Hamilton Journal ’05, 3 year anniversary of Becoming Sweeties



Day 1:  Keith carrying the tripod back after photographing the giant cross at the Devil's Punchbowl in Hamilton Ontario Canada.  Photo by Mary Stebbins



Keith looking almost religious.  Photo by Mary Stebbins

I can't figure out how to make this into its own individual page so I can link to just IT, so I am going to continue this on No Polar Coordinates.

Hamilton Trip November 05



Keith, carrying the tripod back after photographing the giant cross at Devil's piunchbowl, day 1

continued in next post

(click on photo to see larger)

I'd like to invite you to attend the opening of my Photography Exhibition Friday, November 18, 2005 from 6-8 PM at the Wescott Community Center (at the corner of Wescott and Euclid in Syracuse, second floor).  There will be a poetry reading celebrating art from 7:15 to 7:45 PM.  Refreshments will be served.  I hope you can come!  If you can't make the opening but would like to see the show, the regular hours are 9-5 but they are also open many nights.  Mary

view some of my images at IMAGIK

This year, the opening magnolias were the lushest, thickest, fullest and most perfect I’ve ever seen.  When they were still in early bud, Keith said that it is rare for the magnolia blossoms to survive.  “Rain,” he said, glumly, “usually comes and destroys them.”  Yesterday I walked and cycled around admiring the magnolias.  They were almost completely open.  Gorgeous.  Today, they would have reached the apex of perfection.  Last night, it rained.  Not a nurturing, nourishing female rain, but a raging male rain with lightning and thunder.  Downpours.  This morning, the sky is black and the magnolias ragged.

Did someone already say this?  Probably.  It seems like everything has been said before.

But--would a "Magnolia Rain" be a soft female rain that allowed the magnolias to survive?  Or was it this male rain that tortured them?

Mary Stebbins

For Keith

Wednesday, April 20, 2005; 7:58 AM

This entry is from another blog, "No Polar Coordinates"

A walking Tour of my Heart

 

When Ginger gave me the deep purple Mulberry Park T-shirt with its rose-garden roses, she could not have known how much it would mean to me.  I put it right on, and after she left, drove into the city to visit the park.  I hadn't been there in 20 years, since we moved out to Farmville downwind of the turkey farm.

The Mulberry rose bushes are thorny stubs sticking through the snow.  I walk through the park with my new T-shirt just showing under my half-zipped jacket, watching bare trees lean into thin orange sun.  The sun lights the snow with its own honey, and shadows are as blue as the snow is orange.  Tree shadows spread like blue veins through orange flesh.  Below me, down the long orange hill, stands the lavender house on Mulberry Street where the harmonica prodigy, Charlie, grew up, and where, as a teen, I went for harmonica lessons.  Counterpoint to the bassoon I played in the high-school orchestra.  The house looks almost brown in the orange light.

Here, up the hill from Charlie's, is the gate where James stopped me, eyes wide and sending off sparks, to slip a cap of purple Osley acid onto my tongue.  Out of the blue.  I hadn't seen James for months, hadn't even thought of him once.  But there he was, grinning wildly, dispensing this gift. 

A few minutes before, Charlie had finally, shyly, asked me to wear his ring.  I said I was headed off to college and not ready to settle down yet.  Besides, he was two years younger and had never once kissed me (I'd wanted him to, but didn’t mention that.)  So he did kiss me.  It was ecstatic.  I kissed him back.  More than once.  But we'd gone on to argue about whether I would go to college locally or across the country.  Charlie wanted me nearby; I wanted adventure.  Escape from controlling parents.  His quiet pleading made me feel selfish, which annoyed me.

Here is the cluster of cedars, where, after sitting on the hilltop by the water tower all afternoon watching the sky fold into itself and disappear, James pulled me in and undressed me.  He laid me on his flannel shirt.  He was so happy and eager.  And quite handsome, in his dark lean way, more handsome than Charlie, who everyone called WH.  For warthog.  That was my fault.  A few years before, we were playing a game with our friends where everyone had to determine what kind of animal they were and when Charlie asked me what he was, I said, jokingly, a warthog.  Charlie turned scarlet and deeper scarlet still when everyone picked up on it.  It stuck.  Like glue.  I regretted it ever after, like the many other things I regretted.

Pressing me to the ground, James looked at me longingly from deep-set brown eyes.  Cow eyes, I thought.  Not meaning any offense even in secret to myself.  I wished, though, that he were Charlie, pretended he was.  But it was James who pushed himself into me.  When I tentatively offered my lips to be kissed, he turned away.  I could live to be 200 and not forget that moment.  I decided then that he would never touch me again if he wanted sex without love.  When he moved away and I climbed unhappily to my feet, I thought that sex with James would be the thing I remembered most about that day.   The worst thing, my biggest regret, but I was wrong.

