Lacunae

I wrote the following poem years ago, feeling very distant from my origins. Now I feel my origins within, but having revised this poem, am sharing it. When did I start awakening in the night afloat on a black velvet pool of soothing self-pity? Companioned by dream lovers father mother sister in starched shirts and dresses in rooms long emptied and even destroyed. So many heartbeats in the night so many different patterned breaths like fingerprints upon my tender senses. All dwindles with the dawn. But the first light cannot fill the gaping cavern widening within its center large enough for swallowing the sun. Copyright December 1995

Applause

I think I was A good mother Yes, I say, yes you were -- the past tense ringing out like a minor chord. Her room is bare. A throw she crocheted is folded at the foot of her bed. A faded B&W photo of my sisters and me at an impossible age of innocence complements the standard-issue crucifix. I wheel her to the "activities" room where a rinky-dink upright stands humbly against the wall. Its keys are as cracked, yellowed, and spotted as my mother's hands. I play for her remembering scales I played by rote as she washed dishes after supper. How awful that I never understood why. When the last of the Schumann faded she brought her crippled hands together in some sort of approximation of applause. Her eyes -- still confused -- begged me for clarity. A moment of perfection with my mother will not happen now, I think. Or is this moment the one? Copyright 2010

Flawed

We all are. But how often do we look at our flaws with some specificity, the way we'd assess a finished sweater -- one sleeve too long, a cable imperfectly turned, baggy at the waist? When I have low blood sugars, the world looks dark, and I'm snippy. I have musical tourettes, which annoys many, and I don't care. I automatically assume that those who were born with silver spoons in their mouths aren't people I'd want as friends. I overestimate the selflessness of my generosity. I fail to fill the gas tank until I'm on fumes. Boredom irks the hell out of me. I'm restless. I don't suffer fools graciously. I eat ice cream right from the carton. I often forget to put out the trash on collection day. Although I am efficient, I procrastinate and am easily distracted. I bristle against those who assume any incompetence on my part, even if it's there. I'm an education snob. I don't vacuum frequently enough. I don't do home upkeep regularly, resulting in properties that look worse when I sell them than they did when I purchased them. I throw other people's things away. I drive so aggressively it can be dangerous. I text too much. I get obsessive about new pleasures. I don't always follow through, especially with resolutions to work out at the gym. I leave my dry-cleaning at the shop way too long. I can be very snide, and enjoy it. It takes me too long to confront my loved ones with issues we need to resolve. I lose myself in love. Sure, there are more. But for now, I feel purged, like a Russian Orthodox congregant confessing at the altar for all to hear. I don't believe in sin. But I do believe in flaws. The most beautiful handknit garments, filled with love, are most often slightly flawed somewhere or other, like Persian carpets, into which imperfections are woven. The value on these items is higher than those machine made. If only we were more certain of the beauty of imperfection when we were young.

Ripping my heart out

I'm now three days behind on this blog and on my stated knitting goal (already!), and I still haven't gone out to purchase the yarn for a new project. But then, things have been a bit hectic, a bit disheartening, a bit dark. And not only in Haiti. For three years, I've worked with some of the most dedicated, ethical education experts imaginable. The Superintendent of Schools in Harrisburg, Dr. Gerald W. Kohn, aka Jerry, is known and recognized -- Superintendent of the Year 2009! -- for his energy, experience, and vision. He is relentless in trying to improve children's lives. He prides himself on stealing the best talent from other districts. They are good people. They do the next right thing, every time. But the forces-that-be conspire against the right thing to do. This nation is built on public education -- equal opportunity for all. But now, politicians want to mess with that, for reasons that are quite obvious. We've privatized the prison system, we're working on privatizing our national security, the military industrial complex has been private all along, and we tried the privatization of finance with such stunning results. The conservative among us seem to have no problem risking our children's futures. Gentle reader: Have you seen "Wicked"? I saw it with the original cast, thank you daughter Annie, who knew it was the musical to see. Anyway, it's so true that you'll hear me say it again and again and again: "No good deed goes unpunished." I once quoted "Defying Gravity" regarding a relationship lost, but now that I've grown, I know in my heart that it's not about that at all. It's about ethics.

