The Rain People
I wore my sunglasses into the store like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard to buy my beer. Even in the parking lot the tears were still sliding down unwanted, uninvited, and embarrassing, and my eyes were already swollen and red from hours of it. I felt ridiculous. The guy at the counter asks me if I'm enjoying the sun. I told him not really. I'm a winter girl, I said. I love the snow, I said. He said almost too quietly to hear "I like rain better" and it's moments like this that I love. Windows into other people. Tiny views that are often more poignant than the rest of the crap we think is the so important. Thank you Rite Aid guy who is brave enough to ride your 49cc scooter between Lafayette and McMinnville on highway 99- knowing that someone else loves the rain was strangely comforting on this wretched day.
I need some kohl liner and some gold gypsy earrings to reach for the place where my collarbone used to be.
There is so much shedding between having and not having. There is so much agony in having and losing. There is so much pain in letting go of the life you dreamed of, built, had, and then struggled to hold onto because it was so much work building it in the first place. It is a righteous pain and easy for others to say "let it go..."
It's alright baby. Everything will be sunshine and burlap bows, (all the rage now with the truly mostly kind of fashionable), and if only you will let it go and make cards that say things like "love" and "BELIEVE" you will see that life is all about the affirmations. And the bows. Trust me fluffy, when you need a lift all you gotta do is put a little stiff burlap or grosgrain bow in the corner of every photograph on your walls, it will lift you up close to the lord-jesus-heavenly-ish father and everything sweet and hopeful like virgins and bunnies and kittens and little pink naked piglets. Stop carving yer god damned coffin. Oh hon, if only you could stop fighting, sit tight, hold right, don't fight, it's all shite.
I don't want to be Danette to that young guy in Rite Aid. A memory of a person with parchment edges, old smoke skin, and sandy eyes in a small sad slice of memory. A person sliding quietly through some slot of space no bigger than a case of beer. I don't want to be that memory. I see my epithet everywhere. I am on my way out while others are on their way in. Did Danette know the way I know things? There was that same small sliver of recognition, of quiet peering beneath the peel of light. Tiny huge seconds of happy recognition of kindred spirit in our everyday transactions. The grocery store elevated to street poetry. And like the transient nature of our shared empathy, she was suddenly gone. I never knew her really well and yet she left a Danette sized hole in my life where that wonderful cheerful and yet shady spot used to be taken up by her older and more lived in face than my own. Like seeing a tag of the future. I was her young lady familiar. Always knowing each other in spite of remaining strangers.
People always say life is precious. For something to be precious it has to be rare, and life, I've noticed, is cheap and plentiful. We make new lives as though it was nothing, no big deal. Pop 'em out like candy from a really hideous fleshy pez dispenser and just keep 'em coming. Life is cheap. It comes and it goes in quick blinks. What's all the fucking fuss about? What is so precious about it?
Fuck that.
Today I almost shouted that I never asked to be born.
My mom says I did, in fact, ask her to be born. Apparently bodiless spirits have no sense of decorum- but then, what better moment to ask to be born than when two fairly irresponsible people are getting it on?
I wish my mom had never told me that. Not because the thought of it embarrasses me.
But because it means I did ask to be here. I have no memory of this. I have often, and often, and muchly wished myself unborn.
I can't tell you otherwise because otherwise is lying.
This being almost the only place I don't lie, I refuse to spread the picnic blanket.
Listen baby, just let go of all this angst of yours. You're trying too hard to be something you aren't. Some people are meant to blaze and you, you, well, you're more like a wet match and the sooner you stop trying to light the damn lamp the sooner you'll settle into your proper place in the dark. I'm telling you- what you really need are some wicker balls on your desk to give yourself the proper tone. Then you just wrap some pink silk twill around them with bows in a kind of "rustic" charming semi-farmhouse-ish manner, like your grandma would have done if she had had a subscription to "Romantic Home" instead of wasting all her time dusting her hens for mites. Just let go of all this pseudo-writer crap. Know your place. What's your place? Fuck if I should know babe, but alls I'm saying is if you put a little glass glitter on it you'll be just as fucked as your alcoholic mean-ass grandma but you'll sparkle. Isn't that all anyone wants you to do anyway?
I kept telling myself to shut-up shut-up shut-up. Cause that's what I know I'm supposed to do. That's what I know people wish I would do. Bringing down the light and putting in my pitch black bulbs. Who needs that? Who wants that? I kept telling myself to shut the goddam hell up because what people want is a story that gets better and if it doesn't get better at least gets funnier. I want to rip myself up every single day for not being what people need. All people. You. Your kid. My people. My parents. Everyone. I want so badly to be what is light and sunshine and to make everyone feel good about themselves. I want to be that golden beautiful non-hog-shaped lovely being who brings you your heart on a pillow stitched in gold and covered in laughter and hope and everything good. I want to be the one who makes you feel good about yourself and about life and about everyone else. I want to be the one, that amazing treat to mankind, that person who always makes you smile and want to wake up again another day. I want to give you everything in the world you've ever wanted. Even though I've never met you in person. I want to deliver the insane cuteness of Pippa when you need to remember that not all of life is dead bodies in the desert peeling under the dry heave of the sun. I want to give you comfort, love, and worth. I want to give you everything I wish I had myself. I want to fix your problems, cure your pain, and I want to feed you.
Me wishing to be a golden figure of love and light and joy is like the grim reaper wanting to be a stand up comedian.
I am everything stained, broken, crushed, lightless, and I am the champion of the damned.
I am the champion of the suicides for whom no one else speaks. I am close to the bone. Close to their bones.
I am the champion of the mentally ill. The undone. The short straw.
How can I bring light to others when I have none myself?
