It’s been a rough week. Lots of tears. Lots of sun falling out of my mouth, leaving shadows to choke me and change the taste of the landscape. When I feel this way, all I want is to disappear, to blend into the chipped paint, hide beneath the floor boards. I cry while looking at cooking shows. I cry sitting at the computer, washing dishes, riding in the car watching the filthy city shrink under the waves of heat that oppress and burn. I am coming unglued. I have forgotten how to breathe.
In getting ready to move, I sink into the lives of people I have loved, people who have died. I am tearing away scar tissue, leaving wounds vulnerable to the teeth of time. I am awash in memories that leave me desperate for youth, for the feeling of my mother’s arms around me, for the delight in my brother’s boyish laughter, for the scratch of my father’s beard against my cheek. The weight of missing people presses against my eyes and taints the color of the sky. I am coming unglued. I have forgotten how to breathe.
I am tying up the loose ends of my broken body, retrieving my white canes from their hiding places, spending day after day in dental torture chairs, wishing I hadn’t allowed myself to get so fat. My heart has been buried so deep beneath the flesh, I no longer recognize its rhythm against my ribs. The mirror is my punisher, the fist that reminds me I have failed again, that I will never be good enough. I am coming unglued. I have forgotten how to breathe.
My book got a mediocre review. It crushed me. It pissed me off. It left me wanting to quit writing, to burn through the lines on the page, scatter hope into the dirt. I would have preferred a scathing review to the placid temperature of the three star review. Intellectually I get that my writing isn’t for everyone, but between love and hate the color drains away. It is easy to forget that it is only my heart on the page, my stories of coming unglued, of forgetting how to breathe.
But, life is a coin. Tarnished in some places, sparkling in others. It is sadness and joy passed through fingers, dropped and forgotten, discovered and cherished, held tightly against your palm. Life is the shadow and the light, the dream come true and the longing that is shattered. I am not unscathed. I don’t want to be. I sit in the center of what hurts, because I know that is where joy also lives. Sometimes I need to come unglued, so I can remember how to breathe.
August 29, 2020 at 2:51 pm
well suzie son tom reviews my sins
and then i confess
and fall back into sin
so i kinda know the feeling
but not really
peace
August 29, 2020 at 2:57 pm
I leave my sins on the page, John. And then I go and find new ones…..
August 29, 2020 at 4:01 pm
Your beautiful words are sharp and true…you’ve described the tension between joy and sorrow so well that I hoped to catch my own breath at the end…I’m imagining you gathering all the loose threads of your present/past life so you can launch yourself into a brand new world.
August 29, 2020 at 4:44 pm
You are a brand of lovely that I can only ever dream of aspiring too. Thank you so much!!!! I am looking forward to being settled and getting back into the WP world and reading your blog again. I feel pulled in a million directions right now.
August 31, 2020 at 4:02 pm
I understand! Some days I feel so far behind re: catching up with all the beautiful writing out there…
August 29, 2020 at 4:04 pm
I’ve left a review for your beautiful collection, but it said they are processing the review and it might take a few days to appear. The last time I went on Goodreads, I saw that The Dome had TWO 3 star reviews, but then I looked at all the other great reviews it had and dismissed the 3 star ones as coming from people who don’t know good literature when they see it. Some people just have a weird internal scale. Anyway, I gave you 5 stars to counteract those jerks!
August 29, 2020 at 4:49 pm
I truly adore you, Suzanne! Thank you! If “The Dome” got any three star reviews, they clearly came from idiots. I noticed a typo in my review of your book and corrected it this morning, so hopefully it will be reposted by Amazon soon. You always help me see it is best to press on, to keep going and keep writing. I am going to be pretty absent until after we move as I am being pulled to bits right now, but I can’t wait to be settled and tuck back into your blog! Huge Congratulations on the recent nomination. You are a gift, my friend! xoxoxo
August 30, 2020 at 5:29 am
When you get back to blog reading, don’t forget to read my post about your launch!
August 30, 2020 at 8:35 am
Oh my god, Suzanne, you must think I am the biggest asshole ever. I had no idea you wrote about my launch. I have been so out of touch. Thank you so much for all the love and support you have given me. I am going to catch up this week. xoxoxoxoxo
August 30, 2020 at 9:26 am
Oh my gosh, of course I don’t think that! You’ve been busy with your launch and other things, goodness knows!
August 30, 2020 at 1:29 pm
Thank you, my friend! I was telling another friend this morning about your shoulder woes because she has been having a lot of shoulder problems as well. I hope you are still on the mend and pain free!
August 30, 2020 at 1:58 pm
Yes, so much better, thanks!
August 31, 2020 at 3:10 pm
My review is now live on Amazon!
August 31, 2020 at 4:46 pm
Oh Suzanne, you are the best! Thank you, Lovely One!!!
August 29, 2020 at 4:57 pm
Of course you do. And don’t worry about reviews. This book isn’t for everyone, that much is clear. The ones you can feel it and understand it will know how to review it, and they are the ones that count. The rest might as well go back to their mediocre best-sellers.
August 29, 2020 at 5:48 pm
Thank you Gorgeous Lady! My nerves are all exposed this week.
August 30, 2020 at 4:33 am
Lots of love to you.
August 29, 2020 at 5:04 pm
Now take a look at this. It looks great to me.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53865493-things-my-mother-left-behind
And this
August 29, 2020 at 5:52 pm
There are so many reviews I hadn’t read. Thank you for reminding me of the good stuff! Love you! xoxoxo
August 30, 2020 at 4:36 am
There will always be bad reviews. I read some bad books this year, and some of the reviews were so good I couldn’t believe it.
