The NYCW changed my mind completely. I went to Maryhouse on the Lower East Side on Tuesday, arrived at the lunch rush. I fell in love.
I stayed in Martha's room (a granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the one who has a farm in Vermont) on the third floor. I met just about all the people that Sheila told me about, and felt as if I had known them all along, like we were friends long before. It was easy, fitting myself into Maryhouse.
I retreated to my room for a nap, ended up sleeping through dinner but waking up just in time for mass happening at Josephhouse. Oh sigh. And then I had all sorts of crazy ideas about staying at least til the end of the week. After mass I sat with Carla (who is fabulous, who reads like a Mack truck) we watched TV and later I walked with Ted (Ted, who reminded me a bit of a future Tyler) to the small grocery on 4th Street. We got Ben & Jerry's and other snacks, walked home and vegged out. Carla and Ted and Tanya (who had just arrived) and me, this girl suddenly finding herself in no hurry to leave New York, if it means leaving the Worker eating ice cream watching the news.
I went to bed woke up in the morning and then Eugene and I went to the Bean for coffee and Internet. Eugene granting me tenure, saying I should stay stay stay. We went back to Maryhouse, and I took a walk to put out some mail then came back to help with lunch. It was such a fun afternoon, rescuing a pasta salad from over salting, washing dishes, sweating, reading Rilke in German and English more eloquently, trying to arrange a switch with Clare (who is there for the summer, who will come and hang with the SBCW soon) to send her back to South Bend in my stead.
Ted escorted me to the Port Authority, we took the F train to the A train and then I was all set. We agreed that I should come back next summer, be on kitchen duty, bake pies and the like. I'm so there.
So New York (and this is probably true of most any place I guess) was generally overwhelming. But New York with the Worker: somewhere I want to get to know. Community makes everything better, because then there are precocious children who make Lego films and hilarious girls who tell the silliest jokes and take all the credit for the pasta salad. People to talk your ears right off your head and to tell you that the world needs your smile. I guess I could love New York after all.
But I think I will be quite pleased to be home. Nine and a half more hours, keep your fingers crossed.
"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence
7.05.2011
Sunday in NYC: huddled with the puddles
I'm not a quitter. I was determined to see more of the city than the subway and that was that. So I left with Caroline in the morning and caught the PATH to World Trade Center. It was raining and humid, but I had a colorful polka dotted umbrella and I was ready. Caroline walked me past the famous St. Peter's graveyard and church, down to the subway to catch the 4 train.
We parted and I rode to 51st street and walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral for mass. I decided that it was the quieter holy places that I would love in New York. Mass was a great way to start the day and I ate strawberries as I walked back to the subway to head to the Frick. It was full of obnoxious tourists who just stood in the middle of the rooms blocking the natural flow of traffic through the collection. The magazine I read told me the Frick was great for romantics. I'm one of those, I thought. I enjoyed it. I spent three hours there at least gazing into art that I had only seen in my art history books. I was most excited to see Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert. I love that painting and there it was right in front of my eyes. I mean, I can't explain it, being in the same room with that painting. My other favorites were the Turners and The Lake by Corot.
Exiting the Frick I planned to walk down to the Met and I noticed across 5th Avenue a bunch of trees, not realizing that it was Central Park and also that Central Park was that big. I meandered through the Park, saw the water reserve and the Alice in Wonderland statue. Walked under the bridge and then out to the Met. I felt like I had walked into a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, but instead of Birds the title could have been People. There were as many people inside the Met as sitting outside on the steps, and the museum was closing in an hour so I left to meet Caroline, downtown near her job.
I boarded the 6 train. Sitting across from me was a man, obviously high out of his mind. He didn't seem to have control over his body at all, his head whenever the train jerked forward would slam against the wall of the car. One stop away from my destination he started masturbating.
When we got home Caroline fed me homemade chocolates and champagne.
"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence
We parted and I rode to 51st street and walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral for mass. I decided that it was the quieter holy places that I would love in New York. Mass was a great way to start the day and I ate strawberries as I walked back to the subway to head to the Frick. It was full of obnoxious tourists who just stood in the middle of the rooms blocking the natural flow of traffic through the collection. The magazine I read told me the Frick was great for romantics. I'm one of those, I thought. I enjoyed it. I spent three hours there at least gazing into art that I had only seen in my art history books. I was most excited to see Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert. I love that painting and there it was right in front of my eyes. I mean, I can't explain it, being in the same room with that painting. My other favorites were the Turners and The Lake by Corot.
