Quote For The Weekend (Seriously Late Edition w/Bunnies)

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
—Anne Frank

We tend to rotate which charities we give to monthly. Save The Children often tops the list. Also the Mae Tao Clinic located along the Thai-Burma border in Thailand—Dr. Cynthia is dedicated and committed and grateful for aid. Here at home I support a few local wildlife organizations, donate clothing and food to shelters and whenever I stop in for parakeet food at Kahoot’s, pause to stroke impossibly soft ears of baby bunnies waiting for homes, fervently telepathing to them with all the energy my heart possesses, Love, love, love you! I’m not sure what the deal is with the bunnies. But Kahoot’s always has them. I wish I could take them all home, but then there’d just be another mini-warren in the store the next day and besides, we have 3 cats, an enthusiastic Labrador and a parakeet fond of letting us know he exists and that’s about all I can handle pets-wise. Oh, bunnies. And fish in your bubbling tanks. And fiddler crabs endlessly waving. Oh, feeder fish! I’m sorry. I wish I could take you home, too. But not the tarantula. But maybe the snakes. Maybe not. But maybe. Perhaps I need to open my own wildlife sanctuary—in about 20 years. In the meantime, it’s Giving Day on the Ponderosa—do you know where your checkbook is (mine turned up in my riding boot, just glad it was found…), or your local feedstore filled with bunnies, or the local Salvation Army, or—crap, the pancakes are burning.

Yes, little white dog or cat over there in the corner–you stay where you are while she feeds the bunnies!

Write it Down, Sherlock

As I scrub whatevers at the kitchen sink, thinking about Hadley Richardson because I’m reading The Paris Wife, mostly thinking how wrong the book’s cover is considering its subject, I’m wondering  if I’ll ever have a book cover of my own to ponder, quickly amending the if to when, ex-ing out the wondering and creating a new sentence of positive affirmation while slamming the window open to yell at Al the cat about to step off the curb and cross the street for mysterious catly purposes. Turning him around with my tone, watching him slink back into the geraniums, I think about how good OJ tastes when you have a headcold as long as the OJ is cold and I remember a tiny awful headline I saw at CNN.com, a site I’ve sworn off in an effort to keep bad news that is completely out of my control out of my life (or is bad news in some kind of control because I keep it out of my life), a headline stating OJ Simpson is, what, trying to get out of jail and I sneeze and recall taking my son to meet the horse I ride and I was so shocked because he wasn’t scared of this giant animal’s snorty affection, and I remember standing outside the ring while my son climbed up the judge’s chair because of course he wanted to sit in it, a weird, tall chair like that is a beacon to children and my hands hovered around him as he climbed and I kept turning my head slightly, for seconds, to watch the rider in the ring canter a beautiful Arabian over jump after jump after jump and each time her a** hit the saddle it wasn’t good and I hoped to god my a** didn’t look like that when it hit the saddle and I resolved to get my own a** in line with the rest of my posture, when riding, and as I soap another whatever I realize the only thing I envy the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is the size of their closets–not the size of their a***s and not what’s in their closets, but the size of their closets and, anyway, like CNN.com, all Housewives are banned from my Hulu experience as I focus on novels and poetry and raising a child in a valley of 105 degree heat in May.  I sneeze and a poem enters my head—a jaunty rhyming quatrain, rhyming, for me, usually so forced it can’t possibly see the light of any personal archives and this is what came to me:

—

Right! Blank. Gone, because I didn’t write it down at the time I was soaping all those whatevers.

Lesson learned.

Luke Put Up Your Visor

Look up.

I was looking at Leroy, watching him think about calling everything off–his ears twitched and he swung his head weirdly to the right, because of me—and my Type A procrastination.

Look up.

I looked up—trees, that house perched precariously on Chatsworth’s pale boulders, blue blaze of sky—and squeezed my lower legs against Leroy’s stomach. My heels shot down in the stirrups and I went into that (for me) awkward 2 pt stance-in-the-saddle, the 2 pt that must be accomplished before actually jumping, which means using so much of your legs, it’s an interior explosion of focus and possibly pain and, if you’re “feeling it” successfully, a soul-rousting revelation of fitting, synching, with your horse.

Stop thinking.

A rocking horse left the earth. Arc-soared. Stardust and all-that- is-holy landed in a canter on the correct lead.

Good. (Ben doesn’t have to shout–his voice is a polite conversation over teacups through a magically self-adjusting mega-phone)

I reigned Leroy into a trot, lurching like a novice when the trot actually happened–damn! I was all red-faced and gaspy. Worried: Cavalia! I will never be you!

When Leroy and I returned to Ben’s corner of the ring, Ben said:  You just have to feel it.

Even if I wasn’t a writer, pets-keeper, struggling unicycle rider, mother and wife and diligent manager of Los Angeles traffic on all danger-filled freeways, I would know what Ben meant.

I nodded and turned Leroy to try the jump again.

When I feel “it”, “it” works, no matter the medium, genre, activity.

Luke–put up your visor.

She’s feeling it.

Ding Dong

Not our doorstep, but love that kitty.

If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.   —Mother Teresa

A quote I’ve posted ad nauseam.

It’s not easy, focused sweeping. Constant practice is necessary (for me). There is no one I can hire to sweep for me. And I am so happy when I sweep and Super Girl my doorstep(s) into sparkling—I feel smart and powerful. But then gunk returns, some days absolutely by the minute, or a doorstep pops up from 1996, one I thought I’d scrubbed into a Rothko sort of easy modern—but there I am, cleaning it again, maybe with a sander and some heavy duty eco paint (light blue).

