I am sitting on the damp chair (everything is damp) It is 3:41 in the morning and in the space where my car usually lives there is nothing but a half a piece of paper towel I am smoking and I am smoking and I am smoking and nothing is going to soothe this I fear The woman who comes to repossess my car at 3:24 in the morning says, “I don’t want to embarrass you” I am not embarrassed I am defeated, again.
She says, “you have your health” I snicker Do I? Do I. “You have a roof over your head” yeah and a house in foreclosure. “Just call Nissan in the morning” she says, airily. Just call. She says this as if it were actually that easy. Just call Nissan. I try to explain that it isn’t that easy. That I have widow brain and I am bipolar. At the word bipolar she perks up. “Do you need to call someone? Are you going to be okay.” wanting to absolve herself of further responsibility The answer to that is obviously no and no. No I am not going to be okay. No I am not okay. No I am not okay no I am not embarrassed but I am desperate. How am I going to get back to sleep.
I miss you. I’m trying so hard to not miss you and I know that isn’t the point I am trying so hard to be independent and stand alone on my own two feet even though it is clear that I cannot
when it seems that I have finally gotten my footing underneath after that terrible summer i have gained my balance and then I meet you. you who sweeps me off my feet and takes my breath away in one fell swoop.
I know that you are coming back I know that I have nothing to fear and yet all I have is fear.
I take smiling pictures of myself to prove that I am happy, prove to whom, prove to myself? but the smiles don’t come easy. crooked smiles, nonetheless.
I think about what you might be doing while I am sitting here and I know that doesn’t serve any good purpose but I do it anyway.
I watch the waning moon rise higher in the frigid sky, fingers turning white with cold. clouds moving with the slow scud of a Star Wars sequence, branches in front of my windshield frantic and terse.
It is finally too cold to sit out here any longer but I am not yet finished. I do not feel anywhere near able to sleep. I am missing all of the missing tonight. All of the missing who mean anything. Even the ones I don’t want to miss. The ones I would rather the missing be inequal. I wish they would hurt like I hurt. I wish I knew they did. That isn’t very gracious. I don’t feel very gracious.
a photo of me with my unwashed, tearstained face, in front of a wall with a laser-cut rising sun sculpture, a photo of me as “Rosie (the Riveter) Revisited” by my husband in 2002, and an exhortation to “cheer up honey pie” . there is no filter on this photo.
I am driving and I am listening to the President and I am crying I am crying and I am crying and I am crying and they are huge ugly tears “A dose of hope”, he says and the tears flood down my face “a dose of hope” he says
Hope is something that I never ever had. It was never even on the list of things to look for. Hope was for the foolish and the losers and the suckers. the idea of hope was as painful as the reality of unrequited love, a crush that goes nowhere, being ghosted by someone you really, really thought you liked. Hope was not for me, not ever.
but maybe, maybe now it is. maybe I can have some for myself, just a little. I’m not asking for much. Just a little.
Hope. The taste of it, the texture. rolls around in my mouth, between my fingers. hope.
I draw my hand back, my heart back sharply from the edge of this hope too sharp, this edge, too unknown.
My chest tightens, my jaws clench, my fingernails dig into my palms. breath shallows, and hitches as my eyes darken, kohl smudging my cheeks.
“Guess what!” the President says, excitement clear and bright through the speakers “We landed a rover on Mars!”
it is elevensixteen now but at 1111 (waiting for the strike?) so much flash of anxiety flash of panic i learn have learned to keep track to watch to pay attention to monitor to see what i mean it is always as it is happening it is always in the middle although increasingly it is on the way up in out. it is no longer as the smoke is clearing it is no longer when there are horrified faces
there is actually (sometimes) (sometimes) time to stop it before i before without i cannot without without without distressing to the point of disintegration
so it is an hour later and it would seem that I was unable to stave off this this disintegration this dysphorically manic tumult
yet another hour later i know it is having an effect, taking the sweet but i really just don’t want to be right now. not at all.
146p
there shouldn’t be this much rage there shouldn’t be this much pain it should have eased by now i am trying i am trying everything to be eased.
another hour later chest tight shoulders tight jaws tight there are two and a half hours to go before I can go core tight i feel frozen, stiff as if the only parts of my body i can move my left hand to write, move across the page, turned forty five degrees to not ink up my hand
another hour gone anger, still no patience, rattled i need sublimation i need to be underneath and out i need to be out and gone one hour eleven minutes to go.
i can tell my mood by my handwriting. manic, here. i noticied it whike working, needed to take it down.
this lines running altogether all together ((manic manic)) heart rate elevated ((panic panic)) eyes wide and brow creased grateful for the mask covering most of my face it hides the quivering of my mouth the tightness of my lips pressed against my teeth i can see the not-curvedness of my letters the thank you notes i am trying to bury my head in brain is so scattered so noisy grateful dead on the speakers but it is jangling not soothing me at all the way i need. i shove a chocolate bar in my mouth a three musketeers where are my musketeers? where are my compadres? my friends?