Exiting the Frick I planned to walk down to the Met and I noticed across 5th Avenue a bunch of trees, not realizing that it was Central Park and also that Central Park was that big. I meandered through the Park, saw the water reserve and the Alice in Wonderland statue. Walked under the bridge and then out to the Met. I felt like I had walked into a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, but instead of Birds the title could have been People. There were as many people inside the Met as sitting outside on the steps, and the museum was closing in an hour so I left to meet Caroline, downtown near her job.
I boarded the 6 train. Sitting across from me was a man, obviously high out of his mind. He didn't seem to have control over his body at all, his head whenever the train jerked forward would slam against the wall of the car. One stop away from my destination he started masturbating.
When we got home Caroline fed me homemade chocolates and champagne.
"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence
Saturday in NYC: if you can make it here...
I went into the kitchen smoked a cigarette, singing the lord's prayer and a hail Mary with wisps of smoke. I took an acetaminophen with a swallow of water from the icebox. In the bathroom I wet a cloth cool and wandered into Caroline's bedroom to rest.
I lost my nerve in Union Station. It was rush hour perhaps so many people moving in and out like tides of the ocean I wanted to be so close too. I didn't know where I was going there was a bucket drummer and two guys playing jazz on competing platforms wearing alien masks. And I told myself I wasn't going to cry but I did. The frustration was condensating in my bones and I just hoped that I was as invisible and faceless as I felt. On the PATH back to Caroline's apartment I boarded with a beautiful girl. She was tall and her skin was flawless. I sat in the corner of the car and she flashed a smile at me. I smiled back. She noticed me crying and she slid closer to ask why. I mumbled something about just wanting to go home and she said me too. Her name was Joy, she had just moved to the city for art school from Atlanta. She missed her friends, wasn't used to the city, felt like she hadn't met anyone who was just kind and laid back. She had been on her way to a gallery opening but standing in the line, started crying and decided to retreat to her apartment. She felt so alone. I listened and nodded. "You're the nicest person I've met so far." You too, Joy, you too.
I am not a tough cookie, say perhaps a ginger snap. I am a soft boiled egg out of the shell, I am a bleeding heart pumping in your hand. I am not weak, no this is not what I am saying. I know I am strong, but my strength is not the kind of strength that is brash or physical or maybe even all that useful. It is as variable as light or water. I use it in my ears to catch your words, spoken and silent. In my eyes as I read your face your skin. It's in my voice when I recite a poem or sing a song. In my diaphragm laboring over laughter. In my hands when I massage your neck, back and feet. In my arms and back when I lift you off the ground for a spinning glee filled hug.
"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence
I lost my nerve in Union Station. It was rush hour perhaps so many people moving in and out like tides of the ocean I wanted to be so close too. I didn't know where I was going there was a bucket drummer and two guys playing jazz on competing platforms wearing alien masks. And I told myself I wasn't going to cry but I did. The frustration was condensating in my bones and I just hoped that I was as invisible and faceless as I felt. On the PATH back to Caroline's apartment I boarded with a beautiful girl. She was tall and her skin was flawless. I sat in the corner of the car and she flashed a smile at me. I smiled back. She noticed me crying and she slid closer to ask why. I mumbled something about just wanting to go home and she said me too. Her name was Joy, she had just moved to the city for art school from Atlanta. She missed her friends, wasn't used to the city, felt like she hadn't met anyone who was just kind and laid back. She had been on her way to a gallery opening but standing in the line, started crying and decided to retreat to her apartment. She felt so alone. I listened and nodded. "You're the nicest person I've met so far." You too, Joy, you too.
I am not a tough cookie, say perhaps a ginger snap. I am a soft boiled egg out of the shell, I am a bleeding heart pumping in your hand. I am not weak, no this is not what I am saying. I know I am strong, but my strength is not the kind of strength that is brash or physical or maybe even all that useful. It is as variable as light or water. I use it in my ears to catch your words, spoken and silent. In my eyes as I read your face your skin. It's in my voice when I recite a poem or sing a song. In my diaphragm laboring over laughter. In my hands when I massage your neck, back and feet. In my arms and back when I lift you off the ground for a spinning glee filled hug.
