about the poem: talking jacks

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Retelling Gran'ma's Stories in the Right Position (Here's the story from Mary Ann's Community and Creativity course)

Retelling Gran’ma’s Stories in the Right Position

Gran’ma sits at the round kitchen table in the rec-room that was once a garage. Some of the garage is still visible — the door, and a small deck area fro storage covered by drapes. The real reason I’m here is to listen to gran’ma’s stores, which is why I always come — the chores are worth doing to hear her.

“Didjya get the table cleaned off?”

“Yes, gran’ma.”

“What’cha do with the crumbs?”

She already knows. I look down.

“Get the sweeper.”

I know I’m supposed to sweep the crumbs into my hands, then throw them into the trash can under the sink, but it takes longer to do that. I quickly pull the sweeper out, struggling with its massive weight to clean the freckled floor of bread crumbs from our made-together cheese toasties. I must do it quickly, but not so fast as to miss a spot.

“Good. I’ll get it later”; she means the sweeper. She knows I’m eager to hear a story, if not stories.

Gran’ma sits in one of the bucket chairs, and I pull up another on the other side of the table. Elbows and chin are always needed from gran’ma’s stories.

“Here, when your dad was small, we bought the first television. All the neighbor kids would come watch the television in the evening. The living room would be full. I remember Bud’s friend, Butch, whose family thought they controlled everything. He thought him and Bud were in charge. Your dad and his friends would watch Howdy Doody. Butch thought he’d watch. . . .”

I’m sorry to say, I can’t remember what the name of the other show is.

Anyway. . . .

“He turned the channel. I wasn’t having it. I grabbed his ear.”

The ear is gran’ma’s favorite body part when she gets mad at you. I’ve seen uncle tom’s ear dragged a few times to his bedroom.

“I didn’t care who his parents were. They could buy a television of their own to watch, by the Almighty. They weren’t going to rule my house.

“Your dad and his friends went back to Howdy Doody. I made Bud watch the show too. Just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean yo do whatjya want.

“Pete, Jack’s friend — your dad’s friend — laughed so hard he threw up his supper. His poor mother was worried sick after I called her. Thought he caught something. He wasn’t allowed back for a few weeks.

“Every week the same group of kids came. I didn't’ mind all the kids. Preferred it.

“One evening, Jack — your dad, . . . .”

My gran’ma has a habit of doing that. Like I would forget who my father is.

“. . . Wanted to play ball instead of watch Howdy Doody. He refused to watch the show. We all had a good time.”

It’s hard for me to imagine my dad missing a show. My dad wanting to play ball! If he thinks he won’t be home for a show, he sets the tape recorder. Before electronic smarts, he bought the tape with the longest recording hours. Mom would have to start the recorder before we left to pick him up at work, so when we returned from the baseball diamond — he coached baseball — he could watch all those shows he missed.

“The television wasn’t very large. I don’t know how all those kids could see the screen. The box was so large; it made the screen look like a square plate. Brown wood encased all the gadgets in the back; gadgets that took up more room than the screen. The television always went off after Howdy Doody.”

This isn't’ my favorite story, but my dad is in it. It’s hard to imagine this house without three back rooms, and the bathroom. If I heard gran’ma right, when she told this story before, they were the first with indoor plumbing — a bathroom!

Gran’ma begins another story; this time it’s about Bud.

“I got a call from Butch’s mom. She didn't’ like what I had to say. Always running around, making me have to chase bud down. If all beat it! He crawled into bud’s window, woke up the other boys, trying to get Bud to take a joy ride in his parents’ new car. I called them up. ‘No, no, our son’s in bed.’

“I walked him home. Bud didn’t see the light for days, and stayed in my room on the floor.”

I wondered how gran’ma knew if he stayed there. No reason to ask. Gran’ma knows everything.

“Always knew what Bud was up to. Neighbor’s kept me informed. Even knew he broke into the school to steal a test before the principle called.”

______________________________

I love stories, and write them down the only way I know how: mostly with squiggly lines because my vocabulary isn't’ large enough yet. And I want to write the fancy way. Gran’ma listens to my stories, asks questions, and I explain. I feel very big. I can tell a story as good as gran’ma’s!

My favorite stories are about Betty. She’s my aunt, but I can’t see her. There’s the story of the Fortune Teller, and the story of dad playing jacks with her. Both are creepy, and always give me goose bumps.

“Down in Converse, when your dad used to sit on grandma Cunningham’s stairs, and played jacks, he would sometimes talk to himself. He was about four when he started. Grandma would listen to him a lot. She finally told me to pay attention. One morning, Jack — your father — took his jacks to the stairwell. He would close the door at the foot of the stairwell. After listening through he door some, I decided a chair would be handy. Ic an be sneaky. I oiled the hinges and knob so I could prop the door open to hear. Grandma was usually upstairs fro a nap when she heard Jack.

“That morning, Jack — your dad — sat at about the third step up. He started playing jacks. About the fourth bounce he started talking. ‘It’s your turn now,’ I heard the ball bounce some more. ‘Hah! My turn.’ then he’d ask questions, ‘Whenya comin’ home?’ ‘Why can’t you?’ This wen ton for a long time. I was concerned. The doctor said he’d grow out of it in time. I listened whenever I could.

“I was at the top of the stairwell one day. I didn’t bother him. He started playing jacks; and if that ball and jacks didn’t move on their own!”

I could see my father sitting on the steps at Grandma Rose’s. It wasn’t hard to see him as a little boy. Gran’ma had plenty of pictures. I shivered. Every time gran’ma tells the story, I shiver.

