100% honest day
July 17, 2008
So I am working late and wishing I weren’t. (Actually, that’s not true. It’s lovely in my office with the evening sun coming in and all. I am aglow. But not sweaty. Or smelly. I am beautimous. The whole damn scene is right nice. Plus, if I stay late enough I will be able to see a red full moon hanging above the mountains on my drive home. Is that not worth waiting for?)
Anyway, I had this big thought about nowish that went something like this: Wouldn’t it be great to be so ballsy self-assured that I could just be 100% honest with people?
Well I sooooo am that ballsy stoopid self-assured.
Tomorrow, a one-day event: Dana’s Be 100% Honest Day.*
Swing by. Ask questions. You are sure to get interesting answers. And don’t you think I am only doing this on the ’nets and such. I am so fuckin’ ballsy ridiculously stoopid self-assured that I will be doing this from waking until I turn in for the night, everywhere and with everyone.
Huzzah!
I am allowed three “no comments” during the course of the day, though.
*
*I whipped up badges if anyone is dumb enough to want to do this with me.** Let me know by e-mail (mygorgeoussomewhere at gmail dot com) and my domestically grown and assembled monkey servants will automatically can send you the code.
**Oh look: Some of you are dumb enough, and I’m making a list of you dummies brave souls in my sidebar so people can come take advantage of you by asking personal and uncomfortable questions be tame and good and nice and polite in their question-asking and whatnot. All in good fun, raiiight!!!
* * *
(P.S. Today, my father would have been 78 years old. Instead of celebrating the live dad in my life, I got nothin’. Not even incinerated bones in a sealed container. I barely have photos of him. I would have written something for him today, but I know I would have fucked the words all up. And that’s 100% honest.)
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163 Responses to “100% honest day”
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This work is licensed under Creative Commons.
If you don’t credit Dana (by using her full name and preferably by linking back to the appropriate post) for however you copy, distribute, transmit or adapt her words, you are being bad. And naughty. And she will have her servant monkeys hunt you down and cut your hands off so you can never copy, distribute, transmit or adapt anyone’s work again and call it your own.
(Unless, of course, you were to use your butt cheeks to manipulate your keyboard with the copying, distributing, transmitting, adapting and whatnot, but Dana fortunately has only met one person whose butt cheeks are that talented. He could play a major third on a piano using nothing but his ass. She kids you not.).
you can ask me anything, if you’re curious. Maybe I’ll answer on twitter. You I’ll visit here. Glad you are aglow.
Yes. Am ALL in! Bring on the badges:)
I love this. I am off to post my own agreement to do this as well… fun fun fun.
All of this stuff is just what I’ve been needing. Thank you
I’ll do it. Why not?
[...] hurt anyone Jump to Comments I’ve been studk in a rut lately, but a recent post over at mygorgeoussomewhere kicked me on the ass mad made me say, I wanna do that [...]
Dana: Huzzah, Dana, Huzzah. We could have a day of dishonesty, but every day is dishonesty day. Kind of like kids day. You know: when you were a kid and your parents said that every day was kids day. Every day is dishonesty day. So I applaud your honesty and I hope honesty doesn’t lead to any Huzzah, Dana, Huzzah. Now where’d you get that? Be honest . . . Cheers, Blood Dan
I love a challenge so I’m in.
Blood, I was huzzahing before you could even say huzzah! Code coming to you via e-mail.
Chrstine, Blythe, Slynne ~ you should all have your badge code courtesy of Carolee. Make sure it works and let me know if it doesn’t. I will make repairs.
Daisybones, code is in the mail to you. The e-mail. You know what I mean.
Sheryl, about to send the code to you. Yay!
I meandered over here from a contributers list on Weave, congrats!
Christine, yup. That be me there.
Well thanks for nothing missy! the day I leave the country everyone starts having fun…….
This is what you get for leaving us. And … tell me how you REALLY feel.
completely honest on the internet? I don’t even post my name! (though I don’t lie; I simply omit. A fine distinction.)
Deezee, that makes it super EZ to be honest for the day, but you have to be honest in the real life, too. I will send you the code fer the button.
whoa, slow down sister. I’m just gonna come around and chat with you here. My blog will likely remain in its delicately quiet and limbo-like state (the other writing has taken hold of me these days…)
Fine, deezee. Be that way. I am still coming to pester you. And listen, what is this other writing you speak of? There’s writing outside of blog posts? Who knew?
I will come ask you about your “other writing” tomorrow. miss fancypants.
Why is nobody commenting on the fact that this is my dead father’s birthday???? You all be here for the fun, not the hard times. Sigh.
I was just thinking that before I looked at the comments. I don’t think we know what to say. How long since your father died? It’s been over thirty years for me, I’m older than my mother and pretty soon I’ll be older than my father. It is totally illogical why some people die so much younger than others (especially, when said others have some very unhealthy habits). Sadly, that’s the way the world is. It sucks.
1985. It is illogical, Catherine. My mother had very unhealthy habits and outlived my father by nearly 20 years. He had bad habits, too, though.
(Thanks for talking about it with me.)
OK, my post is up . I’m sorry about your dad. If he were alive, what kind of cake would he want? I absolutely dread the thought of my parents dying; I think I will come undone.
Uh, ok, dead link, must have html-ed wrongly. Well, anyway, it’s over at my blog, sitting on the top.
Happy birthday to your dad. I’m sure he reads Your Gorgeous Somewhere.
I don’t know if I’m self-assured enough to dare this, ha ha. But what the f… eh… heck! Let’s do it. Send it on…
I never was part of the cool crowd. That’s all the honesty I can conjure tonight. I’m so damn tired.
