Lesley

240

When I call memories to mind, this is what surfaces: her voice on the answering machine, “You have reached the Faltus-Meltesen residence”. An image of her, smirking at us over glasses (am I inventing this?) as she read the paper in the afternoon sun. I remember being intimidated by her sarcastic insight, her refusal to bullshit the way other parents did.  I remember the delicate touches she made to their home, like the tiny statue of a frog that perfectly matched the colors of the bathroom, or the collection of souvenir and vintage teacups in the dining room, each one a tiny, perfect world.

Indeed, that house on Richland Avenue is perhaps the perfect example of what I think Julia might mean by the “geography of memory”. Julia’s family no longer lives there though the house itself still exists. All the rooms are clearly defined in my head—the locations of the record player, the organized dry foods closet, the Christmas tree in the living room, and the little wallpapered antechamber all unchanging, fixed in time and space. Although some of those items have moved along with Julia’s family, they are still somehow bound to that location. Although I can’t recall many details about Susan, I can see her reflected through my memories of her beautiful home.

When I work to remember, I see some of these aspects of Susan in Julia and her sister as well: Julia’s attention to detail and eye for decorating, her love for small tokens, patterns, and books. The way Simone’s outward dislike of sentimentality can be turned upside-down by the carefully crafted art she creates, in particular, a series of three-dimensional felt models of their childhood home.  

Like the house, Susan no longer exists in a tangible way, but is pinpointed to a certain place in my mind. If you visited 240 Richland now you wouldn’t find her. Imagine instead a map, where little pinpoints track the travels of Julia, Simone and Jay. Those small red dots, moving locations that follow the hearts and minds of those that loved her, are where she can now be found.

Zoe

The first time Julia caught my eye was on the 23 Monterey bus (a route I will always associate with exhaustion, smelly raincoats, and insecurity) on the way home from school. I was 14 and a newly minted freshman at Lowell High School. My recent decision to chop off my hair, which felt extremely momentous to me, had been unfairly obscured by some planes destroying the World Trade Center. Later I would see Julia at a bake sale to raise money for  firemen injured on 9/11. I didn't give a shit about them though, I just wanted to hang out with people who dropped offhanded references to acid and told me to get a sitar becauseeveryone plays the guitar [hahaha Julia I bet you know who this is].

Now that the scene is set, back to Julia. She was wearing a sushi-printed skirt--actually just a sheet held together with safety pins--that dragged on the ground, she had apparently hacked off her hair too, and the detail that sealed the deal: she was engrossed Giant Robot magazine, the read of choice for nascent hipsters and street style enthusiasts. Now that we're adults and we've moved beyond subcultures it's hard to explain how much these small signifiers of nonconformity meant to me, but we went to a high-pressure public college prep school and spent our days shoving past hordes of Ivy League-sweatshirt clad drones, sitting in dilapidated, mildewed bungalows, and passively absorbing monotone lectures on World War II, again and again, in a class that masqueraded as World History. Thinking of my fellow students as sheep actually felt insightful, that's how bad it was. Julia's weirdness gave me hope for the next four years.

That day on the bus we realized we were almost neighbors, and I started hanging out at Julia's after school. We were friends at school too, but I found her somewhat intimidating in that context--she had older friends and drank vodka and judged people harshly. I was just as judgmental, of course, but in the warmth and comfort of Julia's house I felt protected from such judgment turning against me. I remember her house as a series of cozy nooks filled with interesting knick knacks and souvenirs; almost like a dollhouse. Wrapped in fleece blankets, propped on pillows, snuggling with Willy, Julia's massive black and white cat, I felt safe and accepted. Her house was a sanctuary not only from the swirling tendrils of fog in Holly Park, or the wind roaring through the eucalyptus trees, but also from the tedious, angst-inducing realities of high school. 

Much of this soothing atmosphere was created by Julia's mom. Her presence in my memories is low-key, always amused and encouraging. She sat with us while we made tea, endless bowls of popcorn, and popovers, listening to our complaints and mockeries and offering insightful commentary. 

Maud

I remember Susan's smile. It was sincere, I shone, and would light up her face. She laughed encouragingly. I remember she was bothered by her weight, and was continuously cycling through diet plans. I remember she and her husband slept in separate beds. She bought things, even things she didn't mean to buy, like a bejeweled demin jacket which Julia and I doted over in amusement. She was a great caftsperson who would sew her daughters' ensembles. She made fabulous halloween costumes that I was endlessly jealous of. She had an eye for the homoerotic yet was outwardly prudish. She was an excellent and dedicated teacher. She wore makeup that was brown in tone. She had pop-tarts in her pantry one time. She loved to swim. She mowed the lawn after cancer treatments. She was relentless.
I remember many stories about her.

I remember her towing me a Julia across the waters of Heart's Desire beach while we lay on a flotation device. We were wholly relaxed, yet perplexed as she dredged us through jelly-fish infested waters, receiving many stings. She once took us to the Hearst Castle. We stayed at a motel by the water. Before bed we watched a program about tsunamis. I fell asleep listening to Susan's breathing and the crashes of the waves, fearful that the gentle laps against the shore could at any moment transform into a gaping mouth, and throw us into the stomach of the ocean.

