Grip

The war, it is bitter
There's ice in your veins
The house is now empty
And just chaos reigns
And you often wonder
What there is to hold onto
If you can keep treading water
If you even want to
The tired old mattress
Which gives you no rest
You can't stop the screaming
But no truths confessed
Stop asking the questions
Don't hope for release
The truth is, the darkness
May never quite cease
Your mind will betray you
But your heart, it still beats
And you are reminded
Well, there's that, at least

For Lisa and Silvana

Respite

The room, it's in shambles

The rain drums the windows

The heartbeat is fainter

Once voices have ceased

Beleaguered by demons

Deliver their opus

Admire their handiwork

It's quite something to see

It's time for the pilgrimage

Land of your birth

Years spent in exile

Countries closed borders

Embark on the voyage

There's no way back home

Memory

What is to be done
the machine is outmoded
where do the cogs go
the spokes and the wheels
where is their home now
the factory shut down

What is to be done
it's becomes obsolete
don't hold on too tightly
don't let it go
it's best to forget it
but try to remember

What is to be done
the city is drowning
the life vests are heavy
but so are the cries

What is to be done
it's all placed in boxes
hold them in weary hands
they gather the dust

Wheel

I used to believe
in the sanctity of lines
continuous
inviolable
unending

Cars on highways
always seemed to have
delineated trajectories
yellow boundaries meant safety
and once I wondered about
the mysteries that lay
in hiking trails shrouded in foliage
relieved still to know
beginning, middle and end

The way multicolored plastic pieces
were moved in children's games
according to rules
printed on inserts
inside worn cardboard boxes

The steps of a ballet dance
we performed at a recital
choreographed and practiced
in pink candy tutus

One day a face
I had seen before
in a place that existed in memory
the lyrics of a song
whose tune played in recesses
the volume low
yet still the voice
recognizable

I felt the rain
and it was the same
morning glories
September and
the smell of books

I lay down my shield
abandon my shelter
and now
I believe in circles

Learning to Remember

Tell me how to memorize
the contours of your face
the positioning of your bones
the weight of your eyelids
the shapes of the lines that dance so freely
once in awhile I try to seize them
when you are not looking

Allow me to steal it from you
so one day when you are gone
so one day when I am gone
so one day when time has forgotten us
I can hold it in my hands
and know that you existed

You

I will write you a poem
Though I don't yet know the words
They are undoubtedly floating
Somewhere in the stratosphere
Waiting to be caught
In my net of butterflies

For a Hero

They tell you to avoid the dark
I know that you won't
the night suits you too well

Question marks may loom large
edges may be sharp
but they don't frighten you

I imagine you a swan
gliding placid
through a world of concrete
and the cacophony
of shouts and horns

For My mother, RC, RMR, AH, and MM, my inspirations. May I always strive to follow your path.

Sister

Hillary
Have you memorized
the melody of your life?

Perhaps
You think you've found the space
where dark and light
converge

I would urge you
to forget
The tune must play itself

Instead I simply
write my lyrics
in hopes that you
unlearn the song

It's Hurricane Season

The hurricane shakes the windows
I huddle on the couch
It surges through my body
Neurons fire, uncontrolled
It thieves from me the beings
Denies me what I love
The doctor says it is a dream
I will never quite be whole
Learn to live with it
It is a part of you
This season is your life

I am

You ask me what I am
So I will tell you this

I am the breeze that whispers
on a heavy summer night
I am the face in the copper moon
that floats in a cobalt sea
I am the damp taste of the air
moments after rain

I am the salt inside the tears
that fill and burn your eyes
I am the footsteps in the night
that rouse you from your sleep
I am the throbbing in the blood
that rushes through your veins
I am longing in the cry
inside your unborn child
I am the words you do not speak
that linger in the air


I am the soundwaves of your favorite song
I am the grinds in your morning cup
I am the darkness that creeps in slowly
I am the light that follows

I am the inverse, the converse, the outside and the inside
I am up and I am down
I am presence and I am absence
I am sight and I am blindness

You ask where I have gone
I never even left

For my mother, who is always with me

To Raymond Carver

I wish I could have met you
But what would I have said?
That I hear your voice, it echoes
Across the expanse
And uneven terrain
Of distance and time

What did your face look like, as you wrote the lines
That rattle and shake my bones?

Did you linger over verses
Did you read your words aloud
Did it come to you in a torrent
Or silver drops of rain?

