Monthly Archives: December 2024
Taxidermy – a poem of the pandemic
I wrote this poem in 2021, and the time for it to be published has long since passed–there is nowhere to submit it. And to be honest I wasn’t sure it was any good. It’s raw and no organic form emerged while I wrote it, which makes no sense if you don’t write poetry but makes sense if you do, so my apologies.
I found it today and it made me cry, so I decided to put it up here in the hopes that we never forget that sad and strange time, and the losses we carry forward from 2020. I used to be afraid that nothing would change after COVID, that all that loss would result in nothing but loss. Some things did change about how we live. I thank the universe that so much has returned.
Taxidermy
To say my dogs died is one thing but
to say they died during the shutdown,
another. You know what I mean. The losses
pile up, the day to day, lunch with friends,
singing in the car on the way to work,
avoiding eye contact in the elevator,
neighborhood hellos, that awkward dance
in the narrow office kitchen. Who knew
I would miss it all so much?
In the face of deaths haunting
coworkers and friends, pneumonia
and bronchitis and long haul,
disruption and disappearance of
entire industries, do I dare complain
of my losses? My husband lost his job,
and found another. My daughter lost her job,
and found a lover after she moved back home.
Another daughter moved away, taking
her son (of course) (but how dare she).
The other avoids flying, and stays in Brooklyn
with a grandson who knows me via FaceTime.
That is my list, and of course, the dogs.
My dogs. Between the two of them
it was thirty years and less than twenty pounds.
Six pounds of spite, fourteen of duty,
fangs and anger, a symphony of paw licking.
I can tell you exactly how that sounded,
like I can tell you how it sounded when
the one had her seizures. I could tap out
the rhythm of their nails on the floor,
mimic their whines, their barks (a
sharp yap, a strange quack),
trace for you the orange paths of their tears.
I can summon the exact shape
of a blocky head under my hand,
and strange thick ears like a lamb’s,
white brushy fur and a hard, round belly,
silky fur and a bare pink belly
with little black dots where
teats should have been. I know
their warts and snarls, nicknames,
foolish, charming games, favorite toys,
how they settled for sleep between our long bodies,
the swallowed barking of their dreams,
their night kicks and canine snores.
The morning sneeze of the mean one,
to say she meant us no harm.
The smiling, wagging approach of the other,
to remind us about breakfast.
All these details are part of the pain
I hold so carefully, cherishing the ache.
I want to feel this pain. Maybe forever.
For Christmas this year, my daughters
hired a fiber artist to replicate my dogs.
I didn’t know, of course. I opened the box
and burst into tears over a pink tongue
poking slightly out of a mouth,
a fixed and anxious expression that tracked
my every move, every moment of every day.
They are perfect. Too perfect.
How could I tell my daughters
I couldn’t bear them? I hid them for weeks.
But now, they sit before me, Memento Mori,
the daily pain that reminds me
of what I have loved and lost,
four dark eyes that watch me move
through this strange and empty world
where so much is peeled away.
The Homes of Men
It’s just a little different.
When I walk into a home, I can derive a lot of information about the inhabitant from the knickknacks, but only if it’s a woman. Men throw off some strange clues, as far as their environments. A single man is freed of womanly constraints, and free of her decisions as to what is worth displaying.
Here are a few examples.
Watering Cans
One man I dated had a nicely furnished home with a glass-sided curio cabinet that held music boxes, and long shelves running around his living room that displayed a watering can collection. I was baffled. “Those belong to the former tenant,” he told me. The former tenant was his ex. When she moved out, she took only what she needed and left the rest to be collected at a later date.
Sure enough, five months after we’d started seeing each other, she showed up with a U-Haul and stripped the house bare. There was no remaining knickknackery whatsoever until a friend of his asked if he could store some Native American art there, at which point a few Navajo sand paintings and some Bev Doolittle (I know she’s not Native) prints took up residence on the walls.
