and what the poem means to me
its title and its rally cry now permanently part of me
what it means to me in terms of living
in terms of making this life mean something
in terms of standing up for myself
for those who are not given the same freedoms i enjoy
in terms of shedding all the judgement from my mother
all the fear she instilled in me
in terms of celebrating all those i've lost in my life
the examples they set for me of a better way to live, unencumbered by fear

where it happened also mattered
though i had planned to get the tattoo weeks later in another city entirely

oh the power of place
the power of place as character in my life
getting the tattoo at that shop, in that place, and all the memories tied up for me in san diego
the shedding of what i once was, finally, becoming someone i truly am and not being afraid of someone not liking it, no longer afraid of someone deeming me somehow not enough (or too much)

it felt like the best kind of fuck you
it felt like the best kind of here i am
it felt like the best kind of "it's okay to be happy after everything you've been through"
it felt like the years of not rocking the boat, of avoiding confrontation, of holding together a family of alcoholics had come to an end
it felt like home
and joe, the artist who would mark me
and his galway accent and all we discussed within moments of meeting each other
all the connections to Ireland, to the bar I met my husband in, to the long lost Irish belonging I felt moments off the plane in Dublin
and the solar eclipse, so auspicious on the day of our meeting, of his suggestion, only hours into knowing me, that i might be someone who'd over-think their tattoo and mind-fake themselves into not getting it (oh, really? you don't say...)
appointment for late june cancelled
appointment for two days later noted in the books
joe would mark me on a tuesday

and then

watching that first line of the h
feeling it burn my skin
watching the curve of the s, the arc of the a
then all that excitement and all that fear and all that adrenaline crashing down
upon me, around me, inside me
sweating
cold
dizzy a bit
i had to look away
i had planned to go in there and be a champ
for him
for me
for everyone in the room
that's how i saw it going down in my mind
but i faltered
i was not a champ, but i had wanted to be
and i was there, in that chair
and it was happening
and i had made it happen
there was an inevitability to it that was beautiful
and wasn't that something?

the way he distracted me during the tense moments
reminding me to breathe
asked me about a conversation my brother and i had two days before
during my brother's tattoo
joe was the old lady you don't think is listening, but he is oh he is
he remembered about the wine. i was touched.
had i finally told my brother which bottle it was i forgot to bring?
i had.
and what did my brother think of that, joe asked.
i looked at my brother.
he said it was an amazing bottle i'd left behind. he was sad we could not drink it.
(the 2001 Chateau d'Yquem awaits)
i know, i said. but at least it exists in this world.
and joe repeated it with a laugh and a smile.
at least it exists in this world.

and we were all there in the moment of my undoing and remaking
we were there to witness it together and each of them in the room had a sense of how big it was for me
they had an idea
but they could not possibly have known how big
i didn't even know until the drilling stopped
until i felt that swipe of the glove and the vaseline applied (that i had seen so many times on my friend's tattoos or on any reality tattoo show, you pick) and i realized the tattoo - and the experience of getting my first - was over.

and i was exhilarated and proud of myself.
and sad.
i had not wanted this moment of personal triumph to be over so soon.
i wanted to luxuriate in it. extend it.
i asked questions. too many.
about tattoo care.
about the next time.
didn't want it to end.
didn't want to break the spell.
he said he was honored to be the first to mark me.
i, as an open wound (literally), took that in and owned it. instead of the usual inner voice that would say "ah, he says that to everyone", i just took it. believed it.
was honored right back.