Or perhaps it's not your soul
The secret those letters tell
Perhaps your words have tricked me
You used them to conceal
The essence of yourself

For a Friend

Sometimes people don't know what to do, exactly
Or how to give you what you need
They want to
I will come to you, if you need company
I will listen, if you want to shout at me
Or, if you so desire
I will leave you be

For D

Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear

Once
Your arms were so light
Ebullient
Eyes wide
In them I saw wonder

Many miles traversed
Distance marked
We wandered blindly through the years

Once
You returned, again
Removed
Eyes narrowed
I was relieved to see
A glimmer still remained

For E and Q

The Maiden

My mother's hands move slowly, deliberately
Across keys the color of bone
Faltering

A slight hesitation
A difficult chord
One note is not quite right

In the distance
A Maiden stands
She does not notice

Time has brazenly
Declared its war
A battle long since lost

The notes rise
For just that instant
The world itself stops

For my grandmother

Heaven

Last night I dreamed I was in heaven
You were there
Head thrown back,
Laughing
I tried to capture that moment
It drifted away
Ephemeral as the breeze

Today as I walked in the park
I pretended I was in Germany
Where I had visited
Some time ago

I stared up at the periwinkle sky
The trees
So high above
Whispered to one another
In a language only they could understand

For my father

On Immortality

Milan Kundera once said "A man can take his own life. But he cannot take his own immortality". And as I write this, I prove his point.

I was having a conversation with L the other day, and because she is a writer, I asked her a question that has been plaguing me recently: why does the artist create? Is it because he or she has to - because it's as essential to survival as water and food - or is it because he or she wants to leave something concrete behind, to make a statement about his life, to give herself existence beyond the cold, indifferent concrete of the grave?

"I guess it's a little bit of both", L said. And I suppose the urge to create is a double-edged sword. Because no matter what a writer writes, or a painter paints, or a musician composes, there is the impulse to create more. Once you decide to leave a voice behind, isn't it vital to express your sentiments the way you intended? Even if others interpret and misinterpret, as they inevitably will, you don't want to make a mistake with what you say. You want to be true to yourself. You can't fuck up your own immortality. Because it will exist long after you're gone. And really,
it's difficult to get it right. Or maybe impossible.

I very much want to write a book in my lifetime, but if you asked me why, I couldn't tell you. Isn't the act of writing itself enough? Why is it necessary to have something published in order to feel satisfied? And even if I do, will it suffice? Won't I have more to say as I age, learn, blunder, get up again? Will I worry that the voice I leave behind will in the end betray me? Maybe Kundera would have told me, "A man reckons with his immortality. But he forgets to reckon with death."

Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell, two of my favorite authors, each wrote only one book in their respective lifetimes. It has been the subject of speculation why these two women never published anything again. When asked, Harper Lee simply answered, "I said everything I wanted to say". Or maybe she didn't actually say that. Maybe that's a fiction passed down; the blessing or curse of her act of creation (immortality) and its lover (as Kundera said), death. Yet still, I wonder how she did it.

Maybe what we leave behind is necessarily illusory because even in life, it's not possible to see things clearly, and therefore not possible to express exactly we meant. We can't
quite convey what we don't understand.

In "Both Sides Now", Joni Mitchell says "I've looked at life from both sides now/ From win and lose and still somehow/ It's life's illusions I recall/ I really don't know life at all." I would tend to agree.


Excerpts from "Immortality" by Milan Kundera and "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell.

To Things Not Seen

The subway car
Propels me through time and space
Screeching halt
Passengers move in a mindless frenzy
A living, breathing, shapeless entity
The conductor undoubtedly
Behind some door
Existence without a face

Ode to a Shattered Wine Glass

Fractured
Innumberable crystalline pieces
No two quite the same
Scattered

Some destined to draw blood
Others swept away by dusty bristles
The blue plastic dustpan
Their purgatory

Certain fragments
Will find their way to beaches
Smoothed over by oceans and the apathy of time
Only to be picked up by a precocious child
Grabbing the seaglass from the cool, wet sand

I know of no glue potent enough to reconstruct
My Ikea glassware
Yet still, I gather the shards

The B Side

Last night I went to a concert with my friend L. The performer, Lance Horne, sang a variety of songs, most of which were entertaining. But there was one that resonated with me, in the dim blue lights of the small and intimate concert hall . It was called "The B Side", the story of a man whose lover had left him. Although I probably don't do it justice in paraphrasing, the man in the song likened himself - and his life - to the B Side of an album. Always there, ever present, rarely played. The songs that never make it to the top of the charts, the collection of melodies that remains, waiting and hoping that someone will finally, truly hear what it has to say. The B Side is certain that one day, even if it is never favored, someone will make sense of its myriad of notes and lyrics. Someone has to. Its existence will be given meaning. And so it waits.