But what if I hadn’t asked? What if I’d assumed that this man had a fondness for watering cans of all types, shapes, sizes, and fabrications? I have never seen a watering can collection before or since. What if we’d broken up before the former tenant had reclaimed her things? I’d have thought him fussy. Would I have been able to date him for the length of time I did if he’d been a watering can collector?
This does not keep me up at night. It’s just something I wonder.
Ugly Furniture
Another man I dated is remembered, not for his knickknacks, but for his living room furniture. If he had items of a decorative nature, they were overshadowed by the presence of the complete works of Louis L’Amour (bound in genuine leatherette) that filled his bookshelves. If you’re read Shopping at the Used Man Store, you know this didn’t end well.
Anyway, he had a set of a very specific kind of furniture. I’ll put a photo of it here for reference:
Now, please understand that this furniture was prevalent in the early 1970s, and I dated this man in the mid 2000’s. And to add to the ugly, some of the cushions were a brown floral, and others had been covered with a busy little floral print lavender cotton. He lived in a VERY nice apartment in a nice complex, he had an early model Prius and a big white truck, he owned expensive computers, a ‘number bed,’ and a fortune in fishing tackle. And this was his furniture.
His aunt and uncle had given it to him when he got divorced. He seemed to consider it an act of generosity on their part. Did he not understand that he’d been given the equivalent of White Elephant furniture, a set so ugly that Goodwill would refuse it?
We sat on it to watch his gigantic newly-divorced-man television. He didn’t really have room for the TV, the couch, and the loveseat in his crowded living room, but, as he said in all earnestness, “I didn’t want to break up the set.” Break up the set? I suggested he do so, but for firewood.
He didn’t laugh.
Coffee Cups
I dated a man who had lots of knickknacks one summer. He had souvenirs from his time teaching outside the USA, and some jade carvings he’d inherited from his grandmother. He had some motorcycle-related items and some Robert Wyland dolphin art I could barely bring myself to look at (in defense of this, those are actually worth money) (but please, no.).
Anyway, he also had a glass-sided curio cabinet, but his did not hold music boxes from a former tenant. It held coffee cups from all the recovery-related events he had attended in his 25 years of sobriety. I’d like to scoff (I love to scoff), but I found both his sobriety and his commemoration of it admirable. Plus I have a LOT of coffee cups, but the thing is I drink out of mine. The year before we met, one of his “former tenants” got mad at him and began taking mugs out of the cabinet and smashing them on his floor. The police were called.
You cannot mess with a sober man’s coffee cups.
Almost no knickknacks
My own personal husband owned exactly two knickknacks when we met: a wooden box and a small carved bear. By the time he moved in here, the bear had broken, so he just brought the box. It was no trouble to find room for it.
He did have one other decorative item: a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a beehive. I have it on my hutch, where it lives harmoniously with my own collection of honey servers. It is the Queen Bee Hive.
Since I have so much decorative crap, it’s nice that my husband doesn’t. But he finds ways to decorate our house. He accents tables and countertops with small drifts of opened mail, lending a homey touch with various piles of ripped-open envelopes and ancient balance statements, maybe a cruise advertisement or two. He lets these accumulate until I ask what all that stuff is? Is that mail that needs tending, or…? At which point he goes through it, recycles and woodstoves it, thus clearing space for his next installation.
This is the perfect setup for me, the all-time champion accumulator of things.
A Few Mom Stories
Disclaimer:
These are how I remember the stories. Mom told these stories on herself, and laughed as she did. I don’t think she would mind my sharing them.
Origins:
Mom’s father was Norwegian. Mom’s impression, based on whatever she was told about his origins, was that he was from somewhere far north where it was very cold and dark all winter. She didn’t retain the name of the country, only the climate. So when she was a child and people asked what she was, she told them she was Eskimo.
Making things right:
When Mom learned about prejudice and slavery, it gutted her. She was young, and there was a Black handyman who would travel around the smaller towns of South Dakota and fix fences, etc. When Mom was in Groton visiting Grandma Foster, she saw this man and began to follow him around, trying to help with his repairs. My mom was only seven, but she felt she could offer reparations by handing him his tools, bringing him a glass of water, and so on. He had to ask her to go home.
