Even

The nails were still neat. She rubbed the middle finger and then the thumb against edge of her forefinger.

Smooth nail.

Broken skin.

Rough cuticles.

Smooth nail.

Broken skin.

Rough cuticles.

Ring finger to pinkie. This cuticle was worse -- ragged.

She became more anxious. Surely there was something smooth.

Her right hand pinched her left big toe.

For a moment peace wafted down -- the pedicure was still gleaming and cool, enamel melting into flesh. Then she felt the callous on the sole and was immediately tense.

All these flaws scream for immediate removal. Teeth? Claws? How to eradicate the imperfections!

Healing - time changes

After twenty-five we don't heal as quickly. Yet it's not really noticable until thirty-five or so. A slice of a finger, a scab on the knee: they used to be gone in a few days or a week, tops, but after thirty-five - damn, it could be a month before the scarring is gone.

The joints and muscles are suddenly slow healing too.

When we're young we get in the habit of expecting damage to disappear quickly. We hurt ourselves more than necessary, and rest less than we should.

We've all heard it: "if youth only knew, if age only could".

Center - focus

What's central to your life?

Which people?

How did you determine this?

Or them?

In this culture, by which I mean New York, the central focus should be your job, your children, or your significant other. Pretty much everything else won't fly.

It can't be friendship. Friendship isn't romantic, and it's not acceptable to priviledge a relationship that's neither sexual nor parental.

Being single isn't really accepted either. We might say single blessedness, but certainly don't mean it.

Most of us don't really trust art or artists.

Hobbies can't be the focus, because this is New York, and money rules.

Passion - solo practice

Each "roll" is actually two - there and back.

Twenty rolls - forward.

Twenty rolls - back.

Twenty falls, not quite rolls.

Bend and kick over.

Push off from the wall.

Kick up, land on the shoulder. Roll over.

Again.

Again.

If a fifteen year old can do it, so can you.

Again.

Once more.

It's much more interesting than the next exercise.



Five hundred cuts, please.

Fifty right, one handed.

Fifty left.

Fifty right, shomen.

Fifty left.

Again.

How many? Ah two hundred twice.

Fifty right, yokomen.

Fifty left.

A reward! Kata. Slowly. Slowly.

It ends where it starts.

Switch sides.

Again

Passion - bear it

All physical expression is emotional.

No part of the body is dull. All fascinate.

The other imbues the daily round and shines through each object.

Actions - all of them - are feelings. Every action embodies aspects of us both.

The scent of the elbow, the taste of hair, the sight of any bend or bulge, the curl of the ear, the color of the skin between the toes. The sound of the breath, the limbs moving, the knuckles cracking.

List each nerve and sinew.


How to express a range of feeling, engendered by the other's presence, in words that aren't hackneyed.

Passion - overwhelms

Someone writes "I have a passion for..."

Really?

Does the writer suffer for whatever it is?

Does the writer form a life based on passion?

When you encounter such a passion it's not much like the passion described in a resumé. Rather, it's anti-social. Following it centers and fills and consumes. The life of a person held in passion's gtip appears arid to those who aren't.

We accecpt some overwhelming forces such as love or art. Yet passions we can't share either personally or as part of the cultural norm leave us befuddled, and pitying or contemptuous of, the sufferer.

Death - Minna

Minna died slowly. Joe had a stroke, he recovered a tiny bit,enough so that it was noticable six months later when he had another. And another. And died. He was 81

Minna had seemed fine until then. Soon her hearing became iffy. Next, she'd loop around and around repeating herself, yet clearly trying to impart something different.

The next step was anger.

"Where's Joe?" was more a cry of anguish than a question.

Eventually she lost language entirely.

Yet her rage at the world and her situation shone through every movement.

She lost motion.

After ten years, she died.

Confidence - stories

A zillion years ago a friend told me of a dilemma she had that concerned a friend. How should she handle the situation? Should she tell the friend? She told me to keep the story under my hat.

I kept shtum.

Soon after, the friend began reciting the tale at the drop of a hat.

The odd thing isn't that she changed her mind about openness. It came out that she'd told half a dozen (or more) people her troubles. She'd sworn us all to secrecy.