While we’re being honest - I actually resented my husband a little when his mother was dying, because (a) he got to spend time with her, instead of it happening in a blink while he wasn’t looking and (b) his parents outlived mine by almost thirty years. Even though his mother smoked and was very overweight, while mine didn’t smoke, drink or just about anything unhealthy. Obviously I never told my husband that. I’m not *that* honest.
My mother told me about a young widow she knew, who lived near the Salvation Army home where the old alcoholics lived. She told my mum it made her angry as hell just to see them sitting there, living all those years when her husband had died so young and didn’t deserve it.
I don’t know, how much do any of us deserve it? I’m no mother Theresa, but I intend to live as long as my grandmother (104). Unless all that sunburn I got as a child gets to me first.
Sheryl, just sent you the code again through e-mail. If it doesn’t work, let me know.
As for cake, my father wasn’t into it. But he did love malted milk balls and cheesecake, which technically is not cake.
Yes, you will come undone. We all do. We come undone over and over.
Rethabile, I will be by later to ask at least one question that makes you want to lie.
My dad would be horrified if he read my blog, so let’s hope the afterlife is like a 1970s TV show, full of shag carpets and not a computer or internet connection in sight.
Kay, do it! C’mon!!!
Catherine, I want to comment on what you’ve shared: I am really moved by your honesty. Truly. You are brave. Not even a little dumb for being so honest. I adore the person you are. How fiercely you live your life.
And, get your moles checked once a year, whole body inspection. Note any changes in size, shape and coloring. Get help right away if you see anything funny.
Even have them check your scalp and your groin. It’s for your own good, if you want to reach 104.
honesty day question: would you want to live to reach 104?
polkadotwitch, absolutely not. I am shooting for 70. And you?
First question: Do you have any pet peeves about yourself? Like, bad habits you would like to break? If so, what are they?
Hey, Dana.
Did your father die suddenly? And have you ever written any poems about them?
And I meant to write more, about how I thought about you and how you might be feeling yesterday.
My best friend, I’ll call her B., Lost her mother two years ago. Yesterday was her mom’s birthday, so I know she was feeling similar emotions.
Honestly, my grandfather, with whom I was very close, died of stomach cancer my freshman year in college. I chose my college so that I could be close to him, but never went to see him. It was selfish, but I couldn’t handle watching it. It will always be one of the things I am most ashamed of.
Blythe, a list:
slouching
interpreting people’s actions in the worst possible way (although I have made great strides in this area)
excessive worry
sometimes not being sensitive enough to people around me
not being compassionate toward anyone and everyone
being self-indulgent
not knowing my cardinal directions
not known left from right
putting stuff on my head (sunglasses, hats) and then forgetting it is there
sticking my finger in my ear when my Eustachian tube dysfunction is acting up
that’s right, I stick my finger in my ear in public sometimes
not washing my delicates by hand
buying too much stuff
driving too much
talk-laughing: I don’t pull that off well and should stop it already
not knowing enough about the world outside the United States
not knowing history very well
having forgotten all but the most basic plots of all the books I’ve ever read
the crying!
There’s more, I’m sure. I will come back and add to this list if I think of anything else.
Slynne, he died in two parts, so like a very short death play in two acts. There was an acute heart attack, which he lived for two weeks after, then there was the final heart attack.
I wrote a poem about that, some poems, but they aren’t good or right. I fucked the words all up. I don’t know how to honestly convey a relationship I had with him when I was only 13. A child’s mind can’t write the poems that would need to be written. I did write one poem addressing him and his death that I think is successful. It’s below:
Marriage
Marriage is an unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an incident. All marriages are dangerous.
—Albert Einstein
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile
—T.S. Eliot
Was it worth it, after all?
After the courtship and negligees,
the first orgasms, toddlers’ haircuts, puppies,
square dancing. In spite of adulterous
sidebars, explosions, wars and treaties?
In spite of the breakdown, the haloperidol,
the alcohol, the meatloaf; the slapping,
cooing and compromises;
the gossip and turned heads,
miscarriage, and second mortgage?
Worth it if you had looked ahead,
seen a mere 13 years? The clenched
heart, her rushing to nurse you
through that fatal hour:
I love you, I love you.
I’m sorry, so sorry —
She, like Orpheus, wanted
to go after you, but did you
want to be gone after? —
Would it have been better to salvage
a part of yourself, or of her, to remove
yourself from it completely, to have said,
upon parting, It’s for the best.
But where would you have gone, and how?
Left for Camels and not returned?
Moved to an apartment above the university
with a mistress, your flock deserted?
Or turned inside until the last, numbering
the final days as on cell walls, each tick
another inch toward your end?
Slynne, thank you for sharing what you did here.
I have a dear friend back in Kansas City who has advanced Alzheimer’s. I try to call and have gone to visit her once, but I know I am not doing all I can. And she is a mother figure for me, so I become incredibly sad when I think about what’s going on with her mind. But I also feel selfish that I have to lose her, that one day she won’t remember me at all. She will be like a phantom roaming about a life that has gone gray, flat, unrecognized and unrecognizable, and for that I am deeply saddened ~ deeply, selfishly angry.
Have you ever been in a physical fight with a friend of lover? I mean the punching, pulling hair type of fight
I really must pay more attention to the internet. Late to the game, and all. May have questions later for you.
