About thirty miles from Staunton, I realized I was sitting behind an electrical truck I’d chased out of the left lane fifty miles before, my car had a distinct high-speed shimmy, and I was so far beyond exhausted I was a danger to myself and the other drivers. So I drove faster. It was 9:46 Friday night, 11 May, and it would have been Dad’s 66th birthday.

When I got to the house, my female relatives were already sobbing. Someone handed me a glass of cheap white wine. It was as if I’d blinked and we were back in March, only Daddy was dead. I stayed up for a few hours with Darla and Miss Sasha until I was crosseyed and confused. Suddenly, it was morning. I sat bolt upright in my bed on Dad’s office floor, marched myself to the kitchen and started baking. Darla and Miss Sasha slept in. Daria, Dara and Todd went grocery shopping. My brother-in-law Tyler and I stuck our heads out the front door, did Paper, Rock, Scissors about the weather and set up the buffet in the dining room.

Promptly at 2, Dad’s friends began arriving for our memorial barbecue. Packs of nice people – some with faces familiar to me, some not – nodded and expressed their sorrow. Many told stories I cannot repeat because you wouldn’t believe me. Daria and Dad’s ex-wife Summer knew everyone who came down the driveway but I felt the pull of the kitchen. My impulse in a crowd is always to go scour something. At just about 2:30, Daria corralled Todd.

Daria: Take Barry and drag Melody’s car out of the ditch at the next driveway.
Todd: What am I, Superman?
Daria: Keys!

Before you snicker: the country roads were slick, narrow and pitched at wicked angles. It could have been any of us that went for a frightening slide, but it was Darla’s friend Melody, who walks with a cane. Todd and Barry returned to the kitchen fifteen minutes later.

Todd: It’s tow truck time! Who’s got auto club?
Tata: Hand me the phone and behold my truck-summoning powers!
Crowd: Oooooooooh!

The nice lady on the phone told me the truck would arrive to pluck the little car from the ditch before 3:55 but that I should be standing next to the vehicle cheerily waving my membership card in fifteen minutes. I thanked her, hung up, packed some new yarn into my messenger bag and set off down the driveway on foot. Before I got halfway across the lawn, heads spun.

Todd: What? Where’s she going?
Melody: What’s going on?
Darla: Need a blackjack and a Diet Coke?
Daria: Who’s going with you?
Tata: I don’t need back up.

Geez louise. The car was nose-down in that ditch on a diagonal. Todd had said one of the front tires was hanging in space but I never saw it or the front of the car. I climbed down three or four feet into the ditch and stood next to the car in two-foot tall grass, leaned on the car and started winding a skein of recycled silk yarn into a lumpy ball. Minutes passed, rain threatened, then suddenly delivered. I jumped into the driver’s seat, set up yarn for more winding and opened a couple of windows a crack each for fresh air as torrential rain pounded the Shenandoah Valley. Then things got deeply, cinematically weird.

Part Two

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit depressed. I could give you forty reasons why and if you could fix thirty-nine, you still wouldn’t be able to do anything about that last one: people waste time they could have spent being happy together. There is often no discernable, rational reason for what happens. People act on the idea that the clock will never run out and chances for happiness will keep arriving but that’s not true, is it?

Well, I can’t change what other people do, so let’s dance. It’s a really silly video. Let’s get lost in a song about exuberance and passion, and laugh about the hair.

I can’t wait to go home today. The last month has been years long.

One of my favorites.

Linda Ronstadt’s version of Love Has No Pride is beautiful, yes, but harsh and sharp around the edges, whereas Bonnie Raitt’s is softer, resigned, and infinitely sadder in a more mature way. Bonnie Raitt’s rendition is on Dad’s iPod, which doesn’t surprise me.

About ten years ago, after Morgan moved out and I sank into luxurious, life-threatening despair, I dragged myself to the grocery store at 3 a.m., when I wouldn’t have to explain why I looked like death warmed over because everyone in the store looked worse. At 3, you can hear the music. I happened to be staring into space in the canned vegetable aisle when I heard the first improbable strains of Love Has No Pride. My heart was broken, well beyond the balm of tears. I felt pulled to get closer to the song. Just as it ended, someone tapped me on the shoulder. My hands hurt but I didn’t know why. A boy said, “Miss, would you like to get down from there?” as I realized I’d climbed the shelves and hung off the top in chin up position for a while.

