Literary Woman

On Saturday, I went to a children's literature conference and what do you know, I didn't write a new poem, but returned to an old one--inspired by the description of Mrs. Darling's 'kiss' in Peter Pan--and added to it--this time inspired by other the characters secretly crushed over or are dying to re-write their Sapphic sub-plots. Still not sure about the cross-over from child to adult fiction, but hey, poetic license.

So, a second draft. Tweaking to follow I'm sure, but for now Poem #13:

Literary Woman

You were not always a Mrs,
nor have you ever been my Darling
it's just that, I want that kiss.
Mr Darling doesn't get it,
the children can't name it,
I only imagine it.

"What does the brain matter
compared with the heart,"
said the party-goer in the evening.
But not to Clarrisa, for whom
it could have been helpful, nor
Sally who wouldn't have listened.

Nor did Anne or Vita or one Miss Alexa,
all pining exactly to describe
the contours, the textures, the shape
of one Mrs Darling's kiss
all for whom's affection we did strive.



**Editor's note: This is my 365th post. If I had been writing for a year consecutively, this anniversary might have been more evident. As it is, I want to mark it all the same.

Reading Poetry

I've been considering spending the next year reading only queer women writers (can I make those identity categories mesh?) but, like I said, I'm only considering it still. To test the water, though, I've been reading quite a lot of Carol Ann Duffy. It's a hard job, let me tell you.

A favorite so far:

Text

I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird.

We text, text, text
our significant words.

I re-read your first,
your second, your third,

looking for your small xx,
feeling absurd.

The codes we send
arrive in a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.

---------------------------

Safe to say, my texting experiences lately have not been as anxiety-producing as hers...

Writings from the Day

"I have the strongest feeling that what seem to be 'airplanes' now will, in fact, turn out to be start of the wishing variety sooner than you think."

"Every day now I'm feeling more and more alive and myself again, sort of pre-dissertation ish/post-/there's more to life than writing a paper. All these things I'd forgotten I was doing for a while: writing poetry, sewing, blogging, breathing. It's almost like a thaw: tingles & shoots of green enticing the imagination. Feeling awake; I'm so thankful."

"... the perfect dissertation hangover cure..."

School Girl Crush

As I've been researching over the last months into all things queer with regards to picturebooks, how love is constructed has resonated with me the most. And, like my community theatre director said during a rehearsal, once you start thinking of something that has real creative potential life starts bringing you all sorts of examples to play with, study, and relate. Tonight, this thread inspired me to Google the term 'school girl crush.' I know why I did: I've been using Urban Dictionary a lot lately in my papers and I was wondering if there was a definition for it. The answer is, well, I love the internet.

Firstly, a website called everything2.com defines 'School Girl Crush' as:

A crush is defined informally in the dictionary as:

• a. usually temporary infatuation.
• b. The object of such an infatuation.

I think that there are a variety of crushes that one might have over the course of their lives, but they all kind of boil down to being a school girl crush. One that makes you feel juvenile and powerless under the one that you adore. One that makes you feel silly and hopeful for all the wrong reasons.

These are the kind of crushes that create pipe dreams that, never fulfilled, will be mourned over for weeks if not months. School girl crushes are wishes never granted that consistantly give the promise of a broken heart.

Nice. Hopeful. Tidy. Yeah, right.

The second link to pop up is wikihow.com. But it's a variation of my question: "How to Tell if a Girl Likes You in School." And, it's a 30 step process PLUS a huge list of tips. All I can say is 'Thank goodness I'm not in school still.' (Cause this definitely only applies to school...right? Yeah, anyway.)

The third link, the THIRD, is an even more specific situation on a question forum: "I don't think it is just another schoolgirl crush, so what can I do about my feelings for my teacher?"

My first reaction: I laughed, 'Yeah, hello, of course it's a schoolgirl crush.' Like I instantly, culturally new how wrong (read: dumb) she was for even think the question.