_______________________

I write in cursive now. Gran’ma reads my stories. Still, she prefers I read them to her as she does her chores. I follow her around the house, scurrying behind her. At times, she’s at the sink, and I talk to her as she mumbles approval, or asks questions: why, who’s that? Occasionally she nods her head. There are two comments she always makes to me: “You should be a writer. You and Mark [my cousin, the master of philosophy, the poet, the calligrapher] have beautiful penmanship.” I know that writing and penmanship are two different things. I want to know why I get ‘C’s for handwriting if what gran’ma says is true. Comparing me to my cousin makes me special — he is smart!

___________________________

High school is here. I still listen to the stories; I still write my own, burt not as often. But I start to ask questions.

I ask dad about the stairs, about the jacks, about Betty. He doesn’t say much the first time.

Dad finally talks to me, just a little. “I use to talk to Betty on the stairs all the time. We’d play jacks when she stayed home.”

He interjects his feelings about government interfering. This was a time when a doctor and the state could force a family to send a child to an institution for retardation, especially fi the family wasn’t rich.

“That was our secret place. We’d talk about everything. She hated that place.”

This is all I receive for awhile. I let it go, and wait.

A few weeks later, maybe a month, he opens up some more, calls me unexpectedly: “I would talk to her. I kept begging her to stay. I was only four. Children at that age are still connected to the spirit world.”

Dad doesn’t go to church anymore, but he still believes. He believes in ghost, he believes in aliens, he believes in the unusual. No more is said. I wait again. There’s something that isn’t being said; something that my gran’ma always hints at; I’ll wait until dad is ready to tell me.

He calls a few weeks later. There is something about the fact that I’m interested in this subject. Maybe it is because I’ve told him the story that gran’ma has told me. Anyway, he calls: “Gran’ma calls the doctor.  He tells her I made up an imaginary friend to replace Betty. Betty wasn’t imaginary. That ball, and those jacks, moved on their own.”

I go back to gran’ma’s story in my mind. I write it out. I put dad’s words into the story. What is being said? I don’t know what to do with this information. I begin to ask more questions of my father, then ask my uncles. Much more begins to make sense, but as I begin to tell the stories I feel that something is wrong. Where’s Grandma Rose? Where’s gran’ma? Does dad know they are there? Why can’t I get this story or any of the others to come out right?

___________________________

I have three children. My oldest, Jessica, listens to gran’ma’s stories; David is beginning to know the stories too. I write the stories down into my journals, or other papers that I put into large three ring binders that I keep ordered on a book shelf. I change the stories every time I write, especially when I retrieve new information. Today I will tell a story orally.

“When your Grandpa Jack was little, he used to play jacks. Remember the house you saw when we went down to Converse? He would sit in the stairwell. Ya know how Grandma Luebke’s stairs lead to the upstairs? The stairs looked something like that, with the door at the bottom. Grandpa would sit on about the fourth step up, and play jacks. One day, your grandpa’s grandma, Grandma Rose — the older lady you saw in the black n’ white picture that looks like a football player — heard him talking. She was upstairs taking a nap when she heard voices. Gran’ma Ginny was usually in the kitchen or out in the garden, like she does now. Grandpa would play jacks, talking to himself. Or so his Grandma Rose thought. He would ask questions, such as, ‘When ya comin’ home?’ after awhile, his Grandma Rose became concerned, telling his mom — Gran’ma Ginny. One day, Gran’ma Ginny sat and listened, but since she couldn’t hear well enough through the door closed, she decided to crack the door open a bit. The door squeaked; grandpa stopped playing his jacks. Every time Gran’ma Ginny tried to catch him talking to himself, grandpa would stop. She kept asking Grandpa chick to oil the hinges and door, telling him the door was getting hard top open. Grandpa Chick wouldn’t do it if she told him the real reason; he would tell her to leave the boy alone. Finally, she oiled the door one day, moving items in the garage — Gran’pa Chick’s space, after jumping on Gran’pa Chick too many times, who never got around to it.

“The next time she had a chance to listen to him, she pulled a chair up close, cracked the door — no squeak. Grandma Rose was upstairs. Gran’ma Ginny listened every day. So did Grandma Rose. Gran’ma Ginny, and Grandma Rose, would talk about what grandpa did, and what he said. They started to believe that grandpa was seeing Betty’s ghost. Uncle Bud heard Grandma Rose say she saw things when jack — your grandpa — was on those stairs.

“Grandpa would say, ‘It’s your turn now’; ‘You missed that jack’; ‘Why don’t you come home anymore?’

“Gran’ma Ginny called the doctor. The doctor told her he had an imaginary friend to replace Betty. Gran’ma Ginny didn’t believe the doctor; she thought grandpa was talking to Betty, that grandpa could see Betty. Gran’ma Ginny wanted to see Betty too.

“Finally, one day, Gran’ma Ginny was upstairs before grandpa came to play jacks, because his grandma was sick. She watched him quietly, and listened intently. She saw the ball bounce by itself, and the jacks move into the air, as if someone was playing jacks with grandpa. Betty was playing jacks with grandpa; Gran’ma Ginny is sure of this.

“Gran’ma Ginny kept listening, and one day, she finally heard the other voice. It was Betty. She swears she saw the ball and jacks move by themselves more than once, and heard Betty’s voice a few times. Funny thing is, Gran’ma Ginny could only hear Betty’s voice when she wasn’t looking. I remember Grandma Rose talking about this to Gran’ma Ginny when I had the mumps, and had to stay at gran’ma’s house until I was better.”

Telling gran’ma’s story to my children is much more complicated than the way gran’ma tells the story. I realize that gran’ma’s stories are separated, that certain subjects cannot be crossed, but the stories can be changed: two or three stories happen within in one day of her history, but none of them can be told together. There is never, “while this was happening, so and so was doing this.” this makes it difficult for me to write the stories as I see them happening — as a movie; I want to connect them into a clock-like time line. When I write these stories a as a continuous flow, I ruin the momentum, I ruin the imagery, I ruin the stories. Orally, I don’t do much better.

