art

We drove up Monday night. The drive was familiar—Chicago to Oberlin, seen through the windshield of Kari’s red mustang with the busted heating flow that demands feet to be wrapped in a fleece blanket when riding passenger side or roast when driving. When we got there, it was exactly as I expected it to be—undone. I had imagined coming in at the point of break-down and taking control, reminding them that the goal was not perfection anymore, but completion, as I had done so many other times when one or the other had come to me throwing pens and crumpling papers. But this time the goal of perfection would not be dismissed and they were trading in sleep and showers and food and sanity in hopes to obtain it. Leila’s craziness was comfortable…familiar. Davi was a zombie—typing or sweeping, slowed by exhaustion but never pausing and never taking my suggestions for quick fixes even though she told me everything was better now that I was there. While Kari settled in measuring and hanging pictures on the wall, at ease in their insistence for perfection because she couldn’t imagine doing it any other way, I had to stop myself from contributing, knowing my rushed and imperfect efforts to finish and go to sleep would just leave Davi and Leila with more things to stress over and fix.



Kari and I decided we would stay and help until Black River opened and we could go get breakfast. I had hoped to take Davi. To see if maybe she would be a person again, if I could get her out of the studio and get her to eat. But she said there was too much to do, that she couldn’t leave. And then I didn’t even really want to go myself, but it seemed like we had to because we had purposely waited this long. We had gone for a walk a couple hours earlier to see the Ilan billboard at sunrise like Davi had said was best and check the Black River hours on the door. It was so nice to walk out of that timeless den of distress and mess to see the half-light of morning and unmarked snow on the sidewalks. And Ilan really does look best in the sunrise—so good.

At breakfast I wanted to cry. I was so tired and so cold. I think I was probably rude to the waitress. I couldn’t help it. Kari was perky and trying to make me laugh. I wanted to cry. She wanted me to talk to her about what was wrong. I told her I hated seeing Davi not take care of herself. And I was also thinking something about her… about being together or not together and wanting to be or not wanting to be… or something different all together. In that state everything seems so clear and so blurry. Like I all these pieces made sense and no sense. I wanted to talk, but not to her. I wanted to write. So I could go back later and see if any of it was right. More than that I wanted to sleep. I wanted to be warm. I ordered peppermint tea and washed down as much of breakfast as I could, kept pushing it past the lump in my throat, trying to swallow that too. We drove back to Davi’s house and pulled all the shades down in her room, put on as many layers as possible and still I felt like I would never get warm again. I was too cold and cracked-out to even think of refusing the spoon Kari offered.

I woke up feeling so much better. We went out to eat again. Sesame chicken. And then we met up with Morgan to go watch West African Dance Class. We all had different peeps that we were there to watch—Diana, Genevieve, Davi. I just liked being there in general. We all walked out of Warner together. The three couples and the dancers were dancing and imitating the other girls in their class and laughing and being so beautiful and Davi was smiling and it was my Davi again and it was so good to see her laughing and being a person again. And Morgan and Diana are so beautiful—individually and together—so beautiful. I can remember everyone’s laugh right now. Diana’s deep and Gen’s with that weird hiccup thing and Morgan’s awkward and the way each sets off the other. So good. I walked with Davi back to Fisher, via Diana’s apartment for a fishbowl. We found Hope’s bike outside of Firelands and it sparked Davi’s enthusiasm. I rode it back to Fischer while she galloped along side. We walked in, and I wasn’t sure if that much more had actually been done, or it was just being able to leave and come back that changed the way we saw it, but for the first time is felt manageable, like this might actually get done.

Three hours passed quickly. We ran back to Davi’s house to shower and dress, stopped by the Feve to find her family and friends and drink a beer, and then headed over for the opening. There were so many people there I hadn’t even thought about seeing, plus all the others I had been looking forward to seeing for weeks. Rian and Davi were talking and I included myself in the circle. Rian gave me a big hug, her son hanging off her hip completing the hug with a silly grin on his face. We talked about rugby and the film project. I offered my help at any point. She said she wanted to interview me, maybe she could even make a trip to Chicago. I was grinning so hard the whole time. I told her if she thought Oberlin rugby beautiful and the culture crazy, to just wait until she got to Nashville. We parted without good-bye, but I’ll see you at NashBash.

After a few beers I walked up to Melsen and told him I really wanted to see his work too. That Davi talked about it a lot and I always really liked the stuff he did in the silkscreen class we took together. He smiled shyly, said I could find most of his work online at melsencarlsen.com. We talked more and he asked what I was up to these days. There was an awkwardness in the question. Instead of answering the question, I acknowledged the awkwardness, said it should be awkward, we weren’t really friends before, friends of friends, but I never really knew him, but all the same, it’s never too late to start. Then I said I was living in Chicago, and asked what his post-Oberlin plans were. He said that Reese was looking at grad school and he would follow her. Well him, he’s transitioning, Melsen said. I told him I was glad they were still together and happy. I felt like we should have hugged then, but we didn’t.

At one point I was talking to someone and I looked up at the map on the wall. There were two people standing on the ladder. They wanted to draw the great lakes onto the map to locate their places and they had Davi’s map book opened to my page in order to get it right. It made me happy.



