Liste Chardon

I still have love for Blogspot

But these days I am doing most of my writing over here.

sense memory

Last night we went to a house, and it smelled inside just like a house that I once shared with another man.  A house that I was not happy in, a place where I didn’t feel I belonged, where I felt simultaneously resented and suffocated by adoration.  I couldn’t suss out why I got into a foul mood.  I felt like smoking because I spent the entire time out on the front porch, where a couple of the guys were chain-smoking, and I didn’t go inside except to pee because no one was hanging out in there but mainly because the smell and feel of the place reminded me too much of the old unhappy house.  I didn’t smoke a cigarette, although this morning my lungs felt heavy as if I had, probably just due to secondhand smoke.  That house lingers in my memory so sadly, that house represented some things I’d rather not face.  I went to live there because I needed to be taken care of, or at least I needed to be loved very much by someone who thought he could help me.  He was too mild for me, but we shared a genuine affection for one another, an affinity.  Even when we fought or he would lecture me I could sense that he was not saying what he really wanted to say, which was maybe that he thought I was a little crazy, or maybe that he thought I was an alcoholic. 

I stifled in that house, chafed, followed rules I didn’t care for and used water so hard it dyed my toenails orange.  I wanted to be comfortable there because I had so much—stability and companionship and rooms to walk in and out of, places for my books and a large television.  I only wanted to be alone at that house, and when he was away it was a blessing.  No, I didn’t only want to be by myself, I just didn’t want to be alone with him.  I enjoyed his company for the most part, but to be alone together meant that I could feel his disapproval more keenly, that his habits would grate on my nerves more sharply, or that we would attempt to recreate an intimacy that I had begun to resent and dread, intimacy that felt like punishment because there was no attraction for me anymore and I revulsed myself for continuing to go through the motions.  I was incredulous that this big love could just ebb away and that, unprepared, I was left with a cavernous need to love someone else, yet a lingering commitment to the first love.  The guilt was the worst part of it, and I struggled with it but denied it, shrugging, and claiming innocence.  I didn’t want him to touch me when we slept, side-by-side, and anesthetized myself in case he did.  You can see how this house turned into a prison but how I was afraid to leave it.

I was poor then, and afraid of becoming poorer, but that man in spite of his love, never offered to help me financially.  I assumed that was because he had even less money than I, and it wasn’t until years after the dissolution of our relationship that I found out he had a great deal of money, and always had.  It wasn’t that he was ungenerous, or at least it wasn’t just that he was ungenerous.  It was that he had it and was a stickler about not using it, for himself or anyone.  And that in some ways explains why my love for him fell apart.  Not because he would not support me, but because he was inexplicably awkward and cold in strange ways, and although I know he tried he never had a true facility with emotions.  Rather than long bear hugs he had been raised on shoulder-pats, and there was no way to reconcile the two.  He saw me abuse myself and was passive and although I never wanted someone to stop me, I would have relished recognition of the pain I felt.  When my mama was in the hospital dying my siblings and I huddled together like puppies seeking comfort, and I remember Josa saying almost to herself, “this is so terrible (especially for you, because), oh Em you are so sensitive.”

I didn’t know what I wanted or needed.  We never really feel real to ourselves, and that is how we can do the things we do.  Bravery or courage is another facet of disbelieving our realness.  So is doing something that ends up hurting other people, which isn’t intentional but still requires acknowledgment.  I don’t understand myself completely today, but I think I do understand myself better now than I did a few years ago, which means that I am making progress.  Like all progress, you don’t notice it during, and after some time you can see what change you’ve made and think about it as “happening”, even though it didn’t come about without some real effort.  I wish I had not hurt someone in a misguided attempt to find fulfillment.  I know that I have hurt others since.  I’m sorry, but I am not holding myself prisoner with guilt anymore.  I am getting better at this.

