Friday, October 22, 2010

A quick note to my adoring legions of fans...

Like all the best kinds of gratification, this week's blog is delayed.

I am ill. I am ill AND I sound like a Smurf, a profound manifestation of the notion of "adding insult to injury".

I'll get to YOU people as soon as I can - right now I've got little invaders to deal with. Heat the buttered rum!

Bed ridden - but not ridden with bedbugs...

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Sometimes when we touch...

Last night my little family and I watched in wonder, breathing shallow breaths, as the first of the trapped Chilean miners made a slow, steady ascent to the earth's surface.

My cheeks were hot and my eyes damp with gratitude for his safe transport from out of the stone. We heard that the president of Chile had called for every church bell in that nation to ring out when the first miner came back into the light.

Our basement is a bit shy on church bells - or any other kind of bell for that matter -but we do have two drum kits. So, my little girl and I grabbed a good crash cymbal and a pair of heavy sticks. We took them out the front door and rang that cymbal like a bell for a full minute. It was good. Pissed of the neighbours...but it was good.

When we finished clanging, little V. was grinning, and my face was soaked with tears. Our joy reverberated off distant houses, faint echoes of our exuberance, a joyful sound resounding. No words required.

That same night, in front of the television again, we watched as the next miners emerged. In every case, the first thing each one did was grab hold of a loved one. Chest to chest, faces buried against throats.

The words came second. No "I love you" was spoken aloud into a space between between two people. It was always breathed into a neck, mumbled into warm skin.

Switch gears.

Today I had a massage. No "hot stones at the spa" affair. This hurts.

My therapist is brilliant. Her fingers find what's broken. They seek out the knots and divots in muscles - they press one into the other until I am smooth again, fluid again - and all without a word. Our relationship is professional - but when she is done with me, my life is different than before I arrived. I move freely. Her touch makes it possible for me to begin again, the process of breaking myself.

My training log says I have to swim 3000 meters tomorrow, five times the distance the miners were held captive under the earth. It will take me less than 12 minutes to swim the expanse that separated the men from the surface, 622 meters. Water is softer than stone - but when it comes to life and death, equally unforgiving. This instructs me. It is rarely about how far you must travel - but more what you must travel through.

My husband is traveling tonight - a business trip.

When he is home, we seldom speak to each other in the middle of the night. Our bed is small and there is a rhythm to our turns, into and away from each other, through the night, wakeful at times, but silent, pushing back against front, or front against back - bum to belly, belly to bum. It is a dance of sorts, accommodating the needs of the other's comfort. In summer we relish the cool side of each other, and in winter the warm one.

I've had a busy day, and although he's been in my mind a hundred times it won't be until tonight, between the hours of two and five, that I will miss him most. I will roll over to touch him and he won't be there. It will happen more than once, and each time I will be equally disappointed, equally alone, despite my ability to stretch long my aching back. I would rather the weight of his arm.

Ashleigh Brilliant once noted, "Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches." Ha, he's good, eh?

Words will never replace an "I love you" whispered close to an ear, the rapture of fingers dancing over skin, a naked baby sleeping on a bare chest, flying arms smashing out noise to celebrate freedom and safety, the tickle of chest hair against a naked back.

Words are not the same as touch...

Kisses and punches.

Words make it possible to share them. Write touch into your work.

Saying it best, when I say nothing at all...
Kari

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

What the Coffee Table Has to Say...


My coffee table is home to three vessels.

One is a small glazed piece made by a woman named Beatrice Wood. When she passed away in 1998, she was 105. She was quite a famous artist and she made love to many artists even more famous than herself. My first husband was in love with Beatrice Wood, he was an artist too - but I never really felt he was that good. He gave me the Beatrice piece of art when I graduated from University. That husband was a cad, but Beatrice Wood was a remarkable artist, so I keep the lustrous ceramic in view for her sake, but not his.

The second vessel is even older than Beatrice Wood. It is from China and the glaze is the color of an alpine lake during run off, a milky green. It was a gift to Ken (my now husband) and I. It reminds me of the mountains we've climbed, the valleys we wandered through. Sometimes I get thirsty just looking at it. I keep it on the table for us - so that we can remember the wanting.

The third piece is a glass vase that we received as a wedding gift. A little girl named Paige dropped a rock into it and broke open the side, a hole just slightly bigger than her clenched fist. Oddly, that hole made the vase at least twice as beautiful as it was before. Sometimes I place little objects inside it. The hole acts as a frame for small treasures.

The mother of the girl who broke the vase was one of my oldest and dearest friends. She bought us another vase by the same artist, to replace the broken one, but it is not nearly as lovely as the first. You can't see inside the new vase. Its shell hasn't been split open by curiosity.

A year and a half ago this friend, let's call her Susan, sent me an email explaining that, in order to save her marriage and keep her family together, she could not see or speak to me again.

I asked, several times, for an explanation but got no reply.

I keep that vase on the table because it prompts Ken and I to wonder. We peek inside that broken vase, looking for clues. We pose questions, imagine why, then we move on to happier subjects.

As beautiful or tragic as it is, you can only spend so much time talking about a hole - and there are other vessels to discuss.

Half empty AND half full...
Kari