My second reaction: I laughed again. A) because who the hell am I to judge, I'm the one WRITING about school girl crushes, and B) I totally wasn't think about boys when I did my Google search. In my head, the word 'girl' simultaneously melted into one and became both me as the girl with the crush and the object of a crush.

End result from Google: school girl crushes are lame. Wouldn't it be nice to change that?

In other news, I've just finished the drafts of all my university papers. Erica Marie = MA'd OUT.

The Story of Love

So, I have a friend. A friend I think a lot about, and I worry for. I have a friend I think about a lot and worry for a lot. I also have a lot of love for this friend that I think about and worry for. I like to believe that when I'm thinking about my friend, they know I'm thinking about them, and they can feel my love. You might think that sounds a bit silly, a bit like a song on the radio, that they can feel my love, but I really believe it. I believe that we can send and receive love, especially miles and miles and miles apart kind of love, without even trying to send it or knowing in our logical minds that we are receiving it. Believing that I can send such love, especially miles and miles and miles apart kind of love, comforts me and so I worry a little bit less, silently loving a little bit more. I have no idea if it is working--OK, maybe the 'odd' instance now and again when simultaneous 'thinking of you' happens--and I wonder what would happen if the whole world believed that you could go on sending love to someone, without being with them or near them or spending any money or communicating directly via all our technologies. What if the whole population of the world sat down or carried on working or went for a walk, thinking of people they knew, believing the other people could feel their love? What if you did, too?

Best Christmas Card Yet

Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year
is what I should be saying.

However, I for one think that
"shibbang
bim bam
yeehaa"
sounds much better.

What do you reckon?

shibbang bim bam yeehaa it is!

You asked me once...

You asked me once what it was like in my head. This is the first line of a poem I started heading up I-5 home again. Birds in the trees. Low sun over the valley's hills. You asked me once what it was like in my head, and this isn't the poem, but this is what's it's like.

I drum the edge of the laptop to Coldplay that has randomly come onto iTunes. My love sings along next to me, absent-mindley. She is doing her own work, too. I like the acoustic guitar.

I also like you. I've been thinking of you all day, off and on, around and about. Fingernails tapping on the laptop again. It seemed somehow appropriate today: the dark grey, the rain pouring down without warning.

I still haven't checked my bank balance. I don't have job prospects for January. I ignore these facts-falsities-facts and imagine other houses, other days, other conversations.

I think I'm starting to censor myself.

I Don't Know What to Write

I am sitting at my computer and I don't know what I to write. As I type I recognize that I'm hunched over enough to be stuck in a bell tower and pull myself up straight--imagine a string going from the bottom your spine through the top of your head--and watch my shadow rise on the wall. In my next incarnation of an office, I will have a desk lamp that doesn't blind me (so I can turn it on), the ceiling light will be bright and my desk will face a window so that most of all I can utilize natural light. That is, when the sun up. Although I wouldn't say that it necessarily bothers me that the sun starts to set around 4 PM when you live on any island just before Europe meets the Atlantic. Rather, it's just nice to have natural light for writing--the kind that lights with a gentle touch.

I guess what I want to write about is that in my lifetime, I have experimented with kissing first, and waiting to be kissed. (Reader: I don't know who you are anymore so please forgive any over-share you weren't expecting.) I'd say more times than not, I went for it. I dove in cause there were the signs: I was hot, they were hot, and there was probably dancing. And dancing just becomes more fun when you make-out on the dance floor. (Catholic grandmothers are all too good at predicting this; even when you're dancing the least sexily you've ever danced for your cousin's wedding.) I liked the cheeky nature of it all, the wanting.

Having written that, I don't know how true any of that is, having kissed first many a time. (Except that last part, that last part is definitely true. The cheekiness, the wanting.) I also don't know if it is true whether or not I've actually ever waited to be kissed. In truth, I'm not very good at waiting, for kisses or for anything. Which is maybe why it's more true to say that I have (and continue to) experiment with wanting kisses. (There's that want, again.) A game of patience, but not of waiting. Perception and a bit of sass are key; make 'em laugh, watch them walk away.

