The NY premiere of Josefina Lopez's
When Nature Calls at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
February 11-21
7pm
Purchase tickets, here.
Monday, February 1, 2010
We open in 10 days!!
The NY premiere of Josefina Lopez's
When Nature Calls at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
February 11-21
7pm
Purchase tickets, here.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
PARIS
(excerpt from vagabond:burning shoulders)
It was three years ago. My first trip to Paris without my family. It had been ten years. At 25, I was in young love, completed with rounded cheeks and a defensive drinking habit. My French was almost nonexistent as I was gladly preoccupied by my lover and letting him order my lunch and guide me around the somehow familiar city. I didn’t own a watch and my cell phone had no signal, so I rarely knew what time it was. And, I was secretly nearing the end of my Euro but absolutely LIVING with passion and without a map.
After my recent visit in the summer of 2009, I exited the city as a lonesome traveler with a specific knowledge of the city, and longing to be stranded there. I felt reunited with the anonymity that I originally encountered when I first arrived in New York. Maybe that is why young people can be so loud and attention hungry on the subway in my traumatic city. City life can be exciting and volatile for teenage eyes. Little hungry apes needing nameless shock value. Suddenly, those familiar feelings had returned for another city. After leaving last August, I felt like I had just spent an extended period of quiet time with an old friend. Those four days possessed the nuance of “first times” but also the familiarity of bookmarked friendships. Revisiting Paris’s romantic grandeur and creating my new, soft and lonely memories was extremely satisfying. A surprise considering my usual feeling is that of a mournful goodbye. It is nice to not only hope for and imagine a return to magic, but to experience it and watch its tricks. I liked tiptoeing around alone and asking strangers to take my picture. All of my journeys are completed by a moment of quiet time with myself. And, now I leave at the beginning.
I have discovered my Paris.
I think I am experiencing sincere possibility--like a gift for my hard work. My ambition.
I don’t usually like feeling like a visitor. Or I don't allow myself to. My fun began when I changed that. This makes me happy, when I let my evasive guard down and let this feeling guide me. The cab driver said on the way to my long bus ride to Barcelona that, “Sometimes time is more important than money.”
I stayed with new and cherished friends, Ikue and Lorenzo in the Paris’s Chinatown. To show my gratitude for a warm bed, friendly times, and their homemade blackberry preserves, I took the loving couple out to Chinese food. They enlightened me on the Parisian version of the “new” New York hipster - bobos. Bohemian Bourgeouis.
After dinner they took to me to a Canal where young people bring bottles of wine and stare into one another's eyes. While we were taking pictures a man excitedly ran across the street to enjoy his wine and tripped over a low chain barrier, shattering the bottle and injuring his knee on the cement sidewalk. The bottle dramatically displayed wine on the ground, almost admonishing his impulsiveness with its mark.
On my second day in Paris I ate a piece of plastic. Hard plastic that’s probably still lodged in my throat as I write this. It was deep within an apricot pastry I purchased on the Champs Elysees. That morning I had grabbed a dry pastry out of starvation near the Belleville train station before I jumped on the Metro. Then I purchased a bright nectarine at Chatelet and ate it as I walked towards the Musee d’Orsay bypassing the Louvre this time around. It was a gorgeous day, jam packed with tourists and families posing in front of the Louvre’s expansive majesty. The day felt endless influencing my thoughts on time and clocks. On this trip, I gained some sense and decided to carry a map, something that is truly hilarious for people that know me. I can go with the flow to a fault. And people watching in Paris is way more enjoyable than in New York, I can almost predict what people will say, wear. Now I want to impersonate looks, attitudes, strides.
I grabbed lunch in the Jardin du Tuilleries, possibly the first time I’d sat down and had a meal at a restaurant in over a month. Also rather unlike me…I have the tendency to treat myself to a "sacred meal" every once in awhile. As I ate, I do recall that being the exact moment that I decided to leave Europe in August. My journey would not be prolonged. Somehow the contentment in that moment, pacified all that I needed and I began to have confirming thoughts about my departure. These thoughts were slowly becoming concrete in Berlin. I was beginning to taste homesickness and at that moment, concerning my life, the decision to leave was heroic. Then I ventured down the Champs Elysees and chomped down on plastic. More confirmation, maybe?
As I walked, I experienced a bout of loneliness so powerful that I almost keeled over and wept in front of all of the families. I had to sit down and orient myself. I wanted someone with me, right at that moment.
