that turpentine stench first
filled my nostrils very young. she
stood with an apron in the laundry
room; pausing, standing back, knitting her brow
each of us sitting for at least
one portrait. she tried water,
then charcoal, but really loved
oil. burnt umber, prussian blue, sap green
viridian. she said, we try not to use too much
black or white. those colors don't really
exist in the world. try to show the hues using
different colors; it's more interesting and true
she was jealous of those pastes.
watching pbs, sucking her teeth: that's
an expensive color! so much that
christmas memories are filled
with small boxes holding tubes
cadmium yellow, light; van dyck brown; payne's gray
each year, more tubes and tubes
it felt like she never had enough.
in my house, over the piano she made me keep playing as a child
hangs her last oil
the boldest, most dynamic piece of landscape
she'd ever painted
subtle, muted, green mixed with violet, the trees almost
mourn with me, the loss of their maker
when we cleaned out her things
a whole room filled with easels
sketchbooks, unused yarn, fabric scraps, calligraphy brushes
ink stones, rice paper, photographs
and a green tackle box filled with
paint tubes
no one else wanted the supplies
so i took them. sullen.
i don't know how to paint with oils
i've kept them in this house for almost nine years
meanwhile, i take a job in an art department
where every other person is a painter
longing for more supplies
i remain jealous of those tubes just like her
but then, three weeks ago my not-supervisor's
sister drops dead suddenly
no one knows why
she flies across the country
to tend to body and mind
arrives at work three days later
red-eyed with smokey hair, says:
where else am i going to go?
not-supervisor is a painter
a very successful one, until life happened
and she had to support kids; family
she specializes in a certain symmetry; she's not
picky about paint. but she uses
a lot of it
today, i sort through my work space
find that green tackle box
smelling of the turpentine that
wafts through laundry room memories
i will never sit a portrait for mom again.
so i find a clean bag
place each paint tube in it
write down the name of each color
wrap them up, nice and neat
for transport in the morning
i hope not-supervisor will use every one
to remember her sister
so i can let go of my mother
and more things can be made
again, and again, and again.
Showing posts with label grief and mourning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief and mourning. Show all posts
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
release
letting go is not letting go it is returning to turn and turn to return and skies filled with marbles that rain rain reign the heart of head of heart of heading to the place where i held you tight but loose too tight to let you go too loose to keep you there the sprinkling lights reflecting off the imagined mirror ball on the new hampshire red road turning turning turning around around a round headed kid like me wanted to keep holding on to your now wrinkled yet somehow young hand that once stroked my hair in the moonlit darkness the night after a typhoon-swept tree had fallen on the house in the mountains where we took care of the woman of a womb that bore you so late not too late but still late like you bore me in the warmth of that late summer air when we both looked forward as i confessed i'd gone and fallen in love and what a time to fall in love and you said love is good love is great you should fall in love and what you didn't say was because you will need the love soon because even though i will love you forever i won't always be around to remind you that i do.
incense fragrant
a loss fragrant in sense
incensed at loss
release is everyday now with and without you when you left i thought no mistook no wondered no assumed no forgot yes forgot that releasing your body was not releasing you yes forgot that you were still existing still in my pores still wafting on the breeze in my ears on the memories i still tell and recall in stillness of light yes still body racing mind i must yes to seeing you everywhere yes to light raining down yes to releasing more and more to listening with confusion yes to confusion yes to a car ride back from a mall in a tiny car you know you no more false pride not saying yes but yes to saying i want your child your queer child you just need to find a random asian man i want yes an asian grandchild your child yes you would raise yes and smiling at knowing not quite yet but maybe future yes embarrassed at boldness no regrets when you said those words i knew you finally saw me yes me yes meet me half of the way to the altar of sight you had let me go and then you saw and now i let you go and maybe see you back lit seeing to see the sunsets and storms and soft finger tips at edges end blue baby glory of the once.
yes
incense fragrant
a loss fragrant in sense
incensed at loss
release is everyday now with and without you when you left i thought no mistook no wondered no assumed no forgot yes forgot that releasing your body was not releasing you yes forgot that you were still existing still in my pores still wafting on the breeze in my ears on the memories i still tell and recall in stillness of light yes still body racing mind i must yes to seeing you everywhere yes to light raining down yes to releasing more and more to listening with confusion yes to confusion yes to a car ride back from a mall in a tiny car you know you no more false pride not saying yes but yes to saying i want your child your queer child you just need to find a random asian man i want yes an asian grandchild your child yes you would raise yes and smiling at knowing not quite yet but maybe future yes embarrassed at boldness no regrets when you said those words i knew you finally saw me yes me yes meet me half of the way to the altar of sight you had let me go and then you saw and now i let you go and maybe see you back lit seeing to see the sunsets and storms and soft finger tips at edges end blue baby glory of the once.
yes
Friday, December 11, 2009
sublimate
i wanted to tell you that this was not the end that this was not the last time i would see you that somehow we would find each other and you would be well and i would feel whole and the things that surround us and keep us far apart would go away that the secret you needed to tell me could stay a secret rather than spill out into the summer ohio air on a green metal bench after a day spent wandering in hopes that we could forget that the end was probably even closer than we thought that even when you began to tell me what you needed to confess that even when i had offered absolution that even when your anger and confusion had transformed into resignation and then wisdom that i wanted to tell you the end would never come and i would make a room in the house i had just bought put your name on a wooden plaque and hang it in above the bed where you would stay when you would come visit on some whirlwind trip that would include every city and country you had ever dreamt of seeing but never got to see that even though everything had said end and end and end this was really and truly and nothing other than the beginning.
the question i wanted to ask you as you lay there in that beanie that you wore after chemo but that i couldn’t because i saw where i was the question after all those nights we talked about things that you can’t tell many people those nights where you were the straight one and i was the queer one and you were the black one and i was the asian one and we had too many reasons why we were never meant to care but then we did anyway because that’s what people do after all those nights where i knew we saw the wholeness in one another i wanted to ask you if this was the redemption you wanted and wished for and did that redemption include or exclude me and peace is something that i knew you would find and did you find it at a cost or a gain because when you went to see the father of all and the father of you at the same time i wanted to ask you does your heaven allow visitors from mine because i will try to find you again in the lightness and darkness and the after glow of the once and if there’s a bouncer i don’t wanna be rude because even though the beginning was an end it doesn’t meant i wont keep looking.
songs
beats
dog-eared books of richly colored heroines
this line was crossed so many times
and in the warmth of solitude
we could hear each other’s breath
the relief of sleep
only i wish to rise
beats
dog-eared books of richly colored heroines
this line was crossed so many times
and in the warmth of solitude
we could hear each other’s breath
the relief of sleep
only i wish to rise
Friday, November 20, 2009
converge
we were always hungry never full trying to nourish and the belly always slender when we traveled taking junk food and remembering the days when we'd queue up beside a fry pan next to arm-chair activists and queer girls who only flirted with girls but really slept with men whose last words were you need to read more books always hungry until we stopped tasting stopped chewing not knowing when to stop or pause or wipe our mouth or say excuse me after a burp or take a sip of water going back up the line for one more plate we were always hungry so that when she couldn't eat so thin and pale and peering through crusted lashes saying i can't oh no i can't not today will you bring me what you've made not this stuff you eat it so it can't go to waste please it will just be thrown away we can't help but pick up the beige tray start to chew the food that never seems to fail to make the whole ward smell more like sick like our appetite can't be turned like we were never fed properly like eating with our mouth will somehow feed her spirit.
and that week she first started to bleed without stopping when the fluid would leak and leak into her cranial cavity when she was diagnosed with meningitis that we distinctly thought was an incurable disease reserved only for unhygenic college kids when she developed bruises just from sitting when her blood would secretly gush just not where it could be seen we stopped bleeding entirely like a stone setting right next to jesus but unnoticed and neglected into silence we stopped bleeding as women bodies do as the moon waxes red as the tide becomes still as the night invites those that must drink blood to have it flow through them the font of life flowing only through a dying body but not through the surviving one when the blood carried revived love spilling out to all around her despite the stoicism and the denial and the queer lover brought home on holiday flowing just because it was impossible to stop all while her daughter's blood ran stiller and stiller perhaps in hopes that if it just stopped altogether it could hide from the feelings of chaos and lividity could stop time in its tracks from moving forward to the inevitable stopping of blood that could not be stopped because really it ran dry too dry to live that months after her blood and the vessel carrying it had been transformed to ash her daughter had to visit a doctor just to have her blood flow once more.
the man who saw her in new york said to us she is connected to god in heaven so she needn't fear and if you want i can do a special healing for her from afar but that will take $3000 and that's very expensive isn't it that we looked at her and told her the news and seriously considered withdrawing the $3000 from our money we were never to touch but $3000 is a bargain if it means her getting up and walking but she looks through bleary eyes in that way that says it's confirmed he's a quack and besides i'm ready to die because i cried through it all these months and i've made sure to tell you the important stuff and i know it will take you long to cry through it yourself because i had to cry through the same thing at age seven but you'll do alright let's practice now so we lie down on her sterile bed and curl up with our head right next to her hand and she comforts us even though she's the sick one stroking our hair and telling us stories through dreams we share as she falls into a bleeding-brain-induced slumber and we fall into a grief-induced one.
