The Drunk Geisha

I can't seem to get my head together enough to write the blog entries I want to write, but I am starting to piece through old snippets of writing to try and put this huge jigsaw puzzle of a novel that I have together.  In the meantime, I came across this old "poem" I wrote years and years ago that I thought I'd post just for the hell of it.  I would never call myself a poet--just having fun and playing with words and form.  Enjoy!

The Drunk Geisha


Sitting with knees bent
and archless feet
tucked under a heavy bottom,
draped from the shoulders
with layers of onerous silk.
Her hand cups a wrist to pour
placations, inebriations
for men
wrestling with temptations.
They watch the stillness of her movement
listen to the slumber of her speech.
They wonder what the smile hides
what her mind may know
and what her beauty
will not tell them.
Onyx strands fall
against niveous skin
and guarded lids
cover lashes that slash her heart.
She administers alcohol or tea
to soothe their spirits
laughs at their jokes
and makes smalltalk
to fill the silence.
She is doing a job
that was assigned to her
by a male God
and taught to her by women.

When the evening is complete
and she has purged the men from her hold
she will consume the last drops of liquor
that made her so bold.
Tranquil bitters coat her tongue
Her head hung
Sitting, now bent
and hunched with repent
full of the woes
of being in the throes
of men, those damn men,
who tell her,
"You are simply a rose."

Her sister, the Dragon Lady, scoffs at her kin
says, "Girl, what's your problem?
Why you trippin?"
The Lady flicks her red nails and slugs from her drink,
tosses her black tress and gives her a wink,
"It's business, my friend.
You're not selling your soul.
Get off it, move on...
it's taking it's toll."

2/6/99

A Place Called Home

I've just landed in Savannah, Georgia--leaving behind certain travails and tribulations in Tennessee, having encountered a few glorious faery souls, encountering the dark and the quiet and the lushushness of the woods--and pulling into the park-like neighborhoods, trees draped with Spanish Moss, and the breathtaking Colonial, Federal and Victorian architecture of buildings and homes that have been here for centuries.  I walk past wrought iron gates and find my footing on sidewalks of uneven bricks, concrete and broken shells.

I'm mesmerized by this place, I'm mesmerized by the South.  I've been indoctrinated and seduced by each place I've encountered.  Whether it's the winding roads that by night look like a dopppelganger of another road I had already driven by day or the animals I've come to know and love, the insects I've been forced to accept, admire or endure, the different personalities or ways of living, the familiarity of loved friends who have welcomed me into their homes and given me a respite or place for me to gather and absorb and partake in their world and livelihoods... I have been mesmerized and truly grateful and yet still wondering.

When strangers ask me, "So, where are you from? What are you doing out here?"  I reply in a fashion that is now becoming staid: "I'm from LA.  I'm a writer.  I've never experienced the South."  Sure, my response, at the moment of discussion, may not be that bland and there are moments of more interesting conversations where I'm able to insert other anecdotes or supplementary information about why I am here or what I have experienced thus far, but the longer I am out here, just simply traveling (as much as I LOVE traveling and going from place to place), there are times when I have to ask myself, too: "So, where are you from?  What are you doing out here?"  Why am I here, where am I from, and what am I doing out here, anyway?"

It dawned on me tonight that I have been a hobo for way too long.  I've been basically couch-hopping (or rather beautifully bed- or home-hopping), HOPING that maybe I might find my home or my place if I went... to that next place.

Part of my problem is that I convolute or intertwine my feeling of security or home with a man.  Which, actually, I find curious when I'm one of the last women standing!  I'm a single woman here now--almost 40--by choice.  I did not or never wanted to be "that," I never thought I would turn "that age"... it just happened, and then being single at my age also happened by choice.  Mostly because I never found the man who I wanted to be with and I think I held out for that for most of my twenties and thirties, despite my personal beliefs.  

It was like this: if I had my druthers, I would be the single, accomplished woman who didn't have to rely on a man for my happiness or well-being, but if the beautiful man came along I would go there and love him completely, which I did for most of my life.  I've always been boy-crazy: I was that kindergartner who got benched during recess because I was always playing chase with the boys and who wrote about my "boyfriends" in my first diary in first grade: one, a red-haired mop-headed Jewish boy from the San Fernando Valley and the other, a dark-skinned, gentle immigrant from Tanzania.  I just always loved the boys.  