After the Arc du Triomphe, I decided to return to Notre Dame. It is a place that I have visited with two great loves, my mother and my Frenchman of times past. After initially taking the train in the wrong direction, I made it. I walked and walked, passing the Hotel de Ville where an outdoor concert was happening with lots of friends and loved ones gathered –laughing and embracing. And then I crossed the Pont Nuoef and walked a bit to Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and found the spot. The spot where I took my favorite photo of my sweetheart from almost three years prior. The photo never really came out, but the warmth from the memory is unique and shared by another. Imagery is such, that some of our most treasured moments are blurry--never fully developed, possibly unfinished.
It was three years ago. My first trip to Paris without my family. It had been ten years. At 25, I was in young love, completed with rounded cheeks and a defensive drinking habit. My French was almost nonexistent as I was gladly preoccupied by my lover and letting him order my lunch and guide me around the somehow familiar city. I didn’t own a watch and my cell phone had no signal, so I rarely knew what time it was. And, I was secretly nearing the end of my Euro but absolutely LIVING with passion and without a map.
After my recent visit in the summer of 2009, I exited the city as a lonesome traveler with a specific knowledge of the city, and longing to be stranded there. I felt reunited with the anonymity that I originally encountered when I first arrived in New York. Maybe that is why young people can be so loud and attention hungry on the subway in my traumatic city. City life can be exciting and volatile for teenage eyes. Little hungry apes needing nameless shock value. Suddenly, those familiar feelings had returned for another city. After leaving last August, I felt like I had just spent an extended period of quiet time with an old friend. Those four days possessed the nuance of “first times” but also the familiarity of bookmarked friendships. Revisiting Paris’s romantic grandeur and creating my new, soft and lonely memories was extremely satisfying. A surprise considering my usual feeling is that of a mournful goodbye. It is nice to not only hope for and imagine a return to magic, but to experience it and watch its tricks. I liked tiptoeing around alone and asking strangers to take my picture. All of my journeys are completed by a moment of quiet time with myself. And, now I leave at the beginning.
I have discovered my Paris.
I think I am experiencing sincere possibility--like a gift for my hard work. My ambition.
I don’t usually like feeling like a visitor. Or I don't allow myself to. My fun began when I changed that. This makes me happy, when I let my evasive guard down and let this feeling guide me. The cab driver said on the way to my long bus ride to Barcelona that, “Sometimes time is more important than money.”
I stayed with new and cherished friends, Ikue and Lorenzo in the Paris’s Chinatown. To show my gratitude for a warm bed, friendly times, and their homemade blackberry preserves, I took the loving couple out to Chinese food. They enlightened me on the Parisian version of the “new” New York hipster - bobos. Bohemian Bourgeouis.
After dinner they took to me to a Canal where young people bring bottles of wine and stare into one another's eyes. While we were taking pictures a man excitedly ran across the street to enjoy his wine and tripped over a low chain barrier, shattering the bottle and injuring his knee on the cement sidewalk. The bottle dramatically displayed wine on the ground, almost admonishing his impulsiveness with its mark.
On my second day in Paris I ate a piece of plastic. Hard plastic that’s probably still lodged in my throat as I write this. It was deep within an apricot pastry I purchased on the Champs Elysees. That morning I had grabbed a dry pastry out of starvation near the Belleville train station before I jumped on the Metro. Then I purchased a bright nectarine at Chatelet and ate it as I walked towards the Musee d’Orsay bypassing the Louvre this time around. It was a gorgeous day, jam packed with tourists and families posing in front of the Louvre’s expansive majesty. The day felt endless influencing my thoughts on time and clocks. On this trip, I gained some sense and decided to carry a map, something that is truly hilarious for people that know me. I can go with the flow to a fault. And people watching in Paris is way more enjoyable than in New York, I can almost predict what people will say, wear. Now I want to impersonate looks, attitudes, strides.
I grabbed lunch in the Jardin du Tuilleries, possibly the first time I’d sat down and had a meal at a restaurant in over a month. Also rather unlike me…I have the tendency to treat myself to a "sacred meal" every once in awhile. As I ate, I do recall that being the exact moment that I decided to leave Europe in August. My journey would not be prolonged. Somehow the contentment in that moment, pacified all that I needed and I began to have confirming thoughts about my departure. These thoughts were slowly becoming concrete in Berlin. I was beginning to taste homesickness and at that moment, concerning my life, the decision to leave was heroic. Then I ventured down the Champs Elysees and chomped down on plastic. More confirmation, maybe?