we sleep. we walk together, with a purple horizon warm at our backs. her hair is thick and long. she puts her arm through mine. she wears white shoes. i look at her face. she looks at mine. she nods forward and i see a bright reflection of yellow light in her eyes. i look forward. i see no light. she smiles. she's a pixie. she knows more than the rest of us, even though she has always played the part of the family dunce. i understand this at last. she nods.
i wake up.
and that week she first started to bleed without stopping when the fluid would leak and leak into her cranial cavity when she was diagnosed with meningitis that we distinctly thought was an incurable disease reserved only for unhygenic college kids when she developed bruises just from sitting when her blood would secretly gush just not where it could be seen we stopped bleeding entirely like a stone setting right next to jesus but unnoticed and neglected into silence we stopped bleeding as women bodies do as the moon waxes red as the tide becomes still as the night invites those that must drink blood to have it flow through them the font of life flowing only through a dying body but not through the surviving one when the blood carried revived love spilling out to all around her despite the stoicism and the denial and the queer lover brought home on holiday flowing just because it was impossible to stop all while her daughter's blood ran stiller and stiller perhaps in hopes that if it just stopped altogether it could hide from the feelings of chaos and lividity could stop time in its tracks from moving forward to the inevitable stopping of blood that could not be stopped because really it ran dry too dry to live that months after her blood and the vessel carrying it had been transformed to ash her daughter had to visit a doctor just to have her blood flow once more.
the man who saw her in new york said to us she is connected to god in heaven so she needn't fear and if you want i can do a special healing for her from afar but that will take $3000 and that's very expensive isn't it that we looked at her and told her the news and seriously considered withdrawing the $3000 from our money we were never to touch but $3000 is a bargain if it means her getting up and walking but she looks through bleary eyes in that way that says it's confirmed he's a quack and besides i'm ready to die because i cried through it all these months and i've made sure to tell you the important stuff and i know it will take you long to cry through it yourself because i had to cry through the same thing at age seven but you'll do alright let's practice now so we lie down on her sterile bed and curl up with our head right next to her hand and she comforts us even though she's the sick one stroking our hair and telling us stories through dreams we share as she falls into a bleeding-brain-induced slumber and we fall into a grief-induced one.
we sleep. we walk together, with a purple horizon warm at our backs. her hair is thick and long. she puts her arm through mine. she wears white shoes. i look at her face. she looks at mine. she nods forward and i see a bright reflection of yellow light in her eyes. i look forward. i see no light. she smiles. she's a pixie. she knows more than the rest of us, even though she has always played the part of the family dunce. i understand this at last. she nods.
i wake up.
Monday, November 2, 2009
10/5 freewrite--"i miss her so much every day"
second year of college, during the experimental composition module, corey wrote a piece called "closing statement." the score was just: "Improvise music and song using the following text, 'i miss her so much every day.'" a handful of us played it together--green chalkboards as witness, randy's prune-eyes shut in feigned interest.
a year later, at a composition recital, corey took the same piece but set it to five chords he scrawled with crayon--his counter-tenor pushing into the grey stone of fairchild chapel. playing the chords on the decrepit upright, rather than the well-tuned steinway grand, with his back to us singing up rather than forward--stretching out the prosody as far as possible. "i... i... i miss... i miss her..."
that might have been 1998. kim would have been living in chicago at that point. my parents still lived in tokyo. i was dating--probably--becky. or was it 1999? kim would have been in baltimore, my parents would have just moved to groton, and i would have been dating clara-who-had-not-yet-changed-her-name-to-hiroshi.
chicago and baltimore or tokyo and groton. it's hard to tell whether they would have been departures or returns.
when i first performed "closing statement," i thought i knew what it was about. corey probably thought he knew what it was about, too. i was most likely very indulgent. 20/21-year-olds often are. of course, 31/32-year-olds can be, too. i forgot about that piece. probably on purpose, like how you forget the water is cold when you've been swimming in it long enough.
corey wrote another song. he used yvan's words. "your absence has done my hands a favor. i now know every fold and wrinkle of my body." i think that song used toy pianos and accordions.
prosody.
when i played my thesis for mom, she gasped. it was for full orchestra. a full semester's worth of meetings with the only faculty member who could bare to look at me. she said, "wow. it's real music." i guess she didn't think any of the other recordings i brought home were. that's what four years of conservatory training are meant to do--create real music. i didn't tell her about the mathematical charts i taped to my wall. or the fact that i really had no idea what it would sound like until the day the chamber orchestra played it. the string players hated it--no vibrato and notes sustained over several measures. they don't like counting measures. i hated string players.
mom was always confused about my admission to a conservatory. "i never thought you were very... well... i knew you LIKED music."
i remember standing up from the table and spitting, "but you put it in my head! 'be the first female conductor, you have such careful hands. you're so sensitive.'"
i was the one who took a hobby too far.
kim still has much of my music in her itunes. every time the one recording of me singing plays, she says, "kt's on the radio!" i still blush.
it was one of my first gifts to her. a cd of corey's music with a guest appearance by me. it wasn't even a gift, really. she saw a stack of them and said, "can i have one?" and even though i barely knew her, i couldn't think of a reason why not. she was being so nice and attentive. i told her, "i wrote the song and words for my mom." she looked at her shoes. i'm still glad she has that song.
eight years later, on a stage in saratoga springs, i squinted at the limelights and looked down at julieta sitting on the edge of the thrust. the only words that came from my mouth were:
kim and i had been coming off a fight that day. the training was coming to a close. i was reluctant to part with my new friends. but i couldn't wait to come home.
that last thanksgiving, kim came up to groton to visit. mom had pulled me aside and said, "thank you for coming up separately, leaving me time to have with just you." it was a week after my birthday. we were in the living room when mom decided to give me my belated present. it was a men's dress shirt from land's end and a red tie. kim and mom sat close to each other on the couch, both beaming as i modeled my new duds.
kim said, "doesn't she look so pretty?"
and mom replied, "she does. yes, she does."
a year later, at a composition recital, corey took the same piece but set it to five chords he scrawled with crayon--his counter-tenor pushing into the grey stone of fairchild chapel. playing the chords on the decrepit upright, rather than the well-tuned steinway grand, with his back to us singing up rather than forward--stretching out the prosody as far as possible. "i... i... i miss... i miss her..."
that might have been 1998. kim would have been living in chicago at that point. my parents still lived in tokyo. i was dating--probably--becky. or was it 1999? kim would have been in baltimore, my parents would have just moved to groton, and i would have been dating clara-who-had-not-yet-changed-her-name-to-hiroshi.
chicago and baltimore or tokyo and groton. it's hard to tell whether they would have been departures or returns.
when i first performed "closing statement," i thought i knew what it was about. corey probably thought he knew what it was about, too. i was most likely very indulgent. 20/21-year-olds often are. of course, 31/32-year-olds can be, too. i forgot about that piece. probably on purpose, like how you forget the water is cold when you've been swimming in it long enough.
corey wrote another song. he used yvan's words. "your absence has done my hands a favor. i now know every fold and wrinkle of my body." i think that song used toy pianos and accordions.
prosody.
when i played my thesis for mom, she gasped. it was for full orchestra. a full semester's worth of meetings with the only faculty member who could bare to look at me. she said, "wow. it's real music." i guess she didn't think any of the other recordings i brought home were. that's what four years of conservatory training are meant to do--create real music. i didn't tell her about the mathematical charts i taped to my wall. or the fact that i really had no idea what it would sound like until the day the chamber orchestra played it. the string players hated it--no vibrato and notes sustained over several measures. they don't like counting measures. i hated string players.
mom was always confused about my admission to a conservatory. "i never thought you were very... well... i knew you LIKED music."
i remember standing up from the table and spitting, "but you put it in my head! 'be the first female conductor, you have such careful hands. you're so sensitive.'"
i was the one who took a hobby too far.
kim still has much of my music in her itunes. every time the one recording of me singing plays, she says, "kt's on the radio!" i still blush.
it was one of my first gifts to her. a cd of corey's music with a guest appearance by me. it wasn't even a gift, really. she saw a stack of them and said, "can i have one?" and even though i barely knew her, i couldn't think of a reason why not. she was being so nice and attentive. i told her, "i wrote the song and words for my mom." she looked at her shoes. i'm still glad she has that song.
eight years later, on a stage in saratoga springs, i squinted at the limelights and looked down at julieta sitting on the edge of the thrust. the only words that came from my mouth were:
let me hold your small handjulieta's abuela had died a couple weeks before. and most of our conversations were about our filipino american girlfriends. julieta looked up at me dewy-eyed and we fled to the wings as the viewpoints session moved on.
let me hold stroke your thin hair
let me carry you in my arms
let me see you
kim and i had been coming off a fight that day. the training was coming to a close. i was reluctant to part with my new friends. but i couldn't wait to come home.
that last thanksgiving, kim came up to groton to visit. mom had pulled me aside and said, "thank you for coming up separately, leaving me time to have with just you." it was a week after my birthday. we were in the living room when mom decided to give me my belated present. it was a men's dress shirt from land's end and a red tie. kim and mom sat close to each other on the couch, both beaming as i modeled my new duds.
kim said, "doesn't she look so pretty?"
and mom replied, "she does. yes, she does."
