IT'S MINE, ALL MINE by Sarvananda Bluestone

“Why do you collect erasers?” Mrs. Belisle, the baby sitter, asked me. I was nine.

“Gesell says that I am going through a collecting phase.” That’s what Ma had told me. She was a devout reader of Arnold Gesell. Fact is that I was always collecting.

I have been collecting as long as I can remember. First, and always, it was records and books. I remember carefully handling the twelve inch very breakable 78 RPM records that constituted the “Lonesome Train”. I was four. I had learned to write my first name. Two years later, when my father returned from the War, he taught me how to write my last name. I still have the album, containing four records; with my name carefully and clearly printed on the inside cover. I never broke a record until I was an adult. Then I got careless. The long playing records that supplanted the seventy-eights were unbreakable. I had thirty years to get careless. I put the “Lonesome Train” in a collection of records on the floor and accidentally kicked it. It was thirty-four years after I had received the album.

I needed—I wanted—I craved. These were the feelings connected to collecting. When I was little and heard the fairy tales that had kings in the counting houses counting out their gold I understood what they were doing. I didn’t have gold, but I knew the feeling. It was an old friend.

People were uncertain. They could come and go. They could come back and die. They never stood still. Friends would return every summer to Journey’s End-or not. But I could go over my things—my collections. They always would be there. They were mine for keeps. They were mine forever.

“I wish Ma and I would never die.” It was a mantra that I began I think when I was eight. Daddy was dying. I was sitting on the hill at Tally Ho Music Camp. It was only about eight miles from Journey’s End and we would go to their Sunday concerts. I sat on the hill on a blanket with some of the other kids as the music floated up the hill.

“I wish Ma and I would never die. I wish Ma and I would never die. I wish….

When Daddy died I added my brother, Paul. He was a pest but I did not want to lose him.

“I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die. I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die…”

Then I was nine and soon we moved from our twelve room mansion on the hill in Yorktown Heights—the house with the winding driveway and orchard and four door heated garage with an apartment above it. We moved from Yorktown and my friends and the house where Daddy had died. We moved into a two room apartment on Six West Ninety-Sixth Street in New York City. Ma decided to send me to Walden School, the only private school I ever attended where they let the students do anything they wanted. I spent most of my time running up and down the halls with my two friends, screaming at the top of my lungs.

It was the worst year of my life.

“I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die. I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die…”

It was the year that I went to see Stella Chess, a psychiatrist, who helped me to anchor myself in the swirling world.

One bright spot was that every day after school, I raced down to Woolworth’s. I would think about that every day during school. That was all I looked forward to and learned how to count the minutes until the end of school. I raced down to Woolworth’s and bought a little pad of loose-leaf notebook paper. It was always the same size.

I never got the notebook that the loose-leaf paper went into. And I never made a single mark with pen or pencil upon the blank sheets. I just collected pad after pad after pad. Soon I had collected a little stack of blank paper.

Ralph had come into my life. I hated him at first. Soon I revered him.

“I wish that Ma, Paul, Ralph and I never die. I wish that Ma, Paul, Ralph and I never die.”

When I started to teach my collecting continued. I had my own income. When I was married to Heather I managed to subscribe to seventy-five periodicals. Some of them were quarterly and some of them were weekly. I actually kept up with them and took notes—until the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966. Then I fell behind.

Heather had an ectoptic pregnancy. It came on so suddenly. She almost died. I never realized that I loved her until then.

“I wish that Ma, Paul, Ralph, Heather and I never die…..”

By the time I left Heather and married Marci, later to be Premrup, the periodicals were taking over the house. They spilled out of my study and started to flow down the stairs like some academic version of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” When my five year old stepson, Jason, went careening down the stairs on some slick periodicals, Marci gave me a choice. “It’s either us or the magazines.” I made a major cut back on my magazines.

By now the list of people had come to include my daughter Julie Anne, later to be Hira. Right after she was born I would tiptoe into the room where her crib was and make sure that the cat, Phoebe, wasn’t sitting on her face. I would bend down and feel the gentle breath coming from that very small mouth.