Before our literal doorstep, chimes sing and the hanging fern twirls in breezes (or harsh, desert-propelled winds) without falling off its hook and there’s a bench with a cheerful red cushion to sit on when removing your gardening or riding boots. My doorstep. My responsibility. Well, it’s scuffed and could use a sanding and a painting (white), but it’s clean and doesn’t smell like cat pee and it’s perfectly fine for a little boy to cross as he comes and goes with his Hot Wheels cars and Hero Factory figures. I removed the pair of black widows that used to live by our doorstep. I powerwashed cobwebs from the generic lintel.  As I stand before our doorstep, arm muscles flexing from holding bags filled with weekly groceries, I feel a little rush of accomplishment and—ease. Food is going in the fridge. Bills are paid. The little boy is at a school where he thrives. I have time to focus on my art, that whatchamacallit only I can achieve, despite (or because of) any doorsteps I may have neglected or swept to within an inch of their architecture over the years. The current doorstep has much promise (perhaps a fancy lintel one day) and it’s quiet here—no radio, no TV news, no distractions except for the occasional gakking pet. Hi Ho!

Bye-bye doorsteps of 1996, dearth doorstep of 2004, etc.

Happiness begins at home.

May Tonic (Cursing-in-Private Edition)

Phoenicopterus Jamesi

Trying to use a voucher for 3 free rides to Catalina Island and being told there’s no room on the boat by a severely rude someone you find it extremely difficult to dredge any compassion for simply because of their tone—noticing the pink flamingo under the potato vine tree thingy has tumbled due to the gardener—tsk-tsk-ing at pink wire legs askew in the air and finding out your son is #74 on the waiting list for the precious little charter elementary school you were convinced he would attend this Fall in this massive, eternally heated valley, and the sky stains that worrisome amber as winds roust May fires, the ocean someone else’s dream, the ever-gruesome sound of a maniac taking a mallet to glass jars filled with brains (smash, pound) has you

STOP

Sit in the sloppy shade from the potato vine tree thingy. Right the flamingo and pat its pink plastic as you inhale the Spa Land aroma from wildly happy lavender plants surrounding you (mixed with a hint of fire smoke). Think: my life is good, man. Say it out loud: my life is good, man. Say this: my life is like all the smashed brains in the world springing back into proper shape simultaneously, or like seasons sans fire-breathing winds tucked into them, or like gently rolling ocean (cobalt). Quickly: locate that bit of faith that’s bolstered you through those scary times in the last 5 years. There are (good) reasons why you don’t always get what you think you want. There are (even better) reasons why you are sometimes given windfalls you didn’t know you wanted, yet are eternally grateful for. Translation: inside that little faith-nucleus? Happiness. Non-fictionalized. Lavender-wild. Big. Filled with poems. No haiku, but not a problem. Really. And no sestinas or romance novels, but truly, no worries. And, you know, no porn or pantoums (OMG quatrains!). Or Martha Stewart commercials. But ‘old’ black and white movies, horses, little boys with big ideas and a house with a lived-in look (and running water and a dishwasher and laundry room and A GARDENER and—)

STOP

Think: F***ing A, man. Now say it out loud. F***ing A. Because sometimes it is cathartic to swear (if no little 5 year old mimics are around).

Do this: swear to remember certain things always worth remembering:

And, instantly, feel better.

(*%@*!)

April Lines

Poetry

What a gift-packed month. Poetry has crammed my inbox daily. I went to a Rhapsodomancy reading at the Good Luck bar and listened to knock-you-off-your-feet lines from poets with poetry-spewing-volcanos where scalps should be. 1 day of NaPoWriMo left. So go on. Go write. You know you want to. Even if you did watch “Silver Linings Playbook” over the weekend and became all heated that Naomi Watts didn’t win the Oscar. I’m sure you also did something severely poem-inspiring—like take your son to the foggy beach, or stand on a sweetly tiled Juliet Balcony overlooking the side of the San Fernando Valley you never see, the side astonishing in trees, or you tried spicy, tandoori-style hard boiled eggs for the first time (with a glass of a startling malbec and even though you prefer chardonnay), or you had a nap. Good god. The nap! Go and write a poem about that.

Lines (I know: you can’t really do this—but I’m doing it anyway):

1. He knows I am a novice returned/for her purpose

2. Look: the face of each mountain is a tumbling sneer/in holy purple

3. Because to move felt like an invitation to chase; and why was the door/open in the first place

4. Snagged on the southside of the 101/miles from destiny

5. Summer is finer than Shakespeare, you said. Listen: everything/was mine to begin with

6. I viewed scandal as a privilege./My mistake

7. She plays schoolyard games with a lover we despise/because he is so obvious

8. We tend our wrist watches dawn to noon to twilight/marking the skies for simple signs/we share wordlessly, each to her owned/each owned similarly dealt/though discussion exposes/mixed wiring

9. May my bones knit/a cage around your frailty, glorious/glimmering cage—the bone cage—hugging/you, cream to curse

10. zzzzzz

Voices

I stopped typing and froze in the bed office. A voice was in my house. Deep. Half whisper-in-a-frightening-tomb, half ogre-stuck-in-a-well. I set aside the laptop, rose from the bed office chair and peeked into the hall. No one. Except the voice. A stranger with a creepy voice is dying in my house,  I thought, tip-toeing down the hall. In the living room, the dog snored on his bed, morning sunshine barged through windows, cheering the room, exposing the dust on the piano and yet, beyond the usual normalcy—the voice. I snatched the clunky channel changer from the TV and held it out in front of me like a castle forged sword from Game of Thrones. I stepped over the snoring dog and into the kitchen, shushing the parakeet who, upon seeing me, scuttled maniacally along his perch. Such a good bird, kiss, kiss! he insisted. Oh just such a good bird!