As I walked, I experienced a bout of loneliness so powerful that I almost keeled over and wept in front of all of the families. I had to sit down and orient myself. I wanted someone with me, right at that moment.
After the Arc du Triomphe, I decided to return to Notre Dame. It is a place that I have visited with two great loves, my mother and my Frenchman of times past. After initially taking the train in the wrong direction, I made it. I walked and walked, passing the Hotel de Ville where an outdoor concert was happening with lots of friends and loved ones gathered –laughing and embracing. And then I crossed the Pont Nuoef and walked a bit to Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and found the spot. The spot where I took my favorite photo of my sweetheart from almost three years prior. The photo never really came out, but the warmth from the memory is unique and shared by another. Imagery is such, that some of our most treasured moments are blurry--never fully developed, possibly unfinished.
 |
| From PARIS 2009 |
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
melodrama
Today felt like the longest day of my life. Obviously it wasn't, considering I've lived through worse, but it is almost feels as if I can't hold my head up.
I have reacted and victimized coworkers and friends based on my bad mood. This isn't me.
Antithetical reactions from everyone; sassy and entitled customers who have never served in any capacity in their lives (customer service, restaurant work, volunteer work, or otherwise); and, simply, work that I just can't physically handle anymore.
And, my body is telling me. I feel aged just by the habits I keep. Therefore, it's not just my heart-brain, but physically I am beat down.
I don't want to hate my life. I don't want to pick someone to murder with words because I CAN.
And I trust the stars. More than I trust myself. I base my days on what my horoscope says and then I plunge headfirst into circumstances that my horoscope revealead. I feel as if i need something to believe in, although I do feel that I do believe in a lot of transcendent experience. I do feel created...but I don't feel that I can create within these circumstances.
Tell me not to lower my standards.
Need a break.
I have reacted and victimized coworkers and friends based on my bad mood. This isn't me.
Antithetical reactions from everyone; sassy and entitled customers who have never served in any capacity in their lives (customer service, restaurant work, volunteer work, or otherwise); and, simply, work that I just can't physically handle anymore.
And, my body is telling me. I feel aged just by the habits I keep. Therefore, it's not just my heart-brain, but physically I am beat down.
I don't want to hate my life. I don't want to pick someone to murder with words because I CAN.
And I trust the stars. More than I trust myself. I base my days on what my horoscope says and then I plunge headfirst into circumstances that my horoscope revealead. I feel as if i need something to believe in, although I do feel that I do believe in a lot of transcendent experience. I do feel created...but I don't feel that I can create within these circumstances.
Tell me not to lower my standards.
Need a break.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
INTRODUCTIONS: RE-EXAMINING STRUCTURE
My contribution to the third issue of The Paper
A foundation begins a house. Workers dig below the bottoms of our feet, mutilating the surface and inner clay with layers of stone and brick to stabilize the house for generations. Four walls rise connecting a labyrinth of rooms and passageways to separate wings of living space and modernity. Finally a roof encloses this hiding place to protect the inhabitants and provide a fortress against most elements.
Rebels, rule breakers, fringe dwellers deny all boundaries in search for eliminating most standards. Omnivores require various forms to satiate hunger. Is the work choice-less rebel art or harmless innovation? Omnivorous work is less collection or collaboration of “differing medium” but simply an aggressive approach to creation. Omnivore--taking the word’s definition and likening it to our personas. We return to our infantile genesis where behaviors, traditions, and identities were unlearned and we sought pure advancement and sharing. This being the greenest level of humanity –a place of truly embraced nuance. Tiny beasts that grow into finite monsters unaware of the bounded standards we live by. These standards are helpful for positive and negative differentiation concerning uniqueness, but these standards also cloud true opinions and enlightenment. Identities are created for us and we assimilate, gravitate, succumb into our herds of gender, race, class….dancer, painter, writer, etc. These roles have some importance and necessity considering the social flow and they all require certain qualities and gestures as signifiers. However this upward mobility transforms into a collision when we speak inside of these boxes or have trouble stepping outside of them to peak into another backyard. Our work becomes enclosed in someone else’s walls. I refuse to fit my malleable presence and constant soul into finite structure. A diagram, framework, or guide is required but approach should be the variable.
