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1. Email forwarded around mourning the death Albert Hofmann, the creator of LSD.
2. Signs on all the water fountains: "Please do not pour your tea grounds down the drain!"
3. New workshop offered: "Making Better Men".
4. End of the semester party includes, "...drum circles, Bollywood Dancing Performances, and DJ St. Patrick."
So sweet.
A second before liftoff:
I was walking by this beautiful future utopianist mural by Mona Caron the other day on Church Street. I've admired it before, but did I ever notice that it includes a City CarShare vehicle? And there is another way to get around in the future San Francisco—City Elephant Share.
So amazing.
The Milan Furniture Fair
Gabriel and I have been in a relationship for—is this right?—17 years. We met when we were 19 and 20. So strange to think!
The other night we had friends come and crash our date night for dinner out, and we were recalling how we've always had date night, even before we had kids!
We also used to have dates-with-ourselves night, which was when we both hung out alone, with the goal of "checking in". We used to say, "good luck being at one" when we said goodnight. I think it is something good that we did. And we had our own bedrooms then—which was nice too. Now we have nights out for each of us, but there is no place for either of us to have time alone in the house—our apartment is too small. And it's hard to be at one in a cafe.
This month's Dwell magazine Dwell has a whole spread on backyard "huts". Tiny one-room spaces (and of course, since it's Dwell, they are zen, beautiful modern masterpieces) that people have built and are showing off. They are delightful. Often they seem to be used for really spiritual purposes: books, musical instruments, moon-gazing (I'm making that last one up). I long for the day when I have a Room Of My Own, but Gabe wants a hut.
Tonight I am on a date-with-myself, like the old days, because I am camping out at a friend's house (they're out of town). After I had dinner with the boys and nursed Rye to sleep, I went to Osento, got a massage and then came over here and watched a Judye Hess Family Therapy documentary video. Now it's time to deal and be present.
I'll write my daily poetry lines to Julia, and try not to be spooked by the old house-creaks creaking around here. It's not easy to try to be checked in. In a way, I don't know what to do—I don't remember what I used to do, except write in my journal. I guess I just need to try to be attentive to myself, to be nurturing, to write and read and think a little—things that please me. Good night, sweet readers.
Measuring the Tyger
Barrels of chains. Sides of beef stacked in vans.
Water buffalo dragging logs of teak in the river mud
outside Mandalay. Pantocrater in the Byzantium dome.
The mammoth overhead crane bringing slabs of steel
through the dingy light and roar to the giant shear
that cuts the adamantine three-quarter-inch plates
and they flop down. The weight of the mind fractures
the girders and piers of the spirit, spilling out
the heart's melt. Incandescent ingots big as cars
trundling out of titanic mills, red slag scaling off
the brighter metal in the dark. The Monongahela River
below, night's sheen its belly. Silence except
for the machinery clanging deeper in us. You will
love again, people say. Give it time. Me with time
running out. Day after day of the everyday.
What they call real life, made of eighth-inch gauge.
Newness strutting around as if it were significant.
Irony, neatness and rhyme pretending to be poetry.
I want to go back to that time after Michiko's death
when I cried every day among the trees. To the real.
To the magnitude of pain, of being that much alive.
What happens each week in my Group Dynamics class?
We meet for three hours, the twelve of us. We talk the entire time—there is rarely silence and often it feels like you have to really assert yourself to get your words in. People feel strong feelings, confront each other, make themselves vulnerable. And I feel like everyone is being authentic and present—there is not too much acting out, in my opinion. Even from me.
And yet, I am often asked by friends, at school, at parties, what it's really like—group dynamics class. People are often intruigued, "isn't it insufferable?", "isn't it boring to listen to other people's feelings?". And then when I try to get more specific about this class—one I feel moved and disturbed by, I fail. I can't quite remember what literally goes on. This is also weird because in addition to confidentiality issues, my lack of content recall effects my writing here for Ladder Herald. It is sometimes really hard for me to write about "training to be a therapist"—the tag line for my blog.
Why do I walk around thinking the class is good, even amazing? Why is it charged? Why do I look forward to it and dread it like I have a crush or a secret?
Mulling it over I realize that this also happens to me in individual therapy—there is an amnesia that happens each week. Is the amnesia ok? I simply forget what we talked about. There is almost a clean slate when I start, though I often recall echoes of past conversations once I am talking. I have been in therapy off-and-on for about ten years, and I think that most times when I start I have no idea what I am going to talk about. But it's OK; I think this is part of the agreement of being a patient—to free associate.
Still, I also hope to be a therapist—I am training to be one. I wonder if a therapist should start each session with a blank slate? Should I not have a few ideas about what the patient and I are doing together? Should I think about my patients or try to figure things out about them when I am not with them? What if I don't do that? Hmmm.
I have a sensory memory of an excitement/anxiety feeling in my body related to being in Group Dynamics. And I often leave class with a strong sense that I have learned something powerful. But what?