Something moved beneath a red dishcloth on the counter. I reached out, pinched the cloth and whisked it into the air with a little scream.

My iphone was going crazy, flashing and vibrating so intensely it moved in a slow circle.

I AM YOUR FATHER (breath, breath) LUKE! I AM YOUR FATHER

The ring tone I had assigned my dad’s phone number was doing its job.

On the way back to my bed office, I froze again.

HEY! DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID YOUR SISTER’S CALLING! IT’S YOUR SISTER! ARE YOU GOING TO GET THAT? HEY! IT’S YOUR SISTER CALLING!

A young boy’s voice, strong and true.

*

Dude with a multi-colored macaw on his arm approached me as I hunched over my poetry journal at the Starbucks with the super long veranda. “Want to say hi to my bird?” he asked. I looked up, right into the defiantly-assessing-the-world eyes of the stunning giant descendant of dinos. “Hello,” I told colorful magnificence. The macaw jutted its gorgeous head at me. “I know,” I said soothingly. “I know.” “I’m confused,” the dude said, switching the macaw to his other arm. He was a shaggy type wearing a white t-shirt stained with bird poop. “What do you know?” “Birds,” I told the dude. “Sometimes.” “Huh,” he responded and his squint moved from my eyes to my journal. “You doing the Na thing?” he asked. Oh, man. I pursed my lips. I air-kissed the macaw. It jutted its gorgeous head at me. And again. And again. And the dude moved on.

*

“Goodbye Radley chicken!” my son yelled at one of his friends as we walked to the minivan. “I’m not a chicken!” Radley insisted, shaking the chainlink separating the playground from the parking lot. “Why did you call Radley a chicken?” I asked my son. “Well, well, well someone called me a chicken!” my son said. “Why is anyone calling anyone else a chicken?” I pressed. “Did you like being called a chicken?” “No,” my son said. “I’m sorry.” “Don’t tell me you’re sorry, tell Radley. He’s the one you called a chicken.” “It’s not nice,” my son declared. “No, name-calling isn’t polite, or conducive to having a good time with pals, or—” “Well, well, well, Mama! I could call a toy a chicken. Then it’s okay.” “Let’s not call your toys chickens, either. Let’s not get into that habit.” “But I can call our car a chicken.” “You can say, See ya later alligator, or, In a while crocodile—you guys say that to each all the time. It’s friendly. It’s casual and fun. But actually calling someone an alligator, a crocodile, or a chicken—that changes from fun to kind of mean, if not downright snarky. Name-calling just isn’t okay. You were calling Radley a name, right?” “Yes,” my son admitted. “But Mama,” he said. “I can call a chicken a chicken!” Cue chicken squawk. Cue spirit. Cue life. Just don’t ever call Radley Boo, I thought wearily, totally ready for the nap.

Boo

Na? No. Hope? Yes.

Amidst the latest horrifying US events, poetry—much of it fresh off the brain—whirls tirelessly through every non-existent corner of the internet.  Look: In dark times, people go looking for poetry and I’m glad there is plenty to assuage, aid, comfort and even cheer, right at our fingertips, right there in our search engines and Blogs We Admire, right now, this deep into April, the month of many creative Na’s. The Dad Poet continues to record a poem a day for our listening pleasure. His selection is diverse and encouraging, especially (for me) with his selected poem by Jane Hirshfield. Go visit TDP. Listen to Jane’s poem (The Dad is a good reader). And the Larkin and the Dickinson, etc. You can’t go wrong. Visit, of course poetryfoundation.org—they’ve evolved into such a generous site. So generous, I’m almost suspicious–but of what? It’s poetry! Some of the best poetry in the country and for free. Go see. Just maybe don’t go to that tumblr site devoted to naked poets? I really wish I hadn’t visited. Way more of Whitman and HD’s a** than I ever intended to be exposed to (ummmm). But once I started looking, I couldn’t stop. Until I saw Hesse naked on a mountain ledge. This visual was SO scary I clicked out of there immediately and will never return. I don’t care who they add. (Not that Hesse’s naked self isn’t admirable, he’s just so utterly on the edge of the world that he looks as though he could fall at any moment and falling down a mountain naked? Well. I will have nightmares tonight.) There are plenty of poems to be devoured over at Poets.org , and fine information on National Poetry Writing Month. Of course PB Writes had her own NaPo going on and she did end up writing a brand new, complete poem (vs. Sapphic fragments), however not in a Starbucks, as planned, but at her coffee table, at home, without coffee standing by. She’s very happy with the poem and feels encouraged by its presence on her laptop. She may hate it tomorrow, but for now the poem is turning PB’s focus from the crazy outside world and cluttered social media back to making sense of things in her own, less-muddled-than-ever-before (possibly) life. Plus, the Starbucks (except, perhaps, that one with the endless veranda) in PB’s vicinity aren’t as poetry-inducing as she’d hoped. There’s far more poetry in her own backyard, where the lavender (bee-tended) reaches for blue sky and the mockingbirds dive-bomb the cats and the dog goes into a sphinx-position on the lawn, eyes closed, soaking up sunshine. Good boy. Gooooood boy.

Yours in coffee, 1st and 3rd persons, poetry (of course) and praise for all things good (especially if they smell like lavender or happen to be my son),

PB

And here is a dog. Who thinks it’s perfectly fine that he lounge on the couch. Good boy. Gooood boy.

NaNaNana Hey Hey Hey NaNa

Written next to the flower (see previous post):

Tipping between lost and grateful;
never traveling with grace or without sound
doubt; raking up luck-bits when the world
sleeps in its stifling old box; kissing
the future into strum; hunkering
down, more, down to a pebble’s
dropped-star appeal, to strokable; keep-
ing up; keeping all life from peril. World
without end: the whispered lullaby,
half-believed—each

OMG the time!

