Silver

[Most of what I post here are first drafts. What follows is especially raw, early material, which I share now for those who have asked. Thanks for taking your time to visit.]

From the door, I could see the change. Her mouth was gone. In its place, an open hole served one purpose: to breathe. Or try. By the time I returned from up north one month later, Opal appeared to have aged two decades and no longer drank, ate, spoke or even swallowed. She appeared deep in sleep. Approaching the bed—and I did so quickly, yet remember it in stopped frames—I saw that her jaw stayed fully open, never to close again, at least not while she lived, and her lips had almost entirely receded into her mouth, leaving only thin, barely visible seams of faint, rosy-brown flesh, seams more like the inside of her mouth. From this dark opening, vertical lines smoothed out into the fragile field of her sweet face. Her teeth tucked safely in bed-stand drawer, jaw wide, tongue flat behind gums, she fought for each breath—gasping in short, quick, raspy inhales, each exhale a submissive downbeat, almost a frustrated sigh. Few things could help now: her head tilted upwards on the pillow, the steeply raised bed, a standing fan and morphine. Her femurs visible through the sheet, her newly too-thin body lay motionless, shaped in the last position that hospice staff, and then I, had placed her in. It seemed as if all that was left of her focused on trying to breath. Or trying to die. And her lipless, toothless, gaping mouth was the most alive part of her—yet also the part of her aging with every breath, closest to death.

My deceased father’s mother, a second mother to me, Opal did not appear to be in pain and everything in her face and body had utterly surrendered to this place. Hers seemed a kind of peace that I imagine having tasted for only seconds at a time, like the sensation of first gliding under clear, warm water in an empty pool, sight gone, sound muffled, body weightless, face expressionless. We cannot know, but I want to believe that what she felt was peace, that we did not construe this in our own tired minds to ease the pain of watching her die. I am told by the family—family who had always been there for her while I lived half a continent away—that in her last weeks, she said, “Help me.” Looked at you and said it again. Said it repeatedly.

And there was nothing anyone could do but raise her higher on the pillow, raise the bed’s angle, check the fan’s direction and ask the nurse to administer the morphine. Because of those few drops in the side of her cheek, drops that are immediately absorbed into the bloodstream whether or not one can swallow, she would sleep all day. In fact, she rarely opened her eyes or spoke lucidly in those last days. Then, twenty-four hours before I could arrive, they stopped giving her food or water. To do so would force her systems to continue working, force her body to do the opposite of what it was trying to do. And to force fluids of any kind would overwhelm her organs while depriving her of endorphins. After losing nine of the people I have loved the most in this world, there I was, reading the blue hospice booklet cover to cover, trying to understand something about which I knew too much and nothing—how we die.

She made me write her obituary several years ago, a request that I struggled with, procrastinating until she could wait no longer. In the beginning, we worked on it together, Opal telling me what to put in, what to take out. Finally, one night I read it to her. “Opal was an optimist who loved to laugh. Born June 14, 1919 in Tishomingo, Oklahoma…” I tried to keep my voice from breaking. She listened intently with her chin propped up on her thumb, a darkly polished index finger covering her mouth. “Opal worked as supervisor for the clothing manufacturer Kellwood Company for 31 years before retiring in 1979. She volunteered for the V.A. Hospital, Old Baptist Hospital and was a member of the Disabled American Veterans and Auxiliary, serving in a number of positions and finally as President for the State of Arkansas.” As she had instructed, I had reduced her life to a list of names, titles, places and numbers, and there I was, reading that list to her while the house slept and we sat in easy chairs wearing our nightgowns, well, wearing her nightgowns. “I don’t mean to interrupt you but,” and then she would interrupt, correcting the details of just what she’d lived. “In 1935, she married Carl Sandage with whom she had three children. Two were lost as babies and Larry Sandage, former Vietnam combat photographer, died in 1982 at 38.” She blinked. Nodded. Our uncontrollable laughter over old stories about Dad told only a half hour earlier had entirely evaporated from the air around us.