Yesterday at work I was reading a poem called "Rememberance" by my favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. It goes like this:

And you wait, keep waiting for that one thing
which would infinitely enrich your life:
the powerful, uniquely uncommon,
the awakening of dormant stones,
depths that would reveal you to yourself.

In the dusk you notice the book shelves
with their volumes in gold and in brown;
and you think of far lands you journeyed,
of pictures and of shimmering gowns
worn by women you conquered and lost.

And it comes to you all of a sudden:
That was it! And you arise, for you are
aware of a year in your distant past
with its fears and events and prayers.

And then it occurred to me this morning, in the subway station with its ceaseless humming and faceless throngs: the B Side. In a sense, aren't we all "waiting for tomorrow to come/For that train to come running 'round the bend" (as Springsteen said in "Better Days")? The promise of the future. Fame, glory, wealth, love, excitement, recognition, healing, freedom from our demons, clarity, understanding. That one thing - it's out there - it has to be!

Rilke's words, so powerful to me, transcend time and space. I wish I could have met him. I wish I could have told him - though I am sure that the right words would have failed me - that once, at least for single, powerful, inimitable moment in my life, I heard the B Side playing loud and clear, and realized that it's been the side that's really been playing all along. Because the B side is life. Humanity. Hope. Desperation. Mistakes. Forgiveness. Ceaselss yearning.

That was it!

Yet still I wait.

Empty Bench

This morning I am taking a walk on the Upper West Side. The air is warm and heavy, and I stroll slowly through the quiet streets with no particular destination in mind; something I have so often done in the past in repeated attempts to gain the clarity or understanding that always seems so ephemeral. I find myself outside the Museum of Natural History, watching the people and dogs in the little park outside.

I see a young girl of about fifteen or sixteen sitting on a bench with her mother under the trees, whose branches are outstretched like bony arms reaching toward something elusive just beyond reach. The two are eating lunch - sandwiches, probably from the small deli with the fading red awning across the street. The girl looks restless, slightly embarassed even. Her eyes are downcast, as if trying to avoid eye contact. Maybe it's her silent declaration of autonomy. Maybe she's painfully self-conscious, in the sheepish and slightly perplexed way teenagers often are. She's bored - or feigning boredom, perhaps. Maybe it's because the girl feels a need to convey to her mother that she doesn't need the security and protection of a parent anymore, lest her mother mistakenly think that the girl is still the same child who had clung to her and cried when the sleepaway camp bus was about to pull away. And maybe it's even necessary for the girl to try to maintain this type of distance in order to form her own sense of identity or self.

But I want to call out to the girl. I want to warn her. I want to plead with her, to tell her that one day she'll regret this elaborate act she's putting on - that these moments will be forever beyond her grasp, that her arms will reach out in desperation, in yearning, in futility, like the trees.

But it's an empty bench. And there I stand, silently watching ghosts.

He Thinks of the Deceased as the Seasons Change

It's mid-August, and already I can feel autumn in the New York City air. It's something almost imperceptible and difficult to describe. Maybe it's the texture of the breeze, maybe it's atoms and molecules that make up the smells emanating from the rough and broken concrete sidewalks. Maybe it's the sound of the rustling in the trees. I don't know if growing up in this city has given me a hyper-sensitivity to this change of seasons. All I know is that I can feel it in my nerves, in my muscles, in the movement of my bones. It's a sense of motion, it's a sense of stagnation. It's loss and it's infinite possibility. It arouses in me a yearning for the past and simultaneously propels me, ill-prepared as I am, into the future. The Earth is rotating on its axis and moving in its orbit. Always the same, and always different. Consistent and ephemeral. Those that are gone return to me with increased clarity. I feel their presence more strongly, yet I am more keenly aware of the vast distance between us.

I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a friend recently. Walking through the vast, majestic halls, we stopped to take in the Asian art. I was struck by a Chinese Scroll, entitled the Classic of Filial Piety by Li Gonglin, written in 1085. Landscapes and writing, preserved over nine hundred years. And the translation:

"Mourning for the Loss of a Parent - He thinks of the deceased as the seasons change"
The two of you went off in a boat
Floating far away
Longingly I think of You
My heart within is Pained

Not Too Sexy...

Yesterday I was shopping with a friend when the topic of makeup - specifically, my wearing next to none - came up. Notably enough, it's something that several friends have mentioned to me recently. "M, you're not in your early twenties anymore, and at this age you can't get away with wearing no makeup the way you did before," said another well-intentioned confidante in reference to my approaching thirtieth birthday. So, in an act of surrender, I submitted my face to the full treatment before going out last night - eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, bronzer, other tools that I can't quite remember or put on myself...

