To Street Musicians

On our way to the Moo Frites in Toronto, we turn the corner, passing tangled couples just barely sober, almost in each other’s pockets, hard to tell who they are most in love with--the person they are with or themselves--and we hear it. Violin. Of course. Of course a violin is playing. It’s not a surprise, but certainly welcome.

 

We wedge in and out of shops barely wider than three people standing shoulder-to-shoulder. The violin follows us. We take a table at a sidewalk cafe. Concerto. We wander into a store selling handmade lotions with African herbs. A little Mozart trails behind.

Tonight the man playing has a long grey beard and no shirt. No shoes. He hops a lot while playing. Not a dance, really, but inspired by and timed with the music. In front of him, the open case. A couple of coins shine against the red velvet.

Keith has a request. We have yet to pass a street violinist of whom he does not make this request. Kreisler. "Leibesleid." We’ve heard it on a street in downtown Lafayette. We’ve heard it in Ann Arbor. We’ve heard it in Madison. We may have it heard it in Freiburg. Cobblestone streets.

And they all know it. Every violin street player we have ever heard will play that piece. And no matter where you are, it’s Vienna. You’ve never seen Vienna, never tasted their coffee. You’ve never walked by the rivers; you never slept in their beds. You’ve not endured their winters. You’ve never looked an Austrian in the eyes as you pass each other.

But he plays. And then, you have.

To My Future Goat Farm in Alabama

(Goat) Howl

(with thanks and apologies to Allen Ginsberg)

   

I saw the best goats of my generation destroyed by farmers,
    bleating hysterical pronking,
dragging themselves through fields at dawn looking
    for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters following behind them, an ancient heavenly
    connection to the espresso machines on sleepy Sunday urban streets,
who scruffy and stubborn and hungry and high sat up chewing
    in the supernatural darkness of Alabama valleys, floating
    across the tops of barns contemplating Patsy Cline,
who bared their tiny horns to Heaven under the electric fence and saw
   antebellum angels staggering on ramshackle roofs illuminated,
who passed through fairgrounds with radiant cool eyes
    hallucinating Georgia and Faulkner-tragedy among the
    scholars of agriculture,
who were expelled from the dairies for crazy & ramming
    each other on the hard bones of the skull,
who gathered under shade trees, near water troughs, under the bad Alabama sun

   burning their hay in oil barrels and listening to the Terror from the pig barn.

To the People Caught in the Ash From Mount Vesuvius In Pompeii

A child lies face down in the road, unable to run anymore. She’s near an adult, so to comfort ourselves we say it's the child's father, that they did not die alone. The man is watching the child, maybe saying, "Keep your head down. Don't look. I'm right here."

 

We don't call it peaceful, but, we think, at least they were together.

A family is found in the courtyard. They were wealthy. She had a gold and emerald necklace and their gardens were overlooked by a statue of Athena. Three days before, they may have hosted friends for dinner, lounging on their benches, eating grapes and roasted doormouse with their fingers. The gods have been good to us. But now they are in the courtyard, trying to leave, wade through the deep ash. The heat burns their lungs. The mother holds the baby on her lap and all raise their fists to the sky. The gesture could be mistaken for joy.

The guard dog, still chained to the wall, curls on its back, smothered instantly.

A boy sits against the wall, pulls his knees up like he has done countless times. He has never been a happy child; his mother worries about him. He's old enough to know he is dying, old enough to know that means he won't see his family anymore; he won't grow up. But he doesn't understand its forever. 

At the museum we file past them, buried alive, caught in the middle of their screams and cries. We whisper as we mill about, always uncomfortable and quiet among the dead. As if they can't see us. As if they aren't walking behind us, shaking their heads.

To Writer’s Block

You’re always so fresh upon delivery, smelling of cedar or marble or newly hardened concrete.

 

You arrive unordered through whatever secret free delivery service only exists for writers. You are especially good for writers with a deadline.

Suddenly, we don’t have any tools. Normally, we could just bang it out, one word or one letter at a time. We hope they connect, but if not, it matters little; we are just writing.

And then we have this block. It takes over the whole living room or bedroom, whatever room we do our work in. We go for our coffee and come back and bam! there it is, wedged right up against our desk. We can’t move the chair; we can’t even see the chair.