Here, here is the spot, right beside this Norway spruce, by these barren lilac bushes, where two men were arguing over a drug deal, getting angry, starting to fight with each other. They were older than us, and mean-looking.  I would have gone quickly in the opposite direction.  James and I had just dressed and crawled out of the cedars still high on acid, though coming down a little.  James was full of good cheer.  I followed, dragging, feeling sad, betrayed and guilty. 

The men hollered at each other and the taller one with the bristly face struck the other, making him stagger backwards.  James ran over and stepped between the men.  “Come on, you guys, don't fight,” I heard him say in his low, soothing voice, holding his hands out to either side like a traffic cop.  The man facing me, the bristly one, took a gun out of his pocket and shot James.  Just like that.  And immediately shot toward me.  I stumbled, fell, crawled back toward the cedars, in and behind a log.  I was so afraid I peed myself.  I tried to be small, to sink into the dug place in the ground below the cedar log where a woodchuck must have denned.  I remember the smell of dirt, cedar branchlets and a musky smell--like the one I smell now.  Maybe it’s the great great great great granddaughter of the woodchuck who once lived in that spot where I lay in the dirt and pee and terror.

I lay there a long time.  I couldn't see through the thick cedars, was afraid to even lift my head above the log. When it had been quiet a long time, I came out and the two men were gone.  James lay on his side with blood all over the front and back of his shirt, the same shirt I'd laid on with him.  It was shredded and soaked.  His eyes were open and dry looking.  I knew he was dead.  I desperately didn’t want to touch him, but I felt his wrist and his neck for a pulse.  He was still a little warm but there was no pulse.

I had to go with my wet pants to Charlie's house at the bottom of the park and tell his mother what happened.  Charlie had gone to play harmonica at Jonesey’s—I’d planned ongoing with him before we fought.   His Mom hustled me in and called the police and gave me a pair of dry panties and jeans. Tossed my stuff in her washer.  Called Charlie at Jonesey’s. She came with me when the cops drove me back up the hill to James' body, curled and cold, all the satisfied happiness gone.  Charlie climbed up to join us, stood quietly beside me.  His long hair lifted in shining golden strands in a light breeze. The back of his hand brushed mine and gave me comfort.

Here, on this flat rock by the dead elm is where I sat with Charlie 3 months later and told him I was pregnant with James' baby.  How totally freaking sorry I was.  How I thought I’d have to get an abortion.  The elm was alive then, full of tiny leaves and squirrels’ nests.  Charlie played his harmonica, showing me again how to hold my hands to make that wailing he was famous for.  While gently twisting my hands into the shape of a heart—a heart that opened and closed with my quavering wail--he asked me to marry him. 

He helped the baby—no longer James’ baby, but our baby—into the world.  I pushed, Charlie held his hands out to catch her.  We named her Ginger and Charlie adopted her, Ginger, who gave me this shirt.

 

Mary Stebbins
(050321c; 050318c)

available

All the Kings Horses and all the King’s Men

After the rape, the girl lies naked
in the forest, eyes open, unfocused,
almost vacant.  Yet yearning.  Hungry.
Around her eyes, the tissue is so dark
it resembles mascara.  Her skin glows
golden in the leaf-green light.  Flung
to the side, her arms are lumpy.  Kneaded
out of shape.

Her legs are divided from the torso
just above her hips.  She doesn’t bleed.
She isn’t dead.  Sunlight gathers
in the inch wide gap between her upper
and lower bodies where the flesh is pink
and artificial. 

My mother, who, in another, safer
place, chopped off her fingers
in the mower, put them in ice water
and drove herself to the hospital
to have them reattached. 

From a great distance, I watch the girl
in the forest, want her to get up,
or be rescued, but she does not, cannot rise
and no one comes to help.  And I can’t
reach her to press her together, to sew
her up.  A small yellow leaf drifts down,
falling into the space between her upper
and lower bodies.  And then another.
 

Mary Stebbins
For Kirsten
050318

This is from a dream.  The dream goes like this:

The Divided Woman:  Kirsten split (and Ali Zari)  050318 

 

I dream I am looking at pictures in a magazine of Kirsten P.  I am struck how, done up like this, she doesn’t really look like Kirsten—not the Kirsten I knew as a punk kid.  Her hair is in a perm, large loose curls around her head.  Her eyes are wide and very made up with lots of mascara and look too huge.  They are partway between empty and deeply yearning.   There are a series of pictures of her face on the first spread, and on the second spread, she is naked.  I look closely at her breasts.  They don’t look like Kirsten’s breasts, but smaller.  My eyes travel down her body and I am a little upset to see that she looks somehow distorted and lumpy.  Then I am shocked to see that her body is divided just above her hips, divided roughly, as if hewn by an axe, but there is no bleeding.  I look back at her face.  Her eyes are closed but she does not appear to be dead.  Her skin is richly golden and alive looking, except around the wound, where it is pink.  I wake up disturbed by this.