I sometimes wonder what triggered both the repetition (sub rosa) and the sudden openness.

Observation - accents

One of his virtues has always been that he picked up accents. As a result, he speaks both a fairly elegant French (no doubt the "pure Touraine"), and Argot. When he lived in England he switched from standard American speech to more or less standard British speech to thick Fen speech with no effort. His voice aped those he spoke with.

When he came back from England he shifted away from the English accent, though he can do it on command.

Now though,his accent is more New York - more nasal, sans R-coloring. Perhaps he's around too many New Yorkers

Observation - alert

One night when I was walking the dogs I noticed that they were completely alert. Now it`s not as though they tended to ignore their surroundings. As a general rule however, their interests were the smells of the ground or trees, especially traces of other dogs.

That night their heads were up, their ears cocked forward.

I looked around. Three men had made awide triangle around us. One in front, two behind on either side of the street.

Once they realized I`d seen them, they and their formation faded away, after a final clash against a car door.

Patience - planning

An aquaintance is a genuine risk taker. She was a dancer, a chef, a restauranteur, a martial artist.

In her mid forties she decided to become a doctor.

Remember, she was a dancer originally, so her college course work was not only twenty years out of date, but completely unscientific.

She took two years of college level science courses before the tests previous to medical school.

She went to the school that took her (and it wasn't easy to find one fairly local).

She changed her entire life.

That's a real willingness to commit.


She's a resident now.

She'll practice.

Summer of love - togetherness

Why are things sometimes so difficult?

Best laid (pun intended) plans ...

The strain mounts as things go off kilter.

Each of us has demons, they all conspire to blindside us.

Forgetting to trust.

Forgetting to sleep.

Forgetting to eat.

But oh! The moments when you peer at me and smile.

Sensuous and sensual memories demand my attention when you stretch out your leg or turn towards me.

There are times we both chortle over the turn of phrase as you say something clever.

Your sudden kindness.

Summer seeps into us. Joy suffuses us. Peace steals over us. Love is easy. .

Summer of love - camp!

This is the second or third summer that they sent the children to camp . The kids enjoy it. They're with each other and friends.

The parents have a chance to spend two weeks exploring each other or going off together.

They take long weekends away, sometimes they lounge around the house doing no chores at all. They're out later, no need for a sitter.

The time together gives the couple something, maybe many somethings. Perhaps relaxation, maybe renewal of their marriage. Clearly it's not just sex.

They're happy when the kids are back yet wistful that they're no longer alone.

Heat - wet what?

The asphalt melts.

You search for sprinklers. You plan walks based on shade.

Sunscreen drips off your face.
Foundation doesn't last. You sport a more natural look.

White cotton! Thank god. Handkerchief weight skirts and dresses.

You note the tan lines on flip-flop shod feet.

Adults with prickly heat. Sores from scratched bites.

You'd know you love your friends, because you don't mind their smells. You're surrounded.

Walk through a park and contemplate the fountain. Should you wish? Or rather, should you jump?

There's salsa and hip hop blaring through windows, cars, apartments, whirring noises and a beat.

Dog days.

Trust - the unexpected can work

My father loved watching the basketball players on 4th street. He'd take me with him, particularly on Saturday mornings. He'd watch the games, leaving me to the various and sundry park denizens.

New York was considerably more dangerous in the 1960s than it is today, making his an apparently foolish choice.

Nonetheless, every Saturday (other days too) the four year old me would chatter and play with middle aged homeless men.

Oddly enough,he was(and is) a fairly suspicious person, and yet -! He trusted that his child would be safe left to play with bums, and he was right.

Dirt - variable

We all find different things filthy. We all notice the filth others leave while willfully ignoring our own. I, for example, clean the toilet at least once every day, yet I rarely do the mirror.

Then there are the floors. How do we clean them? How often? Some people vacuum. Others swiffer.

Other people think we are pigs. To us, the pile of clothes is temporary. The books on the floor will be given away. We will dust tomorrow, today's doesn't count. The dishes in the living room will go into the dishwasher. The pristine picture we retain isn't sullied.

Anger - forgiveness?

We're told to forgive and forget.

Most of the time we do. Or, at least we forgive.

A while ago I realized that sometimes I don't. I forget but don't forgive.