and then

out on the street, the sun shining, we're in search of a guinness
in search of a way to celebrate
to seal the deal that was already permanently ink-sealed
to celebrate that i had done it
to celebrate that my brother could not believe it
to celebrate all that had come before in san diego
to celebrate and honor all that i was leaving behind, shedding, saying goodbye to
so as to make room for all that lies ahead

and we drank
and we toasted
to tattoos
to firsts
to san diego
to fucked up families
to art
to bravery
to all that lies ahead

it's been a week since i got my tattoo
i don't want this spell to end
this experience - this minor tattoo - holds more in it for me than any gift of any monetary value i could give myself
the gift? permission
to be me, unapologetically
to be imperfect
to be vulnerable
to accept i deserve happiness on my own terms
to know those terms will change and to be fine with it

i'm emboldened now in ways i never had been before
don't like me? fine
don't like this permanent mark on my wrist? also fine
getting to "fine"
getting to "take me as i am and all i'm trying to become"
may sound simple to you, though it is everything to me
i have finally become, in part, the person i'd hoped i would be

this mark on my body may seem like a cliche to you
or misguided or something to future-regret 
to me, it ushers in an entirely new era of possibilities
if i can do this thing i never thought i'd be brave enough to do
what else will i accomplish with my newly found nerve?

I spent Sunday afternoon doing exactly this and I came away with some unexpected finds:

• A first edition of Lydia Millet's Omnivores, complete with a loose author photo (from Algonquin Books) tucked just inside the front cover. I've been looking for a hardcover version of this for some time, so I was delighted to find this gem tucked away in the M section.
• The beautifully appointed The Art of East Asia, a two-volume set from Koenemann. Not only are the contents fascinating and creatively invigorating, the way the book has been put together is stunning. The interior covers have a subtly printed paper that I caressed for at least ten minutes. The attention to detail in presenting the book as book -- as a beautiful thing to hold in one's hands and really relish -- reminded me a bit of Craig Mod's recent "Hack the Cover" piece about book design in a digital book world. This collection is worthy of its own post, so expect that forthcoming.
• Four books in the larger (how large?) collection of Masterworks of Ukiyo-e. These are also worthy of their own post.

All the art books will only be with me temporarily as they are gifts for a friend who does amazing traditional Japanese tattoo work and who will, I hope, draw much inspiration from all that is contained within their pages.

And yet. The books are in my care for a few more weeks and I plan to fully soak up all their hard-to-find goodness (I've also set alerts at every out-of-print specialist to wrangle copies of my own). I promise to do them justice by sharing their yumminess with all of you. Stay tuned.

• The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
• The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland
• Suddenly, A Knock at the Door by Etgar Keret
• A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava
• Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift

I had no idea, when I waxed poetic about Graham Swift recently, that he had a new novel out. Though the title leaves much to be desired (really? there wasn't ANY other title that felt more original?), I am now deciding if I should re-read all that came before or just dive in as I would a chocolate bar after a chocolate fast (which I've never done, mind you, I'm not that crazy)?

Also: I finished Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station last night. Holy hell. I love, love, loved it. So beautiful. So spare and yet expansive. So full of all the things we think but never say. So full of all the contradiction we hold within and yet try so hard to pretend we have polished. Still thinking over this one. I don't want to start anything else until I've savored this one a bit longer. Have you read it? Do tell.

Two bits have stayed with me, though, and I keep thinking back on them when I'm on six back to back conference calls day after day (and if you can be on my mind during all of that, that's something, no?):

 "This is prosperity, he bays at them beneath montana nights, calculated as much by what's polluted, what's killed, what's secured and incarcerated, but never by a child's delight, a poem's spell, the immutable power of a kept promise. It's a prosperity that measures everything that means nothing and nothing that means everything. It tells all of us, he concludes to the crowds, everything about our country except why it's ours."

                                                   

 "I don't know how much time I have," he says, "to become the person that I hope I am."

 

Neither of these passages give you any idea - in a tangible way - what this novel is about. And yet, they do. I'm not yet at the point where I'm clear how I even feel about the book. I was very much into it early on, lost some steam during the Kennedy stuff, now I'm in a haze that might be more related to too much work than a failing of the novel.

I'll circle back on this one though, as Erickson is attempting to do something interesting that I admire whether he succeeds fully or not.

And so, almost a week to the day that I finished The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits (a book I really dug and thought was a lot of fun and didn't take itself too seriously), I'm peeking around to see what others thought.

