socialist subscriptions and other early morning amusements

Thunk, thunk... two raps on my door, I jump up from my bed, open the window from the floor, hiding myself behind the damask curtain, for propriety's sake (God forbid it should be a child and they should glimpse me naked, then the world would surely end!)
Who is it? (my heart beats faster, I know it isn't anyone that I would like it to be, but my entrails are still atwitter). Silence.
Who is it? I call again. Nothing. I throw on a bath robe, pad down the steps, open my front door to a sunny fall morning. No one. I leave my door open, walk around the corner, scratch my head. I have visions of someone sneaking past me into my house when I turn my back, so I don't though the bright sunshine really ought not inspire such nervousness.

Last night, late, I went to the gym, I was doing my cool down when they announced five minutes to close. There was sweat pouring off me, my iPod had died after 10 minutes and I had managed to push through another 25 of running without calling it quits, without the musical crutch of Manu Chao, or Depeche Mode or Luscious Jackson... full consciousness, no trance-like state of self-deception. So I went out, to my car, yes, at night I try not to bike as I have no lights, and decide that I need to go look at the ocean. I drive along the edge of campus, park at the edge of the cliff and lean, sweaty and alone over the railing to look at the slow motion waves rolling in to the beach. It is low tide, but I don't descend the creaky wooden stairs, I don't trust my aloneness, am not free of fear. And suddenly I am crying, tears pouring down my cheeks, because I am looking at Goleta Beach, where we had our annual picnic that afternoon, and I am struck by how much I miss Tim. Last year that was the last time I saw him alive. Alive. The following Monday I got the phone call and he was already dead. His heart had swelled. I stood silently, composing letters that I would not write to him, letters to a dead man, remembering how he would listen. I wish I had listened more and talked less. I always wish that. I talk too much. I give too much, and I don't know how to receive. There were boys, hordes of them, looking for places to hide in the bushes, to smoke weed far away from dormitory smoke detectors. I smiled through my tears. The pain eased a little. Karmic retribution, I thought, that's what it is... I deserve this.

So maybe some of this uneasiness was still there, in the stark sunlight, because I didn't turn my back on the door, but stood waiting... waiting for something. When nothing materialized, I went back upstairs, cast off the bath robe, or rather, as I am trying to maintain order in my life, hung it neatly back on its hanger, and went back to my translation work. When the second round of rapping came, I was no longer scared, immersed in Ignacio's poetic universe, I repeated the actions previous. Who is it?
Muffled mumble. Socialist newspaper.
How can I help you? I call from above.
I can't see you. I hear back in that male voice, the high pitch of tight vocal chords. I imagine he is in his forties or fifties, slight. I am curious.
Ok, hold on.
This time I throw a dress over my head, pad back down, open the door. He has a black messenger bag, he is holding socialist papers. He rattles off a list of the paper's views. I nod and smile. I have no intention of buying a subscription, but I am amused by the possibility of a conversation.

So we converse.
He feels the need to say that the paper supports Palestinians, just because, he says, he noticed the mezuzah... I smile, impassive. One thing has nothing to do with the other, I point out, and he agrees. But, you know, just in case...

It really isn't much, but I have no desire to spend money on other people's political agendas and much less interest in a socialist rag, and I don't say this because I have particular disagreements with any (or at least very many) of the beliefs purportedly held, but I find that people with strident and radical political views are very infrequently compelling storytellers, and frankly, all I want any more is to be told a good story, to ease the pain of living.
What is your view on feminism? I cast the barbed bait.
Well we are against feminism. (That simple. Blanket statement. Here comes the apologetic explanation) because we believe that the principal struggle is a class-based one of the exploited worker against the elite ruling class.

Aha... I wonder aloud whether he has considered women as a class... he tries to instruct me on Marx's very precise definitions about the relation to means of production and I say, yes, that is my point, but I don't think he gets it, though in his defense he acknowledges that women suffer "special" oppression in every country in the world, but that socialist thought simply has a different approach to eradicating such oppression and I can't help thinking about what a pat answer that is, and how basic it is to human nature to oppress others. Seriously. Even without attempting to do so. Even in sexual relationships. And off I go, on my tangents of love and the terrible terrible thing which is abstinence, at least in my mind.

