A Hard Bed to Lie In

A Hard Bed to Lie In
by Marilyn Dumont

A hard night, slept up against a rock face on the side where my mortality
looks like a mountain, leaving my life where it is on an edge
looking down.

tempted to jump, sprout wings as fantastic as the married arms that would
catch me if I leapt

I could have easily been a doe on a highway, (you a driver, your wife
beside you sleeping

me grazing, ruminating the coarse clover, wet blades a mixture of green
desire and

regret that I didn't accept the offer even though

a gold band shone like a beacon, to ward off prey
—not to be mistaken for a jacklight,

just a doe, a stretch of road, high beams

headlights, your eyes,

legs petrified at the speed of light, a flash burn, flare

transfixed by the jacklight and the daylight of the woman who moves
touching you
with her mouth of the moist night,

the night of my turning, aching, having you disclose your desire for me,
turning to yet
another confession in my bed, another crease,

the safe imagined hand crosses my breast to my waist, pubic bone, and
thigh, turns to
another imagined and perfect clean slice of a meeting, the one where I
would have met you years ago when you were an open space, a
meadow to be walked through at high altitudes

and the night's turning

down, wears out

trust in my age, that

flat sheets and a hard bed will not forgive.

Sometimes There's a Day that Begins Before 11 AM.

Some snow came. Then snow came heavy in secret in the night. Warm rain puddled into mud on waking and disappointed hopes of school cancellation. Winter break made us itch to go back, but it feels time is more precious if it's supposed to be dedicated to something else. Something more tedious.

After eight years of college level art studies, I should have been done. But then, here I am. Enriching my value as a worker, a useful cog in the machine, learning how to this and how to that ever so carefully so that I might contribute one day. Pull a salary while I nurture my artwork. While it grows into the big thing everyone promised me, (and I had promised myself), it was destined to be. So at Skagit Valley Community College, I chug along a route that will take me to hold a certificate from the paralegal program. Might as well, here. While I'm tucked in between the salt water and the snowy mountains of the valley, might as well. I scored an unexpected 4.0 GPA last quarter, and last week I was nominated for and elected paralegal club vice president.




I woke this morning with my husband. I sat in front of the light that mimics the sunrise well before there was any light in the sky. I showered, brushed my teeth, and thought about my week. Now, at the art studio space I rent in Edison, I plan. I look out the window at the slough, brimming with murk and a very special wildlife. Two hours until I'm to do some contract work at a local law firm.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and I've been thinking about him. I've been thinking about Eisenhower. I've been thinking about Jack Kennedy. I'm only blocks away from the elementary school I attended until I was 14. I remember loving the holiday because sometimes it fell on my birthday and I would have the day off. I have the day off from classes today. My birthday is this Thursday. Fifty years to the day after JFK was sworn into office.


Tomorrow, there is a Paralegal Club budget meeting.
Then class at the Law Library.
Wednesday there is homework due. Class lets out at 8:30 pm.
Thursday, there is a chapter to be read.
Then another club meeting, out of which, I shall duck.
Max will take me to dinner to celebrate my birthday. Il Granaio.
At 1 pm on Friday, I will be getting my #10 root canaled.
Hopefully to recover quickly to dash off to Seattle and collect my scientist pal from the airport. (flying in from Nashville!)
Drinks.

And on Saturday, this:

Cliche. Aphorism. Inanity.

*There are a few swears in this episode of Bow adventures. I'm sorry, but they're essential to the story.


Yesterday sounded like turkey murder from the kitchen. I had to think, "Did I leave the gate open!?" Dogs and turkey and ...human? chaos resounding through my one window. I ran outside and a man was standing across the driveway yelling.

(The turkey just makes reactionary noises when things get loud).

"I'll ---king kill you! You son of a bitch!" he yelled toward the three dogs gathered around him. I looked at his truck. Post office vehicle.

"What is going ON HERE!?" I got quick with the yelling too.

"HE BIT ME!" and pointed at Eddie. "ASSHOLE!" He got in his truck and slammed the door.

I approached the window. "WAIT?! He bit you?"

"Well he nipped."

"I'm sorry, are you okay?"

Then the postman communicated that ol' One Eye had just nipped his PANTS and that he was fine, but in the most curt and aggressive way possible.

"He's never done that before," I tell him, and that's the truth.

