You, who I loved more intensely than any man, ever.
You, who fled a scary situation and flew tens of thousands of miles to stay with your family in Canada – the same week I did the same thing – and ended up in a house just a few blocks from mine, on a bus with me, on the phone with me, in a theatre with me, in love with me. Two weeks earlier we were on two different continents. Two weeks later we were each other’s world.
You, who a year later made me wonder, to myself and to others: who is this man? Did he change, did I not know him at all, was he always like this?
Your friend M – not C – answered me: He was always like this.
This did not give me peace.
You, who gave me diamond-and-aquamarine earrings and a ring – a ring I never wore and now hangs around my daughter’s neck – for my birthday months after we parted and months into your new love.
You, who I grieved like a death.
You, who when your friend – and mine – told you he wanted to be with me and asked for your blessing, said “Go ahead. She’s crazy. It won’t last.”
You, who did awful, unethical, exploitative shit after we split. I mourned those acts. I delighted in them. Confirmation was comfort. I worked hard at hating you.
I had to because I loved you.
I loved your ruthless hope, your Machiavellian understanding of love and war and daily life, your ability to save, sacrifice, leverage – no, catapult – yourself from social level to level, your success-at-any-costs striving. I loved your selfishness. I loved your selflessness. I loved how you offered me every single cent you’d saved so I could take a UN internship in Zambia. (I wish I had accepted both offers.) I loved how you told me you loved me – easily, sweetly, without hesitation, often – in three languages. I loved how you ripped my red skirt. I loved how we surrendered a year of weekends to sensuality. Our hours-and-hours of ease, passion, constant connection and touch is engraved in my mind as how it ought to be, how it was only once before you – and, in the ten years since, only once after you. Even now, that is what love looks like, to me.
And so I lovehated you. For a decade.
And then you e-mailed me and asked, Was I one among many or did I stand out as significant?
How could you not know?
You were significant.
You first flooded then drowned my heart. And, battling waves, I always wondered: Did he really love me at all?
And now I know, because as a grown man with nothing to gain (or lose), you told me: I really did love you but I wasn’t ready for you.
Really, ready, relief.
So I’m glad you called, and called, and called again. Now I no longer have to hate you.
But that’s also why I won’t see you, not even for a snack or a sandwich: because, for an old-fashioned girl, lunch is a gateway drug.
“Lonely? Lonely is my most faithful companion,” I chirped, my words entirely at odds with my tone. That seemingly-tossed off sentence had been simmering for months. I give good quote.
And so I spoke shiny, glossy, bloody truth.
Lonely is my most enduring relationship. We met when I was born, torn from warm water into cold air. When I kept a flesh secret for the family spider, when my best friend made out with her boyfriend at lunch and left me to eat alone, when I scanned the call display while my man was in the shower, when I was barely, begrudgingly, miserably pregnant but lost the baby without anyone to hold me, then Lonely was my only lover.
I cheat on him with turnstile dating, frantic sex, bids for attention, comfort food, gossip, good friends, gorgeous children and copious amounts of writing, but he is my soul’s 4am. We meet every night.
So when my friend told me he “conquered loneliness in 2004″, I was astonished, then envious.
He suggested I do the same.
Later, he told me “conquered” wasn’t really the right word. It was more about coming to terms with lonely as an emotion, and emotions are transient and temporary feelings rather than a permanent state of being.
But for me, lonely is neither an emotion nor a state of being. Lonely is a shadow. He goes where I go.
So, what if, instead of conquering him – that sounds like such a protracted mess – I confront him? Maybe even make peace?
What if I say,
Yes, we are going to be together forever. It’s you ‘n me, Lonely.
Maybe I won’t ever marry again.
Maybe I will be on my own for the rest of my life.
What then?
Then I would have to
double my income instead of hoping a hypothetical man will bring in half what I want
save for retirement (do people do that anymore? Retire?)
Nobody wants to be the boy in the bubble, the girl in the glass house or even the man on the moon and yet we insist on weaving ourselves leaden cocoons.
This is why we are seduced into building ourself fortresses of faith and inhabiting them. We find our people and stop talking to others outside that circle (this is the lure and danger of tribal thinking). We find our ideology (this is almost always a mistake). We find our radio station, set it and forget there are others. We find our neighbourhood and then the drive downtown starts to unnerve us. We find some answers and so stop asking questions.