There’s a Starbucks over in Woodland Hills with a veranda. It’s southern plantation-ish in length with a pretty white rail bracing it. At least I think it’s a pretty white rail—that’s what my eyes insist to memory. It might actually be a black rail, but black isn’t very Tara-ish. Or perhaps I’m color blind. Synapse-starved. Over-caffeinated. Could be.

I held the door open for an elderly gentleman leaving this Tara Starbucks as I entered. He was so focused on balancing the 5 drinks in the carry-out carton that he didn’t look at me or smile, but nodded, his white hat rising and falling in slow motion. “Urgh,” he said.

At least I think his hat was white.

No elephants in this Starbucks, but the NaMeSitDifStarDaiWri (expletive) Po point is not to write about the Starbucks itself, but the poem hatched (or ground) in the Starbucks, or on the sweeping verandas of some Starbucks or beneath the dim hanging lights of any Starbucks, anywhere.

I smelled like the stuff sprayed on horses to keep flies off. I smelled like an old dressage saddle. I forgot to bring a change of shoes, my riding boots coated in Chatsworth dust, my cheeks cherry-red from finally attempting a canter around the ring. Embarrassed, I kept my sunglasses on. “Hm?” I was asked by the youngster behind the counter. “What, Ma’am? Frappucino or Americano? What do you want?” Ma’am, I thought. I am a Ma’am. Nope. There’s no poem in that.

Perhaps it was the frilly coffee drink, or perhaps I was high on fly spray, or perhaps it was the generous space between tables on the gargantuan Starbucks veranda that made me want to write something, anything that would give me something, anything to work with (suture, slice up, fatten, deconstruct) at some nebulous point in the future between PreK and karate and sports-in-the-park and my own fumbling riding lessons. So I pushed for something, even after dropping the pen three times and chasing it for many days down that exceptionally lengthy veranda.

What is it they say? Anything is possible.

Update 2: NaMeSitDif (etc.) Projekt

Since I forgot to Na on Monday, as I promised myself, and since I didn’t Na on Tuesday due to pressing engagements (Target, the teeth people), upon leaving the stables today I stopped at a No’ridge Starbucks on my way home, hobbling delicately inside, my inner thighs imploding from a mere 30 mins of struggling to stay astride a super-fit thoroughbred. Ow.

The line was almost out the door. 20 people worked the counter and yet all of us prospective coffee buyers did not move. Every stupid table was full. Pity. I felt inspired by the artwork—an African elephant, ears flared, a vaguely Warhol-esque silkscreen visual, spanned a dimly lit wall. I could have written under that elephant. I just know it.

So I hobbled a few shopfronts down to Western Bagel and purchased their atrocious coffee and plunked before one of many (vacant) tables stuck through the middle by orange WB umbrellas (tables stuck through middles, of course, not me—ha ha!) and I tried very hard to keep my eyes averted from the black and white awnings of DSW far across the lot (spring sandals collection!) or the $10 Or Less bookstore next to it (DSW, $10 Or Less books—please don’t ever ask me to choose).

And I pulled my awkwardly sized black journal from my satchel.

And. I. Drew. A. Flower.

To be continued…

Note: why are all wedge sandals so high? I’m 5’10″. I can’t run around town at 6’2″—besides falling and breaking my neck I am forced to shout down to the world—hate that…also hate sucking up car exhaust while sitting at a cafe table—but perhaps there’s no escaping it, whether seated here, or in Paris, Bath, Des Moines…perhaps cafe table is synonymous with exhaust…must be a poem in the Starbucks elephant’s silkscreen body…can’t seem to write with a pen anymore…I once knew a woman who renamed herself Ellipsis…seriously…she was a masseuse and the girlfriend of a misogynist…unfortunate, all that…but probably a poem in it.

And here is a horse.

Thank god that lady’s off my back.

Update: NaMeSiDifStaDaiWri(expletive)Po

I forgot to go on Monday. Ummm…And here is a cat.

NaMeSiDifStarDaiWri%#*Po Week (Partial Week Edition)

A Starbucks in Seoul, Korea

Next week (because my son resumes PreK after a 2 week spring break) is National PB Sit in a Different Starbucks Daily and Write a (insert expletive) Poem Week. Well, at least monday through thursday. Actually not tuesday because that’s when I try to stay seated on a giant horse for 30 minutes while it cavorts around a ring and after that my thighs burn and wobble and I attempt to get prone as quickly as possible until it’s time to pick up my son. And probably not thursday, either, for the same reason. And definitely not friday because my son engages in Adventure Friday with Mama (nature walks, the study of caged animals and dino bones, etc). But Monday? Wednesday? Absolutely. I happen to be surrounded by a gazzilion Starbucks from Chatsworth to Tarzana. “Take advantage,” my husband suggested. “Get away from your–er, office–and see what happens writing-wise.” Because lately, as I work in my bedroom office, I’m distracted by everything from house finch chatter to listening for the UPS truck to the giant Baby Huey kitten asleep at my feet to the lovely colorful swirly images filling the Cavalia calendar on my wall to the arching, cat-chewed fake orchid on the loooooong dresser, to social media to anything but the words circling endlessly in my head, waiting (for how long?) for me to bring them on home.

Why Starbucks?

A Starbucks that used to live in the Forbidden City, Beijing, China.

Because I know I’ll go because I love their coffees and they’re not far away, like the botanical gardens, zoo, Huntington Library, the rose garden at Exposition Park, any sort of inspiring writing spot I can think of. Ha ha! I’m getting OUT. Starbucks, you hopefully clean and tidy and patio-bearing venue! Here I come.