Oh girl, I’m so totally in on this. I’m just getting started. Need to post something on LWL still. Halp! I can has code plz? k thx bai.
i believe i won’t live past age 55. and i’m OK with it. i don’t think i want to. i know it’s not normal. i’m a freak.
new questions:
if you could collaborate with a famous poet, whom would you choose? and write a 140-character “tweet” style message convincing him/her to work with you.
Neil, yes. I punched a girl hard in third grade. A story about that appeared on Sprigs, which we’ve already established you were only skimming.
Tom, late is fine. Just be 100% honest for 24 hours starting now.
I sent you a badge. I will be by to torture you.
Also, Neil: my first cousin and I had a big shovey fight once when we were trying to share a tiny bed and, being large, she took up 90% of the bed. It got pretty WWF only for realz not for pretendz.
Laura, you did not read the directions about e-mailing and monkey servants. I had the monkeys send you the code.
PDW, you know I had that whole thing about how I thought I wouldn’t live past 35. And I did!
55 is how old my father was when he died. Spooky.
if you could collaborate with a famous poet, whom would you choose?
I choose either Brent Goodman or Richard Siken or David Sedaris or Brandon Rogers or Aidan Morgan.
I know. Some of these people aren’t famous. Or poets. But they are who I would choose. I would also choose Blythe. And you’ve seen my tweets aimed at wooing her.
So, to Brent I would say:
BG: Blow me your wad, I’ll blow you mine, together our two wads be ’twined. Stop you perv, I mean word-wads, but of course we’d co-po naked.
There, just posted it on Twitter. Huzzah!
first, great dad poem.
more to follow as my brain wakes up…
Deezee, you still need to tell me about this other writing you got going on. It’s 100% Honest Day, so you have to tell me.
The hairs in my right eyebrow are about to stage a walkout. I can feel it, each one ripping away from its root, readying for the exodus.
So many comments here, I’ve only read a few. You guys were busy while I was sleeping.
This poem about 13 year old you and your father is beautiful, dana. I also remember reading a very powerful piece you wrote about a funeral. Heartfelt, raw, the kinds of poems I like to read, since they bring up my own reactions to life.
So, I’ll go to my site and make a list of things to be honest about.
Christine, aaaaaah. The one about my mother’s funeral. Yeah. She’s been making her dead way into my poems for a while now.
How far have you driven to get laid?
Me, too.
yes. 55 is spooky. another spooky angle my mom was 55 earlier this year when she rec’d The Dying News from her doctor. even though she just turned 56, it reinforced in some strange cosmic way for me, my own early death. it’s not as depressing as it should be.
the gang is right. that poem is incredible. i agree that the 13 year old mind may not be able to wrap around the poem stuff, but an adult woman’s mind could successfully imagine the 13 year old’s mind and haul out stuff to poem on. they say even our real memories are so much fictionalized that i’m sure imaginal stuff would have a truth to it.
on a lighter note: congrats on tweeting your desires to brent goodman.
new question: describe the messiest part of your house. what is kept there and when did you last clean it?
Laura, Deb, Carolee ~ I got to bathe. I got to drive to work. Then I will play with all of you real good. Get your toys out.
[...] from My Gorgeous Somewhere has sauntered to the edge of reason, and decided to jump into a free fall of honesty. 100% honesty. [...]
I wish I didn’t have to work today.
I hope my home internet connection is fixed when I get home (thanks to hubby for beign there between noon and five.)
Catherine is a goddess.
Your dad & you make me tear. I remember your mother’s funeral poem, too. Broke my heart.
OK, out the door for work. I am wearing my “cute but evil” T-shirt, and if that ain’t 100% honest, I don’t know what *is*.
Sounds fun. I’d do it, but I’d probably feel like lying to make my life seem much more interesting than it actually is.
To be 100% honest I haven’t written a thing since Sunday. I was going to write a poem for Rick Mobbs, but didn’t. Yet. Maybe I should do this. But I think I am usually 100% honest, well, maybe 99 and 44/100 % (that’s how pure they said Ivory soap was in an old, old commercial)….
No, I’m not THAT pure….or honest.
Okay, Dana, I sort of answered you on my blog, but the truth is that I need to find a way to earn some $$ with this writing thing, so I’ve been in submission mode (teeny, tiny success that is more humbling than virtually all of the rest of my life combined…well, minus the desert of my love life, but that’s a whole new topic.) And then there’s the (gulp) novel, the ultimate grasp at optimism (delusion?). Rushing towards a first draft…jeez. Why couldn’t I be born to be happy in a 9 to 5???
Laura, I once flew from Kansas City to England. That’s not technically driving. I once drove from Kansas City to Seattle, where LoveShack had moved (and I had not yet moved). That’s a long way to drive for sex.
And you?
Carolee, this actually is depressing. I am so sorry. I knew your mom was ill but I didn’t know any details about it or the severity of the illness. I am so so sorry, sweetie.
The messiest part of my house right now is my house. Piles everywhere, dishes where I ate from them, clothes as high as mounds of leaves after a good fall raking. The mess is out in the open. The closets and drawers, ironically, are very well-organized and tidy. Probably because there’s nothing in them.
P.S. This is not like me. I am doing mess-immersion therapy.
Deb, that’s me: heart breaker, dream maker, love taker. Don’t you mess around with me.
Noah, I sent you the badge code. Let me know if it doesn’t work. Be honest!
Joyce, yes ~ what you said.
Deezee, the desert of your love life, eh? If you (in your fantasy world) could quench any desire in the love life department, what would it be, and with whom?
Be honest: do you get annoyed when people do not email back immediately? ; )
Also, why mess immersion therapy? I need to do non mess immersion therapy, ugh.
