Fat sweet nothings, but moving closer to that dripping, pulsing something

I am sad to see that it's been over a year since I've posted to this blog. The truth is, if I had time I would write pretty great things (sometimes just okay things) on a regular and often-basis, here and elsewhere. Right now I have a bar job and a three year old and a writing class and a boyfriend (fiance, in fact). The writing class is great and is helping me out with a lifetime of writer's block. I also have friends and music and alcohol and books and this time-crushing (beautiful wonderful) internet. I also live in New York City, which is crazy. If you don't do anything in New York City, you can still be tired and overwhelmed. You can still be over-stimulated, bombarded. Or lovingly welcoming of information and human connections, plus bombarded, which equals I'm so fucking exhausted after a couple of hours of my bar shift that I question regularly how I'm making it through. Yeah yeah sob-pity-me confessional bla bla bla. So many people have it worse. So many people are dead, like Eric (who this blog is for). I know it all and I know it almost every other minute, maybe more because my brain is usually multi-tasking. Still, I want to be a great writer. In order to be a great writer one must write, a lot. One must also spend some time alone, regularly, and must read books. So did you get that? Read, write, spend time alone. These things should be happening all the time. The writing must be consistent and regular, not fractured and scattered and occasional. These are some of the most important elements in the equation to becoming a great writer. And, if you want more and I know you do, there's peace. A writer needs some fucking peace. Meaning, the massive amount of stress that comes with being a writer with no or very little money is a detriment beyond some of your wildest imaginations. For some of us. Not all of us are or can be Charles Bukowski or the Harry Potter woman. Um, hardly any of us can. And there's the stress that comes with living passionately, which is a necessary quality for most great writers. Passion. For me it was dysfunctional, fighting, hard relationships. It was moving to Europe, and then back. It was spending all my money. It was staying with a guy because he needed me. It was drinking way too much. It was working too much because I spent all my money. It was having a baby instead of an abortion (and before that, it was having an abortion instead of having a baby). It was more but you probably wouldn't understand, and I need to go and start my new blog. This blog is going to be more concise and, um, professional. We are entering another phase in the world. I am entering another phase in my life. Some of us are dead and some of us are alive and it's time to WAKE UP. I'm going to write great things and I'm not going to stop. www.writermommynyc.blogspot.com

