TheSizzler’s Neighborhood

Because the record label wanted to fit everything on both sides of the tape, the very ending of A Day In The Life was cut off. As our tape deck was getting a little old, I became an adept 6 year old at swabbing the head with alcohol and rewinding and straightening the tape inside the cassette. Sometimes, for all my work at getting the music to sound, the tape deck wouldn't play the vocals. It was a wonderful and magical ability by that deck, as I heard the entire album many times without any vocals. It would be hard even here and now to describe what Sgt. Pepper's sounds like in that fashion, the closest you can get is the Anthologies or getting a stereo version and cuttiing one channel.

Not only did I fall head over heals for music, I fell in deep with music equiptment. By age 10 I was cutting splicing tapes, making my own Music Concrete. As I listened to whatever my taste was at the time, I also developed a completely different aesthetic sense of my own- beyond my peers- that had a historical value behind it. 

Margaret was thrown into daycare. It was heartbreaking to leave her in the hands of another, even if capable. I hated holding her and smelling the scent of another home on her. I remember vividly the heartbreak as a chlild of not being in my home. The games and company of others my age could not replace where I belonged- in my space. She has been consistently sick for the last three months. I have worried that at such an impressionable age she would think that life as normal is physical suffering. We, too, have been sick off and on- missing many days at work and school.

I am in purgatory now- balancing eggshell thin plates above my head- trying to hold on to my ego, drive and place in school. The last few days I have been in congress, shaking hands with my professor's hoping my integrity is transparent. Monday I was sick all day and night, but had to bury my weakness to plot graphs and memorize equations- which also I struggled with as we spent no time on the particulars of the intellectual revolutionaries who brought to earth and down to paper a simple sentence explaining the contours of the physical world.

Part of my malaise, was the place of my education. So named by the city fathers, The Boulevard Of Roses, it is where the prostitutes and drugs  line the streets. I am not blind to the realities of life, I grew up in the ghetto. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. I worked with a young woman organizing poetry readings in one of the few cafes in our little town. At the height of my powers, I recited a eulogy to a lover lost over Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Shortly after that reading, she became a high class prostitute- or what she considered to be. There was no more lines being read.  In the same period, a boy of 6,  my little brother played with was taken away by social services. While his parents stayed home, they sent him out to deal their drugs. It has been almost 15 years since I was immersed in this life and my blind entry back into it milked scars I failed to notice I had.

The campus has corporate motivational looking posters- some waterfall in Hawaii or a serene mountain top- with quotes by Frederick Douglass, Sir Francis Bacon, Dr. Martin Luther King tacked up on the dirt stained walls. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. With such naivetee, no one is mentioning that once you have an education, you have to carry the weight of Western Civilization and the responsibility of self awareness. It seems cruel to dangle the promise of bread and circuses in front of people with such low confidence. People so trampled upon, that their efforts to move forward, when strangled by greed and malice are baffled. "Look, they say, the promised land is over yonder. You just have to work to reach it." Life will be so easy and money at hand if you apply yourself. Obviously, I am not against education, but I am trying to communicate that beyond your own self makings- larger forces are still at hand. Social justice is not guaranteed with a college degree.

I am still in awe and trying to construct within myself a calm understanding of the future beginning on Jan. 21st. I never thought in my lifetime that I would have a political leader who I believed in, who inspired me, who held me in awe and that Democracy was actually at hand. I have been trying to understand the financial crisis which has been destroying people's lives. This merry-go-round has been rotating into a downward spiral for some time. I remember joking at a party years back that the 1990's was our generation's version of The Great Gatsby. No one has of yet, addressed the economic impact of that market's plummet. I am only glad that the playing field is finally being leveled- that perhaps all of the self-righteous indignation and smug Social Darwinism of the nouveau riche will meet it's justified end.

There is a new sense of freedom that has been hungered for for a long time. Slowly, the lives of real individual Americans are being expressed. The gray, heart felt relations of love that resulted ultimately in our births have been given a space to be voiced. Both sides of my family came from money, but it was all lost in stories as large as life to be told elsewhere, except in a small inheritance here and there. Some of us lost our souls in the bargains, but we never lost our intelligence and culture. With such a rebellious person as my father, it was an even more dangerous breadbasket to give to an even more rebellious daughter. Once I asked my grandmother, who raised me, where we came from. Her answer always irritated me as being too ambiguous, but now in this time I finally understand. She said that it didn't matter, but that they were good people.

With all of these forces and the affairs of daily life, I wanted to make a run for it. How could I reconcile the future while living in hell? Where was my Virgil?