Slynne, what? Did I not e-mail you back on something immediately? I don’t get annoyed. Lately I’ve been getting around 1 e-mail a minute, which might be a slight exaggeration, but it’s really an ever so slight one if not dead on, so things are coming and going so fast I have no idea if someone isn’t getting back to me.
Mess immersion because I am trying to break myself of my Type A anal house-keeping habits. It’s been going on for years ~ time to put that to an end.
oh, Dana, going for the jugular, eh?
I am the hopeless romantic in the realm of deep connection, shared laughter, all things intimate (though due to my well-practiced poker face I’ve been alerted that I may in fact fend that off in countless ways).
With whom? Certainly someone with an artist’s soul who can step back from the confines of society and question that which is deemed unquestionable. (but not homeless. I’m done with staging rescues.)
Or a hot lay with a young stud. You see, I’m flexible.
lol, no I was poking fun at myself. It takes me FOREVER to respond to email.
Now an unromantic question for you…
I was following your health concerns and am wondering how you’re doing. Is that a taboo subject?
I think I drove 5 hours for sex and that’s the longest. Partly because, I don’t drive long distances. I hate long car trips. I flew to Vegas WITH someone and we had sex there. Does that count? I mean we could have had sex on the plane itself had we wanted. Ah well. Pittsburgh, PA to Harrisonburg, VA is the longest I believe.
Deezee, so basically Johnny Depp, who looks homeless but is not in fact homeless.
But if I were you, I’d go for the hot lay with the young stud. And then I would call me up and tell me all about it. Cause I want to know. All about it.
Slynne, saw you on the IM dealy but could not talk because was freaking out.
Deezee, clearly 1 zillion times better than I was. I still have kidney disease. My thyroid is still a little out of whack. I have nerve and muscle issues. I have numbness, tingling and twitching. But I can sleep now. And I feel alive. So I am celebrating what I do have , and hoping the rest will resolve over time if it’s all related to the thyroid malfunction (except for the kidney problems, which are a separate issue) or the docs will get to the bottom of it.
Laura, the Vegas thing does not count.
I once had sex on the on-ramp to a highway in the middle of the Kansas City metro area. And not even at night. People were honking, cheering and waving as they drove by. It was The Good Times. Does that count?
Johnny Depp works for me when he’s not all freaky pirate-like. (but that does paint me rather as a cliche.)
And I kind of lingered in the hot stud mode for a while until I swore off of it due to aiming for said romantic entanglement…certainly my most foolish decision of my adult life.
How did you find yourself into your most cherished romantic entanglement? And do you remain a believer in marriage?
Deezee, he was workin’ as a waiter at a veggie deli, when I met him. I picked him out, I shook him up, and turned him around, turned him into someone new.
And thought it sounds like a Human League song, they weren’t actually there. But that’s really what happened, except for the turning-him-into-someone-new part. He was pretty good to start with.
We are married because we want to have legal rights say, if one of us ever becomes extremely ill and medical decisions need to be made. I wouldn’t say I am a believer in marriage, but we both are believers in spending a lifetime with the person you love.
Oh lifetimes with the person you love…
What is your favorite memory? What memory finds its way into your writing the most?
“but we both are believers in spending a lifetime with the person you love.”
that is damn sweet. for real. it’s the keeping love alive part that I aim to conquer, especially in close living quarters. But really, I haven’t been faced with that issue in nearly forever.
glad the health is improved.
links coming in email…
And wow to your adventueous sex! I hope you got a poem or three out of that one!
And yay to getting better and taking care of yourself, as well
Slynne, this is a hard one! I have to think about it.
Deezee, got the links. Will read the stuff this weekend. And that’s for honest.
Slynne, here’s my favorite memory:
My father used to race me in the backyard when I was a kid, before he carved most of the guts of the yard away to accommodate a swimming pool. We would run from one side of the yard to the other, dodging the few trees that were roughly in our path and hemmed in by the four walls of the 6-foot fence he’d built years before.
He liked to take a random object, place it in his palm, then close his fingers around it tight. As he started to rise from the lawn chair, he would instruct me to come and get the object from him. Then he’d bound across the yard.
A pocket watch. A piece of hard candy. A book of matches. It didn’t matter what was in his hand. I simply wanted to bound after my father, and all my squealing when I caught him and retrieved the object was nothing more then a child’s untranslated utterance of delight at being with and near the kindest person in her life.
You would think this is my favorite memory, but it’s not. It’s the day it occurred to me that I couldn’t possibly be a faster runner than my father. He was letting me win, I realized. Just when I thought I couldn’t love him anymore, I suddenly did.
Oh, and in answer to your other question, Slynne, about what memory finds its way into my writing the most: That, hands down, would be abuse, which in my case is not one memory, but many.
Dana, thanks for the code but I’m not going to be 100% honest on my blog because my daughters read it. There are some things I only want to revela to them when I’m very, very old.
I’m not sure that I really want to live to 104. But a woman in our orienteering club had a mother who took it up at 89. She had a great life until she suddenly dropped dead of a stroke at about 92. That’s the sort of old age I want. And I have to outlive my husband, so that I get to live in a tidy house for a few years. It’s “storage warehouse central” around here.
It took me a while, a few years back, to figure out that he really is the love of my life, despite the difficulties, and I don’t want things any other way. But I’m not one of those people who goes around saying “oh, I miss him so much” if he’s away for a couple of nights.
(See, I can be honest here, even if I can’t on my own blog).
You guys had so much fun while I was asleep. Time zones can be a pain sometimes.