Susan never believed that Julia and I were being naughty. Even when we were stealing chocolates from the grocery store by shoving them down our shirts, or when we won scrabble by cheating with an extra bag of letters hidden in our laps. 

Susan would surprise you with were stories from the past. She would conclude these stories with a shrug and a sigh, as if to let you know that it was youth and naivete that brought them about. She would let you know that Art Garfunkle had asked her for rolling papers (after which she had to explain the significance of rolling papers to me), that she had been threatened by Bob Marley's posse when traveling in Jamaica, that she was visiting by the traveling Noel Cowards' ghost, that she had hitch hiked across Europe, earning money by dancing in the street accompanied by a friend on the flute (while in Ireland, she had passed out one evening on a friendly enough looking lawn, only to be awoken by a kindly old lady. Seeing that she had guests, the lady immediately took to milking her goat to offer to the young travelers. Being polite, Susan and her friend did the best they could to drink the warm goats milk, but could not bring herself to do it. Once the lady had turned her back, Susan forced her friend to drink it).

Susan was a dancer.

These are some things I remember about Susan which immortalize her in my mind.

Simone

When I think of my sister and my mother together, especially when we were little kids, my initial gut feeling is jealousy. When Julia and I were small, it always seemed like they were sharing some special secret that I was almost a part of...but not quite. The photo I've attached illustrates this pretty well, Mom and Julia are engrossed in a starfish pulled from a tidepool, and there I am mostly cut out of the shot. Thinking back, this feeling of jealousy is pretty normal sibling-rivalry stuff: they shared their own special world, and that made me feel like an outsider. I'm sure in the same way, my mother and I shared our own world, and Julia was left out. My sister and I had our own secret world too. There were times, it seemed, that we had extended shimmering moments of the worlds fusing together, particularly when we were away from our home and having "adventures" - especially when those adventures involved tidepools. When our family would take our once or twice yearly trips to Mendocino, our mother would try to plan it so we would be there for a minus tide, when the water is even further out than usual and it was possible to explore the further reaches of our tidal territory. She would wake us up in the early early morning and hustle us down the stairs that hugged the cliffs under the cabin we stayed in. Once we were down on the rocks, our mother always managed to scare me because she was the risk-taker, feeling her way farther and farther into the tidal zone searching for the elusive 18-legged sunstar or cluster of abalones. I was far too much of a scaredy-cat for that sort of thing, and stuck to the tidal pools closer to shore. Julie always seemed to me to occupy the middle ground between our mother's adventurous spirit and my more pragmatic attitude. She was willing to follow our mother to the outer edges of the tide pools, but not without trying to get me to come along, too. Sometimes, with her encouragement, I would actually find the courage to make the leap into the unknown.

Mary

Susan went to the same high school we had, Lowell, and she had gone to college at SF State, which, like Lowell, is close to the ocean and probably only a five-minute drive away. I read this blog and it’s funny I thought about writing about the coast too, because I always felt like it was a big link to the Meltesens. Susan drove us up and down the coast, too, to Mendocino to go the cabin, to Monterey, to Heart’s Desire Beach in Tomales Bay, to USA Restaurant in North Beach for cioppino and calamari, to Pescadero to go to Duarte’s to get artichoke soup. 

When I think about it, San Francisco really is like the West, it is open and rangy in a way that the East Coast isn’t. Lowell and SF state are clustered around Lake Merced, a man-made lake wind whips around like crazy. In high school, I would wait sometimes two hours for MUNI to come along, as the winds whipped off of Lake Merced and I cursed the world.

Julia had Susan’s diary from high school, and she read it to us. It could have been ours, with its teenage frustration, complaints of walking down the same streets day after day, sick of the mind-numbing effects of high school.

Susan understood us, as teenagers who hated our school, because she was a public school teacher and a creative person and she had gone to Lowell too. You could tell she was a great teacher, the way she would talk about her students was both practical and kind. Unlike the teachers I was used to, she seemed to have chosen a profession she really valued. She was angry at the wealthy parents of San Francisco who insisted on sending their kids to private school, creating a class division which was certainly apparent at the school she taught at in Visitacion Valley (Viz Valley for those in the know.) She had even arranged a special trip for her students, on the “tall ships” where they could be sailors. Another link to the coast, and they were lucky to have her as a teacher.

Driving along the coast, Susan told stories of growing up in San Francisco, a smart, creative, angsty teen girl like us. Like us, her friends would cut school to run to the beach, passing the same Doggie Diner, the same zoo. The Great Highway, which is really just a little highway, runs along the coast, separating the beach. She told a story about being stoned on acid as a teenager, standing on one side of the Great Highway and being too unsure of when the light changed to go across.

I remember driving to Mendocino, we read the ElleGirl featuring Kelly Osbourne, who we were interested in because she was chubby and had dyed pink hair and looked like us. We were obsessed with her video, Papa Don’t Preach, they’d play on the local video channel, hosted by local DJ Chuey Gomez. Like my family, the Meltesens did not have cable. I would hang out there a lot, watching hours of CMC and then eating dinner at their house. They always had salad as a last course, the Italian way.

