(Bright snarl of yarn, all colors, textures, metallic silver and gold strands, fine gray angora threads, fuzzy purple chenille, babysoft ombre pink and blue ...
I have to try to unravel it here so kitten-mind won't bat it around in the empty attic all night ...)
A Talking Day, with many revelations.
A friend who has come back from the abyss. Not from the edge of the abyss, from within the abyss. I haven't called her for months; inexcusably, I couldn't bear her trials with her. I called her today. Things are looking up.
A co-worker calls. Her husband wanted something else out of life. I asked what. She said he's become a carpenter. He works 3 days a week. And she's pregnant again. With her first, she had to stay in bed for months and probably will have to do the same with the second.
I visit a former co-worker's home for lunch. She made me chicken. Her daughter has amazing blue eyes and uses three binkies, one for sucking and two for holding. I vented all my gossip, my issues, my loneliness; we talked about the old days when we were a team. Her concerns now: she had to start letting her daughter cry herself to sleep (I don't believe in this, but I don't argue with them -- yet). She wonders what to do when the kids in the play group grab her daughter's toys away.
Another co-worker calls. Voice shaking with the possibility of change as his department crumbles. Unsure if his job will exist. Severance? Or an unacceptable reassignment? I tell him I'm leaving. I sound nonchalant and brave. I talk about taking my destiny into my own hands. We exchange e-mail addresses.
Open mike tonight. I see the bravery I don't have in every shy reader.
An old woman talks of curtseying to Eleanor Roosevelt and telling Amelia Earhart she too wanted to fly. She reads poetry about her Self from her seat because she can't walk anymore.
Young women. One, anorexic, dressed in silver, reads at length from Anne Frank's diary. I squirm, wanting instead to hear her own poetry.
A beautiful blond couple, both with hair past their shoulders. She reads him love poems for their anniversary. He reads about chocolate and dragons.
A dark man named ?Gauguin? He has just had a book published. He reads some charming poems about a train, and tea.
A row of pre-teen girls sit on the floor in front. I see myself in them, but I never got to attend something like this at their age. They seem to listen more attentively than I do, and the poets adopt a "family-friendly" policy. One poet apologizes to the row of girls after reading a line about "drowned children."
A surprise. A man I work with gets up to read, a man I've been treating like a half wit because of his slow manner, huge figure, and all-around strangeness. I never knew he was a poet. He says today is the Day of the Incredible Child and reads a poem he wrote to his daughter.
I'm more than stunned by all of this. |
