2000-2010 Part 1

The decade started on a snowy morning in Monument Valley. I was married to someone I never should have married in the first place. He was next to me. A good friend who is sometimes a good friend and sometimes now estranged was there. And my sister was home from Europe. She was strong then. Hadn’t married anyone yet. Still had life and innocence in her. Could wear something like dragon print pants with pride. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year. She left timid and uncertain to Europe and came back with plans, love, and some wisdom.

That spring I got word I’d be going to Japan for a year. Leaving a bad marriage and going to the homeland. I went to New York with my grandmother to say goodbye to her aunt as she was dying of cancer. I spent time with my great aunt and my father both of whom helped me realize that divorce is a godsend at times. It’s strange to have known these people all my life and then bam. They provide without knowing it the pivotal words I would need to move on. The year in Japan proves to be pivotal as well. It’s one thing to say you want alone time. It’s another thing to receive it in the form of another country, another language. I read Crime and Punishment in the middle of winter in Japan in my bathtub---the only warmth in the house without any insolation. Suddenly, everything makes sense. Everything falls into place. I plan to never live full time in the USA again. I learn about working online. I think this is it. I will not return full time ever. I will travel the world and the seven seeds. No man will have me. I will be alone.

This works out for a few months. In late July of 2001 I meet this man named Julian Wells, he kind of haunts me, in a way. As in I spend an entire day with him and can’t shake him. But he is not interested and I move back to San Francisco and try to figure out how to be single in the city without being a joke. I go to a dinner party with single cat owning women of a certain age. They are all single and I realize I am going to become one if I don’t turn back now. Turn back now. All a single English professor can look forward to is cases of wine delivered to her door and cats and maybe a dog. Lots of animal personified behavior voiced to an empty room. I get scared. I have conversations with a random woman I meet in Cambodia, my mothers in Salinas, a few strangers in bars. I watch the apsaras on the sides of Angkor Wat. All leads back to this man named Julian Wells, who I begin to correspond with in the beginning of 2002.

It’s February 2003. I have just given birth to Diego. I can do anything now. I have not died. I have lived through the night., through the pain. I am alive and married to Julian, mother to Diego. We have moved to a remote part of California to a hamlet, not a town. We don’t know what we are doing but it seems like it’s the right thing to do. Hide up in the mountains, ride out the nightmare of politics, ride out the poverty of parenthood, leave the known world. And then it’s the end of 2004 and Paloma is born. First girl born in our family in years, years. We weren’t even sure it was possible. The doctor says I have a weird blood disease. Pregnancy and hormones make my blood rise and clot, rise and clot. I should not be alive but I am. ‘’

I come to realize that I’m not alone anymore. There is no time to sit in a bathtub and think about life and art and Russian winters. I spend too much time instead thinking of disasters real and imaginary that might befall us. Will we weather sicknesses? Will the kids make it to puberty with their sense of humor and creativity held together or will I break down and send them to public school someday and watch the public system beat their imaginations out of them? Will I witness me all over again?

Christmas Letter 2009---The Year of Inheritance

Yesterday I was teasing my brother who thankfully, will be here for a few days next weekend. We ended our email tit for tat with him saying ‘stay out of my issues and I’ll stay out of yours.“ Wait. I have issues? We have to be Switzerland? Okay. So, Andrew made me think of issues. Which made me think of 2009 and what, if anything was the dominating theme of the year. I don’t smoke pot or drink much anymore so this required a lot of heavy sober thought. I looked around my living room and of a photo taken in this living room in 2005 when we got the house because we were suckers and the mortgage company ridiculous. This room in 2005 is barren. I tried to pretend I was going for a Japanese aesthetic but in truth it was just middle class poverty of the grandma variety (I can hear her voice as I write the words ‘I rather have nothing if I can’t have something I want.”). Paloma was 1 year old and still said only loving things. Her powers of observation muted by the inability to articulate much. The living room in 2009 sports a fully personality formed Paloma about to turn 5. It is crowded with other people’s furniture: Grandma’s sofa chair, Mom’s love seat, Mary’s ficus tree, Tom’s creeping plants, the Beck’s old piano. Only the bookcases are really mine and some of them house stolen books.

2009 was, I think, about inheritance. Not in the meek shall inherit the shit category, but as in inheritance of literal things, literal traits, those coming to fruition. The intangible inheritance of traits, habits, passions and not the inheritance that would, say, pay off a student loan or a visa card. That sort of inheritance is very much welcome, but alas, I’m afraid, is very much scarce commodity. Inheritance is both cinematic and dull. i wear trifocals. I can’t fucking see. Neither can my parents. I have dry easily burnt Scottish skin and a penchant for doughy things. . I have an over developed sense of loyalty, too many teeth and Yaqui cheekbones from the Mexican side. I inherited a disdain for shoes no doubt, from the Ozarkian hillbillies in my blood as well.