Oh, about the melanoma. No melanomas yet, but when I went for an asthma checkup, a doctor spotted a BCC on my back (basal cell carcinoma) which was removed. I gather as long as you remove them, those ones are no problem at all. But it did make me a bit more nervous about the whole skin cancer thing.
Catherine, but tell me how you really feel! You can use my blog for your honesty (today and today only) if that makes you feel better. So swing by, reveal, have drinks.
Speaking of which, it’s time for me to go drinking with our IT department. I will be back here to sober up for a couple of hours before attempting to drive home. So be ready for me to hit everyone up with more questions. And I’ll be drunk, so I won’t hold back.
P.S. Make sure you all mingle ~ check out the participant list in my sidebar and then go hassle people. I mean, ask nice questions.
Dana, ask me a question and I’ll answer it. But here, not on my blog.
Wow. I like this game. So many things I’ve learned about you and the other participants.
Questions: Who was your worst teacher and why? Which of the seven deadly sins would be the easiest for you to give up, and which the hardest? (Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.) If you could date any TV sitcom character, who would it be?
one day is not enough time to cover all the necessary territory, especially with LA traffic and book signings to attend. I propose an extension…
What an amazing memory of running with your father and realizing he was letting you win!!! It is gorgeous.
Catherine, what is your biggest regret in the past year?
Blythe, Mrs. Malucki. Fifth grade. Clearly hated children. Put me in the coat closet for detention once and left me in there most of the morning. We couldn’t ask to come out or remind her that we’d been in there too long, or she’d yell at us and send us back in for even longer. I remember being in there when the bell rang for recess. I finally sneaked out and onto the playground hoping she wouldn’t catch me and berate me. She also told us very scary, graphic things about sex. Things that, as it turns out, were not at all accurate (thankfully!)
I don’t know what the seven deadly sins are. You’ll have to fill me in on that. Oh look: You’ve detailed them there. Um … sloth for sure would be the easiest to give up, given my natural energy levels. Lust would be the hardest, I think, given my libido.
I would date Charles from “Charles in Charge.” Or one of the Harts from “Hart to Hart.” Who would you date?
Deezee, I don’t know if we can just extend it. Can we? It would be false advertising, a bait-and-switch.
But if people want to keep going, that’s A-OK with me.
Slynne, I am here for gorgeous. It’s kinda my bag.
Was “Moonlighting” a sitcom? If so, I choose David Addison, aka young Bruce Willis.
(I had to look up the seven deadly sins, by the way.)
Another question: When do you feel the most tempted to be dishonest?
I tried to read back and see if this had been asked, I didn’t see it.
Question: What is according to you the best poem you’ve ever written, and why?
Dana, I think my biggest regret this year is the same as always. My incredible ability to procrastinate and generally mess around, which means I don’t achieve half the things I think I should achieve (including writing more poetry). Last year, investing some money in a finance company that fell over a few months later. (But then, about half the finance companies in NZ have fallen over in the last year or so, it’s a fairly widespread problem at the moment). Other than that, I tend not to have regrets, I feel as if my actions always come from where I am at the time, and if I tried to go back and change them, I’d be someone else.
Maybe I’m just too lazy to have regrets
Blythe, yes “Moonlighting” was a sitcom. Good choice, although I think the older Bruce Willis trumps the younger one. Some men just look better with a little age on them. Some women, too.
This is a hard question. By design, I am not a dishonest person. In fact, I feel I have earned the right to be honest, to speak my truth, to live an empowered and vocal life. But I do still struggle with the overwhelming urge to be silent sometimes. Because it’s easier. Because I sometimes don’t have the energy to fight for what I believe is right and good and compassionate.
I tend to be very emotional in all aspects of my life, and speaking out when I feel doing so is “dangerous” for any reason used to invariably send me into a fight or flight reaction. Still does sometimes. And by fight or flight, I mean flight.
I believe that this response comes from having grown up in a family that was: 1. abusive (mother) and 2. did not allow for any differences of opinion (father, brother).
My brother is still like this, although now he can at least joke with me about some of my “weird” views instead of yelling at me about them. I remember so many instances with him, after my father had died and during college when I was finally learning to voice who I was, when he would lay into me — yelling and screaming, throwing his pack of cigarettes down, hard, onto the dining room table then lighting up, thrusting a cigarette into his mouth with one hand, flicking his Bic lighter down with the other.
And that look on his face: one of pure reprobation, the hard slatted eyes of disapproval.
All because of what I said and did. One example: being upset with a professor who not only used generic “he” for “successful” positions (e.g., doctor, lawyer, professor) but also used generic “she” for positions that were administrative or helping types of roles (e.g., nurse, administrative assistant, teacher). Subtle, yes, but still sexist and inappropriate deployment of language for anyone, especially a professor.
I said something to that professor about what he was doing and came home from class to tell my mother and my brother (who was home visiting) about it. I was nearly gleeful, so proud of having been brave enough to take this small stand for women. My brother became irate, told me it was the dumbest thing to have done (thwack of cigarette pack), that I should just shut up (cigarette thrust into mouth) and gotten through the class without making a big deal out of nothing (Bic thrown onto table).
Many other instances like this with him. Feminism (thwack). Exploration of women’s sexuality in literature (thwack). Gay and lesbian studies (thwack). Poetry, when I began writing it (thwack). Whether it be small, threatening movements or literally walking out of the room and slamming the door behind him, our relationship was built almost exclusively from violent gestures.
What I came to see as I grew older is that my brother (who was 15 years older than me) had taken over the position of my father. What I also started to see was that my father had been just like my brother. I just didn’t realize it at the time, since I was so young when my dad died. He died perfect, untarnished, when I believed everything he did was right and good and the way everyone should move through the world. What I began to see, in the way my brother behaved, were cracks in that veneer, that image, I had of my dad.
