More from the hoard. This was also published in my college literary magazine Inscribed in 2000, and written my junior year. I’m not editing before I post, even if I’d do things differently now. In fact, that is likely to be an upcoming project. See the poems here first, in their original glory.
Exploring A Metaphor
He's a candle-- throwing shadows
On the wall I can hide in,
And I want to kiss him--
Taste the flame,
But I'm afraid of burning.
I can run my fingers through the fire
If I'm nimble, quick-
Or I can move in close
Until I'm warm again--
But I don't want to smother him
Or breathe in too much smoke.
If I say anything, my words
Might be wind enough that he'll sputter out
And I'll be left with wax
Burning my fingers for a moment only
Before cooling into indifference.
As of now, I'm too afraid
To warm my fingers, or my lips
And be tinder to his spark--
Instead I'll wait in his uncertain light
Mask myself in those flickering shadows
And hope that I'll find my courage
Before the wick burns down
And I get colder.
Me, 2000
This is a blast from the past- an old Single on the Seacoast article (draft, at least) that I have saved. This one was written in 2010.
My Valentine to You
This week, I’ve decided that instead of giving you suggestions about how to spend your Valentine’s Day, or speculating what my own will be like, I’ll give you a little history lesson. I’m doing this for two reasons. One, everybody loves unasked for history lessons. And two, I’m a giver.
In order to answer my burning question, “What the heck is Valentine’s Day?” I turned to my trusted resource, the Internet. And the Internet, the wise entity that it is, basically answered my question with a great big shrug. There’s no good answer, readers. What there is, is speculation and theory.
Most likely, Valentine’s day was decreed in order to bring some Christianity to Ancient Rome. According to the History Channel’s Website, history.com, the Ancient Roman’s had a festival called Lupercalia, which honored either the agriculture/ fertility god Faunus, the legendary Roman founders Romulus and Remus, or all three. Romulus and Remus were said to have been suckled by a she-wolf, or “lupa,” hence the name. So, in order to show their appreciation of having their very own city, and in order to persuade Faunus to be nice and give them babies, the Romans would sacrifice a goat, slice the skin into strips, and then run around, gently wapping women with the hides to make them fertile. (And the women LIKED this.) Then, apparently, the single ladies would throw their names into an urn and bachelors would reach in and select their mate for a year. Kind of like a 70’s key party, but not. These unions often ended in marriage.
Conveniently, all of this crazy stuff happened on the ides of February—AKA, February 13th.
Around 498 A.D, Pope Gelasius apparently decided that this whole “lottery” system was no longer acceptable, and had it outlawed. He also ordered February 14th to be called “Saint Valentine’s Day,” although the reason for this is also unclear.
There are several saints called Valentine, though only one has a little romance woven into his legend. The most popular version of this story claims that, sometime in the third Century, Roman Emperor Claudius II declared marriage illegal in order to have a more focused army (as if not having wives would make his men NOT think of sex every second seconds—Nice try, Claud.) A rebellious priest named Valentine, ever the romantic, thought this was crap and married people in secret. When Claudius found out, he was none to pleased and sentenced Valentine to death. Some say the couples he united would bring notes and flowers to his cell to thank him for giving up his life so they could have a little nookie.
Others say the story continues—apparently, Father Valentine fell in love with someone, possibly, scandalously, the jailer’s daughter, and slipped his beloved a note before his execution. The note was signed, “From Your Valentine.” Awwwww.
Fast forward 1500 years or so. Although exchanging valentines became popular in the 1800’s, the holiday became more and more secular. When the Roman Catholic church revised their calendar, they dropped St Valentine’s day and left it up to local or national calendars because, “Though the memorial of St. Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14th.” And honestly? From what I’ve read, I’m not convinced the church really even knows THAT for sure.
So there you go. From what I can gather, we celebrate Valentine’s Day because some people disagreed about the merits of orgies, marriage, and the purpose of goats, and because, in the end, we all really like the idea of love.
Next week, I’ll tell you the origins of Cupid (SO much more than a baby with wings) and detail my quest into discovering why the heart means love (although, in some places, it means “behind” and is used on restroom doors.) Then V-day will REALLY be over and we can get back to dissecting the love lives of me and those around me.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
You can write to Heather at Singleontheseacoast@gmail.com HeatherSenz@gmail.com. Sending her chocolate is also recommended, but not required.