9/20 freewrite--spring
i had forgotten what spring was like
water flowing from a mouth
somewhere, in the twilight
an eleven-year-old girl-boy
eats ding-dongs for dinner
so the blossoms never bloomed
and the air stayed metal
smelling like
licking the jungle gym
in sub-zero weather
grass the color of
goose shit
greybluechartreusebrown
not dewy
just vague
once, on a morning meant for flight
just six months after getting my license
i tried to turn a slushy corner
and skid into a ditch
dad got out of the car in front of me
said: don't brake in the snow
guess i'll wait another day to go back
to ohio
someone lent us a cell phone
it was before i had one
before dad used mine so much
to update us from the hospital
before he said:
i think i'll get your mom a cell phone for christmas
and i said: you really think
that's waht she wants? sounds
more like what you want
what would mom do with
a cell phone anyway?
she's always at home
or the hospital
or if she's out, she's with you
the tow-truck came
and so did the cops
nothing damaged
but my northeast ego
exiled in midwest doldrums
forgetting
is when you live now
i means you're never bored
because you just
don't know any better
every march, the whole city
would sit in a palpable tension
we'd watch the news
and the branches
jealously peeking at
clips from southwesterly climes
then,
often overnight
they would burst in pink and magenta
foaming with colors
so indiscreet, you couldn't
walk the street without at least once
wondering if you, yourself, were a street walker
this was spring
for three years
i actually knew what it was
she had talked about it
all through my childhood
held it with such anticipation
i'll buy you a new doll set
for spring
i'll buy you a kimono
for spring
we'll make sakura mochi
for spring
you'll start new school
in spring
how have we sprung from spring?
water flowing from a mouth
somewhere, in the twilight
an eleven-year-old girl-boy
eats ding-dongs for dinner
so the blossoms never bloomed
and the air stayed metal
smelling like
licking the jungle gym
in sub-zero weather
grass the color of
goose shit
greybluechartreusebrown
not dewy
just vague
once, on a morning meant for flight
just six months after getting my license
i tried to turn a slushy corner
and skid into a ditch
dad got out of the car in front of me
said: don't brake in the snow
guess i'll wait another day to go back
to ohio
someone lent us a cell phone
it was before i had one
before dad used mine so much
to update us from the hospital
before he said:
i think i'll get your mom a cell phone for christmas
and i said: you really think
that's waht she wants? sounds
more like what you want
what would mom do with
a cell phone anyway?
she's always at home
or the hospital
or if she's out, she's with you
the tow-truck came
and so did the cops
nothing damaged
but my northeast ego
exiled in midwest doldrums
forgetting
is when you live now
i means you're never bored
because you just
don't know any better
every march, the whole city
would sit in a palpable tension
we'd watch the news
and the branches
jealously peeking at
clips from southwesterly climes
then,
often overnight
they would burst in pink and magenta
foaming with colors
so indiscreet, you couldn't
walk the street without at least once
wondering if you, yourself, were a street walker
this was spring
for three years
i actually knew what it was
she had talked about it
all through my childhood
held it with such anticipation
i'll buy you a new doll set
for spring
i'll buy you a kimono
for spring
we'll make sakura mochi
for spring
you'll start new school
in spring
how have we sprung from spring?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
on memory and forgetting
because i know you've surely forgotten about me.
every so often, lovely partner says, "you should blog about that." but i haven't been.
i'm a little jaded with the internets lately. i've stopped paying attention to my rss feed. and it began feeling like this sucking, demanding force that just had no business trying to take up my time. i've just had no patience.
and so i've been away from here. and so many things have happened. obama. gaza. the new year. my mother's death anniversary. i shaved my head...
and then this weekend i visited my good friend who is very weak with illness, preparing to cross over.
she is really the main person who inspired and encouraged my cancer opera. visiting with her was hard; it's always awkward, figuring out whether to show up or leave some space, what to say, where to sit, how to talk, whether to laugh or cry. it brought back so many memories of being with my mother in this same month, seven years ago, of sitting with my friend and sharing stories, of eating cheap but good chinese food at the back of a market, of telling myself, "just listen to her talk about what you fear. it's important to her now, and it will become important to you in the future."
and meanwhile, another type of memory nags at me. so comparatively mundane and trivial: my memory of words. the lines i must say in the play. it's going up on 1/23. usually, i memorize lines pretty easily, remembering about 70% just from showing up to rehearsal. and then only i need a few hours on my own to hammer it all out. but this role... not only is it very little dialogue--i'm mostly talking to myself--i talk under other characters, so i have to listen as i talk. in addition, a lot of what she says is nonsense or repetitive. i've been running lines at any spare moment, in my car, the shower, waiting in line, and just when i am by myself at home.... last night, though, the director followed along with my lines as we did a line-through (where you only say the words from memory as fast as possible to see where you need work), after we were done, she turned to me and said, "it's almost impossible to follow along, let alone remember and say your lines..." so, we've come up with some ways to alleviate the strain on my memory.
it's not lost on me that my lovely partner is an historian, and here i am writing about memory and forgetting. and as i reflect on what is behind, i see us on the cusp of what lies ahead.
forward ho.
every so often, lovely partner says, "you should blog about that." but i haven't been.
i'm a little jaded with the internets lately. i've stopped paying attention to my rss feed. and it began feeling like this sucking, demanding force that just had no business trying to take up my time. i've just had no patience.
and so i've been away from here. and so many things have happened. obama. gaza. the new year. my mother's death anniversary. i shaved my head...
and then this weekend i visited my good friend who is very weak with illness, preparing to cross over.
she is really the main person who inspired and encouraged my cancer opera. visiting with her was hard; it's always awkward, figuring out whether to show up or leave some space, what to say, where to sit, how to talk, whether to laugh or cry. it brought back so many memories of being with my mother in this same month, seven years ago, of sitting with my friend and sharing stories, of eating cheap but good chinese food at the back of a market, of telling myself, "just listen to her talk about what you fear. it's important to her now, and it will become important to you in the future."
and meanwhile, another type of memory nags at me. so comparatively mundane and trivial: my memory of words. the lines i must say in the play. it's going up on 1/23. usually, i memorize lines pretty easily, remembering about 70% just from showing up to rehearsal. and then only i need a few hours on my own to hammer it all out. but this role... not only is it very little dialogue--i'm mostly talking to myself--i talk under other characters, so i have to listen as i talk. in addition, a lot of what she says is nonsense or repetitive. i've been running lines at any spare moment, in my car, the shower, waiting in line, and just when i am by myself at home.... last night, though, the director followed along with my lines as we did a line-through (where you only say the words from memory as fast as possible to see where you need work), after we were done, she turned to me and said, "it's almost impossible to follow along, let alone remember and say your lines..." so, we've come up with some ways to alleviate the strain on my memory.
it's not lost on me that my lovely partner is an historian, and here i am writing about memory and forgetting. and as i reflect on what is behind, i see us on the cusp of what lies ahead.
forward ho.
Monday, March 3, 2008
on pink slips, creative capital
so, wonderful partner said to me, "maybe you should clarify with your readers about you getting fired."
my thinking was, oh it's clear enough! but then i realized, maybe it would be helpful to disclose some of the circumstances, just so it's absolutely clear: this had nothing to do with me or my skills as an actor.
last week, one of the main cast members quit. he was one of the lynch pins. even though other folks have left the cast, their characters were usually minor. one part was written out. the other part had been played by three actors.
anyway, main cast member quit. me and another actor spoke on the phone and agreed, "this is dead in the water." i was terrified, disappointed, but a bit relieved. only the week before, i had a tense conversation with the director about rehearsal space. i vouched for the play to my mentor in order to get new rehearsal space at UT. i had been trying to write a grant for the show so that we actors would be guaranteed some sort of compensation. i had mentioned the grant at least three weeks ago. but i was frustrated because it started to become something that i was about to start running around at the last minute to finish.
i was doing a lot for the play.
but i was taken aback by my relief when main cast member quit. i realized that this project had become an albatross. it felt like i was thinking about it more than, well, more than the creator. and i began to feel as though i wasn't getting very much in return. as a cast, we were scolded. as an actor, i was undervalued.
so i started thinking, maybe i should leave. but there were multiple reasons to stay. i really enjoyed the friendships i was developing with my cast mates. i was looking forward to performing, the first time in a couple years! i was actually beginning to grasp my character. really, the only reason i wanted to leave was my relationship with the director.