Let NaMeSiDifStarDaiWri%#*Po Week commence! Next week, that is. Monday. And wednesday. And maybe friday if the little guy ends up having a playdate. But definitely monday. Just me, my iphone (muted) and my awkardly large black journal. And a pen. Clicker-type. With a big fat stem.

Yours in salted caramel frappucinos and fresh poetry,

PB

Balinese Starbucks

Adventures in Equality (Facebook Edition)

My friend, who changed her FB profile picture earlier in the week like so many of us, posted: same-sex marriage doesn’t hurt YOU.

And an FB Friend of hers went wild, responding: “They” should settle for civil unions! I have no choice but to say this because God invented marriage and He specifically said Man and Woman. “They” (my friend’s Friend insisted) should be happy with civil unions. God did not intend for “them” to be married! It’s unnatural.

And my friend (she’s wicked smart) suggested: Let’s agree to disagree.

And her Friend responded: God says 1 man and 1 woman equal marriage. You can reinvent God if you want to, but you are promoting polygamy because THAT’S WHERE YOU ARE HEADED IN THIS ARGUMENT AND (my friend’s Friend added) I respect your opinion so all I ask is that you respect mine.

And my friend wrote: Let’s agree to disagree.

And so my friend’s Friend’s husband jumped in the thread. And he was all: this is not about equal marriage rights, if it was, “they” would settle for civil unions. This is about “their forces” pursuing an agenda of changing textbooks in the schools to promote homosexuality. And (my friend’s Friend’s husband insisted): I love everyone, you KNOW me. But “they” or “anyone” who “feels like they might be homosexual” can’t be allowed to change the textbooks.

And finally I was all: Whaaaaaa? Dude. Seriously. No. Where’s that love again?

And my friend’s Friend’s husband (who prefaced his original comment by writing: this will be my only comment) commented: PB RIPPLLEY, when you are ready to be rational instead of emotional, I will engage in this discussion. But since I am deleting my Facebook account tomorrow morning, this will not be happening!

And then my friend’s Friend’s husband posted a link about the threat of  ”them” promoting homosexuality in school textbooks.

And I was all: Duuuuuuuude–go in peace, man.

And I added (because I am a cruel, heartless heathen): hee hee

And then there was silence.

And I phoned my friend.

And we were all: sigh

Quote For The Weekend (Unchaste Edition)

I think villa living became him. I think Sappho was his muse. I think I’d like some homemade ice cream, now—perhaps pistachio.

True poets should be chaste, I know,
but wherefore should their lines be so?
—Catullus (Gaius Valerius, of course…)

Of course he loved Lesbia! Sheesh. Get over it. Hopefully he ultimately got over it, IF he wasn’t 30 when he died, but allowed to carry on: a social drop-out with descendants, crops, mind-soothing views. Maybe his (timeless, self-imposed) romantic hell compelled him to focus on healing his soul. Maybe he had children and realized he wanted to heal his soul. Maybe he realized he’d better heal, or else (gulp). Maybe that’s what most drop-outs (chaste, not chaste, or—otherwise) focus on—healing. And becoming wiser little beings. Especially when perusing the frozen foods aisle of Whole Foods. Maybe Catullus died at 30, or maybe he stayed right where he was, mired in an inherited oasis that pleased him, quietly writing the life out of himself, hoping we’d know, even though we don’t, or not hoping at all, just writing. I mean, living.

No, no. He must have died. He could never disappear unless he was dead. He was Catullus! He knew everyone. He fed Ceasar. He—maybe he sailed away. To Tahiti. Like Sappho (at least in my unwritten novel). Or to The Straits of Candid. Which might also be Hades. Or Target, or CVS, or Big Lots, where the checkers are spare…

Yours in the F word,

PB

Courage! (Neigh Edition)

I was late to retrieve the boy from school because I Face Sucked like a fiend AND watched the latest episode of “Once” on hulu AND in another open hulu tab caught up on the latest episode of “Revenge” WHILE checking on what Masterpiece Theatre is coughing up now that Downton is hibernating, a tab here, a tab there, battling guilt for watching anything or Face Sucking even the tiniest bit when I should have been researching literary agents as I did yesterday and the day before when that one rejection on my full ms. came in, but I Face Sucked and tab hopped and encouraged a lot of noise to make itself right at home in my bedroom office and when it was almost 1pm I screamed because I’m the mom who is never late, not even by seconds (faithful to a vow made when I was a kid and continually mired outside my school gates waiting, waiting, waiting) and I quickly calculated I was going to be 2 minutes late because I still needed to make the kid’s spinach smoothie disguised as strawberry/blueberry smoothie as he doesn’t eat vegetables that come in green or carrot or even yellow unless he doesn’t know he’s eating them in squash-flaxseed-carrot-puree pancakes or smoothies or spaghetti sauce or homemade bread or homemade chicken nuggets or homemade meatloaf bites or cookies sometimes or pudding or even jam and, just once, a grilled cheese sandwich (seriously, neither of us could stomach that one), and I obsess on his not getting enough iron from vegetables or those ribo, carotin-ish bits he’s supposed to absorb and as I sped the minivan to the school I worried about ribo and carotin-ish bits and literary agents with bad advice and whether or not I am right in diving into part 2 of a novel when part 1 hasn’t even been picked up (yet) and I marveled over how synopsis sounds like snot or something nose-blowing-ish and wondered for maybe the zillionth time if that’s why I have such trouble writing synopses, because I’m thinking about snot instead of—and I remembered I was supposed to bring a CD of jpegs featuring special events in my kid’s class (Chinese New Year parade, St Patrick’s Day green snacks, Easter party, Valentine’s Day, last Halloween, the Christmas concert, the school pancake breakfast, back to school night, Dr. Seuss Day, the making of latkes, Wednesday share days, pajama days, crazy hair days, hat days) and as I’m the Room Mom it was mortifying to realize that not only was I late, but lacking the package I promised and when I reached the school the main gates were shut, so I was forced to zoom around back and use the pedestrian gate, tacking on another few minutes despite sprinting across the parking lot and by the time I burst into the classroom with apologies, the little naptime cots were all set up and giggling kids getting on them, further mortifying me, but the teachers told me to just bring the CD the following morning and one of them squeezed my hand sympathetically and said she was glad I wasn’t perfect and it was then I realized my Old Navy blue and white striped sailor’s type shirt was on inside out.

