The Furious Spinner

I'm sitting in the casita listening to the blues. Love me those blues, darlins. It is dark out, and we've spent most of the evening getting ready to leave tomorrow.

Yep, we'll soon be on our way back to the Pacific Northwest. I wish we could stay here longer, but I'm also looking forward to going home. I've been on the road so much since October that I'm ready to be home. I want to lounge on my couch (which is really a very old futon and not very comfortable) and eat bonbons. I actually don't know what a bonbon is, besides a "good good" so I'll just sit on my couch and eat something good good.

I want to go to Powell's Books. I went to Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Antigone at least twice each while here and I couldn't find anything. I'd stand in these stores and look around and think, "There are no answers here."

I felt like a zombie for the first part of our visit here. I told you about my back, which did get better after I took Will's suggestion to remove the "cushion" to make the bed harder. Isn't it interesting how a hard bed gives some people a backaches and a soft bed gives other people backaches? All right, I admit it: I can be interested in really boring things.

This year two great horned owls hung out in the palm tree near the casita. Did I tell you this already? We woke up to their calls every morning and listened to them wake up and prepare for the hunt every evening. The first few days here, I sat out by the pool with my old mermaid quilt. I walked the wash, too. Every day, Mario and I walked to Saguaro National Park and hiked it a bit.

I never saw the bobcat. We did see coyotes several times. One day at dusk we saw two very large coyotes in the wash. I decided to follow them. Sometimes I'm not too bright. I have such an affinity for coyotes that I sometimes forget they are canines and might not want some little human trailing them. Anyway, we stopped at the fork in the wash and hid in plain sight by an old palo verde, hoping the coyotes would just walk right by us. After a minute or two, we heard this deep, low, guttural sound. We both got chills. Hair stood up on the back of our necks. I said, "That's the javelinas. They've come out for the night." I remembered when I saw them four winters ago, they made a snorting sound; I figured this had to be the same thing. Though really, the sound we were hearing now was freaky scary, like something out of a horror movies, so I was just talking to reassure myself. The noise didn't stop, and I thought, "that can't be the javelinas." I stepped into the wash to see if I could see anything. Just then a dog started to bark. I realized the sound we had heard was a growl, which was exactly what it sounded like. The dog barked and barked. Mario said, "Well, that's gonna scare away the coyotes." I yelled, "Shut up!" The dog kept barking. We looked around and couldn't see this dog even though it sounded like it was only a few feet away from us. Dusk was threatening to turn to darkness. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I said. And suddenly the bark turned into a "yip-yip-yippppp." It was a coyote.

I had told a coyote to shut-up. Geez Louise.

I immediately apologized to the wild thing. The coyote did not stop barking or yipping. We decided we had violated some kind of unknown (to us) territory agreement. We were allowed the wash in the daytime, but at dusk it belonged to the wild things.

We went back to the house and sat on the porch. The coyote continued to bark, alone. I kept apologizing to it. I said I was sorry I had told it to shut-up (and secretly promised not to tell dogs to shut-up any more). I encouraged it to let its voice be heard. As we sat on the porch in the dark, the barking continued and seemed to get closer. It was rather unnerving, the whole thing. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I had so misjudged the situation—and I still didn't know what was going on.

The coyote continued barking until our housemates came home.

A couple of nights we waited under the palm tree to watch the owls take off for the evening. It was great fun. The owls watched us too. I waved. Did you ever notice how owls act a lot like cats? The way they look at people. The way they move their heads (okay, except for the Exorcist rotating head thing).



And then some days I was so filled with regret and grief about my mom that I didn't know what to do with myself.

So I ate too much. I wondered if I would just keep eating until I was the size of two people, then three, then more. Then I'd carry around my sadness as extra weight, unexpressed, unfelt.

One day we were driving toward an art gallery/chapel on the north side of Tucson, toward the Catalinas. I stared at these beautiful mountains and felt such awe and love for them. On the radio, Paul Carrack was singing "The Living Years," and tears started flowing down my face. I wanted more than anything just to fall to my knees on the sweet hard earth and curl into a ball. Thinking about touching the earth made me feel better. I thought what I want to do with my life is to be able to stand my ground no matter what happens in my life. I want to be able to face life, look at it and know what it is and not pretend it is something else.

