The Land of In-Between

From a crazy poetry class exercise, written on the subway...

2009-10-22T13:24:00.000-04:00

Chugging rhythm a whispered S fat man sleeping on my shoulder legs as always spread too wide that is not like her Cindy calculate the miles I'm waiting no assistance medical wet subway floor black with white speckles I know umbrellas shaking a quiet man at peace stands stoically I know when you're not feeling well stand clear striped soggy scarves the extra boxes are here local train behind us shiny portable music glimmering hope shaking beige gloves empty after the first days use in months he's always here throwing things away stuff you can't find the train can't decide express or local she's a livewire we'll get off at 14th street slowed down watch our parents he's changed a lot becoming very forgetful two donuts what happened to that strawberry donut dad you just ate it three short-haired women in glasses middle-aged best friends like middle school when friends were always the same shape and size flying past crushed faces thought this was their train their way to move on nobody does have a false face two red umbrellas I didn't know them 12 years sexual harassment is a crime thin and trim and tan this is us.

Airstream Dream

2009-08-21T12:52:00.000-04:00

I handle wet clumps of laundry, tugging them from the resisting metal ring. I fold wrinkled piles of sheets, crinkled pillowcases. I clean the kitty litter, wiping away stinky streaks of yellow, sweeping stray pieces of sand. I chop olives, tomatoes, and parsley, boil water for pasta. Each small chore that will have to be redone over and over. I stand tired in the kitchen, and my mind strays 2,000 miles away. An airstream trailer reflecting the light of the full moon over a stretch of New Mexico night. A room so small in a quiet place. These years, I have learned how to take care of me. How often I need to clean to survive, to be comfortable. How to cook just enough for one, how to pack it all up and begin again every year or so. I am so afraid that I will lose this new, that by breaking the pattern I will break something, that I’m not good enough for this and that’s why I was alone for so long. I want this shared space, this man at my side. I just don’t know how to keep the airstream dream alive.

The slow rhythms of an Italian train...

2009-07-29T13:28:00.003-04:00

A train cinches a mountain’s waist, rusty brown wrapping around summer green, rhythms soothing in their rickety uncalm. Sunlight through transparent leaves, the train inching its way toward its destination. I yet again failed to look at the arrival time when choosing my train and have wound up taking the über-local, cutting through small peasant towns that I have never heard of. I am the only foreigner on the train, the rest of them having chosen a more express route to Napoli through Roma Termini. Smoke lingers just above my bench-style seat, in sight of the sign that reads ‘Vietato Fumare’. I wave it away, back towards the soldier it belongs to, as my walkman starts to jam. The batteries must be dying – it’s playing a U2 verse too slowly, Bono’s falsetto lowered to an eerie and monstrous tone. After some fumbling, I give up, putting away the headphones and sliding open the window to alleviate the stifling heat. The train curves through vines of what look like yellow wisteria blossoms, the scent coming in reminding me distantly of Virginia honeysuckle.

When the four-car train stops, our car gains two passengers: a modestly dressed middle-aged woman and an elderly nun in a grey habit. The younger woman heads immediately to the window, shutting it forcefully, muttering something in a heavy dialetto about how the draft will make us all sick. I long to disagree, but am already too familiar with this cultural difference (having slept in the un air-conditioned apartments of friends where all of the blinds and windows are kept closed, even at night). I sigh, pulling out my train itinerary to fan myself. It does nothing, and I remain drenched in sweat.

The nun speaks to me in a very formal Italian, asks where I am from and where I am headed. She says that she is very impressed that I am travelling around Italy by myself, that I am comfortable travelling alone. Unlike other Italians from small towns that I have met, she does not seem to judge me for it, for being a woman alone in a foreign country. She is full of curiosity about America and my impressions of Italy. Like many other Italians I have met, she displays surprise and delight that a foreigner would be at all interested in learning Italian. The beauty of the language must escape those who were born into it.

The train pulls to a stop in a small mountain town, and the nun thanks me for the conversation as she gets up to leave. She wishes me well on my journey, and I express the same to her. As she pulls open the car door and nods to me with a warm smile, a welcome breeze floods the train. I watch her walk slowly along the platform until she reaches a small group of her sisters, and I watch them grasp hands as the train pulls away. Letting the slow rhythm of the train soothe me, I fall asleep to the soft green curves of mountains, the Italian language weaving itself into my dreams.