Some writers I know sing to it; they take out their acoustic guitars and pluck away all afternoon. Some ignore it. Some, in an Annie-Hall-kind-of-Woody-Allen way, try to talk their way through it, wringing their hands and pacing saying, “I don’t know, if I could only…” Others just try to bust through it, bare handed, ripping and tearing at it. You see them at the grocery store right before dinner.

“Hey man, how you doing?”

“Writer’s block. It’s awful”

The uncombed hair, the shirt buttoned one button off. Someone might think they drank a lot the night before or broke away from a fight just before the punches hit the face. But every writer knows the look.

It’s a luxury we can’t afford. A day wasted we don’t have. It’s a song we never learned. An argument we never had. A tango we can’t dance. A dog we can’t train. A punishment we can neither inflict nor endure.

It’s a name we don’t know.

It’s a day we remember but never lived.

Write that.

To Last Lines I Have Written Without Having Written the Rest, and So, Aside From Here, They Will Never See the Light of Day

He would never turn down Christopher Avenue again.

But it wasn’t the sun.

Her turf. Her terms.

Kendall always burned the bacon but made a damn good gin and tonic.

He walked past the dogs. They watched his every move. They would follow him anywhere.

The cicadas sang their terrifying melodies long into the evening.

You can never dream the same dream twice.

I knew it was crazy to ask; I knew it was wrong not to.

The noise! All the goddamn fucking noise!

I would give anything to feel her hand on my shoulder.

She sang as she cleaned the kitchen, the clink of glasses playing along.

But not Wisconsin cold, never as cold as Wisconsin cold.

A small pill. Goes down so easy....

The Spaniard was already putting drinks out.

Holly said, “Forget everything I told you. Say I lied. Pretend you never met me. At least pretend we never talked.”

To Real Wedding Vows That You Would Have Written Had You Known What You Were Really Getting Into At the Time

I promise to love you.

I promise to try to like you most of the time, too, though that won’t always happen. But I still love you.

I promise to attempt in the first five years or so to figure out who prefers doing what household chores and leave it at that forever.

I promise never to go to bed mad. But...

I promise that when I do go to bed mad, I will wake up a little less mad.

I promise that if I don’t wake up a little less mad, we either work that shit out or drop it. Even if working it out takes a few months.

I promise to always be grateful when you cook. Always. Regardless. Including last Tuesday.

I promise to keep it interesting by constantly changing my life goals and those things about which I am passionate.

But I will always be irritated by the same things. Just sayin.

If we have kids, I promise not to talk about the children in front of the children.

I promise that I will not let others talk shit about you behind your back in my presence.

I promise to be proud of you.

I promise to keep coffee as the appropriately high priority it is and never less.

If I try a new hobby and ask you to try it with me, I promise to not care if you don’t like it.

If you try a new hobby and ask me to try it, I promise I will, unless it has to do with heights. Or tent camping.

I promise not care about the pattern of our dishes and how mismatched they will be in 10 years. Even if we have one of our bosses over for dinner.

I promise to check with you if I am about to spend more than 5% of our monthly income on any single item or during a single day. Unless it’s surprise tickets to The Cure or Willie Nelson.

I promise not to make you wear clothes that do not make you feel like yourself, but you may occasionally have to wear something a little itchy.

I promise to go easy on the cayenne.

I promise, if I can’t sleep at night, I’ll go sleep on the couch so as to not wake you. We will need our sleep. We have no idea how much.

I promise to tell you always when you have a little something in your teeth. We will develop a signal to use at parties.

I promise to try my hardest to make sure you feel always less--not more--alone in the world.

To Things Lost

I can go small: a receipt from Target, a Bic pen, that reason I had for not calling back last Tuesday. I don’t even bother looking. Easily replaceable. Inconsequential. Indeed, I never realize that you are lost, would never think of trying to find you. You may have rolled under a chair I never move or tossed in the garbage or buried under the other 452 things I was thinking about. Wherever you are, you will stay there until, centuries from now, archeologists take a delicate brush and ever so gently, dust away the edges. A pen? Here? Why??