Susan drove us up and down the coast, on the twisting, tiny roads of 101. When we went to Monterey, Julia and her talked a lot about the chicken, a chicken that was supposed to play tic-tac-toe. Susan had seen the chicken in person, but when we went to the building where it was supposed to be, it was all boarded up.

I feel lucky I got to go on these trips, too, and see the coast the way Julia and Simone always had, the way Susan taught them to, because she’d grown up the same way. We saw an orange octopus scuttle away in the Mendocino tide pools, descending a narrow staircase that hugged the cliff to get there. San Francisco, the beach, the limpets in the tide pools, the Great Highway, Tomales Bay, artichoke soup; these are all memories I have, tied together in the northern California coastline.

Over All

I'm certainly not perfect. When my dear friend Zoe left San Francisco for Rio, I didn't say a proper goodbye

Before she left, I remember walking with her over the hill that separates our houses. The news had just broke that a rapist was on the prowl in SF's mission district.  She clutched a open Swiss army knife in her fist as she made her way around the hill. One arm was wrapped protectively around mine, while the other jerkily thrust her weapon in air with each swinging stride.  I can't recall  any details of our conversation, although knowing us, it was probably a heated debate about the homoeroticism in Moby Dick.
 No dear reader, it was not the night Zoe shived a guy on Bernal  Hill for looking at me funny. No, we didn't create a blood pact over his body, and then cement our allegiance to each other by purchasing matching half shirts at Wet Seal the next day. No,  keeping the sordid secret  between us didn't put a strain on our friendship and our sanity.There was no drunken blow out (with sexy results) at the Wild Side West. There was no downward spiral into the gutter for Julia. Zoe did not claim to be "appointed by our lord savior for the sacred duty of neutering the entire human male population of San Francisco." Julia did not alienate her devoted gay fan base (who liked her the ratty wigs, and the way her distended belly hung out of her half shirts thank you) by puking on those who paid $100 for front stage tickets to her "Back From the Gutter" Tour, and then literally stumbling back to the gutter with a full two hours left of her set remaining. Zoe was not known asthat 'neighborhood character' who walked around Bernal Heights and brandishing a plastic butter knife at phantom testicles. It's all flagrantly untrue, especially the rumors of a lesbian dalliance. The knife was just a knife,  the murder wasn't about unresolved sexual frustration, and they did not consummate their feelings in the early dawn on top of a freshly made grave. Last but not least, the pink half shirts with the heart, skull and cross bones, and daisy decal were not code for "I heartsapphic virginity and death rites" You are just a bunch of perverts who read into things way too much things. Yes, fortunately for us we got home with out incident.There were a few hushed conjectures about the possible threat posed by one sketchy loner walking through the mist 30 feet in front of us but I knew it was safe. Perhaps it's fool hardy of me but I wasn't worried about the rapists on that foggy February night. I was more afraid of the inevitability of Zoe leaving me again one day soon. 
 I thought she was being a little over the top with knife, but then I remembered a anecdote about the neighborhood she lived in Rio: Men drove around on Motorcycles with their fingers on the triggers of Machine guns. I guess you could say that she had her finger on the trigger that night.Or perhaps it was  her comfort totem. It was interesting how it made her look threateningly mature and childish at the same time.

But characteristic of her curmudgeonly old young soul. I love her rant about overalls in this letter. I appreciate Zoe's critical eye and the way she coldly steps back from the trend of the moment, may it be overalls or layering. It reminds me of my mom, who would make disdainful remarks whenever we walked down 18th, a street chock a block with fly by night fads. Fancy pizza, fancy ice cream, fancy beer. Like the overalls, evoking a certain notion of working class identity. Geared towards those with discriminating palates who associate the rustic flavors with integrity. A farmer grasping a scythe in tan work worn fists, his wife kneading dough with dexterous, capable hands, stout ruddy fingers wrapped around the handle of a frothy mug. Their own  soft, clammy palms perched over key boards all day long.

*****

My dad and mom went to high school together but didn't start dating until the late 1970s. They reconnected at a mutual friends wedding to which my dad had worn overalls. His date got pissed about this and refused to drive him home. That's where my mom comes in...

Who doesn't have a few skeletons in their closet?