Your flesh

I find that sometimes all I can think about is the fact that your flesh no longer exists. That your flesh was burned and scattered over one of the most beautiful sites of river and waterfalls and trees and rocks that I have ever seen, and that you had seen shortly before you died. Your ashes flew back at us with the wind, mostly onto your beautiful mother's worn face, and it swirled around us with the waterfall-wind, over our dejected and terrified and lost and loving and beautiful heads. Because you exist for me in so many more ways than you did when you were alive, as it sometimes goes. But you are not here, not in this world like we are; worrying about ridiculous things, reacting to each other in ridiculous ways. Even the best of us are doing this! I know you know what I mean, or you would if you were alive. Erica said Elmo today for the third time with me. She also said Erica for the first time. What pathetic victory I feel with every advancement. She's very passionate about Elmo. She threw a tantrum when I excitedly held up Ratatouille tonight as a plea for the stillness I needed to make a quick dinner. Elmo or Bob the Builder, it seems, were the only ones worthy of her attention (and what attention! What smiles, what squeals of joy!). She has a lot of words that only I, her daddy, and (apparently) my new boyfriend can understand. And probably Gerry and Sylvie and my parents. We all know when she's saying thank you or mommy but the words are just not quite the same as when we say them. I know this from waiting on kids; their mothers translating everything with ease as I lifted my eyebrows and fake-smiled into their gorgeous little alien faces. Now that I'm in love again I'm thinking of you more. Well, since me and Colin split up I've been thinking about you more. I've been spending a lot more time alone, processing everything as much as my head-space and time allows. What a relief (!!!), to finally be processing. I have everything, Eric, everything I need, everything I've always wanted but didn't know I wanted (such as Erica, and vibrant, consistent love that blooms and blossoms and rushes through me and fills me every other moment). This is so weird: You and Erica and Erich Fromm (author of "The Art of Loving", the most translated and best-selling book ever written on love that hardly anyone ever heard of) have taught me almost everything I know about love, about how to do it, what it means, and how it's the most important thing we have and can do in this one and only (and yes, short) life that we are so, so fucking lucky to be in. I often think about the last time you hugged me, the last time I saw you. It was at the bar I work in; it was our going away party. We were newly married, me and the love of my life (or I should say, Colin, who I was sure at the time was the love of my life), we were moving to Prague. I fancied us as some important variation of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The dysfunctional, passionate, so-talented literary couple of New York City's 1920s. Here's a great Zelda quote: "I don't want to live, I want to love first, and live incidentally". I wanted to print their pictures on our invitations but Colin would have been intensely embarrassed about that sort of narcissistic and decadent statement. Anyway, you hugged me there so tight and long (that I was uncomfortable, as I was not nearly as evolved then) and you turned to Colin and you said "take good care of her" so heartfelt-edly. My myspace blog of the time flashed before me. I had one when I was depressed and drinking in my pajamas (starting in the early evening. I had rules.) in the smallest apartment I had ever seen in Manhattan with a dog and a cat and a boyfriend who took up a lot of space (without literally taking up any space). You know that ex-boyfriend. You visited him in the hospital. You were so good, Eric. So good (WTF???!!!!). You were the only person commenting on most of of my posts. They were 'book reviews' that were more me raving about books that I loved and why, which had nothing to do with why most people would have loved (or hated) those books. You kept asking to see my writing and I simultaneously hated you and loved you for it. Eric, you were literally one of very few people who cared, at that time, about me and my writing. Anyway I knew you loved me deeply then but I didn't have the intelligence and time to think about how I could love you, and myself, and humanity more deeply. About how I could become more like you. This pure soul who was just working (on yourself) and living in the moment and just loving and practically skipping your way through your last beautiful days. If I had paid any attention at the time to the extreme importance of my learning how to love myself, I would have avoided a lot of turmoil and misery and hardship (and also some very beautiful, dysfunctional love). Well, I literally have no regrets and have never had them, as everything seems to happen as it's supposed to and, more importantly, Erica would not be here if I had become sane earlier-on. Yes indeed, thank god for my own passionate dysfunction during our Prague adventure. I want to go on forever but I am truly waning. I love you.

i can't stop thinking about you and i'm writing you a 'poem' and talking to you and dedicating my unwritten memoir to you and you no longer exist

i am baking vegan cookies at 2:30 in the morning and thinking of you
we used to bake together before we could see above the counter so
every time i bake i find myself aching with a pain i cannot analyze format and reject
i am thinking: i am vegan now like your mother
your mother is so beautiful Eric so so sad-beautiful and so good
and i am doing this on the block we grew up on
and i am picturing your perfect little giver face
i am listening to beautiful music that i would play for you
its kind of a new and popular thing acoustic guitar and classical instruments such as the violin or piano you would like it
i could kill myself for not giving you love all of this love i have now
for not understanding that you could be gone just like that just one latenight phonecall in prague
but he just emailed me, i thought. he just wrote a comment on my stupid online article.
all of this love all of this love oh god there is hardly anyone worth giving it to
but you and youre dead
this joy this almost-always-in-the-moment always-letting-go heaven that you are responsible for so much of
i am so bursting with rawlove and rawpain that i could almost cry like an indigenous person or like some of the arabs or muslims i see in war footage crying over their dead sons their dead babies
meaning in the realest way. the way we are supposed to cry. you know what i mean
for not being able to wrap my arms around you tell you its going to be okay
is this what they call mourning
this shit
this being unable to thank you
unable to say i love you
this fucking lonesomeness
this fucking empty death

FOR SYLVIA who i must learn how to love the right way. because she deserves it. and for Sylvia because her love for you is some of the biggest i've ever seen.

Dear Eric

Dear Eric,

I have been completely and entirely unable to write a blog entry because nothing was right or seemed good enough. You are dead, which is a big deal, and no matter what I think I have to say, it always feels terrible and un-worthy when I think of using this blog as a vessel.