Royalty:
Mom had a great aunt named Christa who was somewhat fabled in the family, as she had accumulated some wealth. My grandparents lived in West Hollywood for several years when Mom was 12-17. Christa came out to visit and my grandparents were going to take her out sightseeing. Christa was extremely worried about the rampant crime in California, so she left her long mink coat and all her diamond rings at their house. Mom–I think she was 13 at the time–put on the coat and all the rings, and spent the day riding the bus around the greater LA area, conversing with strangers using a Russian accent, pretending to be a princess.
Sheet Music:
During this same time, Mom asked her parents for voice lessons. They agreed and found a teacher, who instructed Mom to come to the first lesson with sheet music for the song she wanted to learn. Mom came to the lesson with the music for “Old Man River.”
Mischief:
When Mom was around fifteen or sixteen, she and a friend decided to go into the apartment of a young man they liked and make mischief. Like, I don’t even know what they did. Short sheet his bed? Put flour on the kitchen floor? Mess up his magazines? Nothing too destructive, just the silliness of two giddy teenagers who were getting a little carried away by their own naughtiness. But then they heard him coming in the door! They scrambled and hid themselves in the tub behind the shower curtain, where they stood, stifling laughter. They were discovered, of course, and he was so confused. Mom couldn’t tell this story without laughing herself to tears.
In conclusion:
I don’t know how this all adds up. Mom came from an extremely conservative family and was a young Republican, but at some point in the late sixties, that changed. She loved her time in California; the beach, Catalina Island, her best friend Kathy Wells. My mother loved to laugh, and she never lost her taste for mischief.
The Doorbell Rings, and I hate that.
Yes, that doorbell
I hate the doorbell. It wakes the babies and makes the dogs bark. When I hear the doorbell, my entire body stiffens, as if that little “ding-dong” portends doom. It’s just a doorbell, I tell myself. You don’t have napping babies, Karen. You don’t even have dogs, no fanged scrum of tiny fluffballs will charge the door. It’s not a catastrophe when the doorbell rings.
In fact, sometimes it’s a boon. The doorbell rang on Wednesday, and it was a man with a business card and a safety vest and before I knew it, my gutters were cleaned and my maple tree’s leaves were disposed of. Just like that. All because someone rang the doorbell.
What if I hadn’t answered? My gutters would still be full of birch and maple leaves.
No Visiting Allowed in Oregon
I like it when the doorbell rings and it means that friends are here. A friend “dropping by.” Maybe for some “visiting.” I’m from the Midwest, where if you find yourself in the neighborhood, you drop by. You visit. It would be rude not to. If the person who answers the door is busy, or about to sit down to eat, it’s not a big deal. There won’t be any visiting, but you all smile, say hello and goodbye, and you just leave.
But not in Oregon.
People here usually text before they drop by. “Can I stop by and borrow that book?” “I’m in your neighborhood, are you home?” I guess this is efficient. But wouldn’t it be fun if they just…did? But they won’t, because in Oregon, dropping by without texting or calling first is a criminal offense. You can pitch a tent and start a campfire on the sidewalk here, but you can’t go over to someone’s house without calling first. If you walk up to the door of a friend’s house and they haven’t been alerted to your upcoming visit, they might open the door to you. Maybe. But during your short (and tense) visit, they will treat you with suspicion and discomfort.
A dear friend of mine, James, is also from the Midwest. Years ago, he described what happened when he stopped by the house of a woman he was dating because he was in her neighborhood. She was shocked, and spoke so stiffly to him. She interrogated him as to exactly what he was doing there. He finally figured out that she thought he was checking up on her. Mortified, he never dropped in again.
But let me tell you, he dropped by my house in 2021. I hadn’t seen him since 2019 because cancer (his) and COVID (he couldn’t get it). He and his wife (who is also from the Midwest and totally pro-visiting) were out in my neighborhood, and James dropped by! When I opened that door and saw his masked-up face, I thought my heart would burst. You could see his smile around the mask. He knows I am very pro-dropping by.
