Reason #5628 Why I Can't Write--Marcia

I called in sick today. James was snoring, it was rainy, there was a sub in my classroom, I' m on a deadline. I'm sick of school, my kids are sick of school, I'm freaked out about a job due Friday. So I decided what the hey, I'm calling in.

I settled in front of the fire with my big stack of books, a nice cup of coffee, my slippers on . . . the kind of day I dream of in my head all the time, and get to experience once every three years . . . Ahhhh, I started ruffling through the beautiful pages picturing quilts made by women more than 150 years ago.

Then someone rapped on the door and rattled the knob, and my morning by the fireside deep in research was over. My little idyll came tinkling down around me like so many crystal pendants on a delicate chandelier. I kid you not, my bliss, carefully constructed, lasted less than five minutes.

So, the day has slipped by, my work is not done, my blog is not done, and my writing is not done. Here is what I have to offer today:

In honor of Women's History Month, there will be a poetry reading tonight down at the Community College. This sounds like the kind of thing I ought to be doing. The last time I did anything literary-ish was more than a decade ago when I had a poem published in the West Wind Review. We met at the Rogue Brewing Company and congratulated ourselves and "read" our pieces. It was so long ago, I wasn't even married. It's been awhile since I've submitted anything.

I picture myself going downtown tonight--hanging with the artistes. Do I still own a black turtleneck? I need something in my nose or tongue don't I? A tattoo? None of the looks I used to sport would make the cut anymore: I liked to look either deep and interesting or romantic and poetic --sort of Gloria Steinem meets Nora Lofts in a vintage petticoat. Now I just try to put on a little mascara and make sure I'm in something other than my husband's underwear. (Yes, I have worn them in a pinch.)

In Honor of Women's History Month, I delve back into my own . . .

Here is a musing from a file I just opened entitled "college years".

"Hey you! These ain't no radical rose colored glasses. It seems to me Joe, that your glasses are pretty pink as well. Thinking it don't matter. Thinking you can run around with your money and your white skin and your fancy education. Didn't you learn that the world is our backyard? Or were you in the class that said the real man is an island unto himself? That's what you must think man. Yea, you go off and make your little graphs and charts. Collect your data. All of your practical information and go be rational. Make your practical investments. But remember you aren't an island--somebodies blood is gonna spill all over you, that you are drenched in it already."

I went to a beautiful, dreamy, tiny East Coast Liberal Arts College. Almost everyone was priveleged . I think I was mostly angry at my dad and brothers and instead, while heavily influenced by my Democratic-Socialist boyfriend got very het up about South Africa. I was so militant I protested The Man, who was actually Margaret Heckler, and walked out (briefly) on my graduation ceremonies. I did, however, have on, underneath my blue gown, a long peasant skirt, a red leather cummerbund and a high-necked victorian blouse--All of this before Medicine Woman.

Here is a doozy I believe written about loving the wrong kind of boy . . . something I did fervently and often.


"Why did she stand in the wind,
sand biting her ankles,
cardboard truths folding against her chest
Pressing a hip to hold up the corner of his hope?

Why did she?

Not because he needed someone to believe
in the creases and vegetable stains of thin worn words.

Maybe she believed in hard-pressed paper
Maybe she found something sound in corrugations
but mostly because cardboard can't stand alone in the wind."


Nice. The stains and creases concern me. I didn't like being too specific back then. I didn't want my mom or the loser boyfriend to know what I, I mean she, was talking about.

Here I am at my tragic/romantic best circa 1985:

"I search myself for the spot where the pain used to be
the ache which was you
Your tongue in my heart [he was a really good kisser]
A pain-in-the-ass neighbor one learns to live with

I woke this morning to find the house of my heart
Clean
And empty
A history of what I used to call love
Vacuumed away

Just when I was getting used to it."


Now skip forward about twenty years. I spend most of my time writing about my neighbors: Women's History Be-damned!

They are so worried about their lawns.
I knew she wasn't nice.
She and the skinny, enhanced Martha Stewart from across the street always
comparing notes.
Martha's house is bigger
Her Bungalow-style garage is a workshop and a studio
It's all white inside--nothing but a Table Saw and an elliptical.
Martha has a white terrier.
The West Point Bitch has a schnauzer
and she just had her new sprinkler system dug in
and her lawn rolled out.
She doesn't even let her own dog poop on the lawn
She frisks down the street in her fleece anorak
big glasses
and leggings
dog neat on a leash.
I don't know where she lets him do his business.

When my giant gallumpher goes roaring down
the block headed straight for Martha Stewart's
(he likes the terrier)
he crosses West Point's freshly rolled lawn.

My child goes racing after on a rickety-ridge scooter
scudding along the asphalt
chasing the black beast from hell
only to find
West Point
out on her green green grass
daffodils and snow drops curling at the base of
a lovely dogwood
her B.B. gun aimed directly at his heart.


So there's the drivel from the archives. Have a great day! Celebrate your own history--you too can be really embarassed.