He handed me a certified letter to sign, all the while tangibly hating me. My mom came out and he warmed up. So kind to her, he turned away from me. I just handed her the letter to finish signing, grabbed my dog and walked away.

I'm sorry mister postman, you were a dick to me. Like, a total dick. And I don't know what you did to my dog, but it must have been something. I've known him longer and better than you and I got his back. I rescind my apology.

"For (the sake of) old times"

Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,
when from thee I am gone;
will not thy presence yield relief,
to this sad Heart of mine:
Why doth thy presence me defeat,
with excellence divine?
Especially when I reflect
on auld lang syne



Hearts beat much the same way they did in the days of poets Burns and Watson, who in the 1700s penned our midnight song to bring in a new calendar year. Hearts will continue to beat forth with regret and nostalgia (and more regret and more nostalgia), with hope and intentions (and greater hope and honorable intentions), and so on and so on. Just as fast as Christmas pulls the rug from your feet, you land on your ass December 31st. And a heartbeat away is 2011. A landmark propelling you further away from your past. Your mistakes. Your losses.

Last year we made our hair tall and checked into a hotel and cabbed to a party and danced among strangers in Seattle. This year we didn't even feign plan. I have lived a thousand theatrical celebrations. I feel my heart beat for another time and another place. To ring in another day, another year in a place I don't necessarily feel celebratory about remaining in, calls for no party dress. Only simple attire. A heavy coat.

I look out the only window. The sill, a shrine. A collection. Offerings to Ra, of whom I know too little. I drop vitamin D on my hand and lick it up. I look past the flowers of 2010, the dried remnants crumbling into the new days. The lavender bunch that felt like an apology. The twigs from the honeysuckle that smelled so much like summer. The dried Christmas flowers that were a miscarriage comfort gift. Above them sits the latest and the living. A "just because" bouquet that drinks up the water in the vase and the broken orange sunlight from the woods outside. I surround those memories with succulents because they need me the least. Aloe from John Simon's studio and the Belfast feed store. Jade because it reminds me of Eloise. A wandering jew wanders toward the sink where the woman's work is. It tangles with the dishsoap. Other treasures are there too. The bleached wishbone from the first turkey we slaughtered. I dare not wish.

I feel my heart flutter just in that way it takes your breath. I skate across the ice parking lots and the frozen mud driveway. I race the one-eyed dog around the property.



We heard mysterious snow crunch last night just outside of the porch light's illumination. The dogs went barky and we corralled them for fear of predatory cat. Listening harder with dogs safe, we decided it was not a wild creature. The sound was more human. More frightening. Roseanne flipped off the darkness and at the end of the night, I locked my deadbolt. I felt grateful for the protection of only one window. The guns nearby and my husband unafraid, I fell asleep and dreamed of what-ifs.

I wonder what's out there in the woods. What's out there in the future. I wonder what's waiting to be.

These are the things of which we don't speak, y'all. (Or even know).

Reading another blog born in the Carolinas today inspired me to add y'all to my sentences. Something about it feels friendlier. So imma try to do that now, y'all.

Unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don't know. Such a lovely concept. Thanks to the US defense leg and D. Rumsfeld for it.

...and then there is the call I keep receiving from "Unknown" who remains unknown because they do not leave a message. I screen, ladies and gentlemen. Leave messages.

Disclaimer: I have both a cold and what I believe is an infected incisor and thus, my cognitive sentence and idea forming skills are waning and mildly medicated away. Dripping out my nose, y'all.

Everything comes back to Edison. A thriving arts and beer elbow in this zip code. Just take Bow Hill Road exit from I-5. (Exit 236). Take it and do not stop heading west until you hit the quaint village macaronied by slough. Take it today, perhaps with me in tow, and then take it directly to where I left my car. Two days ago, y'all. Boxing Day and Sunday and dancing to that familiar Edison twang and reuniting with my lovelies. Shuffleboard and last call and let's go to Matthew's after party! I had a good time. And heck, I'm glad I didn't drive away from it. Even though I've recently learned that the boy I used to hold hands with on the elementary school bus is now a locally patrolling officer and I'd sure like to see him again - still glad.