My father had been just like this, with his co-workers, friends, my sister, my mother. Democratic: fool who wants to give all their money to the government. Gay: fags who give blow jobs in public restrooms. African American: Niggers who have no intelligence, taste or business being anywhere near him.
I’m sorry to put any of that last paragraph into writing, but it’s what I grew up hearing from him, and it’s precisely the same sentiments (couched in slightly less harsh language) that I heard from my brother. What I came to realize was that my father had essentially taken up residence inside my brother. They even began to look alike over the years.
So yes. Learning to speak out was something my family literally and figuratively beat out of me. I actually preferred the physical abuse to the less overtly violent act of being silenced. Hence the flight reaction, which I still work against. Because in my family, being honest did mean putting everything on the line; it was an act of life or death.
Reth, this is such a hard question. (And so I pose the same question for you. Only fair.)
I think it must be “Children with Worms” because it was my first real poem and my first clear articulation of my own life, and the life I know so many abused children experience, that still managed to hang together as a piece of art.
It also gives me a very clear picture of my mother, of myself, of my grade school classroom. And it pulled in something from the present (when I wrote it), which was research I had been doing at work (I was a medical editor at the time) on parasites in children. I liked entwining that medical research with the image of abused children.
* * *
Children with Worms
They crawl in through summer feet.
The worms come to life in small,
unsuspecting bodies. Don’t step in shit
my mother would warn as I ran down the lawn
without the formality of sandals.
(It was the best advice she ever gave me.)
Children with worms are not a pretty sight.
They are always the ones who are too quiet,
too shy. They seem to shrink inside themselves
at the back of the classroom, on the withered edge of life.
The body, host and hostage.
Nobody knows they are being eaten alive,
feces first. That their only comfort comes at night
when the worms, in their rush to warm sheets,
slip silently out of the ass.
Catherine, but don’t you feel that messing around is the whole point? That you have discoveries and joys you would not otherwise have if you were single-minded in your resolve to be productive?
I’m sorry about the investment that went bad. That’s rough.
I feel as if my actions always come from where I am at the time, and if I tried to go back and change them, I’d be someone else. Well said.
(And you’re not too lazy.)
Yeah, I didn’t know if you knew I was doing it. Oh well.
Noah, how can I make it up to you?
Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind not being asked personal questions.
Noah, so I can’t ask you if you whiten your teeth?
If there’s anything you can do? Stay beautiful?
Noah, hah! Not gonna happen. I am losing more of my sheen every day. Anything else?
Nah, beauty comes with age.
Noah, then beauty be knocking me flat on my ass.
Noah, why’d you delete my comments from your blog? Ashamed to be seen with me? Shall I put this bag over my head and travel under an assumed name?
Perhaps.
Oh, I don’t whiten my teeth. They wouldn’t be so yelllllow. I drink too much coffee/tea and I used to drink massive loads of soda, though I stopped drinking soda.
They weren’t related to my poem!
Noah, you left me no other way to get to you! And why do things have to be related to other things?
I meant the perhaps to the knocking on the ass, which I’m sure is quite a nice ass. xD
Anyway, I didn’t feel the comments relevant to anything, since we’re talking on here.
Well Dana, it’s okay that you forgot me. It kept anyone from showing up and asking me questions which would have been ignored because I was distracted. Oops. The honesty still stands until noon central time.. an hour and half or so… But you didn’t need to ask such a difficult question, did you?
Noah, our comments are showing up all out of order. It makes the conversation weirder, and more interesting.
You need to enter your URL in your comments. Otherwise it’s hard for people to find you.
My actual website?
Since I’m logged into wordpress, it doesn’t have a comment box for me to put my website.
Though, it’s noahthegreat.com, so that’s not hard.
Sounds like an interesting post.
Noah, I mean in general ~ for the others who might want to click through to you. You can be logged into Wordpress and have your URL show up. Must be some change you can make to your profile settings.
Dana,
Flight. I get it.
I still owe you a response about blogging. I’ll get there, but later.
Oh, okay. It’s not like anyone would wanna click through me, though!
I think I fixed it. I’m surprised my website wasn’t on there. I thought I put it. Though, there’s really no way to contact me on my site, either.
Deezee, please do reply. I want to know. I miss your blogging with regularity. I get why you aren’t doing it, but I still want to know if you like it and if you are going to keep it up. I’ve seen too many good blogs die.
Noah, don’t say I never did anything for you. Now we just have to get Nathan1313 to use his URL in comments as well.
I don’t see how my url is going to help anything, but if you desire me to have it, that’s quite alright.
Do you think I should put my blog on there, instead of my website?
Noah, you have to have it there. The Lord has decreed that it be so.
Yeah, but I’m an atheist. Anyway, I changed it to my blog.
Oh, blog is what I meant when I said website. I guess I see the two as one in the same, but you are right: There is a difference.
Dana asked me what poem I’d written was the best in my opinion. You’re right Dana, it’s a hard question; I hadn’t really thought of it for myself when I asked you. The best “ones” I’ve written IMHO are those that deal with family. And I’ll have to choose “My Father’s Killers.”
Dana, the best poem you’ve ever written is great, and it’s you with your inimitable style. The words and the tone. I totally loved it, even though I personally have a personal favourite among the ones that have appeared on Canopic Jar.