That is, when I really do get angry at someone, I retain a niggling sense of how dreadfully that someone behaved long after I've lost the details. It's not necessary that I remain angry -- often enough I'm merely aware of some sort of -- well, of what?

Is it a betrayal?

Disappointment?

I don't really know.

Once I'm that angry it's a while until things to subside, and even so - !

Anger -- why

Several years ago I described an unhappy situation to a friend, who went on at length giving untenable suggestions. Eventually I quietly told her to stop talking. Later I told another friend how I had nearly lost it, and described the interaction. She knew precisely what I meant.

Why is it that some people Oh So Easily read us, and others completely miss even our most obvious emotional brou-ha-has? I'm as guilty as the next person, of course. So, here's what interests me. What are the cues? What do we pick up or miss? Why this stuff and not others?

Act

A while ago I desperately wanted to get away. At the same time, a friend desperately wanted someone to teach for him. Voilà! I was in El Paso Texas for a few days.

What it took was putting together enough courage to ask him. That is, to act on what I suspected would work for us both, He'd already said he needed time off, I already knew I wanted out of NYC. In the event, asking him also gave me a chance to discover that I like African Gray Parrots.

All in all, a decent act, and everyone well served.

ambiguity - a job

An aquaintance had hired a friend to perform errands and secretarial duties. She's gotten more frail however, and realizes that she needs someone live-in who'll also do housework.

Her friend is not a suitable cleaner, although he is perfect as a walker or other escort.

She told him she'd hire the live-in person in September.

He heard "You're fired".

She's convinced she merely pointed out that his job might change.

He's no longer as responsive if she tries to call him early (8am or before) or late (8pm or after). She wonders why, and no amount of explanation will suffice.

Love and Romance

I hate the part where anxiety hits and your throat contracts each time you say the beloved's name.


You know, the "in love" part.

Yet people proclaim it - endlessly.

Six months later though, you can relax into each other. You have a history together. You have a shared language and jokes.

Ah... that's a delight.

Day to day life, waking up together and complaining about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher, or make the coffee.

Love experienced and expanded through performing loving acts. On going caring.

Oh so preferable to the aching sensitivity of the first few months.

Water - a ship...

We lived in England from June 1968 until September 1969. In that far off time it was prohibitively expensive to fly transatlantic (or so the parents told us) so we sailed (or rather, took transatlantic cruise ships)

We took the France home.

Apparently it was the largest, most stable, most marvelous boat available, with the shortest transatlantic crossing. So stable that no one could get sea sick.

The food was lovely. (Not that I could keep it down)

My stomach was tolerable only in the pool, feeling the salt water shift from side to side, and from 6 to 12 feet.

Music - Christmas Carols

There was minimal sound proofing in a four-cube square. You could hear your direct neighbors, but the cube diagnally across from you was (almost) inaudible.

One Christmas this anomaly of sound led to a horror. John and Bruce both wanted to play Christmas carols, and were on the diagnal - they couldn't hear each other's choices. The two on the other diagnal however, could easily tell that they had the same taste: The Little Drummer Boy, and What Child Is This?

That's only minorly dreadful, but when you add that the one of them lagged behind the other by five minutes -!

Innocence - whodunnit ?

She was three months older than he. While that's not very significant for adult dogs, the three months, combined with her earlier tenure with us, played an important role for the two of them. The hierarchy their age difference established remained throughout their lives.

He was obedient and listened to me, but he also responded to her cues.


"Chi, sit"

She continued to stand but turned her head and stared at him, hard.

Certain he'd missed something, he looked at me and anxiously wagged his tail.

Then oh-so-slowly he sat, convinced that she was transmitting a command meant for him.

Night - lovers

You fall into bed at 11 too tired even to sleep. Your arms wrapped around, legs entangled with. At 1, you're spooning until the contact along the length of your bodies almost forces conjunction.

At 2.30 you wake to touch hard, wet, unaware, and join again and again.

At 4 you fall away from each other, momentarily sated, still tired, still longing for touch.

Then, to hear, smell and feel a breath, and to grasp and gasp, aching in your skin and bones.

At 6 your arousal keeps you locked together. One more trial to reach completion struggling through skin.