“In 1975, she married Fay New of Little Rock. For 25 years, they enjoyed a happy life together in the home he built.” She stared straight ahead, then looked at me and nodded. “Opal ran a small home quilting and alterations business for twenty years, sewing 1,705 quilts, 1,108 baby quilts, and crocheting 67 afghans. After Fay’s death in 2000, his large family remained very close to her.” That last sentence was important to her. Her husband’s family made up most of the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, numbering forty-five in all. Words cannot approximate the way that family was there for her—at the door to pick her up for doctor’s appointments and for dinner, for the holiday feast and the errand, or just to sit and visit. In fact, that one sentence describing the gift they gave her was not enough. For years, Opal asked me to write a letter to them on her behalf and I steadfastly procrastinated because I knew all along what that letter might mean, and I had not been ready to face it.

See, first she had asked me to write her epitaph, then her obituary, and finally the letter. I worked on the epitaph. I figured I could handle one sentence. After an astonishing amount of thought & numerous drafts, I ended up with six words: She lives in our hearts forever. Then, I managed to work on the obituary with her. That was hard, but the fact of her remarkable aliveness made it possible. However, a farewell letter—that is something a person writes before they let go. Perhaps I waited to write it because it was the last thing I had to keep her here, as if she couldn’t leave until I wrote it.

Nevertheless, she pushed, instructing me in what to say and adding, “Have the preacher give it to them.” The first time she asked me to write it, she was sitting in her reclining chair drinking a cup of coffee, adjusting her glasses at one side with a polished mauve nail. She looked right at me with those alert brown eyes and said, “Tell them I’ve loved them like my own blood.” Simple and true, her words hung in the air. As I wrote them down, she started to talk about dating Faye back when and how he asked her to marry him while driving down the highway. Considering the way Grandpa drove, I imagined she was too terrified to say no. And they lived happily ever after. How often do we get to say that in real life? And a great part of that happiness was because of Fay’s family who filled their home and lives with stories and laughter, the family she’d always longed for—consistently coming through the door. Family is not bound by blood as much as by hearts and small acts of kindness, by jokes that ring in the mind years later, infectious laughter that grips you when alone, sitting in silence remembering.

“You’ve got to tell them I’ve loved them like my own blood.”

She said that to me again, recently, after she asked and I admitted that I still had not written her farewell. Finally, she began to plan her funeral and I began to write about how she loved cooking chicken and dumplings and chocolate pie for us, loved watching us grow up and older over the years, listening to our stories and jokes, our voices calling through her home, sometimes laughing so hard we cried. She said, “Tell them, tell them thank you so much for everything, forever.”

I studied Opal’s closed eyes, swollen, flushed and ringed in pale brown, her lashes laced with gray. Studied her thin eyebrows, perfectly shaped as always. The fine, blue veins behind her temples. Her wide, open forehead, speckled with a few brownish age spots, remarkably clear of lines, luminescent in the lamplight, and from which her short, beautiful, silver hair was brushed away from her face, for once uncurled, luxurious, still growing, positively elegant. Silver spilled onto the pillow. I wanted to show the beauty I saw. Wanted to remember. And so I did what might be seen as an irreverent act—took photos with a small, digital camera. I think she would have understood. I want to believe that she would. Because I needed some way to hold on to her.

“You’ve always been like a daughter to me,” she would say, her steady eyes gazing straight into mine, “The little girl I lost.”

I took several photos of her silver hair against plain, white cotton. Three of her in profile, photos that reveal the degree of her open jaw and the deepening of death in her face, photos I felt I had to take. Not to do so would be a lie. The other photos were of her arms and hands folded. The light green gown with pale pink roses at the neck—my favorite photos framed at the top with her gently scooping rose neckline, and framed on the sides and bottom edge by her arms and hands, arms that should be pale from being inside all the time, yet seemed to have color, almost a tan. Why would her arms have such color? One hand crossed over the other wrist, her hands were the most heartbreaking of all. There were her nails, long, shaped, and strong, polish taken from every nail but two. I had never seen her beautiful nails so nude. And rarely without her rings. Now, she wore only one—a wide, yellow gold wedding band.

I recognized her gown instantly, as it was the one I would always ask to borrow when I visited her, even purposefully not packing anything to sleep in so that I could wear it. No other colors could look so lovely on her. The embroidered roses. Four small, sweetheart sized pale pink roses in the gentlest full bloom, the two outer roses being slightly smaller, cradled by delicate, pale green leaves, its petals and leaves forming her gowns irregular, scooping, wavelike neckline. From this necklace of roses, mint green fabric fell gracefully over her chest like water easing toward its shore, these shores being the thinner parts of her, the formerly fleshy places that had been most vulnerable to the powers of cancer. The waves of her gown lessened as they made their way over her still ample breasts, below which her hands rested, her thumbs with their notable joints that bent easily in ways most thumbs refuse. We had the same thumbs, she would always tell me, holding my hand, working my thumb like a small toy. Now, her fingers swollen and immobile, I held her hands in mine. I gently stroked their backs, the delicate wrists, lovely arms. I tell you she was beautiful. But to describe that beauty, I use words such as veined and spotted. I fear that you, reader, will not see the beauty I saw.