Don't you think... I pose... that there is more to it than a simple relation between workers and production? Who brings the sandwiches to the meetings? (I don't ask this, but I think it) Who scrubs down the stove after the dishes have been washed, half-heartedly and pieces of pasta or streaks of grease are still stuck to the sides of the pot? (I also don't say this, and I am already starting to not like myself for having these thoughts, but they are based on a life-time of observable fact, albeit, whose interpretation is colored by my particular choice of framework).

NOT that I am a radical feminist, because I am not, but because I love to riddle with holes any radical argument that is founded on wild generalizations (including my own) I continue to play, and we spar, in good fun. He has given up trying to sell me a paper, and I suggest that he updates his concept of what feminism is and that it isn't all Andrea Dworkin, porn-hating, men-despising women that want to oppress others to mitigate the oppression that they have suffered. And I giggle, inwardly of course, because I am thinking about the pseudo-socialists and their little pamphlets at Bryn Mawr, and Nell, whose studied punk-rock grunge look was bought at the finest of Seattle boutiques, and then of my girl friends in Mexico, and how there was probably more lipstick and leg showing than I have seen in one college classroom, and what the "new face of feminism" might look like if we were to do some artsy fartsy collage, and what fun consciousness raising must have been, and all the nights of red wine and sexual discovery and I wish I wish I wish I could be a starry-eyed left-wing throwback because I really and truly long for that time I never lived, but I am not.

I am a radical moderate, I apologize. I always have been, I think. Fear of action? Distaste for my own inevitable hypocrisy? Perhaps. But then I think of what I wanted to say to Tim last night, when he had the indecency of still being dead, and I wanted to tell him that I am trying to profoundly transform my life (but I am still falling short on many counts). And how can we even pretend to transform a whole society (and if we do, into what precisely would we transform it, and would that other thing be any better in real ways?) And I know this rampant individualism is the root of all evil, except that... well... shouldn't there be a way to balance one's individual needs, transform one's own life within the framework of the lives of others? But, there I go being a moderate again...

Trust

Fear softens
Braced in a child’s hand,
Feathers, matted blood,
Aching
Skies arch above,
Below
There is only the mirage
Of words
Rippling on the face of
Liquid spilled
Soft, as a baby bird
Clutching at loneliness
It slips by
These words unsaid
Unspoken,
Unanswered questions
Broken in monochrome
Skin on skin
on stains of rust
down empty lanes
reflecting
still and silent,
eyes forgive
such pain.

sexiles and other atrocities of aging (ungracefully)

It's a Saturday night, and well, I passed up the chance to go out, or rather, I chose to go home to an empty house, in lieu of a night on the town... it matters very little, I think. I feel old.

P. the married boyfriend of a friend of mine stopped in to see K., and there I was. He was a lovely man. Warm, funny. 47, but he looked like he wasn't a day over 35. We giggled like children, the three of us, and K. kept feeding us all licorice. Last week, with Perlita, I learned the word, for a second time, in Spanish, regaliz, as useful a term as any other to file away, I suppose.

When I was a child, I hated anise, so much so that I could discern its presence in a pasta sauce and reject it. For the same reason, I hated licorice. But now, something has changed in me, something fundamental, and I am not speaking of the anise here... Once upon a time I hated sharing my space. I wanted privacy, and a single room. I managed to have a single all through college, never suffered the humiliation of being "sexiled," that is, locked out of my bedroom so that a roommate could get her rocks off. Of course, to be honest, there was far less sex going on, through most of my college career than anyone would logically believe. Now living alone just feels empty.

So P. and I commiserate, over beer and other sundry nerve-calming agents, about our lack of sex. It is neither here, nor there, I think. But more there, than here? You need a new boyfriend, K. had insisted, coaxing me out of the house when all I wanted to do was lay naked in my bed and stare at the ceiling. Why does my skin hurt? I wonder. Why does it feel like I could just stop breathing and it wouldn't change a thing?

