That's Entertainment

I am tearing through novels this summer and just finished Little Bee which was a good read but didn't end quite as dramatic as I had hoped. Best Friend told me Water For Elephants would be a fast read and as usual she was right. I finished the book in two sittings over the weekend and as it was a quick read it was a good story also. I like the old circus images it created and because of those images still in my head I am working on a few circus projects. I am forwarding both books on to friends to share as I have so many books to finish I am tired of storing them and promised myself not to buy another book until I finish another twenty of the books I already have and have forwarded to someone else. I started Beyond Desire this morning, the book based on the life of Felix and Cecile Mendelssohn an old old book I found abandoned in some bookstore for $1 and the $64 Tomato, a book about the cost of making the perfect garden. I spend half of my life doing that and now in two gardens it's a little overwhelming at times. Last year I planted thirty tomato plants and this year only four. I can't take the pressure of what to do with all the tomatoes.

I also went to the movies this weekend to see Larry Crowne. After just spending some time with my 18 year-old niece I was astonished at the energy of 18 year-olds and their power of fun. This movie was as little slow but I think all summer movies are supposed to be a little slow and it was a testament to the power of a life gone awry and how to fix it. I laughed and ate too much popcorn. I can't remember the last time I went to the mall, a fascinating place that people actually pick to spend leisure time there simply amazes me.

Do not give of yourself to the dead

D H Lawrence

My friend Tony introduced me to D H. I think lawrence is most famous for his line about feeling sorry for yourself. I've never seen a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from it's bough without having felt sorry for itself.

A few days ago I was thinking about Wilde and his fairy tales, the story of the happy prince and the little bird that flew over the city, finding ways to make the prince happy while the prince's life was falling down around. The prince so unhappy with the way his life has turned out hardly noticed that the little bird had sacrificed his entire life without feeling sorry for himself for even a moment.

Lawrence danced with dark love. I was listening to Robert Polhemus on NPR speak about Lawrence and about women in love. Women in love was so progressive sexual for it's time that reviewers called his work "pure dirt." As with most of Lawrence's works, Women in Love caused controversy over its sexual subject matter. One early reviewer said of it, "I do not claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and here is dirt in heaps — festering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven.

Anyone who knows me know I have been attracted to older men my whole life. Even when I was a teenager I was drawn to older men, their calm cool, collected nature. I was drawn to them. Lawrence plays with that notion. Women in love is filled with extraordinary passages and now I am tearing them apart and then putting them back together again. I was taken by a passage where Ursula (the woman so interested) catching Birken the boy she was fascinated by standing in the dark under the moon throwing rocks into the water, angry, and talking to himself. It reminded me of Romeo catching Juliet in the night listening to her talk to him even though he wasn't even there. Birken threw rocks one after cursing the moon, cursing his life, decisions he'd made. Ursula was dazed. She had never been witness to an outburst like this. He'd always been so composed and there she was in the dark watching him come unglued and wondered how she'd carry this little secret around with her wanting so much to offer him comfort ever so certain that nothing about her would change this situation or make him whole. He'd throw more rocks as the water struggled against the agitation of the rocks and she'd wait for him to be whole and at peace again.

But like me, Urusla can't ever just let it go. She always has to know. It drives me insane, this piece of me that needs to know. Why oh why can't I just push it aside? Best Friend will tell me, men play their hand close to their chest and they will give over their soul to a woman who will do the same. They appreciate the chess match. For the most part, not many people matter to me really. Its not that I have a disdain for the world but I hold few in close company. I have learned to keep people at a distance but then...then now and again I will forget and I will just have to pose the question and I think that's why I love Urusla so much because she just needs...

Birkin lingered vaguely by the water. Ursula was afraid that he would stone the moon again. She slipped from her seat and went down to him, saying:

`You won't throw stones at it any more, will you?'

`How long have you been there?'

`All the time. You won't throw any more stones, will you?'

`I wanted to see if I could make it be quite gone off the pond,' he said.

`Yes, it was horrible, really. Why should you hate the moon? It hasn't done you any harm, has it?'

`Was it hate?' he said.

And they were silent for a few minutes.

`When did you come back?' she said.

`Today.'

`Why did you never write?'

`I could find nothing to say.'

`Why was there nothing to say?'

`I don't know. Why are there no daffodils now?'

`No.'

Again there was a space of silence. Ursula looked at the moon. It had gathered itself together, and was quivering slightly.

`Was it good for you, to be alone?' she asked.

`Perhaps. Not that I know much. But I got over a good deal. Did you do anything important?'

`No. I looked at England, and thought I'd done with it.'