I don’t think I ever included Marci in my list of people. I know I never included Marci. It was one thing to pretend that I loved her. It was quite another to include her in my prayers. And I never included my stepsons in my silent entreaties. This was one place where I was absolutely true to my fears and my love. I started to shorten my mantra to two letters: OX. I would simply repeat OX, OX, OX. OX.

I don’t remember when I stopped the mantra. I think it was after I had become a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. There was a period where I even had lost my fear of flying. The Master constantly spoke of the fear of death. For a while it began to recede.

The collections continued. With Heather I collected pot. Each purchase was put away in a little plastic box with an appropriate name. I got some grass from Justin Taylor in Vermont and called it “Vermont Justice”. The names were creative and the collection grew. When I went to grow some of my own from the seeds, I sprouted almost a hundred different plants. Not one of them survived except for a feeble little plant that was so weak I wasn’t even sure it was marijuana.

By the time I left to go to Rajneeshpuram in 1981 I had amassed three hundred cartons of books and records. That was my last major move. Before I left for the Ranch I had divested myself of all but my collection of poetry which I sent to Oregon before me.

“OX. OX.OX. OX’

When Ma died one of the greatest fears of my life had come to pass.

I still collected. I have collected books, software, tarot decks, crystals.

“OX. OX. OX. OX.”

I constantly fear for my daughter and my grand daughter. When she bought a Mini-Cooper I freaked out—internally. When she tells me that she is going to ride her bike to school with Lucy on the back, I swallow my fear. I no longer repeat the mantra. I stopped that long ago. I just worry and hope. At least now I can do Reiki. But I still collect. There is sureness there.

LANDSCAPE by Daniel Marshall

I’ve always liked women. I mean, of course I like women sexually; but besides that I’ve usually found women more interesting to be with than men—there are distinctions!

Today, I’m standing at the elevator, and there are already two men there waiting. This one, who’s tall and dark, like Wilt Chamberlain but not so tall, and missing his upper front teeth brings me into the conversation, which I think is very sweet and courteous of him. I catch the drift of it—like the two of them have been speaking Creole or Jamaican, and he’s bringing it down to me.

He’s apologetic. “You see,” he says, “we’re talking about strip clubs, and he don’t want to say that he was there, because you’re here.”

And the other interjects, “I think everyone’s got sexual thoughts!” I look at him, and he says it again. “I think everyone’s got sexual thoughts!”

“Absolutely!” I say. And they both look very relieved about me. “I mean, you’ve read the Gospels—the Bible, right?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” They’re in familiar territory, nodding vigorously; and I say, “It’s always interested me how forgiving Jesus is of sexual sins—even the woman caught in adultery. Now, adultery is a pretty terrible thing, because someone gets hurt!” Vigorous nods. “Yet, He just forgives her easily; but the Pharisees He has no use for. They’re actually killing people, greedy, with their righteousness! Hot-blooded sins He forgives easily; but cold-blooded ones He detests! We’re supposed to deal with sex reasonably; but if we don’t … [I think what word I want to say. They’re chuckling, “Ha, ha!”] …, it’s forgivable.”

I didn’t mean that greed isn’t forgivable—like “the sin against the Holy Spirit”, and what that is! Oh, well, it’ll have to do; it’s out there.

The younger one can hardly contain himself: “Sex is necessary,” he blurts, “so there can be people!”

That was more interesting than most talks with men, but what I mean is, I like women sexually—that is, some women, if they’re into it, but besides that I just like being with them more than men. With women, it’s more getting into each other, grooving together.

With men …; I mean, take my brothers—they argue. We’re Irish and shy; and that’s how we show love! Men want to argue, or say nothing, or talk about sports, or fucking women. Yuck! Women are more subtle.

Except, women talk I can’t stand! I really can’t! When the women in my family get together … they’re off here, off there. My linear male mind wants to scream! “Stick to the point! Who is that person, and that one; and I don’t care anyway! And if you can’t remember his aunt’s maiden name, drop it, please, and just keep on with the story!”

Is there something wrong with me for preferring women’s company? Maybe I should get more men friends. I melt when women smile. My male counselor has a beautiful smile every time—like a Cheshire cat. He was a monk twenty years ago and just walked away. I used to wonder whether he was homosexual. I don’t think so; but it doesn’t matter to me. I love him very much.