Here is one idea: I am learning how to be present, and with everybody's help, I am being present. And therefore my memory is not that active. I am not doing much analyzing.
Of course, this makes reflection tricky.
And, of course, this is a self-preserving theory, but it's my best idea so far so I will explore it for a second.
Can I have strong memories of times when I am in-the-moment and present? Yes.
Then why am I not now? I think it is more than just the fact of being present; I think I also have anxiety about taking in so much in the class—feelings and risking and the real presence of others. I think that once I finish class, my mind and body move in to protect me by saying something like, "Hey, that was great! Let's check out for a while and rest." I picture a trainer moving in to throw a robe over a boxer's shoulders.
If this is true, I think it is OK. But as I get better trained, and maybe more able to handle things, perhaps my capacity for remembering/reflecting/learning actively will increase. I would like that.
A fine spring weekend. Many crafts were made. We rode the Christiana to Boogaloos. Summery-hot weather, visits to the tidepool beach and all the Mission parks. Gabe and I got to go out drinking with sweet friends on Saturday night, though I am really regretting the pass we took on visiting the naked slip-n-slide that was going on in Dolores Park. We've started reading Charlotte's Web to Jonah and his rapt face as he listens is so amazing to see.
Jeffrey Dinsmore is cracking me up, dude. Check him out:
http://www.jeffreydinsmore.com/
I especially love "Meth Free" Meth Free and "My Saddest Moment as a Writer" Saddest .
This simple and brilliant site helps you track your menstrual period. Then it sends you a message several days before your period is due, based on a statistical analysis of when it will probably come.
You can personalize the email. I wrote mine so that it reminds me not to start any fights with Gabriel if I can help it, and it also suggests a hot shower, chocolate, and going to bed right after the kids are asleep for a few days. I don't get to meditate and rest in the tribal bleeding hut but I can try to get a little closer.
I love the way technology can solve some really hard problems, like car-sharing. I am not a Luddite environmentalist at all.
Almost every month I start a fight with Gabriel and then a few days later realize it was PMS. I also tend to get morose and listless, and paranoid that I am sliding into a depression. (It's fun!) But the catch of it all is, I can never seem to figure out what is happening until it is too late. I am too hysterical.
I actually don't think it's so bad to be crabby or quiet or sleepy, I just want to be able to take care of myself. I think this might do the trick!
the link is via not martha
Now I'm just twiddling my thumbs until it's time for my period and I can go in and input all my dates. This is the first time in my life I've ever looked forward to getting my period, except when I have thought I was pregnant and didn't want to be.
Getting my period's never really been a special/sacred thing for me. When my inhibited, uncertain Catholic Mother told me about it, she was so circumspect that I misunderstood her and thought that I would bleed for 28 days and have only 5 days off a month. So I prayed to God ceaselessly to spare me. Even when I got set straight about how it really works I couldn't shake my sense of being bummed out about it. But maybe this reminder and the chance to care for myself will change how I feel about menstruation.
I personally don't enjoy dogs, especially in the city. But, last night in class my Psychopathology Professor told us a story about his dog that I loved.
It seems that this particular dog was very afraid of loud noises. He'd obviously had some trauma before he came to his new family. After a while, Russ noticed he seemed depressed and the vet tried him on some kind of anti-depressant drug. After a few months of paying for dog uppers, Russ decided to treat the dog himself with St. John's Wort, a well-known herb that has been used for centuries to treat mental disorders and is used today for depression, anxiety, and/or sleep disorders.
"So I planted a St. John's Wort bush in my back yard and I used operant conditioning to train the dog to chew some leaves and buds off the tree once a day. The dog was fine after that—never had a problem."
Jonah is obsessed with Star Wars, even though he has not seen the movies. He can figure out enough about it all from friends and what is in the culture to fake it effectively. And...even though I think it's a little too violent for this particular kid yet the truth is I LOVE Star Wars passionately, and have since it came out.
It is particularly fun for me to have him playing it, and I know all the characters and background, etc.. Sometimes I even absentmindedly correct him, "No, Leah is Luke's sister—"
Anyway, we were playing this morning and this is what ensued:
Jonah: I'm turning off my spaceship's radio because we're flying past Darth Vader's evil place. (Mama, you be Darth Vader.)
Elizabeth: [Heavy Darth Vader breathing—I am actually really good at this] Luke! I am your Father Luke! Come to the Dark Side.
J: No! I will never! I will never become evil!
E: Luke! I am your father!
J: But...I will fly past the dark side every day so I can say hi to you, Dad.
A beautiful little piece on Frank O'Hara in the New Yorker this week by Dan Chiasson. My favorite part:
"You can see O'Hara's entire oeuvre as an attempt, therefore, to remake identity on terms more durable than the ones to which he had been consigned. It is a giant counter-biography, full of alternative facts: films and paintings and music he loved, friends, lovers, idols. There were half a dozen Francis O'Haras growing up in Massachusetts around 1935; twenty years later, in New York, Frank O'Hara had become one of a kind."
