CatScratches

A horse called Verse

You know how it is Ca…”When you fall off a horse, the best thing to do is to get right back on.”

I’m not sure who said that first, but it was told to me with a trademark smirk some time ago by my cousin Billy while describing the ensuing drama after separating from his wife.  I’ll leave you to wonder what he meant but the important thing is, it was Billy who said it.

Billy was the first person (other than my Dad -always my biggest fan) to tell me that I should write.  “You should write a book,” he said to at Thanksgiving once (like one he describes in the letter on my blog entry "Thanksgiving..."). Of course, we come from a long line of native New Yorkers so it came out more like “Yu shud ride-a-book”.

I haven’t written that book…yet.  But I do write. I have for as long as I can remember..  Even if the only people who ever read what I write are family and friends and the occasional performance art audience I would still write.  It is my lifeblood. But what Billy said has stayed with for some time.  Get back on that horse.

Because I’ve been writing things down all my life and writing poetry, prolifically, since I was about 13, my daughter will someday pick up the boxes of so many notebooks, notepads, typed pages and napkin scribbles I’ve saved and discover exactly who I am. She'll also find out who I was and in some ways who I will be, all in my own words. 

When she opens that box, she will meet me as a brainy, insecure adolescent who puberty was VERY unkind to, with a monstrous unrequited crush on a kid we called Danny Gonzo and a penchant for ballad meter. 

She will know me as an even smarter, happy, if less-than-ambitious teenager, with good grades and good friends who are still an important part of her life. 

She will know me in my twenties when life was really fucking rough and I experienced more in ten years than most people do in a lifetime. 

She will know me in my thirties when I started learning from my mistakes instead of repeating them. When finally, I got comfortable in my own skin, with my own face and felt truly beautiful for the first time.  When I found my groove and my muse and I got real. 

She will see me perform at so many open mics and even do a regular gig at Mo’s cabaret show at the Duplex on Christopher Street.  She will know me when I wrote poems fiercely and frequently and found her father.  Or, rather, when he found me.

She will know me in my forties…which began with her and which continue to be the best years of my life.  Hopefully she will know many more decades of me…because I will keep writing it all down.  I can only hope that she learns something from it all, is proud of her mother and the life she led and finds out things I never got to find out from my own wonderful, loving parents.

It’s been far too long since I posted anything or put up any new poems.  It’s not that my now almost 2 year old daughter is a drain on my creativity but that I’m happier spending that creativity on her, making Halloween bats to hang at Daycare as opposed to writing.  I’ve written and forgotten more poems and essays since she was born than I could possibly count.

But now, I felt like I had to post something, if only to get me back into the rhythm of it. Billy said I should and because my wicked awesome, painfully funny and talented cousin Billy is just one of those guys you listen to, I’m going to get back on that horse.

I like to call him Verse.

cry - 2. to utter one's distinctive animal sound

"You knock about in the wide waters of expression like the raciest and boldest of privateers" - Joseph Conrad

Never underestimate the power of a good cry.  Whether its a broken heart or a broken foot or P.M.S., the force of catharsis is real and it can heal you.  Whether its the memory of your dad via a Louis Armstrong song, something lost or a long ago place of safety, it can wash away the grime of grief and time from your soul and remake you.

Whew.

and HURRAY I'm writing!  RELEASE THE HOUNDS! 

I am never surprised by the ways poems come to me.  As it was in the beginning...is now...and ever shall be...tearing up a boatload of empty shoeboxes for instance.  Or with great persistance.  I've finished (or, close enough) what I've started. 

Not so infamous a day...

MAY 6, 2007

But a profound one yes, definitely.  For me.  For my brothers and sisters.  For my mom's brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and all of my obscenely fertile and randy Irish family. For her friends and all the people she was close to throughout the rich and long 74 years and 334 days of her life.

Lola and I went to the cemetery alone Sunday.  To mark one not so infamous but very profound day for us.  A year to day since our mother died.  We didn't cry.  Well, I didn't, maybe Lola did but if she did I'd like to think I would have noticed...I am her big sister.

We did smile a lot at each other though.  We discussed her engraving.  (Her inscription reads simply More...)  I made a cairn of the rocks from the one's left by visitors on the stone. 

Then I measured the area in front of my parents headstone.  That enormous, obnoxious black granite stone my father would have killed ME for spending so much money on had it not been his own.  This year, instead of planting a Mother's Day garden in her front yard, I will be planting one here, on top of her.  On top of her and my Dad.  What remains of them will feed the flowers.

