just to be asked...

sitting in my kitchen, annie lennox on the little boombox we keep on the counter by the window.  everyone else is asleep.  and my mind turns to a few nights ago when a man sat in the chair next to where i'm sitting now and asked me about my mother.  this song was playing and i relayed the story of when i visited my mother for the first time in Tennessee. it was just after her 55th birthday and the chemo had really started to kick in.  one evening, my stepfather made good on their deal to buzz her head once the drugs made her hair begin to fall out.  they walked into the kitchen together and he sat her down on a stool, wrapped a white sheet around her thin shoulders just like a barber, and turned on his clippers.  i walked away.  i hid in the guest room.  i told myself that, as an artist at least, i should witness this.  i told myself that, as a woman, i should witness this pain, know this horror and keep the record.  i walked down the hallway and crossed the living room.  i stood for a few long, horrible seconds in the entry way to the kitchen.  i saw my mother's head bent over like a school boy's, head shorn and bowed obediently.  i can't tell you what happened in my heart then.  i can't tell you.  english doesn't have the words...

when she came out of the kitchen, she went straight to her bedroom and put on a men's white button-down shirt.  then she went to the bathroom and put on dramatic eye make-up and lipstick.  Yummy Plummy by maybelliene.  her favorite.  when she walked in to the living room and sat next to me on the couch and sighed, i said, "mama, you look like annie lennox!"  she smiled wide and i wanted to cry but i smiled wide right back.  i smiled wide and wanted her to just go on feeling beautiful and bold.  i didn't want any standard to dissuade her-  she WAS beautiful and for once in her life i wanted her to not argue with it.  not even in the hands of cancer and the horror that it offers.

i told this story to a man in my kitchen the other evening and he might actually be the only man i've ever known to sit and listen to these things.  this is an important happening.  it flips my ideas all around.  so few people have let me speak to them about my mother's death.  even fewer have initiated that discussion.  how can i explain how necessary it is to speak about this horror?  i can't shake a person's shoulders hard enough.  i can't cry loud enough.  i can't scream and kick and beg enough.  there is no language for it.  there is only the moment that sweeps in so unexpectedly...  an annie lennox song playing in the background, wine in the glass, an open ear, an open heart, a willingness to let another human being know they aren't sitting at the table alone, and that there are enough scars between the two of us to be able to look at each other squarely when she sings, "this kind of trouble's only just begun."

and then a breath...

and then she sings...

"i tell myself too many times 'why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?'"...

and my entire being shakes.
goddamn...  the secrets i keep.
i feel so embarrassed sometimes.  and so often, i wonder if i've said something wrong...  done something wrong...  maybe was just BORN wrong...  inefficient or defective...  made for a different world...

and i know none of that's true.  it's the old training kicking in.  the training which has me rushing to smile wide and proud and warm in those difficult moments...  in those moments when i KNOW that's what the Other needs to see...


to be asked about her...
just to be asked is a tremendous thing.

and when she sings, "i don't think you know what i feel.  i don't think you know what i feel.  i don't think you know what i fear.  you don't know what i fear."

i'm tired of having so many opportunities to say the same thing.


to be asked is a tremendous thing.

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agony

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what beauty have i lost?  what beauty have i forsaken???  goddamn it!  i mean, shit, Angela!  what the fuck with your clumsy ass???!!!  i fucking lost the last month's diary in a rental car today.  jesus christ!  my head is spinning.  if not for being drunk, i'd be an inconsolable mess and i'm goddamn serious.  those pages are my life.  they are not eloquent, they are entirely messy and full of slang and all sorts of ill-manner of expression but those expressions are MINE and they are GONE.  i carry my diary with me everywhere.  everywhere.  i need the notebook with me, bouncing against my hip in my tote bag.  i need it.  i NEED it and it's gone.