`Why England?' he asked in surprise.

`I don't know, it came like that.'

`It isn't a question of nations,' he said. `France is far worse.'

`Yes, I know. I felt I'd done with it all.'

They went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow. And being silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which were sometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderful promise. So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty:

`There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.' It was as if he had been thinking of this for some time.

She was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she was pleased.

`What kind of a light,' she asked.

But he was shy, and did not say any more. So the moment passed for this time. And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her.

`My life is unfulfilled,' she said.

`Yes,' he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this.

`And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,' she said.

********************************************
Oh brave Ursula. He didn't write because he had nothing to say. He had nothing to give you, he had no insight, no power, he was nothing special. How do you write to someone, how are you? and guess what I'm a fraud? Ursula, you need a Best Friend who will take you to a park bench where it's very quiet and let you lean into her shoulder and let you say anything you'd ask him and she will give you the answers you don't want to hear. She will tell you he wasn't the man in the photo. Imagine that? He paints this oh so love picture and its not him. How does he tell you that? He can't tell you he's as confused as you are because then you'd never give yourself to him. The challenge will be over, the game finished, a stale mate. You will have your heart broken either way dear ursula and you get to pick now take your ball and go home. Or...you could entertain it for awhile longer, be like the Prufrock's love song and let the moment linger, don't force the crisis and have one more dance, make love one more time, and let it be over later. I've done both. Haven't we all?

Someone I know, knew, kinda told me this story once about a woman he loved. They were quick friends and he loved everything about her. They worked together, they slept together under under the watchful or not so watchful eye of his gatekeeper. Now mind you he adored the gatekeeper, she was beautiful (cover of cosmo beautiful) but let's say she wasn't the most compassionate woman, and of course not the sharpest tool in the shed, the brightest bulb in the box (feel free to mix those up as it drives best friend perfectly insane) and she knew going in she was "better" than him and would settle.

Now this man loved his secret lover. She was a good sport, she would understand when things were canceled and she looked at him in a way he never really earned. Hell when he gave the gatekeeper the diamond he wasn't sure he could afford she didn't look at him like this woman did. When she laid next to him she touched him like he was gold. She told him one night "you'll have to make a decision soon ya know." He laughed inside. Where would she go? All he'd have to do is whisper her name and she'd be more than accommodating. Love is like that.

A few weeks later she didn't show up for work. He looked for her, called her, and finally hours later wandered down to human resources to ask about her. "she's left, put in notice weeks ago." Imagine that. She's gone. He went to the apartment, key fit the door but everything was gone. Two days ago he was there with her, they were making cozy, the gatekeeper sure he was at the Jewish Guys get together and decide stuff meeting but there was with no pants on eating chinese food from a container, feeling so loved and wanted. Now, not a piece of furniture, no forwarding address, no note, nothing. The absolute pure fucking genius of this move. I have wanted to meet this woman since I heard this story, maybe more than my friend who thinks of her every day, who doesn't let a month pass that he doesn't punch in her name to some search engine looking for her and she's poof, gone. There's no letter to pour over, there's no ticket stub for the opera, you can't save that stuff when you have a gatekeeper. Nothing.

I need that woman in my life. I need her to sit Ursula and I down and teach us the musings of love and the chambers of a man's heart. I need her to show me how just to make a clean break, not just with the men you don't want around any more but with the men you think are tortured, sure you can fix them.

I am off to fix myself today, working while listening to a little DH Lawrence. My son is home for a few weeks, days or hours depending on his ability to be a human being. Best Friend will be here soon. I am working on some new pieces. You can find me at Summerpoet@msn.com. You can always find my work at www.poetsummer.etsy.com. Summer's moments are fleeting so I will try to put some sun on my face today, I hope you get to do the same.

Carrie.

Blowing out Candles on the Moon

When my parents were celebrating
my fourth birthday
men landed on the moon for the first time
Now this doesn't seem amazing
now in the time of ipods
and cell phones and text messaging
but this was the time of
post cards and maps you had to unfold
giant tvs
you couldn't pop popcorn in the microwave
and Lennon was still alive

Aldrin noted the moon smelled like ash, wet ash
like sticking your head in a fireplace after it rained.
He left his footprint there
and while looking down, down at us here
down where my parents where making
plans, buying cake one of those cakes
with the clown head in the center
While I was learning the alphabet
while my mother was making women beautiful
and my father working two jobs to buy a house
while my brother two years behind me,
my constant companion, was stealing some of
my limelight;
men were looking down
from the mysterious moon