Afterwards, we strolled through the cemetery, the sun blazing on the hill looking down from the backside of the Palisades.  We laughed at the weird names on the headstones "Knight-Meares", "Creamer", "Hubsand", and we laughed about the story our cousin Matt told us about his dad visiting his mom's grave and stealing the empty flower cones off other graves, insisting it was some sort of unspoken tradition...you had to be there. 

We visited his mom's grave too, she died last August, just after my mom.  We visited Tommy's grave too (my brother.  He died in 94).  Tommy's headstone was eerily tilted off its base with no sign as to how it might have gotten that way.  Of course, Lola insisted we try to push it back which almost gave me hernia and we could barely get it vertical never mind back upright.  I'll have to remember to call the groundskeeper about that.

I wanted to write a poem for this, for the anniversary of her death.  To mark it the best way I know how and at least as well as I did on the day she died.  I am writing something, but it isn't finished and I won't post it until it is so the remains of the day are only what I came home thinking of on Sunday.  Two lines from Nothing Compares 2 U, composed by the genius that is Prince and sang like an angel by Sinead O'Connor.  He wrote it for a lover, she sang it for her mother.

All the flowers that you planted mama/in the backyard/all died and went away/.../I know that livin with me baby was sometimes hard/But I'm willing to give it another try

AI is for artistic ineptness...mostly

Let's hear it girls, for one miss Jennifer Hudson, who has now shown America what a REAL American Idol is.  From her natural talent and artistic zeal, to her charming demeanor and very pleasantly surprising excellence on the big screen (she's got chops for real AND the camera loves her...whoever WASN'T cheering her on during awards season has no idea what it means to be American), to of course, the best of all, her love of being "tick" as in..."thick" ladies, that's right, "thick" as in "Mmm, she tick mon", thick in the body, ESPECIALLY the butt and thighs and might I add, thanks to one insanely hot Jamaican ex think Tyson Beckford crossed with Jet Li, I know first hand how really F'ing good being "tick" can feel. 

She is the SHIZZIT...as they say.

I'm not writing...

...So I'm recycling.  I got some surprise (and surprisingly awesome if it really wasn't meant as a line) feedback today and instead of trying to rush something done that wasn't ready I thought I'd post something "found" instead.  I'll likely be doing more of that.  I often discover things I've written, hidden away in a notebook or a purse or more often somewhere unexpected.  Decisions is like that too.  It's in the title, though I made no other note of it.  I wrote that in under 5 minutes.  Much like the one below I suspect, though I'm not sure.  All I know is I wrote it some short time after November 9, 2006, which is the previous day's date in a journal.  I hope you liked it.

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action

The holidays are upon us and I miss my mom more than ever.  I wanted to write some eloquent post about her importance, her significance, not just to me and my life but to our family's.  Try as I might though, there was no way I could improve on the letter my cousin Billy slipped under my door the day after she died.  Billy will never ever know how much what he's written means to me and to all of us.  So I've decided to post it here...and immortalize it.  For all to see.  We love you Mommy...and we miss you Aunt Catherine.

May 7, 2006

Dear *****,

When I found out yesterday about your mother, aside from feeling an enormous sense of grief, all day long I kep thinking about your family and your house in ***** ******.  I know that it's been years since you all lived there, but I just wanted to write this down while it's all still fresh in my head.

First of all, when your father bought that house (I think it was '67 or '68), I'm sure he thought that he was buying a house for his wife and family.  But he was wrong!  He had no way of knowing what would go on there for the next 30 years and if he could have, maybe he wouldn't have bought it!

For as long as I can remember, every communion, graduation, birthday, Easter and most of all, Thanksgiving, meant spending the day at your house with about thirty other people.  I know you were exposed to this from an early age because I have home movies (from Uncle Bobby of course) of the day your parents brought you home from the hospital and it looks like a Fourth of July picnic in your backyard.  There is also a moment on the video of Uncle Marty in the backyard, and he is giving me some of his beer and showing me how to smoke a lit Chesterfield cigarette.  I can't imagine how someone could do that to a three year old, but after seeing it, Jennifer said it explains a lot!