In the end, it comes down to different tastes, which is sth we have to except. We shouldn’t be interested in the majority. Poetry isn’t for everyone after all. Nor is good fiction.
August 30, 2020 at 8:33 am
I know you are right! I am focusing on how amazing the whole experience has been and how much love my book has gotten. One mediocre review is nothing, and as you say, the reviews don’t matter. If my work resonates in any way with anyone, then that is a gift. I was just so prickly yesterday. Love you Gorgeous Lady!
August 30, 2020 at 10:49 am
And that’s ok as long as you vent. Love u too.
August 30, 2020 at 1:32 pm
I get focusing on positive things, but if I try to hide the darkness away or pretend it doesn’t exist, the fall is more treacherous when it comes. I know you totally get this!
August 31, 2020 at 4:18 am
I do. That’s why blogging is such a good idea.
August 30, 2020 at 10:51 am
Love you too.
August 29, 2020 at 6:55 pm
Aww Susan , do not be down on yourself, you have an amazing talent with your writing skills . It’s only been a few weeks since your book was published it’ll take a while to get the recognition you deserve. Be proud you published finally , it’s your farewell to LA .
August 30, 2020 at 8:28 am
Oh, Thank you Sweet Jean!!!! It is going to be so nice to see you when we drop the book off, even if it is from a social distance and with a mask. xoxoxoxo
August 30, 2020 at 1:31 am
You are bloody precious Susan honestly you are a rare jewel and so deeply feeling I get this but reviews are just one opinion and say NOTHING ABOUT YOUR SOUL…Believe in you you deserve only love truly 🧡♥️💜💚💛🧡♥️💜💚
August 30, 2020 at 8:30 am
You are all love, my friend! Thank you so much!
August 30, 2020 at 4:12 am
Changing your life and leaving things you love behind is always tough. But you are making your dreams come true, and that’s the important thing.
Don’t think too much about the mediocre reviews. What B sent you tells something different.
Love, B.
August 30, 2020 at 8:31 am
Thank you so much, B! I know you are so right! Big hugs to you and so much love!
August 30, 2020 at 9:59 am
I’ve left four houses, crossed the boundaries of four English counties, one felt as if another country, one and only one I cried on leaving unexpectedly, the one that shaped reality for me, I’ve one mind, one heart, a myriad of memories, of hope, of loss, of nearly being and being someone to someone, in the scheme of things reviews should mean fuck all to me, yet the damn things get you when you least expect it, mind you I’ve only had three, as it happens all better than I hoped for, I’m waiting for a bum one, it will come for sure, it the nature of human nature and who’s counting, how many and their ranking, apart from Amazon that is! You take care, not long now to Ireland.
August 30, 2020 at 1:31 pm
Eric, this is beautiful! You are poetry, my friend!!! Thank you!
August 31, 2020 at 11:29 am
Fuck the critics! I thought your book was great!
As for the other stuff, you are making a huge move and leaving everything that you have known behinds to start a grand new adventure So I’m not surprised your emotions are raw.. We’ll still be here for you
August 31, 2020 at 4:46 pm
Thank you, my friend!!!!
September 1, 2020 at 7:04 am
My God this is exquisitely written, my love. I am crying for you. I feel your pain in my own soul, in my eyes, in the tear spilling down my right cheek. It feels like small comfort to be reminded that you do not feel the agony of grief unless you have loved fiercely, deeply, devoutly, with every fucking atom or your being. But it is so. It seems the greatest cruelty that the very exquisitude of your heart seems to draw razor sharp arrows into it like a powerful magnet. I can only bear witness, Love. And I weep with you. (Literally 5 tears have streaked down my face in the time it took to write this. That is because I love you. xoxoxoe
September 2, 2020 at 10:52 am
Elisa, you are a truly exquisite woman and a beautiful soul. I am so lucky to know you. I love you, my friend. Thank you for being part of my life. Sending so much love to you.
September 1, 2020 at 7:16 am
Also fuck the mediocre soul who wrote a mediocre review of your work. That is NOT about YOU. It’s about them. Can you internalize that truth? Ellen Langer, Social psychologist at Harvard, in her book, Becoming an Artist, reminds us, “We all need to keep in mind that evaluations are made by people based on their experiences and their own needs.” You know more about blindness than most of us. Imagine the evaluation of a completely blind critic waxing maleloquent (that’s my word, feel free to appropriate it, it’s a malicious pseudo eloquence) about a DaVinci or any great artist you care to name. That assessment is exactly worthless. Art is only for those who have eyes to see . . . You are not the hapless evaluee. You are an agent who can evaluate your evaluator and dismiss their Philistine pronouncement. I remember scholars at Georgetown saying you haven’t really done anything important until somebody writes a scathing review. If everyone is saying nice things, you work was not significant enough. Nevertheless, I have the impulse to strangle that reviewer with my bare hands. And maybe teeth, lol. It’s a lizard day. It will take me a minute to get back to grace. I am sending you love and admiration. I think your poetry is exquisite and unparalleled. Fuck those who have no eyes to see. xoxoe
September 2, 2020 at 10:54 am
Oh ee, you my friend are poetry and grace and grit and beauty and fierceness and love. Thank you!
September 11, 2020 at 7:33 am
powerful ….powerful
September 17, 2020 at 11:44 am
Thank you so much, Mark! I hope you are safe and well!
November 27, 2020 at 7:50 am
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good.
I don’t know who you are but definitely you’re going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!
May 18, 2021 at 12:09 pm
Thank you so much!!!!