Give This Man a Job

Preferably writing love letters or clearing out karaoke bars.
(How could you say no to that face?)

Four Left Feet

So, yes, you can tell jokes that will send us into fits of hysteria and identify bones that will send us into bouts of weeping, and yes, you're a genius and a doctor and a good looking man, and yes, you can pull rabbits from hats and mastermind all things mechanical, but my brother, can you dance?

P(it)ch Perfect

In his essay, thrilled with the violinist he had heard at Carnegie Hall, my student, Yoon, wrote of the violinist's beauty and how she played in perfect "peach." I like to think of Yoon in that big dark hall--an orchard all his own--and how leaving, he reeked of sticky sweetness, the kind so potent that hours later you smell it on your hands and remember.

Other Blue Things

The umbrella I left on the train; the jacket of the woman who was sitting across from me, the one with the sad eyes and the smooth cuticles; the ink in the pen in the pocket of my purse; deli carnations; the bird I was cast as in the first grade, the one who couldn't fly; a stone; a sky; what Christmas would be without you; the space between red and yellow, between mapped land and chartered stars, between two and true; the sound of running water, of running, of walking away and not turning back, of not turning, of turning too quickly; a berry pie; very cold ice; a very hot flame; my pappy's eyes; the guitar pick he's got in his pocket; the bird, though, (little bird/little bird blue), in the end, I think she flew, though I didn't, of course, being only six with no wings at all save the feather-plastered cardboard they strapped to me just before the curtain rose.

Health & Fitness Tip #21

Step away from the pumpkin pie.

The Players

Smiley Jelly Love

Amy and Hill

Maaza, Martin and Livs

We call ourselves (among other things)
"The Southampton Writer's Collective."

Yuck-yuck-yoing with LaLa Limon.

Ah, the Cake

I love this photo that Olivia took because it feels like the kind of photo you find in the drawer of a bureau, a bureau you buy at a little antique store that you happen to drive by one cold November day, a bureau you just have to have, so you rope it on top of your beat-up station wagon, and you get home and start filling the drawers with your own things--soaps, panties, mended socks--and hmm, you say to yourself, what's this? It's a man and a woman cutting a cake with a little man and a woman on top of it. You flip the photo over and try to read the faded blue ink but can't make out the names or the date. You turn it over again and sit looking at them for a long minute, wondering if they are happy.

Trust me, they are. Very.

The In-Laws

I just realized I've been married over a month and have yet to make a disparaging comment about the ole in-laws (who, by the way, I love like crazy). Anyway, this Rockwell-goes-redneck just in from my father-in-law:

Yes, folks, happy thanksgiving from southwest Missouri!!!

New Poem

Near Dawn

In the refrigerator, a bowl of green grapes,

seedless, but still a place where the seed was meant to be.

I have been over the sink, wondering about winter,

while my husband sleeps, the sheets marking his face

in a way I’ll try, uselessly, to smooth later. My mother,

I’m sure, is waking up in Oklahoma. Her hands hurt;

I can feel the pain in my own, but it’s too early to call.

The sound of a phone ringing at this hour—

hollow, frightening—someone is dying, you just know it.

If it is only your adult daughter, the one who’s pecking

at grapes, if it is only her, asking how your plants are,

how you are, if it is only her, and the ring has broken

your whole house, it might not quite be worth it.

That racing of the heart when silence is interrupted—

someone would need to be dead or hurt or really, really lonely,

so lonely even the dawn wouldn’t make good company.

How 'bout a little smile?

Still Life with Brooklyn's Mala Yoga

Three of my favorite women in the world (and, incidentally, the most talented yoga teachers I've ever worked with) opened up a new studio just a stone's throw away. Put down whatever you are doing, and go there now.

The luminous and lyrical Angela Clark:

The very wise and very hilarious Christina Hatgis:The extremely enviable pigeon of a classmate:The inimitable, intelligent and strikingly sincere Stephanie Creaturo:And don't be surprised if you see someone familiar:
Ah yes, even the Blue Pitcher gets her Zen on...

