Exercise 3 - Misplaced

I wake with a gasp. The streetlight cuts through my shade, casting blue stripes on the dresser. The dog stirs and lifts his head. I whisper for him to go back to sleep and roll over onto my back to stare at the ceiling and wonder why I woke up.

Wait, I was dreaming.

I dreamt that my father and I were fishing. We were in a little rowboat in the middle of a vast lake. It was quiet save the whirring sound of our rods, as we fooled with the lines and awaited nibbles. Occasionally, he'd ask me how I was doing, and I would smile. I didn't know. I was a kid. I only knew I was fishing with my father, and it was fun. He would ruffle my hair and smile that handsome grin of his that made his blue eyes twinkle, and then he would stare out at the still, still water. It was hot. I could feel the sweat rolling down my back from under my damp hair. He rested his fishing pole across his leg and reached in his pocket. A moment later, something glimmered in the sunlight, and he asked me if I wanted to hold it. I reached for it, and the boat tipped a little with my movement. He laughed, the sound echoing off the trees, and he placed it in my palm.

I sit straight up in bed, sleep abandoning me entirely. My heart in a vise, I swing my legs around and clock the dog in his side. He whines in pain and jumps off the bed, trotting down the hall.

"I'm sorry, boy," I call after him. My bare feet smack the floor, and I flip on the overhead light. The windows turn black in the harsh light, and I squint, my eyes finding the clock. 4:12 A.M. I rub my face and sigh.

Where is it . . . where is it . . . where is it . . . a mantra in my head. I grit my teeth and think hard. I can't sleep again till I find it. Where is it? Oh, Christ, what did I do with it?

I bend down and yank open my bottom dresser drawer, pawing through winter sweaters like I actually think I will find it. I slam that drawer shut and yank open another. In the hallway behind me, I hear the dog settling into uneasy rest with a long, loud sigh, his old limbs lowering him to the rug. I slam the third drawer shut and yank open the second, working my way up. Nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing.

He rested his fishing pole across his leg and reached in his pocket. A moment later, something glimmered in the sunlight, and he asked me if I wanted to hold it. I reached for it, and the boat tipped a little with my movement. He laughed, the sound echoing off the trees, and he placed it in my palm.

When I accidentally slam my thumb in the top drawer, I emit a string of expletives that send the dog skittering downstairs to take cover until the storm subsides. Sucking my thumb, I rifle through my bedside tables one at a time, finding nothing.

"God-DAMN-it," I say, pushing the hair back from my face and groaning. Where could it be? My thumb throbbing, I pull the stool over to the closet and yank the string to turn on the light. Why in the world would I have put it in one of these boxes? Why would I have done that? I start pulling shoe boxes off the shelves, glancing in and dropping them to the floor where their contents spill out in a pile of leather and cardboard.

Through tears, I empty the closet shelves and step down, stumbling into the door. I paw through my clothes, seeking pockets (he reached in his pocket. A moment later, something glimmered in the sunlight, and he asked me if I wanted to hold it) and yanking clothes off their hangers. Where is it - I have to find it - oh, God, if I lost it, I wouldn't have lost it - where is it - put it someplace safe so I wouldn't lose it - how could I have forgotten where it is - oh, Jesus, oh God, please let me find it - please ---

And my fingers hit something solid. I stop. I stumble backward and trip on the stool, falling against the wall and dragging the coat with me. I hug it to my chest like I would hold a child, and I begin crying in earnest (I reached for it, and the boat tipped a little with my movement. He laughed, the sound echoing off the trees, and he placed it in my palm).

I pull it free from the pocket and look at it. Even in the harsh overhead light of the bedroom, it glimmers like it did all those years ago on the lake. The years have worn away some of its luster, but he tied the skirts himself and never hooked it so I wouldn't cut my hands.

I remember turning it over in my fingers, thinking it was something magical. It was so beautiful with its greens and blues, and its beautiful tendrils. I didn't realize then it had been designed to shine to attract fish to their deaths. Moments after he had put the lure in my hand, he had gotten a bite. When he had pulled the fish from the water and it flopped bloodily around the body of the boat, I had cried and screamed for him to let the fish go. He had complied, gently unhooking the little guy and releasing him back into the lake. Then he had pulled me up against him and held me until I stopped crying. The whole time I clung to his shirt, I had held the little lure in my fist. He had never asked for it back, not even when I told him I would never go fishing with him again.

