At the Museum of Art

Royalty wore this kind of belt in Africa. A yet. And, in its beauty and because I see its beauty, I am as beautiful as the belt and the man who wore it himself.

There is the chain, a connective belt, linking us -- right here and now, even through the haze of our convenient lives and graphic bombardment -- to the vast ways people knew and celebrated life. It is not them, there. And us. It is us, a singular us across all time and place.

Not that much has changed really. A baby is still held to the breast. The ocean -- any ocean-- is still a calming thing to sit beside. Soup is served in tureens. We will draw and paint our own faces until our faces draw pale. This is the way of the world. Birth, love, searching, dancing, dignifying, feeding, worshipping, singing, ornamenting, creating.

Yes, an African king wore this yet, thousands of miles and hundreds of years ago. And yet, the yet is mine. The yet is yours. Because we are him and he is us because we all know the blue bead. We all pick up the half shell. We all have run our hands across the smooth skin of leather. We all know triangle, we all see diamond. We all have felt red. We have all seen a cowry shell and marveled at its shape, its shine and the little teeth it has. Not that much has changed. Not that much will ever change. And that is not meant to depress and make our time here insignificant. That is meant to make us -- make me -- realize that we are part of the long belt of magnificence on this planet. God. What a blessing.

Hunger

Two days ago, when I first saw these baby swallows, their eyes were closed and their mouths were open -- wide open -- all of the time. Indiscriminately hungry, they knew at some point their mother would come and feed them. I realized that that was how we all come into this world, needing to be fed and dependent on another for sustenance.

Today, I went back to take pictures and I was shocked to see that the tiny peeping babies are now looking and acting so much more birdlike. Their bodies are thick, and they turn their head back and forth scanning for potential enemies, like me, and their feeding source. When the adult swallow would swoop into the soffit of the portico, then -- and only then -- they knew it was time to open up and be fed.

Between the first and second time I saw these birds, I have met and talked with five different friends. The first, in a coffee shop, talking and laughing. A jib jab of clever. The second, someone much younger than I -- but not -- who I met a year ago. A many-way-beautiful woman who recognizes in me some kindred path. The third, a brand new friend, just met a few weeks ago. We talked from hello, all the way down the shoreway, through ordering, appetizing, sharing some small plates, all the way back home and then for a while in the front yard. Four hours of easy flow. Then, last night, a dear friend, held up truth to truth in a soft, kind way. And then again, this morning, I talked with a woman I last saw thirty years ago, at nineteen. But there we were, wanting to recount the ways we have moved from then until now, open about the struggles and the grace, and still -- very much -- willing to carry optimism with us into the last third of our lives.

And while I was talking with these women, I had coffee. I had an egg salad sandwich, Tuscan bean soup, a blue cheese fresh green salad, some shrimp with beet coulee, two scallops in a citrus aioli, fries dipped in truffle mayo, two fudgesicles, a tuna wrap and a not quite ripe banana. And, yes, each was delicious, every single one.

My whole life I have been eating. I have been walking around with my mouth open -- a child among flying swallows -- waiting and grabbing and making sure there was food to feed me, and a way to grow bigger and strong. Maybe my mom was there, swooping past to give me the assurance of food. Maybe she was not. I do not think she breastfed me; that was not the chosen way of that time.

But what I am seeing is that what really nourishes me is not what goes into my open mouth, but what comes out of my open mouth. Words passed between two people. Nuzzling up against the truth from one to another.

My belly is plenty big enough, able to feed me and a whole nest of my others selves, my former selves. The way I will get full now is through my heart. Talking away my hunger, loving away my hunger, listening to my hunger drift away because of the stories I take in. The stories I swallow.

When will you decide

..not to stand on the corner of worry and guilt anymore?

Perhaps today, because after seeing that both are unattractive

in someone else, you decide to make yourself beautifully unlike.

Perhaps today, as you realized the sliver moon will return to full.

Perhaps today, as you used riches to bring comfort and happiness.

Perhaps today, just because there were two rabbits,

and a deer, and a man walking down the street playing a guitar.

Perhaps today, since the walk was long and the knee was strong

and you felt yourself moving, again, on eager feet.