I smiled and dropped from the shelf. Falling has never been a problem.

Last night, Todd and I searched the house for one of Dad’s guitars. Todd cased the music room and couldn’t find this most important one; I heard strain in his ordinarily even tone of voice. We found this guitar in the upstairs room to which we banished ourselves after Daddy declared Shut Up Time every night for the last weeks of his life. Todd calmed visibly when he opened the case and sat down to tune. It had been a long day but finally we were alone in Dad’s and Darla’s house. Children ran around us in pint-size throngs. Dara and her new boyfriend sat in the living room five feet from Todd because doors were open and we left the teenage lovebirds alone. Daria, her husband Tyler and I cleaned up after the memorial party until we finally sat down exhausted.

Todd: Two months ago, Dad closed his eyes and said, “I love that guitar.”
Daria and Tata: Mmmm.

Our earliest memories revolve around Daddy sitting in New Jersey living rooms, tuning and playing, tuning and playing. Sometimes he sang for us. Sometimes we sang along. We knew the words to Greenback Dollar, King of the Road and half the Weavers’ catalog before we could read. Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan were our heroes. And last night, Todd found himself at a loss. What to play? What did he remember whole? Then, Todd laughed and started the intro something from just before Dad left us: Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard. Daria and I swung around and stared at each other for just a second. The children looked around like when she and I spun around and danced, singing at the tops of our lungs. Todd’s wife Bette sang along. The teenagers stared. Then Todd accidentally El Kabonged his toddler and six adults pretended we weren’t laughing hysterically. After the tears dried, Todd opened the Jim Croce songbook and played Operator, which our parents used to sing together in the kitchen more than thirty years ago. This means nothing to you. To us, it meant that our parents made music, made sculptures, made gardens and grew vegetables, and if they’d loved each other, our lives would have been very different.

Finally, the children lost patience with us. Todd put away the guitar, where I found it this morning and took this picture. All of Dad’s guitars will eventually go to California and be Todd’s.

This poster hangs in my living room now. When I left Virginia in April, I accidentally left this behind. I literally ached for it. In a way, it is nothing. Little holes in the plastic, faded spots and tears in the paper make this an unbeautiful object that tells a remarkable story. Dad moved to Europe in the spring of 1973, when I was ten and he was thirty-one. At thirty-one, I committed art crimes in the streets of New York; Dad, at the same age every bit as impetuous, peeled this poster off a wall in Paris because he liked it. The featured dancers are Jacques Marsa, Arlette Thomas and Pierre Peyrou – hoo! google that name and see the gossip in French – all of whom have enjoyed long artistic careers. That’s comforting. This poster came to symbolize for me everything that made Dad different from other people: he was curious, adventurous, interested in everything, less fearful than most people, wildly unconventional and capable. This image is exuberance, vitality, strength. This is just one story. And here is one ending.

Oh. My. God. Twisty:

It is with curled lip and bloodshot eye that I anticipate a total lack of surprise at the news that last month a 17-year-old Iraqi girl was stoned to death in an “honor killing” — words I cannot type without overloading my Oxymoronitron. I expect abhorrence, yes. Disgust, yes. A crushing sense of the futility of it all, yes. Surprise, no.

Because this shit never goes away, it will surprise no one that this girl’s murder began by eight men dragging her from her house into the street, and ended after they had hurled rocks at her for half an hour. Nobody will raise much of an eyebrow when it is revealed that a mob of people watched this murder, and that none of them felt sufficiently moved by notions of a higher moral purpose to intervene. There is nothing particularly out of the ordinary, even, in that more than one of the frenzied spectators possessed such sangfroid as to record the murder with a cellphone video camera and post it on the internet, where it is causing a mild sensation; after all, this is nothing that American soldiers haven’t done, and done famously.

Watch the video. Read the rest. Let this child haunt you. She should.

We made that possible – and this necessary.

Crossposted at Blanton’s & Ashton’s.

