tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27571042009428508792024-03-13T09:52:56.717-07:00Erin PassonsThe Official Site of Erin Passonserinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-68862408019920450352023-12-23T07:49:00.000-08:002023-12-23T07:49:06.249-08:00 Rocky Springs <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://img-aws.ehowcdn.com/700x/cdn.onlyinyourstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/7-54-700x467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="467" src="https://img-aws.ehowcdn.com/700x/cdn.onlyinyourstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/7-54-700x467.jpg" width="700" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br />Someone has placed plastic flowers on the grave<br /><br />Of a baby who died 143 years ago<br /><br />The petals are yellow and wet with morning dew.<br /><br /><br />In the distance a hurt animal cries and the leaves dance<br /><br />to its misery, while the sunlight pokes through its prison of clouds,<br /><br />Saying <i>Shh this is nature’s reckoning.<br /></i><br /><br />Inside the church, my son is holding a sermon to himself<br /><br />My daughter is playing the piano and singing softly,<br /><br />More prayer than song,<br /><br />The battleground she’s made of her body swaying with each note.<br /><br /><br />Hope floats through the dogwood air<br /><br />and hits the pews below and the archways above.</div><div><br /><br />I have seen the Notre Dame and its replica in Montreal<br /><br />I have seen the Taj Mahal in its symmetrical splendor<br /><br />But I have never felt closer to God than now.</div>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-65292180220461646002023-09-01T15:28:00.008-07:002023-09-01T15:36:35.553-07:00My Cat Is Dead and My Kids Are Getting Older<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB3t2ZL_2xNnnxCqR_hrXIgf8RYZG4hKV3q7IvQA1jc_z8ScZ5512qGGvq6j9FcpFZMaOnKntwDjhIdADsO-I1V8JeZBvecJtS2WFE7xESGndGnGUQP8hAG6UAKanrMhEVUGJoMmFOv7OVZ9ZC6R9Xx49Ba6W1poe8sWyjbVYHMVjeRR-lbnT_R4T_fB0f/s2048/IMG_0169.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB3t2ZL_2xNnnxCqR_hrXIgf8RYZG4hKV3q7IvQA1jc_z8ScZ5512qGGvq6j9FcpFZMaOnKntwDjhIdADsO-I1V8JeZBvecJtS2WFE7xESGndGnGUQP8hAG6UAKanrMhEVUGJoMmFOv7OVZ9ZC6R9Xx49Ba6W1poe8sWyjbVYHMVjeRR-lbnT_R4T_fB0f/s16000/IMG_0169.JPG" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><br /><br /><p class="MsoTitle"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">My Cat is Dead and My Kids are
getting Older<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Koji
was killed Tuesday night. I knew something wrong when he didn’t come home. I
told Doug about it on Wednesday. He said not to worry. Koji had gone missing
before. “Don’t spiral,” he said, which was his go-to statement whenever I brought
him my concerns. It throws me off a little. I never thought of myself as a
spiraler. But maybe I was a little melodramatic around Doug, because I knew I
could be.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Doug
is usually right about stuff so I stopped worrying. But then Thursday rolled
around and there was still no sign of him. I posted his photo on our
neighborhood Facebook group. The photo is a closeup where you can see Koji’s kaleidoscope
eyes, the sprinkles of aqua mixed with the standard cat green. He looked
annoyed, but that was Koji. Indignant since the day that London found him on
the sidewalk. “He just came out of nowhere,” she said. He was so direct and
familiar right off the bat, we were sure he belonged to someone. We asked around,
but no one claimed him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Doug
was adamant that we find another home for him. “We’re not having a seventh cat.”
But cats are smarter than people think. Koji must have sensed Doug’s reluctance
because the long-bodied tabby with the strange eyes and crooked feet went to
work right away on the man of the house, rubbing against him whenever possible
and sitting in his lap at any opportune time. Always following him around the
house, always chatting to him. “This is the loudest ass cat,” Doug would say, no
longer trying to disguise his affection. Annoyance turned to resignation, then love,
and within days, we stopped looking for a new home for Koji and Doug stopped
asking if we had found one. If we had, I don’t think Doug would have let him
leave. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">So
Koji became part of the family, taking up shop in the scratching post designed
to look like a cactus, hanging out in the garage on the old patio cushions,
sleeping wedged in between Doug and me at night, filling up the space left vacant
since Sketch died a year earlier, soothing a wound that had never fully healed.
The other cats accepted him pretty easily too. Well, except for Morrison, but
that was to be expected. The female tortie, who is also (un)affectionately
known as the Babadook, the Crazy Bitch, and Demonic Psycho Cat from Hell, had
spent the last year terrorizing Finn – the tuxedo we adopted when Sketch died –
and smacking around the feral brothers who lived outside under our deck. Koji
was just another interloper in a house full of interlopers to add to her shit
list. But unlike Finn, Koji didn’t take her aggression sitting down. He gave as
good as he got, smacking her across the eyes when she got too close, meeting
her growl with one of his own. Witnessing Koji’s bravery gave Finn the
confidence to stand up to her too. These days Morrison stays in our bedroom, curled
into a little ball of hate on our duvet, only puffing up when one of the boys
dared to cross the invisible boundary into her domain.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">About
an hour after I posted the photo of Koji, a neighbor messaged me. He said his fiancé
saw the body of a dead cat in the nature reserve. It had Koji’s markings. My
heart sank. “Do you know where in the nature reserve, exactly?” I wrote back,
but I didn’t wait for a reply. I threw a bottle of water and some grocery bags
into a backpack. Doug was sleeping off his long car ride back from San Antonio
and I thought for a moment not to wake him, then figured, he probably wanted to
go with me. And he did. He shot right out of bed and slid into his sneakers. It
was just after three pm and still triple digits outside but we were on a
mission. Maybe the cat that our neighbor had seen was Koji. Maybe it wasn’t.
But one thing was for certain, if it was our baby boy, then we were bringing
him home. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> We split up just outside of the local artist’s
house, at the entrance to the reserve where the trail forks. I went left and
Doug went right. I must have scanned every square inch of the reserve, searching
for death in a landscape painted in death, a massacre of dried grass and browned
plant, casualties of the driest, hottest summer on record. At times I caught
the stench of decomposition in the air, but it left as soon it came. I knew from
the time that a possum died under our porch, that where bodies laid to rest, flies
followed shortly after, but I saw none of those either, and I wished vaguely
that I had a dog or the senses of a dog to investigate better. At one point I thought
perhaps I had psychic abilities that I didn’t know about, and I closed my eyes
and raised my arms and waited for the weight of intuition to carry me in the
right direction. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Finally,
I called for him. <i>Koji, Koji, Koji.</i> Maybe he <i>was</i> in the reserve,
but not as the dead animal my neighbor had seen, but a living thing, stuck up
in a tree or hiding in a bush, still frightened but recovering from a close brush with god-knows-what
(probably a coyote).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">But
what’s that saying? <i>Hope is a violent thing.</i> Hope can drive a man insane.
It’s even crueler to women. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">After
two hours, we gave up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">After
we got home, the neighbor responded. He said his fiancé didn’t remember where
she had seen him exactly but she had taken a photo. He sent it to me. It was
just a paw sticking out over the dried grass. I imagined there was more to see,
but he had cropped it out of mercy. I showed Doug. “Can you compare this with a
photo of Koji?” Doug has a million photos of Koji. I wandered away and sat on
the couch and pretended to read. After a while, Doug called me back into his
office. I walked back there and he looked up from his phone with tears pooling
around his eyes. He nodded slowly. I felt my chest caving in. I managed to make
it to my bedroom before collapsing into a pile of grief. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">London
came home from school and I told her and we cried in her room. We arrived at
the same conclusion separately not to tell Kaya, at least not right away, since
he was going back to school and we didn’t want to ruin his shining moment.
Honestly, we may never tell him, because he may never ask. I make fun of him
sometimes, but secretly, I’m jealous of his ability to stay completely and
utterly detached. God, how wonderful would it be to care about nothing but myself?
Dear Santa, I’ve been a good girl, may I have self-absorption for Christmas? Please
and thanks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Anyway,
I didn’t feel like announcing Koji’s death on Facebook or telling anyone.
Frankly, I’m tired of my own pity party. Kaya left today, so there’s that. Already
posted about it. Already have 80 plus “care” reactions. I don’t feel like pinning
an addendum, “oh and by the way my cat was killed.” Welp, everyone look at me. Sad
Erin. My cat is dead and my kids are getting older.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Yeah,
no thanks. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I
didn’t even tell anyone at work either, which means I got to spend the day muted
in meetings while sobbing into a cold mug of Earl Gray. Answering any requests
that came my way with the enthusiasm of someone who didn’t lose the most beautiful
and precious creature on earth. “Erin, can you create this dashboard?” Of
course I can, yes sir. Milestones, deliverables, <i>my cat is dead, my cat is
dead</i>. The deadline is Tuesday. Koji will have been dead a week by then.
God, I hate time. How it ticks on. But let’s talk about dashboards, why the
hell not.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Sidenote:
I hope whatever attacked Koji chokes on his fucking bones. I know it’s nature
and every living thing has to eat but I hope whatever predator (probably a coyote)
attacked my baby boy gets rickets from the meat and dies in open grass gasping
for breath until its loathsome heart ceases to beat. I hope Koji reincarnates
into a buzzard and eats it right back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Okay,
maybe Doug is right. Maybe I am a spiraler. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And
maybe I do need to talk about Koji. I need to tell someone what a great a cat
he was, what a gift. I don’t want him to be forgotten.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I
wish it was you that I was telling this to, but we don’t talk anymore. I don’t know
why and I’m done trying to guess. So I’m writing this here, hoping one day you’ll
read this and take pity and reach out. Knowing you, you’ll probably drop me a
line, pretending like nothing happened. Like these last six months when you
became a ghost (why didn’t you wish me a happy birthday?) never happened. I’ll probably
never know why you ghosted me in the first place. And I’ll never ask you
either. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I care too much. I miss you and I
miss Koji and how can I be 45 years old and still not understand how to
appreciate what I have while I have it? Why do I take everything for granted?