In the course of applying the complicated paint, my friend R and I got into a discussion about sexiness. See, despite my ardent love of fashion, I'm the girl who wears boots and a sweater (and only a little lip gloss and tinted moisturizer) to a bar. The traditional uniform - namely a low-cut top and smoke eyes - does not suit me. Yes, I will wear the occasional mini dress, but that's as far as it goes. So whilst giving me a lesson in makeup, I was also schooled in the Art of Sexy. My blue bra? Decidedly not. Winter-pale skin? Nope. Cotton underwear? A horror! (And one several ex-boyfriends lamented, adding "you have such a nice body, why don't you ever wear anything that reveals it?"). What about sexy lingerie, my friend inquired. Didn't I have any black thongs? Yes, a couple that I wear when necessary, but I don't like them. Black lacy bras? Maybe one buried deep within my dresser drawers...Such things were necessary when going out, even on a first date when (ostensibly) no one would see them. Because they're sexy. It's important to always be sexy.

Personally, my logic has always been that expensive lingerie, except on certain occasions, was kind of a waste of money. With limited resources, shoes and travel always have taken priority. I don't not wear revealing clothing because I am ashamed of my body, but because being ogled is not something I particularly enjoy. And in all honesty, I'm not too good at seducing men. (I cringe in abject horror at one failed attempt to woo a particularly attractive guy on my last vacation...Let's just say that it's not my forte and leave it at that). But maybe everyone was right. Maybe I had gone terribly astray. Was I squandering youth - what may possibly be the time of my life when I look my best - on granny panties (God I hate that word, but sometimes nothing else will do!) and a stubborn refusal to flaunt my assets? Maybe I should take their advice. Even if I feel like an impostor or a phony. In time I will get better, right? And I do want to be sexy, don't I?

In the shower this morning I pondered it. What was "sexy" anyway? I thought about what I found sexy in others - intelligence, compassion, a sense of social conscience, self-deprecation, a penchant for the eccentric and unusual, good taste in music...Muscles, rock hard abs and a swagger have never impressed me in men. I like glasses. I like a raucous laugh and the ability to make a fool of oneself with abandon.

So I guess sexiness, like beauty, is really highly individual. And by taking on another persona, I will be playing a part - something that, to me, is the least sexy thing a person can do. So I'm not going to run out and toss my aqua bra and don a halter. In the spirit of compromise and change, however, I will probably invest in some mascara...

March 17th, 2004

I should stop asking
Questions that have no answer
But they linger in the air
Phantoms
Ever present even if unacknowledged

I should accept
That you did your best
That I did as well
That there is no more room in this tiny chamber
For guilt or blame
We cannot coexist any longer

I should be glad that you are not in pain any longer
The intensity of your suffering has ceased
Yet it still lives with me; so vivid in my dreams
You wouldn't want me to remember you that way
Your smile should be more potent that your tears

I should have accepted your absence by my now
You left long ago
Yet sometimes I still reach for the phone
About to call you
Anxious to hear your voice
And then I remember
I would rather forget

You once told me
That should is the most useless word in the English language
And I agreed.

For my mother, Marilyn Ann Gluck, January 15th, 1948 - March 17th, 2004

You, or Your Memory

This is what I remember.

When we came back to the apartment, I went to your room. I was convinced you would be there. But it was empty. Your clothing was hanging in the closet, your shoes out on the floor. The t-shirts in your drawer had just been washed - they smelled like Tide - like you. I ran to the bathroom. The sink was filled with shavings - bits and pieces of black hair, stark against the white ceramic. You had just shaved the day before. How could you be gone if you had just shaved? Every evidence of your life - the daily, mundane parts in addition to the photographs, the treasured memories - was right there, in living color, before my very eyes. Such things do not happen. Human beings do not simply disappear from this Earth.

I was at your funeral. The rabbi gave me and H the piece of black ribbon to pin on our clothing, to signify that we were in mourning. Physical evidence of your absence in living color, for everyone to see. But still, I did not believe.

I put on your watch. I slept with your shirts. I begged others not to donate your clothing. I didn't want your closet touched; "Please Mommy, leave Dad's dresser the way it was. I don't want anyone else wearing his things." Because I knew you would be back. I knew it. Each time the key turned in the door, I waited, my heart in my throat. It had to be you! I was not going to go through life never hearing your voice again, that deep, crazy laugh. You would come back to the living room and pace like you did when nervous. You would stand out on the terrace, looking out across the Hudson at I don't know what - some distant sight far away, too far for me to see or comprehend.

But you didn't.

Today I am going to a funeral. It will be the first time I return; the same place where the rabbi gave me that black ribbon. Now, sixteen years later, I no longer wait to hear the sound of the key in the door. Your shirts - your things - are long gone. I have your watch; it is with Mom's things now. I put them all together in a jewelry box after her funeral. I know you are not coming back.