There are billions of galaxies each with a billion stars
some days the stars collide and others
rot there for a million years like all of us.
Having been to the cemetery recently to leave flowers,
the grass under my feet brown from the heat
I thought about last winter with the piles and piles
of snow, frozen earth, ice over snow
shoveling every day, thinking about the next time
I'd have to shovel the driveway with no end
The burial place now littered with flowers and little notes
would be desolate, ice and snow so you couldn't even
find a place to put flowers and I knew that the bones of my parents
their parents, my uncles and even the little baby
my grandmother buried here were below me
and while the idea of being near was comforting
how I'd like to dig and dig and dig and just lie on my
mother's casket and whisper to her
it's been so long I don't even remember her voice
maybe down there an echo of her would whisper back to me

When I drove off from that place, I knew I didn't want to be there
even under the shade tree, near the towering
marble angel

I will donate my body to science
I want them to tear me apart, use what they want
like a thanksgiving day turkey
and when they've picked the bones clean
take the rest and make it ash
and Suze will take it with her where she goes
down to the Lake House by the river
where the logs bang up against the the rocks
where we held cigarettes in our lips
and pretended to be cool girls who smoke
and she can throw me to the wind
and I'd land in the water on a fish
and swim and swim and swim

She'd take me home, to the place where my
father and I planted trees that are now so big
you can't hug them so your fingers touch
and she'll leave some there
the place we drove by as a child with my father
our mother in the long black car ahead of us
seeing her garden for the last time
Suze will leave parts of me there so my Dad knows where to find me

She will drive up by Northwestern where we went a thousand times
when the world was overwhelming and she had a boy
she needed to tell me about and I had a secret to share with her
the place where she first told me she was moving
She will take the last pinch of me and toss me out the window
right where the turn meets the lake on Sheridan road
thankful the green beast we used to drive is sitting
rusted in some junk yard children looking for change
under the seat

That last part of me will fly up through the cloud cover
and maybe to the moon where the others are waiting
watching down
all us ashy souls watching and wondering
when the next brave man will enter our atmosphere
leave a step on the moon moving her in mysterious circled orb
keep us company as we stare down at the bright blue marble.

**************************************
You can always reach me at Summerpoet@msn.com and my work www.poetsummer.etsy.com.

Who could forget Emily at Valentine's Day?

If you were coming in the fall

If you were coming in the fall,
I ’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I ’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I ’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

Oh, if you were coming in the fall...this is one of the first poems
by Dickinson I'd ever read. I was young and so innocent full
questions about why one would wait for love when another love
would be soon to follow with certainty. My feminist nature wouldn't
have even considered waiting for some man to make up his mind or
change his circumstances. A young girl is full of so many insane
notions, it's almost hard to separate them one from the other.

I have been quite taken with the steampunk jewelry and used some
really old watch parts to make the piece in the photo. I set them on silver
plated bases and used parts of Emily's poetry and her images, her love
of nature, and the vintage funky feel as I have the feeling Emily was
not very conventional about how she did anything. She did know about
waiting though and about passion and about time tick tick ticking away
and leaving her alone.

You left me, sweet, two legacies,—
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

Do you think he thought of her when he left? Do you think he
had a life full of regrets and leaving poor Emily was just
one of those regret cards he shuffled about? I wondered that myself.
Did she suffer for her art or in spite of it? Did God curse him
for her suffering? Did he lead her on or perhaps not even really
know that he was the object of her desire? I remember once receiving
a note from an old lover. I still have one of the books he gave me.
He was angry, angry that red fades before blue and nobody really knows
why. Angry that I hadn't set him a specific set of terms for my
departure and angry with all other women in the future for having
wronged him when he really only felt I had wronged him somehow.
At the time it didn't seem fair and I could laugh off his pain the way
Emily shooed a fly, but as time passes I wish I had handled the situation
with a little more care, taken care of his heart just a little rather than
"red fades before blue, I don't know why, it just does."

I don't get anxious about the possibility of a Valentine because I have one
but I do have a bit of heartache for those that are filled with angst
this time of year, the time of roses and chocolates and kissing. I know
most men just laugh off the idea of the holiday and I know the bossy
nonromantic in my life calls Valentines day the BirthdayChristmasEaster
"mother of all holidays" knowing full well that if it were to pass without
some romantic effort that I would be sporting an attitude for weeks.
I was watching the view the other day when Joy explained it the way I
feel about it. Women don't want the grand gift at Valentines Day.
They don't want a car or a new kitchen, they want a little something in a
box, something they poured over and thought about. They want it wrapped
in a pretty ribbon that they know some salesperson wrapped and they
want it given with excitement. They want love letters and perhaps
even a part of an original poem. They don't want live animals or new
tires or even a spa day. Not really.

