That Empty Inbox Feeling

"The poem has to be saturated with impulse and that means getting down to the very tissue of experience."
— Stanley Kunitz, The Wild Braid, p. 103.





April 2009

Jeff is gone to Florida for an airshow. Left early this AM. He never used to correspond much when away and that always bothered me. But now I don't have that empty inbox feeling. We keep in touch by five word text messages (probably only one a day) and that will be enough.

I remember when I first rented an office on Ballard Avenue in Seattle for my publishing company. The upper floor of a pioneer cabin that had been moved from the Central District. Two identical cabins that had been moved together, relocated to Ballard's historic district, and conjoined. It was an attic, really, with a window on each end; one looked out on the adjacent sloping shingled roof, where rain fell often; the other, down the side street at old buildings and toward the ship canal.

During the first few days I worked there I had no phone & no internet. I had been working out of the house before that, where I had all these things, and a husband, a cat, a garden, and neighbors with whom I was acquainted. Now it was going to be me in a solitary room with its steep narrow stairs. A hermitage, almost.

Part way through the first morning it became overwhelmingly evident there was no loneliness. No one could contact me, I couldn't read my email, so there was never a sense of disappointment, of being forgotten. An email would only take off part of the edge, but the edge would return: that edge of wanting contact with people, of wanting to be known and remembered. Natural human needs partly and often poorly satisfied by technology and therefore never really satisfied.

That experience is part of what drives me this year. Lonely? Go outside. Call someone or go to a café. The depth of satisfaction in seeing a friend in person—or anyone, really—assuages the loneliness so much more completely.

The Aneurysm, Part IV

[photo by Mia McCullough]

Who sees inside from outside?
Who finds hundreds of mysteries
even where minds are deranged?

See through his eyes what he sees.
Who then is looking out from his eyes?

— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 94



This is all a lot of news to take in.

Were I on the internet I would feed my obsession that way. The internet is awesomely fertile ground for fueling obsessions, whether they be well-intentioned or not. Instead I’ve gotten the facts by speaking to live people and have put phone calls out to both Portia and Graham, two people I’ve wanted to be in contact with, because they both worked with E. and me.

In trying to reach Portia, Rob picked up the phone — early morning basketball player, master birder, out in the woods in Western Washington — and I heard his voice. A long lost voice to me yet it only feels like a month since I spoke to him.

I heard his voice, and could picture the white beard, the ever-apologetic look on his face. Could picture him in the tall pines on his land, and in his woodlot.

Haven’t heard back yet from either Portia or Graham but expect I will in the next couple of days.

The Aneurysm, part 1

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 134




March 12, 2009. Thursday. Portland. 7:15 a.m. 24*F. Clear.

Tuesday eve Jeff gave me the news that Elizabeth is in the hospital in Seattle having suffered a double brain aneurysm and pursuant 8-hour surgery to repair them.

She worked for me at the publishing company I ran in Seattle for a number of years. She was my right arm there. Gifted writer. She babysat my oldest when he was very small. She is in her late thirties.

I was standing in our bathroom here in Maine when he told me. Shortly thereafter headed out to meet with the coop moms at Whole Foods. Peter Spence had emailed me & Jeff to give us the news — P. got my auto message saying I was off the internet, but had gotten through to Jeff. E’s husband had asked Peter to get in touch with me.

I left a message for Peter Tuesday night and spoke to him yesterday for about a half hour. Peter had been to visit Elizabeth a couple of times. Tuesday night I’d also tried to reach her family at the ICU at Swedish, where I thought she was.

They had no record of her there. When I spoke to Peter Tuesday he corrected it to say she was at Harborview ICU which made more sense.

It was good to talk to Peter — I so vividly remember him, working with him, his golden retrievers lying around the 19th century pioneer cabins that had become our office space on old Ballard Ave in Seattle.

Peter told me about the caringbridge.org site that’s been set up for updates. I didn’t get into saying I can’t read those right now. He said her wit was intact in her lucid moments and it was a relief to hear that she is still in there.

[to be continued]

No e-mail? I'll just yell out the front door.

Spring, and everything outside is growing,
even the tall cypress tree.
We must not leave this place.
Around the lip of the cup we share, these words,
My life is not mine.

— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 41


March 9, 2009

Well, being off the internet is making communications with our Monday homeschooling coop a living hell.

Fortunately, no one has voted me off the island yet, but it is causing difficulties in staying in touch with everyone. While we are together we are coordinating activities, setting up snack, cleaning up snack, assisting with conflict, pasting up the newspaper, etc.

It is difficult to finish a conversation. So we would finish conversations by email. But then I went and got off the internet. This is making communications difficult.

OK, well I guess M. has never been a big e-mailer. We would always have to call her last year. In particular, A. seems stressed — whether this is caused in part or in full by more challenging coop communications, I don’t know. I like to think everything’s about me, anyway.

I’m officially a flaky homeschooler.

The good news: we finally laid out the first issue of The Blue Eagle newspaper together today at coop. C. was super-grumpy and needed to play alone, but the rest of the older kids and I did that.

Looking for Frank Ferrel

"There isn't any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world. Hell is just resistance to life." — Pema Chodron




I came within inches of meeting Frank Ferrel, the fiddle player, on Sunday as we were leaving the new Portland family dance.