Today, the family celebrates the birthday of my niece, the Princess Fifi, the world’s youngest catalog shopper. She was born two years ago and immediately began assembling a wardrobe. We’re having a barbecue at Daria’s house, where we can expect gifts, appetizers and Chlorox Bleach Pens.

A few days ago, Daria expressed in comments interest in a loaf of bread I’d baked. I felt so exposed! Imagine how the bread felt. I shiver, just thinking about it! Regardless, then, on Thursday night, I set up no-knead bread dough and last night just after 6:30, I set the oven for 450 degrees and soaked the clay pot in water. Italian TV waxed operatic in the living room. The kittens tussled athletically on the carpet. My dinner was just losing its singular appeal when tranquility was shattered by the ear-splitting peal of my building’s fire alarm. Kittens dove under the couch for cover.

These are garden apartments, which means two apartments on the ground floor and two above, inside the firewalls. I ran for my door and my neighbor across the hall met me in the foyer. There was nothing to do but stand there because we coudn’t see anything but each other. We smelled smoke but couldn’t see it. As we stood there, staring at the bleating smoke detectors, her upstairs neighbors flung open the front door and bolted up the stairs past us, smiling sheepishly. “We smell it!” they said, and that’s all they said.

I said nothing. They’d left an appliance unattended and were too embarrassed to say so, which meant that they’d deal with the noise. My neighbor and I went back to what we were doing. The hallway was so thick with smoke I could smell it in my apartment and with bread baking. The racket was paralyzing. Doors slammed upstairs, then outside. The young couple upstairs has relatives here, and they were obviously seeking help with the situation.

This is not the kind of place where I’d know much about my neighbors beyond their names, if that, so I don’t know these two. They have two cats, they’re well-educated and keep a nice home. They’re the nice people I fretted about in December. You’ll recall I considered breaking and entering to find out if they were upside down in a ditch. I’d guess they’re in their mid-twenties, probably just a little older than Miss Sasha, and I guessed further this had never happened to them before because a few minutes turned into ten, then twenty, and still the distressing cacophony continued. I hated to intervene, but I couldn’t take it anymore.

I took my four foot step ladder into the hallway, set it up, climbed it and disconnected the ground floor smoke detector. Reluctantly, I took the ladder upstairs and disconnected the upstairs smoke detector. The silence that followed was better than a cold drink on a hot, arid day. Then I knocked on their door.

She is tall and willowy, almost delicate. I’ve seen her books so I don’t underestimate her intelligence. As I talk with her, I realize she depends absolutely on her more gregarious husband, and that I am old enough to be her mother.

Tata: Patricia, you had a little fire? Everything’s all right now?
Patricia: The toaster caught fire. It’s out. Dennis went to find someone to turn off the fire alarms.
Tata: I’ve disconnected them. Are you okay?
Patricia: I am okay. Dennis didn’t know how to turn off the alarms.
Tata: Okay, then. It’s simple. When the smoke clears, connect this to that, then screw this back into place.

Dennis bounded up the stairs a moment after Patricia closed the door. I explained the reconnection to him, searching his face for anything like wounded pride. A young man can be so easily hurt when women either trust him to know what to do or don’t rely on him, as I didn’t, and it’s always hard to know what will offend. I also explained that for the first weeks I lived here, the downstairs fire alarm went off every night at 3:30, so I can disconnect these things in my sleep. Almost.

Daria’s loaf of bread turned out beautifully despite the chaos.

One night, the first week we were in Virginia, Auntie InExcelsisDeo and I came to the same conclusion. It was in the air. I knew it, and I am always right about these things. Someone in that room was pregnant. Everyone said no. Everyone swore up and down that no, we were wrong. Summer’s new husband called from California and said only, “When is the baby due?” which shocked us all into silence.

So today we learn Miss Sasha is pregnant after all. I am going to have a grandbaby. Let the shopping begin.