I dream also of a man named Ali Zari.  All I remember is his name.  And that he is male.  Ali is not pronounced like the Ali of Mohammed Ali, but like the name AL with the sound ee after it, the accent on the AL and not the ee.  AL-ee ZARE-ee.  If there is a real person with this name I don’t know who it is.  I am not sure if this has anything at all to do with the other dream. 

Though the poem ends as the dream ends, without resolution, I attempt a healing:

Kirsten and I lay at the center of a tiny amphitheater in a cluster of odd trees in the desert—an oasis of sorts.  The grandmothers come with the prepubescent girls, bringing their herbs.  The innocence and the wisdom.  They circle around us and sing and chant.  They touch our body, both parts, all around.  The daughters and the great mothers alternate with each other as they move around us, performing their rituals.  Their dark skin glistens in the firelight.  They touch the wound with their fingers, dipped in their own saliva, and gently press the parts of our body together.  Then they perform a Reiki like healing, and our body slowly and gently merges and heals together.  They continue sending their energy into our body and bright strands of energy like roots grow down from the heart into the root charka, reconnecting the energy flow.  They smooth the distortions and lumps completely away with their fingers.  Then they circle and dance, circle and dance, singing and chanting, touching us and kissing us and making us whole again.  They seal in the energy and close the cone of power they built around us and taking our hands, they invite us to dance.  We dance with wild abandon around the fire.  At first, Kirsten and I are one.  Slowly we separate, and our partners are brought in for blessed conjugation.  For now, the healing is complete.  More may follow later.

The Night that Nothing Happened

 
Jean proposed an idea that was easy to imagine as we drove across Nebraska
flat all day, laughing, counting hawks, taking turns at the fur-covered wheel.
The plan?  We’d lodge free by sleeping at a jail.
Simple.  We pictures bragging about it later.  And drove on.

We told stories.  In our log, we recorded the towns
we passed: Oshkosh, Bridgeport, Scott’s Bluff, signs saying
next gas 70 miles.  Next gas 85 miles.   Took pictures
of weathered rock formations, pronghorn antelopes leaping over sagebrush.

Sang I've been working on the railroad and Swing Low Sweet Chariot.  In Wyoming,
—a day west of Iowa City, a day east of Pocatello—we decided to stop.
It wasn’t Cheyenne or Laramie, but a tiny town 120 miles to the next gas.
A hamburger at Mabel's diner, a bowl of chili.  Then it was time

to test the idea.  At the jail door, we fidgeted,
each trying to slip behind the other.  Which of us spoke first
when the Sheriff asked what we wanted?  We looked back at our car,
forgetting the bravado of earlier talk.

But one of us asked.  Probably her.  The Sheriff cocked his head,
puzzled.  Looked us over.  We were twenty,
slender, had curves.  Our breasts pressed
suddenly on the insides of our T-shirts.  Big

and soft.  We were alone with the Sheriff.  He suddenly seemed particularly
male, large, strong.  No chaperone, no witness.  I looked at the door,
took a step back.  Jean took a step forward.
He said, "I will have to lock

you in for the night."  We nodded.
Two cells, two beds.  One big key.
We went in; the door clanked shut.
He sat at his desk.  We sat on our cots and looked at him.  Later,

he approached our cells, keys jingling.  Said
he was leaving.  Turned off the light and left
us alone.  Shadows of bars divided the floor.
Stripes of setting sun, neon lights from Main Street, the moon.

Perhaps Jean was actually calm.  She talked, spoke
as if we were still in the car.  Still free.  Maybe I spoke too, pretending
to be having fun.  But if I did, even if I smiled,
I huddled

in a dark, close space, smaller than a jail, tighter than a narrow cell.
I lay watching the shifting stripes and segmented sky.  Awake.  Not wanting
to stay there again.  Ever.  In the morning, the sheriff returned and unlocked the cells.
The outer door opened to an expanse of Wyoming sunshine.  At Mabel’s,
we bought bacon, eggs, home fries and coffee for a dollar.  Ate outside on picnic tables,
quiet in the morning chill.