But I have not forgotten.

For my father, Barry Alan Gluck, September 5th, 1944 - July 14, 1992

Note: the title is from "You, or Your Memory", a song by The Mountain Goats from their album, The Sunset Tree

Nothing Gold Can Stay (For Y)

I just heard the news. It's a strange thing about death - no matter how many people I have lost in my lifetime (and there have been too many), I just cannot become desensitized to it. It still shakes me to my very core. And I guess, as painful as it is, I am grateful for that.

And I will miss you. So often it's not about the grandiose gestures, but the little day-to-day things that make our (often) mundane existence more bearable. You did that for me for two years. With your endearing smile, your colorful outfits and kind compliments about my hair or my shoes, you made each day a little better than it would have been without you there. You made me laugh, something which to me is invaluable. I always looked forward to seeing you at work in the mornings, and you seemed to almost emanate kindness and empathy. Your earnestness and sincerity were not lost on me. The world has lost another beautiful soul.

I will miss you. Rest in peace.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
but only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Thanks to L for introducing me to this poem.

In Defense of Melancholy

The other day, when I was feeling particularly upset about something, I called my sister. At the sound of my tears, she repeated her usual stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-mantra, which was to tell me to "stop being so f*cking emo and go out and do something fun. Get your mind off of it!"

I could have taken her advice (and I sometimes do), but I am of the opinion that to do so would have been a disservice to myself. Simply put, I don't like to short-change my sadness or deny it its rightful place in my existence. In fact, I think it's an emotion of immeasurable value. This is an unusual concept. The idea of honoring your sorrow is not something that seems natural. It defies our traditional schema, which tells us that the ultimate goal is to “be happy”, which means we must do everything in our power to avoid, or minimize, our pain. There are a myriad of ways in which we as human beings try to circumvent the sorrow in life, yet it seems to seep out from us in spite of our sometimes gargantuan efforts to conceal it.

Which begs the question: why are people afraid of sadness? Why do we try to cover it up and pretend it doesn’t exist? Why is the sight of another person in tears so disconcerting? Why can’t we just let that person give voice to the anguish? Cry our eyes out, scream at the top of our lungs, throw something across the room! Sorrow is as vital to existence as joy. Heartache means that something is precious to us, that we are emotionally invested. It reminds us that we still have a stake in something - and without that, what is the point of anything, really?

Too often it seems to me that those around me elect to feel numbness. There is a sort of collective aversion to intensity. I think William Faulkner put it better than I ever could when he said “If I had to choose between grief and nothing, I’d choose grief”.

So, to all those who know me, if you see me in tears, don’t try to get me to "cheer up" right away and "put the bad thoughts out of my head". Just tell me to cry my f*cking eyes out, because you know what - it’s okay.

Soundtrack of the Week

A couple of weeks ago on yet another tedious date, a guy asked me "if there was a soundtrack to your life, what it be?". Because those prefrabricated types of interview questions really rankle me, I quickly responded "Cemetery Gates by The Smiths". I think this reply sufficiently unnerved him because thankfully the inquisition stopped there. (An aside - I once went on a date where a guy proceeded to ask me "What would you do if you won the lotto? What's the most painful thing you've ever experienced? What's your favorite thing in the world?..." in rapid fire succession. It was more painful than the time I was triple-teamed (the G-rated version!) by three Goldman Sachs investment bankers when interviewing for a job during my senior year of college...Cringe).

In any case, because I'm kind of bored, I decided to create a soundtrack of the week. Yes, I know it's only (Super!) Tuesday, but it's a work in progress. Maybe I should call it a soundtrack-of-the-first-day-and-a-half-of-the-week?

Oh, and thanks, Mr. X, for the inspiration.

1. Girl Anachronism - The Dresden Dolls
2. Gray Room - Damien Rice
3. Throw It All Away - Brandi Carlile
4. Bigmouth Strikes Again - The Smiths
5. How Am I Doing? - Anna Waronker
6. Keep Breathing - Ingrid Michaelson
7. This Year - The Mountain Goats
8. Better Days - Bruce Springsteen

Thank You, Gilda Radner, Maya Angelou and The Giants

People always talk about how failures "build character", how adversity "makes you stronger", and how we learn "what we're made of" when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Well, I generally consider platitudes suspect and view them with derision. Throw-away phrases are used to oversimplify things and reassure others when we don't know what the f*ck else to say. There is undoubtedly an element of truth to such statements - I won't deny that - but at the same time, to sum things up in this way necessarily dismisses what I call the "layered-ness" of things, for lack of a better term. And I wonder why. Isn't the intricacy of experience the most fascinating - albeit infuriating - part?