THE GRIEF PROJECT by Suzanne Bachner

VERONICA: I have a project I want to write with you.

SUE: With me?

VERONICA: I have a kernel. The kernel of an idea and I want to collaborate with you.

SUE: I just got rid of a bad Hollywood writing partner. I don’t want to work with someone else. Like that.

VERONICA: Well, really, I want you to write it. It’s about my father. Sort of.

SUE: I love your Dad.

VERONICA: I know you do. That’s why I wanted you to write it.

SUE: Isn’t it too soon? After his death?

VERONICA: I like to say passing.

SUE: I’m sorry, passing. Isn’t it too soon after his passing? To do a project. I mean, for you.

VERONICA: Just meet me. And we’ll talk about it.

SUE (to AUDIENCE): I meet her at a super trendy overpriced health food restaurant in West Hollywood. We sit outside. She drinks iced tea and watches me eat. (to VERONICA) What’s your kernel?

VERONICA: My kernel is this: it’s a short film. It’s called “Visiting Hours.”

SUE: Nice title.

VERONICA: I know. I thought you’d like it. It would be a showcase for me. I’d be the star.

SUE: I thought you said it was to honor your father.

VERONICA: It is. The credits are going to say “In Loving Memory” and all that.

SUE: Okay. Your Dad used to call me Sue “The Bach” Bachner. And I used to call him Charles “The Chuck” Goldfarb. I think he liked that.

VERONICA: That’s why I want you to write this. I thought of you first. I want you to write it and for Kenneth and I to produce it, and he can have a small role in it if there is one, but that’s not important and I’ll star in it.

SUE: I’ve really had pretty bad writer’s block since the divorce.

VERONICA: Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry to hear that.

SUE: And honestly, Veronica, the last time you and Kenneth said you’d produce something, Patrick and I ended up producing it.

VERONICA: That’s just how it worked out. If you really want to move forward, you shouldn’t dwell on the past. I mean, if I were you, I wouldn’t even mention your husband’s name.

SUE: Ex-husband.

VERONICA: You know what I mean. I told Kenneth not to be friends with him anymore.

SUE: They were really close. I told everyone—you included—that I didn’t have a problem with people being friends with him. We’re in a very small community. I would have preferred that Wendy hadn’t slept with him—

VERONICA: Totally breaking the girl rule.

SUE: Yes, but I didn’t want all these other relationships to be casualties just because we split up.

VERONICA: You’re too nice.

SUE: I don’t think so.

VERONICA: You know, your divorce was really tough on me.

SUE: I’m sorry.

VERONICA: It really triggered me.

SUE: Are you worried about you and Kenneth?

VERONICA: Not at all. We’re golden. It just brought up a lot of issues I have because of my parents divorcing when I was six and feeling completely scared and abandoned and rejected and blamed.

SUE: Well, I might have tried harder to work things out with Patrick if I had known this would be so hard on you.

VERONICA: Thanks. Can I taste that?

SUE: Sure. Take some. Let’s get you a plate.

VERONICA: Oh, no. I just want a nibble. No, no fork. I’ll use my fingers.

SUE: You’re like a little bunny.

VERONICA: Kenneth thinks it’s cute. (VERONICA looks at her Blackberry.)

SUE: Do you have somewhere to be?

VERONICA: No, it’s not that. I just thought that we were going to talk about the project, and not about your problems. I mean, I’m more than happy to talk about that at another time.

SUE: Oh, okay. So you penciled me into today with an agenda.

VERONICA: Exactly. A very worthy agenda. I think you’re the person to write this short.

SUE: Maybe not now. I told you when we first talked…

VERONICA: Let me tell you the kernel.

SUE: Ah, yes, the infamous kernel.

VERONICA: I think you’re going to want to write it once you hear the kernel.

SUE: Okay. Tell me the kernel.

