Tonight’s one of those nights when I don’t quite feel like writing a journal style entry, and yet only have journal style thoughts. Last night I finished reading Veronica. Holy crap, it was a pretty great read. It took me way longer than it should have. It’s not the type of novel that has a lot of driving action – much of the conflict is internal to the narrator. It is beautifully written. In some ways, the narrator, Alison, reminds me of my ex-fiancee, B: beautiful but overly concerned about her ugliness – especially as a wicked little girl. There’s a complicated relationship with her mother (and to some degree her father) that reminds me of my ex and her parents. Alison is nomadic and hard to pin down. As I was reading it, I wondered if B has ever read it. It’s the type of book I would have loved to discuss with her. The quote I wrote down last night was:
There were several others. I lay awake thinking of them, too. I leapt into their arms, laughing, and covering their necks with kisses. I told them secrets and stories from my childhood. I told them I loved them. Now I can’t think why. Perhaps it was simply that, in each case, I was the woman and he the man. And that was enough.
For me, the downside of reading such a well-written book is that I realize how much thought and painstaking detail go in to her word choices. I’m sloppy and unimaginative compared to the writing in Veronica. There’s a reason it’s published and was nominated for a bunch of prizes.
Tonight I went to a small group thing called OPP (other people’s poems). They meet every month and share poems that they’ve enjoyed – you can show up and listen (which is what I did). Tonight’s theme was love. There were only about 10 people there – each shared one or two poems that moved them. I thought about pulling up Stephen Dunn’s “Tenderness” or “I Come Home Wanting to Touch Everyone.” I’m not sure I would have gotten through the poems without getting a bit choked up. Love and loss does that to you. I enjoyed a few of the poems that people shared. I remember reading Tony Hoagland back in college… two different people shared two different poems of his. “A Color of the Sky” has the stanzas
Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.
What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.
I could relate to the first half of that… and it has the great line “a little dogwood tree is losing its mind.” The other Hoagland poem was “Windchime” with it’s last lines:
No one, including me, especially anymore believes
till death do us part,
but I can see what I would miss in leaving—
the way her ankles go into the work boots
as she stands upon the ice chest;
the problem scrunched into her forehead;
the little kissable mouth
with the nail in it.
The poems about love all seemed to also be about loss. I suspect you can’t have one without the other – at least not in the world of poetry (or in the world of the people sharing other people’s poems). The guy to my right had brought a tiny book of Pablo Neruda love poems. He bought it used in a shop in Jackson, TN. In it was an inscription from Jessica. It was sad to think that Jessica had given this book of poems to her boyfriend or lover – her inscription was incredibly sweet and sincere – they always are in the moment. She wasn’t sure he would appreciate the gift she was trying to share with him. I suppose in the end, he didn’t.
I came home feeling full from my experience with others, and a little empty because…. now what? I held off on reading more poems, and instead read an article about not leaving a legacy. The premise is that it all turns to dust, so just be in the moment. One of the biggest arguments my ex-fiancee and I had was about this notion of legacy – I tried to capture my complicated and ham-handed reaction to it in my poem “A Place To Dream.” I don’t fully back down from my view – I tend to agree with the author in his view of legacy… great love, acts of kindness, exciting experiences – these things, for me matter more than any legacy.
Reckoning with the insignificance of your own legacy can also improve your perspective on life more broadly speaking. We all die, and our legacies all die, so what really matters? Even in the face of impending mortality, some acts have worth: Great love, acts of kindness, exciting experiences, and personal sacrifices for the wellbeing of others contain the best of human existence. They hold intrinsic value, regardless of whether they are remembered.
And I get it…. I just sent poems off to be published. Perhaps that was an attempt at creating a legacy. Though to be honest – I think it’s more about sharing and being seen/heard than anything else. I don’t care what strangers think or say about me when I’m gone. I do hope the people who knew me remember me as a decent person. One who showed acts of kindness and went in search of great love. When B discovered my blog back in November, she added to her own blog – one that had been dormant for many years. She wrote:
I’m still full of hope. That life has meaning, that there are other legacies besides a child. But it’s taken me so many years just to remember this side of myself, it makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten about myself and who I wanted to be before I fell in love.
I don’t know if this is an anti-love stance, and I’m not naive/vain enough to think I’m the person she’s talking about – I suspect I was not her great love. I can say that I think love has the power to transform us in incredible ways. I think she could just as easily think about who she wanted to be when or after she was in love and let that be the starting point. The argument that night… was about trying to get her to see that her legacy is in the people who love her – family, friends, partners. She has an amazing group of people (I include myself in that group) who care deeply about her, admire her, and are inspired by her. The argument was defensive on my part – but what I was hearing was that none of what she has in life was good enough. I reacted poorly because I heard my father telling me I wasn’t good enough…. but there’s some validation in my response. She often told me that everyone disappointed her. Disappointment is tied to hope and appreciation and love. Maybe tonight I should have shared the Stephen Dunn poem I gave to my ex-fiancee when I picked her up at the airport after our first significant tussle.
I’ll say I love you,
Which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid
poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone else has.