so i talked with her. she initiated the meeting. i told her i was considering leaving. she tried many tactics. she told me about what other cast members had said about me when i first signed on, about how they didn't like me. she told me about specific people saying that certain of my skills weren't good enough. she was tearing me down so she could build me up with that, "but you bring a depth and sincerity to slick that no one else can do."
one thing she tried to do was guilt me into staying. she said, "if for nothing else, stay for the time and energy the other actors have put into the play." that wasn't gonna fly with me. i've stayed in projects because i didn't want to let others down and i've ended up resenting them. if i was gonna stay, it had to be for my own reasons. on my own terms. so i said, "no, if i stay for them, i will hate them. i have to stay for me." to which she said, "you haven't played many team sports, i see." how fucking condescending. i told her, "i only play team sports."
even though i had gone into the meeting wanting to negotiate ways i could stay, a lot of the conversation ended up being her gossiping--something she always discouraged us from doing. somewhere in the conversation she asked me, "so, do you know what happened between [so-and-so] and [such-and-such]?" i did actually know, so-and-so had told me herself. but something about that moment made me lie and shake my head. maybe i was trying to tell her, i don't want to know. maybe i was curious what she would say. then she said, "well, you should ask so-and-so yourself, but it was basically [a very offensive thing to say about anyone, and illegal.]" at that point, i thought, just get through this meeting. just get her to agree to be the director. just tell her, i will stay, but i am going to distance myself from everything but the acting. and i did. at the end of it, i told her, i don't wanna know. i just wanted to be an actor. not a confidant, not a problem-solver.
the meeting ended and i was ambivalent. i felt like the director had not completely heard what i was saying, but she had heard enough that when i said, "i want you to only be the director to me. so i can be an actor. to insure this, if i find myself complaining about you, i will talk to you directly," she said, "good, okay." then she said, "in return, i want you to promise me you won't leave the production." after some thought, i agreed.
that evening, i called so-and-so. she has been my confidant. she has been the person in the play who i felt closest to. i talked about the meeting. i told her about how director couldn't stop gossiping in response to all my critiques. then i told her what the director had said about her and such-and-such. so-and-so said, "what the fuck?" and we bitched a little, but concluded, "well, that's [director] for you."
the next morning, i woke to realize, "jeez, i'm already complaining about the director. is this gonna work?" i saw that i had a voice mail from her but put off listening to it because i thought it would be her asking me to do something. finally i sighed and listened to it. on it, the director just simply said, "your services as an actor are no longer needed. we're recasting the role. please cancel the rehearsal space at UT."
i was floored. i didn't understand. what? huh? wha-hah?
i called the director back, but she didn't answer. i just said, "i got your message. i'm very upset. i think it was really disrespectful of you to fire me over voice mail, especially in light of our conversation yesterday. thanks for that."
it was just plain cruel. ask someone to promise to stay just so you could fire them? offer them no explanation? what the fuck?
the day continued with a flurry of phone calls. i called a couple other folks on the cast just to say, "i've been fired. i don't know why. i want you to know i respect you and i will miss working with you." i cried. i felt deeply ashamed, but i wasn't sure of what. i was angry. i was worried that other cast members had conspired to fire me because i had second thoughts. i thought the director had found someone "better" than me to play the part.
then i got a message from so-and-so saying, "oh my god, kt. i did not think that [director] would fire you. this isn't about you. you just got caught in the crossfire. if you're mad at me, i totally understand. i wish you the best in your future endeavors."
wha? when i finally reached so-and-so, i said, "now, WHY would i be mad at YOU?" turns out, so-and-so slept on what i had told her. the next morning, she realized she was livid about what the director had said to me about her and such-and-such. bless her brave heart, she decided to confront the director about it. basically calling the director on her shit, something like, "i don't appreciate you talking about me to other members of the cast. it's my story to tell. you always criticize us for talking about you behind your back, but i think you're a hypocrite. if you want, i will tell you everything i think to your face once the production is over. i'll see you at rehearsal."
then what happened was, the director fired so-and-so right there, no discussion. and then, apparently, she called me and fired me. even after so-and-so narrated this, i told her, "again, WHY would i be mad at YOU?"
it was a bad decision on the director's part. the next day, the director informed the rest of the cast that she had fired so-and-so and myself. i don't know what planet you would have to live on not to feel threatened and angry when two of your colleagues get fired for no apparent reason. another cast member decided to quit. then another. as far as i know, only two out of eight cast members remain. it's a rapidly sinking ship.
after those two quit, i got another call from the director. i couldn't bare to talk to her. when i listened to her message, she was super conciliatory. trying to explain her way out of her actions, and finally wishing me the best on my projects. i am convinced that had i answered the phone, she would have asked me back. i would have said no.
because the director is a crazymaker. i think that is what i was trying to tell her at last week's meeting. i was trying to say, very gently and professionally, you're driving us away. you're creating drama where it doesn't belong. you're triangulating us. you're discounting our realities.
but you can't reason with a crazymaker. because they deny they are crazymakers. because nothing is their fault. i've been tempted out of pity to send her a message saying, look, [director] you should know you are a crazymaker. until you resolve your crazymaking ways, nothing you do with other self-respecting artists will come into fruition.
but i won't. even though i'm deeply saddened all that work and emotional energy has been squandered, i'm glad that i have eliminated a crazymaker from my life. to engage with her would bring her back into my life. i absolutely don't want that.
part of me wishes she reads this post and realizes she is a crazy maker. but that's all it is, wish.
i had high hopes for this production. in case it isn't obvious, we genderqueers rarely get a chance to act. there are hardly any roles for us, that's why i write my own stuff. it felt like such a good thing, for a while. a gaggle of queers acting queer and human and playing out dramas on stage rather than in life. for a short while, that is what the production was. that is what we all wanted it to be. and then, literally overnight, it crashed and burned. now, even if the play does go up, it won't be that queer ball of goodness it once was.
so, now you know. thanks for reading.
on a completely different front, i submitted my creative capital application. i've grown a little. through all this drama, i managed to preserve a little bit of myself in order to finish something that could really and truly benefit me and nurture me. i'm thankful for that.
my thinking was, oh it's clear enough! but then i realized, maybe it would be helpful to disclose some of the circumstances, just so it's absolutely clear: this had nothing to do with me or my skills as an actor.
last week, one of the main cast members quit. he was one of the lynch pins. even though other folks have left the cast, their characters were usually minor. one part was written out. the other part had been played by three actors.
anyway, main cast member quit. me and another actor spoke on the phone and agreed, "this is dead in the water." i was terrified, disappointed, but a bit relieved. only the week before, i had a tense conversation with the director about rehearsal space. i vouched for the play to my mentor in order to get new rehearsal space at UT. i had been trying to write a grant for the show so that we actors would be guaranteed some sort of compensation. i had mentioned the grant at least three weeks ago. but i was frustrated because it started to become something that i was about to start running around at the last minute to finish.
i was doing a lot for the play.
but i was taken aback by my relief when main cast member quit. i realized that this project had become an albatross. it felt like i was thinking about it more than, well, more than the creator. and i began to feel as though i wasn't getting very much in return. as a cast, we were scolded. as an actor, i was undervalued.
so i started thinking, maybe i should leave. but there were multiple reasons to stay. i really enjoyed the friendships i was developing with my cast mates. i was looking forward to performing, the first time in a couple years! i was actually beginning to grasp my character. really, the only reason i wanted to leave was my relationship with the director.
so i talked with her. she initiated the meeting. i told her i was considering leaving. she tried many tactics. she told me about what other cast members had said about me when i first signed on, about how they didn't like me. she told me about specific people saying that certain of my skills weren't good enough. she was tearing me down so she could build me up with that, "but you bring a depth and sincerity to slick that no one else can do."
one thing she tried to do was guilt me into staying. she said, "if for nothing else, stay for the time and energy the other actors have put into the play." that wasn't gonna fly with me. i've stayed in projects because i didn't want to let others down and i've ended up resenting them. if i was gonna stay, it had to be for my own reasons. on my own terms. so i said, "no, if i stay for them, i will hate them. i have to stay for me." to which she said, "you haven't played many team sports, i see." how fucking condescending. i told her, "i only play team sports."
even though i had gone into the meeting wanting to negotiate ways i could stay, a lot of the conversation ended up being her gossiping--something she always discouraged us from doing. somewhere in the conversation she asked me, "so, do you know what happened between [so-and-so] and [such-and-such]?" i did actually know, so-and-so had told me herself. but something about that moment made me lie and shake my head. maybe i was trying to tell her, i don't want to know. maybe i was curious what she would say. then she said, "well, you should ask so-and-so yourself, but it was basically [a very offensive thing to say about anyone, and illegal.]" at that point, i thought, just get through this meeting. just get her to agree to be the director. just tell her, i will stay, but i am going to distance myself from everything but the acting. and i did. at the end of it, i told her, i don't wanna know. i just wanted to be an actor. not a confidant, not a problem-solver.