I Blame Oregon
This has to be Oregon’s fault, because I’ve lived in five other states and in those five states, people dropped by all the damn time. But not here, not in Oregon.
I guess I thought that, being a pioneer state, people out here would be more prone to taking company where they could find it. I’ve read several books about the loneliness of settler women (The Jump Off Creek by Molly Gloss comes immediately to mind), who might see another woman three times a year. They cherished each other’s company. So wouldn’t it make sense that this would be a place more open to quick stops at friends’ homes? This is definitely not the case.
I have gotten used to this Oregon distaste for spontaneous dropping by, but I don’t like it. Hardly anyone drops by my house anymore. I am thankful for my friend Lauren, who is from the east coast and who lives a couple blocks away, so she’s a valuable exception to this no-visiting in thing. I’m always happy to see her. If I’m working, she sits down at the table, we do our requisite visiting, she continues on her walk or whatever. Also, if I’m in the driveway and she’s driving past, she stops her car and chats. I find this absolutely delightful.
My Husband
My husband and I were talking about this whole dropping by thing. Or rather, I was complaining and he was listening. And he said that when he was single, no one ever, EVER dropped by his house and rang the doorbell. I asked why. He said, “Because if I’m not expecting anyone, I won’t answer the door.”
“Even for a friend?’
“My friends all knew this about me, so they’d never do it.”
Which blows my mind, because he’s denied himself joy. I love to open my front door to see an unexpected but familiar face. I would even tolerate the ringing of a doorbell, if it alerted me to the presence of a friend making a happenstance visit, filling my heart with spontaneous joy.
So maybe…maybe if you’re in my neighborhood, you should drop by.
Toys and Scars and Brother Steve
Hot Toys
Brother Steve’s toys left him marked. I remember his bleeding fingers, sliced by the Xacto knife he used while building models. He longed to design cars, and wanted something called a Vacu-Form. I mean, he reeeeally wanted this thing. With it, he could design bodies for his track racing cars, and mold them from plastic.
He got it, of course. He proceeded to burn his hands and forearms while creating the most Steve-like race cars imaginable. He was covered with scars.
Together, we played with another dangerously hot toy called a Thingmaker. It was a small metal open stove that held metal molds, the most popular of which made Creepy Crawlers. You poured in a colorful goo and then baked it to create colorful bugs of your own design. In 2024, I find it inconceivable that this was something we plugged into our bedroom outlets, and over which we hovered, inhaling the fumes of whatever was baking.
We repeatedly burned ourselves on this.
I can’t remember what Steve liked to bake up in the Thingmaker, besides bugs. Maybe cars, because he was all about the cars. My favorite mold was Tarzan. I didn’t care about the vine-swinger at all. Instead, I perfected the art of making white faces and bellies for the little chimp, and experimented with the main color; not brown, but purple, yellow, orange, red, green, blue. I baked them up and hooked them all together, long chains of small, colorful simians.
Things Remembered
I don’t know when the Thingmaker disappeared. I remember it in Aberdeen, but not in Rapid City, so maybe Mom “disappeared” it during that move. Thank you, Mom, I think that was probably for the best. The products didn’t last, either. Whatever that toxic goo was, its finished results were not hardy. All the little chimps went to bits.
Nothing lasts but memories, and they only last for a while. My brother talked about this with me, the evaporation of memories. He said, “There’s an entire set of memories that belong to just Mom and me, things that only the two of us remember. She’s gone. When I’m gone, those memories are gone, too.” He spoke of this with pain and disbelief.
Memories, like scars, die with the person who carried them. Steve had no kids, no younger version of himself to hear his stories of sharp knives and hot little ovens that baked toxic materials into toys. So I’ll keep those stories in my heart, and take them to my grave, and then they will be gone. I wish Steve was here, scars and all, to share these memories with me again.
