tuckova

Bigger

Possibly because it is right in front of you is why you didn't see it. Possibly it has been staring you in the face for so long that you got used to overlooking its gaze. Possibly you didn't want to see it but that isn't like you. And then also: Possibly it isn't there at all and you didn't conjure it OUT of existence so much as you are conjuring it INTO existence now.

So many things are possible.

And maybe it doesn't come down to this one thing at all; maybe it's a bunch of little things adding into this tower of toppling horror. In which case instead of standing there all bravely confronting what you see, your time would be better spent taking apart the pieces, sorting them into piles like you used to do with Legos. Not everybody has to be a builder and especially you don't have to build this up into a giant scary thing. Sometimes it's time to put the toys away; sometimes it's okay to say it's this one little thing and that one little thing and this thing and that thing and they don't have to turn into something bigger than you can solve.

There is not really a box big enough for all these things.

It is not good that this is happening but it is important to remember that it is not happening to you just because you're there for it. You can realize it's not about you. You can realize it's not about anything in fact. You can realize that flipping out was never your strong suit. What are you good at? What are you good for? You can spend some time reflecting on those strengths. What's not up for debate is that you'll need them.

Christmas

Christmas and I'm five, I think; this is a story I only know secondhand. My parents throw a party where they serve Scarlett O'Haras in tiny glasses because they don't want people to underestimate the punch this punch packs, and apparently some people drink doubles in protest of my parents' perceived cheapness, and I am doubtless wearing a cute velvet dress of some sort and carrying a tray of cocktails around to the grown-ups who give the cute little girl a sip of their presumably watered cranberry juice and southern comfort, except that my dad would never water a drink and later I am passed out on the coats with my cousin, who despite it being the 70s and the South knows he can't drive home, so you can imagine how my brain spins in the coats, the fur scratching my cheeks.

And then it's Christmas and I'm what, ten or eleven and my parents have made this weird modern arty kind of tree that you can buy in the store by 2002 but this is 1978 or so and such things are not in abundance; it's homemade and a bit rickety. I am mildly sick as I always am on Christmas and am trying to hang the prettiest glass ornaments on our alt.tree, and one slips from my hand and falls and shatters. Shatter is an important word. My mother comes to scold me and realizes I'm running a fever and Christmas stress goes up three knots.

Or I'm seventeen and I've been out dancing and come home in something provocative and interesting, throw on a robe and run down the hall to shower off the smell of danger; it's probably four or five in the morning and my grandfather is already awake, smoking in the living room, blowing the smoke up the chimney. "You shouldn't smoke," I say automatically, pulling my robe closely over my dress and hoping he doesn't see the glitter on my face, the cuts on my arms. "Why not?" he asks, and his eyebrows Spock at me, because he quit smoking years before only to be diagnosed with colon cancer. We get through Christmas without his saying anything to anyone or to me either. When he leaves he whispers in my ear to be careful if I can't be good; this is the last time we talk before he dies.

Twenty-one and living in Japan and my mother comes bustling over the ocean with Christmas gifts and cheer, but to no avail; I am more desperately lonely than I have ever been in my life and all my edges are so blurred there is no core. We listen to the bell ring three times three times nine times and I am as empty as I can be and still be full of sadness.

And then twenty-five, or maybe only twenty-four? The Christmas when I sat in a living room full of nutcrackers apologizing to the woman who would never be my mother-in-law for breaking the heart of her boy who had never loved me, then later filling his truck with my things and moving to a new life that was, in the end, even worse than the awful one I was leaving.

There have been good Christmases, for sure. But it is altogether not my favorite holiday. Imagine me, yesterday, engaged in a shouting match with Squire over the importance of vacuuming pine needles before the cat chokes on them, and he says, "Why are we jumping on each other's ay-ess-ess-es? I'm happy to be home with you and I know you're happy to be home with me," and I burst into laughter colored tears because I am again reminded that it is not all about the past, but about the present, which we write as we go along.

And so now Friar is making something tasty with fish and we are listening to Cechomor's Christmas CD and the tree is lit and you know, I'm trying as hard as I can to be the person I want to be. Now and for next year. And I wish for anyone this contentment and this hope.

pareidolia

All landscapes look like a woman.
The wood has faces and faces in it;
the faces make you behave, try not to steal
remember to wash your hands.
And the woman is reclining,
waiting in the snow for you
or the warm desert sands will blow away
and she'll be there
waiting, she's not impatient
but don't for a minute think she's not there.
Or that the faces aren't watching.
See that one? Looking right at you.