I complicate the simple. I am in both worlds now — the stories of my gran’ma’s, and the stories from those who are in her stories. Which is the writer? Which is the penmanship?

_______________________

I hear gran’ma’s stories from the grave: all of her stories; even her stories of complaints. Sometimes they haunt me. I see, now, how she lived: black ‘n’ white.

“Dawn, God does punish you. I did something wrong. That’s why Billy is like he is; that’s why Betty died — I went to see the gypsy. I should’ov never seen the gypsy in town. I never went back.”

The fortuneteller story. I was always confused as a child to why she thought God punished her when I was taught in Sunday school that God no longer brings His wrath upon our heads. Now, as I look over her grave, I see the separations in her stories from her life. I begin to realize the times I told my stories as she ran from place to place doing chores was her kind way of showing interest without reinforcing an illusion of publishing. “You should be a writer.” Somewhere inside of her she wanted me to tell the stories because she always bought those stories for me to read from Reader’s Digest that were nonfiction. When she told her stories, we were sitting down; when I told my stories, I was following her around. When I responded to the stories in Reader’s Digest, when we discussed the stories, we sat down at the kitchen table.

Storytelling is for the imagination; penmanship is for the living: “You should be a writer; you have beautiful penmanship like Mark.”

But gran’ma had beautiful handwriting — I loved watching her write on Birthday and Christmas cards; I still look at them today. Penmanship is a job; writing (storytelling) is a pastime. Penmanship like Mark’s was to keep me from being her.

I remember gran’ma telling me that she learned to be a nurse’s aid because she didn’t want to be a sale’s clerk, a receptionist, or a secretary. She also said she didn’t want to be a nurse; she didn’t was the responsibility. Then, I remember her babbling on to Farmer one evening; she was irked about giving “shots” to patients. For years the nurses assigned her to give shots, when the law said no, when she found out that the law said “no.” She would be liable, and wasn’t insured for such liability under the hospital. Gran’ma did her research. She fought, and nearly lost her job. In fact, all the aids fought. I remember the week where the nursing aids “went on strike.” Gran’ma didn’t talk about it much. She also told me how she hated to write up reports. That wasn’t her job either. She hadn’t gone to school; what if there was a mistake?

At gran’ma’s funeral, a very dear friend of hers approached me:

“Are you Virginia’s oldest granddaughter?”

“Yes,” not thinking about Beth, who lives in Denver.

“She was so proud of you. Are you still in school?”

“Yes.” My curiosity was now peaked.

“How much longer before you graduate?”

“I’m a sophomore now.”

“All she wanted was for you to get a college education.”

The woman left me standing there in complete confusion. My gran’ma never asked me about college, nor indicated her pleasure in my attending. Although, one time, she did say, “I’m glad you went back to school.”

______________________________

I’ve finished my bachelors, and have continued onto graduate school. I practice gran’ma’s stories in poetry because prose doesn’t work. Poetry helps, but it still isn't capturing the essence of what gran’ma told. Do I know too much now? Have I collected too much information that my imagination can’t take over? I want to write the Stairwell Story. I take advantage of a poetry class:

talking jacks

Bounce the ball

pick up one.

Bounce the ball

pick up two.

Bound the ball

pick up three.

  Now you have missed,

    You must speak.

In the stairwell, Jack speaks to his jacks, everyone

thinks    :

“Why did you go away?”

No one hears
a reply :

(Shh, Jack, it had to be),

Jack lays out

his jacks, again,

(this way);

Jack shakes

    his heads,

“Your turn.”

Bounce the ball. Someone

watches from the upstairs landing,

the fourth bounce recuperates

nothing :

   “Betty, why can I see you and they can’t?”

Gran’ma Ginny holds her

breath hoping to hear :

(Jack, you missed four).

Bounce the ball. Alone

he is left to talk it through;

Gran’ma wants the twelve year old

spirit to visit her.

She stands at the stairwell’s door

awaiting the voice of her daughter     :

  “I’m not growing up

Because you’ll go away.”

(Jack),

jacks roll

without his touch,

(I can’t play anymore).

This isn’t my story. I still cannot feel the story as when gran’ma told it. The writer in me wants to be free. I am free, but lost when I want to tell gran’ma’s stories. Writing these stories give great loss to the way they are supposed to be. What is the story? Maybe I should be asking, “Whose stories are these?” are they gran’ma’s, are they mine, are they the person’s of whom they are about? Are they my children's, or grandchildren's?

And then, there is always, what is the penmanship? First, if ind in myself, the penmanship is the person wanting to be correct, to be perfect, the person who wants all the information in the order it’s supposed to come in. The penmanship is oral-nation coming to life on paper. That’s the logical side of me. I cannot tell the stories my gran’ma told, I can only add to the stories. I will always be in two worlds when I re-tell her stories, for I know what she did not know: that little kid in me enjoying the nonlinear line of a story, where different time lines were all one; and that older I, who is now in the academy, attempting to answer the underlying questions that my children, and grandchildren will ask me, “Why?” Do I need logic; must there be logic?

But there is more, much more happening in the “you should be a writer” and “beautiful penmanship.”

There’s the “like Mark” comment. Mark the ex-philosopher, Mark the ex-poet, Mark the calligrapher, Mark the Fortune 500 company owner. I can only conclude that Mark’s education is what gran’ma saw me doing, that my penmanship would lead me to the Right Position, but not the position that another wants me in — it’s my position.