Okay, okay, okay -- I hate this blog. Except for the idea of "the corner of worry and guilt." That's a good line, especially for a country song. I also like the idea of "eager feet" but, honestly, I stole that from John Lentz, my minister. And he stole it from a poem.

I tried to write in a Maya Stein voice, using second person with genius. And God knows, I am no Maya Stein.

What I really wanted to say -- and that is the point of this, isn't it? -- is that I saw some stuff today. A deer crossing Cedar Road at Legacy Village. Bounding in and out and over expensive suburban cars. And how, seeing that, I want part of me to remain untamed here. I want this, the place in which I live, to not soften me. I want there to be life and death encounters where I have to run my ass off just to make it to the other side. I am getting a little bit afraid of the monotony of my cake eating life.

And I want to say that I walked into a restroom and I saw a woman in the handicapped stall, her walker in the middle of the bathroom. The door to her stall was wide open -- I could tell just getting there was an effort. And she was pulling down her pants, and, I think, her underwear Depends. I did not really look, I just heard something crinkly, and I know that sound from my grandmother and mother both. The sight of her both horrified me and made me wicked jealous. She did not give a fuck about what anyone else would think, and that -- living that way -- can elicit all kinds of reaction. It made me wonder of I will end up as crazy and brave as she is.

And I want to say that I had a conversation with a neighbor who was so worried about taking a little vacation with her kids. Did not know where to stay or how long to stay and what they could afford to do and not do. And, her indecision about a GOOD THING clearly sent a message to me about having what I have without stewing over it. Just have it, be grateful. So, yeah, I got central air conditioning yesterday and I bought a big new shiny iMac and both, already, are making me happy. I know there are starving children in China, and yet, I can have what I want. Those two ideas can co-exist without me feeling some Jewish-Catholic-Mother-privileged guilt about it. There is more to do to save the world and maybe, just maybe, I will be able to do it, better and faster, on my new computer in my cool house. As best I can I am not going to stand on the corner of worry and guilt anymore. I am driving to the other side of town, going to hang out on East Peace Road, just around the block from "Life-is-short" Park.

And I want to say that I am not quite so sure about the closed door part to having central air conditioning. I liked hearing the outside. I liked knowing who was coming and going, who was striding up onto my porch. I liked knowing when T and S were playing outside so that I could go outside. Anne says I should get an all glass door, and I liked that. All glass all the time, so that just a thin scrim separates me from my home and the world outside. So that I can come home with eager feet and leave -- be out in it -- with eager feet.

Maybe I need to stop thinking in poems and just let my fingers type the truth, hoping that that will be beautiful enough as is. I should trust my fingers, too. They type so much faster when I am doing this. They find the right keys without errors and add ons. Even my fingers want me to tell my truth my way.

So this is all what I wanted to say when I wrote that bad, bad seventh grade poem. What I really wanted to say was all of this.

What they know

A woman sits about ten feet from me,

she is the same age as my Grammy was in this picture.

I could easily concoct a story about her: what she did,

where she lived, who she loved. But it is enough,

right now, to watch her as her aide places dessert

in a bowl. Strawberry rhubarb tart. The woman,

like my grandmother at some point, scoops,

tastes and says "Mmmm" to every single bite.

Like nothing else ever mattered as much

as this sweet taste does upon her tongue.

The palm reader

...looked like he was a stock broker dressed down for the weekend. Polo shirt, khaki shorts, the I-know-I-am-a-man-so-I-can-wear-a-bracelet bracelet. And, after checking my date and time of birth (estimated in this case), he grabbed my hand and went at it. Four infatuations, the first one at sixteen.Some family history of heart disease, diabetes, and thyroid conditions. A bad, bad addiction to bread and butter, toast and butter, white food and fat. He said that if I could stop, my life would turn one eighty. Everything, even beyond health, would fall into place. He said I did not eat badly, just the wrong things at the wrong times. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs, ever. He saw that too.