It’s not like I’m getting any younger. I’m getting older. And I’m dying. Just
like everyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Now
back to crying and those damn dashboards.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">(I
love you, Koji. I will never forget you. Thank you for the smiles, the
laughter, the tears. I love you, I love you, I love you.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Garamond Pro",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p><p></p>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-33520764828241047012022-12-27T06:20:00.007-08:002022-12-27T06:20:43.028-08:00Her New Job in West Lake<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhks7ko65ztG8bjoF63AUVdAqt6m2o99aNKND6Q2tA_Ra8gjGgZu27TLK6XqNJoB001J7TIBgwZAvsPGN5Mnj58vrqIKvSoUE3J78gjFR9ZNPEob0ECsUb10efJtdHZSi-3hzpOQWnKcRjT6JbZE0JtDIdf4Ri-JGnkGzD3pLQC-jvWZjc0q1Ta2Zya4A/s2048/320696632_1304123013654895_4817838024622419190_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhks7ko65ztG8bjoF63AUVdAqt6m2o99aNKND6Q2tA_Ra8gjGgZu27TLK6XqNJoB001J7TIBgwZAvsPGN5Mnj58vrqIKvSoUE3J78gjFR9ZNPEob0ECsUb10efJtdHZSi-3hzpOQWnKcRjT6JbZE0JtDIdf4Ri-JGnkGzD3pLQC-jvWZjc0q1Ta2Zya4A/w448-h336/320696632_1304123013654895_4817838024622419190_n.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>She didn’t think about the location.<br />Just that it paid $15 an hour<br />And she needed money. <br />The next step to freedom.<div><br />She didn’t think about the mean girls<br />Who drove her out of school<br />into the arms of an eating disorder <br /><br /></div><div>Or the ravaged friendships of her youth<br />coming home from college<br />seeing her behind the counter, <br />stitched together by every </div><div>antidepressant modern medicine has to offer.<br /><br /></div><div>I had to remind her, “west lake? Are you sure? You may see someone…”<br /><br /></div><div>She began to cry. <br /><br /></div><div>So I forego the usual parental wisdom: “Be on time, be respectful, work hard.”<br /><br /></div><div>Instead, “it’s just a fucking job. If it gets too hard, you can find another.”<br /><br /></div><div>But I, too, am worried.<br /><br /></div><div>so I wait outside.<br /><br /></div><div>I’ll be waiting outside for the next four hours. <br /><br /></div><div>praying no one remembers her,<br />or if they do,<br />that they remember her fondly <br />Friends, no foes.<br />A joyous reunion.<br /><br /></div><div>Or at least - <br /><br /></div><div>that the queen bees and gangly teens leave behind only grease from the chickens slaughtered<br /><br /></div><div>and the world moves on as it should <br /><br /></div><div>without hurting my daughter.</div><div><br /></div><div>- E.P.</div><div>12 - 17 - 2022</div>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-69562060476729798862022-08-09T05:52:00.008-07:002023-12-23T07:50:36.063-08:00Letter to My Son Who Will Never Read This<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzqb3FQGIvR54zkIe_mMNzNAoAc24ghoRFay69FpgQhEvp-IIM4V4_pYI6gy0LtwS9nDyqYgQTnnSP63f7hqJ7PibkJpBhSK439J9IxzuCCVGaxNNSmMMy9JZL4v-6BsH6-7JqU3QbYtikmCLqVf8sAzEXTlvB4UVAIdFkPzm1xVKZ3NA17Z0pgpcIog/s4032/Kaya1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzqb3FQGIvR54zkIe_mMNzNAoAc24ghoRFay69FpgQhEvp-IIM4V4_pYI6gy0LtwS9nDyqYgQTnnSP63f7hqJ7PibkJpBhSK439J9IxzuCCVGaxNNSmMMy9JZL4v-6BsH6-7JqU3QbYtikmCLqVf8sAzEXTlvB4UVAIdFkPzm1xVKZ3NA17Z0pgpcIog/s16000/Kaya1.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p>I won't say that I picked the father of my children based on his math skills, but it didn't hurt. </p><p>I had hoped when the time came for us to have children, that the colorless world my ex-husband inhabited - one of fractions and solid lines, of clear formulas and perfect 90-degree angles - would somehow drown out my own. </p><p>Because through the monochromatic eyes of my ex-husband, I saw what success and accomplishment looked like when it was untouched by the need to feed an insatiable, invisible hunger. I sensed the satisfaction of the straight and narrow, witnessed how wide the world opened with endless possibilities when looked upon by one with limited vision. </p><p>In short, I learned: the world is less crueler to the left-brained. </p><p>And this, I wanted for my children.</p><p>But that didn't happen, despite my ex-husband and my best intentions. Despite the math camps, the afternoons teaching them the chemical makeup of deoxyribonucleic acid and the beauty to be found in decomposition and fusion. In the end, my chaos prevailed. </p><p>My daughter was a foregone conclusion almost immediately. She began singing when she was four-years-old, breaking into a Little Mermaid song by the fireplace, her voice a perfect vibrato. By the time she was thirteen, she was playing piano and writing songs on the ukulele. </p><p>There was still hope for my son, however. Just having that Y chromosome gave him a leg up, or so I thought. But in the third grade, he came home with a first-place certificate. He had won a school-wide art content, one that I hadn't known he entered. I clipped the certificate to the refrigerator and wept for days. (When I look back, I should have seen it coming. One of his first words was "colorful.") After awhile, I put my big girl pants on and said no matter what, I would support him. It would take years before I learned to encourage him.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">So, Kaya, here we are. </h3><p>I'm doubtful that you will ever read this because you don't read anything. I didn't pass on my love of books to you, although I hope one day you will learn to appreciate what words can do as much you have embraced the universe of color. After all, people can change - a fact that I am just now learning (see below).</p><p>I'm proud of you. I really am. I'm proud of your talent, and I'm proud of your dedication and desire. I want you to know that whatever happens, just having determination alone is your door. You don't need Interlochen. You don't need the Art Institute of Chicago or that place in New York that we can never remember the name of. You have a natural gift and the willpower to move ahead. No one can give you that. No one can teach you that. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh657HCtyuzrxS8Ds8ZKabTgKYmj79jGrlbUPSyA8_7NPsl83XHApOAITC_s3pOUxvJW2r1zHFItQ9WJr6qx5IsbuPDXlAtGbQ-1bOSAKV9yXd6Y6l6R3cBcZAjuBrGQF7LNK27s2TApdY9oAl09NmoI4vBLdk9iPMEd2k0bHXh-R7nrN4UTpAmDz_Xlw/s3520/Kaya2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1980" data-original-width="3520" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh657HCtyuzrxS8Ds8ZKabTgKYmj79jGrlbUPSyA8_7NPsl83XHApOAITC_s3pOUxvJW2r1zHFItQ9WJr6qx5IsbuPDXlAtGbQ-1bOSAKV9yXd6Y6l6R3cBcZAjuBrGQF7LNK27s2TApdY9oAl09NmoI4vBLdk9iPMEd2k0bHXh-R7nrN4UTpAmDz_Xlw/w640-h360/Kaya2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Kaya at Interlochen, August 8, 2022</i></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">But you must stay steadfast. </h3><p style="text-align: left;">Art is a blood sport. But worse than any other sport, you are not competing against other people. You are competing against yourself. The greatest minds of my generation - the greatest artists, writers, and musicians - sell insurance or work in department stores for a living. I don't mean to be condescending. Most jobs are noble simply by their existence (someone has to do it), but still - what a waste. The only reason I - with my meager accomplishments - achieved any modicum of success was because I wanted it more than they did. Every rejection letter, every door slammed, every well-meaning friend or family member telling me to quit, be happy with what I have - I took that as a sign that I needed to work harder. So I did. And so must you.</p><p>On the way back to the car yesterday, you accused me of putting people in boxes. You said I create a composite sketch in my mind and I stick to it. I don't allow people to grow. </p><p>I appreciated your honesty. And you're right. It's one of my biggest character flaws, and probably one of my biggest faults as a writer. When you're writing a book, you have to give your characters a chance to evolve and change. Otherwise, there's no story. </p><p>So, I want you to know, I'm dedicated to changing my ways, and I'm dedicated to your story, knowing full well that I am not the maestro behind the keyboard this time. I am just a bystander. Your journey is your own, and I am just another reader, and that is okay. I will remain engrossed with your plot, holding my breath for every twist and turn, and cheering you on until the final page. </p><p>You are the author of your own story, and I love every word you haven't yet written.</p><p>Keep going.</p>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-84732589211718425762022-01-16T07:12:00.002-08:002022-03-25T02:20:10.225-07:00The Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.pexels.com/photos/167699/pexels-photo-167699.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="533" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/167699/pexels-photo-167699.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260" width="800" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>My daughter slammed the door on death<br />when he came calling last spring<br /><br />But even before and definitely since,<br />she has flirted with his traitor’s kiss.<br />how sweet the relief, a promise kept,<br />packaged in a final breath. <br /><br />So we delivered her on metal wings<br />where mountains sing and mud the sky,<br />where fields glow amber and trees bleed fire,<br />the beauty of a summer dying.<br /><br />The three goddesses of the moon -<br />the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone -<br />met our shadows on the track.<br />Familiar faces from the past,<br />they snipped the cord on her first night.<br />“love is a sacrifice,” they cried.<br /><br />I always knew they would come back.<br /><br />“the thirtieth, the fifteenth<br />and the first,” they cooed, “play the tune that leads her path.”<br /><br />So when the waxen sphere at last<br />Hung low above the mile-high room<br />My daughter took the wheel so fast<br />and left me childless in a lonely noonerinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-61144228988736790242021-05-17T05:01:00.001-07:002022-03-25T02:19:01.179-07:00104 Degrees<a href="https://images.pexels.com/photos/185517/pexels-photo-185517.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/185517/pexels-photo-185517.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260" /></a><br /><br />My moth child lost a coin toss<div>Ate dirt almost<br />Almost almost<br /><br />I wheel my larva down the hill<br />Down the hill down the hill<br />on wheels one hundred and four degrees </div><div>pressure past the point of flight<br /><br />Goodnight until</div><div>the morning exams</div><div><br />She wears her Saturday on Sunday still<br />Coffin brown packaged socks<br />Plastic bagged my shoes she wore<br />A Berlin ring for Chinese tubes<br />An A-line valve, a loosened gown, </div><div>a needle pricking at the skin on roads </div><div>where blood forgets to thin and dagger teeth</div><div>the angels grin<br /><br />The alarms don’t care when they go off<br />And off they go and off and off<br /><br /><i>Kai Sri Krishna</i> the C word sings<br />Then pops a pill and rides a wave, a train, </div><div>the last ship out of here<br /><i>Radhe radhe</i>, the 19th strain<br /><br />The moth child’s wings have been clipped<br />And filmed and framed<br />And framed and filmed<br />The swallow paints along her nails,</div><div>twists her hair in long dark waves<br />Pretty girl you’re outta here<br />Outta here,<br />until until.</div><div><br /></div><div>- E.P.</div><div>May 17, 2021</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-59837142997987884552020-08-09T05:06:00.012-07:002021-02-20T10:26:31.675-08:00Quarantine Haikus <br /><br /> <br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QSHP9dXpNcQ/Xy_k5y88uHI/AAAAAAAAhQA/aWR3Unkb8ZMsX6kmXMKn-moyY9EhN3biwCPcBGAsYHg/s640/IMG_1448.HEIC" /></a><br /><br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Cat</h2>Doug, the cat wants out <br />Yes I know he just came in <br />But now he wants out <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Morning</h2><div>Doug, you woke up late <br />I drank three cups of green tea <br />Let the cat out, thanks. <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Afternoon</h2><div>The meeting drags on <br />The cat howls by the door <br />Stop talking, everyone <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;"> Evening</h2><div>Where is the remote? <br />Can’t you keep it in one place? <br />Look under the cat <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">We’ve Run Out of Toilet Paper</h2><div>The roll is empty <br />How much do you people shit? <br />Replace it next time. <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Texas</h2><div>Delayed reaction <br />Cost your peoples’ live thousands <br />But you repeat it <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Election</h2><div>Home of the disease <br />Land of the sick and dying <br />Small hands man will win <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Cat Part II</h2></div><div>Charlotte sleeps in chair <br />Another borrowed day borrowed <br />I love you, don’t go <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Armadillos</h2><div>Ripping up my yard <br />Stop digging holes you fuckers <br />Prehistoric dicks <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Raccoons</h2></div><div>Big weary mother <br />Leads greedy fur balls to feed <br />I know that look well <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Possums</h2></div><div>Stripes around his eyes <br />Looks like eyeliner, we call <br />Him Ziggy Stardust <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Blue Jays</h2></div><div>Get out of my yard <br />Crackling and shitting in trees <br />Feathered gremlin dicks <br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Stereo System</h2></div><div>I am sorry babe <br />I am such a selfish jerk <br />Keep your stereo<br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Teens</h2></div><div>They sleep until noon<br />Wake up hungry for Starbucks<br />We have food at home <br /><br /><br />- EP, 8-9-2020</div></div></div></div></div></div></div>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-28292660186449692782020-08-03T05:31:00.007-07:002022-03-25T02:05:42.646-07:00Fourteen on Wednesday<div data-block="true" data-editor="e0vss" data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CAOwDec6yEo/XygDism32FI/AAAAAAAAhGI/GHdy-y_CWCINqbtcJWx9cF0sRZSDTTgCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/53179914_2454081121269991_7803703101474471936_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CAOwDec6yEo/XygDism32FI/AAAAAAAAhGI/GHdy-y_CWCINqbtcJWx9cF0sRZSDTTgCgCLcBGAsYHQ/d/53179914_2454081121269991_7803703101474471936_n.jpg" /></a></div><span data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span data-offset-key="dpo1s-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div><i>For Kaya<br /></i><br /><br />what is it like to come of age in a plague?<br /><br />you’ve grown another inch no one can see,<br />dug in as you are in your corner of the apocalypse,<br />your skateboard propped against your bed<br />collecting cobwebs since June, a bed unmade, sporadic <br />murals bulge from the walls coded with colors you <br />can barely comprehend.<br /><br />what is it like to be a pupa forming its final shape<br />a million changes happening at once<br />while the world pauses with a gasping breath?<br /><br />July trickles into August it’s all the same<br />100 degrees bleeds into sleep and another disease eats through our dreams and takes hold.<br />paralyzed thoughts cough in rooms desperate to break free<br />but the airlines are on life support and the parks are empty.<br />another store collapses and announces We’re Closing <br />while under the 290 bridge the homeless camp fills to capacity.<br /><br />you fold your knees into your chest and say, “mom<br />I am so anxious, and I don’t know why”<br /><br />lately you hug me more, reach out to me more, <br />as if instinctively knowing the days are growing thin and<br />a train is coming to take you to destinations unknown.<br /><br />not long now you will turn off your phone when it rings my tone<br />and press your face against the skin of a girl not your kin, and<br />only then will those bold colors devouring <br />your space have meaning.<br /><br />But not now, not in this plague <br />Not when every day hundreds enter the grave <br />and call it home and the politicians shake their heads<br />and the nurses break down exhausted in supply closets and the<br />experts warn us this is not the end, this is only the first wave. <br /><br />You say you want to believe in God again<br />I ask if you want to go to church<br />I begin, “I know a place…”<br />you shake your head and say<br />“I would rather believe in him in my own way”<br />as you look ahead at the dark stain of your sister <br />walking toward us in the afternoon.<br />shadows collect around her face,<br />a finicky moon in its most turbulent phase <br />pretty soon you will match her shadow<br />pretty soon, but not today.<br /><br />what is it like to come of age in a plague?<br /><br />you pack up your bags and go.<br />in the distance blue jays<br />are dive bombing butterflies,<br />your sister puts her ear buds in but you don’t notice.<br />august trickles into another august and the day is <br />over but it is just beginning <br />as the sun envelops you with open arms.<br /><br />-- 8/3/2020<br /></div><div data-block="true" data-editor="e0vss" data-offset-key="98k0b-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></div>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-31212960501131961252020-04-20T05:36:00.005-07:002022-03-25T02:08:50.751-07:00Demeter's Prayer<img src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/185517/pexels-photo-185517.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=750&w=1260" /><br />