• The Rumpus found the novel "provocative and full of hefty, even academic ideas--at its best, a nouveau feminist manifesto."
• Salon/The Barnes & Noble Review finds that "Julavits avoids the form’s faux flavor by hewing carefully to emotional truth."
• SF Weekly thinks "Like everything in Julavits' fiction, this grows more fascinating — and mysterious — the more you read. That's also true for the fiction itself — here is a novelist whose audacity is matched only by her inventiveness and power. And, shit, she's funny, too."
• The Globe and Mail liked it, but of course had to mention that goddamn Believer manifesto from eons ago and then swirl it into a smarmy closing point that was nothing if not forced. Julavits must be equally tired of that same song being played every time she does press. So she wrote a manifesto. Years ago. Let it go.
• NYT is less impressed and I agree with their plot critique and where it gets too mired in detail for its own good. To wit: "While the language remains vivid, its satisfactions are overwhelmed by the confusion of the overdetermined plot."

So, there you have it. Seems I'm not entirely crazy for digging this book as much as I do. Always nice to know. I'm often way out there on my own, loving something that everyone thinks is rubbish. Or, most often, really not liking the novel everyone is swooning about. Ah, well. The fun games we play post-read.

• Walter Kirn's GQ piece explores the requisite (or not) empathy a presidential candidate must exude in order to win hearts and minds. Money quote: "My theory is that in the Oprah-haunted '90s, when self-help had supplanted public-policy as the preferred path to widespread human betterment, the press needed an apolitical way to talk about politics. They made it about feelings. They made it about identifying, relating. They forgot about Harvard and Yale, the will-to-power, the ruthlessness that is ambition's twin, and finally they forgot about us. They forgot that we want to salute, not share a hug, and that we don't mind a little remoteness if its offset by wisdom, strength, and intellect." Indeed.
• Jim Hanas interviews Douglas Rushkoff over at Co.Create and they get into an interesting conversation about the role reversal of artists & technologists. And branding. Since I spend the majority of my days working with clients on branding and being authentic in their digital communications with customers, this struck me as spot-on: "[But] it’s not about creating a mythology around the way a product was created, so it’s no longer 'these were cookies made by elves in a hollow tree.' That’s not the value of the brand. The value of the brand is where did this actually come from? What’s in this cookie? Who made it? Are Malaysian children losing their fingers in the cookie press or is this being made by happy cookie culture people?"
• Roger Boylan at Boston Review offers a considered look at The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes in the context of the Barnes back list. Appropriate because I just mooned over Barnes yesterday? Perhaps. But also: "Stylistically, Barnes’s stock-in-trade is quotidian realism, leavened with mild satire and total recall of the feel of the past, frequently of that moment when adolescence becomes adulthood and youthful hope yields to reality." Could this be why I uber-pine for that time when I discovered Barnes? Certainly.

Heidi Julavits has written a new novel, The Vanishers, which kicked so much ass it's crazy:

• I've read three novels since. Can't stop thinking about The Vanishers.
• It was sly and silly and smart and sad all at once - my favorite kind of novel.
• It reminded me of the most exhilarating bits of The End of Mr. Y  by Scarlett Thomas. (They are not so similar, really, but my experience reading both novels was similar. Another world that I could perhaps not relate to, but that I some how could entirely. Giddy all the while.)
• I was fully immersed in the other-worldly world she created but loved, loved, loved how she managed to weave in some rather naked truths about our relationships with others and ourselves in a way that felt honest and true and revelatory.
• It is very possible I dug this novel so much because it accessed some of my own hidden truths about my relationship with my mother (before and after her death) and the relationship others willed me to have with my mother (mostly after she passed) not to help me in any way but to help themselves grieve.
• It could also be that I've hated every novel I've picked up this year that wasn't in some way related to Murakami and so I may simply be glad to have my book loving vibe back again or it may be that Murakami has altered my perspective in such a way that I simply cannot love a novel that is entirely of this world.
• And so. There is much more to say here and though I intentionally shy away from "proper book reviews" I may well write a separate post on The Vanishers once I've had time to digest it all.
• Then again, I may not, so consider this firm praise and a "buy" recommendation. Please read it. Would love to have a chat with you after you're finished.