I hate this president, I hate the people who elected him. I hate every single person who voted to put him into office in 2016, and every single person who voted to try and keep him there. Zero exceptions. I don’t care about anyone’s misogynistic, stupid, idiotic reasoning for voting for him. If you voted for him I hate you. I don’t care about you. I want you to disappear off the face of the Earth. There is no amount of apologizing, bargaining, begging that will help, that will ameliorate, there is no remedy. this is what you have done, this is all your fault.
I hate everything about him, everything he stands for, everything he is.
I hate. So much hatred that is dissolving me from the inside out. And goddess help the idiot who tells me that I need to let go of that. What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do here. there is no letting go. There is only purging. There is only excision. There is only vomiting up volcanic toxic spew. There is only violence and wrath and rage.
I wake up and cry because there is nothing I can do. I wake up crying because it wakes me up in the middle of the night.
All I can do is wait and hope that I don’t get sick and that I don’t get anybody else sick.
I wait on tenterhooks to be able to spend time with my partners. To kiss B, to snuggle with him and spend the night with him. To wake up with him and kiss him some more. I spent more time with him yesterday than I have spent with any partner in over a year. It was about twenty-two hours, total. I have no idea when we’ll be able to do that again. No time soon. No.
I cringe every time someone touches me accidentally without meaning to or just pushes by and touches me. It makes me want to hiss and bare my fangs. How dare you when I cannot?
I flinch when people reach out for my hand and I don’t want them to touch me because I don’t want to get sick.
I am sitting outside in my car, the engine off and the windows open with a rapidly cooling cup of coffee writing this so that I can watch the sun come up. It is somewhere south of freezing and I am waiting to calm down enough so that I can light my pipe and give myself some comfort.
I want to live in a no-news bubble where I don’t hear anything at all about how much he is fucking up the rest of this for everyone. All I want to hear is nothing. nothing.
There is an incredibly talented artist that I love, and who loves me. I am proud to call Jar my friend. They post their work on Instagram here: @artbyjar. In every flash special they post, there’s always at least one piece that catches my eye, but never anything that has spoken to me. Until now. So this little beauty comes up on my screen and I zero in on the whale. Whale! A humpback whale! needneedneed send the DM get your spot. DONE. I look up from my text to see directly above the whale is a bee. a bumble bee. ughneedNEED. Here’s why:
Songs of the Humpback Whale, on vinyl released in 1970, was the first record I was given as a child, I was maybe six or seven. It opened like a double album, had a book inside that talked about the people who recorded it (Roger Payne, after research by Frank Watlington in 1966) and highlighted the problems with the whaling industry. There was a graphic photo of a dockside with the aftermath of a slaughtered whale. There were also five pieces of the most incredible abstract music I had ever heard in my (admittedly short) life. I have since listened to that album countless times, no bullshit new age music muddling the perfect pitch of whalesong, no dumb “inspirational” assholes spewing useless tripe. Pure, mournful, insistent. Funny, at times. Comforting. Reliable.
Over the years, I replaced the album with a CD, then digital download. I still have the album, probably warped from the heat in the attic but still.
1988. I was working at Waldenbooks in the Galleria. We sold movies on VHS and played them on continuous loop on the two overhead monitors above the cash wrap to entice customers. My friend Stef and I had the movies memorized and would run lines along with the videos. National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Dirty Dancing. And Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Featuring the whalesong discovered in 1967 and recorded by, you got it, Roger Payne.
(somewhere between 2007 and 2014) One day after Gary and I had been at couples’ therapy with a woefully underskilled and underwhelming therapist named Gil, we sat in the car, I’m imagining warming up the interior. I’d just gotten the aforementioned CD in the mail, and wanted to share it. I explained why it was so important to me; Gary, impatient, gestured “all right, already.” I hit play.
I closed my eyes, feeling the familiar cries wash over me, smiling as they filled the cabin. Shortly, I heard an intake of breath, and opened them. Gary was wide-eyed, tears spilling down his cheeks. “Stop it. Please. Make it stop.” his voice breaking. I stopped it immediately, grasping his hands, terrified. “Tell me,” I pleaded. “What’s going on?”
He took time to catch his breath, dry his tears, drink some water. Took another breath, let it out. “It’s absolutely excruciatingly obvious that these are incredibly intelligent creatures, communicating with each other. It is abundantly clear that we have no way of communicating with them. We can’t understand them; they can’t understand us.” The enormity of the parallel intelligence of these beings with no Rosetta Stone was too much to bear for him, that the only thing possible was to appreciate the song for what it was: abstract expression. As we would discover, that was something possibly impossible for him to do.