The late Gilda Radner put it more eloquently than I ever could:

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." - Gilda Radner

Lately, though, in the midst of a kind of watershed period in my life - in which I took a great risk which has sort of turned out to be a free-fall without a net - I feel the urge to cling to those very tired expressions and cliches. I'm not far enough removed from my current quagmire to relish the complexity and those damn platitudes seem so much more comforting...Hey, any port in a storm, right?

Well, in an effort to stop the self-flagellation that is my unfortunate tendency, I have decided that the words of the great Maya Angelou may be more appropriate:

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." - Maya Angelou

So, when this mess does resolve itself - and it will, because if the Giants can beat the Patriots in spite of the latter's undefeated season, I can get through this - I hope that this experience will be one more failure that I can "rise from". And at some point - weeks months, maybe even years - into the future, I know I won't feel so disenfranchised from the ambiguity.

Popeye Said It Best

Several months ago in the midst of a conversation with a colleague, he suddenly stopped abruptly mid-sentence. “I can’t believe how honest you are. You don’t hold anything back, do you?” Well, I can’t say whether it was a compliment or a criticism – probably a bit of both.

I would love to say that my forthrightness stems from some noble impulse. But that would be a lie. And perhaps honesty is not the right word for it at all, because the concept of honesty assumes conscious intent. And it’s really much more basic than that. I simply do not know how to be otherwise.

My bluntness, though, has not been a boon. If I could play the part - and shut up f*ck up when the occasion calls for it - I would probably be more successful. I would undoubtedly have more friends. People would probably respect me more. And believe me, I’ve tried. But like a suit or dress that’s too tight, it keeps me from being able to breathe. Maybe it’s a copout, maybe I’m just lazy, or maybe I’ve finally just accepted myself, because, like the good sailor says, I am what I am.

Right Me Up

I was watching “Good Morning America” before I left for work this morning - I find the Diane Sawyer/Robin Roberts duo strangely soothing at 7:30 a.m. - when I caught several minutes of a piece about the Damanhur Temples of Humankind, thirty miles north of the city of Turin. The Temples were built beginning in 1978 and are a handcrafted place of worship. Amazingly enough, the Damanhur Temples were carved inside a mountain without the knowledge or permission of the Italian government (1).

While that’s quite a feat in and of itself, even more fascinating is the group of people that live there, the Damanhurians. The Damanhurians somehow still believe that humanity has the potential to live free of discord and at one with nature (their society is an eco-based one). The Damanhurians (about 800 people) live communally, have their own language and have managed, despite all odds, to retain faith in the goodness of humankind.

Wow. I want to join them. I can just see myself now, bathing in streams, sleeping under the stars, never to be bound by the pressure to wear foundation and eyeliner again. I’ll be able to read and to write, to hike and see the world from a new and more pure vantage point, to listen (and sing along to) Pavement and Patti Smith with impunity. I’ll pick out a new name - like Phoenix Renee - to symbolize my rise from the ashes. I’ll get over my addiction to caffeine and will never have to deal with the disapproving looks of other women as they give my shoes and handbag the once-over in department stores or subway platforms. Cry Freedom!

There is the little problem of my student loans. But if the Damanhurians can build a temple in a mountain without the government even realizing, surely they can handle a few less-than-scrupulous creditors, right?

(1) – Thanks to Good Morning America, Thursday January 31st, as soon as I figure out the proper way to do an internet citation (Blue Book WHERE ARE YOU?! ) I’ll edit this.

If you want to find out more about the Damanhurians, go to http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=4216350&page=1.

Title from the song “Right Me Up” by State Radio

About Seeing the Whole Chess Board

Recently I made a very bad decision. For months I have chastised myself about it, examined and re-examined just where I went wrong in my thinking, what part of my rationale was (so obviously) faulty, why I was so misguided. Was I desperate to escape something? Impulsive? Just overly confident that by making a change I could "make things right"? I think maybe I was, in my childish way, clinging onto the belief that there are sometimes easy solutions to things. I haven't grown up as much as I would have hoped, in fact maybe I haven't grown up at all.

Anyway, a friend sent me this quotation yesterday:

"The choice may have been mistaken, but the choosing was not."
- "Move On" lyrics, song covered by Barbra Streisand, 2006

Thank you for making me see that what I lacked at the time was not necessarily maturity or good sense, but peripheral vision. Why did I think I would have been exempt from myopia?