(Continued)

To a Teacher

This is the first time in my life as an educator & a parent that I have felt tremendous & absolute pride in the country that I represent & have brought my child into. What I am about to say may seem overstated, but I feel in my bones, in my cells, new hope for the survival of our planet & its childrens’ children. We have a chance to create a different fate than the tragic one we have been hurling ourselves toward. I believe that having a profoundly intelligent, well-educated, international president can cultivate a deep, lasting respect, desire & commitment to learning in this country.

While teaching yesterday, I was reminded of just how urgent our work is as educators: a freshman student asked, “What is Watergate?” I asked the class to raise their hands if they had the same question & numerous hands went up. While there are wide gaps in my own education, I struggle to imagine a college student in 2008 that has never even heard the word Watergate—a part of recent history that dramatically eroded our nation’s confidence in its own leaders & resulted in a president’s resignation. How ironic to have a student ask this question on the very day our nation is choosing its next president, a leader to replace one who betrayed our nation & the world & should have been impeached, not pardoned.

Our ignorance is deadly.  Our work as educators has never been more essential than now. Finally, we have a leader who believes in what we do.

(for Shoba)

On Love & Politics

I’d like to step out of my usual genres to simply say how sad I was, while listening to the vice presidential debate, to be reminded of one thing the candidates agree on: I should not have the right to marry whom I choose, were I to be so lucky to have a partner. All I could think about was my daughter, who was watching as well, who would be reminded all over again that her mother belongs to a group that is not granted basic marriage rights. After all the patriotic pride I’ve felt for my country during this remarkable election, and all of the talking to my kid about it, and her budding political soul breathing this air, this revolution, to see such a stark blow to my civil rights with my daughter watching—I was ashamed for my county, not “of” but “for” my homeland. Land of the free. Standing where I stand, as a woman bound by a civil union that is invisible in the state where I live, a marriage-rights activist that ironically suffered the loss of my own eight-year “marriage,” a single mom looking through the lens of a fresh divorce though I can’t even legally divorce, I can tell you that the central thing that robbed me of my marriage is something many Americans face regardless of sexual orientation—the devastating, long-term effects of incest, a crime that can cripple a child’s ability to ever have a family of her own. And in the end, my heart is just as human as the heart that can legally marry—or tragically, legally divorce—in his or her homeland. And my daughter’s heart is just as tender as the heart of a child born to parents who can legally marry—or lose—the love of their lives.

the veracity of rumor

(formerly titled September 20, 2008)

in progress after new reports from home

Three Gifts

It all began with a spiral notebook, a photo album and a small, portable record player—three gifts from my mother that would change my life forever. Or perhaps it began with her inscription in the empty album: “I give you this book and your first roll of film—may your photos show the spontaneous joy of childhood, the wonder of God and awe of growing up—a smile, glimpse, wish or promise…” In this way, she got me thinking and handed me the tools to begin asking questions in three new languages I’d strive to speak the rest of my life. While our contrasting understandings of God would change and change again, perhaps the greatest magic her gifts offered was in their blankness— all that open-ended possibly fascinated: unwritten pages with faint blue lines that held no words, the coarse, thick paper of the photo albums that held no photos and the record player’s white plastic turntable without a single on it, the needle with nothing to play!

My Challenge to Ms. Magazine

Expecting silence in return, in 2002 I sent an angry letter to Ms. Magazine. Instead of silence, I received a phone call from Elaine Lafferty, Editor in Chief at the time. “I want to talk to you about your writing,” she said. Rather than choking on my words, I managed to describe my work & vision for the magazine. While she was not as interested in the latter, I will always be grateful to Lafferty for first inviting me to contribute to “the larger conversation” on an international scale. However, the status of fiction & poetry in Ms. is more of an endangered species than ever.