Dream #1116

Early in the week, taking an English muffin out of the oven, I burned my hand. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it looks, but for the first few days I didn't want Cody to see it. I could hear him: Babe, you've gotta be more careful. And so I hid it. I'd put the tea towel over my arm or gesticulate wildly. Birds, I'd say. Huge ones!
And so last night, as is often my habit in dreams, I was walking along the beach. I walk for hours in my dreams, around coves and by huts, then another little bend and more ocean; it takes me forever to decide to get in the water, but when I do it's exactly what I need. In this last dream, I didn't want the salt to get into my burn. Standing on the shore I could feel the sting, but finally--I think I could sense it was almost time to wake up--I went in.

In college, Jane and I took Tina from her family one morning. Her husband (now gone) slept soundly; her children (now grown) cried. And we drove and drove, across the Red River and into Texas. We kept heading south, stopping only for cigarettes and Dr. Pepper, Waffle House and pee breaks, until finally we were there. Tina had never seen it before. She ran up the dune, and there it was: the ocean. So much bigger, she said, than she could ever have imagined.

This morning, stirring hot water into pre-packaged oatmeal (I'm taking a break from the oven), I thought about dreams and how they occupy us and how we occupy them, and I wondered what everybody else is doing while I'm walking all those miles along the beach, and then Cody was standing there. Hey, he said, what happened to your hand?

My hand?

I'd like to say he took my hand in his two hands and brought it to his mouth and kissed it. Babe, he said. I know, I know, I said, and we ate our oatmeal. I walked him to the train and thought about how in my dream my hand had actually been healed by the saltwater. We kissed goodbye; now, I am home. The breakfast dishes have been cleaned.

When I'm back in Oklahoma, one of my favorite times of the day to spend with my mom and the kids is the morning. Any good dreams last night? she'll ask as they pick sleepily at their Eggo's. I'm never sure if they're making the dreams up or not, but I love hearing them.

So how about you, any good dreams last night?

Picasso, Eat Your Heart Out

Planning on an autumn stroll through the city?

Go to: 5 West 54th Street
(the MOMA's education & research wing)
for: FREE
& see the 15 foot mural created by students & friends of the Hungerford School
under the wise eye of the brilliant Linsey Miller!

I hear it's absolutely breathtaking.

The Window

Seeing comes before birds, I tell my students.

(image by Rene Magritte)

Tucked in the eighth floor of the library, we are sitting in our windowless room, a room so windowless it almost seems a window itself. They stare at me, eyelids shuttered.

I say it again: Seeing comes before birds. I am quoting John Berger. Okay, everyone, I yell (they seem to like it when I yell). Take out last night's reading assignment, and read me the first sentence.

The young Ukrainian volunteers (he is always the first to volunteer). Seeing, he reads in his practiced accent, comes before words. He looks up at me. Words?

Outside a blackbird clacks; the next hour gets so good it disappears.

Veteran's Day

How to Listen
by Major Jackson

I am going to cock my head tonight like a dog
in front of McGlinchy's Tavern on Locust;
I am going to stand beside the man who works all day combing
his thatch of gray hair corkscrewed in every direction.
I am going to pay attention to our lives
unraveling between the forks of his fine-tooth comb.
For once, we won't talk about the end of the world
or Vietnam or his exquisite paper shoes.
For once, I am going to ignore the profanity and
the dancing and the jukebox so I can hear his head crackle
beneath the sky's stretch of faint stars.

from Leaving Saturn, 2002
The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA

Still Life w/ Beef Stew, Cornbread & Iced Tea

The Blue Pitcher goes down home.
Ask about my cornucopia of other crockpot ideas!

You Never Know

Today I'm really grateful that life doesn't always turn out like you think it will.