Best Friend always sends out the best Valentines. We used to make
valentines together for days, glitter all over my house, glue on our fingers
and lace all over the floor. Those days were such fun.

If you are looking for a one of a kind valentine gift for someone you
love you can find my work at www.poetsummer.etsy.com. I am
open to most any suggestions. Thanks for spending this time with me
with much romantic notions, love and appreciation for all things
Emily, Carrie.

Nostalgia

I was at a show this weekend and a woman approached me asking me question after question about my jewelry and she said "my mom had bracelets full of charms, little moving pieces of history." I think that's why I love to make my charm bracelets because I get to use components of this and that, things my grandma had on her dressing table, things my mother loved, the cameos, the rhinestones. My parents were never big on excess. They didn't spoil their children the way I spoil my son. We were first told to work for what we wanted and sometimes I feel the guilt of just handing over things to my son just because I want his life to be easier.

But I have a different relationship with my son than I had with my parents. We are closer, more friends, confidants. We take the time to have lunch together and share all about our lives. He has a genuine interest in what makes me happy and although I knew what made my parents happy I didn't really have an investment in it. I had major heart surgery a few years ago and my son took time out of his life to help me heal, taking care of me in a way I didn't even know he was capable of taking of someone else. I had to remind myself of his caring when all I wanted was a cup of broth to feel comforted when I was writhing around in pain and he had to preach to me about the salt content of broth. I wanted to choke him.

No matter how hard we try we are like our parents. I am proud like my parents, and a little set off from the world. I am careful about letting strangers close. Not my Richie. He embraces the world with such a fervent gesture of hope that it takes me by surprise. The last time he was traveling I went to the post office to ask them a question about a shipment. During the summer, when he's home he's the mail person, the mail bitch. The people at the post office not only know him, but know his girlfriend, that he loves the cubs and that he loves to travel. Not one mail person asked me if he had landed ok, four did. They knew when he was leaving and wondered if he was having fun with his brothers. Later that afternoon I wander into 711 to get a cord of firewood. "Hey did Rich call? Is he having fun?" I didn't even know this clerk but he knew Richie and he knew I was Richie's mom and it put a smile on my face for the afternoon.

It's so easy to love our children but to know them and to like them quite another issue. We get to stand back and watch them make decisions and know they aren't our choices but hope against all odds that they are the decisions that make them happy. When he's short tempered I know he has my quick temper. When he's outside playing basketball and 1am it's hard to be irritated when I know he's close and safe and has a little pounce in his step. It's hard to have any authority over a grown man, especially after you've sat in the car with him, his big grandpa boat of a car singing kid rock lyrics together hyped up on iced coffee. He doesn't love poetry like I love poetry and I will never understand Math the way he loves the numbers. When I listen to the same Paula Cole song 10 times in a row he shakes his head and quietly curses me and when I've made his favorite dinner and it's just the two of us and he's busy telling me about his new class schedule I know he's mine forever, a little piece of him is mine forever. When he started working at a bank when he was 16 and loved the idea of counting money all day I wonder what alien tucked him in the crib in the other room and where my real child is out there in the universe.

I miss the little blonde kid digging in the beach behind the lake house, his hair full of sand and his skin tanned from April until October. Everything I do is about those tiny memories that make who I am. When I am putting a mermaid on a bracelet I am with little Rich at the beach and I've taken the day off work and pulled him out of kindergarten for the day and headed to water to watch him build sandcastles. In those quiet moments he became this person he is now.He loves the little animals the way I love them. He loves adventure because his auntie taught him the love of adventure. He has his father's love of children and his Uncle Andy's love of pure laughter just for the sake of laughter. He loves the cubs because his first memories of his uncle Stan were about Cubs games. He reminds me of my dad when he's bitching about me taking a short cut doing anything and when he complains about my driving. He reminds me of my mom when I find the little box in his room full of one earring his aunt loved, movie tickets from his first date with Christina and the tickets from the Cubs Yankees game a few years back.

The other day I was wondering who I was. My knee jerk reaction is to say I'm a mother, I'm an artist, I'm a businesswoman, I'm a best friend, a sister, someone's lover blah blah blah. But it's changed now. He's a man this son of mine. I'm an artist, a business woman, a mother, a best friend, a sister, and aunt and cousin, and someone's lover, someone's secret, and mostly I am loved. thanks for spending this time with me. If you have an interest in my art you can find me at poetsummer.etsy.com. Carrie.