People give negativity a bad rap. I know because I've always had some kind of chip on my shoulder for being a cerebral person, wary among groups, rarely letting go of my icy layer of judgment. Everything is about new innovation change flexibility acceptance love. Thus I appreciate how Zoe wears her iconoclasm like a badge of honor, flaunting it around like her little knife. And, besides, just because I'm negative person doesn't meant that I'm not capable of love. But yeah. kids these days, always following after the next new trend, thinking they can makeover themselves completely over with a outfit.
 Not that I wasn't susceptible to this mentality. Push came to shove after my mom died, and entered Berkeley. I was going to have the young, and carefree college experience, come hell or high water! And this was how I came to  reside in a coop with some die hard burners one semester. No, I have always disliked burning man types categorically but, it seemed like everyone under the age of 25 at Berkeley was into it so I tried to suspend my judgment, and just be chill, man. Oh how naive I was! The only way that would be possible for me to suspend judgment in that house would be to time travel back to 1967 and procure a prescription to whatever it is they're always downing in Valley of the Dolls. Needless to I had seriously overestimated my ability to tolerate what turned out to be the walking talking incarnation of my worst  nightmare. Such as the guy who lived in the walk in closet attached to my room. He prided himself on his enlightened take on sexuality and talked about his latest conquest as if it were a fluctuation in the the weather. Except, his sunny idealism was always bumping up against that pesky stick in the mud, reality. Why were girls always getting so emotionally attached? It was cramping his style; he just wanted to be free. Yes, the day of liberation would come that everyone started to behave just as you want them to. But maybe I was judging him too harshly, maybe I should be more accepting. But as usual, before I could finish this train of thought, he interrupted me: "What's with those?" It was pretty self evident that I was drying some bras on the chair next to my desk. He didn't wait for me to answer. "Well, you'll probably throw them out soon. No one wears bras here." The smugness in his voice killed me: he honestly believed that I needed to follow his patronizing advice if I was ever to free myself from the" yoked harnesses" of male oppression. Well free my breasts, that is. The rest of a woman was probably superfluous to his one man liberation front. Did I mention that the only article of clothing he was wearing at the time was a loincloth? He had fashioned one  out of a ti dyed tapestry.The irony was not lost on me that the fabric swathed around his crotch was the very same kind hung in dorm rooms to them look less sterile and institutional. He couldn't hide if tried.
That was around the point that I wrote Zoe this email
Dear Zoe,

Sorry for awakening you from your slumber tonight. I was just calling because I'm having a shitty night. I think I'm really starting to hate college. There was a reunion party at the coop that I live at and as such, there has been a perpetual drum circle going on downstairs  and a bunch creepy old people hanging around- some dude just grabbed my arm on my way through the kitchen and tried to take my picture....
It goes on
In a review Zoe wrote of a comic we both like she quotes one of the characters as saying, "the world is a horrible place filled with terrible people." That's basically the gist of  that email. Anyway, I bring it up because I really like the conclusion she reaches:

"Too many comics coast on manufactured nihilism, but Amy and Jordan feels like an act of exorcism, transmuting real anguish into entertainment. It is a testament to the the survival instinct. Amy and Jordan fly through life on irrational optimism, and it seems that creating them lets Beyer do the same."

*****

In my darkest moments, I view my mom's life as a tragedy. She had an abusive, alcoholic husband who she lived with until she died. She never filled her full potential and I didn't appreciate her enough.  She served her family tirelessly and didn't get anything back. Could you really blame her for smoking? It was really the only time she had a respite from all the stress.

******

I was 16 when I first started seriously hanging out with Zoe. In an article about her friendship with Harvey Pekar that started at around the same time, she writes "I remember one very serious conversation about living with chronic depression. He was amused that I expected him to have some words of wisdom on the topic, since he had struggled with these problems his whole life without overcoming them. Nonetheless, he did give me some advice that was both pragmatic and frightening, and I’ve tried to follow it ever since. I think Harvey didn’t even consider it good advice; it was just the only thing that worked. He told me that you have to force yourself to do whatever needs to be done to get through the day, no matter how you feel, and at some point later you’ll be glad you did."

She became a elementary school teacher in one of the lower class family neighborhoods in sf that all the yuppies forget exist. Many of the students did not get support at home, and some had serious emotional problems. One year some of them even formed 'a drug club' where they hid plastic baggies filled with chalk, pencil shavings, and monopoly money in a violin case. At first she thought they had a new found passion for music. These kids were trying at times and knew exactly how to work her last nerve, but she was committed to them. She genuinely loved them. She taught up to two days before she died and managed to attend one last graduation. After the doctor gave her the news that there wasn't much time left, she managed to cheer herself up by reminiscing over their glowing, happy faces, all  the boys who dressed up in little suits. Say what you will but  I think the insecurity that her life was a tragedy was unfounded. She hadn't fulfilled her full potential in life, despite certain shortcoming.

How can one fully appreciate another person's life over all? As Zoe says, words can't do it justice. The important people in my life come and go, change and grow apart from me. Meanwhile, I sit outside and try to absorb the precious love that I can. I love her.

A Real San Francisco Character

I suppose it was nothing less than destiny the night I spied John Waters hanging out at my local watering hole. While my chums made the the usual polite small talk, I had the gall (drunken idiocy) to go and suggest that his next  cinematic venture should be a overtly homoerotic revision of Moby Dick. Yes, I probably should have been working on my paper about Moby Dick instead of out gallivanting but at some point you have to let go of conscious control of your life and just trust that all the loose ends will come together in the end.

******

To say that growing up in San Francisco exposes you to gay culture is an understatement. I got full exposure, honey. In fact, I probably would have irreperable skin damage from years of wantonly sunbathing under those flaming hot rays, if the the mantra, "moisturize, mositurize, moisturize" hadn't been so thoroughly drilled into me somewhere a long the way.