 

Mary Stebbins
For Jean Kilquist; At Ellen Bass Workshop
050316c; 050315, 3-12-05 1b (not part of poem)

Process in process

The Night that Nothing Happened

It was easy to imagine the idea as we drove across Nebraska
flat all day, laughing, counting hawks, taking turns at the fur-covered wheel.
We told stories, made plans.  Poor students, free lodging.  Jail.  Easy.
We recorded in our log the towns
we passed: Oshkosh, Bridgeport, Scott’s Bluff, signs saying
next gas 70 miles.  Next gas 85 miles.   We took pictures
of weathered rock formations, prong horn antelopes leaping through sagebrush.
Sang I've been working on the railroad and Swing Low Sweet Chariot.  In Wyoming,
a day west of Iowa City, a day east of Pocatello we decided to stop.
It wasn’t Cheyenne or Laramie, but a tiny town 120 miles to the next gas.
A hamburger at Mabel's diner, a bowl of chili.  Then it was time to test
the idea.  At the jail door, we fidgeted,
each trying to slip behind the other.  Which one of us spoke first
when the Sheriff asked what we wanted?  I
wasn't as brazen as I'd pretended in our big talk.
But I might have faked
daring.  One of us asked.  The Sheriff cocked his head,
puzzled.  He looked us over.  We were twenty,
slender, had curves.  Our breasts pressed
suddenly on the insides of our T-shirts.  Big
and soft.  We were alone with the Sheriff
who was male and strong.
There were no witnesses.
He said, "I will have to lock
you in for the night."  We nodded.
Two cells, two beds.  One big key.
We went in; the door clanked shut.
He sat at his desk.  We sat on our cots and looked at him.  Later,
he got up and approached our cells, keys jingling.  Said
he was leaving, turned off the light and left
us alone. Long shadows of bars from the windows divided the floor.
Stripes of setting sun, the neon lights from Main Street, the moon.
Perhaps Jean was brave.  Maybe she talked, spoke
as if we were still in the car.  Still free.  Maybe I talked too, pretending
to be having fun.  But if I spoke, even if I smiled,
I huddled
in a dark, close space, smaller than a jail, tighter than a narrow cell.
I lay watching the shifting stripes and segmented sky.  Awake.  Not wanting
to stay there again.  Ever.  In the morning, the sheriff returned and unlocked the cells.
The outer door opened to Wyoming sunshine.  A vast expanse.  At Mabel’s:
bacon, eggs, home fries and coffee cost a dollar.  We ate outside on picnic tables,
quiet in the morning chill.

 
Mary Stebbins
For Jean Kilquist; At Ellen Bass Workshop
050316; 050315, 3-12-05 1b

Available

I wrote this at the Ellen Bass Worksop at Women's Information in Syracuse, NY.  I am testing it here.  Let me know what you think. 

 

A Synesthesia of Trash

 

Friday, March 04, 2005; 3:37:16 PM Sunshine on snow and I’m inside wishing to be outside but glued to my chair.  I came up for tools.  To take apart my computer.  Which isn’t working.  Won’t get on-line.

 

I am thinking about creative nonfiction.  What is it that makes it creative and how do you separate that from fiction?  How creative can you get and still be truthful?  That is, still be NONfiction? And when is fiction true and when is it false?

 

A Synesthesia of trash:  (How do you spell that, anyway?)  When I was a child and played the clarinet, my notes came out in colors.  I loved the colors, brilliant saturated primary colors and rainbow blends.  When I was older, I lost the synesthesia somehow, a terrible loss—the colors were gone!!!  But I’ve rediscovered them in trash as I lay the recycling down on the floor for Keith to take to the garage.  The real trash is dark brownish, a bruised plum color:  unwanted junk mail.  The things I hate to part with are bright turquoise, brilliant chartreuse.  One piece I lay gently sideways is red.  Scarlet, really.  It’s something I want to do and can’t afford:  a writer’s conference.  I want Keith to see it, but when he gathers up the recycling, he folds it all together like an accordion, the colors dulling to grey and blending to nothing as he slides them into the red bin and pulls down the garage door.  Somewhere in the darkness, the red writer’s conference flyer begins to blink on and off like a beacon, lighting a flickering sliver under the garage door.  But only I can see it.  Keith is unaware of my loss.  For him, synesthesia revolves around big machines; locomotives, massive generators.  Huge electrical circuits.  Those black and dirty things are shine bright for him, while in the dark garage, a small coal of desire fades.

 

Like I said, where is the line between fiction and nonfiction, and what is truth?

 

Mary 3:52 PM

 

It's cold in here tonight, as always, during the winter.  I am trying to get a couple new websites up and running so I can change from earthlink to roadrunner.  Roadrunner has a less expensive contract now than earthlink.  But as usual, anything having to do with computers is a time sink--a black hole into which my day disapears.  I wish people who built websites made them more user friendly, quick and helpful.  Whatever it is I need or want to do is NEVER on the help list.  Am I the only person who finds the internet frustrating, annoying, and difficult?

Keith and Graham left today and I am waiting to hear that they arrived safely in Detroit.  Outside, snow drifts past the window.  I hope their trip was not difficult.

I need to learn a new program.  This website does not have Trellix, which is so nice and easy.  Still not perfect, but much easier than Bravenet--for me anyway--and all those awful ads--AK!  At least the website is free, and for that, I am grateful.