Thirty-two become thirteen

2009-02-18T10:51:00.000-05:00

Yellowjackets spit into the lavender bushes. Adrenaline needles fall away from the firm, fleshy rind of an orange. In a dream, you perform a tracheotomy with a straw and a hole puncher. Seriously. A swell of belly in Chicago’s steaming August, a patchwork polka-dot of scratchy pink hives. Another needle, this time Cortizone, piercing a pregnant thigh beneath old-school nurse’s whites. The tire was flat and no rush hour suit would stop to help. Trust me, this is only the beginning. A reason for the cheap Chianti. One letter spoken over the phone. You don’t have to send me gifts, honey. Abraham Lincoln’s tooth crumbles to imaginary dust in a one-room cabin. Toxic eruption, there you have it.

Absence

2009-01-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

She eats onions like apples,
holding them in palm’s embrace,
mouth wide and gaping against
the brown paper crinkle of skin,
teeth tearing crisply into fiery flesh.

She keeps them in her purse,
rolling loosely around with lipsticks
and credit cards, the scent of dark earth
breathing out against her sway of hip,
reptilian skin flaking off in dusty pieces.

She says she loves the taste,
a green fire that burns her tongue
eyes red with the sting of tears
as raw cells burst and leave
her body shielded with scent.

She said it was the only thing
that helped her forget you.

Windsong

2008-10-28T09:57:00.001-04:00

Bleachers thrust metallic and alien into the tall, yellowing grasses of Montana’s high plains. They curve their shape along the future site of a Sun Dance. I am surrounded by a group of people speaking. I cannot hear them, but I see their mouthshapes blossom and twist: The wind floods everything. I try to speak, but the sound is lost to the unbroken sky and the nothingness beneath windsong. The voice of the wind surges through me. It is everything here, both silence and sound. One voice splits into several, moving furiously parallel to each other, an invisible cluster of desperate cries. The rawness of it erupts around me, my body humming with torn directions. I am seventeen and have never felt this close to something. I want to be alone with it. To take it home, to fill my empty nights in a suburban apartment building. My mouth opens, and I taste cerulean on my tongue, with a darker shade of violet. I let the wind sing to me, listening to its language. I move with its waxes and wanes, dancing to desolate melodies that only I understand.

The Coffee Snob Returns

2008-07-31T13:59:00.001-04:00

I am a cappuccino connoisseur. I am obsessed with them. Caffeine is my drug. Other people, they smoke weed, they drink 'til dawn in bars, they chainsmoke American Spirits. Me, I get high, silly and cracked-out on caffeine and I love it. I love Friday nights in particular, because I know that I don't have to go to work the next day and I can grab a cappucc from my favorite corner coffee spot in Greenpoint and stay up late, giddy and jittery.

Let's talk about cappuccinos. Or cappuccini, as is correct in plural Italian form. A proper cappuccino contains foam. Not milky bubbles, not just steamed milk, but thick milk foam. That is the inherent different between a cappuccino and a latte (or rather, caffe latte). A cappuccino contains primarily foam (with the addition of some steamed milk being acceptable) and espresso while a latte contains steamed milk and espresso. The knowledgeable coffee drink makers, James at Greenpoint Coffee House being one of the best that I've discovered in New York, steam the milk and then continue to tap the metal pitcher on the counter several times to get rid of the bubbles, making a thicker, headier foam.

I always wonder if I am in the right place when I read "cappucino" or "capucino" or "capuccino" on the menu. You'd be surprised at how many nice, upstanding places misspell this word.

Anyway, Starbucks (that fast food chain of lesser quality coffee beverages, where the espresso seems to become more watery by the minute) is fairly inconsistent on this point. I've had cappuccinos that turn out to be lattes because I doubt that the staff is really trained on the difference, with the occasional and rare exception to the rule. Once, I had a barista at a Starbucks in Oakton, Virginia tell me that she didn't understand what the difference was between a latte and a cappuccino. Dunkin Donuts also seems to be mildly aware of the difference, with a foam-like substance hovering on top of their greyish cappuccino, when I've been forced to settle. Even the automated Nescafe cappuccino machines in Ecuador do it right.