I am my own institution. I am the approach. This is the institution of the rebel omnivore. I am the construct.
As artists and creators we possess a certain outsider scope. We have developed a distinct mind’s eye when connected to Western tradition and worldly function. We don’t live in your house. We have created our own. However, as we build our living fortress, relationships and work can become an unnecessary balancing act. The greatest part of this challenge is the desire for a viable workspace. We can create a home office, rent studio space, travel to residencies in remote locations and find ourselves productive and different-- post. But to take our work a step further, by removing what we understand space to be, what we understand our work to be and, instead slice the surface of literal spatial barriers.
The idea of SPACE: living floating debris in the universe.
“Disorientation begets creative thinking.” Benedict Carey
New York Times, October 6, 2009
As overgrown beasts we rejoin these particles and collect our thoughts. To disengage set structure as I design the most productive workspace begins with elimination. Need to burn the box instead of stepping outside of it.
Thus, we begin simply. We dissect “time”. A month is set aside for a project. In it seven weeks can exist rather than the defining four weeks. Each week could be four days, with the day’s duration evolving as well. Some days could last for ten hours some could last for twenty-nine. Space will develop based on work’s routine. Results could be unimaginable and even difficult to approach for the creator since the work came from a temporal space. Goals previously mapped suddenly produce their own schedules, miss deadlines, and present new accomplishments. You will be able to propose nothing and only experience –your work will begin to happen to you.
And what you do not know is the only thing that you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not - T.S. Eliot
This allows your work to become a human entity –experimental and even decisive. Returning us to our curious early stages where we balanced on baby steps. I command my rebel omnivores to respect our work by creating our own clocks. Imagine time as a “palate”, blank and available for innovation. Use this the connection of you, us, and them-- our art. Activate your Gemini and resist.
A foundation begins a house. Workers dig below the bottoms of our feet, mutilating the surface and inner clay with layers of stone and brick to stabilize the house for generations. Four walls rise connecting a labyrinth of rooms and passageways to separate wings of living space and modernity. Finally a roof encloses this hiding place to protect the inhabitants and provide a fortress against most elements.
Rebels, rule breakers, fringe dwellers deny all boundaries in search for eliminating most standards. Omnivores require various forms to satiate hunger. Is the work choice-less rebel art or harmless innovation? Omnivorous work is less collection or collaboration of “differing medium” but simply an aggressive approach to creation. Omnivore--taking the word’s definition and likening it to our personas. We return to our infantile genesis where behaviors, traditions, and identities were unlearned and we sought pure advancement and sharing. This being the greenest level of humanity –a place of truly embraced nuance. Tiny beasts that grow into finite monsters unaware of the bounded standards we live by. These standards are helpful for positive and negative differentiation concerning uniqueness, but these standards also cloud true opinions and enlightenment. Identities are created for us and we assimilate, gravitate, succumb into our herds of gender, race, class….dancer, painter, writer, etc. These roles have some importance and necessity considering the social flow and they all require certain qualities and gestures as signifiers. However this upward mobility transforms into a collision when we speak inside of these boxes or have trouble stepping outside of them to peak into another backyard. Our work becomes enclosed in someone else’s walls. I refuse to fit my malleable presence and constant soul into finite structure. A diagram, framework, or guide is required but approach should be the variable.
I am my own institution. I am the approach. This is the institution of the rebel omnivore. I am the construct.
As artists and creators we possess a certain outsider scope. We have developed a distinct mind’s eye when connected to Western tradition and worldly function. We don’t live in your house. We have created our own. However, as we build our living fortress, relationships and work can become an unnecessary balancing act. The greatest part of this challenge is the desire for a viable workspace. We can create a home office, rent studio space, travel to residencies in remote locations and find ourselves productive and different-- post. But to take our work a step further, by removing what we understand space to be, what we understand our work to be and, instead slice the surface of literal spatial barriers.
The idea of SPACE: living floating debris in the universe.
“Disorientation begets creative thinking.” Benedict Carey
New York Times, October 6, 2009
As overgrown beasts we rejoin these particles and collect our thoughts. To disengage set structure as I design the most productive workspace begins with elimination. Need to burn the box instead of stepping outside of it.