Vessel. That conversation plays and re-plays in my head. Me and Sylvia and our ex-boyfriends, Michael and Mike, were sitting on the terrace (which you know so well) getting drunk and smoking cigarettes. Suddenly you appeared in your backyard, or your parents' backyard, and you called to us. You just got back from a trip to Costa Rica. Could you come up and hang out a bit.

You climbed up the high brick wall that separates the two buildings' backyards and then, somehow, up the side of the bricked building and onto the terrace on the second floor. Which means you climbed three flights because the backyards are basement level. I seriously couldn't believe you did it. Then you tried to act like it was no big deal but it was a bit (at least a tiny bit) of a struggle and you were a little out of breath.

You started to tell us about South America and your relationship with your father. It was heart-wrenching for me. There was a loneliness about you that no amount of spiritual work and joy and contentment could dissipate. You wanted to show us pictures; you had to get your laptop. You left the normal way, through the door of the apartment and down the stairs and over the planter that separates the buildings' front entrances, which we climbed over repeatedly, day after day, often several times a day, as children.

You came back with a half bottle of brandy that you probably stole from your mother and your laptop and you showed us these gorgeous pictures of a happy and grown-up you, which was almost too much to take. Because it was the screaming death of our childhoods; you were no longer a boy, and my life was passing me by in a series of busy waitressing shifts and drinking and hospital visits and researching brain surgery and brain tumors and fighting and just generally dying, you know; speeding my way towards a horrible and pathetic death.

"You're actually hot," my sister said, laughing, pushing your shoulder a bit and pointing with her other hand-finger at one of the many tanned and shirtless photos of you. You'd been working out. It was crazy. Because we only knew you as a skinny little twirp.

We moved back outside after the pictures. Back into the beautiful New York City summer heat to chainsmoke and drink some more. Your brandy was more delicious than the gin and tonics we'd been drinking. I was getting sick of these gin and tonics.

My sister brought up certain childhood sexual acts and you happily joined in the conversation. I loved this, because hardly anyone does this. Everyone has these innocent childhood sexual experiences; but most people are scared to deal with anything. But as we know, me and you and Sylvie are far from being 'anyone'.

You were traveling around the world and dealing with your issues and finding yourself. Alive and free. Me, my crazy red heart was in-waiting, ready to burst out of my chest. It sometimes trembled in fear that I'd wait too long to change; wait too long to get the freedom I was so desperate for.

And Sylvie would never be trapped for as long as me. We were trap-able, yes; we had issues that were apparent by the fact that we were always in relationships; that we settled and then were (quite quickly)unhappy, but had to stay on for a bit. Bla bla bla. But Sylvie's always had more self-respect and self-esteem than me, she's always been a bit more quick on the uptake or some shit. So actually it was like she was in the middle of us.

You were this bursting-with-life sun-filled star. You were glowing orange. You were smiling like a fucking drug addict in the best high of their life. Except you were really alive. And you told us that so many things had changed inside of you, that you now knew things that you never knew before.

You told us that we were just vessels; just passing through with the lives we were now living, in our temporary bodies. Our bodies were vessels for our souls. There was a much vaster journey of life. We were practically nothing. Our ridiculous everyday concerns were un-important. We needed to get out there and live. To go on these spiritual journeys so that we could be a part of the larger and inner world; that great big energy that we cannot even begin to understand on our own.

Quit our jobs, travel, live live live, love and be loved, but truly, fully. With total freedom. Luckily our boyfriends were either plain bored or had no idea what you were talking about.

I was so happy for you, but glad when you left so that we didn't have to hear it anymore. I was even more glad when the boyfriends went to bed, so that me and Sylvie were left to report to each other on the evening, and drink some more.

"He's gone fucking crazy," I said, taking a deep drag of my cigarette.

"He has."

"He's happy."

"Yeah, he's beautiful."

"He is."