VERONICA: Okay. A woman—me—slips into a coma, maybe she has some kind of tragic accident, I don’t know, we can figure this out. But the short mostly takes place in a hospital—so that way we’re only dealing with basically one location—and this beautiful young woman is in a coma in this hospital and she’s visited by all these random people in her life—the bagel guy she sees every morning, her manicurist, her yoga instructor, her doorman, as well as her family and friends, but it’s the everyday people, salt of the earth kind of regular people who we wouldn’t expect to visit her at all. Those visits, those people, are the heart of the film. And it’s called “Visiting Hours.”

SUE: Yes, you mentioned that.

VERONICA: What do you think?

SUE: Woman in coma gets visited in the hospital by bagel guy.

VERONICA: Yes, basically. In a nutshell. And all the visits are really short and snappy, so we can film them in like half a day and maybe get celebrities or well-known character actors to make cameos. We can draw on the vast pool of talent that Kenneth and I have collaborated with over these past years of being working actors in the business. Like maybe even Eli Wallach would do it.

SUE: Be the bagel guy?

VERONICA: I don’t know. Or something else. What do you think?

SUE: I can’t see Eli Wallach as the bagel guy.

VERONICA: Never mind that.

SUE: So what happens? What happens in the story?

VERONICA: What do you mean what happens? I told you what happens.

SUE: You gave me a kernel.

VERONICA: I said I was giving you a kernel. That’s why I came to you. So that you can figure it out. I just want to act. I just want a project. And I want you to write it.

SUE: Well, I like all the little people coming to visit her and having this connection.

VERONICA: That’s right. A connection.

SUE: I told you that the only people I’m friends with in LA are people outside the business—like my dry cleaner Serge and the lady who works there, Veronica. They’re the only real people in LA.

VERONICA: You could put Serge in. Maybe Eli could play Serge.

SUE: But something dramatic has to happen.

VERONICA: I knew you’d be into this.

SUE: Well, right now there isn’t really a story.

VERONICA: I know. It’s a kernel.

SUE: A good short has to have a twist. What if people from her past and people from her future start visiting her too. Like her unborn children. Since she’s dying prematurely.

VERONICA: Oh, that would be interesting.

SUE: I couldn’t tell you exactly what would happen. I’d have to work on it.

VERONICA: I know. That’s what I had in mind.

SUE: Kenneth could play her husband.

VERONICA: He doesn’t really have to be in it. He may want to direct it. But I told him he had to use his own money to finance it if he wants to direct it.

SUE: Well, “it” doesn’t exist yet. But that would be fun. He must have some money from all those sitcoms, right? I know he’s always wanted to direct. And this one’s for Charles, right?

VERONICA: Oh, yeah.

SUE: I just have to question something.

VERONICA: Go ahead. I’m not attached to anything.

SUE: Well, if you want this as a vehicle for yourself, you may not get a lot of mileage out of playing a woman who’s in a coma for the whole film.

VERONICA: Right.

SUE: And it’s a little movie of the week, the coma thing. If we’re creating a film to honor your Dad, why don’t we tackle the matter at hand?

VERONICA: What do you mean?

SUE: I think she should have cancer. Like your Dad.

VERONICA: I don’t know.

SUE: When my parents had cancer and I thought I would lose them, all I wanted to do was take their place, be the one who was sick. That helplessness to me is the visiting hours experience. Why don’t we make a movie about that?

VERONICA: So you’re going to write it?

SUE: Yes. (To AUDIENCE.) And I did.

VERONICA (To SUE): The producer and director and I think the movie would be more universal if you cut everything personal and real out of the film. You’ve made your contribution, now I’m going to ask you to let go. Let the professionals take it from here. The process, it’s like making the AIDS Quilt and you’ve already sewn your squares. Now it’s time to let the director and the costume designer and the actors sew their squares. I know you won’t cut the scene with the Dad at the end, which is why you have to step aside so that I can move forward with it. So that this even greater, even more universal story can get told and so that we can sell it as a bereavement tool to hospices and Gilda’s Club and look like we’re doing charity work while we’re lining our pockets and garnering critical acclaim at festivals. Because once you let go, this can become an important piece.

