September 11, 2016

Nothing was important that day, fifteen years ago, after the towers fell, but everybody was. Dennis was the first person I saw and talked to that day. He’d always said, if something goes wrong, tell three people, and it will feel better. When I walked into his office he read my look and glanced at the small portable TV that sat on a tall black filing cabinet. We watched in silence as the scenes exploded from the tiny screen. All the telephone lines were clogged and I couldn’t reach my brother who could have been on a plane because he travelled frequently for his job. I was worried, I told Dennis, because I hadn’t spoken to my brother in about a week.

I jumped when I heard my phone ringing from across the hall. It was my dogwalker who wanted to know if she should still walk Rosey. Yes, I said. I didn’t plan to leave work early – what difference would it make? She said, all she could think of to do was clean the refrigerator.

I tried my brother again and finally got through. After we each said, I love you, see you soon, I walked back across the hall, to tell Dennis, to feel better. He too was on the phone with his partner Sherry, he had muted the sound from the TV. We’ll make burgers on the grill for dinner, he said and returned the phone to the cradle.

Dennis died three years later, two years after he’d retired to Arizona, where he’d been volunteering for a literacy program. His heart gave out one night after a ride on his motorcycle. I told my brother, who had never met Dennis. I told my dogs, Rosey and Rufus, who had come with me to visit Dennis, when he was home for a week recuperating from bypass surgery.

Today, fifteen years later, as I clean the refrigerator, I think about Dennis as I reach for the pickles I’ll never eat, take the jar to the sink, screw off the lid, pour them into the garbage disposal. I tell Dennis that I’m reaching for the ordinary, like we did that day. I empty the dishwasher and fill it up again. Out in the yard I pull dandelions and look closely at the stray petunia that planted itself in a crack in the cement and wonder how one became a weed and the other, a flower.

After the Storm, a Meeting (originally published in Philadelphia Poets)

A broken portion of the trail,

the overflow had washed away the pebbles,
exposed the fabric intended to encase
the base of soil, the clean red clay.
The tarp that had been specially placed,
here and now it is frayed, torn.
Or did an underground stream burst
through the red clay base?

Thick layer of sand meant
to hold the earth in place for the path,
exploded, dispersed,
From the rush of pressure?
From within or without?
No matter,
an artery ruptured.

The doe did not startle or so it seemed.
I thought I felt my heart stop for a second.
Barely five feet apart,
locked in a true and focused gaze,
utter calm
but entirely alert.

(the last two lines of this poem come from Larry Rosenberg, on p. 81 of Breath by Breath, the Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation.)

Yesterday I was in center city Philadelphia taking my time to walk to the train on the east side of Market Street, to eventually make my way home to the suburbs. Much of the city in this particular area is under construction, but the heavier than usual traffic and congestion was due to more of that. Unbeknownst to me, I was walking into the end of what was supposed to have been a march by Trump supporters, who had planned to travel from Independence Mall to Benjamin Franklin Parkway. They were, from what I later gathered, asked to cancel it in midstream because anti-Trump protesters had shown up. According to news reports the City’s Police Commissioner called on organizers to cut the route short because the inevitable clashes between the two groups were making it very unsafe for the tourists and the general public. By 3 PM, when I was in the area, most of the activity had died down. I did note an interchange between a police officer directing traffic and a person crossing Market Street. “Protesters, right?” she said. “It’s like this very week,” responded the officer, weary, but focused on moving people along. For the woman and the police officer, who were in the mix, but separate from the two groups, its was a “here we go again” moment. Four months after the presidential election and 67 days into the Trump presidency, protest and resistance are becoming the norm.

The impact, the outcome unknown, it is too soon to know. But, I really wonder and worry that the marching, the disruption of everyday life in cities and communities is contributing to the polarization between the two extremes, obfuscating the issues, one side’s opposition pushing the other group to become more entrenched, angry, unwilling to seek any resolution. I am left-leaning, admittedly. I participated in the Women’s March on the day after the inauguration and was pleased and proud to do so. I felt energized; I felt an affinity and solidarity with everyone who had gathered toward one purpose; I was part of a positive, forward-looking drive.  But, I just don’t know now. It seems like every day there’s a new petition to sign, another post to share, a rallying cry to call representatives, a march, a rally, a meeting and I am feeling guilty that I’m not doing this, but I’m not because I just don’t know.

Last month Hillary Clinton made a statement that echoes the phrase that has been uppermost in my thinking lately – resistance through persistence. An NBC News report noted that she took to Twitter, using the Democrats’ handle, @HillaryClinton: “Let resistance plus persistence equal progress for our Party and our country.” #DNCFuture> I’m still with her. I know that much.

I will persist, keep my eyes and ears open, say what I can when the time is right. And now, I’ll go work on a poem.

This week, Spring Break, supposed to be my time for creative renewal. But it snowed and I hate the cold and snow and ice. It disrupts my preferred ways of being in the world. I’m forced me to become vigilant about the simple act of visiting a friend, walking my dog Pepper, just getting in and out of my car. So I focus on indoor activities, as do most people at times like this, it’s not so awful really. I cooked up 2 big pots of gravy as the snow fell, did laundry, cleaned the bathroom, in between reading, screen time on TV, computer & iPad. The writing projects I’d hoped to complete didn’t go so well or so it seems to me right now.