On Music, or How a Little Red iPod Changed My Life

I was recently discussing music with someone, and when I told him how fanatical I was about it, his natural assumption was that I must be a musician of some sort. Sadly, no, I do not sing, nor do I play any instruments (aside from some truly dreadful attempts at a rendition of “Faith” by George Michael during karaoke, and several equally unfortunate years of wasted piano lessons). I have, in all honesty, no musical ability whatsoever (aside from a strange penchant for memorizing lyrics). But music is almost as basic to my existence as air or water.

It sounds counterintuitive, but music and lyrics written by others enable me to express myself in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I find that when I try to put thoughts, emotions and feelings into words, something is always lost in the translation. It’s almost as if I am trying to speak another language without knowing the vocabulary. So I rely on music to do that for me. Music is my interpreter. It enables me to make sense of my thoughts and emotions; it gives me the tools to reconcile myself to my circumstances, whatever they may be. It gives me a connection to my past – memories that are often so transient and ephemeral that they are in danger of being lost forever in the impenetrable web of neurons and neurotransmitters that comprises my cerebrum.

Because of my obsession with music, people are often surprised to hear that I rarely go to concerts. In thinking about this, I guess it’s because music is a kind of solitary exercise for me, much like meditation or even prayer. I think music may be the closest I will ever come to any sort of true spirituality. Concerts are, in my reality, too often about pleasing crowds. Which is not to say that there aren’t occasions on which music raises a group of otherwise disconnected individuals to a newer level of awareness and understanding, - as those lucky enough to attend Woodstock or those whose religiosity makes a choir something holy can surely attest to. But I’m not a religious person and watersheds like Woodstock happen once in a lifetime, if we are that lucky.

So for me, right now, I’ll take my music from the earphones of the little red iPod nano my sister got me for Christmas. (Thanks H). Unless Tom Waits or Springsteen want to come over and give me a private concert; if you see them, let them know I’ll be waiting.

On Questions

The mathematician Johann von Neumann once said, “In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.”

It’s obvious to me that von Neumann appreciated something very fundamental about life. That being said, I kind of wonder if he was ever truly able to reconcile himself to an existence of acceptance without understanding. If so, I wish I could ask him how.

I now have to make my confession – by most people’s standards, I think too much. Yes, it’s kind of annoying to some (especially my close friends and my sister, who is tiring of my incessant attempts at analysis), but it’s always been in my nature. I am, to be quite honest, more of an observer of life than a participant. The background has always felt more comfortable to me than it’s more glamorous and highly coveted counterpart. Popularity, although I aspired to it at some point, has in truth never suited me at all. I think – I hope – that I have finally reached the point where I am able to accept that it’s just as legitimate to be a watcher as it is to be a doer.

This tendency sentences me to the endless task of trying to reach an illusory goal. I know it’s futile, but it’s as addictive to me as shoes or espresso. I simply can’t exist without it. Growing up, the most consistent thing people said to me in the way of unsolicited advice is that I was “too intense”. It’s off-putting to many. If I separate myself from myself, I can see how my ceaseless rumination and scrutiny can be truly tiresome. (Certainly my ex-boyfriend found it so; I think I simply exhausted his patience). As one friend recently told me, I am “too much in my own head”. Maybe it’s narcissism. I prefer to label it sensitivity to the hundredth power.

This begs the question: what has all of this taught me? The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. This makes it sound like it has been a supreme waste of time and energy. And maybe it has. But it’s the single lesson I am most grateful for in this life.

I have been able to create a sort of rough outline, an ever-evolving philosophy applicable to my own life and experience, and it is this: chaos theory reigns supreme. Things don’t happen for “a reason”. That statement is, to me, an attempt to create order in a world where there simply is none. (A caveat: I am speaking only for myself here. I would never presume to make a generalization about anyone else’s life, beliefs or value system). Believing that there is some master plan behind things may make for a more palatable reality, but as it applies to my own life, I think it’s an extended exercise in self-delusion. I cannot see things as “meant to be”, because that statement necessarily assumes that something higher has made that value judgment. And that’s simply not a concept I can live with. Objectivity may be a lofty goal, but it’s one that does not exist in the realm of humanity as I have experienced it.

This isn’t to say that we should not try to structure the chaos. As much as I personally believe that it is impossible, I also know on a visceral level that as people we could not survive without earnestly continuing the attempt. So we assign meaning to the things that happen. We create some purpose for our struggles. We have to do so in order to survive. The cerebrum demands it of us. And I think it’s as beautiful as it is useless. I am not a religious person, but that is the only God I know of.

Several years before my mother died, she sent me a card with a quotation from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

“..try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Well, I simply cannot help searching for the answers, Mom. But I’m growing to like living the questions a little better.

A Eulogy for 2007

So I wrote this on December 31st and it's a little out of date, but what the hell, I am posting it anyway...