I thought he was just reading this, less from my palm, but from my body. I was not swayed until he said my temper had moderated in the last twenty years, which is true. Even though I barely raised ever my voice to anyone, the things I hear and say inside are not shouted anymore. I can let it go. Except, Mark said, when there is an injustice or a misuse of power. My words can get me in trouble. They haven't yet, but I am always the bravest one at the conference table, saying what no one else is willing to say. I am not afraid of looking noncompliant anymore. I guard the unprotected; I am nuturing. He was shocked that I was not a teacher, until I told him that that is exactly what I am.

Before the reading, I spent time with B, a former student's mom. The lasting image I have of her is in a funeral home, just days after her husband was killed and she was severely injured in a car accident. The whole family was in the car, trapped, even M, who was in second grade, while they used the jaws of death to drag out this man, long dead, suspended by his seatbelt upside down in an upside down world. When I had thought of B, I saw her bruised, dressed in black, her skin pasty. Her eyes so lifeless. Absent. But at this party, she was big and ripe, a solid new wedding band on her finger. I did not need a palm reader to know that she was in the middle of her best life.

The palm reader went back to the four infatuations. Sixteen, twenty-four, thirtyish. He saw the relationship I had had that last for some years. From now on, that line will be the Carrie line on my hand. Faint, but there. Then he said, "But this one. This one is it. A soulmate, then after that, no one else. He will..." I stopped him and said, "She will - " And he said that he knew that, he just didn't ever out someone at a reading. He told me I did not start out gay,but that I became gay -- my response was a curious head tilt. That's not what I have ever wanted to believe, that someone can turn, like kool-aid shifting water to red. Then I said, "I did not know I was gay until I knew I was gay." He nodded, said, "Yeah, that's what I meant."

"This one," he drew and circled the deep line that runs down the center of my hand. "No one even close. No one after her. A bitchy Leo. Maybe a Virgo. Light hair. A rocking body." (His words, not mine). "Someone into yoga, purifying herself. Someone you will meet through work, or near work, or having to do with work." I thought of someone I know, someone I wished it might be. I tried to imagine her reading this, finding me sooner than she thinks she will be ready, and laying down with me, tracing her line on my hand. I was excited for the first time in a long time, wanting this person to see where she's been for so long, right in the middle of my

willing hand. But for now, my hands will do what they do, in an everyday way. Lift, and drive, and nurture. My hands will write and rest, chop and cook, plant and tend the seed. They will turn on the fan, turn over the page, wash away the day's dirt. My hands will do what all hands do until my fate comes to me, and then, once again, my hands will love.

Unexpectedly

Today, I was minding my own business, when Barb Lind from church came walking down Dellwood. Barb had previously told me that she had regularly stopped her knee-surgery-therapy walks with a mid-way break on my porch. She said that she always sits in the rocker, and had, in fact, told me that she liked my choice to paint it white just as she supported my decision to buy a new porch rug and select bright orange hanging baskets this spring. I love that this woman had been sitting on my porch for months without my knowledge or permission. I love that she had found refuge in a place that I find comfort in too.

But I had never actually seen Barb on my porch, nor had we spent time together. So today I invited her up and we shared our porch together. She told me a long story about three people, all of whom, in their own ways, had acted with profound empathy and grace. I had no idea this morning that I would end up teary eyed two hours later. Teary eyed, with a new friend.

As part of the impromptu morning, I showed Barb the rest of my house and she repeatedly commented on the fact that she did not know that I "was an artist." I told her I was not, but when I looked around, as a guest in my own home, it was hard to deny how much I love doing art. So when Barb left, I pulled out my colored pencils and black mandala paper and drew this. A mandala for Robin, who just finished seminary.

It's a mandala full of stories. Her studies, her chaplaincy work, her long drives back and forth from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, her dead son, the mother Mary, a woman by the well, and the windy labyrinth of her ordination. Things that I know because Robin told me.

And now, as the afternoon turns to evening, I am thankful for the gift of words. Those spoken, those written, even the words that are drawn. And how they reveal people, connect people, and draw us closer to knowing what we know.

Days ago, I wrote about what life might be like if we could see events outside of the context of our own stories -- how it might grant wise neutrality -- and today, I guess, I realize that we understand life only through the context of stories graciously told and tendered. Maybe one way keeps the heart open, and the other way keeps the heart full.

at least 15 things I love about July

...with a nod to Anne H.