 Other things I look for, but only once. A sock from the dryer. A recipe for banana bread. That reason I had for not calling back. These are small glitches in the day. No one notices unmatched socks. And all banana bread is basically the same. You didn’t want to talk to me anyway, which is why you called late and left a message. I have not forgotten the sound of your voice. The pause, always, after,  “Ok. Well....” I think about calling back. I forget, for a moment, why I don’t.

Some things I lost and never forgot about. A silver heart necklace. “The Miller’s Tale” once committed to memory. The password to an email account. I could recover it, but every time, I decide not to. I don’t want to read them. It’s probably mostly junk mail. And mail I don’t want to read. And drafts I never sent.

The real losses I feel every day. I drink my coffee and know they are gone. I take a shower and know. I lecture about rhetorical strategies and ethos and they are underneath everything I say.

One loss is the weight of my son in my arms.

Another is how often I say his name.

In the months after he died, I used to dream he died. A third loss is the dreams.

And the fourth is the waking up from the dreams.

To Coloring Books for Adults and the Adults Who Love Them

This has become something of a movement--intricate patterned pages, colorless and complicated. 

Followers call it “meditative” and “stress reducing.” They are finding their inner 5-year old and handing her crayons, colored pencils and markers, sometimes using them all on the same picture.

The appeal is clear: low tech tools, actual paper. Nothing digital. It is as close as many of us come to working with our hands. Maybe there’s a focused desk lamp. An old wooden desk with drawers on either side. Maybe a CD of ABBA is playing in the background. Maybe a record.

You make it seem so easy. The image created, all you have to do it is fill it in. No rules: roses can be blue. People can be green. Birds can be orange. The whole mandala can be teal.

But I will not be joining you and your crayons. I did not notice the day when I would never be required to color anymore for school or holidays, but I wish I had. I would have celebrated and marked it. Maybe once a year have it as a little holiday. My favorite, right after Thanksgiving.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that coloring was downright stressful. The lines. Cross over one and it ruins the whole picture. Try to fix it and it just gets worse: the mouse’s foot is suddenly larger than it’s head or the roof of the house touches the sun. The colors are supposed to make the image more beautiful, make it a complete experience, but I like them black and white. Approachable. Clean. Uncomplicated.

Which is really to say I’m grateful you exist. Grown-ups coloring pages in coffee shops, hanging them on windows like stained glass. I watch you as I read Pippi Longstocking.

We all find our way back.

To C Darwin as He Considers Publishing On The Origin of Species

They think it should be so easy. Not the figuring out. They know that's hard. They understand the years at sea, the collections of shells, all the bird watching. Now, when I talk about evolution, they realize what it all means, the point of it all.

They tell me I should hurry up and publish my work. Others have papers in the works and if they beat me to it, they could set back science by years. They're getting it wrong. I know this.

In science, it can happen this way. The more we study, the more complicated it becomes until suddenly, a piece falls into place and answers several questions at once, answers questions we were not even asking.

I know what I have to do, but I don't want to work in haste. I'm checking and double checking.

Because when it's out there, I know what will happen. I am not a man of faith and the implications that God did not create us directly, that we were not formed out of earth, molded in his hands, these will not concern me.

But Emma believes. And when our son died, her faith kept her alive, though I never understood it. And I love her. And I don't care about the church, about the righteous ministers, about the way they will hate me. But she deserves more. She will grieve all over again. She will wonder where our son is if not In heaven.

To Martha, The Last Passenger Pigeon

“We kill them by the barrel. We kill them by the carload. We kill them all.”

        --Smithsonian film about the extinction of the passenger pigeon in 1914, the same year World War I started. The last known pigeon was Martha, who lived and died in the Cincinnati Zoo. They were once the most common bird in the US and probably the world.  

1914. World War I was just beginning and we had no idea yet that the rivers will turn red with the blood of young soldiers. Very young soldiers. They left for shores they could not imagine, with fresh guns and baby faces. Dreams fall so easily over their shoulders, small weight. We will literally grind them into the ground for years. They had names. Their mothers would mention them at dinners. We tore their arms and legs off while their younger brothers played in city lot. We didn’t know, in 1914, our limits. We thought we did.

"Martha," on display in the newly opened Bird Hall, c. 1956.
Image from Smithsonian Institution Archives

And we were wrong.

“...by the barrel…”

So many of them, it’s impossible to imagine they could all die. Their passing by sounded like thunder and would take hours. A swam, a sea, a storm of birds. The sky darkens as the birds circle up. Up and over.