I tried.  I held out for that ideal of being the single, accomplished woman, but I always buckled because I love the boys just too damn much.  I came up in the 90s with collegiate-feminism and inaccessible, pretentious theory and no utilitarian practice.  That was my big gripe whenever I had to read these texts in college and then had to translate their ideas into what I had experienced or how I saw the world.  Academia is all theory and fuckin bullshit brain power---there's no practice or immediate use for all the great good that the privileged few can do anything with.  And if there is anything good, it takes eons and years for it to trickle down to the masses.  There was always that struggle between reading, learning and processing and then applying it to my life or experience and what I have known or observed.  

Then, I saw too many intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed "men." Ugh.  I looked at them, observing these intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed men, which is easy to do from afar and also desire as an observer or lover-of-being-in-love, but the problem for me was that I could never get my own shit together enough to even  be that.  I was still just grappling with my own demons and then meeting these random guys who wanted me and then who I got involved with in these two-year long relationships that went nowhere because, honestly, I didn't want to be with any of those guys from the get-go, but they were just, maybe, the next best thing to make me feel more whole or sure about who I was and... well, then, they usually disappointed and I did, too.  Me and them.  I didn't have my own shit together or was unformed and unrealized myself and these two broken parts would always come together--never enough wholeness to make a whole functioning unit.

There are two kinds of men: either they want their cake and it eat it, too, and can never settle down fully to commit and not wrestle with those other "I'm -scared-of-committing-demons" (and they'll always "dabble" even if they say they are done with that part of their lives) or they are the staid, regimented, boring types that freak the fuck out whenever you suggest or insert something new or different into their lives.  I don't care if you try to be loving or understanding or work with their insecurities or whatever, whether they are the terrified single dude or the terrified regimented boy they just freak out and either begrudgingly partake in your suggestion or they just won't do it and will stay set in their ways.  Either one is mind-boggling and frustrating and makes me claw at the walls.  I'm probably not picking the right men to be involved with, yes, but I also just get to a point where I get sick of the bullshit and would rather be alone and single than constantly having to put up with someone who needs so much work and isn't willing to do it on his own.  I want someone who has worked on their shit apart from anyone else, someone who has gone through the ups and downs and difficulties of life, but who has taken quiet time out for themselves to learn about why they do the things they do and how these patterns erupt in their lives or who may have figured into that picture and what they can do to change it now. I want to feel their substance and worth--wrap my fingers around their grace and beauty and linger there, dawdle and slip and slide between knowing and unknowing.  I want permanent press with the romance of silk, the durability and contention of hemp, the familiarity and sweetness of cotton, the sexiness of satin, and the modernity of bamboo.  I want to recognize that hodgepodge of fabrics that creates the one I love, but then feel the substance and delight that we are made of the same material.

I want adventure and fun and anticipation of the unknown in my life, but I also want security and deep-felt love and the comfort of knowing and understanding with a man.  Unfortunately, I am not a lesbian and sometimes I wish I was... if only because the alternative to loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by men is loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by women.  I think women--especially beautiful women--are HOT and even though I've gone there it's never dawned on me to get involved with a woman or to be in a relationship with one like a man.  It's simply not appealing to me.  The roles and gender things are just too confusing.  I want to be involved with a man--my best friend, my alter ego, my lover, that person who has different parts than me and is just the one who I find gorgeous, wonderful and endearing... and also the one who will travel the ends of the earth to be with me no matter how difficult the circumstances or obstacles.  He will climb through the tundra or battle windstorms, hijack a 747 or become a stowaway in cargo on a ship, fight a duel to the death, scale tall buildings with a single bound.  But, hell, I know Superman doesn't exist.  Maybe the problem is that there are too many women out there trying to be Superwomen and there just aren't enough Supermen.

PJ Harvey's "A Place Called Home" is ringing in my ears.  She has always been my bitch, my kick-ass chick who fuckin calls it as it is and still makes beautiful, intelligent music.  I always have to have a muse, especially when I write, and Ms. Harvey is my muse right now.  The music lingers in my ears from way back when and then I remember a random title here or there: A Place Called Home.  It is what I am seeking.  I want a place called home.  I want to find my home within myself, maybe with a good man, definitely somewhere--whether it be within myself or with another loved one--that is beautiful and functional and secure.  A place full of romance and love and continuity and belonging.  A place that I, myself, can call Home.  I will be there.  I will get there.  I will find my home soon.  I know it.  It's just around the corner.  I just have to keep having faith, keep loving and keep walking on these broken shells and uneven bricks...