Thus, we begin simply. We dissect “time”. A month is set aside for a project. In it seven weeks can exist rather than the defining four weeks. Each week could be four days, with the day’s duration evolving as well. Some days could last for ten hours some could last for twenty-nine. Space will develop based on work’s routine. Results could be unimaginable and even difficult to approach for the creator since the work came from a temporal space. Goals previously mapped suddenly produce their own schedules, miss deadlines, and present new accomplishments. You will be able to propose nothing and only experience –your work will begin to happen to you.
And what you do not know is the only thing that you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not - T.S. Eliot
This allows your work to become a human entity –experimental and even decisive. Returning us to our curious early stages where we balanced on baby steps. I command my rebel omnivores to respect our work by creating our own clocks. Imagine time as a “palate”, blank and available for innovation. Use this the connection of you, us, and them-- our art. Activate your Gemini and resist.
Friday, October 16, 2009
dog bite crop run
*This piece is almost four years old. Be kind.
Her feet plunged into the mud as she pushed her way through the tall green plants. She wouldn’t let herself look back, because along with that is a bit of pause, allowing the insects a taste. She continued running. Pulling her shirt over her head and tripping on the bottoms of her unbuttoning jeans. Tears fell onto her cheek like the match bits from lighting a cigarette. Her shoes were long gone and desperate steps left her feet bruised and bloody.
In the summer of 2004, almost immediately after graduating from college, a large dog bit me. Change and interruption were apparently my middle name at the time. I had just completed four years at Marymount, I was three months shy of the one year anniversary of my mother’s death, my afro was a month and a half old, and suddenly I was being bit on my left forearm by a large and previously stray animal. Shit like this cannot be predicted. It could not be any clearer that my mother was calling out for my attention.
Earlier in the evening, I stood within an inch of water behind the bar, giggling and gabbing with the bartender, Lauren. I was covering a hostess shift at the restaurant where we worked. Lauren and I were discussing our usual reel of missing men and fingertip dreams. A woman came in and interrupted our conversation by ordering 4 martinis. I pulled back and stood off to the side as Lauren made the drinks and I stared out of the window. Lauren lined the martinis up on the bar and the woman paid with her credit card. Four martinis would need a tray, so I told her I would help her walk them out to the courtyard. Repeatedly, she said that she didn’t need any help, but for some reason I insisted on accompanying her to her table outside.
I juggled the tray with two drinks and as I approached the table, I recognized her rowdy group from previously seating them. They had a massive dog that had been unfriendly throughout the night and was barking at anything crossing its path. The dog seemed uncomfortable as his owner and friends became extremely intoxicated. I set down all of their drinks in a neat row, and the group responded with blubbering “thank yous”. I feigned interest in the disoriented and terrified dog and coo-ed in an attempt at being polite.
Someone in the group spat out,
“You can pet him. It’s okay.”
Followed by more vodka voices,
“Yeah, pet him.”
And still, wanting to be cool and polite, I reached out and pet the animal, simultaneously recalling my mother’s regular admonishment for touching strange pets. It is certainly not ironic that spiritual connection occurred through the four-legged beasts that she kept me away from.
It was as quick and memorable as a nightmare. The dog’s eyes caught fire and he leapt up, latching onto my arm. The owner was jerked forward into sobriety as the dog’s teeth clenched my arm and yanked my body forward like a rag doll—unable to fight back. The fresh drinks that I shed blood to deliver were spilled across the faux wood and concrete, leaving shards as evidence. All sound and cognizance were sealed in my head, and like a rocket, I soared back to earth, and was dumped onto the restaurant patio. The muffled tones became audible and I could understand several pleas of, “Are you alright?” and “Are you okay?” A dishonest “yeah” came out as I stared down at my broken skin, trying to connect my mind to my body to this broken flesh in front of me. Lauren ran up to me calling out, and I could only stare back at her in response. I felt embarrassed and guilty.
Her left hand slapped her face as a cornstalk rejected her, releasing a wail from the edges of her face, not slowing her down.
In the December prior, I was working a typical and chaotic brunch. The wait staff swayed like dancers to the theme from the Bodyguard that played as accompaniment-- gliding between blowouts and UGG boots to deliver eggs and deceptively decaf coffees.
On one of the phones repeated rings, I picked up the receiver answering to the escalated volume from the folks from the 77th St. location. John Baber was hit by taxi on his way into work. Seeing red, I sucked in a slap of air and dropped the phone. I took one step back.
“John Baber had been hit by a car.”
