Prayer boots

It is the official third day of reckoning in Haiti. Yes, the devastation is all over the news. All of the "expected" natural disaster pictures have been posted; bodies covered with bloody sheets, men and women with vacant eyes, their heads in their hands, mothers wailing over the broken bodies of their once gorgeous children, and a world in shock at what we cannot control, not ever, no matter the technology or power.
Humbling does not even come close to describing this event, or Katrina, or the tsunami. It is destruction on a scale that trumps many petty grievances and complaints.
It also begs more of us as creatures of empathy and compassion.
For those faithful followers of this blog, you know that I am irreverent most times. Maybe I find life too funny or ironic. Maybe my words are too sharp. But the precision of those words and the honesty with which I try to convey what is happening in my small world comes from a place of compassion, probably to a fault.
I pray. A lot. I'm not a Christian (although, man, the story of Christ is miraculous, even as a human so concerned for the lives of strangers), I'm not a Jew (yet as the chosen People and as perpetual outcasts, I feel the stalwart history there), you get the point. By all standard accounts, I guess I am a heathen.
I'm not feeling it, though. I pray and worry so much that it makes me unable to sleep, eat, sometimes dream. On my hikes (my form of prayer) I think of all the REAL people I know who could use some grace, some compassion, and someone to think of them. I don't know if it works, but I do it every day.
I am pretty tired after those hikes. Of course, you know who I always forget to pray for.
So, weird as it is, uncomfortable as it might be, pray once in awhile. Whether it's to your God, the sun, the moon, your dead grandmother---grace is necessary, otherwise we wouldn't survive this place for an hour.

Small deaths

I'm not a winter person. Trust me, I've tried to be all these years living in Worcester, Boston, New Haven, the Berkshires, but I just never "got into it" so to speak. And every year, my feelings against this season grow more embittered and angry so that by, oh, let's say mid-January, I'm crawling up the walls with ticks and snaps. And the idea that this won't end until March (at best) is, well, pretty depressing. I take at least 9 supplements EVERY NIGHT to combat the terrible effects of winter; Vitamin D, B-complex (this is more for overall mental health, which clearly is not my forte), Fish Oil (which I thought at first was a suppository, luckily my 80-year-old grandmother clued me in), Iron (anemic Cherokee blood), Feverfew (puking migraines if I'm not careful), Melatonin (I'm a writer, I don't actually have a sleep cycle), Kava Kava (I'm f***ed up, this tends to take the edge off). Anyway, you get the point.
"At least you're trying," is my therapist's little encouraging mantra.
"You mean trying not to kill myself or someone else?"
"Do you feel suicidal?" She already had her pen in hand, ready to give me the hotline number.
"No, no, I was being dramatic." I guess they're trained to be on the alert. A lot.
I take walks, sometimes hikes if the wind doesn't blow me right the hell off the mountain. The walks just end up pissing me off because I never wear enough to keep me warm. Truckers beep at me, which I find hilarious. What do they think, I'm gonna strip down and jump in the cab for a quickie? It's 1 degree outside and you're 5oo pounds. Probably not, buddy.
I give them the finger if I can feel my hands.
Oh, look at that. The sun is peaking through just a tiny bit. Maybe I'll stand in that part of the yard and pretend....
That I'm on fire.

Discrepancies

I remember a post from a few weeks (or months, time is very elusive once winter begins) about dichotomies. Well, this post is a little different. It does not address parallels. In fact, there are no parallels to be had today at least. It is Monday, the week is starting off smashingly, beginning with a "sorry but the position has been filled email" as well as a slew of bills from my cardiologist. Apparently the insurance only covers half of the $500-per-hour consult.
I was there for an hour and a half. And he did most of the talking as I recall.
The holes in my pocket are huge and cold, my mother is scraping together leftovers so that we can feed our dogs, I've given my horse away, my car will be in hock for the next 50 years and what do you suppose arrives in the mail today?
A letter addressed to "Princess Anna Yassafen Dupont" from the King of Cameroon.
I'm not even kidding. In a distant land named after "shrimp", Anna's picture hangs among others in the royal family. In fact, the king has requested a larger portrait of her and he has kindly sent a professional photo of himself in royal Cameroonian regalia. Very ornate and beautiful, especially compared to the ripped gray sweatshirt Anna was wearing while reading the letter. Or compared to my Muck boots stinking of horse sh*t, now passing as winter boots even though they do a shameful job of keeping my feet warm.
Did I mention that we are using paper towels for toilet paper? As are many family members.
My parents were there when Anna opened the letter and I read it out loud. The looks and comments did not disappoint.
"So, do you think the king will pay child support then? I mean, he did call her daughter..."
"Probably not, Mom."
"I'm guessing he has no idea that you are, well, you know..."
"Practically living in a trailer."
"Right."
At which point my father bowed to Anna just as she was letting out a big fart.
"Princess...whew, what was that?!"
"Princess Farts. Or Princess Gassy. Either one is fine."
Way to take it up a notch kid. Anna will be herself no matter what the circumstances. She puts things into perspective when you don't realize you needed the perspective.
We are currently crafting a response to the letter sans smells and sound effects.