The Mountain

Since I've been here on the Mountain, in the country, in the backwoods of Tennessee, it's been an experiment and "test" for me to go with the flow, to allow things to unfurl and happen as they may.  In the city or even in small towns, life is contrived: planned, anticipated, already pre-determined by schedules and agendas.  And then there is just the general discontent for the want of more--material goods, acknowledgment, status, peace of mind, direction, discussion, connection.

I'm not saying that those things don't occur in the country.  People can certainly be unsettled here, too.  Drugs--mostly meth production and consumption--are a rampant problem for some.  I've seen the made-up ladies with their aerosalled hair driving BMWs down country highways or the dulled, pot-bellied men buying cigarettes and beer at the local gas station or a fat man and woman traipsing around their garbage-strewn front yard and plopping down on a dirty couch as though that might be the only thing to do in their world.

Maybe it's the particular place I am in the country--the Mountain: a covenant of hills blanketed by thickets of trees; winding roads that all look the same, especially after dark when even your brights can't help to discern a bend in the road or one God-fearing sign from the next; a pasture of grazing animals--goats on one farm, horses on the next, a couple of ostriches, or maybe it was ostriches there and horses next, and goats somewhere else; a well-kempt cottage, a trailer, an impressive log cabin, a dump, or random trails that actually lead to another part of the Mountain that you might pass by if you didn't know that they led to where you wanted to go.

Most people just live here, some have lived here for generations, inheriting land from their parents and grandparents and trying to carve out a life for themselves from the generous land that requires so much tending and work.  Others have moved here because they remember passing through the lushushness of Tennessee: resplendent with the green of the foliage and the woods and the tumultuous pink-clouded, electric blue, gray firmament of revelation and glory; the clap of thunder that echoes through the canyons of trees and the lightning that darts through slate skies; creatures that scamper and sprint across the road, insects--microscopic or as big as your hand--that bite, sting, sing, and just fly and buzz around constantly; the quiet, the dark, the humidity, and the absolute grace and beauty of Mother Nature all convene here in mid-Tennessee.

It is also the place where I find myself here on the Mountain, though, just miles from The Retreat--this place that so many of the friends I've come to know in the last two months have all gathered around.

I've heard many stories now about The Retreat and how it came to be.  It was a hippie commune, it was a communist sanctuary, it was a place where people could come to escape the confines of the city or capitalist society and live with Mother Nature, give and take with the land and learn how to live with each other.  Then, it became a haven for gay men to come away from the city and appropriated roles and live life freely, leanly, fully together without harm, without judgment to nurture each other and Mother Nature as one.  A beautiful life.

People came.  Since the 70s.  People came and lived here at The Retreat--a pocket in the hills of The Mountain--and settled there.  I don't know what it was like in the 70s, 80s or 90s, but now, as an outsider, as a straight Japanese American woman from Los Angeles in 2010, I have come to know The Retreat as this: a true haven.  It is a slice of Heaven, a slice of Life, a sliver of what could be in this World, a redemption for all the evils and misconstrued expectations and acceptances of what a Good Life is all about.  This is the Good Life: living freely, without expectation or want, having a community of people to find the balm for your insecurities or uncertainties, experiencing your sexuality openly without fear, coming to an understanding about true reciprocity, taking from the land and giving back equally, finding peace even in your own disquiet, staying still and just listening to the world around you, which, in this world, is all bugs and darkness.

I say this from afar, still, because I have not or am not, maybe, of this world that I have landed in.  I have not experienced my sexuality freely (though I have certainly toyed with the idea), I have not lived truly freely without expectation or want, but I am learning about reciprocity, taking from the land and giving back equally, finding peace in my own disquiet, staying still and listening to the world around me, in the bugs and darkness or light of day, and finding a community of people who have given me the balm for my insecurities and uncertainties.  Since I have been here, whether its the woods or the people who have lived here longer than me and have a deeper understanding of what Life and reciprocity is all about, I have said to others around me that these woods, this land, the people who inhabit this place, have given me exactly what I needed, whether good or bad.  Maybe it's the quiet that's allowed me to receive it--good or bad--but, regardless, there is something about This Place that has given me exactly what I need.

And I am forever grateful....