No, I’m not Mark; and, maybe my penmanship is beautiful, but I can tell stories, I do have a degree, I’m where gran’ma wanted me, in the Right Position. Not the position that someone else wants me in, but the position I want to be in — making change. It’s alright to change gran’ma’s stories. I can be a writer; I can be the penmanship. I don’t always have to please — anyone but me.

Tangle Me This (A piece done in Mary Anne's Creative Nonfiction course

Tangle Me This

Solitude is like a treasure chest waiting to be opened, full of creative nothingness waiting for me to release it. Well, I should probably say that solitude finds me, when it decides to appear. When solitude does find me, I steal it regardless of the time or place, regardless of what I’m dong. Sadly, solitude visits when I must escape. Have I just contradicted myself?

Lately, solitude visits me in my daughter’s room (when she is away) among her mess she keeps: pile of clean clothes, pile of dirty, game and movie boxes sitting about the floor or bed, hair dryer draped from the dresser, personal bedding wadded up on the bed and on the overflow shelf, a type of messy stillness that doesn’t bother me, unlike cups, pates and bowels, wrappers and bags--food keepers that I find about the house, food keepers that everyone believes are decorative ornaments of non-removal. Beyond the messy stillness in this room is a quiet I can’t find in the rest of the house because the mess outside her door interferes with my life. In here, cozied by piles, I write, I read, I thing, I work, I cry, and bring back moments lost to time.

Crying. I haven’t done much for the past . . . , well, since 2004. Recently, during Christmas break, all of it let loose. I had no place to hide; not even my own bedroom. Three days, maybe four, consisted of tears amongst the family that visited; their issues spilling over and overwhelming others, mostly me. I’m about a family being “whole,” about relationships being cordial in public and during holidays, about having ALL my children together for Garry and I, about being gran’ma and gran’pa, about living for love. Maybe all of this has to do with how my gran’ma kept the gatherings going. I miss her; I miss the family gatherings with aunts and uncles, with cousins and their children. The piles no longer separate issues; they become tangled, none able to loosen, no pile able to walk away alone. I knew the crescendo was coming; I knew the crest of the wave would crush me. I longed for the bedroom that I once shared with Ginet when the boys both lived at home. The house has gone through many transformations. When David and Vincent both lived at home, I and Ginet shared the bigger bedroom, the boys had to smaller room, and Garry slept on the oversized couch in the living room. Garry and I haven’t technically had our own bedroom since we bought the house in 1996 (or was it a year later, or a year early, I can never remember). The dining room is our first bedroom within this house. David and Anna have the big bedroom because of William, my grandson. Ginet has the smaller room now. David and Vincent have never moved out at the same time, one or the other having the larger room to the self on occasion, after Ginet didn’t want to stay in the large room by herself, after Garry and I could afford a Futon to sleep on in the living room together; not really a bedroom, just a place to hold our bed--no doors, no privacy. While in the large room, my bed snuggled up to the Northwest window where the falling sun would send its orange glowing message to me and the moon could speak without interruptions. My mind would align, regardless of the problems; what I saw through my eyes wasn’t bleak after a tender talk with the moon. Our room––Ginet’s and mine--had two dressers, two beds, a bookshelf that catered to a cheap stereo system, which interchangeably played five CDs; this all adorned the room I hid in often, paying selective CDs to tune out what went on outside the door.

One night, the room and the moon were my only comfort as I walked away from Garry’s “shutting out” mode that he would so often display those few years while he worked at a job that he began to hate. I remember this night clearly, because I had finished a book in the Star Wars series dealing with the spirit of an old Sith Lord lingering in a cave on Yavin 4--a small moon that appears in A New Hope, where the first Death Star is destroyed as it comes around the gas giant Yavin, the same moon where Luke Skywalker trains new Jedis, at least in this series that I am speaking of. The moon, Yavin 4, was extremely bright, just as the moon was this night. Luke walked closer to the dark source, the brightness bouncing off the cave walls as he came closer and closer to the source he felt calling him, a dark source, a dark source that he knew he must face. Oddly, this darkness called tenderly, warmly, welcoming him with understanding and grace that he so longed go have. The moon that night, the aloneness in that room that I could call my own, called me in just that manner. There was something genuine in the setting of the book that implied the spirit was not completely Sith. I took this image to the bedroom with me after having a serious argument with Garry, after being tuned out by the television that was used to ignore me. I curled up, wedged a pillow between me and the wall, aligned myself to look out the window. The room became the cave: it smelled of outdoors and the calling of childhood (because the window had been left cracked open, allowing the coming spring to crawl in), sending a lingering desire to climb trees so I could reach the moon, a desire to climb the Weeping Willow to build a tree house where I only existed, where my books and I could dance and laugh, tell stories to each other, where I could write, or dance, or do anything when I felt like it, where my writing was famous to an invisible crowd, and the crowd cheered:

Deep Inside

(Yavin 4)

out my window is black

the hidden moon

painted on by foliage the gray sky the misty eye

what spirit peeks back what spirit asks

will you let me in

warm my sole, warm my mind

(Place poem here: “Wishing Well.”) My writing is all I have when I feel discouraged, when I feel confused, when I don’t know where to turn to make sense of what is happening, or at least to calm em down and see another perspective of what has happened. It never matters if I find an answer.  And, I have noticed, I find myself finding myself over and over, as I do now. Growth brings change, continuously, and I have found it is usually grievous change, losing the old is death, and when the new is created, or formed from the dying, joy begins. As I said, it never matters if I find an answer, there may never be one.

Enough of my philosophy. I am rehashing memories, one memory in particular, a room to hide in without ever being kicked out.