A C'est Soir

Tonight I will be in Portland, with Dan. Happy Thanksgiving, friends, and an extra special congratulations to Jess and her beau Mark, who are having a baby! Additionally, felicidades to Jessica (Petracovich) and her husband Ryan who just had a beautiful baby girl this week. Congratulations, you crazy kids... ain't love grand?

I Don't Wanna Hate

But it appears I'm in a surly mood this week. Ah, who are we kidding, I am in a surly mood about 83 per cent of my life. But still, I haven't forgotten about the Wordy Thirty, and I've been thinking about it, and planning things (and by planning I mean that when I am going to sleep I am all like "I should really get on that tomorrow!") but I am taking all of the suggestions into very serious consideration. And I am working on a master list. But the way I am about challenges is like this: I both want people to know about it, yet I dread having to explain why I haven't accomplished it all yet. So, I'm trolling around the fb, and come across thisahere thing:

By way of a preface I will say that so as not to insult people who have taken the "Bucket List" seriously, I went ahead and took the liberty of X-ing the boxes that apply to me. Read on

"The Bucket List. Place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not.

Things you have done during your lifetime:
() Gone on a blind date
(X) Donated Blood
(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada
() Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida
() Been to Hawaii
() Been to Ecuador
() Been to Peru
( ) Been to Jamaica
( ) Been to Italy
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
() Sailed under the Golden Gate
(X) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
() Hugged a homeless person
(X) Swam in the ocean
( ) Swam with Stingrays
(X) Been sailing in the ocean (the bay)
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
() Played cops and robbers
() Recently colored with crayons
( ) Ran a marathon
(X) Sang Karaoke
(X) Volunteered at a soup kitchen
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
( ) Seen the Northern Lights
( ) Been Parasailing
( ) Been on TV
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
() Fed an elephant
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
() Fired a gun
(X) Danced in the rain
() Been to the Opera
() Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Serenaded someone
( ) Seen a U.S.President in person
(X ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X ) Watched the sunrise with someone
( ) Driven a race car
(X) Been to a National Museum
() Been to a Wax Museum
(X ) Eaten caviar
(X) Blown bubbles
(x) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
( )Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(X) Seen the Grand Canyon
(X) Seen the Statue of Liberty
() Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
() Traveled by train
(X) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
() Ridden on a San Francisco cable car
(X) Been to Disneyland OR Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer
() Been in a rain forest
(X ) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
() Ridden on an elephant
() Ridden on a Camel
() Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
() Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
() Watched the sun rise over the Ocean
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
(X) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to a Major League Baseball game
() Been to a National Football League game
( ) Swam with sharks
() Been White Water Rafting
() Written a book or screen play
() Volunteered with orphans
(X) Loved someone more than Yourself"

Okay, cheeseandrice! Right? First of all, let's just get this out in the open. I don't know whose Bucket List this is, and I guess I don't really care. But whoever puts "watched someone die" and "paid for a meal with coins only" in the same context has some priorities pretty far out of whack. Not that everything on the list should maintain the same level of importance, but dang! This person wrote "seen whales in the ocean" as if they occur somewhere else! I'll admit, I feel kinda bad, because I have neither seen, nor heard, nor know what a glacier calf is. I'm assuming it's some kind of offspring of a glacier, but I've been too busy giving blood to check out the glacier calves this time of year, apologies. "Recently colored with crayons", "hugged a homeless person" and "gone to the movies" also caused a certain amount of vexation. Because, well: yes, no, yes-- does this make me a bad person? Crap. There are some things that certain people just can't do. Like love someone more than yourself. I kid. But really, I have some serious motion sickness. I have to be drugged to the gills to get on a sailboat, at which point I am no help in "coming about" and whatnot. I just stare lazily and tranquilly at the eddies in the boat's wake. So whitewater rafting may not be for me. That's another thing.

Okay, Wordy Thirty's not a Bucket List, and furthermore, even while I haven't seen the movie of the same title and never (please god) will, I don't really think that I like this Bucket List. As a literary transvestite once said, "two tears in a bucket, motherfuck it". While perhaps inappropriate, I concur.