entelechyproject

>Peter and I have been upending every poetry book we can lay hands on trying to find a bit to be read at the wedding. We are trying to add something of ourselves into this ordeal, even though most of it has been out of our control. Nothing came of perusing the ‘appropriate’ anthologies, most of which were worthless. Even if we did find something one of us liked, the other wasn’t so keen on it. And so it went.

The problem with poetry (and with well written, thoughtful music … dylan and van zandt, not aiken and jessica … hence our inability to find a song to ‘first dance’ to) is that it is attempting an accurate reflection of life. And in life, as we all know by now, there is always an unmistakable thread of darkness through the most joyful bits. The most beautiful poems we found wound their way around grief and loss. The ones that left this out were hollow and full of pastels. We know what we are embarking on is joyful. And hard. But we don’t want to dump cold water on the people who come to celebrate with us.

Enter the venerable Gary Snyder, to the rescue. (I was introduced to him indirectly, while reading Kerouac’s Dharma Bums two summers ago.)We went all the way through Turtle Island to no avail, but picked up No Nature this evening at B&N. Thank God for the zen inspired beat poets, trekking through the Sierras with their wool pants and ruck-sacks and scribbled-over notebooks. We read Off The Trail and both knew instantly that it was exactly what we were looking for. Thanks, Gary.

We still wanted *some* kind of William Carlos Williams, as I think his poetry is beautiful and he was Peter’s favorite for a long time. So we are adding his three-liner on marriage to the back of the order of service.

:::: Post Script ::::

I saw Anne Lamott’s name on the AWAD mailing a few days ago and I wanted to give her a shout out for making it into Anu’s Ending Quote.

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
-Anne Lamott (1954- )

>Yesterday I slept in, and dreamed about being married. I woke, cleaned the kitchen and made coffee, listened to Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me (my favorite weekend NPR installation.) It was warm, and Nyssa sunbathed on the picnic table in the yard. I joined her outside, and talked to my landlords about the weather, their aging lab, the plants that the late tenent of my unit planted, the plethora of funerals and viewings they have attended this month, the death of a sister, my dog’s strange sun-worshiping habits, coats. I got my oil changed at a shady garage in another town, for $20. While waiting, I walked Nyssa over to Petsmart to look at the puppies and cats up for adoption. We saw a boxer puppy the size of a neckpillow and were barked at by a neurotic scottie dog. Nyssa was hissed at by an overweight tabby surrendered by unwell owners, themselves surrendered to a nursing home. On the walk back to the shady garage, I bought cheap closeout bookshelves. We drove to the dog park and Nyssa sat in the sun watching the other dogs play instead of running around herself. We left, went by the grocery store for milk and a fly swatter. I remembered to buy brown sugar. At home, I organized the piles of books and papers and mail that had accumulated and turned the living room back into a livable space. I dusted. Peter and I went to pick up a free ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen. Then we went to Borders to look for an appropriate poem to be read at the wedding.

Yesterday was the first day in months that my stomach hasn’t been tied up in knots, my blood pressure hasn’t been pounding in my head, my body hasn’t been tense with endless lists scrolling behind my eyes, that I havn’t spent on the phone with my mother negotiating details and schedules, that I havn’t had to dope myself up on caffine and comfort food to get through. It was a day like days are supposed to be. It was a day to get a glimpse of hope, before this last desperate sprint through chaos.

Today, I woke up and realized that in two weeks I will wake up married. In two weeks, I will start having more days like yesterday. In two weeks there will be nothing to plan, no reason to be on the phone 3 hours a day, no pages of lists and paranoia of things forgotten. The balance will tip towards sunlight, equinox will pass, summer will be on her merry way, Peter and I will begin on ours.

>Monkey got sick last week. It started with some abnormally calm monkey behavior, and progressed into frothy diarrhea and then on to projectile vomiting. When a 18 lb infant starts sending partially digested ravioli bits several feet across the room in a fire-hose like gush, it’s time to call the doctor.

The poor little guy was so dehydrated from all his hydrotechnics that by the time he got in to the doctor all he could do was lay and stare. He barely moved when she poked and prodded him – this the guy who at his nine month appointment a few weeks ago was a two-foot-tall destruction tornado who barely paused long enough for the stethoscope to graze him.

The doctor’s orders involved pedialite (a rehydration drink for kids) and a dropper. His mom and I took turns sitting on the floor with little Monkey in our laps, feeding him a single ML of fluid per minute for most of the afternoon. (And alternately trying to keep Turtle out of the way: Monkey’s only concession to lethargy was to shriek whenever his brother got close.)

I feel a little self conscious about turning poor Monkey’s ordeal (who, five days later, is once again gobbling … and processing … everything in his path) into a lesson for myself. But I hear that’s what parenting (or, nannying in this case) is about sometimes. So here goes: All of the frantic planning and applying and researching and DOING of the last six months has left me strung out and a little crazy. There is an endless list of things that MUST GET DONE NOW, and I have become so intent on multitasking, that I start freaking out if several things aren’t getting done every minute that I’m awake. I have lost touch with my exquisitely lazy side in this season of planning and transition. But sitting on the floor, feeding a baby a drop of fluid every minute for several hours, left me feeling calmer and more centered than I have for months. What a crazy (and scary) way to be reminded. No wonder centuries of monastics have relished the mundane, repetitive tasks of their calling. I hope the rhythms of our (hopeful, future) farm – milking, feeding, mucking, chopping, weeding – will give us a taste of living out of that centered place (without, of course, the scary anxiety of a sick infant.)