Slowly, I sink down onto the stool and stare out the window at the approaching dawn. From time to time, I brush what remains of the skirts against my palm.

Mostly, I just breathe.

Exercise 2 - Apologies

This is much harder than I thought it would be. You won't let me touch you, and all I want to do is feel the warmth of your hand, the strength of your wrist, under my fingers.

"I'm sorry," I begin, and I realize how completely stupid it sounds. My voice cracks, and I feel helpless. In an instant, I know that this is pointless; no matter what I say, you will leave, and you should - I would leave you too, if it were me. But it's not me. We aren't reversed. In this, I am to blame. All of this, I've done. And I don't even know why.

You exhale, and I look at you. You won't return my gaze; you stare impassively at the wall.

"I don't know what to say to you," I say, softly. I look down at your hand. I wish you would grab me, hit me - anything to break this wall between us - this wall I built. Too many times, I asked you to do things for me, to work for me, for us - and this time, I know you won't. It's my turn.

I begin again, haltingly: "I can't explain myself. I don't know why I did what I did. It just - happened. Over time, it just happened, and then it was this thing, and the thing had meaning, meaning I know now was false, but I didn't know it then. Then, I believed him, I believed it, and it just happened. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry --- "

You shake your head slowly, and I stop.

"'It just happened,'" you repeat. "'It just happened.'" And then you start to laugh.

"It was wrong, and it didn't mean anything --- "

"Oh, spare me that. Please, for God's sake, don't say that. Don't say it didn't mean anything. It means everything, you selfish child. It means everything. It means everything because it has ruined everything. It ruined his life, and it's ruined ours."

"It doesn't have to be ruined --- " I reach for you and you yank your arm away from me. I can hear it crack deep within your shoulder, from that old rugby injury, and I wince.

"Stop," you say. leaning away from me into the corner of the sofa, your arms crossed. "Just stop. Stop talking."

I sit back and unravel the hem of my sweater, where it had begun to fray months ago. I pull at the fading lavender thread until it unwinds in my hands. For the first time, I feel sad. I could cry. Part of me refuses to cry in front of you, and a tiny voice inside tells me to let the tears fall; maybe it will engender some sympathy. I hate that little voice. Listening to that little voice got me where I am.

Silence falls between us. Neither of us move. As light leaves the room, I watch you disappear, too.

Exercise 1 - Takes Place in Water

I run toward the pier, kicking off my shoes and pulling my t-shirt over my head. I count steps; each time my foot hits the ground, mentally, I sound off the number.

Nineteen, twenty. Twenty-one, twenty-two.

For a moment, the band of the collar catches my ear and throws me off. I don't lose track of the numbers.

Twenty-nine, thirty.

When I free my head and drop the t-shirt, my feet hit the warm wood of the pier, and I pound down it.

Forty-one-----

I dive headfirst into the lake, dolphining out into the deep, holding my breath so long I fear my lungs will explode. Underwater, there's nothing. No counting, no noise . . . just the sound of my heart in my ears and the struggle to remain under. I hate to surface but my body demands it, and I emerge with an enormous gasp of air.

I listen. I can still hear them.

With a great gulp, I bounce up and disappear again below the surface. I drive myself down as far as I can and open my eyes. Nothing to see but the majestic green of the lake water, the rocks in its bed, the seaweed here and there, and the occasional flash of a small fish far away. I want to stay down here forever, walk along the stones, tie seaweed into jewelry and become a mermaid. My lungs betray me, and again, I rise to breathe.

I roll over onto my back. The sun warms the parts of me above the water, and the parts of me underwater bob pleasantly on the gentle current. I close my eyes.

I can't hear them anymore.

Writer's Block

I have neglected you. Yes, yes, I have. I feel terrible about it; I come to you sometimes and stare at your archives and wonder how I was ever so prolific. How I ever had so many Words to share - and words, too, but some are certainly Words, of the highest order.

So, in order to break the block, I will engage in exercises until something starts flowing freely again. I apologize to subject you to my mental colonics; however, to figure out why it's all constipated, I will have to do this till I don't have to do this anymore.

The Good Old Days

My mother was a die-hard Motown fan. As a matter of fact, I think my parents' divorce occurred primarily because my father was a Beatles fan, and my mother hated the Beatles - preferring anything Berry Gordy produced. This explains a lot.

We moved thirteen times before I was 18 years old. Moving meant long car trips, and my mother spent a lot of time fiddling with the radio dial to find driving music. We learned all about the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Miracles, and of course, the Supremes. My aunt once said my mother wanted to be Diana Ross, and maybe she was right.