Tonight, while I don’t want to pay attention to what is in this room, I sprawl out my work on the Futon amongst the wadded bedding that stretches from one corner of the bed to the center, clothes piled and stretched with pillows shoved into the corner nearest the window and closet. Sometimes the stuffed animals that are shoved in her closet find heir way out onto the bed, as if they can claw their way out; and those monkeys, Monkeys, MONKEYS smiling at me from shelves, the closet, and her post-it board where Bobby Jack, a name brand clothing that always has the same monkey on it doing things, or surrounded by sayings, stares at me from a shirt, stimulates me into throwing them, squeezing them, strangling them, and finally smoothing the fur as the tears swell. I pick up my pen to write, then sit it back down on the bed, some force keeping me from holding the pen. I do know that I must write. I look about the room again, looking fro the greater power within in the free whatever forces me from my writing. It will take time, but it will come, it always does.

I claim this room for the next four hours, before Ginet and Derek, Ginet’s fiancee, come home. I shuffle one of the piles to get comfortable again. I want to make the sign on her bedroom door become mine: “Do Not Enter, Sleeping Nude.” I have not done that for years. I arrange another pile and pull a monkey towards me. A lion snaps out. Its size is better, and conforms to my neck better. I push back yet another pile to lie on my back, lift my knees up to take the pressure off my back. His boxers straggle along, reluctant to move. I remember all those mixed feelings I started surveying after November first of 2008; the poems I wrote; I see them posted on Ginet’s wall. I gave them to her. It’s so hard to explain:

i must keep smiling, even through these tears

i must keep smiling, even through these tears

gathered in my eyes. They cannot fall,

not tonight, not yesterday or tomorrow.

sadness is all I have

to hold as he falls away from me.

buried deep is the boy who pinned me down,

licked my face;

buried deeps is the boy who wrapped my arms

about my chest, held me tight

to bite my neck.

i must keep smiling, even with the pain

gathered in my chest. It cannot subside,

not tonight, not yesterday or tomorrow.

sadness is all I have

to hold as he falls

away from me.

Watching Love

I.

they stand without space

so close the heat melds

their chests into one

my mind wields the memory

as if I am standing in her body

my chest in pain as it remembers

once I was her

II.

they kiss the force molding

a new body

a figure that impedes the work of angelo

i remember molding

the length of her body

into mine

once I was him

III.

she lays in the hospital bed

squeezing my hand

crying as the nurse fishes

for the vein weeding through

to keep the next heart bat

her heart is mine

and it doesn’t want to stay

IV.

his body bends in

curves without muscles

any touch is torture

but his eyes say “touch me”

his body is mine

and it doesn’t want to love

V.

that stare

that lingering look

that finger stroking longingly up the arm

those locking legs

aching to feel more

once we were free

After Halloween, after ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association State Band Championship, after a few nights of chaperoning the two of them it hit me. I kept the tears at a minimum; I kept all of it quiet while sitting at my Mac. The first few tears of relief to fall: tears of confusion, tears of fear, tears of need, tears of compassion that I didn’t know what to do with––and sometimes still don’t know what to do with. These tears were the beginning of the tangled piles. No more neat tidy separate living arrangements of the heart and mind.

I’m at that need, the need where no force can stop the hand from writing; a need that I will not deny anymore because the physical illness that often befalls me from not relieving myself. I start with one of my journals that I keep, each journal with a purpose, and all them used for whatever if the other isn't’ within reach. I questioned my purpose to cry before working on students’ papers, the real reason I came into this room. I lay back on the piled clothes and pillows, re-prop my knees, and remember I haven’t done my therapeutic exercises for months, therapeutic exercises needed to keep my lower back, and my left hip in place. Both are in pain. I can’t sit, I can’t lay, walking is becoming difficult, sitting at school is a squirmy job, and standing on Wednesdays when I reach in the computer lab creates so much pain, by the time the second class is done I’m nearly ill from the pain. I limp to the car. I attempt to put one foot in front of the other with an even rhythm so I will not limp. By the time I get to the car, I can barely bend down and seat myself, the pin in my hip intensifying as I raise my leg to sit in from of the steering wheel.

Oh, the cushion of the pile that has no relief, and those bright orange boxers walking out of the bottom of the pile intensifies the irrational quarrel taking place in me. My pain, my need, the thought of who I was before, the thought of Garry’s pain, who he was before, but my pain cannot be compared to my husband’s. And I can’t deny the young feelings of life that still swell up in me, which still wants to jump onto Garry and wrestle him to the ground, play as if nothing else in the world matters but us. I know that isn’t why I’ve came to this room; not to reminisce, not to work up that hurt. There’s another hurt that is tangled in the aforementioned pile that interferes with Garry’s living more than mine; still, it causes great discomfort for me as well. I’m finally writing in my journal.

Jan 24, 2009

I’ve suffocated the tears I feel lingering due to homework. I’ve locked 

myself in Ginet’s room to work & cry, but have yet to do so. So many 

interruptions. If only everyone could do their responsibility for fifteen more 

weeks, along w/ picking up my slack while I finish the end of my schooling, 

EVERYTHING WOULD BE FINE. I’ve foregone my homework to cry, and 

cannot. I want to because I need to. At this moment I remember the young 

girl’s heart I felt before locking myself fin here.

Hmm. I felt the young girl’s heart when Ginet + I watched the TRJE 

today when we visited. I wanted to DANCE, but the pace ism meant for 

children.

I’m also hurt by what isn’t being done––the irresponsibility of leaving 

without things being completed.

On top of this, is Jessica excluding Anna in activities. I feel for Anna. 

She needs her friends. Why does Jessica have to manipulate? She hated done 

to her. She hates to see the same done to her girls at school. What examples 

is she setting.