Blair and my Sister

Now, I wasn't born yesterday I know that not all gay men prance around with and say "honey" as they give you beauty tips.  On the other hand, it is naive to think that some cultural stereotypes have no foundation in reality.   In the early 90s my mother would take me to her friend, Blair, to cut my hair. There are a lots of pictures of him holding me as a baby. His uniform at that time was a plaid button down  shirt, unbuttoned just enough to expose the gold chain that nestled in his sleek, and silky chest hair, tight high waisted jeans always with a comb in the back pocket. The shirt was tucked into the jeans, of course.  I never realized he was gay until much later when I learned that he died of aids. All I remember is that he refused to cut my hair short like a boys. When he got sick, we started going to Supercuts. They did it, no questions asked.

a

Serving Some Infant Realness

My first conscious exposure to male homosexuality came at age ten when my friend Linden's dad came out of the closet. A Vietnam veteran and ex marine, he had a magnetic Michelangelo's David on his fridge that you could dress in a sparkly red dress, or cut off shorts. A helpful introduction to homosexual male culture if there ever was one. You think I'm kidding but the shorts shorts were truly a harbinger of the future that was to come: Lending out all my spare leggings because everyone forgets that after the sun goes down in San Francisco, the temperature drops from just above booty short weather to 15 degrees below freezing your ass off. 

*****

My friend's dad carved boats and dreamed of adventuring at sea. He was kind of burly, rode a motor cycle and wore leather.  The  polar opposite of Blair. I could only wonder that he is what planted the seed that later germinated into the Moby Dick fascination.

*****

 One of my mom's pet phrases was, "so and so is a San Francisco character." It's hard to understand exactly what that means. The explanation that my mom gave was frustratingly obtuse: something to the effect of "you know it when you see it." As I've gotten older, the more and more I realize this is true. Like the flick of a wrist, it is both a  slight gesture and a flamboyant marker of identity. There is a difference between judgment and intuition; You know it when you see it but can't technically describe it.

,

Mary dressed as Divine

This is my friend Mary. I feel like our relationship to her is similar to the my connection to the city itself. She is a great influence on me but not in aggressive, domineering way. It is much subtle than that, but also more powerful. It is the difference between imposing yourself on yourself on your surrounding environment, and letting it shape you. For instance, her blog about style was somewhat of an inspiration to me. In particular, her writings about gay culture and San Francisco have been the template for writing this entry. 

I've been thinking a lot about how place shapes you. As you can see from my mom's diary from the sixties, it was impossible to escape the hippie wave. (For Mary and I, it was the rainbow tide). She did a lot of drugs, saw Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, wore peasant blouses, moved to Mendocino to live with a group of artists for a couple months, threw the e-ching, hitch hiked around Europe. 

On road trips my mom and dad would play their Doors and Pink Floyd cassettes on a loop. I suppose it was their feeble attempt to make  an 8 hour ride in a stuffy car that reeked of coffee and orange rinds a bit less oppressive. Unfortunately, it backfired miserably and  since then their music has been synomous with boredom and nausea.  When I was thirteen, 60s music was all the rage with my friends. I went out and bought Door and Pink Floyd compact discs as soon as a got tthe chance. Unfortunately, the urge to conform wasn't' strong enough to overpower my pavlovian associations, Rather it just added another layer. Now the queasy ennui, and stale car smell is mixed with the shameful memories of being a adolescent tool. Having hippie parents really takes the wind out of teenage rebellion.

People who move here pride themselves on their openness, their flexibility, their willingness to thumb their nose at tradition. On Saturday night, they go to clubs in Oakland where few white people dared to venture a couple years ago. The next morning, they drink lattes from four barrel and nurse their hangover. (single origin, roasted in house.) What a wild night they had! Better take it easy today. Hey, maybe we should get some ice cream later! There's this new place with a bunch of crazy flavors. My favorite is curried dill pickle drizzled with McCoy's cold pressed extra virgin olive. It sounds weird but its really good. Trust me.

I often hear complaints about crazy homeless people. Yeah, tell me about it; I grew up with it. I'll never forget the first time I rode a bus at age eight. A visibly drunk man got on. As he weaved down the aisle, his slurring loudly, his pants fell down. He wasn't wearing underwear.  When I was a teenager a homeless man with the ruddy complexion that comes from a life time of alcohol consumption sneered at me and asked, "Why you got so many pimples? You got Aids or something"  From my experience it usually the most hopeless cases that go for straight for the jugular. Toothlessly gumming gibberish soliloquy's you assume they are completely gone, off the planet. No, not true. Some how they know. And Just as it hits you that he is  calling your friend "A Fag," he spits in his face too.

  I watch my friend Phoebe pour a gallon fake blood on her friend in front of the Castro theater. When I take a picture, it is the cue for the iphone cameras to come out. Everyone wants a piece of San Francisco character for themselves. As long as it is through an instgram filter.

 It doesn't take a  genius to realize how antithetical it is to try and inject mass consumerism with the spirit of adventure. And, I guess the problem that's the problem I have with all of this:  how dull it becomes. The current ice cream trend- choose from a million different crazy! (bland) flavors is an apt symbol for what this  change has wrought upon the city and society in general. Much like these hideous shorts, it represents triteness with a disconcertingly tasteless edge. Cloying in it's flavorlessness. A stultifying similitude of options. The same old oppressive standbys dressed up as "rebellion." People really swallow it up. Interactions with deranged homeless people  are a walk in the park in comparison: they may sometimes leave a bad taste in my mouth but at least I know to spit it out before it poisons me. 
Not to say that I am immune to to the evils of capitalism. I have (eaten) the kool aid and cyanide flavored ice cream too.  We all have. Nobody is perfect. That doesn't mean we should give up striving towards our ideals though.