When I take a step away though, I have to see weeks like this as brewing, stewing, simmering – the cooking metaphors work for me. Thoughts are brewing as I read some of my favorite poets (Nick Flynn, Marie Howe, Alison Townsend’ The Blue Dress) and try to imitate them; bingewatching Transparent leads me to look into it’s creator Jill Soloway, who uses gender-neutral pronouns; I bask in Wendell Berry’s novel, Hannah Coulter, about a woman looking back on her life in his imagined farming community; I watch a PBS show about Maya Angelou, which reminds me of Ntozake Shange, who was mentioned by the character Ally in an episode of Transparent and who made a guest appearance in a dream sequence Ally has  How is this all coming together in the soup of my imagination?

A call has gone out for submissions from local press, The Head and The Hand. From their website: “What sparks a story with the power to change and entertain? In our increasingly polarized society, we think the answer can be found in everyday expressions of perseverance, empathy, absurdity, and vigilance. Our new Shockwire Chapbook Series recognizes the need to raise the storytelling stakes in response to intimidation, fear, and isolation.”

I want to write about my grandmothers and my aunts. I have written about my maternal grandmother, Rosa, who I see as a creator crocheting intricate tablecloths and scarves for armchairs and sofas, she passed this love of handiwork on to me. I want to write about Nellie, my father’s mother, who worked after becoming a widow and saved to buy herself two diamond rings one of which she promised to me, but I never received. I want to write about Aunt Santa, who took care of me when my mother went back to work; she was an extraordinary baker sweetening every holiday and family celebration. They were strong women, who persisted during a time when women’s roles were circumscribed, who made their own way within the roles that were laid out for them. What did they know? Did they ever question? How did they uncover the strength to persist?

I’m thinking about domesticity and persistence as resistance, about feminism and gender questioning. I know I am a homebody, I like to be in my own space, I like to cook and crochet, I don’t mind doing the dishes and I dislike messiness, even though it sometimes takes me awhile to get around to it. But I’m only answerable to myself in my home; I’ve made my life this way intentionally. I can take the messiness in hand when I am ready. That’s much of what I did this week. Thirty years ago I tried to make a go of a partnership on the domestic front. It didn’t work; it ended in disaster. Maybe I was taking cues from my grandmothers and my aunt, from Maya Angelou and Ntozake Shange; maybe I was anticipating Jill Soloway and her character Ally, when I resisted the norms of domestic arrangements.

Here’s how a relatively enlightened couple negotiates domesticity. That negotiation skill is something I never acquired.

Source: How to Ask a Feminist to Do the Dishes

I loved walking the stony cement path that bisected

my grandfather’s garden,

underneath the canopy

formed by the arbor’s delicate gray-green vines,

it’s twisted net roof

like a church ceiling, sturdy and cool.

I especially loved the stray petunias,

unkempt heads peering through the cracks.

I still see grandpop walking down the block

toward our house, the sun on his back,

the huge pick slung over his shoulder.

I see him study the mottled strip of ground, grass, weeds,

as if he’s waiting for just the right moment to swing the pick.

I hear it strike the hard surface, split the compacted

top layer, slicing through to the darker part.

This was the garden my mother talked about,

but never started.

That summer I planted seeds from a packet–

zinnias, marigolds, my very own petunias,

followed the instructions precisely,

dug holes with the spade, one inch down,

dropped them in, a seed at a time,

spaced three inches apart.

I resisted the urge to plunge my fingers

into the moist, black soil,

but nothing ever grew.

I asked my grandpop what I did wrong.

Maybe the dirt? Maybe the seeds?

“Could be this,” he said.

Not enough water? Or, too much?

“Could be that, too.”

I thought he had some secrets to pass on.

“Maybe next year,” he told me.

“Maybe you don’t follow the instructions.

Maybe, next year, you tickle the dirt.”

by Linda Pizzi, previously published in The Paterson Literary Review

From across the street, we must have seemed

a pretty picture, mother and daughter in lawn chairs,

that summer of waiting,

my mother watching the day, Sunday or Saturday,

all days had merged into blunt phrases of light ending in dark,

the name no longer mattered.

That day, she wore the bright pink dress, full and flowing,

that my brother had bought her,

and a patchwork scarf of vital colors

obscured what remained of her hair;

there was little else we could give her;

her desires had become so difficult

to discern.

The bearded man with wire-rimmed glasses

asked to photograph us.

“I’ll send you prints,” he offered.

This seemed to please my mother

who couldn’t say so,

since the cancer had paralyzed her speech.

She nodded in affirmation

at the large old-fashioned camera,

boxlike, an indifferent hole at its center.

He smiled as he steadied its perch on the tripod.

We watched as we waited in silence.

Years before, when we shared a bedroom,

each morning my mother would smoke her first cigarette

before leaving bed.

Silent, she watched me as I dressed, as I brushed my hair,

squinting her eyes, she followed my every movement,

with her every inhalation.

I hated it.

Later, I realized, she was only smoking,

and I was the only moving object in the room.

By the time her speech

had begun to slur, the cancer had grown, from the lung,

too adamant to ignore.

Suddenly, every day was stripped to the minimum,

living became little rituals with no space

for grace or charm,

laughter, a brief escape from the shuddering boredom.

Now, she wanted this picture.

Each click of the camera extracted

another inch of pain

exposed her slow disintegration,

her dying interrupted.

We never saw that man again,

or his picture of two figures

on a doorstep on a street in a city,

where one was dying,

though the picture would never know that.

by Linda Pizzi

This poem was first published in the Paterson Literary Review