Night

Edward Hopper is the patron saint of urban night and sadness.

When you don't sleep much night becomes grainy.

The stars shine through a dirty veil.

The dawn isn't a relief. The moon exposes gloom still further.

And yet! After the second or third insomniac night, a storm becomes peaceful, streetlights shine.

Even darkness brightens. Lights flicker. Your eyes adapt a nightime strength the day never knows.

The people you see in the diner at 3am all have the same gray grimness What is it? You show it too.

None of you talk, none of you smile. It's not spring.

Faith - a lecture

People write about "religious instinct". The search for meaning in the universe so closely connected to an existence past death, doesn't show up in people whose upbringing was wholely secular.

You're going to talk about the converts-to-whatever-fundementalism who speak of the emptiness of the unreligious lives they and their families led. The lack of religion tends to be overstated. If they're Jews, they went to temple, and sporadically kept kosher. If they're Christians, often they were Main-Line protestants of a rather ethereal sort.

Not atheist.

Those raised away from religion tend to look at it with interested curiousity, not fervor.

Blindness

My mother thinks she's brain damaged.

She can't do math. As she got through calculus and statistics, I didn't believe her. She could balance her checkbook in the days before cheap calculators and computers. She's astoundingly analytic.

She can't connect real world problems (where there are some) to equations. She can't see math.

Recently, it's occured to me that I'm also brain-damaged. I miss connections between specifics of behaviour and their underpinnings. I have to have everything explained, I often can't retain it.

My blind spot is a surprise. How could someone so curious miss -- well -- what I do miss!!

Sensuality - gourmandizing

When I first saw Tom Jones, two things struck me: the beauty of male 18th century clothing, and the sexiness of "the eating scene". You know the one -- Tom and Jenny rip apart a chicken while staring each other down, and end up -- well end up where you'd expect.

Full frontal assault on food has brought me more than one fascinated (or maybe horrified is a more accurate word) lover The first time I was seventeen, and dismembered both my lobster and his. He claimed he'd never seen less meat left on a crustacean, and fell in love right then.

Sensuality - odi et amo

As I turn around, your presence remains.

Your clothes.

Your tooth brush.

Your scent.

Reminders of you arouse. If I allow any sense memory to return I feel you once more and am drawn back.

There isn't a last or next time. Imagination can contain only your length touching, enfolding the entire length of me.

There are no words for propioception, verbally, we can't necessarily distinguish the myriad forms of touch. And yet, my every breath generates tactile reminders of you - heat, pressure, moisture, chills.

Once more, shivering, I am racked.

Nothing remains but the contact and interaction of us.

Growth - take yer lumps

I was stepping onto the number 1 train at South Ferry. Left leg first into the car, it slid across spilled coffee. My right leg fell between the car and the platform and I smashed my shin against the side of the car.

It bruised down to the bone, and left a lump two inches in diameter, five inches below the knee.

It hurt.

Its size shifted.

Sometimes it softened.

It hurt.

It was warm.

A month or so later I was in the hospital part of the leading edge of a mini-epidemic of cellulitis.

Years later, the scar aches.

Growth - discovery

He was almost a year old when it emerged into day light the first time.

There it was! Dark pink, indeed almost crimson, and pointy. A brand new -- well, what was it? I'd have said it resembled a lipstick, but he, an akita, had no words, and needed to explore it in other ways.

He bent himself double sniffing at it. He didn't recognize it. He sniffed again. Licked it. Clearly it wasn't poisonous. Sniffed it some more.

Like any puppy he was curious. After smell comes taste, and after tasting something a puppy tries to eat it. Chomp!

YELP!

Growth - tulips

Tulip time in New York.

We were wandering across town on 79th, and walked past a Very Swanky Building indeed. The flower beds surrounding the trees by its entrance were filled with large red tulips. The blossoms, classic tulip shape, fire-engine red, were too heavy for the long stems and had fallen in waves towards the street.

"Crop Circles!", A said. "Feeds those conspiracy theories you always spout."

(N.B. I don't, nor A. A teases me unmercifully, however.)

The tulips by the corner building on 82nd, yellow and red, were firmly upright. Their heads weren't too big for their bodies.