Perhaps this is the most horrible truth of all of them. That what I want is to be full so I can share it.
I am the night wishing to be the sun.
I am the long cold winter but I know that no one loves the long cold winter and so I want to be the sunshine that breaks the back of the snow.
I'm a winter girl and the winter is over. I love the rain too.
I wish everyone loved the rain and the cold and the dark.
The ghosts in my head are restless.
I need some kohl liner and some gold gypsy earrings to reach for the place where my collarbone used to be.
There is so much shedding between having and not having. There is so much agony in having and losing. There is so much pain in letting go of the life you dreamed of, built, had, and then struggled to hold onto because it was so much work building it in the first place. It is a righteous pain and easy for others to say "let it go..."
It's alright baby. Everything will be sunshine and burlap bows, (all the rage now with the truly mostly kind of fashionable), and if only you will let it go and make cards that say things like "love" and "BELIEVE" you will see that life is all about the affirmations. And the bows. Trust me fluffy, when you need a lift all you gotta do is put a little stiff burlap or grosgrain bow in the corner of every photograph on your walls, it will lift you up close to the lord-jesus-heavenly-ish father and everything sweet and hopeful like virgins and bunnies and kittens and little pink naked piglets. Stop carving yer god damned coffin. Oh hon, if only you could stop fighting, sit tight, hold right, don't fight, it's all shite.
I don't want to be Danette to that young guy in Rite Aid. A memory of a person with parchment edges, old smoke skin, and sandy eyes in a small sad slice of memory. A person sliding quietly through some slot of space no bigger than a case of beer. I don't want to be that memory. I see my epithet everywhere. I am on my way out while others are on their way in. Did Danette know the way I know things? There was that same small sliver of recognition, of quiet peering beneath the peel of light. Tiny huge seconds of happy recognition of kindred spirit in our everyday transactions. The grocery store elevated to street poetry. And like the transient nature of our shared empathy, she was suddenly gone. I never knew her really well and yet she left a Danette sized hole in my life where that wonderful cheerful and yet shady spot used to be taken up by her older and more lived in face than my own. Like seeing a tag of the future. I was her young lady familiar. Always knowing each other in spite of remaining strangers.
People always say life is precious. For something to be precious it has to be rare, and life, I've noticed, is cheap and plentiful. We make new lives as though it was nothing, no big deal. Pop 'em out like candy from a really hideous fleshy pez dispenser and just keep 'em coming. Life is cheap. It comes and it goes in quick blinks. What's all the fucking fuss about? What is so precious about it?
Fuck that.
Today I almost shouted that I never asked to be born.
My mom says I did, in fact, ask her to be born. Apparently bodiless spirits have no sense of decorum- but then, what better moment to ask to be born than when two fairly irresponsible people are getting it on?
I wish my mom had never told me that. Not because the thought of it embarrasses me.
But because it means I did ask to be here. I have no memory of this. I have often, and often, and muchly wished myself unborn.
I can't tell you otherwise because otherwise is lying.
This being almost the only place I don't lie, I refuse to spread the picnic blanket.
Listen baby, just let go of all this angst of yours. You're trying too hard to be something you aren't. Some people are meant to blaze and you, you, well, you're more like a wet match and the sooner you stop trying to light the damn lamp the sooner you'll settle into your proper place in the dark. I'm telling you- what you really need are some wicker balls on your desk to give yourself the proper tone. Then you just wrap some pink silk twill around them with bows in a kind of "rustic" charming semi-farmhouse-ish manner, like your grandma would have done if she had had a subscription to "Romantic Home" instead of wasting all her time dusting her hens for mites. Just let go of all this pseudo-writer crap. Know your place. What's your place? Fuck if I should know babe, but alls I'm saying is if you put a little glass glitter on it you'll be just as fucked as your alcoholic mean-ass grandma but you'll sparkle. Isn't that all anyone wants you to do anyway?
I kept telling myself to shut-up shut-up shut-up. Cause that's what I know I'm supposed to do. That's what I know people wish I would do. Bringing down the light and putting in my pitch black bulbs. Who needs that? Who wants that? I kept telling myself to shut the goddam hell up because what people want is a story that gets better and if it doesn't get better at least gets funnier. I want to rip myself up every single day for not being what people need. All people. You. Your kid. My people. My parents. Everyone. I want so badly to be what is light and sunshine and to make everyone feel good about themselves. I want to be that golden beautiful non-hog-shaped lovely being who brings you your heart on a pillow stitched in gold and covered in laughter and hope and everything good. I want to be the one who makes you feel good about yourself and about life and about everyone else. I want to be the one, that amazing treat to mankind, that person who always makes you smile and want to wake up again another day. I want to give you everything in the world you've ever wanted. Even though I've never met you in person. I want to deliver the insane cuteness of Pippa when you need to remember that not all of life is dead bodies in the desert peeling under the dry heave of the sun. I want to give you comfort, love, and worth. I want to give you everything I wish I had myself. I want to fix your problems, cure your pain, and I want to feed you.
Me wishing to be a golden figure of love and light and joy is like the grim reaper wanting to be a stand up comedian.
I am everything stained, broken, crushed, lightless, and I am the champion of the damned.
I am the champion of the suicides for whom no one else speaks. I am close to the bone. Close to their bones.
I am the champion of the mentally ill. The undone. The short straw.
How can I bring light to others when I have none myself?
Perhaps this is the most horrible truth of all of them. That what I want is to be full so I can share it.
I am the night wishing to be the sun.
I am the long cold winter but I know that no one loves the long cold winter and so I want to be the sunshine that breaks the back of the snow.
I'm a winter girl and the winter is over. I love the rain too.
I wish everyone loved the rain and the cold and the dark.
The ghosts in my head are restless.