<br />
<br />
When Persephone began skipping meals<br />
And decorating her stretch marks with blood flowers, <br />
Demeter took her to a home for girls with eating disorders. <br />
<br />
When Lil P was forced to surrender her flaming torch at the door, <br />
Mama D was forced to write letters. <br />
<br />
This morning, she writes, I followed the fog down a trail <br />
of acacia trees to the Cliffs of Moher. <br />
I met a giddy Saint Patrick where the sea met the cliff who offered me a guitar riff <br />
and a round of ice-cold Guinness. <br />
“’Scuse me but I’m ‘igh coming off from <br />
the campfire hour.” He laughs into water. <br />
He heard the Queen’s speech from her perch <br />
at Windsor Castle. It changed him, it converted him, and now <br />
somehow he’s a believer. “She’s always been a monarch <br />
but today she’s a leader. <br />
God save the Queen!” <br />
<br />
He reminds me of a war I’ve never been in. <br />
<br />
God save the health care workers, <br />
God save the recovering and the newly infected <br />
God save the black communities unfairly affected <br />
God save the April rain and the May flowers, <br />
God save the face masks and the ventilators and the frozen food trucks repurposed into morgues for storing the bodies of the departed, <br />
God save the economy and the airlines spending time <br />
praying to the almighty dollar, <br />
God save the furloughed workers counting every dime and the unemployed <br />
standing in line to fill out forms for the workforce commission. <br />
<br />
God save your cat from attacking my cat. <br />
God save your brother in the garage painting cartoons from a childhood you can never return to, even when you get well again. <br />
<br />
God save your therapist who writes a lot. (When I reply, she never answers.) <br />
God save your dietician who never writes at all. <br />
<br />
God save your grandmother who still shops at Kroger <br />
But only during the high-at-risk hour <br />
God save this woman who raises her fist to the tangerine man <br />
Behind the curtain of lies who disguises his greed as concern <br />
For Americans to get back on their feet and live the American dream again, <br />
But this time at a 6-foot distance and without any resistance to the <br />
Inevitability of his November recrowning. <br />
God save your grandmother as she tweets and screams and prays to the son, <br />
the father, and the unholy spirit <br />
Just this once, for a suicide bomber. <br />
<br />
God save your grandfather who brings flowers to the grave of his son <br />
Before the storms turn the earth to mud and the weeds <br />
Cradle the skeletal remains of an uncle you will never meet. <br />
<br />
God save the 30 million people sick like you <br />
But removed from the news because <br />
your disease is not in fashion, <br />
and God save the path I take each day through fog <br />
To find a way to bring you home <br />
To a place where sickness, death, and even the voices inside your head <br />
Telling you to hurt yourself <br />
Can’t touch you. <br />
<br />
--Erin Passons <br />
<br />
4/20/2020 erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-42062352100724219992020-03-24T07:41:00.001-07:002022-03-25T02:10:10.508-07:00My Corona<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images.pexels.com/photos/1647962/pexels-photo-1647962.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/1647962/pexels-photo-1647962.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
My depressed daughter amped up her eating disorder the Monday before Mayor Adler shut down the city. <br />
<br />
I checked her into Dell Children’s Hospital fifteen miles from our home, on a day when traffic was traffic because Austin was Austin and a cough meant simply catching a cold. <br />
<br />
The first night I was lost in her nightmare. <br />
<br />
Seattle was on the moon. <br />
<br />
The stock market crashed in a forest with no trees and Italy was a scream muffled by an ocean. <br />
<br />
I slept in a rollout bed beside a window looking out at a courtyard of mistflowers and wandering jews. Vines of purple, clusters of white petals. No children swung from the branches or played in the flower beds. The birds chirped but no one answered them. <br />
<br />
Light filtering through the green, blue, red, and yellow stained glass of odd-shaped windows casting rainbows on my toes on the way from my daughter’s room to the cafeteria on the first floor. Stale bagels, chipped ice, the screech of chairs pulling out from tables. Men and women talked hunched over in muted conversations. A woman in scrubs pressed her palm against a pane of glass, reaching out to her own reflection. The granola tasted like sand in my mouth. <br />
<br />
It didn’t smell like a hospital there, but I saw dead children everywhere, so when they said, “wash your hands thoroughly,” I thoroughly complied, and I won’t deny it took some work not crying every time I passed a wall of art signed with loopy handwriting. <br />
<br />
Depressed kids can turn a remote control into a suicide plan so we listen to the Food Network on mute, my daughter spread out in her bed with half-open eyes and eyebrows shaped like waning crescent moons knitted low on a face I have loved since the moment it breathed life into this world. <br />
<br />
These days, I have to beg my world to eat a cracker. <br />
<br />
The next day they admitted her into the psyche ward secluded on the second floor while that bug brought to Virginia Mason from across the sea spread its hands over the map of the USA and our mockery of a president finally had to confess that we’re fighting more than flu. <br />
<br />
I drove home alone with a stack of paperwork. <br />
<br />
The following week I ride to the hospital on empty roads built from DUIs and long goodbyes and calamities no one saw coming. An eerie silence silenced the live capital music of the world. My son and I scattered from the car in a dance of sleeved hands. I signed the release form and my daughter walked out into a world different than any world before or at least since she was born, fifteen years ago. <br />
<br />
She didn’t seem to notice. Her face was glowing. She met a boy in there named Shiloh. He drew a ring around her finger with a red magic marker. They made paper mache pets and gave them names like “Schizophrenic Spot” and “Bipolar Buddy.” They met in the hallway at night when everyone else was sleeping and held hands and exchanged numbers, although they’re not supposed to. <br />
<br />
And now it’s Sunday 10:50 am, the air conditioning is roaring and I’m working because back in January, I warned my employer, “We needed a teleworking plan” and they ignored me. Now I attend Saturday, Sunday conference calls with my ear to the walls and the shouting for laptops to appear. No one acknowledges my prevision except for Christie in Network Access who Skypes, “Sorry we didn’t listen to you sooner.” <br />
<br />
My daughter folds into my view. Hair messy, yawning. She’s spent all morning sleeping off last night’s conversations. I heard her giggling from the other room. <br />
<br />
(I found a plate in the kitchen sink this morning, and two slices of bread were missing.) <br />
<br />
She approaches me, smiling. Reaches out to braid my hair. Love has filled the vessel of her grief. Shiloh, the hero. I am okay with this impermanent menu; I only wish I was the one who could feed her. <br />
<br />
Our cure is our ruin is our cure. This conference call could last for hours. <br />
<br />
My daughter asks if I want my plaits fat or thin like spaghetti. There’s a ski resort in Ischgl with three floors of coughing patrons. Trafalgar Square is empty. In Madrid the Spanish army has turned a skating rink into a mortuary for victims of the first attack. This was only the beginning. Overnight the Giants stole the crown from the Seahawks. Now the Alphabet City is counting numbers. Trains move without passengers. Carnegie Hall sleeps without singers. In Central Park, pigeons make their own dinner. <br />
<br />
Every man for himself. Every saint to their sinner. Every sin to its saving grace—the great black eye shining light into our existence, speaking truth: “It is time. Choose wisely.” <br />
<br />
Our ruin is our only salvation. erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-66471422916584321122019-12-19T19:14:00.001-08:002021-02-20T10:54:19.425-08:00For Eli <img alt="Low Angle View of Man Standing at Night" class="js-photo-page-image-img" data-zoom-initiated="true" data-zoom-src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/316681/pexels-photo-316681.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=3&h=750&w=1260" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/316681/pexels-photo-316681.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=750&w=1260" style="background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(2, 2, 2); max-height: 75vh; max-width: calc(137.936vh); min-height: 300px; min-width: calc(551.743px);" /><br />
<br />Eli you would have been proud of me <br /> Today I slayed a dragon<br /> She lied to me so I swallowed her whole.<br /> <br /> I probably won’t have a job come Friday,<br /> but boy it felt good to sink the beast <br /> before it fired and released on the people I love the most<br /> <br /> Essentially, I saved my team<br /> <br /> You were on my team once <br /> <br /> I wish I could have saved you too<br /> <br /> I wish my Spider-Man sense <br /> Had sensed you hovering over the chair<br /> wrapping a noose around your neck<br /> before you jumped, <br /> before the art stopped<br /> and the music dried up,<br /> and the strokes of color you brushed across the sky <br /> were erased from the world forever<br /> <br /> My mysterious friend,<br /> <br /> Before you hated me <br /> Before you betrayed me,<br /> <br /> We played a trick upon the stars <br /> We spoke in code and god only knows<br /> What signals were crossed<br /> And before I knew it you were gone <br /> <br /> Jen B. told me through a screenshot<br /> Jen N. and I thought it was a hoax<br /> That’s just Eli being Eli<br /> Digging her own escape through the barricade<br /> of holiday facades and family gatherings,<br /> hibernating until the bells ceased ringing<br /> and the registers stopped dinging <br /> and the carolers had run out of songs.<br /> <br /> I must have called every YMCA<br /> in Seattle. Me with the office door closed<br /> the Ravenettes muted, nibbling on a Kit Kat <br /> a co-worker had left on my desk with a card<br /> merry christmas and voices of Northwestern women<br /> interrogating my reasons and me saying, it's fine,<br /> you have the right to be suspicious,<br /> but I promise you,<br /> I'm her friend.<br /> <br /> Some friend I am. <br /> <br /> now forever your death will taste like stale chocolate wafers<br /> and the aftertaste of devouring a monster. <br /> <br /> Cheers Eli I gotta go<br /> Gotta clean up my resume <br /> By the way they’re protesting in Delhi<br /> And the big bad orange has become a peach<br /> In the house at least<br /> But we all know how it will go <br /> In the senate.<br /> <br /> it's okay it's progress and you're a thousand lives ahead<br /> I'm applying to a job in Budapest<br /> and you're delivering your nightmares a bowl of ice cream<br /> finally, some peace for the peaceless weary-eyed princess<br /> <br /> see Eli monsters aren't as scary as we think.<br /> <br /> EP 12-19<br />
<br />
<br />erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-39722955558627453502019-11-24T09:41:00.002-08:002020-05-28T11:31:18.407-07:00Badlands<br />
<img alt="Eye-level Photo Of Cultivated Land" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/1000057/pexels-photo-1000057.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=1&w=500" /><br />
<br />
<i>for Doug</i><br />
<br />
We got lost in the Badlands,<br />
<br />
the November wind stabbing at our backs,<br />
the sky bleeding topaz while ash-colored clouds lowered<br />
over the land like a holy simlāh hellbent to disguise<br />
any path back to civilization.<br />
<br />
"just drink it all in and pretend we know exactly<br />
where we're going," you say,<br />
<br />
"focus on the mule deer hopping away from us in<br />
pairs scared thinking these pale faces are hunters<br />
who like their meat complete with hooves for feet<br />
and minced and gamey,<br />
<br />
or focus on the chipmunk puffing out its cheek and<br />
bushing out its tail while it scrambles from<br />
rock to rock sequestering seeds for meals<br />
<br />
Or just be glad we're not back at home on MOPAC stuck<br />
in four lanes of non-moving traffic under the rage of a Texas<br />
sun with one desire -- to eat us alive.<br />
<br />
Or just be glad the mountain lions have learned <br />
to hide from other predators."<br />
<br />
I listen to you and I do--I drink it in. I drink it in for miles,<br />
<br />
I drink in the mounds of oyster scoria that protrude from the earth<br />
like oven-baked caves gutted from the inside out,<br />
which you say reminds you of your humble beginnings,<br />
<br />
born to this world with a curve at your back<br />
and a set of grasping pedipalps which you wear these days<br />
more like a badge and less like a weapon,<br />
ever an ambassador for peace while your partner (who is me)<br />
stays unreleased in perpetual combat--a trait<br />
that you both love and fear about me, <br />
<br />
"Just be careful when you enter the circle of serpents<br />
that you don't come back wearing their shape," you say,<br />
<br />
to which I reply, "Even when I slither, remember:<br />
I'm the good kind of snake."<br />
<br />
-- not like the kind we're likely to<br />
encounter here, the kind with rattles and <br />
infamously notorious tempers and reputations for<br />
laying men to waste in a split second<br />
for disturbing their season of slumber.<br />
<br />
I think: the Badlands could kill us a number of ways, <br />
<br />
but we walk on...<br />
<br />
down the Medicine Root Loop on the way to the castle, <br />
where you reminisce on the time when I was still a ghost<br />
in your rearview mirror, a shadow in the hallway at our high school,<br />
a time of your life when you had quit your job after four years of law<br />
and set off to see America, driving the<br />
coastal highway from California up to<br />
Oregon and through Montana, searching for yourself in<br />
changing landscapes and well-planned playlists and roadside<br />
gas stations with busted payphones and broken<br />
people, the dream for yourself hiding in the palm<br />
of America's hand like a talisman with powers unrendered.<br />
<br />
We stay lost in the Badlands.<br />
<br />
We wander and stomp through mud, and I tell you that I miss my kids,<br />
and although I know what it would be like if they were here (miserable)<br />
I couldn't help but wonder if the kaleidoscope art of sedimentary rocks would<br />
open my son's eyes to the beating heart of the world, or if the<br />
western meadowlark's call would pull my daughter from the wreckage<br />
of her teenage years long enough to<br />
remember her song and how to sing it.<br />
<br />
We got lost in the Badlands,<br />
<br />
We got lost in the tall, dry grass,<br />
and slipped on patches of ice, <br />
<br />
We got lost in the layers of sediments <br />
and roaring Dakota winds and the cold getting colder<br />
and the mud getting slicker,<br />
<br />
We got lost and risked trampling through rattlesnake dens<br />
just to escape before the sun dimmed and darkness took over, <br />
but I grinned and beared it, as I knew you did--<br />
<br />
because we knew as long as we were together,<br />
