Lily Life

another day

who ever came up with the song "rain, rain, go away. come again another day" ?

were they crazy? had they ever listened to the rain? the thunder? watched lightening?

i say, "bring it on!"

the dog and the papa have gone home. the fisherman's napping after stacking concrete blocks and splitting wood all morning to help the neighbors.

earlier i bought a flowered tin button box full of random and dazzling buttons from a roadside antique dealer.

it's just me here alone in the hunting camp, with the ducks on the curtains, and the sony Trinitron circa 1982 beckoning me to watch videos.

oh yeah, and the pouring hard rain.

another day? are you kidding? today is just fine by me...

pudding

i don't normally drink cheap white wine over ice in the middle of the day.

but the fisherman told the dog earlier that she couldn't have beer until noon, and it's already after 2.

see what happens when i come here to camp?

brains + camp = pudding

mmm. i really like pudding.

a lazy day

it's been declared a Lazy day.

it's suddenly hot and sticky out, and the wind has gone away to blow somewhere else.

the green around us is less intense, but more sodden with steam and insects.

papa's whacking the weeds, his favorite pastime.

i've made tea, screwed back up the faceplates for the outlets and switches that i took down yesterday, and industriously decoupaged with magazine photos. and later i plan on putting in some rather serious hammock time.

the dog's littering the floors i swept with toys and food and bits of debris.

and the fisherman's fixed a light, made a water-bottle fly-catcher, and later he'll go fishing, with a beer in each pocket of his vest. that's what a fisherman does.

lazy lazy lazy. i have no idea what day of the week it is.

but i'm too lazy to get up and look at a calendar.

the best sound in the world

i'm here, in the green green country, summering in the adirondacks.

my very favorite thing has been happening all morning.

it's been Raining. the best sound in the world is the sound of the rain on a tin roof, especially here in the childhood place of my sweetheart, the Fisherman.

we sleep in what is called the hunting camp, which is really an ancient barn from lord-knows-1800's, which was wasting away somewhere up the road, then was transported here to stand between the wetlands and the one-lane blacktop road. the hunters come here every hunting season, and they drink and eat and get warm by the woodstove after a long day of stalking animals. but when we're here, it's our home.

the bed is in the loft, under the knotty beams that run the length of the barn, sloping down with the eaves. the light coming in from the window is sublime. it's the best place in the world for sleeping. and today is the best sleeping of all.

the fisherman's asleep. the papa's asleep. and the sweet little baby dog who lives with the papa now just curled up in the basket up at my feet and went to sleep.

i love this emerald kingdom of trees, and turtles, and water. the fisherman is so happy here, a fish in his favorite water. my brain isn't very sharp here, but i think that's a good thing. he's always telling me to not worry much, just to be in the present. and Here, the mind and the heart just seem to mush together, melting away anything that feels like worry or fear, leaving only a calming love and peace, and that has to be the best feeling in the world.

Komfort and Klonopin

The day arrived of Joan's memorial. I woke up early, around 6 my time. Shuffled around the house for awhile, watched Maz give her cats both medicine, then feed them separate food, then go outside and feed the stray kitty who lives under the apartment building next to the laundry room. She feeds him every day, and every day he hisses at her.

She reads the paper, I write in here, then we figure it's time to go to the store and buy food. When I ask Maz what she wants, it's Entemann's. Funny, cause it's not what I would have said, but suddenly it's the only thing I want.

It's comfort food. We bought two kinds.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my other closest friends knew I was sick with a summer cold, and showed up at my house, with, yes, Entemann's. Nothing like a giant sugary pillow-soft cream cheese stuffed danish to shove the blues back down there where you won't feel them anymore.

After the danish parade, however, I realized, heart revving, that I had only half an hour to get ready for the service. I rushed around, and thoughts of who I might see, what I might feel, who I was then...all of it flooded in. A little overwhelming.

I got made up, ditched the blouse that made me feel like an old lady, put on perfume, and last but not least, as we headed out the door, in what I'm not embarrassed to describe as a state of mild panic, I ate a Klonopin right out of Maz's hand. I felt like one of her cats.

At the service, two people did a scene, holding those small Sam French scripts, from "Same Time Next Year", a sweet melancholy play. And eight times ( I counted), eight times in the scene, the word Comfort was used.

I guess I wasn't the only one who needed it that day.

Home: Joan

Let's face it, coming home just cracks my brain open in a strange and unstoppable way. Maybe this time I can stave off the craziness.

My parents actually aren't even here; they left town the day before I got here, and I'm staying with one of my oldest friends in the world, Miss Maz, and her two sweet kitties.

But somehow, even in this airconditioned apartment, on her flowered sofa, with her marble coffee table and the pretty little things she has gathered over the years, I can feel the Feeling I have about this place crouching outside the sliding glass door, panting, waiting for me to come out and play.

I can feel it in the heavy wet, humid air, in the show the trees make turning their white sides up in the wind. And in the way that I never have any absolutlely ANY clue where I am when I am here. My inner compass is blindfolded.

I'm here this time, this sticky June weekend, to face and pay homage to my past. Specifically my high school drama teacher, Joan.

It was the 80's and she was Awesome. Her favorite word was "panache". She wore huge silver rings on her long fingers, and her fashion was High, cut in the inverted triangle of the times, supported by some serious shoulder pads, in the winter covered by giant swirling capes. She smoked cigarettes almost constantly, 100's, and her nose, when she smoked, tilted up into an enviable patrician profile.

She directed plays in the big fat high school auditorium. A holy space with wings, and flys, and big heavy curtains. It was my Church.

But where life really happened for me was in the classroom.

The shabby cluttered glorious mess of a drama classroom. It was there that Joan worked the real magic, and challenged us all every day. We worked on tough scenes, crazy experimental theatre, performance art. She let us light shit on fire in there. We told the truth and cried (of course). We played only parts that we wanted to play. For some reason, she let me work for months on the part of a young black man who had just killed his mother.

She also gave me my first true comedic part, on the big stage, and let me find out I was funny. I won my first acting award under her tutelage. She let me be the editor on a script we worked on, and co-write a play for us all to do. There were no limits. And...we belonged. To her. To ourselves. To each other.

The relationship I had with Joan was not uncomplicated. I wanted to please her, for her to like me, to approve of me, to think I was a good actor. Some days I was mad at her. She knew how to intimidate, and seemed to do it if she thought it would be good for us. She treated us like adults, and we did our best to deserve the respect.

In the end of high school, I turned away from her somewhat, in confused teenage rebellion, dropping out of a play, disagreeing with decisions she had made, trying to find my own artistic moral center. But I still showed up in class every day, still longing to wring every drop of experience I could from those classes, from the proud, stylish artistry of Joan.

I never thanked her, never wrote her a letter to tell her what a profoundly positive influence she was on me. Chagrin is a bitter pill. Maybe Joan just knew.

My whole life, every time I've done something with "panache"...? It's all Joan.

It's not all craziness.