Dear 2007,

I guess it’s time for me to see you off. Perhaps you think I should be doing some deep introspection now, thinking about what you taught me and how I’m going to start over in 2008. But in all honesty, that would actually be a disservice to you and your forebears.

2007, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions any more than I believe that things happen for a reason. I don’t think people change in response to some arbitrary date on a calendar, and I don’t believe in clean slates or in some internal “reset” button. My own life has shown me that the human experience is necessarily cumulative. Separating one year from the next might be a comfortable classification system to help order the world, but I have found that it’s a pretty useless way in which to make sense of the psyche.

I hope you understand and won’t hold it against me. I’m grateful for you – what you gave to me, and even for what you took away. But no year exists in a vacuum. So I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m not really saying goodbye to you at all.

Let me tell you what I hope for in 2008, which is in all honesty the same thing I aspire to every day. I can’t find the words myself really, so I’ll let Eddie Vedder tell you because he put it better than I ever could.


Excerpt from "Rise", lyrics and music by Eddie Vedder, from the soundtrack to "Into the Wild"


Such is the way of the world

You can never know

Just where to put all your faithAnd how will it grow

Gonna rise upBurning back holes in dark memories

Gonna rise upTurning mistakes into gold

Hmmm, I guess the word for it is transcendence?

With love and appreciation (and admittedly a tad of resentment),
-M

A Dedication

So I start with a brief tribute, because it seems appropriate...

When I was in college, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to write a memoir one day. She looked at me, laughed and said “What do you have to say that anyone would want to read?” Well, to this day I still have no answer. Probably nothing. But I don’t write to interest or entertain other people – I’m frankly not capable of that ambitious an undertaking. I write for myself, and I do it simply because I have to. My writing is probably not particularly good and I don’t aspire to move or inspire anyone. It’s much more visceral than that, and to be honest, more selfish. So if anyone ever reads what I write with the expectation of being entertained, he or she is most likely to be pretty disappointed.

That being said, it’s taken me years to start writing on a (somewhat) regular basis. I lack discipline, I lack focus, and most of all, I am completely lacking in understanding. I think what enabled me to finally start doing it is the realization that I don’t have to understand in order to write – in fact, I write in order to try to understand.

So at the outset of this blog I am starting, I want to make a dedication. I’m not going to put it in my own words, because despite the fact that I sometimes talk incessantly, I’m often not very good at communicating my feelings to the people I care most about. I often want desperately to tell them how much they have meant to me, but the words get trapped inside my throat and the sentiments never see the light of day. So I’m going to use someone else’s words. But the feelings are my own, and even if the people I am dedicating this to never get to read it – and some surely won’t, because they have passed on – I at least am acknowledging, if even only to myself, the difference they made in my life.

So, to Betsy (RIP, dear angel), Susana, Sue (the Foster family!), Steve, Celeste, Sarah (the Thomas family!), Susan O, Bernadette, Connie, Chuck (all the Waciseks), Amy (The McGovern-Berkowitz family), Susan-Joan, Dee Dee, Julie, Ilissa, Jeanne, Esere, Christy, Rachel, Nancy, Silvana, Eneze, Quiana, Lucretia, Angela (RIP), Nellie (RIP), Deborah, and to my late grandmother, Concetta Colosi DiFabio(RIP), to my father, Barry Alan Gluck (1944 – 1992) , and most of all, to my mother, Marilyn Ann DiFabio Gluck (1948 – 2004) and my sister, Hillary Constance Gluck (the two best friends and most inspirational heroes a person could ever ask for ) – thank you for making me believe that something pure, honest and real still exists in this world. I love you.


Excerpt from “For Good”, from Wicked, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, sung on the Wicked Cast Album by Idina Medezel and Kristin Chenoweth and copied from the website http://www.musicalschwartz.com/wicked-for-good.htm:

GLINDA
I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those whohelp us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we letthem and we help them in return

Now I don't know if I believe that that is true but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood...who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime so let me say before we part: so much of me is what I have learned from you you'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart
now whatever way our stories may end I know you haverewritten mine by being my friend... Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you... I have been changed for good

GLINDA
Because I knew you...

BOTH
I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness for what you blame me for...

GLINDA
Well I guess there is blame to share...

BOTH
And none of it seems to matter anymore

GLINDA (same time as Elphaba)
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood

ELPHABA (same time as Glinda)
Like a ship blown off it's mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a skybird in the wood

BOTH
Who's to say if I've been changed for the better?

GLINDA
Because I knew you

ELPHABAbecause I knew you

BOTH I have been changed for good

- January 29th, 2008.