we would always find our way home. <br />
<br />
-Erin Passons<br />
11-24-2019<br />
<br />erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-29802250079850683432019-08-11T08:31:00.002-07:002022-03-25T02:17:26.493-07:00Charlotte <br />
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<br />It’s going to be 103 degrees today,<br /> Doug warned before he left.<br /> <br /> But we weren’t where the sun could touch us, <br /> were we, Charlotte? No.<br /> <br /> There were no windows in the waiting room—just posters of pretty cats free of fleas and leaflets about feline autoimmune disease<br /><br />the smell of wet fur and sanitizers.<br /> <br /> Signs said, “don’t remove your cat from its carrier”<br /> So all I could do was gently rock you in your case and sing “My Favorite Things” while you hissed at the beagle who kept pressing his nose to your face,<br /> oblivious to the fact that you’re not there to make friends.<br /> <br /> and when they took you back and ran the tests, <br /> and when they said your kidneys were the size of string beans and you couldn’t drink enough water to sustain your five-pound frame from collapsing with inevitable failure,<br /> and when the technician held you down to stick an IV in your neck,<br /> <br /> all I could think of was how, on a toasty spring night 17 years ago,<br /> I drove from New Orleans to Jackson with you in my lap, and for 17 years I’ve only known a home with you in it,<br /> <br /> And now I had six months to prepare for your death,<br /> when all I wanted was to walk backward through time,<br /> <br /> back to Coralberry where you could lie with London in the grass, hear her giggle as you sniffed each freshly mowed blade,<br /> <br /> back to Brandywine where you could sleep in the shade and chase shadows behind the glass,<br /> <br /> back to the nights in Lakeway where you could walk between London and Kaya’s rooms as they slept, ever watchful like a shepherd guarding her sheep—an unquivering eye scanning the darkness for the dangers only a hunter’s eye could see.<br /> <br /> Back to Fentonridge where you could purr and coo whenever Doug picked you up and called you his baby<br /> <br /> back to the lower 9th ward where you were born where you could sip hurricane rain and watch Bourbon Street dip into the sea from the crumbling steps of a memory that you once called home.<br /> <br /> My crocodile-eyed cat. Here is my hand, go ahead—self-pet. <br /> <br /> You will always have my lap—always, always.<br /> <br /> I write this before these six months have passed, before the words leave me and the long night begins without you in it, before I lose my voice as sure as you will lose your physical form, all five pounds of it. <br /> <br /> *<br /> <br /> They rang up your death sentence and handed me the receipt, along with three cans of chicken dinner designed with cats like you in mind, the st.jude of cat food, a feast for loss causes.<br /> <br /> They let us leave with one last warning, “be careful, it’s 103 degrees out there.”<br /> <br /> But we weren’t where the sun could touch us,<br /> were we, Charlotte? No.<br /> <br /> We were far beyond that.<br /> <br /> -ep 8-9-19erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-82902269383855223542019-07-09T15:58:00.002-07:002019-08-20T11:01:44.135-07:00Smile Because You Want to Smile (For London on her 15th birthday)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
I can write about it now, London. <br />
<br />
you had been alive for five weeks<br />
when the old bags at your christening<br />
combed their fingers through your mane<br />
and exclaimed, “what a head of hair!<br />
it’s a shame it will fall out.” <br />
<br />
“Will it?” I asked. <br />
<br />
“oh yes,” they laughed. <br />
<br />
and I thought about it,<br />
how every dark lock and red highlight<br />
was doomed the moment you left my womb<br />
and took your first breath. <br />
<br />
it made me sad, but you were indifferent.<br />
you gurgled and rolled over in my arms,<br />
and you went on to defy them.<br />
<br />
for 15 years, that head of yours has never felt<br />
the bald blunt of wind. <br />
<br />
it was your first rebellion.<br />
it would become a pattern. <br />
<br />
and just like your crowning glory and the many<br />
afternoons I’ve chased you through the house<br />
with a brush and elastic band, feeling like<br />
an ax murderer in a horror film—<br />
and you running like your life would end<br />
if one bristle touched your tangled strands— <br />
<br />
your defiance has been my curse on some days,<br />
and a source of pride on others. <br />
<br />
years after your hair refused to fall out,<br />
when we were sitting in the doctor’s office <br />
—you already bored with the assessment,<br />
eyelashes fluttering, subdued,<br />
looking out the window of possibilities<br />
that I knew existed but you were still learning—<br />
I realized I’m watching a girl unfolding<br />
into a woman at her own pace, without a trace<br />
of self-conscious deliberation that debilitates other girls<br />
so easily (those little queens who sit beside you in class<br />
and who smile when tasked and do what their mothers ask<br />
without bargaining.) <br />
<br />
I can write about it now, London.<br />
<br />
even in our worst, most cliched mother/daughter moments—<br />
I would never want to strip away at the sharp edges of you,<br />
I would never want to disarm your warrior.<br />
<br />
<br />
-Erin Passons<br />
7-9-2019erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-91486681243116940372019-06-25T06:55:00.002-07:002019-06-25T06:55:41.009-07:00July 18<br /><img alt="Shallow Focus Photography of Green Leaves" class="js-photo-page-image-img" data-pin-media="undefined" data-zoom-initiated="true" height="425" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/1137532/pexels-photo-1137532.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=750&w=1260" style="background: rgb(167, 182, 158) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; max-height: 75vh; max-width: calc(112.712vh); min-height: 300px; min-width: calc(450.847px);" width="640" /><br /> <br /><br />what an amazing journey life is<br />
what a terrible destination<br />
my central texas babylon matches hell’s wager<br />
and raises it ten degrees.<br />
my daughter is on a winged submarine 8000 miles above the clouds.<br />
I walk next to hard-hatted men hammering steel to life<br />
next to a building with its guts spilling out<br />
this gory site brought to me today by June sunlight<br />
and an email memo<br />
“we’re making renovations”<br />
so I take a sabbatical to the yogurt shop<br />
and dive into bus exhaust and cigarette smoke crossing Guadalupe,<br />
remembering the time hollee drove all the way to the triangle<br />
for a grilled cheese, remembering this morning<br />
dropping off my son at westenfield park<br />
and how he walked away from me and back again<br />
the blue backpack strapped to his razor-sharp shoulders<br />
but in his shadow, a man awakening<br />
and he’d be damned if I walked him all the way<br />
to where three trees met in a circle and other<br />
campers waited in their shade sans mothers<br />
“mom I’ll be ok” irritation twitching his face<br />
reminding me of his father<br />
meanwhile my daughter sleeps in a metal machine<br />
suspended over the earth and I have just<br />
crossed the threshold of heat<br />
to air-conditioned sweetness alone<br />
mission accomplished,<br />
next destination unknown.<br />
<br />
<br />
EP, 6-25-2019<br />erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-31715191271091264552019-05-15T19:00:00.003-07:002021-11-25T05:49:58.833-08:00battle hymn 2019<img alt="Woman Looking at Sunset" class="js-photo-page-image-img" data-pin-media="undefined" data-zoom-initiated="true" height="426" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/247195/pexels-photo-247195.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=750&w=1260" style="background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(159, 144, 122); max-height: 75vh; max-width: calc(112.5vh); min-height: 300px; min-width: calc(450px);" width="640" /><br />
<br />
girls bring your daughters<br /> round up your mothers<br /> we have work to do<br /> sweet home alabama, <br /> where they rob you of your womb,<br /> we’re crossing into you<br /> from the Mississippi river <br /> where my double-tongued cuz <br /> plays the pipe for a cottonmouth crowd <br /> wide-open white venom tongue singing<br /> “God how da ya like us now?<br /> Never been a man finer than our gov.<br /> like our father who art in heaven,<br /> willing to sacrifice his son.”<br /><br /> girls remember their names:<br /> del, jabo, arthur, greg,<br /> tiny men who eat from their mother’s cancer.<br /> tighten a monkey claw around their hours<br /> vote them out, vote us in. <br /><br /> girls grab your bags<br /> they’re shooting witches at the fair<br /> they’re drowning angels in the alley<br /> they’re digging ditches for spinsters, <br /> hipsters, and pantsuit well-wishers,<br /> they’re parading in Union Squire <br /> selling choir girl souvenirs <br /> as the devil stands nearby,<br /> reciting scripture. <br /><br /> girls get your rifles<br /> bring your bulletproof bibles <br /> no, I’m not advocating violence –<br /> but Pulaski is a 3-hour drive <br /> and if the stone men stop us <br /> we gotta be ready for a fight<br /><br /> girls find your tribe<br /> join your tribes <br /> get your troops on the ground<br /> find sunny in ohio <br /> banging on the pulpit <br /> “Black women can’t die fast enough!<br /> They can’t die enough<br /> They can’t die enough. <br /> They can’t die fast enough for them.”<br /> God save us from godly men. <br /><br /> we got Georgia on our minds and in our vagines—<br /> be not proud, you malignant tumor.<br /> sherman torched your dark heart<br /> and left you for dead two centuries past,<br /> but you never honored his wishes.<br /> so typical, what a man starts,<br /> a woman has to finish.<br /><br /> girls hitch your wagons<br /> we’re taking the scenic route out <br /> down through the Ocmulgee Mounds<br /> when the dirt protrudes from the earth<br /> like a woman’s desire –<br /> our daughters half-asleep in the passenger seat <br /> but lord, they’re listening<br /> Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge<br /> but our girls, they prefer bone and wire<br /> gems and gold are better used on blades<br /> and revenge is best served with fire.<br /><br /> EP 5-15-19erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-18558491788665390882019-04-23T07:25:00.000-07:002019-09-04T12:16:50.040-07:00The Big Blind Is All There Is <img alt="Image result for sri lanka" class="irc_mi" data-iml="1556029414540" height="423" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/media:b39782e3d0fd49018a943f2f96025d0c/800.jpeg" style="margin-top: 30px;" width="640" /><br />
<br />
shantha missed earth day this year,<br />
buried with her daughter under four feet of rubble.<br />
she taught Westerners how to tame<br />
the flames of curry with a side of mild rice<br />
—until the windows shattered,<br />
until the lobby exploded,<br />
until their tongues were slathered with ashes<br />
and only death could cleanse their palates.<br />
<br />
The men brought cameras.<br />
The reporter dusted her nose with powder.<br />
“Here we go again, in the fourth (fifth?) hate (no, don’t say that!)<br />
-TERRORIST attack this year.”<br />
<br />
Let the finger pointing begin.<br />
Who is responsible?<br />
God, Thowheeth Jama’ath, Trump, in that order.<br />
Throw in Al Quaida for good measure.<br />
Also, the Sri Lankan government.<br />
“They were warned!” cries the New York Times.<br />
“They should have known better.”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the prayer warriors pause from drowning eggs in pastel colors<br />
and gather en masse at their keyboard altars. <br />
Pray for Sri Lanka, pray for New Zealand.<br />
(Prayer does nothing, atheists hiss.<br />
And the pagans are pissed.<br />
“Funny how jesus had his coming-out-of-retirement<br />
party on our special day…”)<br />
<br />
Funny how such a beautiful time of year is capable of such ugly things.<br />
Funny how Man makes it that way.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile in Negombo they’re still recovering bodies.<br />
234, 241, 250…<br />
<br />
Meanwhile over the Lakshadweep Sea off exit 23,<br />
smoke creeps through the loblolly pines and<br />
a man sings beside the charred walls of St. Mary’s,<br />
“Deep river, my home is over Jordan,<br />
Deep river, I want to cross over into campground…”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile on Cameron Road the ghost of Guru Angad serves a plate<br />
of gulab jubun to my son, and Sikh men wrap his head<br />
in holy threads, saying “turbans are an expression of love.”<br />
<br />
Outside my blond child runs wild in fields of burgundy winecups and pink primroses,<br />
his turban unwinding in the wind, the sky above split between sleep and fire.<br />
meanwhile over on a park bench Madre Tierre sits, playing Texas Holdem with a polar bear.<br />
“The big blind is all there is,” she winks.<br />
She doesn’t give a damn about her birthday.<br />
“I got 10 billion species of plants and animals<br />
waiting for Man to get his sh*t together.”<br />
She leans in. The polar bear grins.<br />
“Listen: your dead don’t want resurrection,<br />
and your gods grow weary of you.<br />
you can split your differences down the middle and call it ‘faith'<br />
but only love can cleanse your palates from hate.”<br />
<br />
Erin Passons<br />
April 22, 2019 erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-83321626043385452562019-03-11T15:15:00.002-07:002019-03-13T13:28:19.520-07:00the best man<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tm0Mh1HxqJI/XIbdwuLxguI/AAAAAAAAYoA/sxPSQSv5CGA_2tBvHDKHQB4wPEzE3DEKwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_3498.JPG"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tm0Mh1HxqJI/XIbdwuLxguI/AAAAAAAAYoA/sxPSQSv5CGA_2tBvHDKHQB4wPEzE3DEKwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_3498.JPG" width="425" /></a><br />
<br />
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<br />
republicans don’t want you, lewis.<br />
when’s the last time you voted anyway?<br />
you’ve been 21 since you were 18.<br />
brian says you’re not human.<br />
he has stories.<br />
we all do.<br />
<br />
last year a bomb blew up in your neighborhood.<br />
your neighbors called, you were babysitting a dog.<br />
you had no clue a kid would never walk again,<br />
or walk with nails in his shins or walk with singed flesh.<br />
austin was on lockdown, we were worried there was a war ahead.<br />
but you stayed tucked away in your waterbed<br />
singing hail marys to Live Oak cans and texting your friends,<br />
“where’s the party at?”<br />
<br />
the party shrinks every year.<br />
I peaced out a long time ago, another casualty of monogamy,<br />
one of many. you should be used to it.<br />
how many times have you played the best man to a rat abandoning ship?<br />
how many fly miles have you racked up travelling cross-country to serve last rites<br />
to a lad about to be had by the cringing ring of a wedding bell?<br />
<br />
I remember the Park City wedding,<br />
when you found the groom pacing the church basement <br />
on the morning the service was scheduled to commence,<br />
cummerbund undone and fear-faced with a case of severe premarital jitters.<br />
you said, “let’s think about this before you make any rash decisions”<br />
and spent hours talking him off the ledge.<br />
the ceremony carried on as planned.<br />
it’s one of your proudest moments.<br />
doesn’t matter they divorced a year later.<br />
you were there to save the wedding; to hell with the marriage.<br />
<br />
hollee says it makes sense, what you did,<br />
“of course, lewis wanted the wedding to go on,<br />
he was probably appalled at the thought of all<br />
that alcohol being wasted.”<br />
<br />
but, see, I think of you differently.<br />
cause I still remember those summer nights post-divorce<br />
hanging out at Fado’s by your invitation—you, me, Hollee,<br />
the rest of your congregation, laughing and draining glasses<br />
of lager and bumming cigarettes off strangers.<br />
I remember it all<br />
— the patio and the thick, soupy air and the stench<br />
of parched plants panhandling to an impassive, swollen<br />
moon—like an old man crooning to the illusion of water.<br />
it was a beautiful slaughter, all those sweaty bodies squashed in,<br />
dancing rhythmless to a U2 cover band, fist-pumping silhouettes<br />
on shamrocks and stiletto heels getting killed by the sticky spilt beer of an after party.<br />
you flicked ashes off my dress and asked me to dance.<br />
I laughed and swatted at your hand.<br />