Anyway Eric, I know your soul has probably joined another body somewhere far away and so you are too busy to be hanging around here watching Erica repeatedly and concentrate-dly flip pages in a book or make some of her first pee into her pottie. But I hope you know something about how happy I am, how much joy bursts into and through me on a regular basis, really for the first time in my life. How much freedom and love I have in my heart and in my life. How beautiful Colin turned out to be after couples counseling, how beautiful he can sometimes be. How good he takes care of me and Erica and Graham. I hope you know how much you've affected Sylvie. How I don't have to worry too much that she'll settle any more than I would settle now. How your light streamed into her and got trapped when you died. She will always resist the desire to give in, to be lazy, to live sadly.

I think of you every single day. Sometimes I am angry, but usually I am sad and grateful. Grateful to have known you, grateful to have re-learned and learned and to be re-learning your wholesome, all-encompassing love. And most of all, grateful for this life. For whatever time we have here, for whatever it has been made up of. Which in all of our cases, it is made up of exactly what we choose. And of course, our time is short, and so, so precious. Love is everything. Wake up and live.

Goodnight beautiful man.

P.S., If people reading this are anything like me, they are thinking that I have idealized my friend who died, since almost-nobody is full of love. But Eric really was full of love. It was weird. He loved like we are supposed to love. He was amazing.

For Olga

Erica is asleep, her arms above her head in a ‘v’, her mouth lightly fluttering as she dreams her milky dream of being nestled into me. She is two months and one week old and we are all so in love with each other. We are very short on time, too, but I’m learning how to let go a little. Easing into the acceptance that I won’t have much time for myself for a long time but that I must make a little time for myself, preserve myself and my beloved identity. Just a little bit. For Erica, for Colin, for myself.

Erica is a recession baby, a baby of the avalanche of the second great depression, but she is also an Obama baby. Last November fourth, after returning from the hospital because of a false alarm, we sat up in the middle of the night watching the votes come in. We were both pinched by a biting wish to be in New York, to be a part of it all, but were so glad to be here in Northern Ireland where we had healthcare and skilled, caring midwives and doctors.

The entire American healthcare system, from its tiny, brittle fish bones to its big bad corporate monster head, is responsible for so much early death and unnecessary pain. It needs to go. It is time to start over. It is so wonderful to feel okay about writing this, now that Barack Obama is our new president. Because he is, and has been, talking about these issues. As opposed to silencing them.

Anyway, on that fateful night of November fourth, my belly was filled and bursting with a big, unblemished angel-creature that was going to come out no matter who became the forty-fourth president of the United States. The stress and anticipation was almost overwhelming. The more it leaned towards Obama, the more I felt like I was dreaming one of my pregnant half-sleep dreams. It can’t be true, it can’t be true! That’s what I kept thinking.

Barack Obama did become the first Black president elect of the United States that night and I sat there and cried tears of joy. Colin’s eyes twinkled with tears of joy. The next evening, we sat with Colin’s parents and watched some of the news coverage; the people were all suddenly beautiful, all of the Black and Latino people with their faces full of joy, crying, singing, dancing. The four of us sat there, unable to really look at each other, stunned by our own emotions, joy... relief. Sometimes the little people do win. Sometimes everything is okay.

Today Barack Obama is President. I have hope because this has happened. The youth and the good ones have spoken. Ideals have been shifting like the glaciers. For the first time in my life, I am crammed with pride for my country. For the first time, I feel like I have a country. Eric would have been so proud, beaming with a smug happiness, saying ‘I told you so’.

the beginning

This blog is dedicated to my good friend Eric Andre Fourier

(11 July 1983 - 6 May 2008).

here in the dark gaping pocket
of an irish country storm
stand nude black trees
with all of their secrets

a cheerless, beautiful rain crumbles all over
wailing fragments of dead leaves
you are everywhere and nowhere at all
i cry like a sonata
snot pouring and a wet cigarette

you are in the light
in the bright monstrous moon

drumming your feathery fingers on my heart
cracking my lobster shell
i can hear you now, saying
‘go home and you will find me’

home is the old radiator inside of me
cracking and banging and hot

its thick fingers of steam

reaching towards a bright open window