And if I'm flying solo

At least I'm flying free

To those who'd ground me

Take a message back from me

Tell them how I'm

Defying gravity

I'm flying high

Defying gravity

And soon I'll match them in renown

And nobody in all of Oz

No Wizard that there is or was

Is ever gonna bring me down!

In Port au Prince this week, through natural causes, thousands have died, thousands more will. So many children are left without homes. We couldn't really stop an earthquake. But an earthquake of our own making is about to shake our nation just as hard.

Do you know how many children right here in Harrisburg don't have homes, or food, or any hope other than what's provided right there in their public schools? Why are newly homeless Haitian children pictured on Page 1, above the fold, while our own are invisible?

Even the successful children in Harrisburg, like those who have benefitted from all the hard work of the colleagues I so admire, those who have applied themselves for 12 years and are doing brilliantly despite all the obstacles they face, are not above the fold.

Oh, I know why; I don't mean to be disingenuous. But it angers me, profoundly. It doesn't have to be this way.

My readership is small, and I'm most definitely preaching to the choir, but this I believe: each one of us can change the world. Please, each of you, hear my plea. We have to fight what is coming. It's as stealthy as our nation's high end bombs. It will hit its target unless we fight.

And is there no better metaphor than that of battle? I think there is.

We have to knit our own lives with those of these children. We are all of one fabric, Haitians, Harrisburgers, and all.

Nothing that happens in public education, a world where the endless labors of good people often go unrecognized except by the students who love them, should be about revenge, about self-interest.

But it seems sometimes to me that in this life, we knit rows and rows and rows of warmth, only to watch them get ripped out. Yet, we cannot stop knitting.

Time for a new project

For a six-foot-tall boy, a six-foot-long scarf. I run my fingers over it, rows and rows of memories. Peter pedaling his Big Wheel down the steep slope of the driveway, hanging a sharp right and then waiting for my okay to zoom across the busy street to head down Second Street toward the little school where he went to Kindergarten. Peter jamming on his saxophone, sliding across the stage with his guitar, hunched over the Steinway keyboard. Peter letting his pony-sized dog pull him down the street on his scooter. Peter in his infant seat, squinting up at the sun. Peter concentrating on a Lego project, after begging me to separate the pieces by color, which of course I would do. Peter in his headphones, slouched on the sofa, his laptop a constant. Peter shuffling off to walk the dog whose head is now only as high as Peter’s hip. Yards and yards of life. It’s when you think there’s nothing left that can surprise you that it happens. Pete now converses. He inquires about my day. He shares information about his. One night when he was an infant, his barking croupy cough awakened me. He was gasping for breath, and I sat with him for hours in the steamy bathroom. He clung to me, she who would hold him until the fever broke. These days, every day before school he hugs me and pats me on the back. He’s still nonverbal at that hour, but he takes the time to speak in other ways. I have to fight the urge to cling to him. When do men learn not to communicate? In my experience, men want to be left alone. My father was the first in my experience, of course. He’d disappear into the basement for what seemed like weeks, only appearing to eat and grimace. The pattern repeated. Don’t bother me when I’m cranky. Don’t pry when I’m stressed. Don’t talk at the dinner table. I labored to make sure that my son would know how to listen, and how to share. And yet I have feared for years that no matter how much I encouraged him to defy gender expectations, he’d succumb. And then, you meet someone who listens and asks questions that relate to what you’ve said – thoughtful questions. Someone who says that communication is essential. And you remember that your son writes poetry that becomes lyrics for his songs. Just when you think there’s nothing left that can surprise you, it happens. I guess I’m ready for a new project.