I have fond memories of decorating eggs with my mother on Easter. The thick wax candles used to scribble pictures that only could be revealed after being dunked in the dye, the funny yellow plastic pump that had a needle you stuck in the egg. It would making a wheezing noise as the yolk slowly dribbled out.

And of course, she had a streak (or patch, rather) of homeland pride 7 miles long and 7 miles wide: "You pronounce it Kearney (rhymes with Ernie) not kEARney, I don't what you heard the robot on muni say."

 She could be cantakerous about such things, but I paid that it no mind. I knew that she held on to the past because  she cared deeply about it. Style isn't some silly trifle, after all.

Indeed, it shapes us in a unified and consistent manner with out molding, or suppressing one's identity.

 

 Rather, it is the backbone that gives identity a recognizable shape, endows life with character.

Close, Very Very Close

During the period that my mom was sick and shortly there after, her friends would routinely ask me if I had 'a man to help me out.' Someone to drive me to the drugstore to get a bedpan, someone to arrive at the hospital with a fully cooked meal, someone to cry on after she died. This was especially ridiculous in light of the fact that my mom's female friends had already provided all this and more. And thank god they did because my father had fallen to pieces. One of these friends was even directly responsible for extending her life for a year. Through her bullying and intimidation (she was a career nurse) she was able to arrange for an emergency procedure in just the nick of time.  Without it, I would never have had the chance to properly say goodbye. Yet, she herself, lamented to my mom that she missed her ex husband. This makes part of me want to throw up my hands and scream but who I to judge? We all have our weaknesses.

My friend Lesley recently loaned me a mix I had made her a couple years ago. Listening to it again, I was reminded that for brief period that coincided with my mom's death, there had been a revived interest in 60s girl groups.
It was during this time that I moved to New York for a couple months to live with my older sister. I was twenty and more lonely and sad than I even realized.

This song by the Four Js brought me straight back. There was no one to smooth back my hair, reassuring me that everything was going to be alright while we watched the nightly news with Dennis Richmond and drank warm milk. Who would replace her? Who was this boy who was gonna hold my hand, understand?

 I became friends with Lesley J Wynn my freshman year of high school. She was a year older than me, a sophomore. In the note I wrote her accompanying the mix, I describe "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" by the Shangri La's:

"God, I love this song! I wish it were my life! I want to be going steady with the school delinquent (with dirty fingernails & hair a little too long.) My parents would forbid me to see him but of course every night I'd sneak out meet him and dance the evening away away at the local sock hop. My favorite part is when she says 'close, very very close.' This reminds me; we should totally watch Hairspray with Divine together someday..."
 Looking back, much of what I wrote could be ascribed to my feelings towards her.

Not that she was a bad boy type who corrupted me a la John Travolta in Grease. Far from it. The first time I met her, she gave me her phone number and offered to help me with my Japanese homework. She was a smart, kind hearted girl, committed to helping others. If any thing, I was the delinquent. I certainly had the dirty fingernails and unkempt hair down pat. At the same time; she was no shrinking violet either. She loved to make jokes that teetered on the knife's edge edge of social impropriety. To wit, here is a letter from when she was living in Japan in college.

 "Pudgy silent asses."  Classic Lesley. Teenage boys typically use bawdiness and shock value to show off how blase they are. It can be really quite aggressive in a way that is difficult to negotiate. If you don't laugh, you are too prudish to get it, if you do, you do, you made to feel immature. Like you can't handle it. Lesley always let you know she was nervously chuckling along with you. This didn't mean she was any less tough than they were. In fact, quite the opposite; unlike them she was brave  and mature enough to be honest about her fears.  She kept it real. Moreover, as you can probably gather, her delivery was impeccable. When adolescent or even college age males fire off a stream of fart jokes or what have you, there is no finesse, no lyricism. It is just plain disgusting. If you need an example, go read James Joyce (who they no doubt idolize) because I don't even want to go into it. These boys are no James Joyce however, and more importantly they will never be Lesley J Wynn. I learned from the best, and thus, don't even deign to humor their braying (if only they were silent!) asses with the crack of a smile. I know what good humor is, and therefore, am not going to be intimidated by bad humor.
Anyway, I always liken the beginning of our friendship as a courtship of sorts. The kind that you always dreamed of having with a boy. Letters and sodas. And a few butterfingers and bags of cool ranch doritos thrown in for good measure.

This is the original case for the historic first mixtape Lesley made me.

Liner notes to another mix that I treasure

My sisters roommates were involved in the NY publishing scene and I tagged along when they went to parties for N+1, Heeb, Flavorpill, and other magazines that I had no interest in reading. I was too busy making my way through the entire Gossip Girl series. I even read the books came after the original author had made enough money to stop writing them herself. I'm not ashamed to admit that; the point wasn't to feed my intellect after all, but dumb it down as much as humanly possible. And when I had depleted the stores of trashy literature at the Barnes and Noble YA section, I moved on to these literary events, where I  downed as many dixie cups of cheap wine at the open bar as I could possibly get my underage hands on. One or two drinks in, and  the conversation usually revolved around the standard "what are you doing with your life"  After that topic had been quickly exhausted, and yet more bottom shelf alcohol has been ingested, the pretense that anyone was genuinely interested in a fellow human being would fall away. In its place: derisive humor about the latest celebrity meltdown at best, salacious literary gossip at worse. As nobody nobody outside of New York cares about the strange sexual proclivities of the editor of Art Forum, I will stick to Amy Winehouse. Remember all the hysteria about her a couple years ago? The bloody ballet flats, the rampant drug use, the beehive that she supposedly hid the drugs in.