For the taking. We picked them, shot them, strangled them, poisoned them, grabbed them, netted them, and sometimes, we just reached up and wrapped a hand around one and pulled it to the ground.

It was so easy. It was too easy.

“...by the carload…”

Pack the bodies in and ship them. One on top of the other. A train. The rhythm of the train. 

A bird. A man.

Birds.

Men.

“We kill them all.”

I am sick with being surprised, almost daily, at our capacity to kill. I am sick with hearing that a toddler shot his brother, that a cop shot a kid, that a guy walked into a theater or a neighborhood or shopping center and opened fire. I am sick with sending kids to war and calling them brave and heros when they don’t come back. I am sick with tearing their bodies apart.

I am sick of sending kids to school where they get shot.

We see a bird. We see a person. We aim. We shoot.

“We kill them all.”

And then we take the very last bird, pack it in ice and preserve it forever. The bird is extinct, but we have the last one in a museum. A reminder. That nothing lasts. We can kill off even the most abundant.

Martha, the war began. You died. And we cannot seem to grasp what extinction means. A species? A life? I love you for the truth that at each point, there is no difference.

To Olives

In my defense, I grew up in 1970’s Dallas and oilves came in 1 of 2 forms: green pimento stuffed, cold from the fridge or tiny cans of “black pearls” used in Mexican dishes or layered “cheese salad.” Forgive me for not knowing, but the world was small in 1978.

 

I spent a lot of time picking olives: out of pizza, off lettuce and tacos. Sometimes off a hamburger. They tasted like can, metal, months in a warehouse in Topeka maybe. Nothing delicious comes out of a warehouse in Topeka. Certainly not olives.

It took a day in Spain, a train ride through olive groves. We had just come from Barcelona, Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, still unfinished. We needed a cheap place to stay, wanted salty air. Valencia. A beach just south. A hostel. I think it had doors on the rooms. Certainly curtains.

We collapsed on the beach. After days in big cities, fighting crowds and language, we needed a wordless landscape. The only one speaking was the Mediterranean. Until the Canadians showed up. But they are a quiet bunch. Polite. Sternly but quietly not Americans, as evidenced by the maple leaf flag sewn on to all their backpacks.

Wine was $1 per unlabeled bottle and every grocery store and pharmacy made their own. We grabbed three bottles, cheese, bread and a can of olives. Back at the hostel picnic table by the beach, we serve slices of cheese to each other right off the knife. No plates, no napkins. We drink from the bottle and have never loved eating this much.

He passes the olives to me. I’m going to be polite and eat one. The sun has set. Even the glow is gone. We lower our voices and I think I hear the sand crabs moving across the beach. We are deep enough into the trip to know this will change us, but not deep enough to realize the trip is taking us and not vice versa.

Of all the nights, I remember two: one in Greece surrounded by cats in a small cafe. And this one. Eating olives with my fingers, realizing I knew nothing about olives. I knew nothing at all.

To The Fortune Cookie Writer

Like all writers, the tone depends on your mood.

You’ve had a good morning. The coffee was just right and the baby slept in. A light rain watered the herb garden early enough and stopped before you had to head out to work. The bus was on time and no one sat next to you. You were first in the office. It was quiet. You turn on the computer and begin.

“Peace comes in small spoons.”

“You will find love in a fountain, soda or otherwise.”

“Your children will never curse you.”

“Wealth is the product of passion; passion cannot be the product of wealth.”

But days like this are rare. The baby doesn't sleep and you take turns pacing. 12:17. 3:47. 5:12. Your back hurts and the doctor’s advice is useless. You feel it when you bend to the right. You never realized how often you bend to the right.

“Don’t forgive quickly, but don’t grudge forever.”

“Ignore the loudest voices; they are greedy for ears.”

“Your days will change when your heart changes. Your heart changes when your mind changes. Your mind cannot change by will.”

You know when you are taking shower if the day will be throwaways. You feel nothing, not hope or despair, not anger or love. Not lust. Not hunger. But you have to go. You will write pages and delete them all.

“Don’t even try. If you haven’t started trying yet, don’t bother.”

“He doesn’t love you. You already know this. Everyone else already knows this. Everyone but him. Say it.”

