Don't know how
I made it through the weekend.
It's 10:53. I haven't washed my face.
I am still wearing the clothes I slept in
(Bob Dylan t-shirt and black sweat pants).
Haven't brushed my teeth.
Haven't started on my mid-term.
Didn't answer the door though whomever it was
was certainly persistent. I think they knocked
for almost 20 minutes.
I have been home so little in the last 20
years that I don't know how to do this.
Many times through those years I would
think of all the things I was neglecting
because I didn't have time to do them.
My bedroom, for example. One of the last rooms
in the house to be renovated. It still has wallpaper
peeling off the ceilings and walls.
Three layers. Beautiful old floral print. 12 foot
ceilings. Beautiful crown molding and baseboards.
I was going to start on it in January as that would
be the first time in a number of years that I would
not be in school.
I was going to strip the paper off the ceilings and walls.
Repair the plaster cracks. Replace any rotted wood
around the windows. Prime and sand and wash
the walls. Then paint them a lovely eggplant or some
such variation on a purple theme. Then I was going
to accessorize with reds, golds, and sage green.
I could start it now but I have no enthusiasm for it.
I just sit here, sipping my cold coffee and not believing
this has happened to me.
2 comments:
Wash your face.
Change your clothes.
Brush your teeth.
Start your mid-term.
Answer the door.
Strip the walls and ceiling.
Dump that cold coffee down the drain and start a new pot.
Drink it hot and black.
If you can't do all of the things on this list today, try doing just one.
Hang in there, Mags.
(oh, and hey, I've been meaning to tell you that I read one of my favorite Stanley Kunitz poem's the other day, "Touch Me" and thought of you and your writing:
Touch Me
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
Oh, that first line. Summer is late, my heart.
Damn.
What a beautiful poem, and yes, the first line is a killer. In which book is that poem to be found? I need to revisit Kunitz. I've been so into Linda Pastan, Gerald Stern, and Lucille Clifton since I returned from Dodge that I've read little else.
I have class in 45 minutes.
Haven't gotten dressed or washed my face, but I will though it's so tempting to go back to bed. It's rainy here.
I actually started on my mid-term last night. I was three sheets to the wind and feeling rather cocky, so I just sat down and started writing. But within minutes, my drunkeness got the better of me (the horizontal hold on the tv outta whack kind of thing), so I saved and stopped. Got almost a page done though!
I am drinking my coffee and I have actually gotten up to reheat it.
I spent five hours yesterday cleaning out my closet (always makes me think of that eminem song when I say cleaning out...).
The day before that, I spent several hours in my diningroom getting rid of junk, cleaning out a huge Hoosier cabinet full of stuff, and then finally cleaning and waxing (on hands and knees) the hardwood floors. It's probably been 10 years since I waxed them. No joke.
I am not a person who can sit around, though I've certainly felt like doing little more than lying around since this whole termination thing.
The lawyer didn't call me back either (not good), so I am just going to follow the company's suggested course of action (as listed in our handy-dandy employee handbooks) and request an exit conference with the Exec. Dir. The purpose of that is to ask that your termination be withdrawn and that you be reinstated, but my purpose is to make it a matter of record that I was wrongly terminated and to provide the proof I have to back up my assertions. Yes, I need my job back, but I don't need to work for an organization who clearly thinks so little of their employees.
It's not how good or bad you are with these folks--it's who your momma, daddy, uncles, etc. are and who you know.
Uh oh--I feel a Freddie Mercury moment coming on:
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
A little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me
So, time to wash my face, throw on some clothes, go to class and try to pay attention in stats, and try to make the best of this day.
Thanks, you, for extending yourself to me in this time, as you have done many times in the years I've known you.
I've always valued you and your work and have always appreciated the time you've taken with my work. To even say the Kunitz poem made you think of me and my writing means so much...so very much.
Thanks from the bottom, top, valves, and vessels of my distressed heart.
Love to you,
M
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