Encountering the unknown with you

A holiday in Senegal. What seemed challenging to explain to outsiders beforehand proved equally difficult to pin down with words after. The beauty of the experience undeniable; the why elusive - like a dissonant tune, seducing as it disappears.

I think we all will remember the boats.  Those Mexican wedding canoes, sagging and tipping with the weight of their catch.  The dark, dripping men drowning in fish. The creaking ropes that bite and go slack.  It was impossible not to see pre-history in those straining, laden horses whipped into the sea to gurgle sea water and haul sea flesh.  We all agreed that this was impossible to forget.

The beaches and the boats. The sand littered with humans and goats, piecing together their livelihoods from debris and the sea.  Each one was at work in some small way, a village of placid survivors.  Not entirely unlike our troupe of tired travelers.  - Would we make it through a series of dirty cities and disappointments?  Would Dakar delight? Could a crumbling manse with second-rate help house this band of discerning pleasure seekers?  Might we die of dysentery or overdose on antibiotics? Could this country really compete and what wonders would we meet??

Though teetering on the verge of dissatisfied disaster, this seasoned crew found felicity in the most unexpected places.  We found it in the crabs and oysters freshly caught; in a private pyrotechnic party; in a four-year-old’s handshake; by crawling into the craw of a baobab; in the bliss of stolen space at eventide & mud on our feet.  We found that Senegal surprised us.  Amid the mundane and the unpleasant, wonders welled up - surfaced without being called.  & we allowed them to and somehow trusted that they would.

I can’t think of a better way to enter the new year than with the ones I love most, and to find in this – yet another shared adventure full of discomforts and the vying passions that we are – to find that we are all still full of hope and the flexibility that allows us to just be. & to be ready for all good things.  Perhaps it is instead we who are surprising.

Thank you. again.

Katherine, Jan. 2013

In Memoriam: Margaret

The majority of my memories of Margaret take place in her home on Eddy Street.  Each memory begins with a tiny thrill induced by the green Astroturf covering her porch - which still never fails to fascinate me.   The double doors that open different directions are the entrance to a kind of fantasy land with a benevolent queen.  The most urgent concern after getting past the requisite hugs and hellos is to discern in the quickest way possible – What is in the kitchen  – what delicacy is waiting and warm - prepared especially for me?!  It must be eaten and quickly!  Of course, this must be achieved stealthily without drawing ridicule from less eager people – like Wendy.  Lucky for me, I was a particular favorite of both Margaret and Wendy who probably always knew that food was my utmost concern at times like these and at the same time hid all knowledge of this from me so that I - in downing 3 cupcakes in a row  -  could achieve Napoleonic success in my own mind’s eye. 

  I never felt more victorious, more coddled, or perhaps more loved than in these moments shared with one generous white-haired woman and my tom-boy partner in crime.  Truly, even till today, the Sims family put me in so many ways on some kind of imaginary pedestal that I can only hope to live up to.  At age 5, I am not sure I had a humble bone in my body – but I certainly knew fear - which is not far off.  Ms. Queen Margaret dispelled all cause for this feeling and I experienced the innocence and joy of running wild in her wonderland.   Wendy, the tom-boy, had the most exotic and extensive collection of dolls and basinets and babies and diapers and bottles that any small girl could imagine or wish for.  Margaret’s home housed the dolldom of my dreams – endless fodder for all my storytelling inclinations.  One doll was as tall as us. I guess that would be about 3 feet tall.  Also – there was a separate dressing room with cradles and endless outfits in pink and white, hung awaiting our direction.  It seems even now like an impossible pipe dream. Just walking up the stairs to this second floor was somewhat other worldly. 

  Margaret specialized in delivering happiness.  She was happy.  She wanted nothing less for you – she probably couldn’t imagine it.  She allowed us to paper-mache giant egg shaped birds in her kitchen.  If that doesn’t say she had a sense of humor and the right approach to life, I don’t know what does. My mom just reminded me that when we visited her last year she was ill and had terribly swollen feet but wanted to try on my black patent-leather platform heels and did.  Young at heart.   As Frank Sinatra always says: you can go to extremes with impossible schemes; you can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams; and life gets more exciting with each passing day; and love is either in your heart or on its way – And when you survive to 105, Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive, when you are among the very young at heart… 

  There is not doubt that she did – and that everyone around her benefited from it.

Katherine Perino 

Dec. 17, 2011

definition Kenneth

boy-man with a gift for making people cry and thank him for it later. serial diet junkie. serious chicaboo magnet. fitness visionary bearing a vague resemblance to Sonic the hedgehog and possessing the rare ability to crack walnuts between his butt cheeks. the kenneth is thus far classified as hetero, but is often mistaken for gayprey as he merrily makes his home in the steamy metal jungles dominated by the homo genus. After nightfall, kenneths can be found geeking out in the buff often in the vicinity of a projector and a pile of meat.

Example Gary: Oh God — is that a Kenneth?! Let’s get outta here before he makes me weep like a baby in front of my fairy posse. Derrick: But he’s cuh-yuute! He can be my Daddy anytime, besides did you you see his delicious bottom?!

swimming with the shark

an electric grid illuminates the lineaments of La Guardia. it's a starnet cast over the darkened city receding below us. too quickly a grey haze mutes and then extinguishes the brilliant metro. in the belly of a shark bird entering uncharted water, we are consumed by the same clouds. our tiny lights blink weakly at the end of one long fin. we advance without hesitation upwards into an engulfing void. at the top of the ascent the muscle relaxes for a breath, leveling out for a long moment which the passengers can only hope won't be followed by a dead weight plunge through the insubstantial ether. My heart always starts the death plunge on its own, impatient for assurance. the shark's nose dips and its belly roars - again in its element, out of mine. Looking out of my golden peep hole into an eerie landscape of dark formless mist. Clearing the clouds, the greyness turns into a pure black canopy pricked by distant pinholes. Acceleration gives way to the stasis of momentum. We are carried along by a jet stream and all sense of effort vanishes. The skies seem safe again & the shark sleeps.

mania

the feeling of having missed out on snowman making while champagne toasting to corporate expectations exceeded. the coffee slinger says I look different on Fridays - vibrant and towering. a downtrodden flaming june. weighted down buoyed up with liquid caffeine. yesterday we carried umbrellas and used them like shields scooping up the thrills of driving snow. tonight it is on the ground, or in fat snow men, or streaming away into sewers.

Lona’s boy

this morning I dreamt of myself taking care of two children - not my own, a boy and a girl, blond, lean, and suntanned - at some resort.  the only part I clearly remember was playing in the beachside pool with the boy, who resembled John and Lona's kid - the one I’d heard was molested.  specifically his sudden acceptance of me and the dark look of desire he gave me as he swam across the pool stairs to be held.  a close hug against my bare stomach.  then carrying him out of the pool and noticing two lounging men.  dark-skinned, black with long, lazy legs like swelling bean pods.  and the boy, I knew the path of his stare over my shoulder as we walked away from the men and that already I had passed out of his capricious heart, though his arms had not yet loosened.