The beehive was a legend in its own right. As Britney was shaving her head bald, Amy was piling on the extensions. The juxtapoxisition of her skinny, frail frame with the massive hairpiece was a fitting look for a singer inspired by sixties girl groups. Like them, she let on she headstrong  and defiant. And like them her tough girl veneer was shattered at the slightest pin drop of male attention. Reminiscent of the wistful narrator of "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" the reason why she she stood up to authority and social convention in the first place was to defend her 'no good' man. Blake. Was that his name? He was no doubt a sexist pig himself. Well, she was walking contradiction if there ever was one. Well, a tottering one at that. Who could walk with all that weight on their shoulders? How did she do it? Why did she do it? That was all people in New York ever wanted to know.

Perhaps the more applicable question was how did my mom and her friends do it? My mom, who would go swimming every week at the YMCA even when she was sick. Who would take me to Mitchells ice cream afterwards but would refuse to get herself a scoop, driving eractically all the way home as she attempted to simultanously cram my ice cream into her  mouth without spilling and keep her eyes on the road. "Tell me when the light changes to green, okay?" Who hated the way chemotherapy numbed her extremities and made her throw up, but liked that it made her lose weight. Who talked about leaving my alcoholic father for years, but never quite got around to it. Why did she do it? Well, I guess, all in all, the patriarchy is "good-bad but not evil" too.

 Sometimes you get sucked under. Most people are taken aback when this happens. I don't know why. When my mom finally began to succumb to her disease, everyone  acted like she was losing a battle.  I know they didn't mean it, but the insinuation that she had 'lost' hurt me. People said similar things about Winehouse and before she died, she was mocked for her inability to perform. When I was living on the East Coast, I couldn't perform, or compete either. All of my energy was subverted into the process healing. It wasn't easy and it still isn't. More recently, I've had issues with my sleep which has lead me to curtail my normal activities, and generally made more listless than usual. Friends and have chided me for sinking into my comfort zone or regressing as I've scaled back. Admission of vulnerability, however, is anything but a comfortable place to be. It takes a lot of confidence to face the full weight of one's problems when everyone is urging you to take the quick fix. 

Sometimes, attacking problems head first doesn't work. Fighting it just gets you snarled into a deeper knot.
At the end of my interim in New York, I visited her at Oberlin where she went to undergrad. Painfully self aware, sluggish, and skittish, many people made me feel like I was a drag to be around. I couldn't keep up. Lesley patted my head, and read me The Ear, The Eye and The Arm in a soft, gentle voice. Lesley always accepts me and I love her for that. I think her ability to slow down and regard what life tenders her on its own terms is what makes her a true poet.
 Instead of racing to the finish line, she steps back and observes. She appreciates the quiet beauty of the inefficient.

Here she worries (as I myself often worry) about how this power can sometimes make you feel weak. That you are forever losing yourself in other people.

Don't worry, Lessie, my girl.  Your empathy does not make you weaker.

If anything, it makes the rest of us stronger.

A Pair of Hands

Sometimes I long go back to the house I grew up in, and that my mom died in. I got chills walking past her room after her death, yet I often experienced a uncanny peace of mind when I stopped to linger in it; opening up drawers to see that her clothes were still folded up neatly, idly sniffing her perfume and rummaging through her makeup. She had a million different shades of mauve lipstick, all worn down to the nub. It was impossible for me to differentiate between them. It didn't matter really; they all looked horrid on me.

 I will never step foot in my nana's house again either. When grandfather While built it in the 1930s the roads on the hill surrounding the property were still unpaved, red dirt. When my mom was growing up one of the neighbors even kept a old horse. I can just picture it placidly chewing it's cud, and wearily whisking away flies and curious children with its tail. 

The crowning jewel of the house were the windows. A view of San Francisco unlike any I have seen before or since. My mom once told me that the first time she took acid, she had a vision of a Chinese dragon wrapping it's tail, serpentine like, around the city To hear her tell it,  it was a unpleasant but formative experience. Her older sister gave it to her.  My mother was fourteen. A child of sixties San Francisco who was initiated into the world of adulthood a bit too soon. It can really be too too much sometimes. I know it well.

When you think about it, hastening maturity, is many ways paramount to the smooth functioning of modern society. Fruit is routinely picked before it is ready, and farm animals are fed hormones that make their extremities grow to monstrous proportions. Meanwhile, we, as human beings are constantly striving to intensify the experience of life and speed it up... drinking cup after cup of coffee in the morning to in order to jerk awake, washing down a beer in the evening to unwind.  Perhaps some are dimly aware of the the fact that waiting for nature to ripen her bounty in her own time is more fruitful in the end.  Too often however, this is forgotten as the pressure to constantly move forward overwhelms us. We are afraid of being left behind the fray.