i can let go.  i can say it doesn't matter.  i can shrug and tell myself , "it's just a thing, little girl.  things don't matter."  but between those black and white speckled covers rests the description of the morning with X when he spoke with his young son...  his small voice radiating from the receiver in to the air of the hotel room while his father lay next to me, naked, caressing my shoulder, as his southern accent filled the room, calling his boy "baby"  and "precious".  such unmistakable, unarguable beauty.  such love.  this father, this son.  and this lowly girl, this stupid, inept, aching woman at his side...  so awestruck by the reality that such a love can exist...  a love my father never felt for me...  yet instantly recognizable to my eyes, to my ears, to my heart ...   it was a moment of such total, clear, undeniable beauty that two days later my heart broke under the weight of such a memory...  a memory i will gladly bleed for and writhe under in pain; a memory i will gladly suffer to keep.  i am blessed to have had that moment.  two hours tops in a hotel room one morning in november...  lost in the contents of my diary, motherfucking LOST!  i hate myself so fucking much right now i have no words!  i have no words. I HAVE NO WORDS because someone out there has my motherfucking diary in their hands and, hoping they love it as i do, i have to find a way to wake up tomorrow morning, make coffee, and write on loose leaf paper.  i want to fucking vomit all over myself right now.  i cannot believe this happened.  rushing, rushing, trying to return the car on time, my precious notebook slipped from my bag and somehow i didn't notice.  FUCK ME!!!  GODDAMN IT!!!

if you rented the zipcar "hot pants" from the chevron on telegraph avenue tonight and found my diary, please contact me.  please please please!!!! angelasimione at aol dot com

thank you and i love you forever.


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ahh

anytime someone says God has a plan it's never a plan anyone is very fond of.

in fact, that statement is in no way a comfort and i really wish people would just stop saying it to me. all it does is make the person on the receiving end feel completely alone, completely helpless... completely hopeless too.

i understand they're really only attempting to comfort themselves when they say that. and i can be sympathetic to that. and if it does work to calm the speaker of that horribly inept sentence, then they should just repeat it inside their own head, to themselves, where no one else has to hear it.

because we have plans too.

the same plans everyone has.

we have good, wholesome, beautiful plans.

simple plans. simple times. simple hopes.

don't tie my hands behind my back so i can't hold those dreams anymore. why can't i just be allowed to hold them just a little while longer? don't take my hope from me. i'm someones daughter. i'm someones child. just let me hold on to the remainders of my daughterhood. just a little while longer. the good remainders. the ones i want to keep. the ones that are long hugs and back scratches. the ones that let me feel like i belong somewhere. the ones that make me feel like i do have a place to call home. is there any place in the world that feels more like home than when your parent hugs you? is there really a person on the planet that doesn't long for that feeling to claim them again? that feeling when you were little and you were held up high. held up and laughing. held up and protected and warm.

i'm just so angry. everyone who is going through this is angry. but i'm not angry at god. i'm not angry at anyone. i'm angry about the threat of time, the loss of time, and all the things that i haven't gotten to yet... as if a parent even needs a very big reason to feel proud of their child.

it's such a slow, horrible fear.

such a dawdling anguish. the spin of sorrow and regret and not knowing what to do.

there are so many days where i have no clue what to do with myself. i try to write it out and plug this in to the work... but i just end up feeling as inept and ridiculous as that damn statement.

fucking cancer.



the only sentence that feels at all close to the reality of all this is i just want my mama.


most days i just feel like begging.




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i'll probably end up deleting this.

the light...

i woke up with an odd feeling on my shoulders...

it's hot here today. and old dreams, old memories start to stir in weather like this.

it feels like southern california, and so i feel like i did when i lived there... uncomfortable and unsure, scared of something that i've never been able to name. very much like when a person begins to fear they're crazy or stupid or good for nothing. that softer breed of depression that seeps in rather than crashes down. the nag of regret... wishing you'd been able to say what needed to be said... beating yourself up for not being smarter, for trusting the wrong people, for not being able to see what was really going on... guilt over not being strong enough or big enough to be taken seriously or at least act as a shield... guilt over not knowing how to help...

i can't tell myself i was just a kid and feel forgiven.

there's something about the light- the way it casts or when it goes all hot and yellow that is trying to remind me of something i can't remember... a bad dream or some unexplainable thing... people i no longer know... and thankful for it... thankful to be hundreds of miles away.

this is where that indignation of mine comes from... that deep, irrefutable well of clear morals. i've never been that good at standing up for myself. i've only recently learned how to do it, what it is, and when speak up. it's been hard. it is a tough, uncomfortable thing... but i'm quite good at standing up for others. i always have been. i've got a loud mouth... i can take a hit... all i need is a cause. and you're it. those of you who have a hard time standing up for yourselves too- i'll stand up for you. i am impossible to argue with. my logic is flawless. i've never been defeated. never. not when it comes to defending you.