What's making this difficult to transition to, this topic of unknown unknowns, is deciphering the language with which to talk about something that experience and societal habits ordain the secrets you must keep. News you must not share. Anything that dispenses discomfort. And then you will join me in the knowledge, and perhaps we can coexperience unknown knowns together. And known knowns. And perhaps we'll all dissolve this understanding and overuse of kn- words to the point where they look wrong when we type them.

Several people rubbed my stomach at the bar on Sunday. You see, what's more troublesome than telling people you are pregnant, is telling them that you have miscarried. And that you are not a fetal alcohol syndrome fetus mangler on your fifth beer. I feel bad to tell them this. Just in the same ways I can't tell people no, I have trouble delivering bad news. I hate making people feel BAD. Also, I don't want people to feel bad for me.

So very many of the women I tell respond with their own miscarriage stories. How common this is, y'all! And honestly, how much better these stories make me feel. Being alone in something sucks. I took myself out of public for awhile after learning, (coincidentally, the crappy news came via phone call received while shuffleboarding at the Edison), to privately grieve with my husband. To get past the point where I couldn't talk about it to the place where I can.

I'm not encouraging the complaint. Heavens-to-Murgatroyd we hear enough of those. I'm just sayin' that I don't understand the implied safeguarding of certain particulars. I'm not going to generalize with "having a tough time," or "everything's just fine!" I'm going to tell you we've been busy with this, and it is what it is. Starting now.

My husband and I have reached a point in understanding and have found places to appreciate our cards. It feels good to know that we are capable of making a person from nothing. We know that if something is wrong our bodies deal better than our minds. We know that we will be able to both enjoy a champagne toast this New Year's Eve, y'all.

I'm not sure any of this falls under the unknown unknown direction I set out to take. Or has an insight into 98232 life specifically. But I remember wanting to write about these thoughts as I was driving a few days ago, and well... there it is. Y'all.

Hauntings and Holidays.

Bow for the Holidays.


Apparently the clouds impeded our Skagit visions of the rare Solstice Eclipse. For those of us who ventured the morning hours for a peek. Those of you, I might say. I was fast asleep and warmly tucked into bed. Unlike the Summer Solstice, the Winter one doesn't really get me in the mood for a party. Mostly because by the point it comes, I've already been led to believe that winter was months in. The Winter Solstice event helps only to remind me that the cruelty of the northwest weather is really in for a lengthy and gray visit.

Christmas. Something about it makes me anxious. But my husband loves it. My sister and mother love it. I like it when they like things, so I'm here for the show. For the first time in our Christmas history, Max and Michelle Keller have our very first decorated indoor holiday pine tree. My sister brought this tiny thing and leftover trimmings over and now our humble shit shack has a lovely red and green glow. Bets to how long we leave it up are being taken.

Hot buttered rums were called for last night and I ventured the Edison Tavern's Taco Tuesday. Something special about holiday drinks. Spiced mulled wines and warm cocktails. A shuffleboard game with Dave kept me busy. I am tempted to go on here about the Edison's front board's characteristics, but I'll refrain. This could turn into a blog about shuffleboard more easily than not, so I'll attempt not. I swear I'm not secretly an old man. After the game, (in which I came up from a 10-3 score to victor), I had fantastic company and conversation. On my right was Randy, who is a jack-of-all instruments in local band Smoke Wagon, and on the left was Joel Brock, Edison's own sloughart star. Sandwiched between creative and conversational brilliance made bartender Jeremy's lovely hot buttered rums take just the right effect.

Let's use the memory of mention of shuffleboard and the scene at the Edison to segue into the final thing I feel compelled to mention. This image was captured two weeks ago as a shuffleboard camera-phone photo op blurred into haunting evidence of an extra presence:

The ghost of ye Old Edison Inn

This has not been retouched; you can trust me. I acquired this image via sms from Nerd's phone who got it directly from Kimmy. No one was standing in front of Kimmy as she snapped the image. You can see the front board in the lower right corner. Now, I've heard rumors of a man meeting his end down heart attack road on the third bar stool from Phil's favorite seat, but this image seems so feminine. I've looked for any written internet evidence to Edison's history and spiritual residue, but my pithy attempts are empty. So, what do you see? What legends have you heard? Have you had a spooky feeling while you were out smoking a Salem out in the garden? Bar ghost, or no?

"Oysters" by Seamus Heaney

Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated,
They lay on their bed of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to that coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool of thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south of Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.