"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence
7.01.2011
In which the poet emerges as a gorgeous butterfly [and was it ever about time]
I'm not sure how to start really. Tomorrow morning I leave Johnson for New York City. I will be traveling with the dear Caroline and then the even more dear Mara will be fetching me like a well worn bone back to those who own my heart of hearts. Can you imagine that it has really been two months since my loving acquired family had flung me from South Bend and into the world with all the confidence that I would experience adventure like I have never dreamed? Now I will be on my way home. I can't wipe away this smile because I am thinking of dinner at the Worker, and Brendan and Karl, Claire's laugh and Kathy's sweetness, Bert's quirkiness, going to mass with people I love, the prospect of seeing one Mike Thomas, making granola for the co-op, Artpost, Grant and Kari. I really can't wait.
But the bittersweet. A list of things I will miss perhaps:
Bacon and raisins for breakfast, Saturday night Karaoke, art everywhere, artists everywhere, the genuine cool of Justin and Harlan, their smiles, sweet dogs, that haughty orange cat, the Gihon River, David's sharp observations and sincerity, standing and singing on the bridge, cool rainy days, fresh baked bread at lunch and dinner, ginger ale all the time, Adam's wit, Mike's eye rolls, everything about Susan, being a big kid, bedazzled vaginas, the hair trigger on the hot water in the shower, the nicknames, the dance parties, the cemetery, the gentle teasing, the goodness, being a sweetheart really, being a delicate flower, lighting up David's life... I will probably miss most everything.
I might be able to carry some of these things with me. If I didn't get a chance to write to you I apologize, but the summer is still young and I will write you from South Bend even if you are also in South Bend.
Yesterday Kathy asked me who I had just fallen in love with. I had a hard time thinking of one specific person, so many of the people I have met here have been amazingly formative to my growth as an artist and a person. I have a true abiding affection for these people and this place. I hope to know and love them for a worthwhile. If I'm allowed to say so though, I think the person I have most fallen in love with is Sade. People have been telling me about her for years, but I never really saw it... I see it now like I've never seen it before. As I was telling the Summer Lover earlier today, I even find myself loving, and if not loving then completely owning those things that drive me batshit crazy about myself, those things that feel unbearable to bear and to bare.
Enough about me though. This morning after breakfast I went on a walk with Lily. We walked to and through a cemetery at the top of a steep hill. We talked about various topics, noticing the names and dates and words printed on the headstones, their shapes and what they were made of. We laughed among the dead, we spoke their names, calculated the years they had lived. I thought I would like to have a headstone that read only "laugh" when we wondered what it would be like if the cause of death was chiseled in stone instead of the family name. I told her how I wanted to have my cremains planted with a tree seed and for lovers to carve their initials into my bark. We found a marker that read "Ruth Green Mould, Artist--Lady" and we decided to end our walked there and turn back, sensing that we wouldn't encounter anything that read that perfectly. To be remembered as an artist and a lady, how grand.
So maybe you are curious about my foray into summer love. I've decided that until I tire of it the summer is the only time I will ever allow myself to fall in love. As someone who falls in love practically every other day I think this is fitting. Summer love in its very name implies brevity and is seasonal. And when I say "fall in love" I mean this in a completely frivolous manner. I have the rest of my life to take myself too seriously, if that is what I choose to do. But I will only be in my twenties for five more summers after this one. So I got rid of the secret wedding playlist I've been compiling for over a year. And the Summer Lover has suggested that we write to each other, seeing that I love to write, I have agreed and addresses have been exchanged. Beyond that I don't foresee romance, but I was excited by the experience, the candidness it inspired.
My writing this month. I came with a plan to plow through the manuscript, his & Hers. I hope you won't be disappointed to hear that the month took me in a different direction completely. I'm working largely on a series of poems I call Dream Machines. So far I have three sets, at about six or seven prose poems each. They captivate my attention because I am loosed and playful writing them, I play with the sound the meanings of the words, manipulating images, finding poems in conversation, in dreams mostly, in what is in front of my eyes and shoved in my ears. But I haven't abandoned Jean Davide and Salvador, I spent time researching the minute details, sketching their character, eavesdropping on their conversations.