the meeting ended and i was ambivalent. i felt like the director had not completely heard what i was saying, but she had heard enough that when i said, "i want you to only be the director to me. so i can be an actor. to insure this, if i find myself complaining about you, i will talk to you directly," she said, "good, okay." then she said, "in return, i want you to promise me you won't leave the production." after some thought, i agreed.
that evening, i called so-and-so. she has been my confidant. she has been the person in the play who i felt closest to. i talked about the meeting. i told her about how director couldn't stop gossiping in response to all my critiques. then i told her what the director had said about her and such-and-such. so-and-so said, "what the fuck?" and we bitched a little, but concluded, "well, that's [director] for you."
the next morning, i woke to realize, "jeez, i'm already complaining about the director. is this gonna work?" i saw that i had a voice mail from her but put off listening to it because i thought it would be her asking me to do something. finally i sighed and listened to it. on it, the director just simply said, "your services as an actor are no longer needed. we're recasting the role. please cancel the rehearsal space at UT."
i was floored. i didn't understand. what? huh? wha-hah?
i called the director back, but she didn't answer. i just said, "i got your message. i'm very upset. i think it was really disrespectful of you to fire me over voice mail, especially in light of our conversation yesterday. thanks for that."
it was just plain cruel. ask someone to promise to stay just so you could fire them? offer them no explanation? what the fuck?
the day continued with a flurry of phone calls. i called a couple other folks on the cast just to say, "i've been fired. i don't know why. i want you to know i respect you and i will miss working with you." i cried. i felt deeply ashamed, but i wasn't sure of what. i was angry. i was worried that other cast members had conspired to fire me because i had second thoughts. i thought the director had found someone "better" than me to play the part.
then i got a message from so-and-so saying, "oh my god, kt. i did not think that [director] would fire you. this isn't about you. you just got caught in the crossfire. if you're mad at me, i totally understand. i wish you the best in your future endeavors."
wha? when i finally reached so-and-so, i said, "now, WHY would i be mad at YOU?" turns out, so-and-so slept on what i had told her. the next morning, she realized she was livid about what the director had said to me about her and such-and-such. bless her brave heart, she decided to confront the director about it. basically calling the director on her shit, something like, "i don't appreciate you talking about me to other members of the cast. it's my story to tell. you always criticize us for talking about you behind your back, but i think you're a hypocrite. if you want, i will tell you everything i think to your face once the production is over. i'll see you at rehearsal."
then what happened was, the director fired so-and-so right there, no discussion. and then, apparently, she called me and fired me. even after so-and-so narrated this, i told her, "again, WHY would i be mad at YOU?"
it was a bad decision on the director's part. the next day, the director informed the rest of the cast that she had fired so-and-so and myself. i don't know what planet you would have to live on not to feel threatened and angry when two of your colleagues get fired for no apparent reason. another cast member decided to quit. then another. as far as i know, only two out of eight cast members remain. it's a rapidly sinking ship.
after those two quit, i got another call from the director. i couldn't bare to talk to her. when i listened to her message, she was super conciliatory. trying to explain her way out of her actions, and finally wishing me the best on my projects. i am convinced that had i answered the phone, she would have asked me back. i would have said no.
because the director is a crazymaker. i think that is what i was trying to tell her at last week's meeting. i was trying to say, very gently and professionally, you're driving us away. you're creating drama where it doesn't belong. you're triangulating us. you're discounting our realities.
but you can't reason with a crazymaker. because they deny they are crazymakers. because nothing is their fault. i've been tempted out of pity to send her a message saying, look, [director] you should know you are a crazymaker. until you resolve your crazymaking ways, nothing you do with other self-respecting artists will come into fruition.
but i won't. even though i'm deeply saddened all that work and emotional energy has been squandered, i'm glad that i have eliminated a crazymaker from my life. to engage with her would bring her back into my life. i absolutely don't want that.
part of me wishes she reads this post and realizes she is a crazy maker. but that's all it is, wish.
i had high hopes for this production. in case it isn't obvious, we genderqueers rarely get a chance to act. there are hardly any roles for us, that's why i write my own stuff. it felt like such a good thing, for a while. a gaggle of queers acting queer and human and playing out dramas on stage rather than in life. for a short while, that is what the production was. that is what we all wanted it to be. and then, literally overnight, it crashed and burned. now, even if the play does go up, it won't be that queer ball of goodness it once was.
so, now you know. thanks for reading.
on a completely different front, i submitted my creative capital application. i've grown a little. through all this drama, i managed to preserve a little bit of myself in order to finish something that could really and truly benefit me and nurture me. i'm thankful for that.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
so, is this the answer?
what seems like ages ago, i was on myspace requesting friends like crazy. one of the myspace accounts i requested was the "arundhati roy supporters." i don't know how i came across them, or why i requested them as a friend (they are, after all, merely supporters of arundhati roy and not roy herself). they took a long time to accept the request. but today they did, and as a comment, they left this quote:
"The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."--Arundhati Roy
i feel like it was an answer to the entry i posted only a few hours ago.
dammit, AR, you're good.
"The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."--Arundhati Roy
i feel like it was an answer to the entry i posted only a few hours ago.
dammit, AR, you're good.
on mistakes, starvation
i'm not the most careful person. it took me a long time to realize the best way to combat this is through thorough editing. but alas, i keep reading stuff i write, over and over again, and still, i find mistakes in every single go. everything i have been doing lately has felt laced with sloppiness and imprecision.
i know, i know, i only recently wrote a post about failure. yes. yes. thanks for reminding me.
but it is unnerving. i think that part of it is my starvation. both physical and emotional. i'm still having trouble eating. i am happy to report that i did just eat a bowl of soup. but i know that my sudden reduction in caloric intake has probably taken its toll on my brain cells (i remember at a student life meeting at oberlin, the nurse practitioner stressed that anorexia can actually cause weightloss in the brain. i don't think i'm nearly that far yet, but it still bothers me). i've also been pretty starved in sleep, and in rest. getting to bed after 3am has been pretty standard in the last weeks. and then i'm not really taking the time to "stock my pond" if you use a julia cameron term .
i did take a quiet moment on wednesday to visit the altar they had set up outside resistencia to pay my respects to raulrsalinas. i had gone there to give him my energy, but i feel like i came away from it taking his. i couldn't help but hear his voice telling me--in that ever so mellow yet robust tone--to chill out and take care. raul, i'm here to say thank you. i would pray. but losing my concentration in a mix of grief and fatigue.
i've spent a bunch of paper time mocking myself. you know, writing, you're an asshole, you're a fool, what a fucking shithead you are, stuff like that. and this attitude has bled into my interaction with people around me. beloved people around me, actually. i've been mean. i've been distant. i've played strange games that make sense to no one, including myself.
it's a spiral, this. because after i posted that note about raul a couple days ago, i had resolved anew that i would live. not just live, but live long and fat. i would be like my uncle, that 85 year-old codger chain smoking and handing out pithy advice. i would be the one who people would look to for survival skills. i will be the one to live and live and live and show people that you can be colored and queer and strange and creative and you don't have to die before your time is due. you don't have to be sick, you don't have to always be living on the edge of survival. i would make it look easy, so no one could question my existence. and i would laugh and laugh and laugh, even when it was sad. laugh long and hard enough that no one around me could help but laugh along.
i resolved this but two days ago. and now? i want the darkness to envelope me and comfort me. i want to find a hole in the ground just cold enough that i will begin to shiver. i want life to run away from me, so fast that i can't help but let it go.
so i go back and forth. despair. then i berate myself for my despair. i see kristina wong's show and i'm inspired. but then i go home and create problems in my head. all alone, just drama after drama unfolding into the blackbox that is my brain. i write and write, here in the blog and in my self-hating journal. but my stories have been untouched and they call out--grotesque and demanding. my mom visits and looks at me sympathetically, but she knows she can't quite stand me up. and i take her visits not as the loving omens that they are, but as some type of guilt trip--you should be working on the opera. she would never say that. she would never think it. she would just say, you're doing your best, ke-to. that's all you can do.
mistakes, kt, mistakes. i know i need to nourish myself. my body, my mind, my soul. but what do you do when the patient refuses to heal. when all she has to do is take the pill and swallow, but she won't even open her mouth?
i want to open. i want to take it. i just don't know how.
i know, i know, i only recently wrote a post about failure. yes. yes. thanks for reminding me.
but it is unnerving. i think that part of it is my starvation. both physical and emotional. i'm still having trouble eating. i am happy to report that i did just eat a bowl of soup. but i know that my sudden reduction in caloric intake has probably taken its toll on my brain cells (i remember at a student life meeting at oberlin, the nurse practitioner stressed that anorexia can actually cause weightloss in the brain. i don't think i'm nearly that far yet, but it still bothers me). i've also been pretty starved in sleep, and in rest. getting to bed after 3am has been pretty standard in the last weeks. and then i'm not really taking the time to "stock my pond" if you use a julia cameron term .