My son emerged from the play-kitchen area, shouted MAMA! and promptly resumed “cooking” with miniature pots and pans.

WTH, PB, I thought, holding hands with my boy as we skipped back to the minivan in sunshine and cool, breezy air. Take a little break.

So I started horse riding lessons. English. Like when I was 8 years old and waiting for my parents to pick me up from the stables, waiting, waiting, waiting…Only now, I am in control. I have minivan keys. I have a reliable waterproof wristwatch. I have a dollar in my pocket. And a carrot. I. Am. In. Control.

One day, hopefully, the horse will believe this.

Leroy is not letting me off the hook as far as the unicycle’s saddle. In fact, I’m sure he’d rather I ride that than him.

So there.

To All Rejections

To all rejections:

I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral. I am building a cathedral.

In the center of my empire.

 

Old Town Poetry

I invited a friend to a poetry reading. 6 years ago this would have been a normal request of any of my friends. But now I’m a mom. Now most of my friends are mothers and working mothers and mothers with working-OT-husbands–thus my mom-friends are working-OT-mothers–and single working mothers and mothers worried about where their kids are going to kindergarten next year and most of the poet friends I have/had are elsewhere. Like at the AWP. Or deep into their 2nd or 3rd poetry manuscripts. Or growling in academia. Or in Venice, CA, light years away from my scorched valley. Places I rarely frequent, though not from a lack of respect.

The. Valley. You can get lost in here.

The last major poetry reading I went to was 4 or so years ago in a Hollywood rainstorm. I went alone. Poets were rude. Poets hated each other and were snide and critical of poetry (other poets’ poetry, the world) at the reception, where everyone heard everyone else’s gripes. Poets. Behaved. Badly. On my way home, the wipers working so furiously they were about to fly off the windshield, all of Hollywood out in their cars on the stormiest night of the year and driving (how else?) atrociously, I called my husband and declared I was never again leaving he and our son for poetry.

Imagine a rainstorm.

But my mom-friend said yes, so I picked up her up in the minivan and we zoomed to Pasadena. “I’ve long admired the featured reader,” I explained. But my friend didn’t require any explanation. She’d been mommying overtime. She was happy to have a break from domestics.

Old Town. I’d forgotten: that busy, twinkle-lights-charm. A warm, balmy Sunday. Swept sidewalks and old-fashioned street lamps in a gold twilight, jazz wafting from open cafe windows. We walked through a pretty brick corridor to an L-shaped boutique and there was the venue, mod, hung in paintings by local artists, MOCA-like cement floor (so that when that person’s coffee cup was kicked by the guest coming in late, spillage was no biggie), sunken lighting. My friend and I claimed metal chairs, nudged elbows, relaxed. The open mic portion of the reading, the often awkward bit before the featured reader, commenced.

See what I mean? Sort of?

Fast forward to 90 minutes later, Sushi Roku, its trendy bamboo displays and tiki-with-a-facelift atmosphere a brief walk from the poetry reading. My friend and I stuffed our mouths with spicy tuna on crispy rice. We discussed the reading, analyzed mommying, repeatedly commented on being out on a Sunday night, how weird, how wonderful. ”I loved that guy’s poem about his childhood books,” my friend said, sipping her sparkling blueberry sake, in synch with the evening, a flower of the evening, certainly one of the evening’s brightest twinkles. I agreed with her, and whether I liked any of the poets, open-mic poets or my acclaimed featured poet, or not, was irrelevant. The little event mattered, that people showed up for poetry, to listen or to read. They showed up. With hope and with smiles and with gifts and supportive applause.

It’s good to be a grown-up.

No caption required.

Clues

So it’s time to leave the Little House and tear him away from several days of precious Pottery Barn living and Angry Birds on the Kindle at odd hours and foods we don’t normally eat at home, like grated-cheese-and-nitrate-free-bacon-quesadillas-for-breakfast-with-1-maraschino-cherry-on-top, and return to the pre-K routine and pre-Spring scorch that is the Ponderosa—and gakking cats and dust-layered patio furniture that also, without fail, comprise the Ponderosa—and the dog’s paws squashing bare feet and his sausage-body slamming you to the ground and the unicycle that still needs mastering and that stunning pink sky at twilight, marked by cypress tree points and dubiously strung power lines and absolutely nothing Pottery Barnish-precious that are, also, the Ponderosa (saying farewell to the sea is so very bittersweet for this writer). After a weekend of record March highs, the morning’s woolly clouds and a cold breeze make a last beachwalk unwise, freaking me (how can I not say goodbye to the ocean even though I hate saying goodbye), but I glance up and there are those cinematic mountains all purply and inviting in the gloom. So I zoom us to the botanical gardens and from there, that high, amidst Mission Canyon oaks, we look down on placid blue studded in Santa Cruz Island and we both, I swear, utter the awed ‘Ohhhh!’ you hear only from those totally overwhelmed by nature.

