Memoir Writing. I ask only that you listen and answer three questions to help me fine tune the teaching! Deal? Send me your emails today and I'll get you details.
Second, the Oregon Colony House beach retreat still has an opening! This is a steal of a deal. Writers get lodging, two nights at the beach and a couple prime time hours with me to talk about their project. An hour with me in Portland--no overnight at the beach and writing time--is $125.00 an hour. So book this, if you can.
Third, here comes the summer Master Class Schedule via Skype and in Portland on E Burnside.
The Portland class will be held Monday evenings 5:30-9: June 6, 13, 20 & 27 and July 13 & 20. This is a six week Master Series Class with eight readers/space for observation too. Readers pay $350.00 and observers pay $175.00 -- EVERYONE LEARNS!
The Skype Master Class, on line, will be held Sunday mornings 10-1 : June 19 & 26, July 10, 17, 24 & 31! This is for six readers, no observers and the cost is $350.00. Contact me, via this site to reserve a spot!
I cannot wait to help YOU write your memoir!
Fourth, the free Webinar on Memoir is coming. SAVE THE DATE of May 26th @ 11 a.m. and send me an email saying you'd like to join in. Write in the Subject Heading: Reserve Webinar and I'll make your reservation. I'll be giving a live presentation on the power of memoir, teaching you a few tricks and offering up as much inspiration as I can in one wonderful hour of conversation! More details coming soon!
May 1, 2011
Announcements: Come Hang Out and Talk Writing!
Yes, if you can believe it, I am still touring and talking about Found! Join me three different ways:
First, I'll be at the Willamette Writer's Monthly Meeting at the Old Church in downtown Portland. Join me for a big talk and a Q&A about writing memoir for yourself or for publication. What is the difference?
Second, the Oregon Colony House beach retreat! This is a steal of a deal. Writers get lodging, two nights at the beach and a couple prime time hours with me to talk about their project. An hour with me in Portland--no overnight at the beach and writing time--is $125.00 an hour. So book this, if you can. There is like ONE spot left.
Third, Keep your eye out for the summer Master Class via Skype and in Portland. There are two great sessions coming and we'll be taking reservations by the end of this week.
First, I'll be at the Willamette Writer's Monthly Meeting at the Old Church in downtown Portland. Join me for a big talk and a Q&A about writing memoir for yourself or for publication. What is the difference?Second, the Oregon Colony House beach retreat! This is a steal of a deal. Writers get lodging, two nights at the beach and a couple prime time hours with me to talk about their project. An hour with me in Portland--no overnight at the beach and writing time--is $125.00 an hour. So book this, if you can. There is like ONE spot left.
Third, Keep your eye out for the summer Master Class via Skype and in Portland. There are two great sessions coming and we'll be taking reservations by the end of this week.