1. homemade nectarine and corn salsa, especially when shared with friends

2. impromptu porch talks that shift between the silly and more serious

3. washing the dirt off of my feet with water from the hose after working in the garden

4. the garden, and especially this year, the balloon plants and purple phlox

5. the days, like today, when the temperature drops

6. having neighbor kids help wash the car

7. singing the summer songs of church accompanied by guitar

8. this year's favorite play-it-loudly song, which I think is still last year's, Fix You by Coldplay

9. non stop-and-go moped rides, long stretches of wind

10. fudgesicles

11. mowing the lawn, especially when I do 2 or 3 in a row as a treat for my neighbors

12. knowing that it is not August

13. this year, the birds, so many birds -- their idle gossip backdrop to every day

14. the parade of kids on bikes, on tractors, or tricycles, on scooters, in their barefeet

15. going into an air conditioning place to meet a friend -- the blast of cold air and warm smile at the same time

16. sitting on the porch as rain comes in from the west

17. Mrs. Sherwin, 88, who hangs up her American flag every morning

18. a loaded trunk and a full tank of gas

19. the porch at 2900 E. Overlook

20. laughing at a party, being at a party, being brave enough to go to a party

21.

okay...

So yesterday, Eddie the door man from Home Depot, came over and installed a replacement door for the deck entrance of my house. That completed the "Welcome to 3267" summer. New driveway apron, refurbished sidesteps, new front porch rug and cleaned siding and, at last, the replacement of the swollen and non-shutting backdoor.

Yes, I was taking it to a symbolic level. I even told Eddie that now every way into the house is as functional and beautiful as possible. "My house is ready for someone new, no matter how they want to enter." He just looked at me curiously and said, "Could you hand me that Allen wrench?"

Well, apparently, the first guest I had was a medium sized animal (skunk? raccoon? possum? loose dog?) who decided to take a watery poop on my front porch. I wonder what the metaphor is in that? That my next love will be someone with bowel problems? That my next love will be "an animal?" Or that this analogy is full of of shit?

Either way, this isn't quite working out the way I envisioned.

There is a place

or way of being, perhaps,

where we are separated from our stories.

There is, possibly, a way to see an event

through a thinner cornea of personalization.

Just as it is without the layer we stack upon it.

Let's just say, this, for example, is not the doorknob

my mother used to hang her purse on.

And that purse was not stuffed with Ricola cough drops,

crocheted glasses holders, Kent cigarettes,

and a wallet with the change section in the middle.

And, I did not, as a child and then a teen,

sneak into my mother's change to steal quarters

often dollars at a time, for Sixteen magazines

or cinnamon rolls in the junior high cafeteria.

And, without a doubt, I did not look at those magazines

wondering when my Dorothy Hamill haircut

would get the attention of Tom or Paul or, in my wildest dreams,

Mark Schoeppner, the captain of everything good and right.

No, this is just a doorknob in the bungalow at 8 Lebanon Hills,

and when I see it, I am not sad for a mother whose hand I held

as her skin, quickly and permanently, went from rosy to still.

And I do not remember the Christmases when Carrie were there,

somehow drawing together the family that hadn't quite

laughed enough together. And I do not think about

eggs benedict on the good china, nor do I

reach back to smell herb toast or see a puppy

licking ice cream from a bowl.

All I see is a doorknob. An old, glass doorknob

to a closet, in a house, on a street, 132.2 miles away.

Taking down the wall of family photos

That wall has been, honestly, something I walked past quickly the last 22 years to get to the guest room or the bathroom. Fifty maybe sixty images, some dating back four generations, mismatched frames. No really order. I knew I was going to be its guardian, so I did not antipate feeling anything when we were dismantling it. It was coming with me; what was there to cry about?

But today, I really looked at each image. My dad as a boy playing in a wide Wisconsin field. My grandparents milking their bourbons at a party. My cousins and me dressed up for a 4th of July parade down Queesnton Road. Then I saw the picture of my mom, her sister and their parents at a shingdig and I had to stop and stare. My mom was ravishingly beautiful. A knock out. Her cinched waist, the fine black cocktail dress, holding a cigarette and a drink in one hand. Laughing at her blonde sister. A head turner. A total babe.