Mario and I walked in the desert a lot. We talked about life, work, love, and death. We talked about how, in our view, the Universe is neutral to us and our existence. I didn't believe some omniscient being was out there looking down (or up) at me ready to help me, save me, or destroy me. And the randomness or the meaninglessness of death and life...made me wonder about every thing. What was the sense of doing anything? We're all going to die.

We're all going to become nothing.

That's very disconcerting.

One day I had a conversation with my agent. We talked about one of my novels that hasn't sold yet. He told me that the market for fiction was really tough right now unless you were a well-known "commodity." Publishers had started determining a book;s success or failure based on the first week of sales, like movie producers. He was essentially saying that the fiction market was dead.

Kind of like a devout Christian hearing god was dead.

I suppose. Or maybe it was like a devout person hearing that god only hung out with famous people.

He said non-fiction was doing well right now. I started thinking of creative nonfiction books I could write or put together from my FS posts. Maybe my travel experiences or adventures at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. Maybe a childhood memoir. (Already got a title, Brighton Girl Drowns in Bathtub.) He said to do a memoir I'd need a hook: abuse, crazy parents, something. Made me think of that song in Gypsy, "You Gotta Have a Gimmick." Shall I attach blinking lights to my breasts while I write?

He also talked about one of recent books not having the "Kim magic." He had mentioned this before, but I didn't really know what he was talking about.

When we got off the phone I was even more depressed than I had been before.

One night we had dinner with our housemates at Maya Quetzal. It was good to be with them and to stop by Maya Quetzal and see the people there. The next day, I felt like I was a bit more grounded. I got out my galleys for Ruby's Imagine and went over them. In fact, I read the book all the way through without stopping. (Not really the way you're supposed to look over your galleys.) But I loved this book, loved Ruby. She was full of magic. As I read it, I understood what my agent had meant. I realized that for the last couple of years or more I have been so sad and so filled with grief. And after Linda died, I just couldn't muster up any...magic. Maybe my books after Ruby's Imagine had been lacking something.

And then, as I was sitting in the Quail House, I came up with an idea for a new novel, a young adult Old Mermaid novel, The Blue Tail. (Yes, something about me and the color blue. Or the word blue.) The idea felt beautiful, lovely, magical, mystical. Now we'll see if I have the heart and soul to write it.

My father and sister and bro-in-law arrived in Arizona. I drove up to Scottsdale to spend a couple of days with them. It was great to see my Dad. He looked good, his shingles all gone, just a little black eye. We spent the day walking around. Later we had dinner over at my other sister's place next door to my dad's townhouse. Afterward we watched Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill (again) and I laughed so hard it hurt. When we went back to my dad's townhouse, I was standing in the kitchen when I saw my dad spray something into the hepa fan. I thought it was some kind of air freshener, but I haven't been able to smell anything in about three weeks so I couldn't tell. Just then my brother in law came in and said, "Is that pesticides?" It sounded like he was kidding. And then I realized my father was spraying pesticides into a fan that was then dispersing it into the air. And he was spraying it near my phone and purse and all my things.

I couldn't believe it.

I said, "Dad, is that a pesticide?"

He didn't say anything. I said, "Fuck, Dad. That stuff makes me sick."

You know how you go into those states of total disbelief and utter fear and panic all at the same time? I went into one of those. Anyone who knows even a tiny bit about me knows that I'm pesticide sensitive and I've been working to eliminate (or reduce) the use of pesticides pretty much everywhere. I don't travel without finding out if the hotels use pesticides. I don't go any place where I know they've used pesticides. And here my father had these poisons in his house and was using them.

I couldn't believe my father had done that. And I immediately fell back into my paranoid mode of "my family doesn't understand me." I went outside. I was so angry and hurt. I can't articulate how upset I was. I didn't know if I was going to have an asthma attack. I didn't know what was going to happen to me. I didn't know if I'd have to throw out all my stuff—including a brand new phone and my computer. I said to my brother in law, "They must just think I make this shit up." He said, "I don't think he did it on purpose." And he was right, of course. I was sure my father felt terrible. I stayed outside in the dark and the cold and watched him bring the fan outside. I walked around the outside of the townhouses, trying to figure out what to do. I felt so unsafe. So lost. So damaged. My father came out and said he was sorry. I said, "I know but I have to stay out here for a while." I sat in the car, which had a VOC and hepa filter. I called Mario and told him I didn't know what to do. Finally I went back into the house. My father put his arms around me and apologized. I told him I knew he was sorry but I couldn't stay there. I was still so upset. And I didn't feel safe. I knew that he felt bad. I felt like I should do something to make it better for him, but I didn't feel safe. I told him I had to leave until the spray dissipated.

