peeny wally

Faces and Places

Right now it's the middle of February and I'm listening to the improvised melody created when the two cicadas that are outside the open front door chime in and sing along with Ornette Coleman and this makes everything that was so wrong in my tiny life earlier today seem so far away and absolutely bearable and I can almost see my way clear to the wonderful that is dead on ahead.

Desire

Federico Garcia Lorca

Only your hot heart,
and nothing more.

My paradise a field
without nightingales
or lyres,
with a discreet river
and a little fountain.

Without the spur of the wind
against the branch,
without the star that wants
to be the leaf.

An enormous light
that longs to be
the firefly
of another,
in a field of
defeated looks.

A clear repose
and there our kisses,
sonorous freckles
of Echo,
would open far away.

And your hot heart,
nothing more.

I'm Gonna Cry, Cry, Baby

When I was in college I waitressed for a short while at a blues bar. Local and touring bands played every night of the week, and the caliber of music ran the gamut. I heard "Mustang Sally" every night for months on end, sometimes twice. And yet, the virtuosity of Wilson Pickett is so great that even after enduring that, I still love the man's music. Rest his soul. He died today at age 64 of a heart attack. Sad night in Soulsville, U.S.A.

Take Me to the River and Drop Me in the Water

It's astonishing how you hardly ever are able to look at what you see every day with right eyes. I just returned from a visit to see my family and was amazed to learn that I come from a place of startling beauty. The chafe from the buckle on the bible belt blocked my vision for years. There's a lot to be said in favor of a river life.

Reading Rilke Recently

Rainer Maria Rilke:
The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Where It's At

Today I had accupuncture for the first time. It was fun and strange and I don't know if I'm going to do it again. There were needles stuck in my face and when I would look around they seemed to be dancing in little circles inside my skin. Then I came home and listened to "Needle Beach" by the late, great Chumps. That's probably only funny to me.

I miss the Blue Flamingo.

In the Land That Knows No Parting

The sun came up on me in Kentucky yesterday. It was raining, Willie Nelson was coming through the car speakers, and my brother was driving me south to the airport, to Texas, home. Rambling by farms and rolling hills of orange clay, tobacco barns and stands of pine trees, trying hard not to think about how I spent the day before helping put my grandfather in a box in the ground.

The funeral was alternately comforting and intolerable. I loved hearing all the old gospel and bluegrass music, the stories of all the old guys in the smoker's room and the lilt of the Southern accent that I grew up dulcified by. There were relatives with amazing names that I'd never met. There were fantastic stories, too unbelievable to repeat here. And there was my Grandfather, in a shiny, pretty box, at the front of the room.

And though the ceremony and mourning all transpired in the ordained Southern way, it wasn't a natural way for me to say goodbye at all, and I still feel like I've not eked out all my sadness and loss, or had my proper ritual. I'm listening to lots of suitable music, and crying intermittently, and I'm sure that soon enough I will find an appropriate observance for this passing. If I were a praying sort, I suppose I'd go that route. Instead, I'm gathering up sips of bourbon and slippery, moppet memories and feeling very grateful to have known someone so unparagoned as my grandfather.

Hardly Getting Over It

I've spent the afternoon listening to Husker Du and trying to figure out how to quilt. Lately, everything has been making my thoughts turn to my distant family, and this afternoon's activities especially so. I guess the quilting is obvious -- my great-grandmother was a quilter, one of those ladies who lived through the depression and never wasted a single thing. And thinking of her leads me to my great-grandfather, who is coming to a slow, sad end. My mother has, in the course of the last seven years, warned me that she thinks his race is run and I should prepare myself to say goodbye three separate times. And each time, my sweet Paw, who has been suffering from senile dementia, struggles on. And so in honor of his stubborn and fantastic life, today I'm trying to remember small, everyday and delightful thoughts of him.

* For as long as I can remember, he always carried a few buckeyes in his pants pocket, and would usually slip me one. The last time I saw him laugh, he mentioned that this was because someone once told him that it was "good for the rheumatids."

* He was a cattle farmer and would take me to the auctions in Mayfield, which I referred to as "the cow store." Afterwards he would always take me to the Dairy Queen. Actually, we just called it that, though it was not an official Dairy Queen, but something called the Dairy Bar, if I recall correctly. One spring he had four calves born at the same time, and he named them all after me, my brother and two of my cousins. The one named after Stephanie, who was always a hellion, sprouted horns almost instantly.

* He taught both me and my younger brother to drive on his tractor.

* The last lucid conversation I had with him was on my 25th birthday, over the telephone. He explained to me that it didn't matter what my family thought of me, or if I was an old maid, or how I lived, just as long as I lived as I pleased and remained true to myself. It was only after I hung up the phone that I realized it had all been encoded speech and that he was, in his way, telling me that it was ok that I was a lesbian (which I am not.)

