Weblog 68

May 27, 2007~ 12:30am
Nameless, faceless, so many women
of the past......gone.......gone.

I believe that's what haunts us in looking at old photographs. It's the way people disappear with
time, taking their histories with them like purses.




I was browsing the web last night looking for some account of a Pittsburgh area family murdered by one of their own back in the 1920's in a place known to locals as the 'Murphy Mansion'. The house is gone now, but a friend of mine lives in what used to be the caretaker's cottage- the only thing left of that homestead other than a denuded hill behind it where the original mansion stood. I never did find it, but I found instead an fascinating site with scores of vintage photos of Pennsylvania residents, and they have a large section titled "Unknown Photos". Once I began to browse those, the real meaning of 'haunting' took firm hold.

What I was most astounded to find, is that so many of the unknown women were really quite beautiful....

Like most folks, I've seen my share of old pictures and daguerreotypes, and it seems to me that most of the females images look rather dour and plain-- but these women are out and out lovely- lost, sorrowful-- and they've stayed with me to such an extent I wanted to share some of these faces with you.






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Do you see what I mean? How incredible it is, that every one of these long ago beauties go unclaimed by family and history-- it simply illustrates for me how very fleeting are our heartbeats on this earth-- and that even physical beauty does not guarantee remembrance.

How is it that each of these unforgettable faces bear such inner sadness? It's almost as if they already know they'll be forgotten... or perhaps it's testimony to what shadow creatures women were, living as they did to compliment the home, the husband- to take care of large broods of children, spend hours in solitary labor- and one day to become images on a computer screen in a category marked simply- "Unknown Women".

The following picture is one of the most visceral snapshots of grief and isolation I've ever seen, and its impact is immediate: it was captioned, "Unknown Women At A Uniontown Cemetery"-



Note the woman standing by herself to the right. See what looks to be a handkerchief trailing from her hand, the anguish on her face? I looked at this scene and asked myself- "Who is she grieving--is it a parent, a child or a husband..." --not even the other two figures notice her in the slightest. She is alone with her sorrow while they appear to be holding a memorial meant to place on a grave, and appear ignorant of either the grieving woman herself or of the depth and nature of her grieving, and in a way, that's actually the same thing: grief becomes 'companion'-- and depending upon its impenetrability or severity, it may very well be the only companion a person has. Severed from friends and peers, without even a name down through the years, this is an altogether heartbreaking picture to me. It is "Our Town"... and she is Emily- they're all 'our towns', are the not?-- and we will one day be lined and sitting in our chairs, facing the living by and by.

Let us hope there will be those who still remember us-- some who will be able to say, "Yes! I knew her! She was my great great grandmother or aunt or cousin-- a name to put to the face, some tether to the place where we'd once walked and breathed-- some roots. That will be a comfort, I should think. In lieu of a war-themed Memorial Day topic, I give you this meditation upon forgottenness instead. We should study these faces and imagine the lives they lived, say a little prayer for their forgotten souls, put an 'amen' to it.

It's only right.....




May 30, 2007~ 6:30pm
My medication is through, and my voice is about 90 percent back, but my GOD!- I'm TIRED. I have some nagging fears that the Mega-pill didn't fully squelch the pesky bugs within me, but I suppose that's common after being so sick and longing for feeling lively again. The decongestant did have the weird side effect of taking away almost all appetite, and making me unable to sleep for more than two hours- then, I'd be up, so maybe this tiredness now is just normal fatigue after a week of crappy sleep, who knows?

I know that with the waning of the afternoon at work, I started to sneeze again, and then hack a bit. The KEEBOSH was put on my fragile hopes for health when a co-worker said, "Gees. I didn't hear you cough much yesterday. My husband's friend had a cough sounded just like that, and we found out he's in the hospital now. Pneumonia....-- I felt the chills on the back of my neck. It felt like a hex. LOL!!! Well, emotionally, I'm pretty frail right now. As a matter of fact, when I got in from work, I took a look at the amaryllis my daughter gave me as a belated Mother's Day gift last Friday- and I swear to God, that thing starting dying as soon as I got it in the house! Today.....four limp trumpets, despite water, despite hopes for its well-being- "dead".




I did what any irrational person would do....I marched into the kitchen, got out the shears and, through tears, I cut the whole goddamned plant off 1 inch from the crock. I was really crying by that point, so I looked at that defeated, denuded planter, picked it up- (at this point, the cats had both taken shelter upstairs- they know a crazy when they see one)- and I raised it over my head and threw it down on the carpeted floor as hard as I could.