That’s my baby:

Miss Sasha: Mommy! Hang on a sec –
Tata: Why are you breathless? What’s going on?
Miss Sasha: We’re at the Petrified Forest. Mr. Sasha is watching the Park Ranger and –
Tata: What did you say?
Miss Sasha: Is he gone? One more minute?
Tata: Sweetheart, what are you doing?
Miss Sasha: When the Park Ranger disappears, I’m going over the fence. I have to touch the forest.
Tata: I LOVE WHEN YOU INCLUDE ME IN YOUR CRIME SPREES!
Miss Sasha: I need both hands. Call you in a minute!
Tata: Unless you’re under arrest! Love you, Miss Sasha!
Miss Sasha: Love you, Mommy!

Timing is crucial. For instance, the Ramones’ motto was that if you couldn’t say it in three minutes you should shut up, so I hummed Sheena Is A Punk Rocker and before I got to hmm hmm hmming a punk punk, a punk rocker, the phone rang.

Miss Sasha: The wood feels like spongy rocks. It’s really strange.
Tata: Where is the Petrified Forest?
Miss Sasha: I think we’re in New Mexico.
Tata: Oooooh, that’s great, because Johnny’s in Santa Fe, though I know better than to wire your godfather your bail money. If you get arrested in Arizona, you’re on your own, precious! And you’re far too pretty for prison.
Miss Sasha: My husband just said that!
Tata: Well, isn’t he just the adorable co-defendant!
Miss Sasha: Gotta go. Must make a clean get away! Love you, Mommy!
Tata: Love you, Miss Sasha!

I thought that’d be the end of vamping on these themes but no, it was just the musical interlude. The phone rang again.

Miss Sasha: Mommy! We got to the parking lot and there’s pieces of petrified wood all over the place so I didn’t need to jump the fence after all. I’m so embarrassed.
Tata: Don’t worry, sweetheart! You impressed me terribly! Now, tell me again about your travel plans.
Miss Sasha: We’re going to the Grand Canyon now and we’ll be in Vegas by 3.
Tata: Sweetheart, there’s a rule. You must spend more time than it takes to sing Stairway To Heaven at the Grand Canyon. It’s not just grand, it’s fucking huge.
Miss Sasha: We’ll look at the hole in the ground! I promise!
Tata: Okay, then what?
Miss Sasha: Then we visit Uncle Todd. The next day, we go to Vandenberg.
Tata: I’m writing this down in case I have to describe it to Meredith Vieira on the Today Show.
Miss Sasha: You mean Geraldo Rivera. You’re such a bitch sometimes!
Tata: Love you, baby!
Miss Sasha: Love you, Mommy!

She called one more time to tell me how much I’d love the Grand Canyon.

On Friday, a friend and I had a dispute over the meaning of life.

Tata: We cannot get together even for dinner for at least a month. Life is fucking short! This sucks beyond belief!
Friend: We have – like – fifty years. What’s the rush?

If he drops dead in less than three decades, I will be royally pissed – especially if we finally have reservations.

Anyway, it was as if this conversation changed the progress of time. Where weekends usually fly by, this one passed at an almost geological pace. Even the kittens seemed to agree. It was too hard for me to talk on the phone with friends. The speed of life at other places felt out of synch with the quiet of my apartment, so when Daria called to report that next weekend she’s having a barbecue for baby Fifi’s second birthday, it did not occur to me that day would ever come.

My solitary weekend habits picked up mostly where they were left off almost two months ago: Saturday, I made yogurt and set up bread dough to hydrate overnight after a walk to the grocery, drug and health food stores. Today, I baked bread. The online instructions for the clay pot Dad left me hinted the pot could be used to for this purpose. I thought the first loaf I baked would either turn out goopy – that’s the technical term – or into a cinder. Instead, I got a loaf of bread that is beautifully moist with a crisp crust. I could hardly believe my luck.

That’s salt and basil. You wondered.

It is a sign of this moment that I keep thinking of questions I’d like to ask Dad. Mayonnaise irritates my stomach a little. I wish I’d asked him to devise a handful of summer salad recipes for me – not because I can’t do it myself but because he loved culinary puzzles. This puzzle is not much of one, really: kind of like the little sailboat cut into four curvy pieces.

It’s just as well, then, that I spent my weekend coming to a point of quietness. All talk does not bring us to accord. Or dinner.

Friday Music Blogging: Had Enough Of Myself Edition.