This might be one of my most favoritest of Frank O'Hara poems—
Ave Maria
Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies
get them out of the house so they won't
know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by
silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you
must
they won't hate you
they won't criticize you they won't know
they'll be in some glamorous
country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or
playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
and didn't upset the peaceful
home
they will know where candy bars come
from
and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before
it's over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment
is in the Heaven on
Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made
the little
tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick
them up in the movies
they won't know the difference
and if somebody does it'll be
sheer gravy
and they'll have been truly entertained
either way
instead of hanging around the yard
or up in their room hating you
prematurely since you won't have done
anything horribly mean
yet
except keeping them from life's darker joys
it's unforgivable the latter
so don't blame me if you won't take this
advice
and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in
front of a TV set
seeing
movies you wouldn't let them see when
they were young
Frank O'Hara
Haiku
by Matthew Zapruder
Yesterday for you
I wrote a poem so full
of lies it woke me
stunned like someone
bitten in the middle of the night
or a bird that just
smashed into a very clean window.
Now it's so early
it's still night
and this time I'm hardly
trying at all, holding carefully
in my palms
the knowledge that
I don't know anything about you.
And how could you know
mosquitoes love my blood
because it's full
of something they love,
or that I like to play chess
in the morning
with a serbo-croatic book,
never getting any better?
Or that to drink
seltzer with lemon in the dark
thinking of Isamu Noguchi
calms me, but only sometimes?
How I'm a blue
vial of delusions.
How on my biceps
I have a star that never
aches when I tell the truth.
How I'm always
in love with someone
I'll never meet (see,
I can't put three words
together without lying!).
And all the things
about you I don't know,
which is everything.
Did you never
want to be a dancer?
Were your ankles
too thin, and you didn't
even know it?
Did you love
or were you afraid
of horses (one threw me
when I was a child)?
Did your mother show you
how to wrap a towel
around your wet hair
like an arab queen,
or did you just know
how to paint your nails and hold
the telephone like that
between your chin
and shoulder?
The color of your eyes.
Do they change
on a bridge?
When you lie?
It feels so good
to be clear, and free,
not like a buddhist
or a haiku but just sort of
dumb, hardly able
in the middle of night
to speak. Only
enough to say
thank you for the cake,
how it came
wrapped in tinfoil,
newborn, almost
as sweet as the thought
of you thinking
a moment of me.
Most things come
by time and circumstance
separated, waiting
to be repaired.
But not that cake
which I ate
quickly, like
it was about to disappear.
Let's start again.
I don't think
that's a bird out there,
it sounds more like
a person trying
to sound like a bird.
Or maybe a bird a person
didn't mean
but still taught
how to whistle.
You keep sleeping
and I'll stop trying
to decide if it's better
to change other people
or how they see us,
or what's more
urgent and futile,
to unlock
or to invent the past.
by Matthew Zapruder
from his book "The Pajamaist" published by Copper Canyon Press
The ones I love made tattoos that say "Mama" and "E" with magic markers. I am unaccountably flattered.
From the Sunday New York Times, by Lois Brady Smith
"Susan Holgate and Robert Barron sought counseling when they could no longer talk gently or calmly about money. Even discussing the phone bill led to long, loud fights.
“There was so much strain around who’s making the money, who’s paying the bills,” Ms. Holgate said. “It was a control issue. Like, who’s got the reins?”
“Every couple has their big topic,” her husband added. “Ours was finance.”
Things became even more strained when Ms. Holgate’s career as the vice president for institutional brokerage at E*Trade Financial, the online brokerage house in New York, took off, making her the primary earner.
“Counseling helped me go from resentment to appreciation to thinking, Aren’t I lucky that she’s so lucky and successful,” said Mr. Barron, who was then a business development executive at the Nielsen Company in New York.
That shift in thinking took some time: they saw Dr. Johnson in his West Side office every Wednesday evening for six years.
“If you don’t have a third party acting as a referee, things get so heated you don’t even want to bring them up,” said Mr. Barron, who added: “People go to a tennis pro to improve their tennis game. They go to a ski instructor for their skiing. Why not go to a marriage pro?” "
Full article: Lois Smith Brady article NYT 3/30/08
Jonah: Aba, can I have something cold?
Gabriel: Like what?
J: Like a yogurt tube.
G: J, you had your treat in the morning, that's our rule, one treat.
J: Aba, tomorrow in the morning when I ask for a treat, you say no. And then when I beg still say no. And then I'll have a treat after school. And do that forever, OK?
G: OK, I will.
Morning bike ride,
the thousand potholes of spring—
early bird song.
*
At the counter—
pale gold wine, one candle,
and the two of us.
*
Meeting the neighbors,
18th Street at Valencia—
hearing all the news.