When Diana Ross befriended little Michael Jackson of the Jackson 5, my mother noticed. My mother sang along to any Jackson 5 hit on the radio, the windows rolled all the way down, elbow on the sill, regretting wearing shorts as she peeled her bare legs from the unforgiving vinyl seats. Always eager to be welcomed closer to the mystery that was my mother, my sister and I closely followed whatever she liked, learning lyrics and singing along to the radio until she would inexplicably and unexpectedly change the station even in the middle of one of her favorite songs.

When Michael Jackson released "Off the Wall," it became a staple in our home. While she cooked dinner, my mother would tell us to go into the living room and carefully put the record on the stereo - a massive tower of black equipment behind a heavy glass door. The speakers were taller than my sister and were strategically placed around the living room - a room we were otherwise forbidden to enter or loiter in. We would go into the living room together, the bright blue wall-to-wall carpeting devoid of footprints; only the sweeping lines of the vacuum cleaner - vacuumed from the corner furthest from the exit, so as to leave no footprints, mind you - revealed that anyone had tread on it. Carefully removing the record from its sleeve, my sister would hold the cardboard cover and turn it over in her hands as I put it on the turntable. The stereo was so sophisticated, at the press of its power button, it would recognize the presence of the vinyl disc and the arm would automatically lift to begin playing. We thought this was magic, and since we would probably be murdered if my mother saw us touching the needle, it was a blessing.

When the record started, we were allowed to sit on the carpet and listen, and when my parents were in a good mood, they would join us and we would sing and dance. We learned all the lyrics to "Off the Wall" and my parents played the record until it fell apart.

I was twelve when "Thriller" was released. Everyone at school had a copy. I remember girls taking the advertisements with the album cover art on it and sliding it into their notebooks or posting it in their lockers. You had to be under a rock not to know what "Thriller" was. I had always listened to the radio, so I heard the songs there, and when my parents gave my sister the record, we became obsessed. "Thriller" was the soundtrack to the first boy-girl party I ever attended. We turned off the lights and made out in the dark until my friend's parents came in, saw what we were doing, and flipped on the lights. It was fun.

When the Motown 25 special aired in 1983, my mother begged my sister and me to watch it with her. I think that later, if it was released on VHS, she bought a copy and watched it over and over again. She wasn't as impressed with Michael Jackson's moonwalking as my sister and I were - we spent months attempting to master the move in the kitchen, where we could see our reflections in the glass of the oven door, and the linoleum provided a good guide for going backward in a reasonably straight line.

It's hard to say that I was a Michael Jackson fan. I don't think that's accurate. I liked his music, and I appreciated his extraordinary talent. Michael Jackson is a staple of American culture. He was the darling child star of Motown, the breakout solo star of his brothers' group, and the handsome young man the entire world wanted to watch mature into a dazzling talent. He was magnetic. It's interesting now to watch the Jackson 5 reunion on the Motown 25 television special; it's so clear that among all the talented brothers, Michael Jackson possessed that charisma that distinguish the talented from the once-in-a-lifetime stars.

Michael Jackson is part of who we are. Americans love their famous children, and he was one we all watched grow up. We watched his successes in the early years of MTV - do you remember where you were when "Thriller" was endlessly hyped and finally world-premiered on the video-music station? I can tell you where I was - in front of the TV like everyone else, shushing my mother for criticizing the scary-movie tone until I needed to ask her who Vincent Price was because I didn't recognize him.

Like many, I think the eccentricity eventually overshadowed the music - and thankfully much of that started to take root after the epic impacts of songs and messages like "Man in the Mirror" and "We Are the World." It just seems as if fame and Michael Jackson's frail psyche were quite incompatible, and maybe the traumas of his child-stardom were simply things he could not successfully overcome. It's sad.

Here's to the good old days.

Father's Day

I sort of hate John Mayer, as a rule. I won't lie: this song makes me think of my sister and me.

I read something once, something a critic wrote about a memoir I'm reading called "The Sisters Antipodes." Anyway, the critic wrote, "Fatherless daughters are so plaintive . . . " and I couldn't agree more.

I couldn't agree more.

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Daughters
~ John Mayer

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Oh, you see that skin?
It's the same she's been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she's left
Cleaning up the mess he made

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break
You'll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without the warmth from
A woman's good, good heart

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too