Crawling through ebay, I can never find it. The music was common as table salt—like book club copies of Gone With the Wind, or electric waffle irons—and the lithographed head of Beethoven is repeated in different lay-outs stretching back to the twenties. There are scores of copies in the 100+ drop-down view of auction listings.
But none are the version from my childhood, my first piece of music—the first musical notes I ever read. The outside was a field of Creamsicle orange. Beethoven's head was dark blue and—I believe—in the upper right hand corner.
Of course, even if I found it no copy would have the penciled letters, in the archaic cursive capitals, carefully written above each note. I had left my grandmother's disintegrating pile of sheet music behind, in that last half-hour walk through the house, picking up pieces of my childhood as if at a blue light special. I chose a mantle clock, a butter dish, a spiral binder of handwritten recipes—stuffed with cut-out panels from boxes of jello and recipes clipped from the local paper—and a bunch of Bibles.
"That looks like it might be valuable," the man said, pointing to a decorative vase. I put it in my box out of politeness. I broke it a few years later and Gary carefully glued the pieces back together, my childhood and my adult life briefly, tenderly intersecting.
June 26, 2013
June 9, 2013
A Poor Player
Daylight from the bedroom windows wakes me up at 6:00.
My phone is not on my night stand.
The lights are on, and the dogs wander the downstairs freely, not in their crates.
I make coffee but it is too weak.
And I remember what I did last night.
Even my silence is not quiet enough for my past, and I see the same faces that my life grew away from, like a houseplant craning up out of a dark corner.
Some of them are kind, and I wonder whether it is the kindness of good fortune—a happy childhood and a solid career—or the mercy that comes from suffering, from true character.
I refused their civilities, insisting on love. Knowing it would never get better for me, I made it much worse.
I am terrified of the commonplace.
I am Frances Farmer on This Is Your Life, her hair swept back into a brutal bun, a cravat like a silk noose, her eyes hollow and black, crawling back from the delicious excesses and articulate rages—a mannequin in a prim wool suit, her anger itching just below the neckline.
I am still here. And look, I'm just fine.
I have too many feelings.
It is a diagnosis. It is not a respectable status.
I have outlived my personality, and like an old T-shirt it hugs my belly, outlining my monstrosity.
I am a joke, told at a dinner party.
My phone is not on my night stand.
The lights are on, and the dogs wander the downstairs freely, not in their crates.
I make coffee but it is too weak.
And I remember what I did last night.
Even my silence is not quiet enough for my past, and I see the same faces that my life grew away from, like a houseplant craning up out of a dark corner.
Some of them are kind, and I wonder whether it is the kindness of good fortune—a happy childhood and a solid career—or the mercy that comes from suffering, from true character.
I refused their civilities, insisting on love. Knowing it would never get better for me, I made it much worse.
I am terrified of the commonplace.
I am Frances Farmer on This Is Your Life, her hair swept back into a brutal bun, a cravat like a silk noose, her eyes hollow and black, crawling back from the delicious excesses and articulate rages—a mannequin in a prim wool suit, her anger itching just below the neckline.
I am still here. And look, I'm just fine.
I have too many feelings.
It is a diagnosis. It is not a respectable status.
I have outlived my personality, and like an old T-shirt it hugs my belly, outlining my monstrosity.
I am a joke, told at a dinner party.
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