New lyrics

Ok, I'm listening to "Lucky in Love" and shaking my head and laughing. Who the hell is lucky in love? Have you met Love? Have you shook Love's hot, tricky, little hand? And what about all the songs written for Love? "I cover the waterfront, I'm watching the sea, will the one I love be coming back for me"? Poor Billie Holiday, all that hoping and waiting, not to mention heroin. Ok, other songs serenading Love; "I can't stand it, you runnin' around, you know better, daddy.." Nina Simone, so desparate to keep Love that she was willing to bewitch it. And what about Ray Charles? He knew a thing or two: "Unchain my heart, baby let me go..." Poor bastard was crazier than a sh*thouse rat in love. So what IS lucky about Love?
I'm serious. That was not a rhetorical question. So far, I've yet to meet a single person who, after the honeymoon period of, let's give it 18 months, hasn't turned to me and said, "Oh my god, I'm f***ed." I just nod and say, "Don't worry, so am I."
And yet we pursue it like it's chocolate drizzled opium. For those of you who claim you have no desire for either, don't kid yourselves. You've dipped your toe in, just like the rest of us.
Love is a mess, plain and simple. It yanks at you with rusty hooks, it moons over you with sparkly things then bitch slaps you right as your leaning in for a kiss, it makes you blush with its stare, and it pulls you out of the abyss of grief (or puts you there).
I will say one thing, love is like horse racing, never a dull moment. And the risk is worth almost everything.

Expose

Some of you may know (and be horrified) that I was at a burlesque 101 class on Sunday. It almost didn't happen because there was a blizzard swirling outside my door and it seemed more economical and sensible to stay home and not risk dying on the roads to swing a boa around.
But this is me we're talking about, so, of course the thought of not going didn't even cross my mind. Not once.
The brave ladies of winter shed our boots, coats, purses, and civilian baggage, including socks, and sat in a circle in the middle of a room. The walls were heavily decorated with giant active oil paintings of healthy looking nude women. Perfect actually. Then, the class began.
First, there was showcasing (or voguing) where you allow your hands to hover over body parts that you want the audience to really focus on. It's hard to know what your best "part" is, I don't sit around thinking about it. Our instructors, Runaround Sue (tall, very healthy, vibrant woman with a nasty side) and Legs Malone (tall, very thin, leggy, PhD type with magnetic eyes and a shaved head) made sure we KNEW that all of our parts were somehow viable material.
Learning to strut was fun, although I think I may have yanked a hip out of its socket. Then came "glove work". Who knew that revealing a hand could be so slow and sexy. I can now remove a glove with the tip of a stiletto, not that that's going on my resume and time soon.
Through all of the feathers, the spandex, the sexy sashaying, the music, the chair work (yes, we worked with armless chair, f***ing impressive) the most difficult thing was making eye contact.
Ain't that the bitch of it. No matter the human interaction--eye contact is the toughest. I can swing around in sequined pasties all day long, strut my business with fringe hanging off of it, but eye contact. Almost impossible.
Remember when, as a child, eye contact was the easiest thing in the world. We weren't performing then.

$5 and pretending

I bought a petit four for 5 bucks today. Actually it was half price because it had Christmas filigree and, oh my god, it's after New Year's so that poinsettia is a little behind the times. So is the snowman set against the white chocolate.
When the lady said they were half price, you can imagine my absolute joy. I ate the first one in the street. Stood completely still and ate it (while my mother did the same thing with an overpriced coconut bon-bon, we took up the whole sidewalk). The second one is sitting in my fridge, hidden from view, so that I will at least have something to look forward to when it is 1 a.m. and I still haven't fallen asleep. Man, that sh*t is good.
"I could get used to this." My mother sprayed some coconut pieces onto my coat.
I wiped the almond paste from the corners of my mouth.
"Me, too."
And that was it. Lunch. Of course, the specialty candy was preceded by hardcore barrista coffee. When people ask about how I stay so thin, I lie and say "diet and exercise." The truth is, well, sporadic eating habits, masochistic winter hikes up snowy mountains, cigarettes, stress, an ulcer, and amazing genetics. Oh, yeah, and vanity. I'm not up sizing my clothes, not on your life. I don't have the cash anyway, so, this business has to stay right where's it's at.
After the candy orgasm we pretended to shop around town. Actually, most of the shops we tried to go into were closed due to new "winter hours" or just downright empty and out of business.
"This is depressing." My mother was peering into an empty store space that was filled to overflowing with clothing the week before.
"You could have another bon-bon if you feel that badly."
"I could. God, I really wanted a skirt from that place. I was just waiting for the right moment."
"What moment is that? When they were going to give it away?"
"Exactly."
We continued our walk and talk, weak from not eating and jittery from the coffee/candy duo, knowing that all that not pretending was waiting for us when we got home.

Ladylike?

I thought of something a friend said to me this past summer. We were all sitting around by the fire (which was necessary because we were doing graduate work in the mountains of Vermont and it is still cold there at night) reading Yeats and wondering if we were going to make it. Being the restless nightmare of a human that I am, I got about 5 poems in and then got up and went to the piano and started playing my own stuff, just tinkering with chords. That's when my friend, we'll call him James, yelled across the old tinderbox barn.
"What're you playing?"
"Nothing, I'm just f***ing around with chords. Why? Is it bad?"
"What?! No, it's not bad. It's amazing."
Then he walked up to the piano and set my little Dixie cup filled with bourbon in front of me.
"You need to be more like a man."
"What? I thought I was more like a man. You just said I was like a brother to you!"
"That's not what I mean. I mean, you speak like 5 different languages, you're an amazing writer, you play the piano, you read everything, you hike and garden and raise smart kids."
"Yeah, and?"
"You need to be more arrogant about yourself. When you walk into a room you should be thinking how people should impress you, not how you should impress them."
"Huh." I sipped my bourbon and that was that.
Now, six months later, I'm wondering if he was right. Most of me says yes, it is time to KNOW, not to wonder, that I've got my sh*t going on and screw whoever thinks otherwise.
Unfortunately, I was not raised that way. This is gonna be tough.
Any suggestions? Comments? Experiences?