The literal: my grandmother moved in with my aunt. I helped her sort things and things and some of them are now with me in my living room once stark now crowded. She also gave me the fridgerator. I feel awkward asking for or receiving things of my grandmother’s. She’s alive, after all. She lived for years in a house with objects that had the name of who should have them in her demise taped to the bottom sides. Her husband is dead. From him I inherited awkwardness. Half-assedness. And an inexplicable love of bluegrass. But I was barely recovering from her move and the fact that my book was going nowhere and it was almost a year up between meeting with the last possible agent when wham, friends ---not just any friends but friends I love and adore and was growing fond of , liked to call, come by, pick up the moment we left off, for life, sort of friends decide to , you know , move on.

Selfishly, I assume they are moving away from me when in actuality they are moving to better locations for them, better relationships with significant others, freedom, gainful employment. All sorts of things you wish for your friends. Yay! Go friends! Go friends?! Oh jeezus. So this is how I spend my spring. Wallowing in the self pity of announcements. Everyone will be moving this summer. Okay , not everyone, but it FELT like everyone. I know they needed change, money, love, etc. But damn it. My friends moved all around the world and all I got was more house plants. Boo-hoo. FYI: All plants are still alive. There are no replacements for the likes of the Becks--Amelia the perfect babysitter, or Mary Burns who was my closest San Francisco friend. Her departure left the city feeling empty and soul less as a walk down Market St in a Banana Republic outfit. Or Tom--whose presence in Chico always seemed an odd , random but welcomed and sweet fit. Or Mary Shero---the first person to be nice and welcoming to me in little Indian Valley---I spotted her reading the Brother’s Karamotzov and knew I’d be okay here---moving on to Tacoma. Each leaving felt odd , abrupt, but ultimately right. I am thinking of you and thank you all for having enriched and influenced me-----and for having such a sweet role in the extended and largely made up Garcia-Couoh family.

I inherited a distaste for public school and it’s existential emptiness and it’s relentlessness of testing and breaking down of the creative mind. (Had to get one pompous statement in). I also developed a distaste for excusing bigotry and hatred and decided I didn’t have to participate. So while it might look funny or sound funny that I freaked out in early summer and backed out of volunteering for community things where Prop 8 supporters would be side by side next to me, it’s more like I woke up. It probably didn’t help that Colette and I went to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis this summer. So for the record. Same sex marriage isn’t a debatable topic--it’s a civil rights issue. And I’m more than happy not to play in your reindeer games if you are going to sit there and discriminate against my family. Because you know what? It’s 2009 and this should be old news. Old hat. Old school. It shouldn’t even be on the radar.

Okay---literal inheritance done. Wish it were done. Wish I inherited a literal 100K from someone. Not alot. Just enough to pay off student loan and pay down house. What’s wrong with that ? What more could I ask?

What do I have left? Traits? Debts? Neurosis? Dependencies? How does that fit in with What I did this summer?

Traits. How is it that one child can remind you of your early years and one remind you of your teens and they both remind you of your polar opposite demeanor? But they are their own people. Diego and Paloma are amazing, insightful people. They come out with random, crazy , intuitive things to say. I take them for granted then I spend time with random other children and instantly realize the difference. I don’t know why or how Julian and I got so lucky, but we did. Diego is increasingly moody, artistic, and pensive. Paloma is increasingly a tactless daredevil with razor sharp observations. What more could we have asked for?

My artistic temperament has reared its nagging head a few times this year. Now that’s a trait for ya! The long and short of it. I no longer submit myself to wage slavery at two institutions of higher learning. I love cooking and hate gardening. I’m back to being a part time stay at home mother and love how disconcerting that sounds. I belong in the home. Tell me to fetch that turkey pot pie, go ahead. I’ll do it. I’ll make it from scratch too. I let my kids bring home other kids. I let them do art projects without end. I am constantly washing off something that has a splotch of paint or ink. My mother says I create more work for myself but I can only respond well, see what happens when you don’t let kids do these things? Also I’m making a more serious effort to take my work seriously (that being writing). I joined Ariel Gore’s band of Wayward Writers and I couldn’t be happier. I have found my writing peers. Yay! Ariel makes me actually send my work out. Something I’m both lazy and self conscious about. Thanks Ariel. And Bonnie. I really have no idea who she is really but I feel like she’s my other half.