Now back to My Father’s Killers. It is a poem I’d been trying to write for a good while, in free form, and it was sounding like a poem at all, but someone whining. Too much to get off the ol’ chest, I guess. Then I read a Ghazal over at Crafty Green Poet’s place (link), and I decided to try one, using my whining poem. And it worked (the way I see it). Everything fell into place, and I finally had a poem. It was a hard to birth child, and I like for that reason.
But I also like it because it tells a true story, almost to the letter. The only “poetic license” lie in it is the blade that I mention. They used sub-machine guns — but how do you fit that in with the moon? Here it is:
MY FATHER’S KILLERS
They take to the road at midnight, and turn
Toward land that by right we plough and turn.
Their dark convoy passes white-washed houses.
A brake light: the bakkies slow down, and turn.
They park at right angles to the street,
Light the yard up, it’s daddy’s day and turn.
They have come on a crisp September night
To blight us, make our season change and turn.
The moon shimmers its flashlight on a blade
While, from a height, the planets spin and turn.
Link to the poem
http://www.noahthegreat.com/ doesn’t work for me.
I’m glad this theme differentiates the author’s comments - made it possible to skim down and find the two poems. I particularly liked (if that’s the word - you know, admired) “Worms.” Amazing that your first poem should’ve been so good! Did you have to edit it at all?
Reth, off to my massage (yay!) and there’s so much in your comment that I want to respond to, but it will have to wait until I get back. I don’t want to give you a cursory response.
Dave, not a word. My mentor at the time wanted me to totally rework it, but I felt his suggested edits excised the poem’s soul. I think I still have those edits he gave me. I remember one was to change the formality of sandals line, because he felt it was too formal for the poem. But that was the whole point ~ for the line to mimic the formality of wearing sandals. Duh. Some mentor he turned out to be.
I rather like my new mentor: Bruce Covey. He knows his shit, and he’s funny.
Where have you been anyway, Dave? You didn’t even do 100% Honest Day.
My server is down for my website. Which never goes down. So, I think I’m gonna freak out, if it doesn’t go back up soon.
Lol, hence the choice of adjectives.
Thank you so much for starting 100% Honest Day. I love it!
Noah, it is only doing that because you started linking to it, you know.
Slynne, what ere you LOLing? Something I done said on yer blog, mebbe?
Rethabile, I think it’s interesting that the poems you feel are the best have to do with your family. I see you as being such a “big” writer, and by that I mean someone who is very aware of the injustices in the world and who writes about those injustices with such passion. So, I suppose your answer is not what I expected, which is not to discount your more personal poems at all.
Of course, you and your family have been through so much that your poems about them are inherently political and absolutely cast a light on injustices. Your use of the Ghazal in this poem is interesting. A poet once told me form is very effective for containing raw emotion, for allowing us to say what otherwise we might not be able to give voice to.
And hard births are sometimes the best, although I wish for you that you had easier poems to write. I wish we all did. Well, some of us do, but we don’t all get to be Billy Collins.
This is a bloody brilliant poem, Reth. Simple, incredibly frightening, but all so subtextual. And the way it moves in closer and closer to the human drama and tragedy then out out out to the planets. This is far and away the best Ghazal I have ever seen. I wasn’t even aware of the repetition of “turn.” I don’t know how you pulled that off. Well, I do: skill, precision, talent.
I know which poem you like from Canopic Jar. Actually, I might not know. Is it the David wiener one? Bruce Covey said I should be nominated for a Pushcart Prize for that poem, so commence with the nominating.
Actually, I don’t even know how that nomination process works ~ is it up to the publisher to nominate? If so, get on it. 
;)
Have you sent My Father’s Killers out? Send it somewhere amazing. You should be nominated for a Pushcart Prize for it.
I know which poem you like from Canopic Jar. Actually, I might not know. Is it the David wiener one?
That’s it. And Bruce is right. It’s a great poem. Sounds like Antjie Krog. You’ll like her, i’m sure. Get her book called “Body Bereft.” Here’s a sample:
you come and sit this morning like death in my arms
I am so tired I can hardly breathe. you say
what has been promised by whom?
what has been written in the weathering of our bodies?
our life together walks its own destructive road
… etc. etc.
And another of my favourites:
while she makes tea something strangely
familiar flows down her inner thigh. like ink.
after many years she bleeds again.
… etc. etc.
And a third:
Casually you ask, ‘So how does it feel to be
a grandma?’ and I thought to myself, oh god,
my child, what would you have me say?
‘… very old thank you’? or ‘I don’t
get cock past my lips anymore’? I mean, what
does one say? More important perhaps is why
a question like this…
etc. etc.
She’s good, and I love her so. You write alike, somehow. Check her out. And thanks for the compliment.
Reth, that first bit by Antjie Krog reminds me of Linda Gregg, my favorite poet of all time. Thanks for telling me about her work. I am not familiar with it.
Now go send that poem of yours out, pronto!
Dana, all this conversation has happened while I was in bed, however, to get back to your comments about the importance of messing around, I totally agree. However there is messing around that is say walking down to the river, throwing sticks in the water and contemplating. And there is the sort of messing around that is playing endless computer games to keep my head busy and away from the thought that there is that poem I was considering writing.
On the whole though, I think, well, I am doing a large part of supporting the family, I remember to talk to them (most of the time), keep up with the laundry, mostly, and the cleaning sort of (don’t do so much cooking these days, we take turns, and husband does the grocery shopping). Anyway, I figure everything else is kind of optional, the world won’t come to an end if I don’t do it. Except that I feel I should “use my talent”.