Squire writes:

Oh, my G-O-D!
I got no real I.D.
But I say that I got one
to pass through the agencies

But no one really knows
That I like CD's
Like the rapping one's
And the Hip-Hop one's.

And then someone knows
that I got no RID
probably from the agencies
But it's too late!
I passed those stupid agencies!
Into another country-ry-ry-ry...

And when I come home,
I see a little tree,
A little Christmas tree,
Standing all alone,
In my living room,
And then I know,
That my real place is
home-ome-ome.

clearly, it's a poetic and somewhat metaphorical approach to the immigrant experience with an emphasis on the demands of paperwork, addressing the issues of identity and the definition of home in a culturally complex environment. right? or maybe he just wants to be sure we get a tree?

Dial-Up: Like Picking My Nose While Wearing Mittens

Three weeks ago, the internet company decided to upgrade me without my permission; the upgrade frightened my poor little modem to death and I was suddenly without internet. As a person who works, shops, and even socializes from home, this is probably my equivalent of suddenly lacking a car in a town without public transportation.

At first I raged, but they said they’d have a new powerful amazing modem delivered in two days so I decided I’d be fine. Not all editing requires internet access, so I did what I could, and it turns out that I am internet-reliant but not internet-dependent, jobwise. The hardest part was giving up the parts of internet access that are not strictly job-related: reading the news, catching up with friends, and “finding stuff out”.

So I muddled through the week with a dictionary and an encyclopedia during the day, and it was okay. In the evenings, instead of reading up on mysterious rashes, adaptations of “My Fair Lady” into foreign languages, and the number of calories you burn brushing your teeth, I worked on home projects. I re-organized the books. I put together a new CD shelf. I waxed the living room floor. I patched things. I made myself useful.

But I didn’t feel useful, because there’s a difference between what you can do and what you’re good at doing. I’m good at about two things: watching television and looking stuff up. Because watching television tends to turn me into a bit of a nutter, I restrict that, but I am in the habit of giving my research urges unrestricted access. And not being able to look stuff up nearly did me in, because I could go to my friend’s house up the street to download projects and upload completed work, but you don’t feel the same about spending time on somebody else’s computer searching for pictures of Franklin Pierce (which is something I did the day after I got access back: quite a handsome fellow).

After a week (which is Novera-speak for "two days"), I was back on line. And reflecting on this experience was… not good.

I have thought of myself as being a knowledgeable person. There’s knowledge you have and knowledge you know how to get, and I didn’t mind being poor in the first type because I believed I was richer than many others in the second type. It isn’t necessary to know how to spell well as long as you know that you can’t and you’re reconciled to the fact of looking words up often. This applies to nearly anything: if you’re able to find the answer, you don’t have to carry it around in your head. However, it’s quite a blow when your second brain is suddenly missing.

And last Monday, the telephone company started playing with the line, and I’ve been on and offline again all week. Last night I was sleeplessly cataloging the things that I am good at and not good at, and I’ve realized that all this being good at looking stuff up has made it possible for me to forget that being good at one thing does not necessarily mean that one is good at many things, and it certainly doesn’t mean that one is good. I rationalize that I can’t wax the floor because I am “busy” looking for recordings of Algonquin poets reading aloud (?don’t remember why). Without that excuse, I am forced to discover that waxing a floor does not require any particular degree of awesome, and that waxing the floor doesn’t make me personally more aesthetically pleasing. Making crappy craft knock-offs of more creative projects doesn’t make me artistic. The ability to alphabetize my CDs, no matter how efficiently and thoroughly I do so, doesn’t make me organized. And none of these things, neither the alphabetizing or the art projects or the floor waxing, or even the live poetry, actually me a better person, or even a more interesting person, and the fact that being good at looking stuff up has distracted me from this lack is merely a testament to the horror of it. What I am left with, when left alone, is the ability to realize how thoroughly hateful it is to be alone with me. It’s been rather a rough week.

a lot of thinking about YA fantasy fiction

We watched Star Trek: Nemesis over the weekend. Squire told Friar that it was about "how we define our humanity under different circumstances" and I thought: well, yeah. And this is, I think, one of the appeals of fantasy. It's not just looking at a different world: it's also that it's interesting to look at what's true about ourselves against a variety of backgrounds.

The Chronicles of Prydain are my favorite fantasy books. They may be my favorite children's books, hands down (although Bridge to Terabithia now looks at me with its lovely painful face and I am not sure, but.... ) Okay, definitely my favorite series. I've re-read them every year since fifth grade, which is a lot of times to read the same books. I learned about writing from those books; I learned about the subtle beauty of "not without regret". And I learned about the difficult choices, and about both sides of trust, and about saying what you're afraid to say because not saying it is worse.