I have work, but my work seems so unimportant, and I miss my child, and she misses me, and I will be travelling again soon, to see her, but it won't be enough. My house is empty, and I think that the term "sexile" should also refer to those who willingly shut themselves off from the world. Then, I'd have to include myself. The self-imposed celibacy is starting to grate on my nerves. And I ponder several points of dating, at which I have absolutely no skill. Dating. Right. I am told that people who are lonely do that sort of thing, only, I'm not precisely lonely, that is, if you can think of lonely as being a desire to be with others in general, as opposed to a specified set of others. I like solitude, I swear it up and down, but I don't really mean it. I am just picky about my company, and I know very quickly whether I will be interested or not. Or perhaps I don't understand people enough to want to risk too much, or anything at all? It is a tennis match, you serve, I return the volley. Then the ball dies, in the middle of your court or mine, and then what? When a man, unsolicited gives you his phone number, isn't that a sign that he wants to communicate further? I don't understand the rules, I guess, don't recognize the difference between the service of a ball, and the smashing close to a play. 40-love. I lose before I begin. I stop picking up the ball, when it isn't returned I just walk away. Maybe it is pride, or a deep sense of boredom.

When someone wants to see you, they simply do it. It is that easy. When they don't, the effort isn't there. M. insisted last week, over coffee. She must be right. I understand this intellectually, but I am, by nature, an enabler, so it takes training to not forgive people, to not accept excuses. I get several apologies, on a regular basis, from a cast of regulars. "Sorry, I didn't have enough time." "Sorry, I haven't started, but I am about to." "Sorry, I promise to get back to you with a sort of response you deserve." "Sorry, are you angry with me, why have you stopped writing?" "Sorry, I don't give enough of a shit to actually exert myself, but I'd hate for you to stop making an effort just because I am too self-involved to care."

I sigh. And write letters to a few of them. After all, there is a public to entertain. The taste of disappointment isn't unfamiliar to me, but it mostly is a self-generated flavor. K. suggests that I just call someone for sex. Once a week servicing, she insists. Nah. I reply, not worth it. I only half believe myself, but mostly, it is because the people she ticks off a list are of no interest or use to me (and because once a week would not remotely be enough to compensate the effort exerted). The others are in remote corners of the world. It shouldn't be that hard, I remind myself. But I am no longer in that country, where men have no problem capitalizing on a hoarse voice to tell you that it is sexy, or to let their hand linger on your knee while they ask about your next novel. I am in this country, where fear and propriety abound, and no one takes risks anymore (including me) because it is more important to uphold the guise of completeness, the farse of a successful career, the sham of a marriage that is nothing more than a list of complex co-dependencies (this was more P.'s discourse than mine, I'll admit). And I wonder if the fear of aging alone is really worth years of misery that end in, well, aloneness, and where people with actual courage might be found. So I look in the mirror, because, after all, despite my faults (which are many), no one can accuse me of cowardice. And no, perhaps bravery won't protect me from loneliness, but at least I can let myself love without fear. Because there is tomorrow, and the next day, and there are no guarantees, no matter how we feel today, but it is worth it, it is worth it, to live today, fully, to not cloak ourselves in a veil of non-sensation, for the sole sake of avoiding pain. I repeat this, like a mantra, to numb myself today, with cold toes and fingers, and no one to rub my back. It'll get better. It has to.

reality sets in...

I step off the plane, and my senses are accosted. The pungent salt air, the wet breeze that teases my exposed cleavage with hints of balminess, that belie its true chill. I descend the steps, feel my tangled curls tightening with the humidity. I feel neither happy nor sad. I may detect a hint of Eucalyptus, but I can't be sure. It may be my memory playing tricks on me.

The first trip I took, alone, since I was married, I stepped off the plane at the Santa Barbara Airport. I remember the tightening in my chest of emotion, the nervous tickle, the phone calls home. It is beautiful, I had lied, just a little, my easterner aesthetic not ready to embrace the barren beauty of the Pacific coast. It is dark still, I won't see the ocean until tomorrow, in the morning, when I take a lonely walk along the edge of the sea.

I am home, it would seem, whatever home means. I am no longer married. And I'm in a space I created, only, not. That is. It is clean, but there are foods on the counters that are boy foods, cookies, chips. To my grateful surprise, sheets are washed and the bed is already half-made. There are cleansing products I would not buy on the shelves, there are new light fixtures, courtesy of the university, that make everything a bit harsher in the white glare. Shit, I think, I am alone.

