Enchanting Juno

When I am an old woman I shall.....be myself.

So I was knitting with friends this weekend - I know, shocking!  I made actual progress on an ancient project and someday when I am home during daylight I shall show you - and at some point I remembered I had two new books of poetry in my bag.

As one does.

I forget what brought it up, the conversation was wide ranging, but I pulled them out and passed around the poems that made me find the books in the first place.  

I've been interested in poetry recently, there's something about the small vivid moments of perception, of memory or retroactive understanding, of beauty in the dark and sadness in the light that is really drawing me right now, and in the way of the universe I keep finding gorgeous ones that remind me of this.  Or possibly I see what was always there now that I'm awake to it. 

As one does. 

If one is lucky and paying attention.

So Tuesday night I had an interesting conversation with my therapist (about food mostly, and mothers and daughters and body identity and all the lines between them), and later a bowl of broth with rye bread and goat cheese and a ginger muffin or two, and then I was restless.   TV was stupid, internet was dull, the eleventy books I am reading did not appeal and knitting was too far away (about 4 WHOLE feet).

So I took a bath.  And I took my poetry with me.  I was sitting in the bubbles and I saw my hands against the cream of the page.  And I thought, when did I become the kind of woman who reads poetry, who makes herself cry reading poetry aloud even, in the bath, with a leaf green manicure? 

(The Colonel, Carolyn Forche)

I had paragraphs more here about becoming who you actually are, but it was pompous and annoyed me.  Some other time.....
I will say the library in my bathroom is starting to amuse me: I was having all kinds of trouble settling down to anything this past fall, and the jet wash of this is a thin film of partially read books on every surface of my house, including the radiator by the tub.  (Also, no matter how I try I cannot get into Eldest.  Same problem with Eragon.  I never learn.)

(I was actually reading Anna Frater but was too lazy to go fetch the book out of the bathroom.  Plus the Colonel is a mind bending poem.  And the photo pleased me.)

The cure for what ails you.

I've been having the MOST unproductive week, and hiding from the gym and watching gallons fall from the sky and while nothing is wrong exactly, nothing is exactly right either.  I'm in one of those pesky transitional life moments, I think, and besides it's cold and damp and my shoulders are all knotty.  And I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet.

Tonight I came home and decided to fix myself and now I am going to tell you how to do the same.

First I made some ginger muffins and then while they were in the oven I put on some music.  Follow along:

Someday I would love to be the kind of person who can do this around other people, but I am not, and I suspect you aren't either, so make sure you are home alone.

Now, the type of music is very important. 
You have to know the words pretty well, no faking, so its probably something you started listening to in college. 
It's a woman singing. 
And there should be heartbreak.  Men should be faithless dogs (I apologize for the hetero-normative standard here - the only lesbian song I can think of that works here is My Secret Love off the Grace of My Heart soundtrack, though it is a bit positive, it has compensatory factors.  In fact that's an awesome song record, lemme go put it on) or society should be keeping you down.  Or both. 

I've used Tracy Chapman's first album.  Also Peggy Lee.  A big chunk of the aforementioned soundtrack.  Some of Lenard Cohen's songs would work, I'm thinking Chelsea Hotel no. 2 has a bit of the right vibe, but I've never tried a man for this, so proceed cautiously.

But the gold standard is the one, the only, the immortal Patsy Cline.  Including Blue, which was written FOR Patsy and sung by a 15 year old Leann Rimes channeling her ghost.

Put it on louder than you usually listen to anything

Stand in your living room

Now, sing the shit out of it. 

Put your heart into it, your secret Joss Stone fantasies, your deep desire to have been Nina Simone.   Close your eyes.  Tip your head back.  EMOTE.  PROJECT.  From the diaphragm.
I personally abjure the air-microphone, it gets in the way, but that is a choice every person must make for herself.

It is important for you to know that I cannot sing.  Particularly not if it involves range.  And while I am not tone deaf, I have trouble staying in the same key.  Doesn't matter.

Make a damn fool of yourself.   Get into it.  Scare the cat.

Get all the air out of your lungs and exchange it for something flavored with insane declarations of love, and a life without self consciousness.    Repeat for at least 5 songs.

Don't you feel better?

And by the time you're done the muffins are ready to come out of the oven. 

driving home

Tonight, I left the office and drove to the gym and as it is December and the mid-Atlantic, by 4:45 it was almost, nearly, sorta verging on dark.  The sky was cloudy, three quarters full of shredded vapor and the light was the flat clear transparent gray of winter and the clouds backlit by the setting sun and around the edges of the clouds was the most extraordinary rose colored light, rose and gray-blue. 

I was stuck at the same traffic light for some time and just watched it cool and fade.  I found myself wishing for the camera buried in my purse under my gym bag, but that would not be safe.  And.

Well, sometimes I think the memory is better to have than the image you made in the time you could have been making the memory.

Then someone came around from behind me to run the red light and I was distracted by cursing at him and when I looked again the light was gone, the night flat and fully arrived. 

A not un-typical conversation

Juno: so I made TMW laugh really hard

 Smartgrrl: excellent.

  tell me

1:02 PM Juno: you know that apple yogurt thing that came with breakfast in Red Hook?

Smartgrrl: yes.

 Juno: I have been mildly obsessed with it.

 Smartgrrl: since first bite, I know

  actually since first sight -- I remember you were getting antsy when they didn't bring it out right away

  :)

1:03 PM Juno: I have strong feelings about fruit

  anyway. so I only had ginger golds in the house

  and those are great, but I thought the flavor would be wrong, you want a milder sweeter apple for that

1:04 PM so I got some galas and tried a batch and it was good..but not right. I had goat yogurt which is a strong flavor and I wasn't sure if they sweetened it or not

 Smartgrrl: right

1:05 PM Juno: so I am explaining this to TMW, and I'm going on about how you don't think about the flavor of certain things - like cucumber being seen as a mild flavor because its pale green and watery but really it's strong and distinct

1:06 PM and obvs. a granny smith is tart but really even galas are in some ways and so now I am thinking about the flavor of apples in a completely new ways and trying different ones to see which would make the best yogurt/apple/cinnamon mix......

  I get this way

  and TMW makes this noise.

1:07 PM Smartgrrl: yummy noise?

 Juno: disgusted.
And I go "I know! I can't even make a fucking fruit salad without having a personal epiphany"

 Smartgrrl: hahahahaha!

  that's hilarious!

1:08 PM Juno: I thought so.

  So then I go, Sorry dude

and she's like, that's the most insincere apology I have EVER heard.

 Smartgrrl: ha!

1:09 PM Juno: And I go "that's because I am not actually apologetic about it, duh.   It's the way I am and you just have to deal, EVEN when it completely annoys you."

  and then I say - I am SO blogging this.

  And then she laughed and laughed.

1:10 PM Smartgrrl: awesome

 Juno: And now I think if I blog this IM about the conversation, it will be even MORE amusing.

  I think that might be the definition of meta

 Michelle: totally

1:11 PM Juno: I do try and get the most out of the sands in my hourglass. In my own small way.

 Smartgrrl: heh

1:12 PM Juno: this is after I claimed to my knitting group that I was oddly at peace and had been for months and it was making me boring.

  And K looked at me and said, I will always find you FASCINATING

1:13 PM and I said, yeah, like a science experiment gone horribly wrong.

 Smartgrrl: what?

  to me, science experiments going horribly wrong end in explosions.

1:14 PM Juno: explosions, penicillin

  cyborg tyranny

  you never know

 Smartgrrl: heh

1:15 PM Juno: I thought it was funny

 Smartgrrl: it is funny.