nowhere = now here

lunar lupercalia

20 Feb 08
lunar eclipse

lupercalian moon
(first full moon after Lupercalia)

Lupercalia was the Roman fertility and sexuality festival held on the Ides (15th) of February, later Christianized into St Valentine's Day. After Imbolg (1 Feb), we can feel the quickening - not to mention cabin fever! Little wonder the ancestors celebrated the idea of spring weeks ahead of the vernal equinox. As the sun moves into Pisces, we dream - of warm breezes, green seedlings, longer days and sweeter nights.

the large print giveth and the small print taketh away...*

I was so busy quitting my day job I MISSED GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS. I guess good concert karma only comes round when it comes round, and I guess it wasn't to be expected that I could see Gillian & David in the same year I saw Tom Waits. Who is God.
So instead of having this great Gillian & David story, I'll have to tell the story of how I saw Tom. He scheduled 8 shows in the States last year, and played 9, and for some reason he came to my (relatively) small town. Tickets sold out in 15 minutes, and ebay prices quickly went up to ridiculous levels.
So I took refuge in craigslist, which always brings me luck, and posted a request for tickets.
Nothing happened.
Then I saw a couple of ads for guys who had extra tickets and wanted dates for the show. One guy had tickets for several shows and was hoping to find someone to roadtrip with him.
This is not my thing. I read the personals and have gone so far as to create a profile on the local site, but I've never been willing to pay the money to access anyone. And no one who's tried to access me has ever prepaid for a reply, which I think would be a nice gesture.
But - it's Tom Waits. In my town.
So I answered the ads, and after some back and forth with both of them, I got the gig - that's what he said - with Jerry from Seattle. The other guy stopped emailing when I wouldn't send a picture. Jerry chose me cause I quoted the Girl With the Faraway Eyes, and, as he said, I wanted so badly to go.
Jerry travels for music alot. He saw Tom in Amsterdam. We agreed - if no chemistry, no worries; if nothing else, we'd have fun.
So I met him at a local pub and played tour guide. Along the way we are able to trade our center section row T tickets for center section row G tickets. We work a complicated deal to sell the row Ts and help a couple sit together and a single guy score a seat. Jerry and I have no chemistry, and he is totally focused on getting better seats, checking out the local tapas bar, and selling the T tickets.
Did I mention Tom was God? His stage presence is otherworldly. His body is angular, his voice is harsh, and he would have been very at home leading a martyr's parade in a Middle Age plague town. He opened with Singapore; he wooed us with Blue Valentines; he and his band revealed the secrets of What's He Building in There.  His son Casey played drums. We were in such good seats that Tom was straight in front of us. What a gift.
Afterwards we went to my favorite dive, the only bar left in our tragically trendy downtown I could imagine Tom drinking in, then to the all night grill. We ran into Be when I was walking him back to his hotel, so there was no last minute weirdness caused by his gratitude that I'd been the perfect "whatever you want" date, or by his discomfort that I'd pried confessions about both his girlfriend in Seattle and the girl he was meeting at the next show loose as we got drunk and listened to half-ass karoke.
And - Jerry paid for everything. He could have gotten big bucks for that ticket, but he said he traveled alone alot, and thought it would be nice to have local company for a change.
I like to think Tom would approve.

* Tom Waits

on Saturday I clean

women’s work

I’m not the woman my mother is

she quit smoking
and stayed married but
as long as she keeps a sloppy house
says “shit”
and lets her garden dry out in every summer drought

she’s not the woman her mother was

both my sisters are divorced
don’t smoke
still shave
and never go to bed before
all the dishes are done

while my daughter works hard
to housebreak her boyfriend
and refuses to trade on her looks

does this mean anything?

or am i just oppressed by
my aging face in the mirror

so many fuckin dishes to wash
a too-big floor to scrub
once-was food to throw out
and a drooping garden to water

I have no time
for contemplating change
through the generations

still
here I sit
staring at this poem

the moment

As I look over my shoulder, only my tears are salt - the rest of me sometimes feels like stone, sometimes a dry sponge straining desperately for the water I can hear.  (me, 2003)

Be in the moment, my friend Shay has been telling me for years, and for years I said, but I have too much to do.
For a long time I didn't write. Words were too precise. I drew instead: an endless series of black ink on white paper pictures, ready for crayons or colored pencils, two dimensional. People tell me to sell them but for me the process is enough - it stills my hands and perks my ears and makes my thoughts flow - like washing dishes or raking the yard.
But writing inevitably begins to make my hands itch and my throat clog - begging for the blood,  burning for a sincere attempt toward truth.
My best ever writing teacher asked, who's the watcher on your shoulder?
What would happen if women told the truth of their lives?
As I contemplate the possible readers of now here, I have only one hope - that they will challenge me to stay in the moment of truth.
I am a 45 year old single mom of a 20 year old daughter, Be, who, with her boyfriend Scrub, lives with me in this NC mountain town. We share our home with 2 boycats, Jake Blue and Jett. I work alot right now, which makes being in the moment when I take some time off a bit easier.
Be is the defining experience of my life til now, this child I raised with so much loving help from our friends and a great deal of fear and anxiety at my own blind audacity. Watching her unfold is a great adventure.
The next adventure is learning again to live for me, not first and last us. I look back at my younger self in some wonder and some exasperation; I'm looking for clues.
"I feel like a survivor who has lost everything but her life, who wanders around inside a skinny shriveled lady, collecting dandelion greens and muttering to herself." (the Women's Room, M. French)