I believe it began with Muriel Spark which led to Jeanette Winterson which somehow led to Graham Swift. Julian Barnes was required reading for my french film studies (the film: Madame Bovary, the required book: Flaubert's Parrot) and Barnes somehow led me to Banville.

I'm strangely possessive of these writers because they gave me so much to think about and seemed to "get" me and the kinds of things I'd hoped to write at the precise time in my life when I needed to be gotten, so confused was I about my own talents and aspirations and dreams in the literary scene. (Working for a not-so-lovely lit agent did not help matters, but I digress.)

I've never re-read their work because I've somehow relegated their novels and essays to that time in my life, that period of grasping onto ideas and devouring them whole, keeping whatever literary nutrients I could to propel me forward. There was also, of course, my near total obsession with Vintage International books at that time. It didn't hurt that many of these books were issued by Vintage with their delectable and infinitely collectible color-coded spines. (Another digression, worthy of many posts.)

It may be that I'm nostalgic for all that grasping and hoping. Or perhaps I'm just tired of the new new new novel that has become de riguer reading in many literary parts. These writers and the works I read back then are calling to me in a way I can't ignore. Just thinking of Swift's Waterland brightens me up. Spark's Loitering With Intent is a classic I'd like to be steeped in again. Winterson's Art & Lies is begging to be rediscovered. A re-read of Banville's Book of Evidence sounds like home.

First up: Broadcastr.

Stay tuned.

"It's one of the most curious sensations that can be granted us by the chance of meetings and absences: that of being alone in an ordinarily full, noisy, or belonging-to-someone-else house. We suddenly have a sensation of absolute possession, of easy, long control, of amplitude -- as I said -- of relief and tranquility.

How good it is to be alone for a long time! To be able to talk out loud to ourselves, walk around without the bother of being seen, rest after a divagation without calls! Any house turns into a field, any room is as big as an estate.

All noises are alien, as if they belonged to a nearby but independent universe. We are, finally, kings."

                            -Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, #137

Two podcasts have recently captured my attention:

• Literary Disco - Just announced and only one intro podcast in, I have a sense I'll dig this not because of the first book they covered, but because their credo rings true for me and reminds me of that long-winded, as-yet-unpublished post I wrote last summer in which I bemoan the state of book reviewing in favor of something accessible and passionate and less insider-y. The best bits of their mission statement: "As we looked around at the collection of podcasts, NPR shows, and Oprah Book Club-spinoffs that are available in the world, it occurred to us that it was hard to find the kind of literary discussion we love. Which is one that appeals equally to writers and readers. And one that is smart without being hyper-intellectual, or too 'insider.' Everywhere we looked, book talk seemed shallow or snooty." Indeed. 
• The Literary Salon - I only learned of this lovely series a few weeks ago and I've done what I promised myself I wouldn't do: devoured it whole. This is a delightful mash-up of authors reading their work and answering questions, all in front of a live audience. Nearly as good as being there, I tell you. My favorite one so far is with John Waters, natch.

I will try to consume the newest podcasts in a more balanced way, but...

All this over-thinking and design-dreaming led me to a place I often go when I'm in need of inspiration: back issues. These past few weeks, I've been somewhat madly flipping through all my old Dwell, Domino, Elle Decor and Metropolitan Home issues for ideas that could solve for some of the unique problems we have in our space. It has been an interesting journey, re-reading these back issues. When I come across a home or a feature or an idea that I first read about in 2006, I am reminded "Ah, yes! I remember this wonderful thing..." as if I'm visiting a familiar home, a treasured memory. Strange, how these strangers' homes are somehow buried in my subconscious and upon seeing a certain piece of art hung just so or a painted black floor change a room entirely, I'm reminded of the first time I loved the idea years ago.

