The Poet With His Face In His Hands

You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn't need any more of that sound.

So if you're going to do it and can't
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't
hold it in, at least go by yourself across

the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets

like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you

want and nothing will be disturbed, you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, it's wings just lightly touched

by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.

- Mary Oliver

Contents May Have Shifted

"I am up front, next to the pilot, Halifax William behind me, a woman from Juneau next to him, our three packs taking up every inch of space in the tail. The pilot turns the plane in a tight circle, we accelerate and lift off, and before he has even pulled in the flaps the first glacier is in front of us, huge and dirty and violent with stretch marks, plunging out of the cloud cover and into the shimmering sun.

Instantly I feel that old surge come back, that seizing of my own life on my own terms. It is such a physical thing, like the time I had my forearm shattered and the nurse came in every four hours on the dot to give me a shot of morphine - that's how physical - and I look down at the glacier and the ice-ridged peaks that go on forever behind it and say, Remember this remember this remember this the next time you think it's over, because some man, or some hope, or some life takes away instead of gives. Remember this and get on an airplane, a small one if possible, because it always works."

- Pam Houston, Contents May Have Shifted

A few months ago I was at my mom's house, watching TV and absentmindedly looking up writer's workshops, to see if there were any to which I might apply. I happened upon one in California in October that would be taught by Cheryl Strayed, an author I'm obsessed with.

I realized I already had a piece, clean and good enough, that I could apply with. I realized I'd used their submission website before, and that applying would take just three clicks, a few thoughtless seconds. So I did it. Then I went to bed and honestly forgot this had happened.

Two days later, on a Sunday afternoon at an outlet mall parking lot deep in Pennsylvania, I got an email saying I'd been accepted. It took a minute to remember to what. But then I did remember and was delighted, but there was a catch. Cheryl Strayed's workshop was full. But I could have a spot in Pam Houston's. Did I want it?

I didn't know who that was. I wanted Cheryl and Cheryl only. This workshop would be on the pricey side, and I didn't want to compromise, so I didn't put down a deposit. Then I forgot about it. Again.

A month ago, I got an email from Pam Houston's private email address, following up. Did I intend to join? No, I didn't. Who the heck was she, anyway?

The other day, I read an interview with Pam Houston on The Rumpus, a lit website I follow. It was about the fusion of memoir and fiction, about how restlessness is bred into the souls of some people and cannot be stamped out, about how there are those among us who can only think when they are moving, walking, running, traveling. It was gorgeous. It was perfect. The next day I went out and finally bought her book. It's also gorgeous. It's also perfect. That sickening "I'm such an asshole" feeling crept into me.

I emailed her personal address, on a whim, to see if I could still get in. She wrote back in minutes, from her iPhone. No space, she said, but I could definitely go on the waitlist. A lot can happen between now and October, she offered up. She asked me where I lived. Rattled off a list of where she's teaching next, and when. Said she hopes to meet me somewhere along the path.

And now I sit in my bed, her book next to me, her email in my inbox, thinking about the fact that you can spend your whole life feeling a little bit weird, a little bit alone, and then one day you realize there is a whole tribe of people out there just like you, who feel too much, who want too much, who think and hurt and process too much, too hard. They're called writers. They're artists. And they were out there all along waiting for you to figure it the fuck out.

I hope I get to meet her someday. I love knowing she's a famous, successful author who answered an email from a nobody like me on the spot, from her phone, as she went about her day. Taking the time to wish me well.

I don't really care if I ever succeed at writing in a commercial way. That desire to be known, or famous, is absolutely not a part of who I am. But I do promise that if I ever am known, in that way, to be similarly kind, and to always, always reach a hand towards those still stuck at the bottom of the mountain. To haul them right up.

The Tender Bar

"How did she do it? With no education, no money, no prospects, how did my mother manage to look so fierce? She'd just survived my father clamping a pillow over her face until she couldn't breathe, and lunging at her with a razor, and though she must have been relieved to escape him, she must also have been aware of what lay ahead - loneliness, money worries, the Shit House. But you wouldn't know it to look at her. She was an inspired liar, a brilliant liar, and she was also lying to herself, which made me perceive her lies in a whole new light. I saw that we must lie to ourselves now and then, tell ourselves that we're capable and strong, that life is good and hard work will be rewarded, and then we must try to make our lies come true. This is our work, our salvation, and this link between lying and trying was one of my mother's many gifts to me, the truth that always lay just beneath her lies."

-J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar

(This book is fucking fantastic.)

Pluma

Once, when there were no riches, somewhere in southern
Mexico I lost my only pen in the
middle of one of my dark and flashy moments
and euchered the desk clerk of my small hotel
out of his only piece of bright equipment
in an extravegence of double-dealing,
nor can I explain the joy in that and how I
wrote for my life, though unacknowledged, and clearly
it was unimportant and I had the money and
all I had to do was look up the Spanish and
I was not for a second constrained and there was
no glory, not for a second, and it had nothing to
do with the price of the room, and for example, it only
made writing what it should be and the life we
led more rare than what we thought and tested
the art of giving back, and some place near me,
as if there had to be a celebration
to balance out the act of chicanery,
a dog had started to bark and the lights were burning.