Tears - the 9th

Everyone's heard the Ninth, endlessly. My grammar school even had us sing a variant of the Chorale, apparently it's the United Nations anthem.

Eighteen or so years ago my father and I went to hear it at Carnegie. It was the first time I'd heard it live, in concert. It's so loud that it's outrageous.

As the tenor came in screaming Freunde, I started weeping- helplessly, ceaselessly. I was completely embarressed until I realized that my father, and the man at my other side, indeed all those I could see (through the tears dripping down my face) were also sobbing.

Sexy - gobsmacked

Damn! Sometimes you get it totally wrong.

Utterly convinced that this time it'll be pretty boys, or horse-faced girls. Younger, older, thinner, stronger.

And (of course) she (or he) will share your favorite kinks, and no doubt even teach you new ones.

You already know what sets your juices flowing. How not? You've navigated these shoals for years. Jaded, you accept an offer, already rehearsing how you'll end the evening politely and alone.


His brains, gentleness, and clear perception of your inanity snuck up on you.

Finally confronted by someone you adore, none of what you checked off oh-so-diligently matters.

Disgust

I'm confronted again by my own stupidity.

I have utter contempt for the occasions on which I've used my intelligence to seduce -- just because I could. Or of course the occasions on which I've been predatory towards rather younger people.

I presume (often incorrectly) that if I refer to this other people pick up that I'm almost never unconscious of my bad behaviour, and that simply talking about it is yet another example of stinging self-contempt.

The most recent occasion? I was plastered. Yet some of how little I love this in myself may have registered. If not, how could - ?

Sexy - foreplay

Years ago H and I were talking about what does and doesn't work sexually.

We agreed that anger didn't. Nor mess.

H gave a perfect example of the latter: the trail of dirty clothes on the floor.

A friend of hers used to say "that's not good foreplay".

Now it's entered the lexicon. Examples follow.

Leaving the toilet seat up: bad foreplay.

Dishes in the sink: bad foreplay

Emptying the dishwasher: good foreplay.

Noticing the new haircut: good foreplay.

Kissing you immediately after ogling the other girl: bad foreplay.

Giving you someone else's bra: bad foreplay.

You get the idea.

Sexy - a non-starter

They had spoken before, joking. Neither said anything substantive. She'd never thought about it much. His thoughts, like him, opaque. He asked her to come in while he got her her Christmas card.

He was gone briefly retrieving the card. She looked around. The room was small and fairly tidy.

The card itself was nothing much. Trees. Holiday greetings. A signature.

They were alone in silence perhaps fifteen seconds. She noticed him for the first time, noticed all attention concentrated on her. Something shifted. Nothing happened. She left.

One thought circled through her head repeatedly: "Damn. This is bad news."

Sexy

You expect a thrill from beauty.

Intelligence livens you.

Other senses explode inside you, pointing to a wider, wilder life.

Suddenly, unexpectedly you two alone. The eyes locked on your face and body. The hands that know you. Whenever you glance at them a tactile memory.

Myriad songs. Each opening you once more to the stab in the guts -- harshness, kindness.

What's lovemaking? What's desire?

The ache and its satisfaction. The remembrance of a smell. All sights, all sounds overshadowed by the other.

When we kiss, when we waken, when we sleep, when we breathe. Ourselves alone. You. Me.

Fire.

Happiness

An utterly gorgeous day is a good start. Clear, not very warm, nor very cold, but a sky which darkens as it recedes. What more can you ask?

A lover? A friend? A puppy?

Look around. Small dogs (puppies? adults?) snuffle up to feet in sandals. Their very pink tongues shoot out to lick.

Couples holding hands, so wrappedup and rapt that everyone else is invisible. Astounding that there are fewer collisions.


Let's now return to our moutons (or puppies). First scratch the jaw, now the base of the tail, observe the eyes close and the leg beat in extasy.

Confidence - who tells?

Her best friend's lover was a good-looking, sweet guy. At coffee one afternoon he quietly propositioned her. He had never even touched her.

It bothered her a lot. She told several people, some who were known to be indiscreet. All were sworn to secrecy. None told. Eventually her boyfriend pointed out that it was disloyal to keep the event from her friend.