The care-worn grooves of comfort do indeed comfort. And bind. This can be self-care or this can be fearful retreat.
I know this – I dance to the rhythm of come-here-go-away - but I relearned it this week from two very different sources.
The first was a pastor of a church deeply involved with street youth, homeless, impoverished, and addicted peoples. He was speaking of Daniel and sovereignty in any situation, of finding a way to be happy and empowered in any circumstance, even those not of your free choosing or preference. He cautioned against hiding behind your faith (the “Christian bubble”, but we can apply it to any religion – Buddhism, Judaism, Law of Attraction, motherhood, retail, TV, Facebook). Instead of othering the other and seeking refuge in like-minded pockets of people, enter the world. Ameliorate wrongs. Speak to them. Offer welcome. Engage. Grow. Deepen. Love.
We all have stories to tell. We have stunning stories that each and every culture can learn from. If you read some of the fine works of other writers in other cultures, there is a lot to learn. I have always been open to read works in translation. Writers must be a part of the world.
And this, I think, is wise counsel from two wise men. It is what perhaps we use business, busy-ness, overscheduling, overeating, under-loving, drinking, tweeting, shopping, watching TV, worrying about money, dating-as-entertainment, compulsive house-cleaning (I am mercifully free of this addiction), reading, writing, checking e-mail, dog-walking and [insert distraction of your choice] to avoid.
So that’s my mission right now (and write now): to be part of the world. To engage with the sometimes unwelcoming world. To live and love in the world. To be here, now.
my shoes + laptops captured in a photo by Anastasia Chomlack at www.anastasiaphotography.ca
When I started blogging (and I’m wildly uncomfortable with the word ‘blogging’ because I’m a Writer, dammit! I’m an arteeeeeste!), I did not have a defined niche or a focus.
And how I arrived at that place – having a focus and a vision (and maybe even a niche – we shall see) – was by writing my way there.
I had to do it. I needed to write and share. I needed an audience. I needed feedback and the daily practice that is essential to mistressing my craft.
(My inner feminist is showing. I don’t like the word ‘master’ any more than I like ‘blog’.)
I’m convinced – I know it on an intimate, cellular, mundane level – that showing up and doing it is more important than lofty intentions, ideals, goals and aspirations.
Two of my friends are fitness success stories. Both of them attribute their abilities to run marathons and triathlons and lift insanely heavy objects (why, Josh, why?) to daily practice and small victories. Daily practice breeds incremental improvements and small victories. Small victories renew your commitment to the daily practice which then produces more victories which makes you practice more…you get the idea. It is a gorgeous, self-sustaining, creative cycle.
It is the same for my writing, my writing career and my blog. I started with a natural ability and burning desire to write, but the daily practice of blogging is turning me into a writer. The small victories added up and turned writing into a full-time living.
Now, I’m looking around and thinking: what’s next? What other arenas in my life will I transform by applying daily practice and small victories?
Here’s a quick and simple way to tell if your piece needs more work. Read it over and ask yourself,
Where’s the quote?
If you were a reader, what line would tickle, stroke or slap you? Where’s the leap-frogging, cart-wheeling, caterwauling sentence that demands to be known? Where’s the wisdom? Where’s the quote? Doncha wanna give good quote?
(Or, if you do locate some stunning sentences and you’re writing online, you can respect the medium and your readers – and your needy, attention-seeking prose – by emphasizing it. Bold-face or italicize it. Underline it. Use a different type-set. Separate it from it’s neighbours and fence it off with white space. If you’re really strategic, keep it under 125 characters and it will sit up like a cockerpoo – or a cockatiel – and beg to be tweeted.)
(Pssssst: Dave and I are working on a lil’ sumthin sumthin called Scannability that is packed with tips like this. I’m the one holding it up and delaying the launch. Nag me to finish my part and sell it, already.)
Go back to it. Inject more inventive verbs and adjectives. Add adjectives. Delete ‘em. Delete extraneous words. Look for parallel lists and see if reversing the order of the adjectives or adverbs will make your sentence strut like a hot chick in new jeans.
