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.