“come on, erin, even liberals gotta have fun” you sung<br />
whenever I got homesick for my kids.<br />
<br />
back then, I would have traded the fun<br />
to be in love again, or be in love with the life I’m in –<br />
but I was wrong, and I want you to know how sorry I am,<br />
and how very thankful.<br />
<br />
hollee told me a story about you the other day.<br />
(republicans don’t want her either, by the way)<br />
she said the night Fado’s closed for good,<br />
you took Justin’s plaque from its place above the bar stool—<i>his </i>bar stool, <br />
the one he sat in for years, <br />
sharing drink specials with you,<br />
hitting on girls with you, trading barbs with you,<br />
always the faithful companion<br />
until ALS stole his laugh and closed his bar tab forever.<br />
after his funeral you nailed the memorial plaque above his stool<br />
“THIS IS WHERE JUSTIN SAT” <br />
but Fado’s was closing,<br />
and you weren’t about to let your friend’s memory go down <br />
with the sinking ship. you took the plaque and carried him back<br />
to a time when he could walk again— <br />
and I sorta, kinda love you for this.<br />
<br />
republicans can’t have you, lewis.<br />
barbarella isn’t the beast you think. <br />
we’ll talk about politics again when it's safe.<br />
or we won't talk about politics at all.<br />
besides, brian says you’re not human.<br />
he has stories.<br />
we all do<br />
and we love you for them. erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-51877345892498418302019-03-07T10:34:00.001-08:002019-03-07T10:36:07.092-08:00luke perry<div class="MsoNormal">
<img alt="Image result for luke perry 90210" height="426" src="https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/luke-perry-obit.jpg?crop=900:600&width=440" width="640" /></div>
<br />
when I was eleven I hammered Luke Perry to my wall<br />
and drew his name with hearts on my social studies textbook.<br />
I shared a bus with boys who shot spitballs in my hair<br />
and asked, “Why are you so pale?” as if I had an answer.<br />
I watched the pretty girls take quizzes in Seventeen magazine<br />
to find out if they were a Brenda or a Kelly.<br />
I never took the quiz because I already knew I was an Andrea,<br />
a friendless wallflower who kept her light dim<br />
so other girls could shine brighter.<br />
<br />
when I was twelve I replaced Luke Perry with a Young Guns poster.<br />
the following July I woke up in bloody sheets and<br />
Emilio Estevez pointing a gun at my kitten.<br />
I rode the bus with boys who yanked at my hair<br />
and said, “you would be pretty if you weren’t so pale”<br />
(as if I had a choice in the matter).<br />
I watched other girls closely and wondered which ones had also woken up<br />
to the sight of blood and the shock of a new beginning.<br />
<br />
When I was fourteen I replaced the Young Guns<br />
with a poster of elephants.<br />
I scrawled “Save the Rainforest” in my English notebook and<br />
shared a bus with boys who said I was weird.<br />
when I asked why, they said “you just are.”<br />
I met girls who said “that’s ok, we’re weird too”<br />
And we went about saving the planet together.<br />
<br />
When I was seventeen I replaced the elephants with Eddie Vedder.<br />
I wrote Nirvana lyrics in my journal<br />
and burned incense in my room<br />
to disguise the smell of cigarettes.<br />
I shared a bus with a boy who shot himself<br />
while his parents were at Easter service.<br />
It rained at his funeral, and my friends and I began to dance,<br />
because we were too healthy and young<br />
to already know death,<br />
and maybe the world would seem less dark<br />
if we shined all our lights together.<br />
<br />
when I was forty I read that Luke Perry was dead<br />
and for hours I felt nothing.<br />
Then I remembered being eleven and<br />
defacing the map of the world with the name<br />
of a star I had never met,<br />
and how less rocky the landscape of adolescence had felt<br />
with his star beside my bed,<br />
watching over,<br />
one light whispering to another,<br />
“shine on.”erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-12859571495277017812019-02-08T05:13:00.001-08:002019-02-08T05:13:10.611-08:00Bad at Math<img alt="Woman Sitting Near Wall" class="image-section__image js-photo-zoom" data-pin-media="https://images.pexels.com/photos/278303/pexels-photo-278303.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&fit=crop&h=1200&w=800" data-zoom-src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/278303/pexels-photo-278303.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=3&h=750&w=1260" height="424" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/278303/pexels-photo-278303.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=650&w=940" width="640" /><br />
<br /><br />I woke up from a nightmare that I was back in 5th grade taking a math test. <br /><br /> The reason this is significant is because my 5th grade teacher, Ms. Griffin, divided up the class in terms of how well we did at math. Group 1 rocked it, Group 2 needed additional help. It was humiliating after every math test, she made a list of kids who underperformed, and when she called out their names, they’d have to drag their desk over to Group 2, the metal legs screeching loudly on the way to Loserville. <br /><br /> I never left Group 2 until Ms. Griffin decided to put me in my own special group, Group 3. She pleaded weekly with the counselor, “put Erin in the dumb-dumb classes. She doesn’t belong here.” But they couldn’t bc I tested “gifted” and thus expected to attend all advanced classes. Thus Ms. Griffin was stuck with the sole occupant of Group 3 and I was stuck sitting isolated in the front of the classroom as if my close proximity to the chalkboard would somehow make up for my shitty math genes. It never occurred to Ms. Griffin that I was worth more than a test score.<br />
<br /> Anyway whenever I’m about to embark on something in my life that I’ve never done before, or is outside my wheelhouse, I have dreams about taking a math test in fifth grade. I suppose it’s a scar that’s never gone away. <br /><br /> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/groupthree4lyfe?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG">#GroupThree4Lyfe</a>erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-4571143660970547082019-01-15T08:06:00.001-08:002019-09-04T12:18:30.013-07:007 Years and 5 Audrey Hepburns<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-89WOWdYHlPc/XD4C8RIERxI/AAAAAAAAYbw/T1zjTi9jfHAUIjUlCu6lQcR3mq3ZnzyxwCLcBGAs/s1600/Capture.PNG"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-89WOWdYHlPc/XD4C8RIERxI/AAAAAAAAYbw/T1zjTi9jfHAUIjUlCu6lQcR3mq3ZnzyxwCLcBGAs/s640/Capture.PNG" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Hollee brought five Audrey Hepburns back from North Carolina. <br />
<br />
On our first afternoon together in 7 years <br />
I nailed the Audreys to her bedroom wall while <br />
she smoked in the corner and told me how <br />
she drove with her son and a chihuahua from Raleigh to Austin in one day, <br />
and how America looked like a ghost town on Christmas Eve, <br />
with six lanes of empty highway riding in from the sea to Atlanta. <br />
<br />
I cross the Sea of Gibraltar to her kitchen, knowing <br />
when I open the refrigerator, I’ll find her Diet Coke cans <br />
lined up like soldiers along the door like they were 7 years before—<br />
because there are friendships where you can wade out for miles but <br />
remain waist-deep in shallow water, <br />
then there are friendships where you jump in half an inch <br />
and suddenly you’re drowning. <br />
<br />
Last time we were together, I flew up to Cape Fear and <br />
we drove down to Myrtle Beach and spent 2 days in the sand sucking <br />
in our stomachs and drinking plastic cups of <br />
orange juice and vodka from the cooler. <br />
<br />
I remember how I fell in the ocean and didn’t stand up, <br />
just laid there laughing in a bed of salt water, until the lifeguard appeared <br />
and said, “ma’am you should get back on the beach until you’re sober” <br />
and I said, “sir, I would prefer if you not call me ma’am.” <br />
And how, at the pier, the bland twenty-something-year-old boys <br />
bought us beer, and when we refused to share our hotel details, <br />
they said, “You should feel lucky that young bucks like us <br />
pay you old hags any attention.” <br />
<br />
And how we laughed and Irish goodbyed them, <br />
and walked a mile back to our hotel barefoot <br />
holding our stilettos, and how we passed out on the beach <br />
when Hollee couldn’t find the key and woke up the next morning <br />
with sand stuck to our crow’s feet and sun tangled in our hair, <br />
and how I laughed and said this is a very Erin-Hollee thing to do, <br />
to book a hotel room but wake up next to the Atlantic Ocean. <br />
And how Hollee laughed before scrambling to the nearest <br />
vending machine to wash away the taste of sea with her trusty bottle <br />
of sugar-free caffeine and a lit Newport cigarette. <br />
<br />
7 years and five Audrey Hepburns later, <br />
I told Hollee next time she drives through Atlanta and it’s <br />
not Christmas Eve, to stop by the coke museum, they serve <br />
diet cokes for free with the price of admission. <br />
“Maybe we can go together,” she suggests. <br />
“Maybe,” I agree—because we’re not spring chickens, <br />
but it didn’t matter. we were two old hens who had found each other, <br />
and true friendships are rare and won’t drown you <br />
if you know how to swim—meanwhile, anywhere in America, you can <br />
always find six lanes of empty-headed fellas ready to buy a pretty lady a beer. <br />
<br />
<br />
-EP, 1-15-2019erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-78237869767306982382019-01-09T13:19:00.002-08:002019-01-12T05:39:00.728-08:00This is Prague<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yPIr1-a0lIc/XDZmENRSx-I/AAAAAAAAYa0/FBECOnprZN0uM4Ixd1WCbpQPrC2tg_xRgCLcBGAs/s1600/bazilika-20150923-141311.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yPIr1-a0lIc/XDZmENRSx-I/AAAAAAAAYa0/FBECOnprZN0uM4Ixd1WCbpQPrC2tg_xRgCLcBGAs/s640/bazilika-20150923-141311.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I should have known Prague wouldn’t be my kind of scene when the Trader Joe’s checkout girl —a punk rock millennial wearing the nametag “Star”—announced it was her favorite place on earth. <br />
<br />
“A real party town!” Star exclaimed. “Makes Austin look like Lubbock. You’re gonna love it.” <br />
<br />
Star began listing the best bars in Prague, ignoring the economy-sized bottle of pre-menopausal multivitamins in my cart that suggested I was not in the partying phase of my life. <br />
<br />
“There’s the Hemingway, Black Angel’s, Tretter’s—oh! They serve dollar shots on Tuesdays. You should totally go.” <br />
<br />
“Ha!” I heard my fourteen-year-old daughter laugh behind me. “Only if they serve shots of Metamucil.” <br />
<br />
I ignored her and asked Star, “What about the crowds?” <br />
<br />
Star laughed. “Oh yeah, it’s crowded.” <br />
<br />
“Like how crowded? Like 6th Street on a Saturday night crowded, or like a Gay Pride Parade and 6th Street on a Saturday night crowded?” <br />
<br />
“Uhm…like a Gay Pride Parade and a UT football game just let out and 6th Street on a Saturday night crowded.” <br />
<br />
Shit. I bit my lip. <br />
<br />
“It’s a great chance to meet new people,” Star added encouragingly. <br />
<br />
Behind me, my daughter snickered. “Obviously, you don’t know my mother.” <br />
<br />
# <br />
<br />
Deafening bass pumps through the speakers, rattling the windows on the Uber ride from the Prague airport to our hotel. I press my palms to my ears and share a pained glance with Doug. This wasn’t the first time our Uber lift turned out to be a mobilized nightclub from hell. Either our Uber driver was the same guy who drove us around in Berlin, or European house-techno cranked at full volume was an EU mandate for Uber rides. <br />
<br />
I look out the rattling window to the scenery flying past. It’s nine at night and Prague is shrouded in darkness, illuminated intermittently with Christmas lights tangled in trees and the soft glow from windows of cafes and restaurants. The Uber driver stops at a light, and I spot a huge Australian flag hanging low from the balcony of what looks like a frat house but was probably a Great Moravian palace presently serving as a youth hostel. <br />
<br />
Doug waves a hand in front of me, redirecting my attention. “Prague is cheaper than the other places that we’re visiting, so I got us a nicer hotel. More bang for our buck,” he screams over an auto-tuned voice repeating, sit on my face, girl, sit on my face. <br />
<br />
“Is it a boutique hotel?” I scream back. <br />
<br />
Doug shakes his head. “Nah, it’s a chain. Fancy schmancy, but in an old school kind of way; not ‘trendy’—so to speak.” <br />
<br />
Doug wasn’t lying. The lobby of the Alcron Hotel sparkled with excessive flair that seemed both elegant and classless, like something Donald Trump might conjure up under heavy sedation. Screens of brushed gold partially obscure its lobby; its floor a perfect grid of smooth, white tiles. Dark marble columns dissect the space, and to the side, tall vases of oversized flower arrangements mark the entrance to the hotel’s Michelin star restaurant. Up six levels, our spacious room greets us with mirrored walls, a king-sized bed draped in gold linen and matching gold tassels hanging low over polished oak tables. <br />
<br />
The Alcron Hotel may not have been the hippest hotel in town, but what it lacked in trendiness, it made up for in garish luxury. <br />
<br />
Still, being here, in the presence of such extravagance—garish or not—unnerves me. “I feel like an imposter,” I tell Doug. Our house back in South Austin was filled with my parents’ hand-me-down furniture and knick-knacks from charity shops and garage sales. I bought the generic brand of everything. I lied about my kids’ ages to get the “12 and Under” discount at Supercuts. We were decidedly middle-class; even with Doug’s fly miles spent, it would take us years to pay off this trip. We didn’t belong in a place like this. <br />
<br />
“Erin, just relax and enjoy it,” Doug advises. “We don’t have to scrimp and save on everything.” <br />
<br />
Yeah, just wait until we file our 2018 taxes, I want to say, but think better of it. Instead, I take his advice and relax. I’m unpacking when I realize I’m already out of clean underwear and we’re not even halfway through our trip yet. I spend the next thirty minutes washing my undies with warm water and hotel soap in the bathroom sink. By the time I exit the bathroom (Operation Clean Underwear complete), Doug is already softy snoring on top of the gold bedspread. <br />
<br />
# <br />
<br />
As it turns out, the Trump Hotel: Prague Edition is in a great location—just around the corner from Wenceslas Square and the National Museum—and in the morning, after a long, much-needed sleep, it becomes our first destination. <br />
<br />
The late morning sun reveals Prague’s charm: rows of 19th century buildings nestled together, their pewter facades and Rococo plasterwork capped off with deerstalker roofs painted rustic red and Baroque flourishes along the trim. For the first minutes of our walk, Doug and I enjoy this grimy, faery tale city virtually alone. <br />
<br />
Then we turn into Wenceslas Square and are instantly ejected back into a crowded, claustrophobic reality. <br />
<br />
Bundled hordes of humanity walk to and fro, circling us in every direction, waves upon waves of them, like fish in a whirlpool with no exit. In surround sound, I hear the shrill voices of Americans (“Daaayvid, did we leave the passports in the hotel? Do we need to tayyke them with us? Daaayvid?”) and fast-talking eastern Europeans. Burly, chapped-face Russians elbow past in a cloud of cigarette smoke, a gaggle of Japanese teenagers following behind them, staring at their phones as they walk in somehow perfect synchronization. <br />
<br />
Doug and I don’t need to share our dismay; I feel his and he feels mine. We decide that if we’re going to enjoy Prague, we’ll need help, and we make a beeline to a famous, historic Czech institution across the street. <br />
<br />
Okay, maybe Starbucks isn’t Czech or historic, but it is certainly famous, and our bodies crave the caffeine. We also know that America’s favorite drug pusher accepts credit cards—a fact that no American travelling abroad should take for granted. <br />
<br />
We order the usual—a caramel macchiato for him, a soy matcha green latte for me. I sprinkle vanilla in my cup because the matcha served at European Starbucks contains zero sweetness, and I wasn’t about to adjust my dependency on sugar, even temporarily. <br />
<br />