i did take a quiet moment on wednesday to visit the altar they had set up outside resistencia to pay my respects to raulrsalinas. i had gone there to give him my energy, but i feel like i came away from it taking his. i couldn't help but hear his voice telling me--in that ever so mellow yet robust tone--to chill out and take care. raul, i'm here to say thank you. i would pray. but losing my concentration in a mix of grief and fatigue.
i've spent a bunch of paper time mocking myself. you know, writing, you're an asshole, you're a fool, what a fucking shithead you are, stuff like that. and this attitude has bled into my interaction with people around me. beloved people around me, actually. i've been mean. i've been distant. i've played strange games that make sense to no one, including myself.
it's a spiral, this. because after i posted that note about raul a couple days ago, i had resolved anew that i would live. not just live, but live long and fat. i would be like my uncle, that 85 year-old codger chain smoking and handing out pithy advice. i would be the one who people would look to for survival skills. i will be the one to live and live and live and show people that you can be colored and queer and strange and creative and you don't have to die before your time is due. you don't have to be sick, you don't have to always be living on the edge of survival. i would make it look easy, so no one could question my existence. and i would laugh and laugh and laugh, even when it was sad. laugh long and hard enough that no one around me could help but laugh along.
i resolved this but two days ago. and now? i want the darkness to envelope me and comfort me. i want to find a hole in the ground just cold enough that i will begin to shiver. i want life to run away from me, so fast that i can't help but let it go.
so i go back and forth. despair. then i berate myself for my despair. i see kristina wong's show and i'm inspired. but then i go home and create problems in my head. all alone, just drama after drama unfolding into the blackbox that is my brain. i write and write, here in the blog and in my self-hating journal. but my stories have been untouched and they call out--grotesque and demanding. my mom visits and looks at me sympathetically, but she knows she can't quite stand me up. and i take her visits not as the loving omens that they are, but as some type of guilt trip--you should be working on the opera. she would never say that. she would never think it. she would just say, you're doing your best, ke-to. that's all you can do.
mistakes, kt, mistakes. i know i need to nourish myself. my body, my mind, my soul. but what do you do when the patient refuses to heal. when all she has to do is take the pill and swallow, but she won't even open her mouth?
i want to open. i want to take it. i just don't know how.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
on our people dying
so it goes, yet another beautiful person of color is gone. raulrsalinas has passed.
i only had a couple of conversations with him. but each word was laced with a fierce warmth that would both unset and console me at the same time. didn't know him nearly as well as i would have liked. but then again, i have never known anyone as well as i would have liked; i often realize this after they are gone.
and so that bespectacled, pony-tailed, poetry speaking man who showed up, invited people to show up, who brought so many together, thousands and thousands of people together...
i wish. i wish. i wish.
old enough to have been an elder, but a bit too young to move on.
i know he wouldn't want me to be angry, not on his account. maybe on account of everything else, or the context... but i am. because i'm sick of losing amazing people of color--artists, community builders, nurturers--far too early. far too early. i'm angry at death. i'm angry at disease. and i'm angry at what it is that takes them.
sharon and ana have also written about him, with words so powerful and consoling.
go in peace, Tatooed Teacher, Mentor of Many.
but dammit, you will be missed.
i only had a couple of conversations with him. but each word was laced with a fierce warmth that would both unset and console me at the same time. didn't know him nearly as well as i would have liked. but then again, i have never known anyone as well as i would have liked; i often realize this after they are gone.
and so that bespectacled, pony-tailed, poetry speaking man who showed up, invited people to show up, who brought so many together, thousands and thousands of people together...
i wish. i wish. i wish.
old enough to have been an elder, but a bit too young to move on.
i know he wouldn't want me to be angry, not on his account. maybe on account of everything else, or the context... but i am. because i'm sick of losing amazing people of color--artists, community builders, nurturers--far too early. far too early. i'm angry at death. i'm angry at disease. and i'm angry at what it is that takes them.
sharon and ana have also written about him, with words so powerful and consoling.
go in peace, Tatooed Teacher, Mentor of Many.
but dammit, you will be missed.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
grant update
okay,
i've been working on it, but i need to take some type of break. but i report to you what i have done.
i managed to write the "short description" of the piece:
Una Corda is an original solo performance opera about cancer. Drawing aesthetic influences from late minimalism, pop music, sacred text and music, this project juxtaposes the solo singing/speaking body with live and recorded music, video, and Buddhist and Catholic ceremonial rituals.
and then, as i was trying to tackle the long description, i drew a blank. and in my notes, i wrote this (warning, it is stream-of-consciousness and unedited):
how do I talk about the relationship between the sacred and the profane without seeming totally flippant or trite? This relationship is indeed vital, crucial, even to the idea of the piece. It is how I have managed to approach the piece in a specific and focused way as opposed to an abstract idea. The sacred text is a kind of map by which I can meditate on the pain and profanity of cancer as a disease and cultural marker. Because cancer is more than just an illness. It is not only that the process of sickness, healing and dying is painful, but cancer has established itself in our collective consciousness as a symbol of both a death sentence as well as ultimate redemption. This polarity in attitudes toward cancer is what I find the most problematic and interesting. Because, as a lived experience, it becomes difficult to just continue if the disease is only either death or redemption. Somewhere in between, we find different ways of examining our humanity, of how we interact with strangers as well as loved ones. Somehow, cancer becomes an organizing structure. It creates priorities that didn’t used to exist. It sets certain relationships and moralities into focus.
I say this as if I know. But really, I’m just writing about what I saw. What I have seen over and over again. There is a kind of “reckoning” that happens in cancer. Whether or not the patient lives on or dies. And this reckoning is probably both internal and external. But it’s the external reckoning—the one that involves community, family, and friends—that has touched me and called me to engage in this piece.
Because cancer is more than just about mourning. And it’s more than just blind hope. Because there is that glint of wisdom in the grief, and there is that shudder of reality in desire.
So, this is what the piece is about? How do I express that in 800 words? How do I express it in 100?
i've been working on it, but i need to take some type of break. but i report to you what i have done.
i managed to write the "short description" of the piece:
Una Corda is an original solo performance opera about cancer. Drawing aesthetic influences from late minimalism, pop music, sacred text and music, this project juxtaposes the solo singing/speaking body with live and recorded music, video, and Buddhist and Catholic ceremonial rituals.
and then, as i was trying to tackle the long description, i drew a blank. and in my notes, i wrote this (warning, it is stream-of-consciousness and unedited):
how do I talk about the relationship between the sacred and the profane without seeming totally flippant or trite? This relationship is indeed vital, crucial, even to the idea of the piece. It is how I have managed to approach the piece in a specific and focused way as opposed to an abstract idea. The sacred text is a kind of map by which I can meditate on the pain and profanity of cancer as a disease and cultural marker. Because cancer is more than just an illness. It is not only that the process of sickness, healing and dying is painful, but cancer has established itself in our collective consciousness as a symbol of both a death sentence as well as ultimate redemption. This polarity in attitudes toward cancer is what I find the most problematic and interesting. Because, as a lived experience, it becomes difficult to just continue if the disease is only either death or redemption. Somewhere in between, we find different ways of examining our humanity, of how we interact with strangers as well as loved ones. Somehow, cancer becomes an organizing structure. It creates priorities that didn’t used to exist. It sets certain relationships and moralities into focus.
I say this as if I know. But really, I’m just writing about what I saw. What I have seen over and over again. There is a kind of “reckoning” that happens in cancer. Whether or not the patient lives on or dies. And this reckoning is probably both internal and external. But it’s the external reckoning—the one that involves community, family, and friends—that has touched me and called me to engage in this piece.
Because cancer is more than just about mourning. And it’s more than just blind hope. Because there is that glint of wisdom in the grief, and there is that shudder of reality in desire.
So, this is what the piece is about? How do I express that in 800 words? How do I express it in 100?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
dirge
today marks the sixth year since my mother passed away. here is what i wrote:
and when you died, the dirge began with a phone bell, and the barefoot carpet steps of three adult children newly orphaned. it continued with four stifled sighs, the squishy sound of sitting on the floor, a short inhale of breath through the nose.
i began the slow chorale. when we knew what the bell meant, so early, so dark in the morning. that was the only hello that meant really anything. it was the only hello i was frightened to utter.
after the click and dull thud of plastic on metal, the rude beep of the modern off switch, sleepy, luke-warm clothes played out into the light brightness, suddenly cold by the winter chill.
doors opened and closed only after two nods and a grimace. lights flicked on and the wind slashed branches across the window pane.
the next movement commenced with liquid poured into cups, stopped throats barely swallowing. with eight feet shuffling to step in shoes on the stair, each foot pausing to nod at your shoes. it crescendoed to that crack of the door, that muffled squeak, a pause and a thud.
then four doors open and four doors slam and metal upon metal creak as the garage opens wide to spit us out into the country air. the largo beat of the tired engine, guiding us on a journey etched too well in our brains. short staccattos of falsely cheered voices. sniffled tremelos and booming snorts. a hand, warm and calm, whispering softly against another cold and frightened one.