NOBODY GETS IN, NOBODY GETS OUT by DeAnn Louise Daigle

It’s a vise. Once that gripping machine opens and shuts down again there is no escape. First comes the enticement to get in, but then comes the engulfing, the swallowing whole. Just try to be my friend, that’s it, try and keep trying and once you do become my friend try to get away. You cannot, there’s a possessiveness such of which you cannot imagine.

Margie was very smart, and both her parents were doctors – pediatricians. She had a brother Arnold and younger sister Susie. I think her name was Susie. Everyone called Marjorie Samuels “Margie,” although to me she was far too mature – even at fourteen – to be called Margie.

Whatever possessed her to want to be my friend? I don’t know. I had nothing to offer her. She didn’t take French, she took Latin. I couldn’t help her out with French and I didn’t take Latin. I struggled with algebra and it’s quite possible she wanted to help me out. Whatever it was, she did have the courage to approach me; or was it compassion or worse yet, pity, that moved her to reach out to me?

I simply do not recall the details of the circumstances that brought us together. I was quite the loner during my freshman year at Presque Isle High School. She was kind and we laughed a lot. I think she genuinely enjoyed my company. I could be funny at times. Sometimes, even when I wasn’t trying to be funny, I was funny, I guess. I was just different than many of the other kids Margie knew. For one thing, I was bi-lingual and I’d come from a very different world than Margie and her friends knew. I’d never been in Girl Scouts or to a summer camp. But I knew and loved the woods. I’d never even learned how to swim because both my parents didn’t know how and taught me well to fear the water.

Margie could swim and ski and was very athletic. In gym class I was a total klutz. I feared the horse, the trampoline; I couldn’t somersault. Nothing that required my turning upside down was achievable for me. Playing volley ball was disastrous. I was a mess – a self-conscious unplugged kid, who was so out of sync that I must have appeared to everyone a pitiful waif. But, Margie persisted and so for a brief time we became friends.

One day I invited her to my place. I think she’d wanted to see where I lived. At that time, I lived on Academy Street. I had seen her home, the big spacious white house that was located just at the corner of the University property and right off south Main Street as you head out of town. The University, a branch of the University of Maine located in Orono, was referred to as UMPI – University of Maine Presque Isle. The property was a rambling hilly stretch peppered with traditional looking academic brick buildings with white columns.

The Samuels house was a large almost mansion-sized white house with dark blue shutters. It was carpeted inside except for the spacious kitchen. It felt oddly stifling throughout the rest of the house and this feeling pounced on my sensibilities. Maybe all was not right with this family. Later, Marjorie shared with me that one of her uncles had committed suicide. Wow! This was a very different world than I had known. I was honored that she felt she could share this information with me.

So, on this particular day after school we walked to my place, the dark, dingy little hole-in-the-wall apartment on Academy Street. Dad was not home and Mom was still working. I think Mom had left some baked brownies on the kitchen counter – so Margie and I had milk and brownies. We talked and then she got up to leave.

“Must you go now?”

“Yes,” she said. “I have to get home.” She put her coat and scarf and hat on and her gloves, took her book bag and headed for the door.

“Don’t leave, please, not yet. Please, Marjorie, don’t go.” And I threw myself between her and the door.

“DeAnn! I have to go home!” And her look became very serious.

I panicked. “No! Don’t go. Not yet.” I hugged the door.

“DeAnn, get away from the door, I’m leaving!” I saw fear in the eyes behind her glasses. I stepped aside. She opened the door and left.

OCTOBER by RoseMarie Navarra

I pull out of the Barnes and Noble parking lot on to Route 9 North — cars weaving in and out of lanes, people cutting me off, traffic lights every few yards. I’m trying to have a day without complaining — something I heard from the TV in the other room while I was putting on makeup in the bathroom this morning. Somebody had written a book about the incredible benefits derived when one stops complaining. They said to try it for one day and see what happens.

I get to the ramp to the bridge and of course I’m surrounded by people driving for the first time, people who find it impossible to exit one ramp and enter another without numerous sudden stops and starts; people who had someone else take their driving tests, people who apparently need medication, people who couldn’t pass an IQ test (obviously not required for a driving license)… people who make it necessary for me to give them looks of pure hatred while I curse their mothers, their sexual practices, their body parts. Would this be complaining, I wonder?