It sounds like I'm dispensing game advice, but you should never trust a narrator you're not sure of, maybe they should discuss more of kisses in Literature class than of narrators. But what I can tell you is that you should never trust the narrators you're not sure of, especially when they can't tell you what they want to write--or don't know what it is they want to tell you.

Shift

Like a hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder switching gears, at a table. This, the sound effect I imagine in montage, looking back. The shifts in conversation: overlapping, seemingly mutually exclusive, perfect sense, deeper.

"Don't even think about the film 2012."

Instead, I laughed to myself and figured it's a good thing I'm getting married next year.

Shift.

Breathing. Consciously taking breaths so I can take in what you're saying. I've done well today; I took a risk and had everything to gain.

Shift.

"Are you catching the bus?"

"I only got as far as 'shoulders' really..."

Shift.

A child who follows you and an imaginary one who followed me; reminding me what self-worth does for a person (it's wonderful); blue eyes, brown eyes, blue whales.

Shift. Shift. Shift.

Occassionally, I try to make sense of the shifts and become overwhelmed with how to make meaning. Then I think about the connection deepening, without need of explanation. It makes sense, and I look forward to the shifting.

Mrs. Darling's Kiss

beginnings of a poem:

You are not always a Mrs.
nor have you ever been
my Darling, it's just that I want
that kiss. Mr. Darling doesn't get
it. The children can't name it.
I only imagine it.

Out & Proud

On the bus this morning, I remembered that yesterday, October 11th, was National Coming Out Day in the U.S. and I thought, 'Hey, I should change my Facebook status to "Out and Proud" when I get home." Thinking, yeah, I'm out and proud and I'd like to say it out loud!

The afternoon carried on quite nicely out of the house and away from computer, tucked in a cafe and wandering the streets of a posh area of the city. I felt much different on the bus ride home, unlocking the door, plopping down on my sofa to wet laundry in the wash and the fading light.

Out and proud, I am, but I had forgotten what a privilege it is. To be young, have accepting families and friends, inhabit a privileged body with a girlie sense of fashion, fallen in love with someone of the same sex (and be able to be with them), to be out AND proud, or proud AND out.

So what am I exactly out and proud about? Four years ago I made the decision to come out to people I met: in passing conversation, an intimate chat, a budding friendship. My decision to come out--as a bisexual, a queer woman, a fluid human being--was based on a few decisions: a) I had just moved to a new country and was living in a totally new environment and I felt b) due to my feminine appearance (a conscious performance on my part) that I would not be read as 'not-straight' unless I told people and c) I had finally figured it out and I wasn't going to back track now. I was 20 then, and it was a year for learning, a lot of learning, much of which wasn't exactly pleasant.

The decision, though, became grounded in me and I have stuck to it, almost to a fault sometimes (i.e. conversations across a pub counter), in another new country which I now inhabit. In all understandable definitions then, I am out.

Which, in turn, makes me proud of myself, for my own journey. But it is a pride in which I do not feel 'better than.' 'Out and Proud' echoes other rally cries of joining together for the cause of equality or visibility or justice. All valiant causes to be pursued vigilantly.

I do believe that if everyone everywhere who was queer stood up and was counted, without effect to their current position or family or status, it would be something to be proud about--a truth told. But it isn't always that easy--or queer-forward, if you will. Coming out is an individual decision with its own story and its own journey, and this is part of mine.

Orange Peel

In your story,
you pressed your hands flat
against the table--
a demonstration of an orange peel
laid out the way map-makers
outline the continents and oceans.

The impossible possible,
I wanted to know
what it felt like to be drawn--
a demonstration of how
to make sense of the world,
skin beneath your palms.

Lost Emails

I was left afraid
not receiving a response;
but then, they found you.

--or--

I thought you dared not
proceed on that path with me;
but then, you found them.