Yes. I’m mad at Derek. Not much is asked because he does work. No 

different than David.

Yes. I’m made at Jessica. I've already said why.

Yes. I’m mad at David. Pretty much the same reason as Derek. 

Although, I’m also worried, esp. After Anna read the note he left.

Yes. I’m mad at Anna. Using Will as an excuse for her not sleeping at 

night.

And . . . I’m not please with myself. Still,there isn't cause for me to be 

upset w/ me––my need is legit, my reasons acceptable. I’m the major 

supporter (all around supporter).

I WANT SOMEONE TO SUPPORT ME!

I stop here. Something is holding me back. I look at a few of the students’ papers; I look at my own schoolwork that needs to be done. I proclaim I am doing my schoolwork; this is creative non-fiction. I shouldn’t feel guilty for the pleasure of writing for me, but I do. Is that the force that has been holding me back? Guilt? I can't approach an new subject. I say quietly to myself, “Pick up a student’s paper and red it.” I do. I read a short one that I now doesn't need major comments from me, a student’s paper that is nearly competed even in the first draft. It’s such a pleasure not to stumble over sentences that leave me piecing together the information to understand what is being said, and I do mean one sentence. The lion is staring at me. I turn it over, and it rolls to its side, the one eye glaring at me. Why is this stuffed animal talking back to me? I see one of the Siamese cats from the Disney movie smirking, twisting its tail. It looks alive, as if it will jump onto the papers spread about the bed and on the different piles my daughter left behind. I imagine everything flying off the bed, the lion and Siamese romping through and over the mess tearing up the room––i snicker, then sneer back, “Go away.” I look down at the paper before me. So may run-ons this semester, so many pronoun issues this semester; so many words not placed correctly in a sentence at all! Forget it all. Open up your journal.

I go back over what I have written, then begin.

Garry supports my schooling, my writing, and does his best w/ 

chores––inspite of his disability.

Now I’m crying. That’s what I need. The support I desperately need is 

from the adult children.

Maybe they all need to go! I can't take the stress anymore. And the 

sad part is, I don’t want them to go.

Support me. What support do I need besides the tending of the house?

I’m crying too hard to write; I take a deep breath; a few tears spread onto the page that is still white with blue lines. Crying is good for me, but not if I can’t function. “Cry hard for a little bit.” the oversized Teddy bear lingers at my side. I grab it up and squish it. I don’t feel like I need to be violent now. It feels good to squeeze and release. I still have to get some work done.

My breathing slows a bit, but my nose is clogged. I get up, unlock the door, sneak to the bathroom and grab a roll of toilet paper, then slip quickly back into the room, locking the door. I bump my purse as I get onto the bed, and real nose tissues spill out. Throwing my hands up in the air, I sigh, and drape the tissues over the teddy bear’s buttocks.

Emotional: Garry has never done well with that. If he can’t fix it, then 

he can’t support it. His reply tonight to my anger about the house began 

pushed off (by those specifically assigned to chores) was, “Let me stop taking 

my pills (happy pills) and I’ll have ti straightened out in a couple of days.” 

One, I couldn't’ handle the pot boiling that high; tow, it would only last a few 

days. Why can’t they (the kids) regulate themselves?

What other support am I talking about? There’s not enough time to 

run-out to a friends and gab. And I’m not looking for that support outside the 

house, it won’t solve the inside of the house.

What am I talking about? Yeah, supporting me. Taking care of my 

needs instead of theirs. Fix my supper, worry about me, wash my clothes, 

check to see if I’m doing well, if I need to talk, do I need assistance––I'm 

sounding like an old woman.

Am I becoming my mother? But I was still very young––it was before I 

met Garry––when she was put on tranquilizers. Mom would have been about 

34. I’m 47. Is it all too much now? Sharon? Grandma? Where are you? Even 

Ginet needs you Sharon.

Have I walked too far away from God? I have this sense of God 

(neutral sex)––habit makes me want to say Him. Because I refuse to see God 

as Him, am I separated? But I don’t feel that. And I don’t feel that God 

is . . . , well . . . In charge as so many say. God is, but we still have will. Also, 

I don’t think relying on god as people do is conducive. A person must also do 

for God to do. I do believe God leads. Ah! There it is; I haven’t been listening.

I stop to think. This thinking isn’t the thinking I put onto paper because my mind rambles on too fast. Have I been listening to those words that sometimes come out of nowhere, like yesterday when I was walking across campus and I said to myself, “You need to go home and sleep, just cancel class.” I wasn't even thinking about being tired at the moment, I was thinking about not having read all the journal entries yet. I must also listen to what I read. God’s voice comes through the strangest places.

Did I hear anything as I read my schoolwork? I believe so was God 

speaking to me? I believe so. To stumble through the words + thoughts 

previously written, I received information from Elbow that spoke directly to 

what I do when I write in my journals. Was it an answer I needed? Not a 

compete answer. I don’t think I’m ready for the answer that I should receive, 

and I doubt I’ll find it in my homework. The word Bible keeps bouncing 

between the words I’m putting down. Still, God can find anyway he wants. 

I’m beginning to believe there is no such thing as coincident.

I stop writing again. I have to force myself to read my students’ papers and get my homework done. I decide to read a paper that will take some time. I pick up a paper that disgusts me as I see the unformatted pages—single spaced and small font. How many times have I told the students to double space the pages, and to use Times New Roman? And the paper is only a page an a half. Double spaced pages would make the paper about three, not even close to the amount needed for the final paper. This is only the first draft. I shouldn’t worry. I pick up a stuffed squirrel, throw it against the wall, and then apologize, and hear my voice, “the students are lazy this semester.” quickly reading through the pages, I write in the margins, commenting mostly with “transition, unclear, awkward.” This paper done, I choose another. This new paper is written in block paragraphs. I’m not sure what that is supposed to mean. Information overlaps from one section of the paper to the other, characters are not identified when speaking. I must concentrate. I’m half way through and stop.