The interesting thing was that the wicked chatterboxes had kept shtum. Had she really told them in confidence? Had she hoped the story would get out?

It was several months later that the whole thing became common knowledge.

Confidence - self assurance

Very few people have the nous to confront bullies or bullying. A does and did.

She was playing in the sandbox in Washington Square Park. She might have been three.

One child was taking toys and pushing sand at another. The typical rotten kid behaviour that half the adults fume about, and the other half declare should be left to the children to sort out. (Three year olds? Hah!) At any rate, A looked over at the other child and said in a deep gravelly voice "Stop picking on her! Now!" A brief pause. "And don't pick on me either."

Laughter

"You have no sense of humor."

"You just don't get the joke."

Oh, she got it all right. The ongoing gimmick was that she was wrong, bad, or annoying. For some reason, when an insult, no matter how direct, was framed within a joke, it was supposed to lose its hurtful quality.

But it didn't.

She didn't laugh.

She was that serious girl. Who won't get your jokes. Who looks at you stone-faced.

She'd tell her friends about her students, her children. Sometimes the stories were sad, vignettes often are. Mostly though, her predicaments left her friends roaring. Her too.

Grace - or not

It was one of those winter days. Started out clear, but got colder. As the afternoon went on the sky turned an icy gray. She wore tight jeans, a pea-coat, and brand spanking new tan faux cowboy boots.

There was the puddle on the far side of the street, slush and God knows what else. As is often the case, no clear path around it. She soared right over it. Perfectly clearing a miserable obstacle. Hah! Her boots remained unspotted.

She couldn't have planned it better.

Of course then one heel slid across the iced covered pavement -- voilà! perfect pratful.

Grace - time's arrow

C and I met at work. A few months later I read out to him a sequence from Thus Was Adonis Murdered. He borrowed it. Julia was so obviously what all of us (sadly) are, dearly though we'd love to be Selena. (The author is Sarah Caudwell -- read her books!)

And then we became friends. His niece was two or three by then. In the course of describing his days (Little Theater, cats, etc) he'd tell me about her. Her birthday parties. How she reacted when her parents separated. What she was doing schoolwise.

This year, Grace graduates from college. 

Honesty - oh yeah those pics

I don't always hate them.

Wait! Before you go sending me your uncensored self, understand that you have to ask first if I want to see them, and you really ought to be someone whom I've indicated appeals. And in posession of pretty genitals.

Odd lumps, warts, pimples, weeping sores, and tattoos aren't added attractions. Men, add livid circumcision scars to the list. Shaven male genitalia, and unshaven male chests lead me to giggle. If you're female and have to shave your chest, skip me.

Now, if you're still sure that yours'll pass muster, feel free to send the pics.

Honesty - again

Pets quickly learn that what's on the floor is theirs.

There were twenty feet of low, open shelving, holding books and records. There were two young dogs.

One would paw books off the shelves and wander away. Next, the other would look at the floor by the shelves and happily start chewing on the brand new toys that had suddenly appeared.

Soon, the second dog knocked over more books. The first, miming surprise, attacked the new pile.

They oh-so-carefully stuck to the plan -- one destroyed what the other supplied, willfully ignorant of the source of their chewtoys, all rules unbroken.

Honesty

Some people's honesty comes across as cruelty to others.

Some people's attempts at kindness are felt as sugar coated lies.

How do we navigate this?

Clarity.

Identify what you want. Imagine yourself saying it. Then say it.

Remember, if it's important to you, it's important. When your interlocutors say it's not, repeat: it's important to you.

Open yourself to what other people say. If you don't understand, ask. When you're open to people, it's easier to be open with them.

Don't make excuses for yourself. Recognizing and acknowledging how you can be an asshole doesn't excuse you from decent manners.

Outsider

Many people talk about how they were outsiders as children or adolescents. Most weren't.

One kid had been at Little Red since the 4s (nursery school). No one ever had a playdate with her.
Another kid's mother told her she had to invite the whole class to her seventh birthday, including the outsider. She brought a whole slew of really nice things.

We might end the story there, with the entire class learning that if you're nice to odd ducks you might be rewarded.

Hah! Things didn't change. At some point she switched schools. I wasn't that kid. Were you?