I drove around Scottsdale in the dark. I didn't know where the hell I was. I felt desolate. Homeless. Victimized. Lost. Hurt. Sick. My head throbbed. I felt like my lips were swelling. I called Mario in a panic. He tried to reassure me, told me I was probably just scared. I asked him to call my father and tell him not to worry or wait up for me; I'd be back in a couple of hours. I drove around wondering if there was any uncontaminated place in the world. Was there anyplace where I was safe, accepted, taken care of, loved, welcomed. Was there any place where I was not adrift?

No. And why should you be any different?

I went into some kind of weird Barnes and Noble or Borders called Bookstar. No one was there except the employees, and they were all laughing and talking about their sex lives. Or something. I didn't find any books that looked even vaguely interesting.

I felt like Homer Simpson at the beginning of the Simpson movie flipping through the Bible and then yelling, "There are no answers here!" There were no answers in that book store. Or in the next book store I went to.

I drove back to the townhouse. My father was asleep with the television on. My sister and bro-in-law were upstairs asleep. It was freezing in the house. He'd opened the windows to air it out. I woke up my father and told him to go to bed. He looked so cold and vulnerable. I got on the couch and pulled some blankets up around me. I didn't want to be there. I didn't feel safe. But I didn't want my father to feel bad. He didn't go to bed. We watched Corner Gas together and then Becker. Then he went upstairs to bed.

I tried to sleep. I think I got about three hours of sleep, off and on. I finally just got up at 4:30 a.m.—after I dreamed my sisters were all doing something that irritated me. I don't know what. I yelled at them. I said, "You're all fucking assholes!" And then I looked at my father and said, "Except you." Thinking of that dream made me smile. (When I told my sister and father the dream later, my dad said, "Gee, thanks, I guess.)

I got up and drove to around Scottsdale in the dark again. It was about 5:30, I think. Found a Starbucks. Sat inside sipping hot water. Felt alone, alone, alone. Lost.

Fuck.

And imagine how my father felt all the time now.

Later...

I went to McDonald's with my father and sister and sat with them while they ate. Then went to Sears and Ace Hardware with my father. I gave him the keys to my car (his old car) and he drove for the first time in three weeks. My sister and I went to Goodwill to get me some clothes while Dad fixed the water heater.

When we came back to the townhouse, my father left to go to Ikea with another bro-in-law. He asked me if it was okay if he went, asked me if it was all right. Of course it was all right. Live your life. Do what feels good. As he hugged me goodbye, he said, "I promise I'll throw out all those sprays."

I wondered if this was going to be the last thing between us. Would I never see him again and this is what we would remember? What I would remember?

It was all too hard and sad.

I sat outside by myself and wondered what the fuck I was doing there.

I wondered what it would be like to be in a place or with a group of people who were always glad to see me, who welcomed me home, whose faces lit up when they saw me. Like Mario when he sees me. Wouldn't it be nice if there was more than one person who really liked me around? Who really valued me?

Who valued each one of us.

My sister and I took at walk before I left. We talked about what a good man my father was. How he just lives his life. How he faces life. Goes through it.

Then I was on the road again. Three hour drive home because of traffic. Mario had spring rolls awaiting me when I got home. I wonder if he will ever know how much I love and appreciate him. I would be bereft without him.

That night, last night, I dreamed I went to a healer. She had all these little gadgets for me to help heal me. I told her I had once thought I would be a healer but it didn't work out. I had too many doubts.

It was a long dream. I think it may have been the end of the world.

Or the beginning.

Ahhhh, I've talked too long. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

This afternoon as a big old coyote hid from my view and watched me, I walked to the Quail House. Once inside, I started a new novel, The Blue Tail.

We'll see what happens.

I had more to say. Or less to say. I'm not sure which.

May the coyotes sing for you. May the owls hoot for you. And I, I will root for you.

Always.

Blessed sea.

Labels: Arizona, grief, Old Mermaid Sanctuary, writing

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Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Taking Care