I think what Julian and I may have been missing was a band of creative wackos. We’ve gotten that ten fold now as we’ve been spending more and more time in Quincy for work. So for all the people who left us, we made some gains in our own neck of the woods with the Boltons, the BLTs, Mary-Lousie, etc. Speaking of which. My god, Julian. Totally perfect husband. I mean, he has that moment of super guy incommunicado ness that they all seem to have but bottom line? After seven long itchy years ? He’s gold man. We are both still feeling that initial spark. I mean, the idea that I never have to set up or explain a joke and that everything I’ve written here is completely linear to him? That’s worth the price of admission right there. And my mom loves him! She doesn’t even love me half the time.

Speaking of moms. They live up the street. Literally three miles away. I almost think I can hear them breathing at times. A slight exaggeration but it’s great to have there. A minute as the crow flies. They are teaching us to slow down and speed up simultaneously. There was more to the year, I’m sure, but this is what is remembered on a late Thursday night in almost mid December.

I highly recommend turning 40 and going to Graceland and New Orleans with some fun amazing person like Colette. I also recommend spending Thanksgiving at my father-in-law’s Kelyn in Santa Monica and watching grown men and children paint and sketch on a hardwood floor all afternoon. Or confessing all your sins to Margaret Simonian and desires to Lysa. Or being comadres with Kathryn Couch. Or the generosity of Jayson. Scrabble with Alicia. Or covering a Matthew Jackson Cooper song. Or making tamales with Kristy. THe picking up of the family torch with Briana. I leave this year and head into the next feeling like if I inherit no other trait, I inherited the ability to surround myself with truly loving people. It makes for one hopeful new year.

Snowed IN

I like being shut in. I like the snow covering the walk without a path to allow me or anyone else access to the road. I like the street unplowed.
For the moment anyway. I get to stay home and play fantasy house wife. The kids are home because shut ins like me make their own snow days. No school. If I hadn’t just banged up my foot from slipping on icy path the other day, I would, of course, be wearing high heels. I am wearing an apron. I’m not bathing until 4 pm in the afternoon and even then I am putting on my pajamas directly. No dirt of the world has touched me.

I’ve attempted twice to kick the cats out of the house and I did succeed at encouraging snow angels made by snow heathens (my children) in the front yard. I brought them inside after 20 minutes like a commercial mom for hot cocoa made from milk and mexican chocolate, not water and packets, I gave each child and their friend and extra marshmallow because I loved them the most. I gave them activities and unlimited access to the dvd player. In exchange I have promised not to be angry when I look in their room.

I wrote about the past
I chatted with the present
There were only a few moments when I felt dead
buried and orgasm less
The rest of the time I was Betty Crocker with that new fangled Bisquick making Whiz Cinnamon Rolls with left over dessert filling from dessert tamales. Call me Betty Crockeriquez.

Rose Petals

The rain is coming down
steadilyy but not too loudly
there is much to do but
i think of sleep
and of you
in the background
Lucienne Boyer is singing
Parlez-moi D’Amore
over and over on a victrola
until I have cried
steadily but not too loudly
it isn’t wise to stay up this late
and stare at walls and skies

Alley Cat Cafe Morning

On these days,
I don’t mind the cold.
I like entering the cafe
waiting for julie to make me
something more perfect
than i can make myself.
An hour earlier
I’d want to see no one
but this hour before class
after kids are dropped off
on a good hair day morning
wrapped in a grand shawl
waiting for a spiced coffee
talking with one writer
about his brilliant project
why didn’t i think of it before
saying hi to this one woman i like
and it smells good in there
like a dream of things
i cannot eat but i can roll in
you brush by me
i can feel my skin hold its breath
i can feel butterflies and bumps
i haven’t sipped yet
i’m still sleepy but
my words stutter out as
i watch your lips mouth
nice to see you
i shudder
smile
leave
wake

From Under Her

From under her
the rug, now worn
now on the ceiling,
now that the ceiling
is a floor
and underneath is
a cold shock of tile
and a new dimension
what do you call it
when your mind
is going a mile a minute
and your feet upturned
cannot even touch
the ground?
they are in the air
on their sides
immovable--the one thing
that needs to move
and can’t
but the room can spin
and the back can break
and the disks can slip
and the hands can wring

it will take more than one
of us
it will take many of us
it will take on us

as we are just as
helpless to stand

LEftovers

If we are left over
just you
just me
commitments and obligations
run off with redheads down river...

how shall we do this
these few remnants of reheated
on the edge of our plates?