I listened to his playing when I was first beginning to play, as my teacher in Port Townsend Washington had given me a bootleg tape of Frank playing in a closet at Fiddle Tunes. All these years have gone by, and I’ve lost the tape, but never lost my admiration of Frank’s playing, even though I have no recordings of him, and have never heard him play live.

All during the family dance I’d been asking if Frank was there yet, asking anyone who might know, because I knew he’d be coming to play for the later contra dance. He didn’t arrive before we left, and so I left disappointed.

Then out in the frigid air on the sidewalk, all packed up with two totally exhausted kids, up strides Frank Ferrel in his beret and overcoat. I recognized him by his age, and his height (which had been described to me), and the nice fiddle case, and the fact he was headed into the Empire Dine & Dance around 6 p.m.

He was about 15 feet away from me when I said to Jeff, “I think that’s Frank Ferrel.” Jeff replied, “We have to go. I can’t manage this on my own.” Fifteen years of waiting and he was fifteen feet away. I was profoundly disappointed and so angry at Jeff that I thought I might have to divorce him over this (OK, slight exaggeration). I took a deep breath. Within minutes the thought came that over breakfast at Maine Fiddle Camp — should we ever get there — might be a better place to talk to Frank and tell him my story, and the anger passed.
*
Janet Fischer had mentioned yesterday that Frank lives in Bath and teaches. Bath is only a half hour away. Today, while the kiddos are at Sierra’s, I’m playing some music, some songs on the guitar, and some tunes on the fiddle. I had already decided that I wanted to get a lesson with Frank, but today while playing I’m realizing that I’m up against that old foe: doubt. The same doubt that kept me from ever calling Ruthie Dornfeld or Martin Hayes while I lived in Seattle and asking them for lessons.

But I can't google the guy.

So, I call Ed Pearlman, a fiddler, a local dance organizer, Janet’s teacher, and a friend of Frank’s to see if I can get his phone number. Ed doesn’t have it but gives me his email address. Instead of announcing my experiment, since I don’t know Ed very well, I leave it off, say thanks, and proceed to 411 Frank Ferrel. No listing in Bath. What’s a girl to do? I leave a message for Janet, saying that I have a fiddling question for her. I don’t tell her I need her to email Frank Ferrel and get his phone number.

Since she’s not home, I decide to 411 some old contra dance friends in Seattle, one of whom must have Frank Ferrel’s phone number. There are no listings for: Cathie Whitesides, Warren Argo, or Sherry Nevins. I give up. Then slowly I remember Cathie’s husband’s name, Hank…Hank….Hank Bradley.

I 411 Hank Bradley in Seattle and he picks up. Cathie’s out for an hour. I explain—I’m a former student of Cathie’s, and am trying to get Frank Ferrel’s phone number, and thought she might have it, and isn’t it funny that I’m in Maine and can’t seem to get his phone number, but that I’m off the internet so it’s led me to Cathie.

Hank takes down my phone number, commenting that our area codes are one digit but a country apart, and that if we could just fold the country in half we’d be right next to each other. Yes, I say, if we could just collapse the middle of the country we’d be very close by, but then I’d lose my cousins in the midwest. We laugh and I thank him and sign off. Now I need to wait for Cathie to call me back.
*
There isn’t much story in obtaining someone’s email address. It’s a lot quicker but the story gets lost, or, rather, never happens.

I’ll let you know when I finally get in touch with Frank.

Hearing voices

[photo by Mia McCullough]

Friend, our closeness is this:
anywhere you put your foot, feel me
in the firmness under you.
— Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks

Today Dave Cohen, Jeff's BFF who texts like an adolescent, texted and I called him. I told him he can text me but to expect a phone call in return. I knew he would give me holy hell, in a nice way, and he did.

But we had a nice conversation — and it was SO GOOD to hear the voice of my friend. So much better. Because if I can’t hear you — I may misinterpret what you are saying. Recently I heard a statistic that 40% of what is said (or was it 60?) in e-mail is not understood the way it is intended.

Yesterday Mark Canizaro texted me and I wrote him back a short one. Felt like I was taking a drink. I won’t do that again this year. Just receiving texts, which I receive very few of and only from certain people, feels a bit like cheating on this experiement, so I’m owning up. The only one I can text in and out with is Jeff — and only when necessary. Like "Where are you? We're by the T-Rex."

It feels good to take control of communications this way.

I've got a crush on that idea

[photo by Mia McCullough]

Here's the abyss
waiting with its
kiss of shiver
and bliss.

— Gregory Orr, "Here"

Still January 12, 2009

There is something very empowering in limiting the ways in which someone can reach me.

Living in the city this is difficult to do without voluntarily giving up a mode of communication. I had a friend in Port Townsend, Washington, who lived without a telephone for a while and we all thought she was crazy. I imagined her living in a hovel. She couldn’t afford it, for one thing — she was trying to keep her overhead as low as possible. I equated this with being deprived of proper shelter and food and imagined she was living in, essentially, a barn. This was before the internet really caught on as an everyday household occurrence, so her contact with others was in person or by letters.

Now I have a crush on the whole idea.

But...giving up the phone, with kids at home, and with the climate such as it gets here in Maine, would be a highly unnecessary experiment.