Oh, I also do all the admin for a literary magazine. So I’m productive. Kind of. But there’s all that sudoku…
Oh yes, I always loved the “Children with Worms” poems. And Rethabile’s ghazal is just brilliant.
How did you get on being honest apart from the blog?
Catherine, what literary magazine? Have you told me about it? Have I forgotten what you told me?
Being honest in real life was easy. I kind of always am. I did have to get into a little tussle with someone about branding elements, though.
It’s Takahe magazine
http://www.takahe.org.nz
I’ve probably mentioned it a few times. I don’t do anything literary, just the accounts, subscriber database etc.
Dana: I really appreciate your response to my question. Appreciate is a lame term to use there, but “like” won’t do either. Anyway. I’m impressed and moved.
I think there are many things worse than physically hurting a person. Silencing them, demeaning them, closeting them in whatever way, can certainly be one, especially when that message comes from your immediate family. Especially at a young age. It sinks into your core and does its best to distort your view of the world and self.
(All these “you’s” are generic. Maybe not just generic, but you know what I mean.)
So how did you learn to speak up for yourself? It was therapy that did it for me. I could not speak when I started, at least, not about anything of any real importance.
(I’m so glad you’ve made such strides in taking back your voice, however it happened.)
Also, I’m sorry your brother was that way with you. I don’t know how you see that part of things affecting you, versus the relationship with the parents affecting you, but it sounds like it was important. I have had a very tricky, sometimes awful relationship with my brother, and I feel like people don’t understand. “It’s just sibling rivalry,” the Misunderstanders have said. Blech.
And on a lighter note: I agree Bruce Willis has gotten better with age, but when I watched reruns of those shows when I was 11/12/13 (I think) I was so in love with him. And I would get so mad at Cybill Shepherd’s character when she would get close with him, and when she was mean to him. He was my first sitcom honey, so I choose him.
Where have you been anyway, Dave? You didn’t even do 100% Honest Day.
Working on qarrtsiluni, other stuff… and I’m sorry, the idea just didn’t appeal. I’m already way more exhibitionist that your average introverted misanthrope. Full disclosure? Not a chance.
….THAN your average…
Catherine, thanks for sharing that link. I will take a look at it when I get a second to come up for air.
Blythe, you ask the questions that get me talking, I guess.
I suppose meeting the right professors in college is one way I learned to speak up for myself. I actually kind of always did, even from the age of about five when I overheard my grandmother making racist comments. I called her on it. I knew even at that age that what she was doing wasn’t right. So I don’t know that I’ve ever been totally silent, but I also know I used to not speak up as loudly or as often as I do now.
The best thing my therapist told me to do was start writing again. Hence all the poeming, collaborative poeming, blogging and whatnot. Her mandate that I write my way through my health issues has saved me and sort of turned me back into me again. (Although I still have really tough days, and today ~ as you know ~ was one of them. But I am still able to prop myself up and get a thing or two done, despite how physically uncomfortable I am.)
Yeah, I know you’ve had issues with your brother, and I am sorry about that. It’s hard when those who share our genetic makeup don’t seem to care all that much about our well-being.
I liked Bruce back on “Moonlinghting,” too, don’t get me wrong. And I totally understand your reasons for choosing him.
Dave, hah! Typo-maker. Another instance that supports the fact that you are not perfect.
Perfect? Far from it.
Distressed to hear how serious some of your health issues still are. Now that we have had this prolonged look at the real Dana, after so many months of relative silence, it would really suck to lose you again. Your therapist is obviously deeply wise, since she is telling you exactly what I would.
Dave, you know how I like to tease you ~ the way you tease me about Kay Ryan. I admit the excerpts of her work you keep sending me are resulting in her grow on me. (A little!)
Dave, oh and also ~ you won’t lose me again. I might have periods where I feel super shitty and can’t write as much or as often, but I am feeling better than I was, so I should be able to prop myself up here at the computer fairly regularly.
There are lots and lots of comments here, Dana. I need to take a day off work to read all of everyone’s honesty day commentary and appropriately get to know everyone
Slynne, I know. The # of comments here is kinda freakin’ me out. Anyway, what I said over on your site is way better than anything I said over here. Heh. Although other people said good things over here. So give it a read.
I need to take a day off work, too! Not to read anything, though. Just to have The Good Times. (And by that I do not mean playing with my invisible penis or watching gay porn.)
Dana,
Overdue and owed, I prefer my response on blogging to be buried here days after the fact.
Blogging and I, complicated relationship. I found myself over the years being tugged to adjust my writing, thinking of audience and the blogworld and popularity. The original intent dimmed and faded away. I also grew a bit tired of my own opinion since I sort of started out with a site that was essentially my own op-ed page.
Fiction started to call. I was wondering if anyone was listening. I found places I wanted to submit to that wouldn’t consider pieces that had already appeared on blogs. Like I said, complicated relationship.
Will I return to regular posting? Maybe. Won’t say never. Could even be tomorrow…
(I know I’m still vague here. I guess 100% honest and I also have a complicated relationship.)
Deezee, just don’t succumb to that urge to write for an audience, to prance and wag your ass. I’ve been tempted to do so many times, and have on occasion.
I’ve had lots of discussions with Neil Kramer on blogging, audience, writing. And even though he and I have very different opinions about blogging, those conversations have helped me realize what I want to do on my blog: write, and write well. That is my only objective, although having people along for the ride makes it way less lonely. The right people, the engaging people, the ones who inspire me.
I would encourage you not to stop writing on your blog. Think of it as writing practice. Like all things we adore, writing must be nurtured, paid attention to.
Oh, and ~ your writing is too good for me not to want to have access to it.