I just started weeping, knowing that my grandfather once told my mother that he loved her sister better. And then, my whole mom's life -- the part I witnessed -- made sense. Her desire to be loved by everyone she met, her need to be the center of attention. Seeking what she was not given as a given.

And, it's a crime really. Because my mom was the stunner in that photo, just as beautiful as her very beautiful sister. How did she not know? That she had "it," no matter what he did or did not say?

And then, to the left a bit, was a picture of me and my brother and our three blonde cousins on the steps in our pajamas. I always thought that Jill, Lisa and Robin were the cutest people in the photos -- certainly eldest Jill. But then I looked, really looked -- not through the lens of my life and my current linebacker body -- and I saw five children. All sweet and clean, still green and wondrous. And one of the kids was an old soul. Deep knowing eyes pulling upon a reserve, her hair pixie cute. Her face angelic, really. A stunner.

And she was me.

My mom and I have something else in common. We never knew that we were ones that radiated, and so we worked so hard to shine. We worked so goddamn hard just to be seen, when all we had to do was relax, and let our lives speak for themselves.

fireworks

Tonight, the crowd was silent during the fireworks.

No hooting, no cheering, not even an occasional "Ahhhhh."

Solemn, like a funeral. Tonight is the last time I will walk

forty yards from my father's front door to the neighbor's house,

where we have the prime view of the colors rising and falling

over the high school. I was quiet too. And surprised that

I noticed the trails of the fireworks the most.

The long arms tendrils of smoke drifting towards downtown.

Like that octopus image after the Challenger explosion,

when we knew that something horrible was happening,

we just did not know what it was or what we should do.

Contrast

I went to the art museum on Thursday with my friend Karen. The new East Wing has been open for months and I just had not made it down to University Circle to see it. This room, the Rodin Sculpture Room, just blew me away. It feels like you are inside, but outside, in the future with an eye on the past. The floors are a perfect smooth wood. The walls are a perfect smooth glass. And, each piece is a solid, heavy hunk of confidence. Angels wrestling demons. Men who sacrificed their lives. Warriors. Thinkers. Holy priests.

I am having a hard time putting words to the power of this, but I need to say I went back Friday to take these pictures. I like the way I feel in this enclave. It seems just right right now. I want to be one of these men who were worthy of their bronze commemoration. I want to be out, and safely in. I want to remember where I have been, but clearly have faith in the clean glassed future. That's what I want.

Planting a garden

I don't know when I got the attitude that I should just fall into love, or that love should come to me easily. I have no idea how I gained the belief that I deserved it, or that beauty comes without effort. Yeah, there is all of that "lilies of the valley" shit that Jesus said. But Jesus was not talking about the lilies getting esoteric happiness -- he promised that they would be fed and kept alive. That's a nice promise, but I seem to have been counting on God for more.

The side garden, this year, looked like hard packed Texan soil. After a spring of rain following rain, some of the normally finicky perennials thrived. My hydrangea have never been more lush or confident. But the side garden seemed to vomit back every seed. None of the 50 sunflower seeds took root, only three of the zinnias. Basically, we had a snazzy edge of bricks around nothing.

Yesterday I bought thirteen quart plants. This morning, I dug and dug and broke up the dirt. My back ached and I had to take breaks, sitting on the stoop, even though the day was mild and breezy. This morning, I bought plant food and sweet peat to spread as mulch among the phlox and coreopsis. And tonight, it looks beautiful. Or certainly is leaning more towards beauty than it was twenty-four hours ago.

It took effort. It took planning. It took time. I had to get a little dirty. I had to be willing to create holes -- spaces --then fill them up. I had to feed the plants, water the plants, be gentle and tender with the transplants. My toenails are black with mulch. I did not deserve this beauty. I did not wait for this beauty to come to me. I did not get angry when nothing bloomed out of nothingness. Nor wait for something to sprout out of a void.

How interesting it is that our hands teach us what our minds forget. How our aching backs remind us of the goodness that springs from good work. Today I planted a garden. Tomorrow, maybe, I will be more open to digging up my dry thoughts about how love comes, stays and takes root.