I pick up a book that needs to be read for post colonial theory. So far, the first novel bored me with the one minded adventure--although, I must say there are paces in some of the novel that intrigued me, captured me for a bit, making me feel like I was there. Maybe it is the superior dribble that bores me. I manage about one chapter.

Don’t feel like finishing my schoolwork. I only want to sleep. Don’t 

want to clean up. I’m not. They can when Ginet kicks me out of her room.

That’s all I can put down for now. I’m not going to focus on any homework. I pick up the same student’s paper. I force myself to read; occasionally stop to focus; cry between a couple of pages. It’s not time to write. It’s not time to write. It’s not time to write. I know this. I came here to read my student’s papers, and do my homework. I’ve decided not to do homework. I manage three more students’ papers before my eyes give out, and I close them for a while, and think.

Ginet’s room. Mine for just a short time. I cannot waste it. I’ve finished my schoolwork, read my students’ work, wrote off and on in my journal until I could cry, and did cry. Garry suggested that I lock the door; I did so. Locking a door? Such a simple act. While it will keep people out, it doesn’t keep their words from crashing into, and then flowing under, around the sides, and over the door into the room. This room has the only lock in the house that isn’t there to keep the inside out. My lock tonight. My outside. But for how log? When will the inside get outside? The lock will keep the inside out. Will it work? I lock the door and curl up under a free edge of the blanket, tuck a pillow, or a jacket, something under my head. I cry some more. My work, my journal, my students’ work scattered on the bed. My lap top flashes pictures as it waits for instructions. I turn to the light and notice small bulbs peering through the space between wall and curtain. A light flashes on the X-Box. I hear the hum of the television that has only had the channels switched after the game was left behind. I get back up to shut off the TV. The cold bar of the Futon shocks me from the comfort of Ginny’s warm room--not too hot, not too cool, but there is a cool breeze traveling across that small space, keeping the metal cold. Black metal. Black as the night without the moon and now snow on the ground. Black metal. Black holds this body up off the floor.

This is as dark as it will ever get around here, now. Factories, commercial buildings, trucking companies make my home and a few neighbors a pond. Lights reflect everywhere; even the moon is hard to see some nights; there isn’t a tangled mess here, it is a strangling that takes place, like oil scum surrounding a feather floating in a puddle, like an ameba being attacked by some unknown predator. I remember as a child the nights without a moon, without the snow, being black, except for the stars on a clear night. And when the clouds came, night was night, was real night, was black like the tar smeared on a roof. I’ll never see that again, unless we move far out, far away from any city. Nights with only the stars were solitude. Looking out my bedroom window, looking up through the crack between the curtains, the stars would talk to me by blinking stories. Funny, I’ve just remembered, I would get some strange stories started in my head from just watching the stars. If the moon was there, I would watch it. I would watch for the face of the moon, I would look for the sea, I would look for the craters, I would wait for the moon to wink at me. The last time I talked to the moos was when my daughter and I shared the larger bedroom. I miss the bedroom. I miss the dining room.

The moon has meant much to me. While my daughter and I haven’t shared the moon from either room she and I have shared, we’ve shared the moon from within a vehicle. Our discussion one evening, after making a stop at an ice-cream shop wasn’t dull; in fact, the discussion was quite spectacular, was engrossing. She came away with as much as I did: our special night with the moon was my space and her space, was solitude shared without interfering with the other. This is how that night went:

A spoonful of moon.

“Open Sesame

A teaspoon of stars fall

Far from grace” — Cathy Young

An accident of words

Spilling over my lips

: “A spoonful of moon”

When attempting to say the moon can’t be

Spooned, after daughter said,

“The spoon dipped into the moon,” instead

Of “The spoon jumped over the moon,”

When she just finished an ice cream dipped, singing

: Hey Diddle Diddle with a hesitation: “I want

Another cone dipped.” I went to correct her on the line

: “The cow jumped over the moon;”

And instead I said, “A spoonful of moon.”

Or was it that we talked about

Spooning over a love, and the moon didn’t

Romance, when my daughter asked

About spooning the moon?

The subject that night

Was the moon, all the way home

From a girls’ night out. There was that discussion

Of the big dipper that fell

Somewhere between the dipped

Cone and the spooned lover, of which

In the sky, the dipper appeared

To be dumping the moon.

Grace of grace, the space shared was a solitude I would like to have with her again!

The door! The door! Did I lock it after I returned from the bathroom! Yes? No? I’m too tired to know if the door is actually locked. The room is dark except for those few peeking lights. I lie back down and wait for Garry to wake me up by saying my name because Ginet has to get the key from him.

I hear Derek’s voice: “Your mom’s on the bed sleeping.”

“Mom,” my daughter whines out the overused name, “get up, we’re tired.”

I didn’t want to wake up the moment they came in the room. I hate that I sleep lightly most of the time. The lights come on and I cover my eyes, hide my eyes enough to let them know I’m not moving yet. It’s after midnight. I’ve been asleep for about a half hour. I don’t want to move. My bed has been causing serious back pain. Sleeping on the couch is less pain, but the living room was left a mess by all the adult children: dishes, clothes, wrappers, no enough room for me. I linger, peering under my arm to see how serious they are. The door stays open. Derek’s legs scoot back and forth as impatience sets in. Yes, he sleeps here. Am I wrong to allow such a thing? Ginny’s door stays open; I walk in whenever I want; the door is NEVER allowed to be locked; and if they wanted to do something, they’re together enough in so many places, I wouldn't be able to stop them.