the third movement screamed with the early morning chatter of the city waking up. with the clatter, clatter, click-click of the garage ticket dispenser. and errant cuss of the oldest, not able to take an overcrowded space, glasses a bit foggy and moist.
yet the middle section was filled with silence. pregnant, stagnant, changed. no longer tense with dreaded anticipation, but raw and swollen with an abrasion that still has yet to heal.
dull, syncopated footsteps. dings and clacks of elevator bells. a swift push, the sucking lift. more dull, syncopated footsteps again.
gliding, sliding doors. beeps of your neighbors' vitals. long, slow breathy wheezes from balding patients' ventilators.
upon the arrival of the march, your room is still.
the machines that were only yesterday fused to your body have been removed and you are finally free.
the chorale resumes, but says nothing at all. the libretto reads, "blah, blah," but underneath, in parentheses, it reads, is this what it means to feel loss? to feel nothingness? to feel the novocain spill and wash the mind?
and when the dirge began to wane, we realize it's a ruse. the music follows us to unexpected places. it clings to our bodies, it sounds in the ring of our ears, it becomes the score to our first dreamt dreams without you.
it is orchestrated in new ways. some instruments are standard--long distance phone calls, repeated refrains of "she's gone," knuckles rubbing violently against wet eyelids that refuse to listen. familar strangers speaking in multiple tongues, hearse motors, airports, monk chants and farewells.
but other instruments seem new. like the high-pitched nervous laugh that barrels from my chest at inappropriate times. like the click-clack of a dog's feet who loved you well and wonders when you will return. like the dry lick of the page, endless and barren, futile in the hopes of distraction.
a seemingly endless dirge. marching slowly, bleeding across changes in season, month, and year.
but then the dirge shifted. the voice of birds joined in, faint at first, but delicious and sweet. the wheezy sobs turned to tears, turned to vapor, turned to rain, turned to rivers, turned to the roaring sound of babbling brook and foaming tide.
the dirge, reluctant, but steadfast paced itself and moved forward. shedding black for red, ash for perfume, stone for sun-baked clay. the dirge, still present in dream, still fragrant with your hair, still clement and insistent followed new variations, evolved new themes.
until one day, i listened and the dirge sounded like a waltz, sounded like a reel, sounded like Giant Steps or Maple Leaf or Appalachian Spring.
all the sounds flowed together and watched as i walked on. gently coaxing, whispered caresses, wrapped around me when i thought i was alone.
and when you died, i lost my voice and had to travel to find it again.
but now, though sometimes frail or hoarse or scared, the voice can't help but sing, stronger, more robust than before. sing with the dirge that left your lungs, now years ago, but still so close. the dirge i thought mourned of you. the dirge i hated and muffled and screamed at. the dirge that marked your void, that lifted you on a pyre away from me forever.
i sing, sometimes soft, sometimes loud, always along with the melodies, the harmonies, the complex rhythms of that dirge.
because now i know--
the dirge is you.
and when you died, the dirge began with a phone bell, and the barefoot carpet steps of three adult children newly orphaned. it continued with four stifled sighs, the squishy sound of sitting on the floor, a short inhale of breath through the nose.
i began the slow chorale. when we knew what the bell meant, so early, so dark in the morning. that was the only hello that meant really anything. it was the only hello i was frightened to utter.
after the click and dull thud of plastic on metal, the rude beep of the modern off switch, sleepy, luke-warm clothes played out into the light brightness, suddenly cold by the winter chill.
doors opened and closed only after two nods and a grimace. lights flicked on and the wind slashed branches across the window pane.
the next movement commenced with liquid poured into cups, stopped throats barely swallowing. with eight feet shuffling to step in shoes on the stair, each foot pausing to nod at your shoes. it crescendoed to that crack of the door, that muffled squeak, a pause and a thud.
then four doors open and four doors slam and metal upon metal creak as the garage opens wide to spit us out into the country air. the largo beat of the tired engine, guiding us on a journey etched too well in our brains. short staccattos of falsely cheered voices. sniffled tremelos and booming snorts. a hand, warm and calm, whispering softly against another cold and frightened one.
the third movement screamed with the early morning chatter of the city waking up. with the clatter, clatter, click-click of the garage ticket dispenser. and errant cuss of the oldest, not able to take an overcrowded space, glasses a bit foggy and moist.
yet the middle section was filled with silence. pregnant, stagnant, changed. no longer tense with dreaded anticipation, but raw and swollen with an abrasion that still has yet to heal.
dull, syncopated footsteps. dings and clacks of elevator bells. a swift push, the sucking lift. more dull, syncopated footsteps again.
gliding, sliding doors. beeps of your neighbors' vitals. long, slow breathy wheezes from balding patients' ventilators.
upon the arrival of the march, your room is still.
the machines that were only yesterday fused to your body have been removed and you are finally free.
the chorale resumes, but says nothing at all. the libretto reads, "blah, blah," but underneath, in parentheses, it reads, is this what it means to feel loss? to feel nothingness? to feel the novocain spill and wash the mind?
and when the dirge began to wane, we realize it's a ruse. the music follows us to unexpected places. it clings to our bodies, it sounds in the ring of our ears, it becomes the score to our first dreamt dreams without you.
it is orchestrated in new ways. some instruments are standard--long distance phone calls, repeated refrains of "she's gone," knuckles rubbing violently against wet eyelids that refuse to listen. familar strangers speaking in multiple tongues, hearse motors, airports, monk chants and farewells.
but other instruments seem new. like the high-pitched nervous laugh that barrels from my chest at inappropriate times. like the click-clack of a dog's feet who loved you well and wonders when you will return. like the dry lick of the page, endless and barren, futile in the hopes of distraction.
a seemingly endless dirge. marching slowly, bleeding across changes in season, month, and year.
but then the dirge shifted. the voice of birds joined in, faint at first, but delicious and sweet. the wheezy sobs turned to tears, turned to vapor, turned to rain, turned to rivers, turned to the roaring sound of babbling brook and foaming tide.
the dirge, reluctant, but steadfast paced itself and moved forward. shedding black for red, ash for perfume, stone for sun-baked clay. the dirge, still present in dream, still fragrant with your hair, still clement and insistent followed new variations, evolved new themes.
until one day, i listened and the dirge sounded like a waltz, sounded like a reel, sounded like Giant Steps or Maple Leaf or Appalachian Spring.
all the sounds flowed together and watched as i walked on. gently coaxing, whispered caresses, wrapped around me when i thought i was alone.
and when you died, i lost my voice and had to travel to find it again.
but now, though sometimes frail or hoarse or scared, the voice can't help but sing, stronger, more robust than before. sing with the dirge that left your lungs, now years ago, but still so close. the dirge i thought mourned of you. the dirge i hated and muffled and screamed at. the dirge that marked your void, that lifted you on a pyre away from me forever.
i sing, sometimes soft, sometimes loud, always along with the melodies, the harmonies, the complex rhythms of that dirge.
because now i know--
the dirge is you.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
謹賀新年
new years day is my easter.
in the days before, i mourn the end of an intangible spirit, of what has expired and what has been left to die. i contemplate the sins of the year, i look to the trees and earth, seeing the wilted brown trying to break free into the wind. i recall this week some years ago, when i stood on the precipice, looking deep into my gravest fear--waiting, dreading, grasping onto my last hopes with my nails chapped and bleeding.
as part of the year end rumination, i cook. and i cook. starting two days before, cutting and salting vegetables. brooding silently over recipes. i prepare, but i eat little. i place the last energies of the year into every nugget, every morsel. i only partake to taste, to ensure the purity of my cooking.
then, the evening of the 31st, i allow a short communion. soba--long and thin, a metaphor for life. this repast takes me into the wee hours.
and then, the rebirth.
when the clock strikes the new year, all is born anew, in lights and abundance and sweetness. this year, to mark it, i made sweet red bean soup (zenzai) with yomogi mochi balls. the mochi for fortune, the yomogi herb a green reminder of earth, of mortality, of corporeality.
i become acutely aware of my every thought, every move. i act deliberately. for three decades of experience have taught me to believe the old wisdom: 一年の計は元旦にあり(the path of one year exist on new years day).
i rise a little earlier than i'd like. i recall my first dream and contemplate its prophesy for the new year. i stubbornly finish my morning pages although many things try to distract me. i brew tea. i cut the last ingredients of this holiday. i bathe and put on the only new piece of clothing i own--a gift from my in-laws. it fits--this bodes well for the year.
i make a chicken soup (ozoni) with daikon, carrots, spinach, shiitake, yuzu zest and square mochi. we break fast with this soup. i prepare a third bowl of soup, light two sticks of incense, and strike the bowl bell by the picture of my mother. placing my hands together, i pray slightly longer than usual. hoping my extended presence will entice my mother to partake in what i've offered. later, i will remove the bowl and eat the cold contents myself, somehow offering my body as a vessel to digest the meal for my mother--a six-year-old disciple of shakamuni.
in a stacked faux-lacquer box, i have packed the food i've been making for the last couple days. when we eat it, i will offer a taste of each item to my mother again, hoping, praying for her presence to walk among us again, as jesus walked among his disciples.