Speaking of sugar, we’re waiting for our order when I glance at the display of food options—a big mistake. My mouth waters at the assortment of delectable pastries staring back at me. Lemon squares, red velvet muffins, and chocolate cannolis—a hell of an improvement from the stale bran muffins and soggy egg sandwiches offered back home. It takes every fiber of my being to remember the trouble I had buttoning my pants this morning (like trying to fit a steak into a hot dog bun), and not take the bait. <br />
<br />
Doug and I look for a seat—an impossible mission until we discover the café’s second floor, where we fine a table warm and snug against a corner with a window overlooking the square. We get settled just in time to listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” for the 838th time in four days. <br />
<br />
Five shitty Christmas songs later, the caffeinated versions of Doug and I exit the Starbucks and follow the scent of baked pies and roasting meats to the Christmas market at the square’s center. We join the throng of shoppers lined up among the market’s red tents and begin perusing the inventory. <br />
<br />
It doesn’t take long to realize that we’re not in Germany or Denmark anymore. The booths are not craft-specific, not aiming to scratch a single cultural or culinary itch. Instead, each booth offers a miscellany of touristy kitsch identical to the booth before it: snow globes and magnets that bear Prague’s name in its native spelling; “Praha”; chocolate bars wrapped in pictures of vintage cars; hats and t-shirts with glitterized images of Prague’s most famous landmarks. It may be pretty, but there’s no craftmanship in the threads, no originality in the machine, no sense I’m taking a piece of Prague back home with me. <br />
<br />
In the end, I buy chocolates for my son and a magnet for my mom—both of whom were turning out to be the easiest family members to shop for. Sidenote: the hardest? My stepfather, John. A chain-smoking, soccer-loving, working-class Brit, who, let’s just say, is “unappreciative” of anything and anyone that isn’t English. Over the course of this trip, whenever I’d determine an item looked John-ish (Zippos, beer koozies, ashtrays), I would immediately hear him in my head, objecting in his thick, barely discernable Midlands accent. An ashtray in Berlin—“Bloody Germans!” A cigarette lighter in Copenhagen—“Bloody Danes!” A beer mug in Prague—“Bloody Eastern Europeans!” I wasn’t even about to entertain the idea of buying him a gift in France, a country that—for reasons beknows only to him—received the lion’s share of his contempt (“Bloody Frogs!”). <br />
<br />
Doug consults Google Maps for directions to the Old Town Square. His arm juts out, finger pointing past me. “That way,” he says. “Not too far. It won’t take us long.” <br />
<br />
But it does take long, because walking to Old Town from Wenceslas Square means squeezing past one gazillion groups of guided walking tours, bundles of oblivious college students taking selfies, large families with straggling children, overly affectionate couples stubbornly holding hands (unwilling to break apart, at the inconvenience of other pedestrians), displaced Yankee fans, the Russian mafia, the entire 10th grade class of some high school in Missouri, and a drunk guy dressed in an oversized polar bear costume. <br />
<br />
The crowds thicken the closer we get, bottlenecking at the Old Town entrance before spilling out into its large, medieval square. To the right, we see the gothic Our Lady before Tyn Church, with its eighty-seven-yards-high towers capped by four spires poking the cerulean sky. Beside it, the St. Nicholas Church, its creamy front façade accentuated with the blackened statues of medieval heroes. <br />
<br />
And in front of us? The famous Astronomical Clock, a favorite hot spot of the Prague tourist scene since its debut in the 15th century. <br />
<br />
It’s here where foot traffic comes to a screeching halt. Legs freeze, bicycles brake, baby carriages lock. Phones are extracted from purses and pockets, cameras are raised to the eye, and a flood of recording devices begin snapping away at a nearby distance, where a spouse or a family or a combination of friends pose, grinning or not grinning under the clock’s massive, adorned eye. <br />
<br />
It’s circumventing the space between the amateur photographers and their models that proves the most infuriating part of our day so far. Each pairing seems indisposed to haste, as if under the impression that their spot is reserved, and they can take as long as needed to capture the perfect image worthy of Instagram; to hell with everyone else. <br />
<br />
At first, Doug and I indulge this arrogance, pausing midstride whenever a fellow tourist aimed their camera in our path. After a while, however, we realize our good manners might rob us of precious daylight (not to mention sanity), and we soon become the king and queen of photobombs. <br />
<br />
A Christmas Market is set up nearby, and I wander over and inspect it long enough to reassure myself that it’s selling the same cheap crap as the other market. Still, there’s a tent selling gluehwein, and I’m contemplating a mug when Doug takes my hand. “You’ll love this,” he promises, and leads me to a platform near the Jan Hus Memorial. <br />
<br />
At this exalted height, my view of the square becomes a panoramic postcard of medieval beauty, and it’s hard not to be wooed and won over by this city that time has forgotten. Yes, the major tourist attractions are breathtaking—the churches, the museums, that goddamn clock—but also amazing are the little-known constructions and edifices surrounding them: the Renaissance buildings painted yellow, pink, or eggshell blue, framed with sloping Mansard roofs; the Jewish Quarter synagogues with their flying buttresses and solemn, copper copulas; the cafes and businesses with columns and pilasters adorning their entrances. <br />
<br />
I could have come here and seen only the unheralded and still been perfectly content, I realize. Because here’s what European guide books and tour groups fail to understand about Americans—that to us, any building designed without a parking lot, a public bathroom, and an ATM is before our time, thereby rendering it ancient and worthy of our admiration. <br />
<br />
But as I’m standing on the platform fawning over Prague’s beauty, there’s another emotion that seeps in, too—a dark, ugly bitterness. It’s unexpected, but I understand the source. <br />
<br />
Many European cities crumbled under the weight of the second world war; capitals of once great empires reduced to mausoleums of death; their landmarks and places of worship—Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, the Brühl Palace in Warsaw, the Golden Rose Synagogue in Lviv, to name a few—burned to ashes or blasted to rubble, ravaged by the insatiable thirst of an invading enemy. <br />
<br />
And yet, Prague endured. Why? <br />
<br />
Because Czechoslovakia, unlike Poland or the Soviet Union, never felt the one-two punch of a Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe attack. A German Junker never nosedived through Czech clouds, delivering parcels of death. Prague’s cobblestone streets never rumbled under the weight of a Panzer armada bulldozing past, firing shells into hallways of the holy or offices of the governing, demanding an entire city to surrender or else. No. They hadn’t needed to. Czechoslovakia had let the Nazis in through the front door. The Czechs never put up a fight. <br />
<br />
And this was their reward for their gutlessness—the most beautiful medieval city in Europe. <br />
<br />
I can hear my father, ever the history professor, silently admonish me. <br />
<br />
“That’s not fair…they were trying to be diplomatic…they didn’t want bloodshed…the Munich Pact was Chamberlain’s folly…and Prague was bombed in the end, by American forces. The Emmaus Monastery, Faust House—you don’t see those still standing, do you?” <br />
<br />
My dad’s conjured-up ghost voice has a point, but the resentment still remains, and it stays with on our way to Prague’s most famous bridge. <br />
<br />
The Charles Bridge straddles the Vltava River, linking the Lesser Town and the Old Town. According to my Google search this morning, the magnificent stone edifice was completed in 1390 and named after Charles IV. <br />
<br />
But it’s more than a pretty face. The bridge has played a crucial role in Prague's history—first in 1648, at the end of the Thirty Years' War, when the invading Swedes were halted here, then in 1744, when the Prussians met their defeat along its Bohemian sandstone surface. <br />
<br />
Today, however, the bridge acts not as an obstruction, but a key destination for a different sort of invader. The later morning hour as brought the tourists here en masse. It’s like the scene from the Astronomical Clock, but ten times worse, and in a much more confined space. <br />
<br />
Doug and I push our way through the crowd, pausing momentarily at the statue of St. John of Nepomuk. Now, I don’t know a thing about this St. John guy, but according to my aforementioned Google search, it’s customary for tourists to place a hand on him and make a wish. I tell Doug this, and we take turns making wishes. <br />
<br />
As we’re leaving, I ask Doug, “What did you wish for?” <br />
<br />
“World peace. What about you?” <br />
<br />
I had wished everyone on the bridge would fall off and disappear into the river. “Same thing,” I say. <br />
<br />
I come to a halt when my path is suddenly obstructed by a girl colliding into me from the other direction. This scenario has become a common one on the trip—that is, me walking a straight path and intercepting someone walking the same path but in the opposite direction. The embarrassing seconds that follow include me and the other person performing a kind of macabre dance as we attempt to untangle and get the hell out of each other’s way. <br />
<br />
I decided last night while I was washing my undies (hand-washing your undies gives you a lot of time to think, fyi) that the next time this happened, I was just going to stand there and let the other person move first—which is what I’m doing now. <br />
<br />
But this girl must have also had the same idea, because she doesn’t move either. <br />
<br />
So here we, on the famous Charles Bridge, in the dumbest standoff ever, looking like assholes, like the North-going Zax and the South-going Zax, because neither one of us is willing to budge. <br />
<br />
I’m going over my war cry in my head (Listen, bitch, you’re not going to win. I spent waaay too much time last night cleaning underwear and coming up with this line of defense) when the girl finally yields with a loud huff and moves to my side, accidentally-on-purpose nudging my ribcage as she passes. “Americans!” I hear her complain loudly to a friend who had walked on without her. <br />
<br />
I flinch and reach my hand to my lips. How did she know I was American? Was I smiling too much? I glance at Doug. <br />
<br />
“Shake it off,” he advices. He motions with a wave to keep moving. <br />
<br />
We cross the bridge without further incident and make our way to the Church of the Infant Jesus of Prague, which for some reason sounds creepy to me, like there’s a withered-face baby in priest robes standing at the alter passing out bread wafers and milk bottles. But my mom, when hearing Prague was on the itinerary, insisted we go. As she tells it, when she was a child, four-hundred years ago, she lived with a group of mean nuns, and she kept an infant Jesus amulet under her pillow for protection against their fury. Because the amulet was on its last leg these days, my mom requested that I bring her back something similar. <br />
<br />
By the time we reach the creepy baby infant church, the sky is already darkening, the three hours of winter daylight in Europe already dimming to a hazy glow. The clouds dip lower and the sky drains of birds. Doug and I enter the church and gaze at the white walls and archways long enough to say we’ve been here, we’ve seen it. Yeah, the sentiment is a tad discourteous, but such is the problem with seeing too much beauty at once; the enjoyment wanes, the appreciation reaches a tipping point. I know when I return to America and live once again among the depressing strip malls and dollar stores and Starbucks with sad breakfasts, that I will look back and wish I had studied every pane of stained glass, every Baroque molding—but at this moment, all I want is to relax in our big hotel bathtub with its fluffy gold towels and cheap body soap disguised in silver containers and celebrate my petty victory at Charles Bridge. <br />
<br />
# <br />
<br />
Doug and I are lounging in bed and checking our social media after a lovely dinner at a tapas restaurant when a thought occurs to me. “You know what Prague is missing?” I ask Doug. “Kate.” <br />
<br />
Doug raises a brow. “You want Kate to join us? Just her? Won’t her husband think that’s kind of weird?” <br />
<br />
I shake my head. “I don’t mean Kate literally; I mean like a Kate. A Prague Kate. Someone to show us around the city, give us the insider scoop. We’re seeing all these beautiful buildings and statues, but we barely know what they are.” <br />
<br />
“Aw,” Doug says, catching on. “We could sign up for a walking tour.” <br />
<br />
I scrunch up my nose. “Isn’t that what old people do?” <br />
<br />
Doug shrugs. “We’re old.” <br />
<br />
I think about the Star’s idea of the perfect Prague vacation (stay out late, get shitfaced) and how appalling it sounded to me, and decide Doug is probably right. <br />
<br />
I open TripAdvisor and book a three-hour tour, which includes a visit to Prague Castle, a one-hour cruise, and a walk through Old Town. <br />
<br />
# <br />
<br />
We’re supposed to meet with our tour at eight o’clock outside the Estates Theatre, which is a ten-minute walk away, so naturally Doug makes us leave at six-thirty. “Just to be safe,” he says. <br />
<br />
“Safe from what? Sleeping an extra hour?” I ask. He ignores me. <br />
<br />
It’s still dark but already the throng of humanity is leaking out into the streets from hotels and coffee shops, slender European silhouettes and plumper shapes from other places moving in slow motion under a waning moon. Doug and I find the meeting spot easily, but the kiosk is still closed, its shades drawn, and the bus is absent from its designated location. We wait on a nearby bench, huddled together with cups of caffeine, and watch the slow, rising sun dilute the darkness with brushstrokes of red and copper until the sky is peach cream swirled with raspberry sorbet. <br />
<br />
The city grows louder, the streets fill with more tourists. Our bus rolls up and brakes with a loud screech across from the kiosk. Doug and I can see from the heads poking above the seats that the bus is already full. We exchange a confused glance before boarding the bus and shuffling to the only unoccupied seats in the back. <br />
<br />
Doug turns an accusing eye at me. “Where did everyone come from?” he asks. “How is the bus already full?” <br />
<br />
I scroll through the confirmation email and find the answer. Sheesh. I show it to him and he rolls his eyes. It seems Doug’s early bird special picked a rotten worm; he hadn’t counted on my aversion to reading the fine print, which in this case stated that the company offers free hotel pick-up—a courtesy that everyone but yours truly had read and accepted. <br />
<br />
“At least we saw the sunrise,” I say, flashing him a sheepish grin. <br />
<br />
“Mmm-hmm,” Doug replies, turning to the window. <br />
<br />
A meaty man dressed in a black coat and an Elmer Fudd hat steps onboard the bus. “Hello, I am Vladmir,” he says, “I vill be your guide.” He says something more, but it’s indecipherable, and I know right off the bat that this won’t be a one-off thing—that the majority of the next three hours will be spent decoding our tour guide. Not only is Vlad’s accent thick— not something I can blame him for, obviously—but he’s also a mumbler who can’t project his voice farther than two inches in front of him. <br />
<br />
The driver presses hard on the accelerator and the bus lurches forward before stopping a second later at a traffic light. Vlad points to a string of what looks like important historical shit on our right. “This is the w...vich…ing,” he explains. “It…oh-four by…Czech…ic.” <br />
<br />
The light changes and the bus turns sharply, nearly killing three pedestrians. Vlad points to another beautiful building. “Over here is the…useam. It vas built…oh-nine vin king…” <br />
<br />
I rest my head on Doug’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. <br />
<br />
“It’s ok, baby boo,” Doug reassures me. “At least he’s not playing German techno.” I smile inside his coat. He doesn’t seem annoyed anymore about me screwing up the hotel pickup, which I’m thankful for. It’s going to be a silver linings kind of day, I can feel it. <br />