I remember Ali picking the receiver up off the counter and speaking to the person on the other end. I stood there, worried, and on display. Emotionally, I was a wreck but I had become pretty good at hiding it. My mother was killed in a car accident about five months before. My wound had barely begun to bleed. I managed to siphon it off with extra classes and more hours at work. One nudge to the left and the pipe would explode. The knot had been untied and making this news that day’s breaking point.
Ali finished talking and hung up the phone. She looked at me and said, “I’m sure he’s okay.”
After my last class the following day, I ran as far east as I could to Lenox Hill Hospital. I was not surprised to find him smiling, and clearly relieved to see a friendly face. He was wearing his glasses and tugging his sheets, feeling embarrassed about his appearance. Just like John, wanting to entertain company from his hospital bed. My eyes were tight and I struggled to not bore him with my lack of control. I had to remember who had the tubes shoved in their arm and was spending their third day in a hospital bed.
Ripped, her underwear we’re still inside her jeans, when exhaustion out weighs tidiness. With no clearing in sight, she stopped. Her bra flung into the air; allowing the animal to cry out from within her, snarl her lips and arch her back.
We talked about life and recalled memories. John was unfortunately helpless complaining about the restaurant where we worked and the miserable owners. We were margin dwellers yes, deserving of that caste, no. Especially not broken and injured. I went to visit him all five of the days before the holidays. I did not want him to be alone and I refused to feel as if I had not contributed to his wellbeing. His mere thoughts during my initial grieving of my mother warmed me from afar. Somehow we were commiserating—deepening our bond as family and loved ones.
She wept, shaking, and crumbled onto the ground.
My wound was finally able to bleed, and in the presence of a loved one.
.................................
As I re-read this piece, I notice that I tell the events in opposite order of the actual experience. I think the largest lesson in grieving a loved one is the elimination of such things—order, time. The effect of these crucial elements cannot be predicted. And almost six years later, I am experiencing an idiosyncratic paranoia normally related to being initially informed with the fatality. 10/09
That same year, about a week into Danielle’s first job right out of college, a large file cabinet fell on her and almost crushed her leg. She was left with a gash on her face, another large gash above her knee and a sprained ankle. Two days later, she rode her bike the 8 blocks to my apartment to return a sweater.
Ben’s front tooth was chipped by a microphone while he performed as Titus in a punk rock version of Titus Andronicus.
They say scars are
war wounds
reminders
the unexpected phenomena that flavor life.
No accidents.
It can sometimes become necessary to have full living rattled into us.
The current of life is to uncover gems when your gaze is decidedly elsewhere.
Car crash
File cabinet
Chipped teeth
Dog bite
Crop run
Her feet plunged into the mud as she pushed her way through the tall green plants. She wouldn’t let herself look back, because along with that is a bit of pause, allowing the insects a taste. She continued running. Pulling her shirt over her head and tripping on the bottoms of her unbuttoning jeans. Tears fell onto her cheek like the match bits from lighting a cigarette. Her shoes were long gone and desperate steps left her feet bruised and bloody.
In the summer of 2004, almost immediately after graduating from college, a large dog bit me. Change and interruption were apparently my middle name at the time. I had just completed four years at Marymount, I was three months shy of the one year anniversary of my mother’s death, my afro was a month and a half old, and suddenly I was being bit on my left forearm by a large and previously stray animal. Shit like this cannot be predicted. It could not be any clearer that my mother was calling out for my attention.
Earlier in the evening, I stood within an inch of water behind the bar, giggling and gabbing with the bartender, Lauren. I was covering a hostess shift at the restaurant where we worked. Lauren and I were discussing our usual reel of missing men and fingertip dreams. A woman came in and interrupted our conversation by ordering 4 martinis. I pulled back and stood off to the side as Lauren made the drinks and I stared out of the window. Lauren lined the martinis up on the bar and the woman paid with her credit card. Four martinis would need a tray, so I told her I would help her walk them out to the courtyard. Repeatedly, she said that she didn’t need any help, but for some reason I insisted on accompanying her to her table outside.
I juggled the tray with two drinks and as I approached the table, I recognized her rowdy group from previously seating them. They had a massive dog that had been unfriendly throughout the night and was barking at anything crossing its path. The dog seemed uncomfortable as his owner and friends became extremely intoxicated. I set down all of their drinks in a neat row, and the group responded with blubbering “thank yous”. I feigned interest in the disoriented and terrified dog and coo-ed in an attempt at being polite.