I move into the living room, and before I start to fuss, I write.

Fell asleep in her room, and the door wasn’t lock—don’t know why. Oh 

well. Neither asked any questions. Yeap; I’m looking for some attention. 

Tomorrow, I’m lockign myself in her room to get my work done, regardless of 

her protest. I’m disappearing for about 4 hours.

I feel the tears. I also feel the hunger of not having supper. Where’s 

Ginet’s and Derek’s responsibility?

Again, I want to be taken care of during the 16 wks, especially. 4 

grown children can’t do that? I guess it is time to get out. The tears are there 

again, well they’ve been there, just below the surface—and not only tonight, 

but for at least a week, probably more.

I want to hug love on Garry; I want to be hugged and loved. I miss 

him touching me. I miss him. He’s in the next room and there’s nothing I can 

do except make the pages wet w/ my tears. I’ll have to leave this open a bit 

to let it dry, or else the words will smear. What does it matter; who’s going 

  to read it anyway?

I really need a room with a door!

My room.

No, my daughter’s room: I must remember that I share a room with Garry, a room that was once the dining room. Yes, the dining room. I miss that room. The room where my computer used to be, the room where four large windows allowed the beautiful sunshine to stream in, even during the winter—this is the morning room, rarely the evening room for me. This is the room I went to when getting up in the morning, because it would be all mine—the room where I would listen to the raccoons chatter as they attempted to take the lids off the trash cans, and finally succeed. Bricks and large pieces of concrete wouldn't keep the raccoons out. I miss the dining room. Bu the dining room became less mine as Garry’s body deteriorated, causing him to do less and less of what he loved. With an old office chair that he has been able to adjust, he left the room less and less, until now . . . Where he leaves to only use the restroom, get his cups of coffee and tea, and on occasion, walk out to get the mail—on good days. The ex-dining room, now our bedroom, is still dominated by him, even at bedtime, the television going on and on and on. I shut it off and he wakes up. He goes from the bed to his special chair and back again all day long (with a few steps into the kitchen to refill his cup of coffee or tea, which—for either drink—are often spilled due to his hands). He yelled at me for years about never having his own space. I didn’t go into the garage, and still don’t, unless my presence is absolutely required there. Garry’s place of solitude has been abandoned for mine.

Solitude has left me again. The living room will be toned down after my feverish quick pick-up.. Solitude will return briefly, and then the noise of dogs’ nervous licks that we have been unable to cure will resound through the house. The refrigerator hums. The stove light set on low soften the dark. My Mac has fallen asleep and doesn’t glow. I leave the bedside light on that I attach to the coffee table before laying down. My work lays gathered in a pile at the edge of the couch, my lap top shut off by my daughter lays on top of Anna’s hope chest, my journals gathered up by me to stay by my side if the urge strikes me, keeps me awake—I want to do something with them. Journals: write in which ever one I have nearer. Tonight I have all three. I read through each of them briefly. I cannot believe the dull stench of denial for the last four years: Garry’s inability to become better; the children's need for us to always be there; my need to have my children around; Garry’s hiding act—so much like his father, his crazy father, the father that he hates to love; Jessica's inability to cope with her own children; my need to have Garry physically in contact with me, to touch me, to make love to me—not sex, to make love; his anger that is sweltered by a happy pill; Anna’s inability to deal with physical closeness—she was a lover before meeting David, but David is loner as well, just boxed in by a family that isn’t; Ginet’s depression, she calling herself EMO—a term is used to describe a person overly depressed who cuts his or her body; helping her through a bad relationship with a so-called friend; the backstabbing gossipy garbage that I cannot stand. A slat in the blind isn’t closed all the way and lights from the trucking company creep through. It doesn’t matter; I’m playing Sudoku on my cell phone. I need to lull myself back into sleep. I want to start crying again. The orange light on the surround sound flashes. The word VIZIO on the TV is orange. An orange light from the Time Capsule flashes—I have to find time to get it talking to my computer again. I only want to go back to sleep. My green throw blanket wraps my feet. They have turned to ice while laying here. The refrigerator stops humming and Garry’s television takes over. The repeating music of X-files will make me get up and shut everything off; he’ll get up and ask twenty questions, one of them being why are you up, and then “Are the kids home yet?” Well, duh! I’m not locked in Ginny’s bedroom. I want to go to sleep, but so much annoys me: dirty dishes, unfolded towels, sweeper not ran, . . . . Can I go back into Ginet’s room where my responsibility stops?

I remember my words: I want to be taken care of. I’m not only tired from lack of sleep, I’m tired from aiding and abetting children that don’t want to grow up. But this isn't’ right either. Ginet is still under age. Will, my grandson, begins to cry. This goes on for several minutes until I hear David or Anna mumble and stumble from the bedroom. I realize Anna hasn’t been asleep because the glow of her lap top streams through the open doorway. She allows Will to cry, trying to get him to stay in his crib and sleep the night through, attempting to “not” get up and take care of him with hugs he craves continuously. I haven’t had the heart to tell either of them that William is showing signs of retardation. I hope I’m wrong; I hope it is mild. Ginny has recognized it as well. There will be no solitude now. It will be noisy for the next hour as Anna keeps putting him back into his bed with a bottle or his Elli (a squishy, squeaky, crumbly sounding toy that looks like an elephant).

I work my way out of the game, close the phone, position my pillows and shut off the small light that is clipped to the rolling printer table that I use as a coffee table. I curl around a pillow, place one between my knees and ankles, plop a small pillow under my left arm and fold the sheet and blanket up to my chin. Garry’s television repeats, Will cries off and on, and I can’t go to sleep in my car—it’s too cold!