Funny how these ideas and images are floating about within us and a single flip of the page can bring it all freshly back, when pre-flip there was no awareness of holding these images within and no sadness at not being able to recall them.

I'm not even really a back-issue-saving kind of person. I routinely recycle nearly every magazine or periodical that enters my home to avoid clutter. But for whatever reason, I thought these would be great reference material. As if my past self was saving these for my future self so I could have the pleasure I've had these past three weeks. "Ah, yes. I remember this wonderful thing..."

I also have several Believer, Tin House, Granta, Paris Review and Zyzzyva back issues (perhaps I'm a back-issue-saving-kind of person after all) and I'm hoping they'll have the same effect. I look forward to revisiting these stories and essays I loved when I first read them but that I have no recollection of at the moment. 

When packing for a trip that was all about seeking out snow (new snow, powder snow, the kind you will not currently find in Mammoth or Tahoe), I felt instinctively that two things would be the things to bring with: an old journal filled with old writing scraps (time to make something of it all, perhaps) and a copy of Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

What I could not have known as I was flurry-packing down jackets, wind-block shells and low-light ski goggles is that these two items were, in fact, the items. I read a few scraps of my old work and had a strange sensation. I put them away. Picked them back up again. Felt strangeness again and again. Who had written these words? How was she so confident years ago in a way that I am not now? Where has she gone and can I get her back again?

I set my old words aside for the rest of the trip. This adventure was to be about fun, about snow, about wide open Wyoming spaces, about après ski and conversation with interesting locals. My old words had conjured up more than I intended. They'd made me feel somehow less. Somehow diminished. Somehow wishing the less wise me of years ago could re-emerge, then merge with the wiser (but meeker) me of now and embolden my future writings. It was too much to think about so I set them aside and didn't open them again.

I did, however, crack open Pessoa's disquieted thoughts. Here's what greeted me in fits & spurts throughout the entire first section:

"In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger."

                                     

"I often find texts of mine that I wrote when I was very young--when I was seventeen or twenty. And some have a power of expression that I do not remember having then. Certain sentences and passages I wrote when I had just taken a few steps away from adolescence seem produced by the self I am today, educated by years and things. I recognize I am the same as I was. And having felt that I am today making a great progress from what I was, I wonder where this progress is if I was then the same as I am today. There is a mystery in this that reduces my worth and oppresses me."

                                     

"How did I advance toward what I already was? How can the person who knows me today not know me yesterday? All this confuses me in a labyrinth where I am with myself and wander away from myself. I wander with my thoughts and I'm sure that what I'm writing now I already wrote. I remember."

                                     

"Once again, I have found something of mine, written in French, over which fifteen years must have flown now. I've never been to France, never dealt face-to-face with the French, never, therefore, exercised that language in which I had ceased to be fluent. Today I read as much French as ever. I'm older, a more experienced thinker: I must have made some progress. And the French in that passage from my distant past possesses a confidence which today I do not possess. The style is fluid, but in a way I could never be today in that language, with entire passages, complete sentences, forms and modes of expression that demonstrate a control over that language that I lost without ever remembering I had it. How is it possible to explain that? Whom did I substitute inside myself?"

                                    

"But what am I experiencing when I read myself as if I were someone else? On which bank am I standing if I see myself in the depths?"

                                     

"At other times I have found things I've written that I don't remember having written -- which is shocking -- things I don't even remember being capable of writing -- and that does frighten me. Certain phrases belong to a different mentality. It's as if I'd found an old picture, unquestionably of me, in which I had a different physique, unknown features -- but features undoubtedly mine -- all horrifyingly my own."

Though Pessoa tends toward the dramatic, I know (without question) that bringing along my old writing and casting it aside amidst a range of uncomfortable emotions only to pick up Pessoa's ramblings on the same is not an accident. 

I don't know what else it might be, but I am for the moment reassured by his words.

That many believe he was crazy is, obviously, beside the point, no?