I never again played that album where he could hear it. I’ve played it a lot in the past twenty-two months. Mojo goes on high alert. I wonder how whalesong translates to him.
Bumble Bee. My nickname for Gary, one of. The Bumbliest Bee. The Mister. Mr. Grumblebee. I was glitterbug to him, his Glitter Girl. He used to mimic John Belushi in the Blue Brothers “King Bee” bit. He could be soft, and fuzzy, and sociable, and helpful, and he also had a very painful sting. It made perfect sense that the only medicine that helped for his allergies was honey, lots of local honey. He was my Bumble Bee for years. Forever.
So I see this juxtaposition, and I dive in. Book the appointment. Right around the 22-month mark. I woke this morning of the appointment after not managing my expectations the night before and am still feeling the sadness of it, even though I know what happened and why. Knowing how to not have that particular scenario play out again, while not scolding myself for allowing it to happen in the first place. The weight of summer is upon me in full: soggy, homicidal, blanketing, dysphoria and depression cycling out of control. My good friend John reached out, early this morning, asking how I was. I was honest. “I can’t get out of bed. I don’t want to.” He was gentle with me, as he always is, asking if I was off work today, what I had planned (not if I had plans. Important distinction), being empathetic as I wound through feeling frozen, not wanting to leave. Listing all the things I still haven’t done. John asked, “Do you feel like leaving means he’s really gone”, to which I replied, “I know he’s really gone. Yes. I won’t be able to look around and see him here, hear his voice here.”
Unprompted, he budgeted my time for me. Told me what to do; gave me guidance. I explained the meaning behind the whale and bee. That I need the physical pain that will come with this new tattoo, this catharsis. Even as I dawdled, started the shower and returned to my bed, John pressed, gently nudging me to get ready. That yes, you need this. I showered, dressed, drove. Started listening to The Ethical Slut on my way. Liking it a lot.
The pain is sharp, and necessary. For the first time ever it doesn’t take my breath away; no, it rides alongside the pain inside, keeping it company, letting it dissolve. Allowing it to be free, to let go. As we talk, as she works, as we work on ideas we’ve shared, plans for a future in which strong women help each other grow. In which good men are welcomed and embraced. This future that I am embracing whole-body, whole mind, whole heart.
I get to Jar’s, walking a few blocks in the 90° heat. It feels like a steam room, the entire Bronx is one big sauna. We can’t even embrace for a hello it’s so hot. Upstairs, their AC on full, greeting friends, settling in, discussing the artwork. Telling them the story I just told you. Feeling the weight and weightlessness at once, knowing that this is perfect. We settle in to our positions, discussing the next piece, and the next. They begin.
I take a few pictures of my new ink, send them to friends of all flavors. Obviously I do this for validation (miss me with your armchair therapist observational diagnosis of codependence, savvy?) and not because I want to share my happiness. OBVS.🙄🙄
I’ve been obsessed with this piece, as I see it as one piece, not two. Whale + Bee, that’s how I have it in my calendar. I’m running through names, permutations for a website, something easy, something memorable. It isn’t gelling. The Whale and The Bee. Nope. Nuh-uh. And then, a question from someone I’ve been spending time with recently. He asks, “Is that like a blessing: Be Well (bee + whale)?”
I didn’t think about the visual pun. That never happens. I don’t know how that happened. I relayed that to him. Then I said, “The whale and the bee are much more personal images with very specific meaning. Be well. It’s fucking brilliant.” The more I sit with this revelation, the happier I become. I promise everyone who asks for context (because I’m not the type to get inked for no reason) that I’m writing a blog post about the meaning. TL:dr “Be well.” It’s something I say to people instead of the ubiquitous “take care” (ugh), or “be good” (vom). Be well.
Be well. I keep saying it. Be well. It hits me again; my current favorite ceramic glaze (well, the past three years, my entire high-fire career anyhow) is a beautifully imperfect thing, a Bruce Dehnert recipe called BwhaleD. Be well.
Here ends the first part of this tale.
Stay tuned. And be well.
Whales Weep Not!
They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.
All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs. The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!
And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages on the depths of the seven seas, and through the salt they reel with drunk delight and in the tropics tremble they with love and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods. Then the great bull lies up against his bride in the blue deep of the sea
as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life: and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale blood the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and comes to rest in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale’s fathomless body.
And over the bridge of the whale’s strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth, keep passing archangels of bliss from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies. And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.
And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat encircling their huddled monsters of love. and all this happiness in the sea, in the salt where God is also love, but without words: and Aphrodite is the wife of whales most happy, happy she!
and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.
The Salty Widow 