Someone in the group spat out,
“You can pet him. It’s okay.”
Followed by more vodka voices,
“Yeah, pet him.”
And still, wanting to be cool and polite, I reached out and pet the animal, simultaneously recalling my mother’s regular admonishment for touching strange pets. It is certainly not ironic that spiritual connection occurred through the four-legged beasts that she kept me away from.
It was as quick and memorable as a nightmare. The dog’s eyes caught fire and he leapt up, latching onto my arm. The owner was jerked forward into sobriety as the dog’s teeth clenched my arm and yanked my body forward like a rag doll—unable to fight back. The fresh drinks that I shed blood to deliver were spilled across the faux wood and concrete, leaving shards as evidence. All sound and cognizance were sealed in my head, and like a rocket, I soared back to earth, and was dumped onto the restaurant patio. The muffled tones became audible and I could understand several pleas of, “Are you alright?” and “Are you okay?” A dishonest “yeah” came out as I stared down at my broken skin, trying to connect my mind to my body to this broken flesh in front of me. Lauren ran up to me calling out, and I could only stare back at her in response. I felt embarrassed and guilty.
Her left hand slapped her face as a cornstalk rejected her, releasing a wail from the edges of her face, not slowing her down.
In the December prior, I was working a typical and chaotic brunch. The wait staff swayed like dancers to the theme from the Bodyguard that played as accompaniment-- gliding between blowouts and UGG boots to deliver eggs and deceptively decaf coffees.
On one of the phones repeated rings, I picked up the receiver answering to the escalated volume from the folks from the 77th St. location. John Baber was hit by taxi on his way into work. Seeing red, I sucked in a slap of air and dropped the phone. I took one step back.
“John Baber had been hit by a car.”
I remember Ali picking the receiver up off the counter and speaking to the person on the other end. I stood there, worried, and on display. Emotionally, I was a wreck but I had become pretty good at hiding it. My mother was killed in a car accident about five months before. My wound had barely begun to bleed. I managed to siphon it off with extra classes and more hours at work. One nudge to the left and the pipe would explode. The knot had been untied and making this news that day’s breaking point.
Ali finished talking and hung up the phone. She looked at me and said, “I’m sure he’s okay.”
After my last class the following day, I ran as far east as I could to Lenox Hill Hospital. I was not surprised to find him smiling, and clearly relieved to see a friendly face. He was wearing his glasses and tugging his sheets, feeling embarrassed about his appearance. Just like John, wanting to entertain company from his hospital bed. My eyes were tight and I struggled to not bore him with my lack of control. I had to remember who had the tubes shoved in their arm and was spending their third day in a hospital bed.
Ripped, her underwear we’re still inside her jeans, when exhaustion out weighs tidiness. With no clearing in sight, she stopped. Her bra flung into the air; allowing the animal to cry out from within her, snarl her lips and arch her back.
We talked about life and recalled memories. John was unfortunately helpless complaining about the restaurant where we worked and the miserable owners. We were margin dwellers yes, deserving of that caste, no. Especially not broken and injured. I went to visit him all five of the days before the holidays. I did not want him to be alone and I refused to feel as if I had not contributed to his wellbeing. His mere thoughts during my initial grieving of my mother warmed me from afar. Somehow we were commiserating—deepening our bond as family and loved ones.
She wept, shaking, and crumbled onto the ground.
My wound was finally able to bleed, and in the presence of a loved one.
.................................
As I re-read this piece, I notice that I tell the events in opposite order of the actual experience. I think the largest lesson in grieving a loved one is the elimination of such things—order, time. The effect of these crucial elements cannot be predicted. And almost six years later, I am experiencing an idiosyncratic paranoia normally related to being initially informed with the fatality. 10/09
That same year, about a week into Danielle’s first job right out of college, a large file cabinet fell on her and almost crushed her leg. She was left with a gash on her face, another large gash above her knee and a sprained ankle. Two days later, she rode her bike the 8 blocks to my apartment to return a sweater.
Ben’s front tooth was chipped by a microphone while he performed as Titus in a punk rock version of Titus Andronicus.
They say scars are
war wounds
reminders
the unexpected phenomena that flavor life.
No accidents.
It can sometimes become necessary to have full living rattled into us.
The current of life is to uncover gems when your gaze is decidedly elsewhere.
Car crash
File cabinet
Chipped teeth
Dog bite
Crop run
Thursday, September 24, 2009
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