“Fate is kind. But luck is strong. And though it may be written in some holy book somewhere, it will burn in a fire started by someone leaves a candle burning when she runs to the store for milk.”

“Look in the mirror. Do you remember your face 13 years ago? What happened?”

To The Orphans in Dystopian Novels

Things look pretty bleak right now. Bad. Real bad.

 

And I’m not gonna lie and say that they aren’t, that everything will work out. You’ve lost your parents and you are living far away from whatever home you used to know. You have no idea whom to trust and the truth of the matter is, although you don’t know it yet, the moral and economic future of the entire plant somehow rests with you.

You and your siblings, if you have siblings. 

If you don’t, make sure to meet all the other orphans. You can’t trust any of the adults. Everything you suspected about adults your whole life is true: they are ruthless and heartless. They don’t actually like kids; they just want to use them for cheap labor, build empires on the backs of 6-11 year olds. Be suspicious of all of them.

The problem with the other orphans is that some won’t be very smart, some are not very brave and most are just too young to comprehend that you have to make a plan. But all will be able to help. Orphans, at any age, are shockingly resourceful and quick. They will test your leadership and you will doubt yourself almost every step of the way.

And though I cannot assure you everything will be ok, and I suspect some of you will even die, I do know that our collective vision for all that is right and possible in the world is whatever you see. The reason you are our heros, the reason your story never gets old is because you are the shape and voice of all that hope. The truth is, now is a dystopia. We call it the future, but it isn’t. It’s now. But we also know that within it, orphans are gathering in the hallways, practicing how to use ancient weapons and developing their own language. Being parentless frees them, and instead of spending hours learning how to play piano or practice cursive, they are concerned with survival.

The orphans always win.

To the Sharing Economy

Sharing is the new selling. I have a car, an apartment, a dinner that I want to share with you. The new economy, created by kindergarten teachers and hipster parents of toddlers who spend the day saying, "please share."

 

I admit to being hooked, the thrill of trusting again your fellow human being, of turning to another person, albeit virtually, and saying, yes, I will get in your car or eat in your kitchen or stay in your third floor walk up. I will meet you on a street in Toronto and shake your hand and follow you. And you will open the door to a contemporary efficacy with hardwood floors and Apple TV and hand me the keys. And leave.

In class one day, a student, about 19 and studying engineering (in other words, a very bright future, all statistics considered), says he mad at my generation, that we and the generations before us lied. We said if you work hard and get a degree (any degree we said, do what you love!), the American Dream comes true. But that was before $43,000 in college loans, before a volatile housing market. Before junk bonds and hedge funds and senators for sale. Before downsizing and contract labor. He says he can't really imagine a future; he actually tries not to think about it. He doesn't know how to think about it.

Source: Markus Henkel

The other students nod their head.  Each and every one. They are in a generational free-fall. What else is there to do but grab each others' hands? The old economy doesn't work: bricks and mortar, cubicles and time clocks. Landlines. Space means little and time means everything. They fend for themselves in their digital tribes.

To Autocorrect

You’re doing it wrong.

 

What I text: “Im looking forward ot it.”

What you say: “I’m looking forward to it.”  

What you should say: “Look, enough of this. I find these events dull. These are not parties. Parties involve small bites of food and at least one good-hearted but fierce argument. Your gatherings are too polite. The servings too large.”

***********

I text (4 days after an acquaintance texts me):“Sorry i just got yr txt. Im not ihnorong you!”

What you say: “Sorry I just got your text. I’m not ignoring you!”

What you should say: “I wish you understood that I am completely ignoring you.”

********

What I text: “Are you bist?”

What you say: “Are you busy?”

What you should say: “I’m about to consume 32 minutes of your life with a rant about art or politics or the overuse of chemicals. If you’re smart and nod your head, it might only last 27 minutes.”

*********

What the committee chair texts: “Can you meet this Friday at 4?”

What I text: “_______”

What you text:

What you should text: “No one holds committee meetings at 4 on Friday. No. One.”

*********

What I text: “hey! What’s up? How are you?”

What you text: “hey! What’s up? How are you?”

What you should text: “I miss you. You’re quiet. You’re so far away.  I worry. I worry. I love you. I'm worried.”