inspired, i put on a cd of bach cantatas: wachet auf and jesu, der du meine seele. i realize that new years has outstripped christmas as the most important holiday in my personal mythology. i also realize that i am newly open to the spirits, gods, and prophets of the universe.
and this is why new years is my easter.
it is the hope that rises from despair, the life that grows from expiration, the salvation borne of sin.
because today, i embrace the beginning of beginnings, when the ether was brought into creation. and i realize i am close to that creativity, that i am a part of that creativity, that i can let the creativity of god or life or reincarnation flow through me; through my fingers, my body, my voice, my words.
and so, my e-kakizome haiku:
a new beginning
hope born from winter's clutches
so emerges the Word
in the days before, i mourn the end of an intangible spirit, of what has expired and what has been left to die. i contemplate the sins of the year, i look to the trees and earth, seeing the wilted brown trying to break free into the wind. i recall this week some years ago, when i stood on the precipice, looking deep into my gravest fear--waiting, dreading, grasping onto my last hopes with my nails chapped and bleeding.
as part of the year end rumination, i cook. and i cook. starting two days before, cutting and salting vegetables. brooding silently over recipes. i prepare, but i eat little. i place the last energies of the year into every nugget, every morsel. i only partake to taste, to ensure the purity of my cooking.
then, the evening of the 31st, i allow a short communion. soba--long and thin, a metaphor for life. this repast takes me into the wee hours.
and then, the rebirth.
when the clock strikes the new year, all is born anew, in lights and abundance and sweetness. this year, to mark it, i made sweet red bean soup (zenzai) with yomogi mochi balls. the mochi for fortune, the yomogi herb a green reminder of earth, of mortality, of corporeality.
i become acutely aware of my every thought, every move. i act deliberately. for three decades of experience have taught me to believe the old wisdom: 一年の計は元旦にあり(the path of one year exist on new years day).
i rise a little earlier than i'd like. i recall my first dream and contemplate its prophesy for the new year. i stubbornly finish my morning pages although many things try to distract me. i brew tea. i cut the last ingredients of this holiday. i bathe and put on the only new piece of clothing i own--a gift from my in-laws. it fits--this bodes well for the year.
i make a chicken soup (ozoni) with daikon, carrots, spinach, shiitake, yuzu zest and square mochi. we break fast with this soup. i prepare a third bowl of soup, light two sticks of incense, and strike the bowl bell by the picture of my mother. placing my hands together, i pray slightly longer than usual. hoping my extended presence will entice my mother to partake in what i've offered. later, i will remove the bowl and eat the cold contents myself, somehow offering my body as a vessel to digest the meal for my mother--a six-year-old disciple of shakamuni.
in a stacked faux-lacquer box, i have packed the food i've been making for the last couple days. when we eat it, i will offer a taste of each item to my mother again, hoping, praying for her presence to walk among us again, as jesus walked among his disciples.
inspired, i put on a cd of bach cantatas: wachet auf and jesu, der du meine seele. i realize that new years has outstripped christmas as the most important holiday in my personal mythology. i also realize that i am newly open to the spirits, gods, and prophets of the universe.
and this is why new years is my easter.
it is the hope that rises from despair, the life that grows from expiration, the salvation borne of sin.
because today, i embrace the beginning of beginnings, when the ether was brought into creation. and i realize i am close to that creativity, that i am a part of that creativity, that i can let the creativity of god or life or reincarnation flow through me; through my fingers, my body, my voice, my words.
and so, my e-kakizome haiku:
a new beginning
hope born from winter's clutches
so emerges the Word
Thursday, December 6, 2007
not funny #2
here is my second bumper sticker/t-shirt piece. i have never underwent chemotherapy myself. but i watched both my mother and one of my best friends go through the vomiting, aches, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, etc. of chemo. logically, i understand why chemo is a very effective form of cancer treatment. but emotionally, it has never made sense to me why you need to make someone very sick--usually sicker than they already are--to make them better. i wonder how many oncologist encounter moral dilemmas when they watch a patient retching and screaming in agony because of their prescription. "first, do no harm" seems like a joke at that point. as an onlooker, a caretaker, a friend, chemo has made me sick as well. it's hard to explain. maybe it was that gleam of courage, fear, vulnerability and stubborn determination in my mother's eyes as she sat with an iv in one hand, sipping apple juice with the other. it was just so overwhelming. it made me feel ill. growing from the pit of my stomach and barely staying at the back of my throat. maybe it was my own fear physically manifesting itself in my digestive system. maybe it was pangs of sympathy. i don't know. i only know: chemo makes me sick.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
on humor
did a lot of writing today. about an hour of it consisted of brainstorming a series of bumper sticker/t-shirt slogans surrounding my newly found closeness to mourning. i hope to post more of them as i draw them out (we'll see how that goes). if i do, the series will be called, "not funny."
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
on grief and creativity
i have been writing a review of Eileen Tabios's new book, The Light Sang as It Left Your Eyes: Our Autobiography
and it moved me in a kinda major way. i wrote about it on friday in my journal, and i wanted to share that with you (with minimal edits).
11/30/07
sitting on the couch after baking this afternoon, i read eileen tabios's account of watching her father die. it brings me back to those cold december days of driving into boston to watch mom slip from confused sick child to comatose belabored patient. i wonder what mom would say to me, right now as i struggle to be the artist none in her family could be. almost everyone has had the training--endless music lessons, from piano to violin to koto. among those in my mother's family, there were poets, performers, potters, painters. i say that as if she wasn't one of them. she was.
over my piano--the one i have played since i was a child--hangs the last oil my mother painted. i consider it her best--dynamic and haunting, a pastoral scene that seems anything but. yet as much as everyone who calls/ed mom family has been an artist, none have done what i am doing now, giving up livelihood and respectability to claim their career as "artist"--on their tax forms, at dinner parties, in their own minds.
none of them have had the courage (stupidity? naivete? desire in the first place?) to do this. tabios let her father's time of passing become fodder for her art. she writes of her discomfort, her dissatisfaction with doing this. but it marvels me. i recall how mom's death marked a sudden dearth in my creative life. until that day she vomited her last real meal, i had been rapidly creating and exploring.
then it stopped.
for months--years actually--i found no solace in creating, no meaning. i tried. i would touch pen to paper and force out lines, only to drop the instrument and spend the next two hours staring off into space. i couldn't even cry sometimes. but when i did, i lost all faculties. unable to keep from spewing all the liquid in my body from every orifice. shaking, uncontrollably until i was just too tired to continue. finally, last january, six years after my mother's death, a grant opportunity forced me to revisit that era of creative famine.
i wrote a proposal for a solo opera about cancer called "una corda."
yes, it took the grant--the possibility of fame, prestige and money--to integrate the most defining moment of my life into my art. after failing to submit the proposal, i've worked on it very little since. but reading eileen tabios has forced me to wonder, what would happen if i just grit my teeth and walk down that path? who would i meet, and what would they say?
and it moved me in a kinda major way. i wrote about it on friday in my journal, and i wanted to share that with you (with minimal edits).11/30/07
sitting on the couch after baking this afternoon, i read eileen tabios's account of watching her father die. it brings me back to those cold december days of driving into boston to watch mom slip from confused sick child to comatose belabored patient. i wonder what mom would say to me, right now as i struggle to be the artist none in her family could be. almost everyone has had the training--endless music lessons, from piano to violin to koto. among those in my mother's family, there were poets, performers, potters, painters. i say that as if she wasn't one of them. she was.
over my piano--the one i have played since i was a child--hangs the last oil my mother painted. i consider it her best--dynamic and haunting, a pastoral scene that seems anything but. yet as much as everyone who calls/ed mom family has been an artist, none have done what i am doing now, giving up livelihood and respectability to claim their career as "artist"--on their tax forms, at dinner parties, in their own minds.
none of them have had the courage (stupidity? naivete? desire in the first place?) to do this. tabios let her father's time of passing become fodder for her art. she writes of her discomfort, her dissatisfaction with doing this. but it marvels me. i recall how mom's death marked a sudden dearth in my creative life. until that day she vomited her last real meal, i had been rapidly creating and exploring.
then it stopped.
for months--years actually--i found no solace in creating, no meaning. i tried. i would touch pen to paper and force out lines, only to drop the instrument and spend the next two hours staring off into space. i couldn't even cry sometimes. but when i did, i lost all faculties. unable to keep from spewing all the liquid in my body from every orifice. shaking, uncontrollably until i was just too tired to continue. finally, last january, six years after my mother's death, a grant opportunity forced me to revisit that era of creative famine.
i wrote a proposal for a solo opera about cancer called "una corda."
yes, it took the grant--the possibility of fame, prestige and money--to integrate the most defining moment of my life into my art. after failing to submit the proposal, i've worked on it very little since. but reading eileen tabios has forced me to wonder, what would happen if i just grit my teeth and walk down that path? who would i meet, and what would they say?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