Shit, double shit. Now what? Work. Yes, lot's of it. So why can't I stop thinking about how much I have lost since that first time I stepped off the plane, into the salt air of Santa Barbara, but how much have I gained? My voice doesn't wobble when I talk about it anymore, not as much. The tears aren't for me, but someone else tonight, reading the stories written by the women in Mérida's prison, the ones that published a book under the tutelage of Verónica González and her taller de escritura. My eyes devour the page and the pain that is not my own, but at the same time it is. The pain of every woman, every man, every child ever abandoned, or scorned, of hurt by someone they loved. I've looked at life from both sides, now... and I'll still always side with the loser.

In the airport, from Phoenix, my flight was delayed. There was a free wireless connection. There was a kind rejection. And a friend in a far off land to keep me company for a few minutes, to commiserate. So, he says, being alone is not so bad. I'll have to take his word for it. My garden is a shambles, but there are still a few tenacious flowers. My living room is not the way I want, but it can wait, until tomorrow. There is no rush. There is nothing waiting. Nothing but my own rhythm. I need to find it. I need to find myself, somewhere lost in this house that always feels so small, but suddenly feels so big. It is just me. And the artwork I bought that needs framing, and the presents that I will hide in the drawer will be safely guarded where no little hands will go prying. There are no little hands to hold, not for now. But there are movies to be shelved, books, papers.

Tomorrow I will buy milk, and eggs, carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. I will check the mail, arrange my creams and lotions, oils and cleansers, spices and liquors. Tomorrow I will find myself in the midst of all this and wonder what I was thinking, so long ago. Could I have foreseen this? Am I in a better place? Or just a different one? Will I always be searching?

The summer is over, and California leaves do turn, not in such magnificently strident colors, but they do... dried eucalyptus swirls around by the front door. That smell will forever remind me of heartbreak, in so many ways. When will I stop associating the beginning of school with personal tragedy? When will it turn back into that sense of hope and infinite possibility that it used to inspire in me, as a child, with the smell of sweet putrefaction, tannin-rich rivers running orange with the rotten leaves, new erasers, pencils, notebooks. The promise of new eyes to look into, the possibility of touch.

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. I can change it, make it the way I want, be a better person. Tomorrow.

Tonight, I'll just cry a little. It is good to be home.

detail of a perfect day

I know that I generally use this space to tell of great travels and other heroic endeavors, otherwise, to complain about the injustice of the world, but today, just today, it occurred to me that I rarely reflect on the perfection of a well-executed day.

So, my solo trip to Acapulco was pleasant, and I took care of evening out my deepening tan. And while I woke this morning, like yesterday, to be reminded that I have my bi-yearly standard sinus infection, paid with interest, it was an almost flawless day.

I decided that, of course, as I was heading back to Danielle's house, just up Juventino Rosas, off of Insurgentes. The interview had gone well, with Margo, and though, like everyone else she said, "oh, no, don't take a taxi from the street." I marched the 6 wet blocks up Tres Cruces to Miguel Angel, avoiding the larger puddles, and hailed an old green vocho with a friendly driver. Buenas noches, güerita... he smiled. I smiled back, told him where to take me, and chatted. He used to work from 6 in the morning until 10 at night. It destroyed his marriage. But, he says hopefully, people tell me I'm young. He runs his hand through his hair shoots a look back at me, relatively... he continues, 42 isn't too old to star over, is it? Pues, no... I reply gently.