So the other day, I went to a new seemingly upscale coffee place in Long Island City in Queens. I ordered a cappuccino, and watched, somewhat distractedly, as the man behind the counter poured the milk straight out of the canister without steaming it or anything. I thought perhaps I had missed the steaming, and the foam-creating. I removed the lid only to see what looked like basically a dark cup of coffee - no foam, not even much milk. Not your normal New Yorker, I am always hesitant to complain. I walked out to the bus stop and sampled my drink. After realizing I just wasn't going to drink it as is, I headed back inside. I said "I'm sorry to bother you, but I ordered a cappuccino. Aren't they supposed to be foamy?" The gentleman behind the counter said "Well, yes, but we don't do the foam thing here." I said, "Then it can't really be called a cappuccino, then, can it?" The two people behind the counter looked at each other. "Well, if you really want foam, we can do it that way this time." This time? People, please, get my drug right.

My grandmother

2008-07-30T11:34:00.001-04:00

My grandmother went to college at the University of Colorado at Boulder, back in the 30’s. A farm girl from Illinois, it was a huge deal for her family. She worked very hard to do well, studying constantly, never taking for granted the opportunity of higher education. She did not have many friends, she worked too hard and farm girls weren’t very popular. In the dark, lonely night hours, away from her home and family, she yearned for a grand social life, for girlfriends and suitors.

One day, a few young women, well-dressed and beautiful, approached her as she was exiting the library. They told her that they were members of a sorority, and that they had decided that they needed more studious and academically successful women to join their sorority. My grandmother hesitated, not quite believing that these refined young women, gorgeous and popular, the eyes of all the eligible young men on campus, could want her in her home-sewn dresses to join their elite group. They assured her they were serious, smiling widely, leaning in and touching her arm. They invited her to a fancy-dress party to take place next month, where it was said they would induct her. They convinced her to accept, and she spent the rest of the day beaming at her unexpected luck.

My grandmother purchased a lovely silky pale blue fabric with what little money she had, and spent every hour that she could spare hunched over an old sewing machine, painstakingly making a dress for the party. She found a pair of white leather shoes that wouldn’t stand out too much beneath the length of the dress, polished them and removed what scuffs she could. She set aside a deep pink lipstick that her aunt in Denver had given her two summers ago for special occasions. She rummaged in her hard suitcase under her bed and located the small, satin jewelry bag that contained an old pearl necklace. The pearls had belonged to her mother, who had died of tuberculosis when she was only 6 years old. Her last memory of her mother was hearing her tired voice, small through the screen window, watching her dark figure on the bed from outside, her younger sister’s fingers clutching her hand.

The evening of the party arrived. My grandmother didn’t eat at all that day. She had set her hair the night before, and the large, dark curls looked lovely against the blue silk dress, the gleaming pearls and the bright rose of her lips. Her old white shoes barely showed beneath the skirt of the dress. She took a deep breath, and stepped out into the brisk, Colorado night air.

She stood at the door of the massive stone house, all of the windows lit-up from within, the sound of laughter and glasses clinking, the swinging sound of a band calling from somewhere inside. She rang the bell and waited. One of them opened the door, diamonds glittering beneath bright blonde hair. She looked my grandmother up and down, and asked what she wanted. My grandmother stammered, mentioning the invitation a month before. The blonde stared at her, silent. The music had stopped, the band must have been between songs. Some other people were standing near the door, drinks in their hands, cigarette smoke hanging gently around them. They seemed to be watching, listening. My grandmother struggled to remember the details of the invitation, slowly, quietly reminding the blonde about their meeting, recounting the sorority’s decision to include those women who were more academically-inclined.

Something glinted behind the blonde’s eyes before they squinted ever so slightly.
“Oh, sweetie, that was a joke. Did you really think we were serious?”

Somewhere between Brooklyn and Morningside Heights

2008-02-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

My days are spent drifting between Brooklyn and Morningside Heights, the not-so-gentle tug of the commute between home and work that involves one bus and three subway trains. I gave up the high blood pressure angsty drive home at a turtle's pace in Los Angeles for this different demon of daily travel. Now instead of honking at the rest of mankind whilst playing punk rock at top volume in my car, I get to rub up against them on the subway, smelling and touching and seeing all that you would and wouldn't want to see. One could say public transport is just a more intimate way to travel. Honestly, some days I just don't want to get intimate with the rest of mankind. I'd like my own little shielded bubble that would just float me to work in peace, no stress involved. Forget that - I'd actually just rather never have to go into an office again.