I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, which I can’t recommend enough, and I vaguely remembered she had written whatever source Coyote Ugly was based upon. I probably had something else important to do, so seeking it out became First Priority. I found it easily, and as I read, the silver screen and written word jumbled around in my head. I realized: Violet Sanford is Elizabeth Gilbert.
I knew Eat, Pray, Love had been followed by a second memoir, Committed. Turns out both books are technically sequels to Gilbert’s 1997 article for GQ, “The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon.” Nobody seems to mention this. I did a quick web search, polled friends, heard only crickets. I carried the knowledge inexplicably; I have no idea how I knew. Maybe it’s because I tend to read the trivia of movies I like on IMDB.com? It’s mentioned there briefly, but Gilbert gets no writing credit. When I started looking for it, I thought I was searching for a short story. It’s not.
If you’ve seen the movie Coyote Ugly, “The Muse” will feel awfully familiar. Imagine Violet without all the catchy-song writing stuff or the endearing family in Jersey, but keep all the singing and dancing on the bar. Remove the romantic subplot, almost entirely; manage to keep most of your favorite lines of dialogue. And then realize everything that remains actually happened. The same woman who spent months in an ashram in India scrubbing floors and failing to meditate poured tequila from the bottle straight into the throats of her acolytes. I love it.
By the end of “The Muse” she’s met and married her first husband. Fast forward in time a bit. Cue Eat, Pray, Love, which starts with a painful, difficult divorce. Her happy ending in one medium became the devastating catalyst of another.
You can follow the breadcrumbs further if you want. Committed picks up where Eat, Pray, Love leaves off, at least in terms of the characters and gorgeous descriptions of travel. Committed is a thorough meditation on marriage, a union she is hesitant to enter again. I don’t blame her; in 2015, she wrote an article for the New York Times called “Confessions of a Seduction Addict.” In it she writes:
“You might have called me a serial monogamist, except that I was never exactly monogamous. Relationships overlapped, and those overlaps were always marked by exhausting theatricality: sobbing arguments, shaming confrontations, broken hearts. Still, I kept doing it. I couldn’t not do it.”
In 2016, she announced on Facebook her marriage had ended.
Don’t feel bad for connecting all the dots, finding the overarching narrative, noticing discrepancies, for deliberating which source is more likely to be the most true, the articles or the memoir (I say articles)– she’s putting all this out there for a reason. Writers like her, like me actually, put slices of our lives out there for the world to read, not even veiled as fiction. It’s an invitation. Permission. You’re allowed to try and get to know her by paying attention to what she tells you and to what she doesn’t. Somewhere in there is the real woman, and you can get as close as she’ll let you. Honestly, she wouldn’t have published it if she didn’t want you to read it.
Once, I envied her. Now I simply admire her. I admire the messages she seems to be peddling, like the one that insists we all have something creative to give and that it’s worth it to try. I find it comforting when she assures me that the Universe loves me as I am. To me, she’s a reminder that nobody is the sum total of a first impression, that it’s okay to be liked and disliked, and that a human being is a beautiful-if-flawed conglomeration of experiences.
I don’t have a job right now. I’m occasionally terrified by this. But then I find Big Magic, and it says I’ve fucking got this. Eat, Pray, Love tells me something literally awesome wants me to be who I am, and “The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon” proves that we all start somewhere. These are solid forms of inspiration, scattered throughout her portfolio. Leading me somewhere I’m following.
I still have a tough time talking about my dad. The fourth anniversary of his death was last week and I let it pass, unacknowledged. I don’t like to remember that day, and I do my best every year to fog over the knowledge of the actual date. I prefer to remember Veteran’s Day, four days earlier, when I called him to tell him how much I loved him, and unwittingly said our final goodbye.
Brad and I believe that my father met Kenzie before we did, that he has loved her all along, the proof of which materializes suddenly and often, and always seems to be reflected in her eyes. My father called me Blue Eyes, my whole life. A trait we shared, the light-eyed Mackenzies among the dark-eyed Parkers. Kenzie’s eyes are the bluest I have seen, she has sky eyes. Mine are more like the sea, greener, grayer, and I’ve passed the name down to her.
Kenzie recognizes my father in every picture we show her. The close up of he and I dancing on our wedding day, his face and my hair. “Papa,” she says, every time. She named him herself, pure coincidence that it is the name I called the only grandfather I knew. She sees his picture on the mantle, he looks 20 and proud in his military uniform, and again, “Papa.” None of us taught her that. Sometimes she gestures to the air and says “Hi Papa.” This briefly chills me. I usually pause and say, “Hi Daddy. I love you.”