- Gerald Stern

Snippets

My sister and her three kids are in town on their annual summer visit. They drive up from their place in Nashville, and tend to be very casual about when they will arrive and for how long they'll stay. This makes sense because the kids are on summer break and my sister is between jobs, so why not be flexible? Right?

I only found out when they would arrive this summer, besides my sister's usual airy, "Oh, sometime in early July-ish!" when I got this text from her last Monday: "In Virginia. Be home tomorrow night! But maybe late."

I got home from work that night and told the hubs, "So, Jill will be home tomorrow. For two weeks. Guess I better take off from work soon, huh?" I packed a bag and went down to my mom's condo the next night, and since then my life has been a blur of bad sleep, long shleps from the suburbs to my NY office, and a shit-ton of junk food.

To my mom, love equals food. And since the kids are here, the food she demonstrates her love with are kid-things. Potato chips of many varieties. Double Stuf Oreos. Ice pops. Entenman's chocolate cakes and doughnuts and crumb cakes and pound cakes.(Anything Entenmann's, really, will do.) Twizzlers, for reasons no one can figure out. Mountains of bacon. Seas of bagels. French toast and pancakes and banana bread. A never ending stream of pasta and gravy and meatballs, and everything, everything, with a side of delicious cheese.

Three nights ago, we had pizza. Two nights ago, Chinese food. Last night, McDonalds. Today we're going down the shore so I definitely see a boatload of ice cream and funnel cake and boardwalk pizza (surprisingly delicious) or maybe even cheesesteak (mmm) in my near future. I have gained three pounds in one week, and still have another week (maybe?) to go. Oops.

Right now I smell pancakes, and even though I'm already in my gym clothes, and 100% ready to go for a run, something in me is all, nah, screw it. Let's just lay on the couch and feast on carbs to the point of feeling ill, and *then* put on a bathing suit! That sounds like a much more reasonable plan for the day.

One morning soon I expect my sister will wake up, pour herself a cup of coffee, wipe some sleep from her eyes, stand and blithely say, "Ok kids, pack it up. Let's head home." And the flurry of activity will end, and they'll drive gaily off into the sunset in their big red minivan full of electronics and gifts and snacks, and I'll stand in the driveway of a condo complex, disoriented and fat and sleepy, waving goodbye.

And then I'll go back to my apartment and my job and my commute and my salads and my turkey sandwiches on whole wheat, wondering where all of the Fritos have gone, and also the tiny hands that steal them from me when my head is turned.

Fiction

Going south, we watched spring
unroll like a proper novel;
forsythia, dogwood, rose;
bare trees, green lace, full shade.
By the time we arrived in Georgia
the complications were deep.

When we drove back, we read
from back to front. Maroon went wild,
went scarlet, burned once more
and then withdrew into pink,
tentative, still in bud.
I thought if only we could go on
and meet again, shy as strangers.

- Lisa Mueller

In Spite of Everything, the Stars

Like a stunned piano, like a bucket
of fresh milk flung into the air
or a dozen fists of confetti
thrown hard at a bride
stepping down from the altar,
the stars surprise the sky.
Think of dazed stones
floating overhead, or an ocean
of starfish hung up to dry. Yes,
like a conductor's expectant arm
about to lift toward the chorus,
or a juggler's plates defying gravity,
or a hundred fastballs fired at once
and freezing in midair, the stars
startle the sky over the city.

And that's why drunks leaning up
against abandoned buildings, women
hurrying home on deserted side streets,
policemen turning blind corners, and
even thieves stepping from alleys
all stare up at once. Why else do
sleepwalkers move toward the windows,
or old men drag flimsy lawn chairs
onto fire escapes, or hardened criminals
press sad foreheads to steel bars?
Because the night is alive with lamps!
That's why in dark houses all over the city
dreams stir in the pillows, a million
plumes of breath rise into the sky.

- Edward Hirsch

...sometimes i can't catch my breath for the wonder of it all. this poem is a gift. perfect words in their perfect order are a gift. certain images and colors and sounds are gifts. gifts. and there is nothing else that i need.

well, ok, wait. maybe i need food. sometimes. also, sex is nice. shelter is helpful, in a roughly traditional kind of way. and i do find money to be convenient. coffee is important. and dogs. people are nice to have around. (er, sometimes.) so perhaps, i mean just maybe, i am a tad dramatic.

but what is this life for, if not to be moved by beauty? even just the title of this poem somehow calms me. in (artful) communication of any kind, whether it's music or words or a painting or a photograph or a movie or a play, there is always this blissed out moment of relief - this yes, yes, this person understands, they totally get it!

Which is, for me, immediately followed by a sincere thank fucking god. i'm not the only one.

Maybe only the neurotic among us know this knee-buckling relief in being understood, in seeing beauty valued, captured properly, and reflected back upon us. I hope not, though. It would be a sad, shallow kind of life to not be moved by these things.

In spite of everything, the stars.