In an e-mail correspondence this month with editor Michele Kort about Ms. & literature, she offered, “I wish we did have more poetry and fiction as well.” Unfortunatley, based on the apparent lack of initiatives to mix things up a little, Kort may be alone in her interest.

I post the following letter from my archives (with a few deletions of personal material) because I believe that it is more relevant than ever. This issue affects numerous national publications, Atlantic Monthly being a notable example. The future of fiction & poetry in major print magazines reflects the diminishing value of literature in our 21st century culture. If women can’t look to venues like Ms. to take a stand & support feminist writers—much less emerging ones—who will?  

November 4, 2002

Dear Editors,

An avid reader and lover of Ms. Magazine, I am also an emerging writer and poet who was shocked to first learn that “Ms. does not accept, acknowledge, or return unsolicited poetry or fiction.” After reading the Summer 2002 / Best of 30 Years Fiction & Poetry Issue, I was stunned and infuriated to read the editors’ statement that “Ms. has been the ‘discovery’ place of first publication for many a now-established poet and fiction writer, serving as a ‘safe-house’ for work considered too daring, too angry, too feminist, too something to see in print elsewhere.” 

The editors were apparently describing the former Ms. Magazine, not today’s incarnation! Ms. is no longer a “discovery” place for emerging writers of fiction and poetry, and the current policy of refusing unsolicited manuscripts effectively silences struggling feminist voices. 

Apparently, Ms. has decided that it can no longer take the risk of first publishing women who are not already established within “the system,” that is, the literary “class” system that makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for emerging writers to contribute to the larger dialogue around us. Regarding those now-established writers that Ms. once discovered, how would they have first been published in the magazine with today’s policy? Or is feminism no longer needing fresh blood, voices and visions? 

Meanwhile, Ms. made its money on an issue honoring its former self. The magazine did not even have to courage to print the truth: Ms. editors are no longer interested in writers they do not already know, writers who do not have agents or editors, much less unpublished writers!  

This letter may be “too daring, too angry, too feminist, too something” for Ms. editors to consider seriously. But take note—this letter represents the case for hundreds of other feminist writers who may not write their own letters for fear that Ms. will discriminate against them in the future. I write for them, all well as myself. Sometimes the one who speaks up is the one who has the least to lose.

I cannot afford my dreams—including the dream of teaching writing workshops for women like myself who have no resources but a passion to write that is making them crazy, breaking their hearts, but somehow keeping their spirit alive. I write, desperately, in small pieces of stolen time that I create out of nothing, when I should be doing twenty other things in order for the next day to happen.

Reading Ms. Magazine at the end of a long day has continually given me hope for a better life. However, while Ms. has made a difference in my life as a woman, it has only confirmed the status quo in my life as a struggling feminist writer. 

Please do not publish this letter in your “Letters” section, letting the issue die while pretending to consider it. Instead, I am asking Ms. to end its policy of refusing unsolicited fiction and poetry—and open its heart and its pages to emerging feminist writers. 
 
Sincerely,

Chivas Sandage

What Disturbs Us Most

The 1st draft of this essay is no longer available (developed & submitted for publication).

The Renter Next Door

The 1st draft of this essay is no longer available. A later version appeared Saturday, March 15th in the Daily Hampshire Gazette as a guest column.

PDF: luxury-saving-tree_080315.pdf

Side Effects May Include Too-Frequent Laughter

After my last class of the semester, I gave myself the gift of starting a book purely for pleasure without any thought of teaching what I was reading. The pleasure in question: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. You wouldn’t think that reading about a twenty-one-year-old watching both parents die of cancer within five weeks of each other and then struggling to raise his eight-year-old brother as a single parent could be hilarious, but I laugh out loud on a too-frequent basis. This is the kind of book that can get you in trouble at the library, or even in bed, if your lover is trying to do anything at all besides read her own copy of the same book, which is highly unlikely and would make a bizarre scenario.