Suddenly, that crockery represented EVERY SINGLE F*CKING THING that I'd ever failed at, every relationship, every stab at growing anything that could be healthy despite me...it represented me.....

I picked it up and did this twice more, harder each time until the thing shattered. Then I picked up the shards and sobbed and plugged in the vacuum cleaner (my blood pressure at about 200) and viciously vacuumed the carpet, with snot running down my face- eyes bleary- feeling totally villainous and ridiculous. And no, I am not pre-menstrual- that is a thing long gone-- I was just feeling 'copeless', hopeless and tired, so tired. I could not look at that thing dying every day. I just couldn't- and having the crock sitting around would have felt like a reproach. (If Holly ever reads this, I hope she understands what joy that plant brought me when she gave it to me, but something got twisted along the way in the past few days and that poor, pretty plant became the focus of real or imagined failures.)

On a lighter note, I am calm now. Sheepish, tired- but calm...hey, coulda been worse. Coulda been a cat. LOL.




May 30, 2007~ 7:00pm
From the cowed and embarrassed- to the sublime here. I never penned in this blog, the terrific time I had babysitting Bill and Kay on Saturday! It was probably the neatest time I'd ever spent with them- they were both so enjoyable, their attention riveted to every acted out story- ('Jack and the Beanstalk' again, and yes...King Kong :)- and the day was gloriously temperatate and sunny. We drew "Toothy Monsters" at the picnic table, used dominoes for a game I made up called, "feed the shark"-- Kay fell asleep on my lap after she'd crawled up there when I started to tell stories, and Bill jumped right into acting them out in front of me. When I said, "Kay, are you sleepy? Wanna take a nap?," she said, "Yeawwwwh"...And did!--fell right under, her chubby cheek against her favorite, inseparable soft dollie. What a picture that would have made!

Bill and I went outside to play 'Indians'. He was Great Rock (having scorned the name "Little Running Bear")- and I was Hiawatha. We broke up stale bread for the birds and filled frisbees with water, to watch them swoop in to drink and eat. Then........well.... then, Bill discovered something-- here's the poem I wrote about it.





First Death

The one thing darkness
cannot stand
against
is innocence. Today I was bathed in sunlight
dappled
through leaves, a breeze
that bent the rhododendron
heads
till they bowed-
sat at a plastic
picnic table, watching Bill
discover death.
It was a robin
curved
against
the edge of the swing
seat, still as stone-- his sunken eyes beyond all
brightness, feathers downy, slight,
and lifted in the wind; Bill gasped- a natural, first reaction
to the uncommon
stillness of the bird,
and if he'd ever heard of death, he now
could see it
in its finality
and sadness.
He looked to me to know
what to do, and I told him, "We must
bury him."

I got the
gardening claw, dug in the earth
near the foundation of the house
where it was softest, having been tilled
by my daughter's hand
and planted
with flowers.
I grabbed four
paper towels
and gently scooped it up. It weighed no more
than thought, that little dead thing. I set him in the hole
and pushed the dirt in
till the white
was covered up, and replaced
the mulch-- "That's mommy's
MULCH,"
he said, "she'll want it back
the way it was."
"It is, Bill. Only
you and I
now know this
bed."
"We should say some prayers," Bill said-
and how
he knew this
I couldn't say, but we
were being
Indians today, so I said a prayer I thought
that Indians
might like: "Great Spirit, take
this little bird, a good son from your skies"- "Amen"-
Bill said,
without the slightest prompt. "Keep him close
to his loved ones
already gone,
flown up to the stars
into your love," I said. "Amen," said Bill again: four
years old, knows all the cues
and now
has clues
to what makes life
more sacred
by the way
we treat it
when it goes. I washed
the swing seat
down with detergent,
wiped it clean, and saw that Bill was smiling
and then
frowning,
rubbing his eyebrows
as he does: small curved fingers
seeking comfort from
the softness on his face.
"Gram, this is
really very sad
"he said," but
we'll tell Mama all
about
this
GREAT DEED when
she comes home, and Gram, sometimes
I'll talk to him and hope
his bed
feels good
there
under
the ground, and I'll think about the nice
white towels you wrapped him in, and anyway"
Bill beamed, "he'll fly up to God won't he?" "Yes, Bill"-
he'll sing
a song

about
you

when
he does."

We went back
to breaking bread
for the living birds
and filling Frisbees
from the swimming pool to let
them drink,
and watching
from our teepee. And when the grackles learned
the trick
of dunking bread, Bill
laughed.

"I taught them
that! Gram!- I threw
the bread
into the water!"
And the day was cleaned and peaceful

and the quick
and the dead
were one.






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