Or…
And…
Juxtapose tone. Mix the sacred and the profane, the divine and the mundane. Do it like Danielle LaPorte, our Juicy Empress Dowager of high-and-low language:
Those titles are emotionally and intellectually fraught. Tense. Electric. Danielle yokes together concepts and language as disparate as a Christian and a heathen…and then they make out. You can’t look away. It’s hot.
Like Danielle LaPorte, Rob Brezsny toggles stylistically between the daily and the divine – appropriate, since Danielle is the one who introduced me to Rob’s Free Will Astrology. Months ago, she wrote me an e-mail saying I’d like his loopy, luxurious horoscopes because they’re “your kind of crazy”.
She was so right – and I’m not even interested in horoscopes. In fact, I’m vaguely horrified by them. But I dig Rob Brezsny. He’s a storyteller. Each sign’s weekly prediction feels like a meditation, a short story, an excerpt from a novel, the shadow on the blinds of a woman undressing:
CANCER (June 21-July 22): As I stood by the creek at dusk, the silhouette of a woman in a kayak came flowing my way. The last crease of the orange sun hovered on the horizon behind her. I spied the reflection of the planet Venus shimmering in the violet water before I saw it in the sky. The temperature was balmy. A translucent spider floated nearby at the end of an airborne silk strand. Nine geese in v-formation trumpeted as they soared overhead. When the woman got close enough for us to see each other’s faces, she addressed me. “We win!” she exclaimed jubilantly, then paddled onward. I agreed. We were basking in a great victory, paradise having temporarily descended into our midst. This is the kind of triumph I expect you’ll be capable of achieving several times over in the coming week.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I love to listen to DJ Schmeejay on San Francisco radio station KUSF. Like a throwback to the Golden Age of FM radio in the 1970s, he plays a “visceral, cinematic” mix that delights you with a flow of unpredictable juxtapositions. Unlike some music experts who harbor haughty elitist prejudices, the dude is an open-minded aficionado. His playlist may include a psychedelic tune, flapper-jazz, a pretty pop song, a barbershop quartet, 1960s folk, polka, and trip-hop. He understands that good entertainment keeps you guessing about what’s going to come next. I urge you to borrow his approach as you cruise and schmooze in the coming weeks. Charm people with good surprises. Expand your bag of tricks, and use everything in it.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “If we wish to outline an architecture that conforms to the structure of our soul,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, “it would have to be conceived in the image of the labyrinth.” I take this to mean that clarity, assuredness, and single-mindedness are luxuries the ego may indulge in, but they are not the natural state of our deepest selves. Rather, at our cores, in the essential primal source that sustains us, we are complicated and meandering . . . mysterious and exploratory . .. curious and questioning. In other words, it’s perfectly healthy to be in a labyrinthine state of mind. I hope this meditation helps you enjoy your upcoming Season of Soul.
What Danielle and Rob do is bewitch and entrance. They toggle. They unite the divine and the daily. They cook words like a fusion chef.
And that frission – the unexpected ingredients saucing each other up – is the recipe for delicious, please-sir-can-I-have-some-more writing.
The lesson: strive for surprise. Don’t write in cliches. The first phrase that pops into your head is the wrong one, because you’ve probably read it somewhere. Instead of rewriting the images of another, invent your own metaphors. And then make them better.
It was inevitable that I love her, really. If we were on the same coast, I’d suspect we were dating the same men. Her subject matter is my subject matter – but I hide behind this here screen while she takes it to the club in a belly-baring shirt.
rub those diamond sentences until their glittering edges can cut you
write the quote
What I love about this poem is that although it is about how women think like romance novels gone wrong, Hidary doesn’t use harlequin cliches. There’s no quivering and swirling together in a kaleidoscope of love. There’s no purple or pastoral prose about love ‘n sex – which makes it all the more compelling. Instead, there are pink curlers in the gutter, lamp posts adorned with abandoned sneakers, fat turkeys and greasy fingers, pussy and Peru.
Hidary knows that when you’re writing about how your man sexes you – enthusing about his rare and divine masculinity, (“long and hard, long and hard, long and hard”) – you don’t write about fireworks and shooting stars and clouds and cotton candy and waves of whatever rushing over your body. When you’re madly in love with your woman and want to immortalize her worth in words, screw rubies and pearls. Are rubies and pearls part of your reality? Are lapping waves? Long walks on the beach? Dancing in the rain?