The perfection began much earlier. Yesterday I desperately wanted to go to the movies, but I was too sick to get myself out of my pijamas or do anything more than make a nice sopa de fideos... that is, until 6 when I went to see Sara and Danielle to go hear Myriam Moscona do a poetry reading at La Casa del Poeta, in La Roma, a quaint little venue just past Orizaba on Alvaro Obregón, that used to be the dwelling of Ramón López Velarde, hence, the name. She read with Sergio Mondragón. It was good to see her again, she is always so much fun. But I digress. I had gone looking for the Cineteca's cartelera, and saw that there was a double feature that I wanted to see, starting at 11 am, since it was on again today, my one plan was to wake up early, finish my proposal narrative and head to the cine to see The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948 - John Huston) in which Humphrey Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbes, the man driven mad by gold lust, which turned to gold dust, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García (1974 - Sam Peckinpah) a seventies shoot-em-up set in the heart of Mexico, replete with fly-covered sack of a severed head. It really was a blast, and I'll admit, late at night, with nothing but myself and a television set to amuse myself over the weekend, after swimming circles around myself in the private pool, I watched the tail end of the 3rd? Mariachi film, and it was really and truly the same gringo imaginary of Mexico... nothing, it seems, has changed in the last 30 years, save for the technology to simulate bodies being riddled with bullets. I was surprised and amused about the formidable homo-social thrust of these films, all men trying to penetrate eachother with bigger and better guns, and stabbing objects. Gives one pause, to say the least.

Now granted, I had no time to eat, but the taxi I grabbed in the morning got me there with fifteen minutes to spare, even after we took a wrong turn and wended our way through Xoco to end up at the front entrance (Eje 1) Cuauhtémoc, instead of the back. I had a hot chocolate and some water, and besides an intermission trip to the restroom, I was in movie trance straight from 11-3:15, at which point, as programmed, I called Claudia. She wasn't there, so I walked across the bridge, and then crossed Churubusco, continued on Centenario to Viena where I showed up at her office. She was waiting for my call. It was perfect, and though her telephone didn't pick up my calls, she knew I'd make it. And I did. We had a late lunch in the center of Coyoacán, talked for hours over caldo tlalpeño and pollo relleno de plátano en mole negro, and then coffee, and though it stormed outside, we were safe and warm in bright lights. And thank goodness because I lost my umbrella, having left it in the car of the woman who gave me a ride home from the Condesa the other day after Rosa Nissán's taller de autobiografía.

I walked the few blocks up and arrived at my interviewee's house at exactly 7 pm. Punctuality always pleases me, and this time was no exception. So all of these pleasantly perfect executions of exactly what I wanted from my day played out, and I was pondering my contentedness, when Danielle's friends came for us, and we picked up her fiancé, and headed to the Condesa-Hipódromo for an Argentine meal. The place we had planned on was closed, and so I suggested we head to Michoacán and Parral, to La Garufa, where when we were seated, I found none other than my beloved Joel, and Marimé, finishing up their meal. They had just been talking about me, and Claudia and I had just been talking about them, and it was the most perfect ending to my most perfect day, because Joel was only in the city for a little over 12 hours, and after joining our group for another hour, headed to take his bus back to Morelia.

I know this seems like a laundry list of what I did today, and in fact, holds no interest for anyone, perhaps, but me. Nonetheless, the unique experience of feeling totally sated, happy, and content is so foreign to me that it is noteworthy, if only for my own personal annals.

Strange brew, brothers in arms or why can’t we be friends…

It is suddenly cold, and the supple viscose shawl that Kirsten and I bought last summer in Santiago de Compostela isn’t quite warm enough. And I am sticking to the varnished wood bench in the Puritan backroom, catching up on lurid details of lives that have touched mine, that have existed in this strange constellation of social connections that we call friendships, over time… and space. Arturo and I share a birthday though he is twenty odd years my senior. When I heard the news, the initial news, it didn’t surprise me. I thought he was dying, we all did. But here we are three years later, three summers past, and he is happy, and healthy, and we are drinking coffee, at least I am, with Bailey’s, an uncommon occurrence, but I am cold, and I have been drinking red wine in the afternoon with Joe and Abigail, exploring cartographies of places we have traveled, andIn the morning I met Melissa at the bagel place, with I., and in an hour downloaded all the details of her battle with immigration, her move back to Puerto Peñasco, and the difficulties of a bi-cultural marriage.

I made Joe a key-lime pie for his birthday, and when we drove up to Concord, Abbie made fresh pizza. The children ate vegetables. Dinner was a success. Will their house sell soon? Will the kids get to be in school together? How does one address poor clothing choice in teenage girls? These are some of the themes that we meander about, me and my dear libertarian friends. You don’t need and invitation, Joe says, just show up unannounced when you’re around. There is something so warm and comforting in old friends.