The immutable fact of the matter was that my mom was dead. . It was simple, really. The same old story, the cold hard truth, and what have you. Nothing to see here folks, move along. You've all heard it before and won't like hearing it again.

Caught halfway between embitterment and humiliation is an uncomfortable to be place. It was in a word, stifling. I deluded myself that after years of repression, that it would all just flow out of me naturally.  In a way, I thought building pressure would help the process. My feelings would come soaring out of me like rockets into the air and neatly hit their targets. The reality was much different.  The ideas and beliefs that I had told myself were gestating inside of me were in actuality, festering. Moreover, the atrophy was spreading outward. Self loathing isn't for the faint of heart, but at least it is contained, circumscribed by the individual. Real despair is hating the whole world over. It is awful. I sunk very low. I won't describe it because the only way to understand is experience it. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else though.

Think of knobby, gnarled hands that have been balled up into fists for years and you will have a picture of my state of mind at thar time. Unfurling them requires patience and dedication, a loving and gentle touch. Indeed, as I was soon to learn, forcibly prying them open will only make matters worse.

  Maud, Maudy, Maud. The hands behind the hands. By which, I mean she made those hands above.

Here is a picture of her hands and a kitten literally biting the hands that feed.
I  have been friends with her since I was six, and we even lived next door for a number of years. We spent our childhoods together, traipsing around the city streets and getting into mischief. Here is my cherished Maud Story: One time when was 8 or so she bought a chocolate home run pie at a corner store that she deemed to have an insufficient amount of icing on it. She went back to the cashier and asked for her 50 cents back.
But I digress. When I think of Maud, I think of her hands. Dexterous, strong, gentle, kneading dough, crafting, gesticulating. When she wants to heighten in tension a story she telling, she often makes a little fluttering motion as if she were reeling in a fish. This is her way of pulling us into her world, I think.

  I own a  book from the 70s called, "The Soothsayers Handbook-A Guide to Bad Signs and Good Vibrations."  The chapterson ESP is just what you expect; ridiculous. Palmistry, on the other hand, seems to hold a bit more weight. Maud completely fits with the 'artistic hand' type: "Conic hands that have fingers that are full at the base and taper towards the ends." "Full at the base" is important, as it implies a sturdiness of character. In my experience, the stereotypical conception of artists as flighty, whimsical, and unstable is completely fallacious. Actually, perhaps it is consistent with 'artist' in the modern sense. I have known my share of flakey 'conceptual' artists who will rise occasionally rise out of whatever stupor they have sunk into, take a picture of their knees and put a frame around it. Maud is an entirely different animal, however. She is an artist in  truest sense of the word; a craftswoman.

Crafting is looked down upon in the current egocentric, male dominated art world. This wasn't always the case. Being a 'real' artist these days isn't about technical skill though. Rather, you know you have achieved success when you have established your own little factory, ensuring that you will never have to touch your own art again. That way the aforementioned conceptual artists can stay seated on the couch watching TV without interruption. Someone else can take a picture of another person's knees and frame it. I scoff at these so called artists because Maud has more talent has in her little finger than all of them and their minions combined. For her, art was never about proving herself. She has nothing to prove. She is the real deal, after all. She enjoys the process of making, and delights in generously sharing her gifts with others.

Here is a diary she made me when I was going through a hard time. She left it unfinished because she wanted "it to become battered some day like your heart." If your first thought was that this was overly sentimental of her, that just shows that your own heart hasn't been worn down yet. Judgment is still encasing it, but never mind that... revel in your naivete while you can, and look at that attention to detail! It really makes me realize the extent to which we have lost our way in this crazy world of ours. Art that heals, and thereby has purpose, is not about expansive ideas that break down old paradigms. That is not enjoyable, nor is it honest as it puts an impossible amount pressure on the artist to be original. Silly, don't they know that art is inherently repetitious? It is all about obsessive ritual and habits. Knitting, stippling, carving, dancing require a person to make the same motions over and over.  It is a way of coping with and recognizing the pain that ebbs and flows.  It is not the manifesto that claims to have found the solution to human suffering.  In fact, the best apt analogy would perhaps be the a collection of diary entries where the same fears, self doubts, and ideas are articulated, and returned to again and again. The diary keeper's inability to completely change these behaviors and erradicate pain does not indicate he or she's failure. Indeed, if anything, they should be cultivated, for within them lies the key to unlocking one's full potential as a human being; expression.

This is  Maud's form of expression. I write. I think we usually end saying the same thing, except I take a lot longer to do it. Really though, I can't help myself: I have the philosophical hand. long fingered with knotty joints and a large angular look.

"A fishy tear ran down his cheek." God, that gets me every time.  So does this song she wrote and sings:
Good Clean Feeling
Oh how I wish I could convey the difficulties in my life so sweetly. Of course, I don't think I am strong enough  to overcome quite like she does. I don't have that 'sturdy base' in myself yet.
Slowly, however, her love is wearing away my resistance, opening up my hands

Freeing them up to receive that ephemeral, fleeting quality in myself that in my darkest moments I think I have lost forever: Innocence.