It’s also amazing the extent to which their list shows a pastoral or rural self-mythology: bonfires, boating, horseback riding, thunderstorms. I remind you that OkCupid’s user base is almost all in large cities, where to one degree or another, if you find yourself doing much of any of these things, civilization has come to an end.
And this is the genius of this poem – Vanessa avoids delusional, pastoral sentiment and speaks real, from the heart. From Brooklyn.
He fucked me like Brooklyn.
My pussy burns in the feminist hall of shame because I want to be called someone’s girl.
He fucked me…like the last goddamn kaiser roll in the bodega.
And that’s how you give good quote.
—————–
Your homework: Go now and listen to some spoken word poetry. Dear Reader, I made you a playlist.
As you’re listening, jot down lines that jar you, cut you, smite you, delight you. (I WOULD LOVE IT if you told me your favourites in the comments.)
How did the writer accomplish that? Was it surprise? Rhythm? Emotional tension? Foreshadowing?
Figure out the trick (fine, the “technique”) and then go mimic it. Use and abuse it in your own pieces until it becomes your own.
——————
Sunday School for Sentences will be a sixteen-part series. Missed one? Here they are:
The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. The trick is to find the ones worth suffering for.
In response, Lindsey Mead - and I say this all the time, I’ll read any book Lindsey Mead recommends, you MUST check out her very personal, engaged book reviews – very sensibly asked,
We can’t if we make it too easy. For us and for the other. There needs to be some obstacles – this is what the old fashioned idea of courtship was about. We each need to know about the other: “Am I treasure enough for you to face your dragons?” The ones who can answer yes to this question are the ones worth suffering for – because that is you facing your dragons in turn.
This is the archetypal story contained in the fairy tales, sexist as they can be.
Love untested is not love at all, in the end.
Sorry if I sound pedantic, I’ve faced a few dragons in my time.
Dave: I think you are a very old-fashioned girl at heart.
Kelly: You and I have come to a very, very similar conclusion. I had an epiphany on Saturday about that…I went to a steamy, sexalicious party and although everyone was hot – really hot, gorgeous in fact – it left me cold. I looked smokin’, I was happy to prance around looking cute, but I didn’t want to touch or be touched. I was utterly unapproachable. I should have gone to a regular ol’ night club and posed. Instead, I fucking scampered out of there early because I was eager to keep chatting/phoning/emailing/sweet-talking my Church boy. And just seeing his face on video – God Bless Skype, for real – made me wetter than watching people fuck in front of me. And I realized: oh hell, desire is a love thing for me.
Kelly: So I surrender. I am what I am.
Dave: Maybe you can let your hair grow back to that beautiful brown color?
Kelly: That could happen. I’m contemplating red right now, however. So tell me what you mean by “old fashioned girl”?
Dave: Monogamous and faithful.
Kelly: Yep. We are totally on the same page.
Dave: Commit to who you are, the right men will show up. They will even become attractive.
Dave: I figured that was the line you’re going to highlight.
Kelly: It’s fucken brilliant. And “the last goddamn kaiser roll in the bodega” is so much rarer and more precious than diamonds and jewels…I’m giving up recreational sex.
Dave: Good.
Kelly: I can’t handle it.
Dave: Most people can’t, neither men nor women. Some people, both men and women, can handle it just fine.
Chapter 3.
Kelly: I have no frame of reference or experience with not sleeping with someone right away. Every single significant relationship I ever had started with a bang. Literally.
Kelly: Dude. I have no doubt that I present myself as a motherfucken lady. I only hooch it up for special occasions. I am just built in such a way that no matter what I wear, I’m kabang!
Dave: High neck. No v-neck.
Kelly: The problem isn’t my clothes. It is me. I’m competitive. If I want someone, I must have him. And he will capitulate pretty easily in the beginning.
Dave: Whether he is worth wanting or not?
Kelly: Exactly.
Chapter 4.
Dave: How are you going to protect yourself and your man from your natural, feminine destructiveness? Your inner Kali?
Kelly: I think I need a pretty strong man.
Dave: Oh I know that.
Kelly: Yes. But I don’t tend to date them. I’m attracted to them. But I date the pretty boys.
Dave: But even a strong man who truly loves you is going to be helpless at some point.