We are surrounded by wildflowers and ponds and succulents and giant, gangly Dr. Seuss growths and, after giving each other a wink,  instantly having fun. Especially since the docent hands him a magnifying glass and a pair of binoculars to wear around his neck. That’s what I’m talking about, Mama! he declares and sets off along a trail lined in blooming cacti in search of ‘clues’. Bye, bye, I tell the ocean, glancing at my buzzing cell phone. It is my husband, calling from our (dusty!) desert oasis that is the Ponderosa and which he is tidying in our honor, eager for our return.

Flu 2

When I’m sick like this (somewhere near the darker side of the middle line between healthy and barely-not-dead), my limbs melted into the mattress, not asleep, though not alert, vaguely hearing my son and husband pretend-Kung-Fu in the living room, my brain distresses me by remaining consistently ON FIRE. Agony! Eyes shut, I see myself blogging or working on a poem or browsing the websites of literary agents. But I don’t sit up and bring about any imaginings. I remain in my strained limbo of Walter Mitty-ing. Look! There I am typing The End on my 5th novel—on a remote beach in Kauai deep in a turquoise June. Agony! That short story of Aimee Bender’s about the guy immobile on his couch—suddenly it makes complete sense and is more terrifying than clever. And, suddenly: I am officially older than Pi, Marie Callender’s and ancient Egyptians. Nessie and the Titanic and sedimentary cherts. The man in the moon, Mars’ anger, stars above and those burning so prettily on the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. The cat’s collar’s bell is a clocktower’s kabong. The bedside lamp’s light is a comet exploding. There is nowhere to go but everywhere and I’m not going anywhere. I am frenzy, paralyzed. Agony! You are the most dramatic flu victim I’ve ever known, my husband says. He hands me a bottle of sparkling water and 4 Advil. Sleep, he insists, clicking off the lamp. You’ll feel better in the morning. At 3 a.m. my eyes open and I lie in darkness listening to the dog snore. I am tempted to read, Swann’s Way by the light of my iphone, but I’m not that sick, I’ll never be that sick, if I’m ever that sick, just—never mind. If anything, I think, rolling over and accidentally clonking my husband’s spine with my elbow, I’m better. Around 10 a.m., bolstered by couch pillows and a mug of coffee, I’m typing. The view through the windows is not turquoise ocean, but a mockingbird dive bombing my cat’s head as he hurries across struggling yard,

but it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay—not an ounce of agony creeps (eyes shut or otherwise).

Remote Kauaian Beach

Relief.

Birthday Edition

On the eve of my hubbadobubbaboblah birthday: tucked my son into Pre-K, FB’d (i.e. avoided yoga), did yoga, even Superman, even V-ups, edited poems, sighed at the unicycle, edited poems, zoomed the boy to karate testing for his green stripe belt, watched him succeed, fixed dinner, threw the ball for the dog and spent the rest of the evening building a Lego Chima thing with kick-ass wheels, to my son’s shrieked delight, Pandora on the iphone shuffling out Elbow after Coldplay after those many other boy bands that sound just like the previously mentioned, after Elbow and more Elbow. I’m tired, Mama, my son said. It was 8:30p.m. Where the bluebird did the time go? I quickly brought about bedtime, read stories, tucked him in and here I recline, the dog snoring next to me, and I am, of course, wondering how it is I can be having another birthday when the last one was yesterday. Or, truthfully?: seconds ago.

TIME never ceases to baffle and amaze, which means there’s something superbly wrong with me as TIME is so easy to comprehend, like hulu or Joan Collins’ sister’s novels or yellow blossoms twitching in a breeze. TIME. WTH? When you’re 90 you’ll back and say, why in the name of Frodo and sardines dipped in pepper cheddar cheese fondue didn’t I just enjoy my hubbabdubsnrrrg birthday? suggests my husband. The same thing he’s said every birthday since I’ve known him. Meaning 8 years, which, when you think about it, is not very long—8 years of knowing each other, married for 6, raising our boy for 5? A BLINK! It’s crazy. You know it is. TIME is: the Sherlock and the hemlock and the white sunburst always out there and the seashell’s muddled whisper and the rock in the rain and pink ice cream on the tongue and fingers working aging keys, revising. I’ll never get used to TIME. Perhaps I should sell T-shirts in the manner of those that read: FREE BATES. A red cirle, and inside: TIME, and a red line slashing through. NO TIME. Or, you know, a Jonathan L Seagull flying (on the T-shirt), TIME in delicate script font beneath. And a slashing red line. Or a mouth open uber-wide, the word TIME shoved down it. And a slashing red line. TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME. Etc. Look, my husband insists, TIME is in the living, the living is inside every minute. Just enjoy your dang birthday, PB.

Waking up to birthday cake for breakfast and a laundry basket full of presents, a supremely optimistic husband and excited little boy?: helps.

Unicycle thus far. 9 seconds…

 

February Mini-Break

This visit, Dana Point-by-the-tru-la-la-ocean was hotter than Reseda by 1, February-heatwaving degree. 79 vs. 78. So of course we escorted my father into the minivan and drove to The Pilgrim and admired its masts and restoration for the gazzilionth time and after a bit left my father to harbor-gaze and ran the boy along the path morphing from concrete to tan sand and down the rocks to Ecology Beach, wending through the masses gathered for the pending sunset and, for the first time since bringing him to Ecology Beach, meaning since he was 3 months old, we explained to our Pre-K’er that Ecology