Brad unearthed this picture tonight. We asked, “Kenzie, who is this?” The picture has been in a box for over a year, she has never seen it.
At first, all I can see is her. She appears so much larger than any woman I’ve seen before, and if I were corporeal beside her, she’d dwarf me, or maybe I’m wrong because she is so beautiful and the world seems so new and she is very, very alone. She’s naked, her breasts heavy and full and her stomach rounded and maybe she’s pregnant, but if so, it’s early. Her eyes are dark and wild and her hair the same, black and red, hanging in snarls and curls down her back. There is a large wolf by her side, protective, and an owl flitting ahead, like a lookout, pausing in branches until she draws near and then bursting into flight again. She seems sad, determined, lost. Her body is strong, she can walk for miles, maybe days. She is not hungry, not tired. She is humming, a light tune, I catch it like a whisper of a lullaby and I realize it is to comfort herself, perhaps her baby, perhaps her babies.
I begin to decipher thoughts, a language I don’t know but the ideas that I understand, a voice that sounds like the silent voice in my own mind but it’s not mine. She has left something behind, maybe someone, maybe everything, but she sees clearly and her connection to the Source is far more powerful than mine will ever be. She is following her purpose, its path invisible to me but not to her, it seems as she knows exactly where to go. With a sense of great loss, she knows she must leave the safety of everything she has known. She is of the First, but not the only, none of them are, most still having no idea that the rest of the world stretched before them in its beauty and terror, and she must leave him behind, she must go forth and find others, she must protect the life- lives?- growing inside her, and she is instinctively protective, a she-wolf, a tigress. There is no going back, the loss is grief, it is pain, it is consuming, and she puts one foot in front of the other. She will be walking a long time. There is nothing but time.
She wonders if he will miss her. The taste of fruit is still on her lips, she ate her fill, she may never be hungry again, she certainly has had no need for sustenance since she walked away. She is full. The air around her feels like a thunderstorm, and she knows somehow she passed a test, she was bold, she was willing, and she didn’t even tell him about it. It was not for him. She remembers how she felt, as though her face was caressed, as if she could hear “my daughter” and the voice was fond, but the cost was everything she knew, in return for knowing so much more.
Her lupine companion peered into the shadows of the trees and she realized she has been followed, that he is still coming after her, perhaps still entranced by the enchantment that seems to follow her, a song of energy, a promise of potential. But he was not right for her, she felt it in her core, she was second to none and equal to all and nothing else would please her. Anything else would be a prison and so she walked, hurried away, with a pet on her wolf’s head. With his eyes full of understanding, her beast would not kill him, but keep him at bay and she hoped this was not goodbye, not to her wolf, anyway. She was done with any other goodbyes. She had already heard, carried on an errant breeze, the laughter of another woman, its sound beauty in itself and delight, and it reinforced her knowing– this is not my home. This is not where I belong. I must wander. I must keep wandering. I may never stop.
I feel connected to her, I can taste the sweetness on her tongue, it is tart, her chin had been covered in juices and she had felt wild, like lifeblood itself had dripped from her mouth. She smiles like she knows I am here, she feels at peace, she feels, suddenly, less alone. She meets my gaze squarely and as she smiles, my breath is taken away, and then I feel, physically, a snapping and I am alone again, the world a haze of color and time, and then I am awake, in my room, in the dark, but the not so dark, as there is still light from my clock and the hallway light outside my door, still on, so it is gray and tinged blue and thousands of years have passed in an instant.
My heart is confused, it is sobbing; it feels like my mother has left me again. My heart is racing as if I had a nightmare, as if I were in danger, but I’m not, not now, not here in my bed with the blankets heavy across my body and my front door locked to the night. For a moment, I catch a sense of the Other, its frustration, its need to recapture something it believes it has lost. It has a different sense of balance. I think its balance is skewed. Perception. I will fight. I will win. I have a warrior spirit in my blood, and I know this in my core, but the dream is fading until all I remember are flashes- her eyes, her wolf, her determination, her sacrifice.
In the morning, I try to tell Granna of my dream, but my memory is hazy and my description lacking even to my own ears. It doesn’t matter. Granna nods, gratified, as if she has been waiting, as if this was something she had anticipated for some time.
“So you have seen her, too,” Granna says.
“Who is she?” I ask the question but I think I am anticipating the answer myself. This conversation is fated. I already know.
“Lillith,” she says. “As far as I can guess, you have seen Lilith. We all see her eventually.”
Heather Senz 