Counting stitches

There’s no knitting today. Instead, I dismantle the Christmas tree. Carefully, I wrap each precious ornament, some colorful glass, some cute little figures in wood, in tissue paper, and lay it gently into the storage box. The tree is more fragrant dry and dead than it was while soft and fresh. A human wouldn’t smell so good untended. Tearing the strings of lights off the stiffened branches isn’t easy, and I struggle hurriedly, because I’m due out for lunch in just 40 minutes. I realize that no matter what pleasure lies ahead, my compulsion to finish what I’m doing controls me. I have to get that last strand off, because after lunch, I won’t want to have this chore to face. Instead, I’ll want to bask. The neighborhood Italian deli is warm and bright. The roasted red pepper in my mortadella and mozzarella sandwich is sweet, like the moment. I am beginning to understand how different I have become. Counting stitches has reminded me how to attend to each moment. And this afternoon, each moment is something to etch into memory. I’m surrounded by quiet kindness. There is coffee, with raw sugar and thick froth that stays on my upper lip. There is the soft blue sleeve of a sweater that I cannot resist the urge to touch. And finally, there is the realization that for the first time since I turned sixteen, I am not saddened by the end of Christmas. The glorious season isn’t ending, but leading to the birth of every new day. Perhaps that is what the story means. Our uncertainty of what awaits us under that star is exactly what draws us forward. Pack up your gifts, and join the journey.

Dropped a stitch

Technology and knitting. Each has its advantages. But in knitting, if I drop a stitch, it's my fault. Miscalculate the gauge, my fault. With technology, it's never my fault. I now have two blog posts on my laptop, not posted. The laptop refuses to connect to my wireless router. The battle I did with it on the weekend was so frustrating that I wanted to stab myself in the eyeball with the nearby knitting needle. Now that would have been my fault. I wrote those two entries, but now having processed the weekend more fully, they seem out of date, frail compared to the strength of what I am currently thinking. Monday comes and goes, and still no luck with the wireless connection. I'm on my son's iBook. But sometimes a lack of connectivity via wireless forces one to seek different types elsewhere. It started Friday. I was leaning my chin on my hands at my desk, the last one in the office other than the cleaning staff. The vacuum cleaner was approaching. I had had plans to meet a dear friend, but her in-laws had arrived unexpectedly, and she couldn't go out. Story of my life ... best laid plans. Everyone tells me to plan, but truly, my life is ruled by serendipity. Because that's what defined Friday night and the following weekend, and there is nothing I could have planned that would have improved what occurred. A new email appeared on my screen. Okay, no Karen, but instead an email. A sorry comfort, I thought, until I read its one line message, and became intrigued. Minutes later, I was on the telephone with this unknown person, discovering all that I had in common with someone I'd never met in person. He was looking for some information on a common project. And there I was, stumbling through a conversation in which we tripped into unexpected territories, learning that we are both Unitarians with liberal views -- as opposed to Unitarians with conservative views?? -- and a bit worn down by life that day. He'd had his plans cancelled, too. The next day, over lunch, we found out that we have the same color eyes, a passion for equity and justice, and the belief that gratuitous meanness should be punishable by law. All of this doesn't seem so extraordinary, perhaps. But what was happening? A new color was being introduced into the fabric of my life. On Sunday morning, I sat with the other members of the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg choir, fondly called "The Unisingers," in the church we share with another congregation on the second Sunday of the month. This new practice is the effort of a mainly white congregation from an A-frame church just out of the city of Harrisburg to serve a less white neighborhood, a less privileged population, offering them dignity as well as charity. I had considered it folly. Barriers, I have learned through working at a school district that is 85% African American and 10% Latino, are not so easily broken, no matter how well-intentioned either party may be. How astonished I was to hear from a few speakers at the service that day that the second Saturday breakfasts are working very well. Hundreds are coming out to be served breakfast and get to know our congregation. Neighbors are welcoming us with open arms. Activists and social service people in the community are befriending us. Our minister had said that serving in this community would save no one but ourselves ... but I was seeing differently that morning. I saw that with every new contact made, more than two people were being saved. It would spread, just as surely as every successful connection made through my work has a ripple effect, as well. And next to me, my fellow second alto was weaving yellow into the blue of her sock. I've worked on cables, complicated patterns for suits that fit infants, turned the heel of a sock, built the thumb of a mitten. But I've never worked a color pattern. Megan said she could show me. I loved the alternating colors, knit together tightly. Leaving the church, I recognized my new friend standing at the door. He'd come to my Unitarian service instead of his. He'd heard the motivating speakers. The idea our congregation was making a reality, despite naysayers like myself, may now travel further. And the sparkling color in his eyes and my excitement to see him were blended with my gratitude for the spiritual experience I'd just had, and the additional moving blending of our voices with those of a Gospel group from the community. It was a multicolored morning. One of beauty, and joy.