<br />
It’s another ten minutes of Vlad’s indecipherable narration and our driver’s various brushes with vehicular manslaughter before the bus breaks outside the gates of Prague Castle. The bus door slides open and people slowly begin filing out. <br />
<br />
Outside, I take inventory of my fellow tourists for the first time. As expected, the majority are elderly couples, white haired and well-insulated in thick wool coats and scarves wrapped tight and crawling up their chins, their smart sneakers squeaking along the cobblestone as they try to keep up with Vlad the Bad. <br />
<br />
But there are families, too—moms and dads around my age walking briskly side-by-side, preoccupied in private conversation, pausing at regular intervals to look for the bored, scowling faces of their teenage children staggering behind them like reluctant zombies. <br />
<br />
Age and unappreciative teens aside, it’s a diverse group. No nationality dominated; no specific race. We are Indian, Chinese, American, Australian, Sri Lankan, Brazilian, Viennese. We are the United Nations, but with selfie sticks and fanny bags; an international collection of dorks who had traded a potentially rewarding, independent exploration of Plague in favor of cushioned seats and manufactured heating. <br />
<br />
We reach security check just inside the castle gate. Vlad says something I can’t understand, then motions to us and points to the different lines, which I take to mean he wants us to split up. <br />
<br />
Our group disperses into different lines, except for an elderly woman and her pot-bellied, weary-eyed husband. “What? What is happening? What are we doing? I can’t hear a thing,” she complains in a shrill, nasally voice that can only mean she lives on the east coast—Massachusetts or New York, if I had to guess. <br />
<br />
“We’re at a security checkpoint,” I offer. “They’re searching our bags and pockets. Just like at an airport.” <br />
<br />
Old Lady East Coast acknowledges my helpfulness with rolling her eyes. She adjusts her coat and struts to the shortest line. Her husband shares with me a pained expression that says, “shoot me now” before following her lead. <br />
<br />
After a thorough search by security, we enter a courtyard where Vlad waits by a large, elaborate stone fountain. He holds a black umbrella high in the air, a beacon for his lost sheep. Our tour group slowly collects around him. He counts heads. Satisfied, he tells us about the courtyard, none of which we understand. Doug and I are polite, we nod our heads, we fake it, but Old Lady East Coast is not letting him get away so easily. “What?” she screams over our heads. “I can’t hear you.” <br />
<br />
Vlad ignores her and continues, “The cathedral…eighteen-oh-vive…the var…and vas rebuilt. Any questions?” Several people raise their hand. Vlad ignores them too. “Good, let’s valk to the cathedral.” <br />
<br />
By “cathedral” Vlad means the St. Vitus Cathedral, which now stands before us—a colossal, gothic beauty, a medieval goddess of stone with undulating clerestory walls and blind tracery panels of buttresses towering high against the silvery morning sky. <br />
<br />
The entrance line snakes around the corner, but it moves quickly. A guide from a different tour tells her group (in an accent we can understand) to mind their purses and wallets, there are many pickpockets inside. Doug and I heed the warning. I reorder my purse under my coat and button up; Doug switches his wallet from his back to front pocket. <br />
<br />
We’re near the entrance when I brag to Doug, “I know a little about this cathedral from my tour books.” (and thank God for that, because Vlad is useless) “For instance, they started building it in 10th century, but it wasn’t completed until the 20th century.” <br />
<br />
“Wow. That’s a long time. Who was in charge of building it? Your kids?” Doug asks. <br />
<br />
“Not likely, since it was eventually finished,” I reply (with teenagers, a good sense of humor becomes a tool of survival). <br />
<br />
The cathedral’s interior doesn’t disappoint; even seeing it amid the droves of people and in partial darkness doesn’t take away from witnessing its beauty firsthand. Vlad only gives us five minutes to look around (tight schedules—one of the cruelest cons of group tours), but I use my three-hundred seconds wisely, soaking in every stained-glass window, soaring high ceiling, and royal tomb that I can. <br />
<br />
I hear Old Lady East Coast’s voice behind me, “I don’t know where I’m walking! Why is this cathedral so dark?” <br />
<br />
I’m about to answer, because it’s easier to get away with murder, when I hear her husband reply, “To set the mood, honey.” He sounds exhausted. <br />
<br />
“It’s a safety hazard if you ask me,” she sniffs. <br />
<br />
When they walk away, I lean over to Doug and whisper, “If I’m like her at that age, please take me out to a pasture and shoot me.” <br />
<br />
“Oh, I already decided that, baby boo,” Doug replies. “No need to ask.” <br />
<br />
We leave the cathedral and make our way to Golden Lane, which, according to old legend and Wikipedia, was the home for alchemists who served emperor Rudolph II. <br />
<br />
On the way, Vlad points to the Czech flag hanging over the castle. “Vin the flag is hung high…zee Czech prime minister is zee country,” he explains. <br />
<br />
I mutter to Doug, “And when the McDonalds is open 24-hours in America, it means Donald Trump is in the country.” <br />
<br />
Doug side eyes me. “Please don’t be controversial. There are other Americans here—some who may not be allies.” He nods toward Old Lady East Coast, who is currently using her husband as a support post so she can retie her shoes. “And by the way,” Doug adds, “I don’t want to hear his name again while we’re here. I don’t want to even think about American politics while we’re on this trip.” <br />
<br />
“That’s white privilege,” I point out. <br />
<br />
“Yeah, well, post it on Facebook. I’m sure your friends will have a field day,” he snaps. “I’ll get my face plastered on some faux-outrage exploitive FB page like Now This or Occupy Democrats with the tagline, ‘Texas lawyer visiting Prague Castle doesn’t want to talk about American politics! This is what white privilege looks like!’” <br />
<br />
“Probably,” I admit. <br />
<br />
“Ugh,” Doug groans, and we move on. <br />
<br />
Golden Lane is a small, picturesque street with tiny, charming houses that now serve as museums and shops. I spot a lady serving gluehwein. I hand her my last Czech koruna and gulp down the hot red wine with the kind of enthusiasm that would make Starr proud. <br />
<br />
Nearby Vlad is telling the group about the street. “Zee…gold…zientists, scholars…Franz Kafka…” <br />
<br />
“What?” Old Lady East Coast cries out. “I can’t hear a word he’s saying.” <br />
<br />
“He said, this is the street where Cersei Lannister threatens Little Finger in Season 2,” I reply, no longer feeling helpful. <br />
<br />
Old Lady East Coast furrows her brow. “What?” <br />
<br />
I’m saved from further explanation by Vlad, who pokes his umbrella in the air and tells us to follow him back to the bus. “Ve go on cruise now,” he explains. <br />
<br />
Doug and I load into the bus first, startling our bus driver, who had been sleeping peacefully with his head on the steering wheel, probably dreaming of mowing people over. <br />
<br />
The ride to the dock is short, and because Doug and I are seated up front, we’re the first ones to disembark from the bus and the first in line to board the ship. <br />
<br />
We don’t board immediately. We’re waiting on stragglers. Meanwhile, angry winds coming off the Vltava stir the breeze around the shore into a winding, violent frenzy that pushes back into the river—and the river, in turn, answers with bursting, impetuous waves that rise and break on the banks around us. The cold and the smell of cold curdles the air, stabs us in vulnerable places. Doug and I nestle closer together, our teeth chattering. When the crew finally allows us to board, I can no longer feel my nose. <br />
<br />
I begin walking up the steps to the top deck. <br />
<br />
“Erin, are you nuts?” I hear Doug behind me. “Why are you going up? They’re serving food and drinks downstairs.” <br />
<br />
I turn around. “They only accept cash, and we don’t have any,” I remind him (I fail to mention that I spent the last of it on gluehwein). “Please, Doug?” I beg. “I really want to get away from the others.” <br />
<br />
“But it will be cold and wet.” <br />
<br />
“It’s been too cold and wet for some time,” I say, exasperated. I point to my face. “Look at my nose! I look like Rudolph the fucking Reindeer. So what? Come on, we’ll be fine.” <br />
<br />
We’re fine for approximately two minutes before I decide it’s too cold and wet. I don’t even have to see Doug’s smirk that said I told you so; I feel it on my back coming back down the steps. <br />
<br />
We enter the lower deck to discover more bad news. Not only had my error in judgement nearly caused us our fingers and toes from frostbite, but it has also cost us a decent table—or even a bad one. All the tables are full, thus forcing Doug and me to stand in the center of the dining area like two clueless jackasses waiting for a hostess. <br />
<br />
We’re saved by Vlad, who directs us to two chairs at a table occupied by the unhappiest-looking family on earth. <br />
<br />
The mother’s frown deepens when I pull out my chair. The smudge of eye liner above her cheek suggests she’s been crying. “Hi,” I say. She nods before looking down and refolding her hands on the table. I glance over at her teenage kids, a boy and a girl, thinking maybe they’re friendlier, but they’re engrossed with their phones—the son (who is sitting beside me) playing a game that involves sniping unsuspecting pedestrians from a tall building, which awards him with 50 points and a “Good Job” message each time his virtual bullet hits its virtual target. <br />
<br />
Doug tries to bond with the dad. “Cold day, isn’t it?” Doug asks with a forced laugh. “Maybe we’ll get some snow.” The dad acknowledges him with a grunt before looking away at some invisible object of interest above the window. <br />
<br />
We sit like this in awkward silence for what feels like centuries until the boat finally jerks to life and the cruise begins. An automated voice comes over the speakers, using perfect, clipped English to describe each visual marvel as we float by it. Waiters zig-zag around the room with beverages and plates of food for the lucky customers who didn’t spend their last dollar on gluehwein. Savory aromas fill the air—thick potato soups and sizzling salted pork. A waiter stops at our table and sets plates of dumplings and sourdough bread with shaved butter in front of the unhappy family, who seem not the slightest bit less glum to see their food appear. <br />
<br />
I turn back to the window, hoping the scenery will distract my hunger. I hear Doug’s stomach rumble beside me. A wave of guilt washes over me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper against the windowpane. Doug hears me and squeezes my hand reassuringly. His kindness only adds to my guilt. I press my forehead deeper into the glass. <br />
<br />
Prague’s riverfront moves slowly by, its red roofs and spires split evenly on either side of the Vltava’s dark, steady currents. <br />
<br />
Past the Charles Bridge, countless swans waddle at the shore, flapping their massive, white wings, and snapping at pieces of bread being thrown at their heads by the clumsy but well-intentioned hands of children. I’ve never seen so many swans. My eyes stay transfixed on them, drawn to their beauty and grace, and it doesn’t take long to realize these extraordinary, magical-looking creatures are complete dicks—less Swan Lake, more Showtime at the Apollo. They’re snappy, they’re temperamental. They stop eating only long enough to bite each other’s butts and chase each other back into the river. They’re the Canadian geese of Europe. erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-89693397799611031972019-01-02T11:55:00.000-08:002019-01-02T12:24:18.173-08:00Last Day In Berlin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Twenty years ago, I sat in an Adelaide pub with my best friend Merc. We both lived in Melbourne at the time, but she grew up in Adelaide and wanted to show me her hometown while there was still time, i.e. before I moved back to America for good. <br />
<br />
We were knocking back Carlton Colds with an Aussie bloke, who announced midway through our third round, “I have a way of telling Americans apart from the rest of the lot.” He pointed at me and leaned in closer. “It’s the way you bloody buggers smile. You’re all gums. The lot of you. Gums and teeth.” <br />
<br />
Since then I’ve been conscious of smiling abroad. <br />
<br />
Since then Merc got married to a German man and had two kids. Last summer she and her family moved to Berlin. “You should visit us,” she suggested. <br />
<br />
I mentioned it offhandedly to Doug. “You know, if we can ever afford it,” I said. No pressure. <br />
<br />
In September Doug presented me with an itinerary. Europe at Christmas. “I cashed in my frequent flyer miles,” he said, winking. <br />
<br />
I spent the next three months standing in front of a mirror, practicing a subtler smile. <br />
<br />
# <br />
<br />
A dark tapestry of clouds unspools over the Berlin sky. Doug, Merc, and I exit the train station five minutes past eight and head toward the Reichstag building, where Kate is waiting for us, her hands tucked in the pockets of her green puff coat, her lavender scarf wrapped tightly against her throat. “Follow me,” she says through a chatter of teeth, and we do. Although Kate started out as a random liberal American—one of many—that I friended on Facebook on the night of the 2016 election, she had, over the past two years, become a dear friend, and over the last two days, become an invaluable guide in a city that she has adopted as her own—first as an exchange student and later, like Merc, through marriage. <br />
<br />
After passing through security, we make our way up the steps and through the columns of the Reichstag’s Neo-Baroque entrance—the only vestige leftover from the original structure—and walk up the spiral platform inside the dome. From here the city is a 360 panoramic of monuments that survived the second world war and buildings that were born from its ashes. A man’s voice speaks English through a headset in my ear, pointing out the more notable landmarks—the Abgeordnetenhaus, the Rotes Rathous, the German Chancellery, the embassies of other nations. Droplets of rain begin trickling in through the dome, but I hardly notice. The gentle, cold drizzle of Europe is different from the thunderstorms back home. In Texas, the heavens roared, and lightning scourged the sky like the hammer of God swinging down, bruising the earth. But the rain in Berlin enters and exits without such theatrics, and I’ve come to accept it as a frequent, almost pleasant, backdrop to our vacation. <br />
<br />
Beneath the dome, a large roundtable of images and text recall the Reichstag’s history. Merc and I walk around the circle together. She takes a step, I take a step. The Weimer Republic, the 1933 fire, the Berlin blockade and the unification—she reads, I read. We share our reactions without speaking a word. That’s the beauty of our twenty-year friendship—the ability to communicate in complete silence. <br />
<br />
Outside, the rain has let up and Kate leads us through the Tiergarten, down its rock paths dotted with German heroes immortalized in marble statues. We cross a busy intersection and exit onto a sloping hill where at least two thousand slabs of concrete lie arranged along a grid of cement tiles. The sight immediately unnerves me, although I don’t know why. “This is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” Kate explains. I lift my phone to take a picture. Kate continues, “Many people misuse the memorial—you see kids playing hide and seek, adults sitting on the slabs and eating lunch or talking on their phones. Someone created a Tumblr account and posted pictures of people treating the memorial so casually, but in the photos, the slabs were replaced with images of the Jews who were murdered.” Kate pauses, then adds, “The Tumblr account is down now, but when it was up…well, it made quite an impact.” <br />
<br />
I understood. I drop my phone back in my pocket. <br />
<br />
The four of us walk along the slabs. Kate warns us not to break away. “It’s easy to get lost,” she says, and after a few minutes, I understood why. The concrete slabs—all different in height—have a way of swallowing you whole. Suddenly I’m deep in the center and although I can still see the people passing by outside the memorial, they seem unreachable, as if existing in a parallel world that I can see but never enter. I tell Kate how I feel. She nods. “It impacts everyone differently,” she says. “But your reaction is common, I think.” <br />