Beach is protected, meaning you can’t take anything from it, meaning he had to drop the shell and tell it goodbye and, for the first time in all his 5 years of exploring Ecology Beach and making every grain of sand, every mussel and godwit his, he grappled with this information, teetering between tears and “listening” as his parents waited, exchanging secret glances as they weathered the suspense—until he decided to place the shell back on the sand and run, run all-out to the point, while I trotted after father and son, trying not to worry about unstable cliff looming: crumbling (save that). We retrieved my father. Fixated on water, recent baffling harbor construction, the explosion of a beach town he grew up in, when Dana Point was moored fishing boats and not much else, except, of course, beach, he insisted (indignant) that he really wasn’t so wheezy, so of course we drove to the Wind and Sea and ate dinner on tiered patio and, with awed-by-weather locals, chatted while absorbing this between sentences: beauty, beauty, lucky. Even my father, who (as he will tell you, wheezing or not) knows everything and has seen it all, was affected by dusk-colors deepening, the warmth of winter and members of his perky family sitting so close in life. Even our son ignored his crayons and gazed at the first stars pricking purple sky, taken in by world made specific by bobbing pelicans and sailboats slipping quietly by us with their chevron wakes, annoyed by his mother pointing her iphone’s camera at his thoughtful face, capturing, no, hoarding—no deletions allowed.

Quote For The Weekend: Early Edition (Due To Colds, Flu, Pediatric Dental ER’s, Close-Family Close Calls, Going Away For The Weekend & A Unicycle That Still Needs Mastering…)

Try, fail. Try again, fail better.
—Samuel Beckett

In Sunday’s typically heat-knit twilight, I glance up from pinching pie crust into old-fashioned, part curtains patterned in fat cherries. A palomino trots down my street, its rider guiding with the blithe sway of a professional. Hup, Marian. The gallop. By the time I scream for the world and make it outside, man and horse are a yellow star bouncing, a juicy glistening on the wane, the clopping echoing into epic—towards Chatsworth’s deformed cliffs, red as goblins in the last of this sun: boulder-chop a madwoman’s teeth, baring. On, on…

And The Seat Moved

My sliced finger salved and bandaged, wiping cat gak off my bare foot, it was about then I remembered my promise to learn to ride the unicycle before my next birthday, so I went outside, snatched up my son’s helmet from the fake stove in the playhouse and put it on, the chin strap, let out as far as it could go, cutting into the swatch of skin I’m pretty positive will one day be referred to as wattle. Hanging onto a post on the patio, I heaved myself onto the clownish seat. It swiveled, throwing me. Actually throwing me. I went back inside for knee pads and tried again and of course the seat moved because once they start moving they move with quickening ease and a tool is required to keep them on the straight and narrow. So down I went, using handblocks and feeling like an idiot and limped into the house for another unicycle YouTube tutorial after which I decided to ignore all advice and bypass the patio post and just get out there, on the lawn, push myself up and go for it—at which point the seat moved and I fell and went into the garage for a tarp which I laid out on the grass in the freaky 80 degree weather we’re having in winter and I tried again and the seat moved, etc. I was avoiding the fix-the-seat tool because I have no idea where it lives, only that it is somewhere deep in the meticulously placed boxes of the man-cave, a non-insulated realm I enter only to use the stationary bike, or fetch kid’s birthday wrapping paper. I decided to utilize the swingset for balance and positioned the tarp and myself and when things started creaking, I panicked and a half pedal later slammed into the gazebo, denting the front corner stand and almost bringing the whole thing down, windsock, delightfully stretched canopy the blue of a Greek Orthodox church, glass butterfly on a decorative spring, and all. It was about then I realized I was going to have to wait until he returned and manhandled the man-cave himself and that was a relief, that thought. I went inside and poured a glass of cranberry lemon juice. I drank, surviving tartness. Sunblock, I said, distracted by poems (other people’s) until it was time to fetch the boy from pre-K. When we returned, the dog was sleeping outside on the tarp, his head cushioned on the seat of the unicycle, a cat (not, for once, gakking) posing Egyptian style in the sun, watching, watching.

Quote For The Weekend

The Dapper Diaz

In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.
― Junot Díaz

Today I am a 56 year old academic who wrote only one good poem in his life and enjoyed torturing his smart young(er) wife by drinking too much in front of her and constantly spouting the lewdest Catullus he could pull from rapidly fraying synapses. Once, he refused to help friends bury a great white shark in the dead of night. Good friends. His only friends. He watched them, instead, swigging grand marnier from a flask on moonlit beach as they dug and sweated and pushed and heaved and finally buried their monster. I’m not a very good poet, he told his friends morosely when they collapsed next to him and begged him for the flask. We know, they said, but not unkindly. It was the last good time he ever had in his life. I don’t like being this man. He disturbs and disgusts me, especially when he his awful to his wife. But he is my necessary alcoholic academic, beacon. I will go and shower now and try and rinse him off until tonight, when I will revisit his condition with a glass of wine and a cat curled on my legs. I won’t let him ruin my weekend. Perhaps I should, Mr. Diaz, but I won’t. This post may come back to haunt me.

Beach Break

This was last weekend, all Winter beachness, crisp, clear light, air cold enough for us to wear sweaters we haven’t seen in over a year, sweaters with jeans and sweats and bare feet as we ran on glassy beach, Anacapa, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands clearly visible and doing their magic trick of seeming 20 feet away instead of 20 or so miles and once, as my eyes skimmed the horizon, I’m pretty sure I received San Miguel’s tiny image, but I couldn’t find it again. Dolphins made an appearance, kids wore themselves out runnning in an icy yet intoxicating ocean breeze as the tide, once again, became minus, exposing the ocean’s rough fingers and backbones and multi-colored baubles, her countless jewels. As I watched my family gallop and explore, I thought: this is what it means to benefit from the world, to be brought instantly awake in it, to know you are subject and mirror and student and guest and 100% home. And then I thought: there’s no poem in this? Really, PB? And so tonight I get busy.