Kelly: Artists have to burn shit down or they can’t create anew, but it is a colossal waste of energy, frustrates momentum…I’m kinda hoping maturity is the answer. We simply tend not to divorce the older we get. That’s why our national divorce rate is actually declining right now: because our population is aging. So I’m hoping age will work in my favour – by the time I get married again, I won’t have the energy to incinerate it. That, and I’ve already burned and been burned so often that if I do manage to be in the kind of relationship I desire, I’ll treasure it – and him – enough to take care. I’ll protect it.
Kelly: It isn’t a coherent strategy, but it could work.
Dave: It could. I hope so.
Chapter 5.
Dave: See, I’m in an interesting position here. I don’t want to see you get hurt, again. But I also want to see you find That Man.
Inspired by Mama Gena and her School of Womanly Arts, a much-loved friend of mine challenged (coaxed) me into exchanging BGDs with her each morning.
Sounds naughty, right? It kind of is. It is about celebrating your own strength and the joys of your life. It is about starting where you are.
B = brag
G = grateful
D = desire
X3. Here we go.
———-
I brag that I made wholewheat blueberry pancakes this morning and rocked some kiddie world. I really am the best mama, ever.
I brag that a searingly hot Seattle dude called me last night, all hot n’ bothered and wanting a piece of sweet Kelly-pie, and I said, “I’m not doing this with you. I don’t want to be the chick you call when you’re horny.” And it was no sacrifice because I’m firm about honouring my authentic self – and she’s a hot bitch who wants love or nothing.
I am grateful that yesterday, while I was pumping gas, Sophie rolled down the window and said, “Mommy, we just wanted to tell you something…We love you”.
I am grateful that I am unrelentingly loved by Julie Roads and Dave Doolin.
I am grateful that I found the right apartment for my family, and that our new living arrangement means I will be able to save money to take us to Africa next summer.
I desire that my Church boy goes away, sorts out his religious commitments, and finds a way to stand stronger and firmer in them. And while he’s doing that, I desire that he is unable to forget me. A little torment is good for the soul.
I desire the ben-wa’s to start writing query letters to national magazines. Because, dammit, I should be writing for them.
I desire sexy, juicy, love-every-day, committed-with-babies marriage. (To commence in the next 15 months.)
————-
Now you. Three of each, in the comments, right now. xoxoxo.
“I’m reckless?” I ask, incredulous. I spend my weekday evenings doing laundry and packing lunches. I spend my disposable income at Gymboree. On weekends, I’m spent. I don’t have the time, money or energy to be reckless.
“Restless,” Joanie corrects me. “Restless, not reckless. You’re a restless woman.
And this is true. Despite my suburban shackles – and I’m the one who owns the handcuffs – I have nomadic tendencies. I itch to travel. In the past, I’ve given away all my furniture and moved to another country. When it’s not working – even when it is – my instinct is to pitch it all and start over. I’m compelled to create clean slates. It is an urge so powerful it feels biochemical.
So yes, I’m restless.
And, when I think about it, I am reckless, too.
With my heart.
I accused someone of that recently (as in: yesterday): of being reckless with my heart. And right after I did that, I thought, oh dear. I’m accusing him of something I’m guilty of, too. Neither of us are taking care of my heart. Nobody in this sun-fired situation is wearing sunscreen. Baz Luhrman – “Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts/Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours” – would not be impressed.
Horse. Barn door. Open. Too late to protest.
It’s paradoxical: I’ve marvelled at my friends and family who caution me – as though there is a risk-free approach to romance, as though any kind of love comes with a guarantee. I know that love is a risk; I know that most relationships end; I know that in every relationship – parents, friends, children, lovers – pain is around the corner. Loss is part of life and even playing it safe won’t keep you safe. I’ve railed for months and months – years, lifetimes – about how wrong it is to put training wheels on romance, but now I’ve realized that I’m taking necessary risks unnecessarily. I’m taking them with people who don’t warrant the leap or who allow me to jump alone (2:31).
It isn’t the risk that is the risk. My problem comes from who I’m choosing to risk it all with.
I’m a romantic and seasoned romantics are both optimists and fatalists. We know – and live by – this truth from Bob Marley:
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you…”
What I haven’t lived by, though, is the other part of that quote:
“…The trick is to find the ones worth suffering for.”
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