The wind, if given the chance, will blow your hair in your face;
two men will walk you down the aisle;
the clouds will suddenly part; you'll find a new cereal
or be able to balance in headstand or say no to chocolate;
your pappy's voice--the one you've heard all your life--will make you cry,
and then, before you know it, the wind will blow again,
and you'll be standing there in front of God and everybody, saying,
I do, I do, yes-sir-ee-bob, I do...

Marriage: Day 20

We brought in the plants, turned on the heat, dug the blankets out from storage. It feels so right to be settling into a new season.

Kundalini, aka Yoga for Lapsed Pentecostals

Yesterday, walking up Broadway, a familiar song started playing in my head. The day was cold, and my bird scarf blew a bit, and the hot Earl Grey burned my tongue, but the song stayed. I just couldn't get it out of my head; it grew louder and louder, until finally, I was belting it out. (It's New York; we allow each other brief insanities.)What a mighty God we serve, I sang, over and over. Angels adore him, I belted out, bow down before him...I knew I couldn't enter the classroom singing, but I couldn't figure out how to stop singing, and even more, I couldn't figure out how the song had snuck its way into my head. Yes, on Sunday, Cody and I went to a Christening, so I have technically stepped inside a church in the very recent past, but it was Catholic and on the Upper East Side, and, frankly, couldn't have felt any more different than the churches I grew up in.

And then it struck me: kundalini! I've been frequenting a new yoga studio, and it's "sort of out there," if you know what I mean, but it sure feels good.
You cry; you sing; you dance; you wave your arms in the air. I remember leaving class for the first time and saying to a friend, "Wow! That felt just like church!" She looked at me for a long moment. "Really?" she said. I think she might have been Methodist.

Ah, and they say the city is Godless...

Longing #115

One new sweater, blue or gray, with sleeves long enough to keep my hands warm.

Still Life with Sudafed, Cigarettes & Deli Guy

In homage to Margot who did such a periwinkling job of guest blogging,
I've decided to take the original blue pitcher out for the occasional spin.
Note the long strip of barbecue beef jerky.
Kind of makes you wanna spray some Chloraseptic into the back of your throat, now doesn't it?

Lessons from my Mother

One of the first things I remember my mother teaching me about womanhood involved a trip to the drugstore. No, we weren't there to purchase embarrassing creams or elastic belts, we were there to pick up photographs. We'd grab a couple of Diet Cokes out of the cooler, pay for the photos with a wad of cash she'd magically pull out of her purse and then go sit in the car, just the two of us, to sift through the photos.

The technique was simple: Discard any photo of yourself that's unflattering. A fat arm, a bad dye-job, an unsightly panty line--all were reason for immediate disposal. After fishing out the bad of you, it was common courtesy to survey the other women in the photos as well; men could be glanced at too, but any child under the age of twelve (barring exposed bodily fluids) was fine.

Exhibit A: Mother: gorgeous; little sister: pretty; me: check; big brother: pretty darned good; husband: not too bad; two little brothers: uhm, well, okay, I mean no one's bleeding or anything...
For years, I thought a decade or so had passed with no documentation whatsoever of my existence, but then I realized: those photos had been taken, but sitting in some parking lot in some town or the other, mom and I had torn them up in tiny pieces, wrapped them in the plastic bag they came in and buried them in a roadside dumpster.

This may be the reason it took me so long to get married. Cody insists on keeping all pictures. Take, for example, the year I quit smoking. I have no desire to remember myself twenty-five pounds heavier with a constant take-my-picture-you-jerk-and-I'll-kill-you look on my face, but there are nights when I wake up to get a glass of water, and I hear Cody fiddling around in our office. What are you doing, love? I say. Oh, just scanning these pictures--all of them--since we met. Gonna put them on a zip drive and get a safety deposit box and...

O, come to bed, I say.

I suppose me burning them one by one in the fireplace while he's at work today will only cause marital turmoil. Alas! Is that what they mean when they talk about compromise?