When I told David my precious pilgrim that I had been nicknamed Caterpillar, he agreed citing my fear and dislike of change and love of smoking. But now I think this Caterpillar is well on her way to morphing into a butterfly.
"And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?"
Mary, yes, yes, and I'd like to think so.
But the bittersweet. A list of things I will miss perhaps:
Bacon and raisins for breakfast, Saturday night Karaoke, art everywhere, artists everywhere, the genuine cool of Justin and Harlan, their smiles, sweet dogs, that haughty orange cat, the Gihon River, David's sharp observations and sincerity, standing and singing on the bridge, cool rainy days, fresh baked bread at lunch and dinner, ginger ale all the time, Adam's wit, Mike's eye rolls, everything about Susan, being a big kid, bedazzled vaginas, the hair trigger on the hot water in the shower, the nicknames, the dance parties, the cemetery, the gentle teasing, the goodness, being a sweetheart really, being a delicate flower, lighting up David's life... I will probably miss most everything.
I might be able to carry some of these things with me. If I didn't get a chance to write to you I apologize, but the summer is still young and I will write you from South Bend even if you are also in South Bend.
Yesterday Kathy asked me who I had just fallen in love with. I had a hard time thinking of one specific person, so many of the people I have met here have been amazingly formative to my growth as an artist and a person. I have a true abiding affection for these people and this place. I hope to know and love them for a worthwhile. If I'm allowed to say so though, I think the person I have most fallen in love with is Sade. People have been telling me about her for years, but I never really saw it... I see it now like I've never seen it before. As I was telling the Summer Lover earlier today, I even find myself loving, and if not loving then completely owning those things that drive me batshit crazy about myself, those things that feel unbearable to bear and to bare.
Enough about me though. This morning after breakfast I went on a walk with Lily. We walked to and through a cemetery at the top of a steep hill. We talked about various topics, noticing the names and dates and words printed on the headstones, their shapes and what they were made of. We laughed among the dead, we spoke their names, calculated the years they had lived. I thought I would like to have a headstone that read only "laugh" when we wondered what it would be like if the cause of death was chiseled in stone instead of the family name. I told her how I wanted to have my cremains planted with a tree seed and for lovers to carve their initials into my bark. We found a marker that read "Ruth Green Mould, Artist--Lady" and we decided to end our walked there and turn back, sensing that we wouldn't encounter anything that read that perfectly. To be remembered as an artist and a lady, how grand.
So maybe you are curious about my foray into summer love. I've decided that until I tire of it the summer is the only time I will ever allow myself to fall in love. As someone who falls in love practically every other day I think this is fitting. Summer love in its very name implies brevity and is seasonal. And when I say "fall in love" I mean this in a completely frivolous manner. I have the rest of my life to take myself too seriously, if that is what I choose to do. But I will only be in my twenties for five more summers after this one. So I got rid of the secret wedding playlist I've been compiling for over a year. And the Summer Lover has suggested that we write to each other, seeing that I love to write, I have agreed and addresses have been exchanged. Beyond that I don't foresee romance, but I was excited by the experience, the candidness it inspired.
My writing this month. I came with a plan to plow through the manuscript, his & Hers. I hope you won't be disappointed to hear that the month took me in a different direction completely. I'm working largely on a series of poems I call Dream Machines. So far I have three sets, at about six or seven prose poems each. They captivate my attention because I am loosed and playful writing them, I play with the sound the meanings of the words, manipulating images, finding poems in conversation, in dreams mostly, in what is in front of my eyes and shoved in my ears. But I haven't abandoned Jean Davide and Salvador, I spent time researching the minute details, sketching their character, eavesdropping on their conversations.
When I told David my precious pilgrim that I had been nicknamed Caterpillar, he agreed citing my fear and dislike of change and love of smoking. But now I think this Caterpillar is well on her way to morphing into a butterfly.
"And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?"
Mary, yes, yes, and I'd like to think so.
Location:Pearl St,Johnson,United States
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