I begin to hate myself for these thoughts, but I’m fed up…and I guess I failed the stupid day without complaining thing. The heater in my car is broken; I have two bad tires and a splitting headache from the two espressos I had in Barnes & Noble, not to mention Jack, my late husband’s second cousin, who pretended not to see me in the Barnes & Noble Café. He wouldn’t want to have to express his sympathies for my loss – what would be in it for him? Who would there be to admire his charm and wit and marvel at his intellect? Okay, I have to admit I pretended not to see him too – I didn’t want to have to pretend he isn’t a pompous idiot and that his posing and preening doesn’t curdle my guts. I hate people who make me act like that.

So finally on the ramp that took twelve minutes to get on, I am about to cross the river to the other county – the one I have moved to now that Jerry is gone.… ( I can’t explain why.) It is late afternoon in early October and as I turn and enter the bridge – there they are – the mountains –glorious this fall. I think of our walks along the river, through woods and mountain trails—how we would walk and talk so quietly, not to disturb the day, not to tempt the fates. The beauty of the mountains takes away my breath, while at the same time I can’t bear to look at them. I don’t know why I have to live another October without you. Oh winter come…freeze me over.

BESSIE by Bob Brader

Bessie is the lady that lives with Memmy, my great grandmother. They are about the same age and I have known her since I was born. Memmy and Bessie lived right next door to each other; there is a small walkway between the two houses. Memmy slept on Bessie’s couch downstairs and Bessie slept upstairs. I would go over to their house before school, from kindergarten to fourth grade. I would get to Bessie’s house and knock on the door. As soon as Memmy would answer it, I would run upstairs to sleep with Bessie in her room. It was warm and comforting. I would get to sleep for another two hours until I had to go to school. Bessie was my angel. She would even put cream on my rear end if my father had woken me up with his belt that morning.

One day I was jumping on the couch, a favorite pastime of mine at that age, to the total dismay of Bessie.

“Will you please stop jumping?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Where’s my puzzle?”
“It’s next door, your cousin Tracey was playing with it.”
“I want my puzzle.”
“It’s icy out there, I’m not going to get it.”
I stopped jumping. “Pleeeeease.”
“Fine, I just have to get my boots on.”

I turned on the TV and started watching “Underdog”. After the show Bessie still had not returned from next door. I looked out the door window and could see Bessie lying on the walkway; my puzzle was thrown all over the place, why was Bessie sleeping? Then I saw her rise and a streak of fear ran through my body, the white frost hair on the back of her head had now turned red, droplets of blood on her face, her arm has blood on it.

What happened to Bessie and why does she scare me? I was petrified that she was coming to get me to hurt me just like my dad does, she doesn’t love me anymore. I locked the door and hid behind the couch, I didn’t want her to find me. She must have had a key in her pocket because she got in the door. I held my breath behind the couch. I didn’t make a sound. Bessie went upstairs, and I ran out of the house as fast as I could. I went over to a friend’s place and waited.

When I came back, Memmy had come home and Bessie had been taken to the doctor. I went upstairs to Bessie’s room and saw the blood on her pillow and all of the fear came back. From that day on, I was scared to be with Bessie, even scared to be around her at times. I have no idea why this scared me so much or why I was so paralyzed by it, but I will always feel the guilt of my inaction.

FACING THE STORY by Rica Rock

The stories I was told were probably lies:

My mother committed suicide.

I was a paskudnyab (a parasite, like a tick or a louse)

or

I was a kholerya (which is cholera – a basically incurable, fatal case of diarrhea).

My mother was turning over in her grave to see my behavior.

If I didn’t behave I’d be sent to live in an orphanage or a home for bad girls. There I’d see what it was like to have not enough to eat, and no shoes, and I’d be cold, with not enough blankets at night, and I couldn’t get out of there – there’d be bars on the windows and the doors would be locked.

Then I’d appreciate all I had.

I would have to scrub floors and wash clothes and hang them outside, even in the freezing cold, and there would be no school, and no sleigh-riding in winter, and no swimming in summer.

And then I’d realize how fortunate I was now.

And my mother committed suicide because she was so unhappy.

And it was all lies.

Mostly.