Wonderfully anti-literary in a passionate, darkly comic, forget-what-you-think-you-know-about-lit-because-now-you-can-do-anything-in-a-book kind of way, AHWOSG begins on the copyright page where the author describes his memoir as “a work of fiction only in that in many cases, the author could not remember the exact words said by certain people, and exact descriptions of certain things, so had to fill in the gaps as best he could.” One sentence later he adds, “Any resemblance to persons living or dead should be plainly apparent to them and those who know them, especially if the author has been kind enough to have provided their real names and, in some cases, their phone numbers.” While this is not a review, I’ve noticed that few reviewers comment on the copyright page, which also goes into a mini-rant about the “absolutely huge German company called Bertelsmann A.G. which owns too many things to count or track” including Random House which publishes Vintage Books such as AHWOSG. Eggers even provides his vital statistics, notes about his hands and allergies, and his placement on “the sexual-orientation scale” which goes from one to ten, “1 being perfectly straight, and 10 perfectly gay.” Curious to know what rating Eggers gives himself? Read the book!

I first ran into AHWOSG at an airport bookstore while waiting for a delayed flight and read much of its extensive front matter which includes Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of this Book (“the first three or four chapters are all some of you might want to bother with”) and then about thirty-seven pages of preface and acknowledgements which feature extensive deleted scenes, an explanation of why the author voted for Ross Perot in 1996, his budget for writing AHWOSG, and an Incomplete Guide to Symbols and Metaphors (“mother” appears ten times). Yes, I stood in the airport bookstore and read the book for about thirty minutes and then didn’t buy it because I feared it would distract me from researching my master’s thesis, which is exactly what I should have been doing with that spare time between flights.

I recommend AHWOSG if you’re looking for an entirely silly, anti-tragic, moving story from a guy who admits using the “Find” function in Word to avoid starting every sentence of dialogue with “Dude.” By the way, the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

Difference & Politics

Yesterday my twelve-year-old daughter asked me who I will vote for in the upcoming Massachusetts primary and I wanted to know, wanted to give her a definitive answer, but couldn’t. Today, after reading Gloria Steinem’s opinion essay in the New York Times, I know. I plan to vote for Hillary Clinton, although I am angry with her.

A low-income, white, lesbian single mother and adjunct professor, I am also an anti-racist feminist strongly opposed to my countries war in Iraq. Senator Clinton’s initial support of the Bush Administration’s invasion profoundly disappointed me. However, the New York Times claims that she’s now opposed and promises to “start phased withdrawal within 60 days of taking office, with the goal to have most troops out by the end of 2013.” That’s not fast enough for many Democrats, myself included, but I question the intelligence of withdrawing all troops within 10 (Edwards) to 16 (Obama) months. As desirable as those numbers sound, they could also add up to a radical, dangerous plan which might seriously backfire on many levels—including another republican presidency. Keep in mind: all of the leading republican contenders are “against a timetable for troop withdrawal” (NY Times). Therefore, I believe that Clinton’s moderate stance is strategically smart from a military as well as political perspective. 

As a teacher known for addressing diversity issues, I have noted for my students the relevant precedent of African American men winning the right to vote long before women of any color won that same right, and the possibility that sexism in contemporary America could play a fascinating and disturbing role in the upcoming election. Clearly, Clinton is indeed fighting a damned if you do, damned if you don’t dynamic that none of the male candidates face. When Hillary spoke passionately yesterday about her personal conviction that this election is pivotal for the future of our nation and said that she’s running for President because she is deeply concerned about where we’re headed, I was amazed by the backlash she received for being “near tears.” On the contrary, her passion only reinforced my belief that her brilliance, experience and commitment make her the best candidate.  

However, like every other leading candidate, Hillary Clinton is against same-sex marriage. To quote her, “that hurts my feelings.” It is my hope that if elected, Clinton will evolve out of her current, discriminatory stance on this issue, just as she now opposes a war she helped to start.                 

Gloria Steinem’s final words, “We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman,” made me hesitate and question myself. I’ve been saying all along that I would not vote for Obama or Clinton on the basis of my desire to see a woman or person of color leading the country. As a youth, I ignorantly fancied myself “color-blind.” Now, I’m interested in the notion that instead of trying to ignore difference—like so many of my privileged, white, middle class students at the State college where I teach—Americans would do well to embrace all it has to offer. If I’m honest with myself, I would like to call Obama my president because his stance on a broad range of issues most closely resembles my own and because I respect and even love the difference that his background and resulting perspective would offer, which appears to include much-needed international as well as African-American influences. Similarly, I would like to call Clinton my president because I think she’s the strongest contender and because I respect and even love the difference that her perspective as a woman offers us as a nation. Like my students, I’ve been afraid to admit this—as if difference was something to try and not see, rather than learn from, and relish.