I made it out. Eliza Doolittle was sweet this morning and helped me catch up on my homework. As is the case with most members of my family, she felt comfortable to rest her head on my shoulder. She had given up her job to concentrate on school. She was weary and soul worn from poverty. She just wanted to have shelter and food. She had been wrongly advised to not take out student loans, not realizing that federal subsidizing of grants has consistently plummeted while tuition prices have increased. She was worried about having a home in January, food next week, she would have to get her daughter's Christmas presents from a charitable donation. My heart was wrenched, as I searched  for words of comfort, words to reassure, something for her to look forward to. The generosity of her help with my homework and the willingness to share with me ended with a warm look of good-bye. I looked again for a solution as I headed toward the dread of my writing class. Would we cover its and it's for an hour once again? Ten of us huddled to our desks wondering how much our absenteeism would effect our grade. No one could possibly guess what we would discuss today. I volunteered the man who earlier exclaimed: "Pythagoras, man, he invented triangles" to get our professor to excuse class.

I never re-watch films, unless it's something that in the visual or narrative is illusive, inspiring, or finds a way into my heart. The young man who summarized the life and work of Pythagoras asked what we would be doing in class. The professor responded that we would be watching a movie called Roger and Me.

Michael Moore in his recent incarnations has left me with a bitter taste. His bending of the truth leaves a shameful legacy in the face of his first film. I watched Roger and Me when it first came out. It hit close to home for me as my father was a skilled laborer and I had a close friend who grew up in Flint. I could not and would not watch Roger and Me again, simply because it was too true. A few years back, my husband asked me to see it with him and I did because I thought maybe my maturity would revise my experience of the film. It did not.

I am also not a person who cries. I have cried a very few times in my life, even when it would have been the best thing to do. I cried today in class.

A few days ago I was watching a documentary on Curtis Mayfield and one of the commentator's remarked that there where only a few songs that gave your heart wings: A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke, We Are A Winner by Curtis Mayfield and Redemption Song by Bob Marley. I have had little to no time to devote to my art, other than the regular schematics in my mind. Even my prints in my only art class have had little reward. It tasted like stale bread to watch my work unfold. As I was printing my last edition, Redemption Song came on. I listened to the lyrics for the first time.

My desire to be alone, is not really alone. It is the same time alone as the poems of Antonio Machado; outlying in deep meditation with the realities of life. Tikkun Olam has never been more prescient.

The past months have been full of transition for all of us. I traded night for day at school, Murray started a new job, and Boo went to preschool. Somehow we're riding the waves of so much work and so much time apart. It's nice to know the power of love and how much it can resist.

A few days ago a lifetime dream came true for me: I received a violin as an early birthday present. I started in on it right away. One of the most wonderful things about it is that I haven't had an instrument in so long. I fell immediately in love with it. It is a great new window in my world: it will force me to spend time on myself.

With all of the tragedy and malcontent of our current state, I feel truly lucky. I went back to work in the early summer as a freelance commercial artist. It's a step in a really good direction. I'm able to apply everything I've learned over the last few years and learn quite a few things along the way. Also, I forgot how much I love working and how nice it is to have a little more money. I feel fortunate to be doing what I want to do and what I love in a time when a lot of people can't make ends meet.

I bought a new camera in the Spring and it has brought me a lot of joy. I've been able to really express myself in this medium and explore the world of photography. I have a long way to go, but I"m taking pictures weekly.

I also have garnered a great collection of power tools: miter saw, router, drill. I've been exploring the world of woodworking and have some sketches for sculptures.

School has been a study in extreme opposites. I have 2 classes near an affluent neighborhood with professors I studied with 2 years ago. It was a great shock and dear to me that they both remembered our previous time together. On the other end of the spectrum, my classes are in the ghetto. It's about a 10 minute drive from my house, but I forgot it was the avenue of prostitution. There are huge debates in the neighborhood to change the direction of this long thoroughfare. Being a little extroverted, I have made friends there. Some of my fellow students miss major tests at 9 A.M. because they are drunk and high. There is often talk about what to sell in order to get by. The sheer ignorance of worldly affairs and education is amazing. But, I have compassion for my colleagues. They are putting forth a sincere effort to get out of hell and that in itself is a leap of consciousness.

Most amazingly, I met a prostitute with a heart of gold. She really is the icon of so many works of art. She's subltle, sweet, the best student in my Algebra class, a mother, an artist. My grandfather once said: "It's not only who you are, but who you're with." I've carried that close to my chest for many years and it has not failed to guide me. She was brought up in the MId-West in the 1980's as the economy started to fall apart there: farms, auto industry. She came also from a set of unfortunate circumstances; born into poverty and brought up in orthodox religion. She has been trying to lift herself out of this inheritance and find a good life for her and her daughter. But, the reality of jobs and the lack of financial aid for school has led her to support her family by any means necessary.

My extreme open mindedness: which means that I take each person for who they are based upon the integrity of their intentions has led me to some beautiful and dark corners of life. I am thankful for this ability, but it also carries a great burden upon my heart.