I don't know if your parents realized what they were giving all of us.  I'm not just talking about dinner and dessert, but the memories they provided for us all are something we will always have.  A couple of years ago, Jennifer and I had Easter at our house and she asked me what was so important about having everybody over.  I explained to her that I wanted the younger kids (Kathy's, Margie's, Mickey's etc.) to experience the same kind of holidays we had growing up.  I don't know if we succeeded, but we had fun trying.

The reason I wanted to write this is because of something I read not too long ago.  This past Christmas, I was given a book called "700 Sundays" written by Billy Crystal.  The book is based on a one-man play that Jennifer and I had seen in the city last year.  It is basically the story of how Billy Crystal's father died when he was only a kid and he figured out that he only got to spend 700 Sundays with him.  In the book he talks about his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the funny stories of growing up in a big family.  So much of it sounded like our family that I realized the only thing different was that his family was Jewish and we're Irish.

At the end of the book, after he and his brothers had grown up and moved away, he talks of the last time he talked to his mother.

"Mom, why can't you sleep" There was a pause and then...

"Oh, I'm listening for you boys"

I knew exactly what she meant.  The cry in the middle of the night "Mommy, I have a fever." The nightmares, "Mommy, there are pirates in teh room!"  Then as they get older, the sounds of their cars pulling up in the driveway, teh jingle of the keys in the front door lock, just so you know their home safe.  She was eighty-five years old now, alone in that house, her sons scattered across the country, but she was still listening for us.

We sold the house.  We had to.  Without her in ti, it really didn't make much sense to keep it.  Somebody else owns it now but it doesn't belong to them...because I can close my eyes and go there anytime I want.

For some reason, all day long, I've been picking up the book and reading this passage over and over again.  Although it was your family's house, and you grew up there, in a way, it was all of ours.  You know, sometimes, when I'm alone in my car, I'll drive down there.  As I drive down the block, I think back to when we lived in **** *** **** and I can still hear my mother tell the cab driver "8617 Columbia Avenue" ( I think I actually learned that address before I learned my own!).  As I drive by, sometimes I'll see people in the front yard, or somebody going in the front door, but it just doesn't seem right.  I never got the chance to tell your mother this, but I'm sure that if I did, she would probably say "Son, it's alright.  Maybe those people living there now are creating their own memories."  And she'd be right.

Last night, after Jennifer went to bed, I lay there thinking about all of this and how that part of the book seemed so relevant to me, so I closed my eyes...

There was mama sitting on one end of the couch and Uncle Marty on the other.  My father with Uncle Sonny watching a football game.  [Your dad] came through the front door, whistling of course, with a case of Schaeffer for Uncle Marty.  Kathy, Margie and Noreen together in the front yard.  Uncle Bobby throwing a football around with Bobby, Mickey and Matthew.  Jimmy and Ellen were in one of the bedrooms deciding where they were going later that night after dinner.  Tommy came over to me, looking as healthy as an ox and told me to eat all my vegetables so I'd grow up strong like him.  I saw my mother with Aunt Maureen, Aunt Evelyn and Aunt Sis helping in the kitchen.  [You] and Laura were going up and down the stairs with plates and plates of food.  There were kids running in the front door and out the back and not one adult complained.

Later we were all downstairs eating and I looked up and saw your mother, with a dish towel over her shoulder, standing on the stairs watching everybody.  She was smiling.  I got up and walked up the stairs and she put her arm around me and asked if I'd had enough to eat.

"Why are you smiling?" I asked.

Without saying a word, she pointed to everyone at the table.  I looked down and everyone had stopped eating.  It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  I looked at each and everyone's face and couldn't help but notice one thing. They were all smiling right back at us.

"That's why" she said.

Later, after dinner, I walked upstairs.  There was no one there and as I walked in the kitchen, your mom was standing at the sink washing off the last plate.

"Thanks Aunt Catherine" I said and kissed her cheek.

"Come back anytime, son," she said.

And you know what?  I will.

Love, Billy

Ugh.

Okay...am I the only person who literally gets nauseous when I see one of the Dr. 90210's wives spending $570 on clothes for her dog in Bel Air?  There's likely a Hurricane Katrina victim who could really use that...or a family a few miles away for whom $570 could mean the difference between poor and homeless. 

In my house, we were taught Ephram (by way of Ms. Dolly) Levy's philosophy..."Money ain't worth a damn unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow".  I don't think he meant the doggy's shoe collection either.

oh...

I miss my mommy so much.  SO much.  This birthday I will turn 38, I will be the same age she was when she had me.  Strange.