* I'm pretty sure that he was the only member of my mom's family that my father ever felt any affinity with and unabashedly loved. He worked on a road crew at some point and got my dad hired for a summer when he was in college. My dad always told me that there were only two solutions for any problem that might occur with the roads: either apply some hot patch or some cold mix. And then he would giggle a really silly giggle.

* Every single time I went to eat at their house, no matter what else there was, there was always turnip greens and cornbread.

Sunday In America

Ornette Coleman is a 74 year-old man who picks up his horn and blows out pure light. In his powder blue suit, purple tie and black-feathered hat, he is the king of the hill, the cock of the walk, the rule of the roost. In his gait he carries all of his years and then some, until he starts playing. Feet tap, knees bounce, fingers dance. Curious eyes shine, and that sound, that horn, that unmistakable noise comes out, the one that's kept me floating for a week. I wept and I shivered. I smiled and I shook. Rejoicing, I sat, surrounded and enveloped and cushioned by one of the purest, truest American things I know, one of the only ones I have any good faith remaining in, and in this time and place, that was more than enough.

Beauty Is A Rare Thing

You know how when you're a little kid and really excited about something that's going to happen and it's all you can think about? Like you wake up in the morning and think, "Yay, it's my birthday," or "Woo-hoo, I'm going to go see Star Wars tonight and it's gonna be the best thing ever!".

My very first thought this morning was, "I'm going to see Ornette Coleman tonight," and every other thought I've had since then just keeps coming back around to that and refusing to let me sit still or concentrate on any one thing at all.

Lentemente, Seguramente

Claro de Reloj
Federico Garcia Lorca

Me senté
en un claro del tiempo.
Era un remanso
de silencio,
de un blanco silencio,
anillo formidable
donde los luceros
chocaban con los doce flotantes
números negros.

From Walking Words

by Eduardo Galeano

Window on the Word (VIII)

The woodsmen arrived, and the rabbi had nothing to offer them. So the rabbi went to the garden and spoke to it. He spoke to the plants with words that came from the damp earth, like them. And the plants received the words and suddenly matured and bore fruit and flowers. And thus the rabbi could tend to his guests.

The Cabala tells the story. And the Cabala says that the rabbi's son wanted to do it too, but the garden was deaf to his words and not one plant believed or grew.

The rabbi's son couldn't do it. But the rabbi? Could the rabbi repeat his own feat? The Cabala doesn't say. What would happen to the rabbi if neither the orange tree, nor the tomato plant, nor the jasmine tree ever answered him again?

Does the word know to fall silent when the moment that needs it has passed or the place that desires it has moved on? And the tongue, does it know how to die?

Why Ain't There One Lonely Horn and One Sad Note to Play?

Yesterday at work my boss, in passing, referred to my boyfriend and me as a "one-car family." It just came out of him so naturally that it didn't occur to me until a bit later to notice that a sweet feeling washed over me when he used those words. It was so nice to see that other people find it possible, even easy and obvious, to look beyond a marriage certificate and tending babies and blood ties and easily see that family is family. I remembered getting in a huge debate with my high school sociology teacher (Mr. Monzyk, who was a sexist dick that I'm angry at to this day, for a number of reasons that are neither here nor there) who didn't agree with me that in the future, all families will be chosen rather than what you're born into.

My boss is an older guy from a farm community in West Texas, and it's clear to him that Jacob and I are a family. Why should it be so hard for people? (Of course, I suppose it should be mentioned that he's also a homosexual living in Austin, Texas, but that's not the important thing here.)

I just wonder about all those people in California who were married, and now suddenly aren't. How does that work? What makes a marriage? I mean, what truly makes a marriage? And how is anything that they are any different today than it was yesterday?

It's Been A Bad, Bad Day

I was brought up in a strong religious (Christian) tradition.

My split with it began strongly and certainly and with no looking back in the third grade. We were having indoctrination hour, wherein we were asked things like, "If you die, where do you go?"

The obvious and important answer is, "Heaven," or "With God," or some such.

It went on, if your mother dies, if your father dies and so on.

The pivotal question was asked. "If your doggie or kitty dies, where do they go?"

I knew the proper, expected answer. And I knew the answer that, in my heart of hearts, I still know to be true to this day. And they are not the same.

Sammy was a cat. I loved him a lot, and happily, so did a lot of other people, too. I'll miss him more than I can say.

I Could Waltz Across Texas With You

Reason #52 why my dad is one of the coolest guys I know:

Last night at the Broken Spoke after passing by the old Texas Top Hands tour bus outside, meandering through the front hall, viewing Willie Nelson's stetson and debating the pros and cons of having a chicken fried steak and a slice of pie at 9:30 at night, we went on back to the dance hall. After paying our cover, my sweet daddy turned to me with a stricken look on his face and asked, "Um, they don't line dance here, do they?"

"No," I replied. "It's mostly just two-stepping or swing dancing, and waltzing and maybe a polka or two."

"Oh good," he answered, visibly relieved and went off to get some tequila for himself and his dance partner, and an icy cold Lone Star for me.