But I am simultaneously shivering, and my underthighs are sticking to the seat, and I wish that I could place the shawl beneath me, but then my shoulders would be cold, and we are gossiping, really, except that when it is about your family and yourself it is just considered “catching” up, and he confirms for me what I already know about myself which is that the boys that always catch my fancy (in this case the Colombian line cook with whom I shared exactly 25 words and a warm hand shake, but quite a bit of surreptitious eye-contact) are invariably swinging towards the middle of the Kinsey spectrum. Sigh. And so, love and marriage and a history of withholding sex and unwavering stubbornness, and children and pregnancy and disease and separation and work and it is so good to see you, give me another hug, are the topics of discussion until Martín is supposed to meet us. But he is late closing, and has misplaced his keys, so I drop Arturo at the house, the same house that 10 years ago was my refuge and escape, where I spent strangely passionate nights of unending foreplay and emotional rejection, where “Everything but the Girl” resounds in my memory, “I must confess, been hanging round your old address… and I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain” (and yet I don’t feel any of those same emotions, at least not for him, which, I think is a good thing), he runs up and down the three flights of stairs and I sing softly along with the radio, he comes to my window, holds my hand, gives me the spare keys, and I am off into the night.

Back downtown (all 15 blocks away) Martín takes the keys, moves his car and climbs into the passenger seat. Are you ok to drive? Yeah, sure. We look for a bar, something quiet, to talk, shoot the shit, unwind. We go down to the mills, to Milli’s Tavern, but there is an infernal racket of industrial music and the back bar is closed, so we circle the center again, park behind City Hall and wend our way to Strange Brew, where there is live, loud Blues upstairs. I have never been to the downstairs so he follows me, my curiosity leading me to the depths of depravity. Unfortunately it is just as loud but with a younger, more college-like crowd, you know, baseball jerseys and assholes that are so drunk they stumble over and burn me with cigarettes, or girls that spill beer all over one another accidentally. It doesn’t matter, he buys me an I.P.A. on tap, but it is too bitter for me, or my heart isn’t in it, because he is on his second, an hour and a half later, and I still haven’t made it past the halfway mark, at which point he pours out half of my drink into his glass, and I still don’t finish. He loves being a dad, his face lights up. We talk about Mexico city, wander through the streets, through our adventures, though mine are totally tame in comparison, stories we have told each other before, but in the retelling there is pleasure, and in the din of the dungeon-like cellar we laugh a little, and it is good to laugh.

Tonight my mother doesn’t hassle me, doesn’t ask whether his wife wants to see him, maybe it is because I am with his brother, and therefore it is a family affair? Really mom, I want to tell her, but I squash my aggravation, she’s my friend… and if he wants to go out and get a drink and catch up, what the hell is the harm? I swear, more harm is done by well-meaning “propriety”. Men and women should just be able to be friends, and relationships should be established on trust, and no one wants to be stifled or controlled or shamed or fenced in. Right? Right. So, my quarter beer is finished and we are kicked out of the bar at 1:30, and I am not ready to drive just yet, so he takes the keys and we look for places to eat or drink something, and the stupid kids that are pouring out of bars don’t look where they’re going, and the only places that are open are the club across the street from his restaurant, Liquid, where unflatteringly dressed twenty-somethings flock, The Red Arrow and another diner around the corner on Pine street, and ManchVegas is decidedly a dead town. We tell more stories, of initiation, prostitution, love, sex and death; every Dunkin’Donuts in a 10-mile-radius is now closed. There is a line of cars that encircles Taco Bell. What does this say about the city? I can’t even begin to articulate. And we hash over the details of our mutual and generalized need to wander, and by the time that we are back at his car, I am ready to drive home, and my hair reeks of smoke, so we hug goodbye, and I will see his family in Mexico long before he does, his family which is like my family because they adopted me so many years ago, before Dora died, and Arturo got sick, and Tania got married, and the New Hampshire babies were born. And maybe, just maybe, the next time around some of these things will be resolved, but then again, maybe not.