<br />
We leave the memorial and walk toward the train station. Along the way, Kate stops and points to a line of pinkish stone wedged within the sidewalk. “These stones mark the area where the wall used to be,” she explains. We take a train to Friedrichstraße station, where Eastern Germans said goodbye to visitors going back to West Germany during the Cold War. The station hosts a permanent exhibition of that era; displaying artifacts, documents, and even a recreation of the train station before the wall fell. I buy postcards and two pieces of the Berlin wall for my children, who will never appreciate it. <br />
<br />
“Should we go to Checkpoint Charlie?” I ask. It’s only a kilometer away. <br />
<br />
“The exhibit that we saw is much better than Checkpoint Charlie,” Merc tells me. “Less shock value. More reality, more of a human feel to it. You don’t really need to see Checkpoint Charlie after seeing this.” I take her word for it. <br />
<br />
For lunch, Kate suggests the Clarchens Ballhaus, a famous Berlin ballroom founded in 1913 that has, according to online reviews, managed to stay mostly unchanged—a remarkable feat in a city perpetually changing. <br />
<br />
We dine alone. Most patrons dine beside the smart wood trim and outdoor veranda downstairs, but Herr Restaurant Owner, perhaps charmed by our enthusiasm and Kate’s fluent German, has allowed us to eat in the ballroom upstairs. <br />
<br />
The ballroom reminds me of Miss Havisham’s mansion in Great Expectations. It is a room frozen in time. Old photos show a space splendid with excess, a prized trophy of lavish showmanship; today, its charm is purely nostalgic; its beauty derides not from what it shows but what it conceals. It’s hard not to look around and imagine: what have the large, cracked mirrors along the wall seen? Whose hands have touched the peeling red paint of the entrance doors? What famous names have waltzed among its unpolished wood floors? What conversations were held under the half-lit chandeliers drooping from the gold-trimmed ceiling—what decisions were made over a plate of roasted duck and a glass of rot wein that would, ultimately, change history? <br />
<br />
Even Kate, our Berlin expert, is impressed. <br />
<br />
Our waiter brings our menus. Kate had opted for the German menu and looks down to read a short blurb about the restaurant’s history. “Wow,” she says, her eyes growing wide. “Josef Goebbels used to dine here.” <br />
<br />
I study my menu. “Where does it say that?” <br />
<br />
Kate reviews my menu, then glances at hers again. “Hmm,” she says. “It doesn’t mention it in the English menu.” <br />
<br />
“Well, that’s a convenient oversight,” Merc quips. <br />
<br />
Merc leaves after lunch; she has to pick her kids up from school. We say our goodbyes outside the ballroom. Doug and I promise that we wouldn’t be late coming back to her house, which is located in the Berlin suburb of Frohnau, far north of where we are now. For dinner, we’re ordering take-out from the same quintessentially German restaurant that we enjoyed on our first night in Berlin (“Potatoes to die for,” Doug says at least once an hour). <br />
<br />
Kate has to leave soon too, but she wants us to see one last place—a Christmas Market at Gendarmenmarkt square, in the central Mitte district of Berlin. <br />
<br />
On the way to the train station, we stop at an entrance to a building and Kate points to gold plaques plastered in the steps. One reads, “Here lived Hanna Kramer. Born 1896. Deported in 1941. Died 1942.” <br />
<br />
Kate explains, “You’ll see these gold plaques at the entrance of any building where someone was deported to a concentration camp and murdered.” She pauses, then adds, “Sometimes it says where they died. But sometimes it doesn’t, because the location is unknown.” <br />
<br />
A chill comes over me and I huddle close to Doug to stay warm. I had promised myself to enjoy this holiday—this “snow globe vacation” as Doug calls it—to visit Merc and the Christmas Markets and other fun places, and not get lost in Europe’s history, as I had on past trips. <br />
<br />
But there’s really no way around it. History lives here, it breathes here, and to try and ignore it… <br />
<br />
Well, just look at America. <br />
<br />
We board a train. I watch Kate holding onto the rail, standing among other Berliners, her mouth upturned in a friendly smile that nevertheless is too subtle to ever be identified as American. She seems so accumulated, so content within her space. I want to ask her if she ever sits on these trains and gets lonely for America, the way I did during my five years living abroad in Australia—if there were days when even the rich culture and the socialized healthcare couldn’t silence the siren calls from the other side of the ocean. <br />
<br />
But the train stops, and I lose my chance. We’re suddenly off again, down the street, walking against the wind and rain, not stopping until we reach Gendarmenmarkt square. We drink mugs of gluewein and wander among the white tent shops with festive gold stars at their tips. I stop to buy a bracelet for my daughter. The gluewein enters my blood and warms me over, loosening my limbs. A young couple walks by with wide, gummy smiles and I laugh when I hear them speak English with an accent I know too well. <br />
<br />
A man on stage begins to sing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” <br />
<br />
Kate leans in and says, “It’s interesting watching Germans sing this song. Very intense. They put their whole bodies in it. It’s like they become the song.” <br />
<br />
A Snow Fairy in stilts enters the crowd and begins tossing out white glitter from her feather pouch. The three of us pull out our phones and take pictures. The rain falls harder and I hear children’s laughter behind me. Doug takes my hand. His palm is warm, and I nuzzle my nose against chest. His coat smells like home, and suddenly I am where I want to be—not in the past or the future, but in the present, the in-between, my feet firmly planted in the best of both worlds. </div>
erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-2169569755118208302018-11-27T08:01:00.000-08:002019-05-10T08:48:25.807-07:00where liberal is a dirty word for change<img alt="Image result for beto" class="irc_mi" data-iml="1557503295584" height="588" src="https://media2.fdncms.com/sacurrent/imager/u/original/14812313/35475043_1683244848391885_539187312416784384_n.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="928" /><br />
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A few weeks ago, in barre class, I overheard a woman mention she was going home to Mississippi for the holidays. <br />
<br />
I blurted out, “I’m from Mississippi too! Which part are you from?” <br />
<br />
“Oxford.” <br />
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I smiled. “Oh, I love Oxford. I go there because my dad is an MSU fan…” <br />
<br />
The woman snorted. “Yeah, my husband is an MSU fan. I feel your pain.” <br />
<br />
We laughed together, enjoying the understanding that only those who grew up around the deep-seated rivalry of Mississippi football could fully comprehend. <br />
<br />
I didn’t pursue the conversation further, however. I knew if we talked more, I’d learn we had nothing more in common other than our place of birth and the desire to reshape our flat, white asses. I could almost picture the prayer requests that she probably had plastered on her Facebook wall, and photos of her family decked out in camouflage, smiling above the decapitated head of a deer, along with the caption, “First kill of the season!” <br />
<br />
Maybe I was wrong. My dad always said, “For a liberal, you’re the most judgmental person I know.” He’s probably right. Maybe the woman had left Mississippi for the same reason I did—because she didn’t belong. <br />
<br />
Still, the South has a way of sleeping in Southerners long after they have left it…in some more than others.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: large;">“liberal” was a dirty word</span></span></b><br />
<br />
I, too, went back to Mississippi for Thanksgiving. <br />
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I spent the first evening sitting with my dad across the TV as he nodded off to sleep every few minutes. <br />
<br />
The attack ads came on every commercial break, like clockwork. <br />
<br />
<i>Cindy Hyde-Smith is a disaster for Mississippi. <br /><br />Mike Espy was indicted on fraud charges while serving as Clinton’s Agriculture Secretary. <br /><br />Cindy Hyde-Smith voted for junk insurance policies. <br /><br />Mike Espy ordered a salad at Panera Bread and asked for extra croutons. </i><br />
<br />
And so on. <br />
<br />
I did the math while my dad snored beside me. There were 49 Democrats in the Senate. 50 Republicans. If Espy pulled this off… <br />
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I flinched. Did I, in my Beto shirt, really have the nerve to hope? Especially in Mississippi, where “liberal” was a dirty word?<br />
<br />
Liberal. That’s the trigger word in the attack ads against Espy. He’s being funded by <i>liberal </i>money. He’s tight with out-of-state <i>liberals</i>. Espy, <i>liberal</i>, Espy, <i>liberal</i>, <i>liberal</i>, <i>liberal</i>. <br />
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I know what their use of "liberal" really implies, though: <br />
<br />
<i>“White Mississippians! Vote liberal, and all those white flight neighborhoods you moved to, the private schools where you send your children, the churches and shopping malls that you build in the suburbs to replace the ones in the city overtaken by blacks, will all be for naught! Dear white people of Mississippi, be afraid. Be very afraid. Voting liberal means voting for change!</i>” <br />
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But it really doesn’t, I thought. Liberal doesn’t stand for change, but embracing change. It means welcoming change with open arms instead of clenched fists. It means acknowledging that everyone deserves a slice of the American pie. <br />
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Because change is coming, whether they liked it or not. One day, they’ll run out of suburbs to hide in. The only place they’ll have to flee is across the state lines, but change will be waiting for them there too. Then what will they do? <br />
<br />
“When you choose love, everyone wins,” I said aloud. <br />
<br />
My dad stirred awake at the sound of my voice and looked at the TV, grimacing. “Another damn campaign ad. I’ll be so glad when this election is over,” he said, and he fell back to sleep. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: purple;">you can still see the bloodstains of the wounded and dying </span></span></b><br />
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There’s a church in Raymond that the Confederacy turned into a makeshift hospital during the Civil War, after the Battle of Raymond went on for days. If you look at the wood floors real close, you can still see the bloodstains of the wounded and dying. <br />
<br />
A block away from those bloodstains, I sat by a fire and placed the last pieces of a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle into place. My son stood nearby, using a wire hanger to roast marshmallows over the flames. “This feels nice,” my son said. “Nice and cozy.” <br />
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“It does,” I agreed. “Makes me wish we were back in the time before electricity, when we had to sit by a fire to keep warm.” <br />
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My son scrunched up his nose. “I don’t think I would like that very much. People who weren’t white didn’t get treated very well back then.” <br />
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<i>They’re not treated well now</i>, I wanted to say, but stopped myself. Liberals liked to choke the sentiment out a statement until the words couldn’t breathe; to hell with the good intention underneath. Let empathy win tonight, I thought. My son had the rest of life to understand his privilege. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: purple;">a bit flustered</span></b></span><br />
<br />
The next day, I slipped on my Beto shirt and snuck away to Oxford with my mom and kids. <br />
<br />
We ate lunch at City Grocery, a swanky restaurant in the square that served southern-style cuisine with a showy flare. The moment we entered, my daughter said, “Wow, I feel like I’m at a Trump rally.” I knew what she meant. Almost 40% of Mississippi’s population was African-American, but none of them were eating lunch that day at City Grocery in Oxford. <br />
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“Yeah, and I’m sure everyone here has been to a rally,” I said. <br />
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We were walking to our table when a woman suddenly waved at me. “I love your Beto shirt!” she said, giving me the thumbs-up. <br />
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“Thanks,” I said, a bit flustered, and for the first time, I regretted turning my back on the woman in my barre class. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: purple;">I was Emmett Till’s killer. I was the ink on Faulkner’s page.</span></b></span><br />
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After lunch, we drove to William Faulkner’s house and walked the paths behind Rowan Oak. The air was cold, not like the icy cold they had up north, but a chilling, shiftless cold that spread across the red clay forests like a lost traveler searching, searching for a way home. <br />
<br />
My son left my side and darted down a hill until he came to a dried-up riverbed. His hands gripped a tree branch, and he lifted himself up and began swinging in the air, his legs flying into a dusty sky where trees trembled and leaves of burnt orange and blood red rained down around him. <br />
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I watched until a gust of wind wrapped my hair around my eyes and roared in my ears, and for a moment,<i>(the South has a way of sleeping in Southerners)</i> I was no longer in Mississippi<i> (long after they have left it.</i> I was Mississippi<i> (in some more than others). </i><br />
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I was Emmett Till’s killer. I was the ink on Faulkner’s page. I was the broken wheel on a pioneer caravan traveling down the Natchez Trace. I was the gun driving the Choctaw brave west. I was Hurricane Camille grinding her teeth into the coast, ripping houses from the homed and streets from the homeless. I was the blood stains on the church floors that never went away and the ghosts of war that marched up and down the highway, holding signs that said, <i>it’s about heritage, not hate</i>. I was the driver who saw the signs and looked away. I was my father asleep and my children awaking. I was my son’s shaky legs swinging upward into the silvery sky and falling back among the changing leaves, and like the leaves, I was changing and Mississippi was changing too—morphing from color to color, every hue more beautiful and holier than the last. erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2757104200942850879.post-89139390718772448902018-11-05T09:30:00.002-08:002019-09-04T12:19:50.108-07:00November 5, 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
In the past two years, how many of you have… <br />
Donated when you didn’t have money? <br />
Volunteered when you didn’t have time? <br />
Drove across county lines? <br />
Hitched your wagon to another state’s campaign? <br />
Pounded pavement in the rain? <br />
Had uncomfortable conversations with strangers? <br />
Text/phone-banked in the free hours of your existence? <br />
Took the path of most resistance? <br />
Marched when it was too hot or too cold? <br />
Marched sick or when you were in pain? <br />
Stuck a sign in your yard, to hell what the neighbors say? <br />
Called your representatives when you were afraid, <br />
butterflies in your stomach? <br />
<br />
How many of you never gave up, <br />
despite the poll results, <br />
despite the pundits’ thoughts, <br />
despite “lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate” <br />
scrawled on every voting booth <br />
in every town redder than Mars, <br />
despite the new wounds and the old scars – <br />
how many of you saw this war as your lone peace, <br />
at night when the beast was asleep, <br />
and the only sound was a nation crying? <br />
<br />
Whatever happens tomorrow, you are the sea to shining to sea. <br />
You are the brave knight. You are the Valkyrie. erinpassonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07436028755062084955noreply@blogger.com