>on the airplane this week.

man: i got to know her, and we started talking about our kids. i told her about my little girl … she was six at the time. just the light of my life. and she told me to enjoy it while it lasts. that her girl was so hard … just difficult and it was the worst right then. she could hardly deal with it any more. she said it got bad after she stopped pretending.

woman: stopped pretending?

man: she said when she hit that age when she didn’t have tea parties with her stuffed animals, talk to imaginary friends, play house … when she stopped pretending, everything changed.

>

When Peter and I stumbled upon a little one-bedroom apartment in the charming (antiquated, declining) little riverside (glorified waste canal) town of Marysville, we were relieved. Every traditional apartment complex we’d looked into was pricy at best. With dog-fees, most wanted $1500 down – which we didn’t have – and more a month that we could afford while attempting to save the necessary money to get the heck out of dodge. The Marysville place was small, but the landlords were an older couple – not a corporation – charged nothing more for the dog and had a yard. The building was full of other geriatric residents, and the only one who worked had a night shift. Rent: a paltry $250 – the same as Peter and I paid for our respective utility-free (as in, without not included) cabins in The Promised Land.

But as the old adage goes: You Get What You Pay For.

The Porch.
There is a nice sunshade curtain that is so old, it has melted into itself and the ropes used to lower it are welded to the wall hook. My one attempt to get it down last fall ended in some minor disintegration (think : touch a mummy, create a dust pile.) The porch light has a brand spanking new bulb, but the wiring is shot. You have to tape the light switch halfway up to keep it on at night.

The Kitchen.
The tilt-a-whirl oven comes with several unique features. I bought an oven thermometer out of desperation a few weeks in, to discover that not only is the internal thermostat off by about 100 degrees, but *which way* it’s off depends on the phase of the moon. There is so much internal angle that the first batch of brownies I made came out a well-done 1/8 of a inch on one end of the pan, and a very gooey 1 1/2 on the other. Each burner on the stove has a different angle, so you have to be careful to only fill a pot so full if you are only left with the North Face version, let your noodles end up all over the kitchen. Also, the sink water occasionally comes out yellow, sometimes brown. The landlords were horrified when they found out I’d been drinking straight from the tap.

The Floor.
Of course the stove is a little ‘off’ because the floor is a little ‘off.’ So ‘off’ that a ball will roll from one end of the apartment to the other with no help. The kitchen tiles are new, but the carpet was laid down in the early 50’s. There is a water stain the size of a good-sized human in the hallway. (More On This Later.)

The Ceiling.
It’s a good thing we are short. Every time I get dressed in the bedroom, my hand smacks the ceiling light. It’s only a matter of time before it shatters. In the bathroom, taking a shower is a dangerous undertaking. I have cracked my funny bone on the ceiling over the tub (the low-end of the apartment) so many times you’d think I’d have developed a reflex.

The Bathroom.
In addition to the minimalist-headroom, the tub drains so slowly (despite paychecks worth of liquid plumbers and excavation equipment) that a stopper is utterly unnecessary if one wishes to enjoy a warm bath. If you’d like a shower, you’d better be shorter than me. The water temperature is great if you only use the hot tap, but the showerhead comes out just at the back of my neck. And I’m a short 5’4.

The Heat.
Although the place comes equipped with four radiant heat heaters, they are controlled by forces beyond my understanding. 1) I am still not sure which position the pull tab needs to be to keep the vents open. But this seems be irrelevant because 2) the apparatus is made of metal, so even with the vents closed, heat pours into the apartment anyway because 3) it seems that the level of heating is entirely dependant on if our landlords are home, and if they are cold. They control the fate of the upstairs tenants. There is a major snowstorm brewing this weekend. I hope they aren’t going out of town.

Apartment of Death.
Apparently the last three tenants have vacated to their final resting place. I would like to think that this is because of their age and (according to the Landlords) smoking habits. I’m not so sure any more. Peter and I are convinced that there is toxic mold brewing under the death-stain in the hallway. Evidence as follows: Fruit/Veggies left out overnight develop a nice fuzz within’ 24 hours. Whenever the place is swept/vacuumed (stirring up dust bunnies of death) whoever cleaned/was around afterwards is horribly sick the next day with a nearly debilitating but strangely ambiguous malaise. We are both constantly congested (unusual for us) and have started producing awfully bloody stuff and (on peter’s part) spontaneous nose bleeds. Last week, I sat on the floor next to the death-stain for hours and hours getting Wedding Invitations assembled. By the 4th hour, I was feverish and ill. By the time Peter came by after work, I was hardly capable of conversation. He got me out of there for a few hours. It cleared up almost immediately in the fresh, bitter winter air. The real kicker: all of our symptoms go away when we leave town. For as long as we leave town.

That’s the funny thing about cheap rent: You end up spending all the extra money on duct tape, leveling blocks, Drano, elbow-braces, light fixtures, extra sweaters and socks (for when the landlords leave town with the heaters off to conserve energy), and dehumidifiers/air purifiers/KatrinaRita-mold-mask-specials. I’m just glad Pete’s working at a natural foods store, so we don’t have to spend money on (organic!) groceries. It all evens out in the end.