The only thing I didn't like about those books was the ending. It seemed unbearably unfair to my childish hedonist heart that the choice would come down to happy oblivion or emotionally wrenching reality. Later I concluded that the happy oblivion was a metaphor for death (see also: C.S. Lewis; Tolkein), and I was irritated that this was presented as happiness. I mean: really irritated. Because in fact I think the choice is: emotionally wrenching and rewarding reality or... nothing. Do you want to go through life standing in the dank armpit of the tram and watching the light catch the snowflakes as they fall and listening to your child laughing or do you want... nothing?

And I felt like Alexander skipped the real choice, which is interesting, in exchange for a fantasy set up: You get the kingdom of happy ever after or you get the kingdom of right here right now. The first one is unreal, is blissful oblivion, is heaven, is death. And the second one is...hard. According to Alexander, a hero chooses the second; death comes to a hero only incidentally, only later. I'm not crazy about that, but at least I get it. Certainly I prefer it to the choice of deciding whether you believe you can go further up and further in whilst in a room too small to swing a dwarf, because it seems like a fairer choice. Though I don't like the choice as it is presented, at least it is a choice, and the point is clear: If we are heroes, we choose what is right, and what is right is difficult. It's like Fantasy Novels for a Young Poet or something.

Second favorite fantasy series: The Dark Is Rising. It's a child swept into a parallel world; it's time travel; it's Arthurian legend; it's beautiful You Are There writing (first time I saw the Thames, I was like: yeah); it's trust and honor and all the things I want a book to do. It's also Destiny, which I have problems with. You should have seen me try to have a reasonable discussion of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" because it induced the same sputtery anger that hits me any time I see destiny, no matter how pretty the packaging: That's not fair.

I don't mean fair like "she gets more candy than I do" because while that is not fair, it is certainly true. Some animals are more equal than others: some people will get more advantages than they deserve and they will get away with murder and they will be rewarded rather than punished. This is true, and I don't expect fantasy books, no matter how fantastic, to present me with something truer than reality can muster: I do not expect the fairness of equality. But the unfairness that I cannot handle is the unfairness conveyed by Destiny, by Fate.

So I was pretty excited to read Philip Pullman's books, because I thought he would have no truck with Because God Said So, whether we called it God or The Oracle or The Light or Dumbledore. I thought: Yay! A new children's series with free will! Characters doing what they think is right without regard for messages from higher beings. Characters stumbling in their steampunk darkness, so like our own; characters making their own choices. And then on top of that, Pullman can write his way around a sentence and through a book like nobody's business. I even thought in my naivety that perhaps the characters would not get the kingdom of hard work vs. kingdom of happy oblivion choice at the end, and wouldn't that be nice!

HAHAHA. I should have known already in the Golden Compass, when the alethiometer gave me pause, but Lyra seemed so self-determined and Will even more so: "I may be inclined to be this sort of person but it doesn't mean I have to choose it." And so we bopped on through three books of me thinking my lofty thoughts about fairness and free will and real choices. Boy, was I pretty pissed when I finished Amber Spyglass. Philip Pullman so didn't "kill god". He pulled deux ex machina like a rabbit out of a hat. Fate? We pretend it doesn't exist only because it's too depressing to contend with. Destiny is reality, and the only reason the human characters won't be told their destinies is so that they continue existing under the apparently illusory free will they hold so dear (even though they don't have it really have it, since Destiny trumps Free Will). And so to be heroic is to acknowledge the existence and even inevitability of your fate without even asking what it is. This is... not free will. Oh, and yeah, and the final choice (which isn't a choice)? You have to give up what you want most because an angel said so. OH, ferfle.

We're totally going to see the movie still, but I am disappointed. I'm getting my Alexander books encased in gold, I guess. And I will continue living in the Star Trek world with Squire Tuck, unless somebody can recommend some fantasy books where the world is fantasy and the moral approaches something I can live with, something at least as true as reality.

SORRY THAT WAS SO LONG.

remember this

Oh and you, with your dangerous mouth.
I cannot even think the color of your eyes,
but your exact mouth better than first fruit
and I cannot imagine anything else.                      

I would have kissed you for a thousand nights,
a thousand and one.
Your mouth the only thing
to make me stop telling stories,
and we knew that to stop telling stories
meant my destruction; I didn’t care.                  

Your mouth with its clever tricks
even clever deceptions and when you whispered
that you missed me I wondered
if it was true or
just a slip of the tongue.