I have always admired Eliot's work, but then I memorized Prufrock. It took me weeks and weeks reading it over and over again in free moments, moments not measured out in coffee spoons. Someone I love loved the poem and I thought that by putting every little word through my head I could figure out what he loved about the poem. I don't think Eliot wanted to "go then you and I" with a woman necessarily. He was looking for a friend, someone he could explain his life to, someone who would understand the pressures of upper class life in England living as a poet and living almost alone. Eliot's wife was nearly insane and although he loved her spirit and the way she laughed he was tormented by her moods and she apparently never lacked for a mood.

Eliot's best friend fixed him up with his sister, that's how he met his wife. I always tell people I know that I can tell who has a best friend and who does not by the way they speak of them. If you have a best friend they don't allow you to marry an insane person whether they love them and are related to them or not. They give you the heads up, the nudge as it were. I once saw Oprah talking to a woman who claimed her best friend slept with her husband and Oprah just shook her head and said, "you don't have a best friend and it's certainly not this woman you used to know." AMEN.

Back to Prufrock. He wrote of mermaids and dreams he had as a child. Eliot was feeling sorry for himself, dancing with melancholia (I do this myself at times so I can see the signs) and wondering what his life had been if he had taken the moment at hand as he was sure he should have several times and "forced a situation to it's crisis." And if he had would she had replied, "That is not what I meant at all, that is not what I meant at all." or would she had taken ownership and lived an authentic life, owning up to what we mean and living so that we don't have that moment when we have to force a crisis because anyone that would love us would know what we wanted. I struggle with that, telling people that I love who are already burdened with the busy thing that is their lives what I then expect from them. Soon months will pass and I will begin to wonder why they can't figure it out on their own. Insane.

While I love Eliot's poem and wonder how many times he rolled up his trousers and walked along the beach and I can't help but eat a summer peach and wonder if he smiled while eating his or if he was so full of self consideration that nothing could make him smile. Men carry a unique burden that women are only beginning to understand in the era of single mothers. The men in Eliot's time couldn't afford to be "insane." They had to work, to raise a family and to maintain an image. I being a single mother I felt empathy for the poet and listened to his words in my head until I felt a kindred spirit. There were many days when my son's father was MIA, off living his own life and I would have loved for a few days alone just to go a little crazy and self-analyze my life. Putting it in a poem is one thing, dancing on the table in a bar is quite another.

So after I put Prufrock in my head, the bossy republican sends me a first edition of Eliot's work and that's where I found this poem:

S she laughed I was aware of becoming involved

in her laughter and being part of it, until her

teeth were only accidental stars with a talent

for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps,

inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally

in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by

the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter

with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading

a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty

green iron table, saying: "If the lady and

gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden,

if the lady and gentleman wish to take their

tea in the garden ..." I decided that if the

shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of

the fragments of the afternoon might be collected,

and I concentrated my attention with careful

subtlety to this end.

Strangely enough it wasn't my laugh I thought of and it wasn't a romantic issue with me. It felt like having lunch with the Best Friend. We'd be lost in laughter in some small cafe near Northwestern, eating shrimp tacos for the first time. We had horrible service, really horrible service and our waitress was off sitting on a computer while we were waiting for another glass of ice tea on a hot summer afternoon. I said, "I hope she's not spending her tip." and we both broke out in laughter and I wondered how manyh other people wished they were me, and would know the joy of making my best friend laugh during an afternoon where we didn't have to be anywhere and nobody was anxiously awaiting our return. We could shop, we could sit and laugh, we could drive up to that little park by the lake and roll out the old quilt in the back of my car and read goofy magazines and play backgammon. If she laughed enough, the afternoon would be completely gone.

I wondered who Eliot's friend was. Was she his wife right before they put her back in a straight jacket? Was it an editor or a woman he almost knew who caught his eye in his lonliness? Was it a woman nobody knew but him and they shared stolen afternoons in a tiny Parisian cafe? Did she hand make butterflies and hang them in a park in the trees? Did she remember his birthday when nobody else in the world remembered? Did she kiss him just once and melted his heart? I haven't found any other information about the poem and I am glad. I like the mystery of the heart of a poet.

Work stuff? Ah, it's all good. The summer is breezing by and I am getting ready for Christmas already. I am working on a new line to add to my jewelry and in another week or so I will be ready to photograph. It's been really fun and I can't wait to see what sort of interest develops. If you are interested in my art you can always find me at Poetsummer.etsy.com or on Ebay under the seller name POETSUMMER and my own Ecommerce site at Summerpoet.com. You can always reach me at Summerpoet@msn.com and I welcome any emails. Thanks for spending this time with me. Carrie.