Later in the evening, I walked past Leila’s piece. Her and Davi and Marisol were all sitting inside with their feet in the pool. I wanted to be a part of it, but I didn’t want to intrude. I pretended I didn’t notice that they were all there when Marisol shouted at me to join them. In some ways, it meant the most that she was the one that asked, that she felt like I should be included in that almost sacred circle. All of this beauty that wasn’t mine, but I still felt so connected to—that I couldn’t claim ownership of and would never dare too, yet still was so affected by in that deep way you are only affected when you are intimately involved. Davi and Leila stood up in the water and were holding each other’s faces in their hands and their words were drowned out by the crowd, like music in a movie when the words are secondary anyways. Leila’s mom was taking pictures from outside the pool. I asked for the camera and walked around them clicking. In a movie the camera would circle them so that they are the only clear image and everything outside of them is circling and blurring and the music gets louder and is on point. It’s when you cry because it is so damn beautiful: That connection. The hands gripping faces. The intense intermittent hugs. The expressive faces. The tears that are held up by grinning cheeks. You cry because before that moment in the movie, you have seen them struggle, you have watched them hurt and want and need, you have seen those pieces of beauty, you want them to be okay, to be happy, they deserve it, they are worthy of it. You kind of want to be that person that makes them okay/happy/worthy. You would do a good job of it. But since you aren’t in the movie, you are glad when they find it somewhere. It makes you cry.



After a few hours, the crowd dwindled. I was drunk. Davi went home to sleep with Hope. I passed Kari on the phone in the stairs on my way to the bathroom. I asked who she was talking too even though I knew it was Zoe. Her reply was rude. I didn’t matter what her reply was. We were both drunk and didn’t feel like being nice anymore. I left with Leila and Morgan and Micah and Linda. We went to the Feve. The rest of the evening was blurry. I think Micah bought all my drinks, like a good big brother. At one point Morgan and I went downstairs to say hi to Diana as she closed the downstairs. Morgan helped her push tables back and put chairs up. I requested Rhino shots and we got whipped cream all over our faces, except Diana who had this expert way of drinking them cleanly. I left the Feve with Leila and Jolie and went to a party above the hardware store. Kari was there. They were playing Quarters. It wasn’t our crowd. Lelia danced on our laps to entertain us. We left and went back to their place and ate some cold take-out from the cartons. After Jolie went to bed, I remember Leila sitting on the chair in her living room and me sitting on the floor with my head on her lap, or near it. I don’t remember what we talked about, but it seemed important. I went home and crawled into Gen’s huge bed. I don’t remember if Kari woke up. I think I may have ignored her if she did. She had sent a txt earlier in the evening asking if I was mad. I didn’t really care. I didn’t respond. For tonight, I just wanted my people.

I woke up in the morning and showered and dressed. I walked over to the gym and walked past Jane’s door. She saw me and called out to me like I hoped she would. I sat down in her office and we had the best chat about my new life plan to be a rugby coach. She was so helpful and formal and goofy and for once it was just the right balance of it all. She gave me good websites to check out, said that she believed rugby had a chance, said that I was on the right path, that I needed to just stay involved and keep coaching as much as I could, that I should have other things to fall back on, that she would keep her ears open for rugby now and pass on anything she hears. She gave me a little NCAA women’s championship pin as I was leaving. She said she wanted to give me something. She said I could put it on a bag or on my bulletin board and look at it and gain motivation from it. Oh Jane.

Then I went back to Fisher and had my own time in the space. I walked around and read everything. I read the comics that Davi had framed. I assumed they were all ones I had read before and was happy for new ones. She is really so good. She knows how to pull out the right bit from a story that makes it funny/touching/etc. I want more. I took the book of maps off of the podium and curled up in her “bed” with it. I loved it. Each map tells a story. I wanted to know more. I hadn’t looked that closely at Kari’s before. She had included Bayfield on her map as one of four important places. She drew the farm and listed all the different varieties of raspberries and blueberries, something I’m not even sure about myself. Our maps are so good together, perfect really, cause in many ways they were formed together. How can she give that all up? How can she not see it? And for what? There’s no Philly on her map. No NYC. What does she see in her? It’s so empty. Yet she chose that over me.



I climbed down out of the loft and walked around the corner to the rugby pictures. I guess you could say I walked over to what I chose over her. I had only glanced at the statements while we were hanging them up and now I went through and read every one. They were beautiful. I was crying. It was the first thing that had actually made the tears tip. The sentiment that hung above all others was that you couldn’t explain rugby, and that when you are talking to other rugby players you don’t need to you, that explaining it somehow takes away from what it is. I wondered whether this book idea is a good one, but I still believe we can find the words, even if we never find them completely adequate.



I walked over to Leila’s installation and walked around inside, taking notice of all the tiny details. I wish I had time to listen to the ninety minutes of audio that piece them all together, but I resigned myself to knowing that they did. Davi’s class began to arrive and walk around. They gathered to talk. Leila and I stayed outside the group and had our own conversation. When they were ready to begin crits, Johnny looked at Leila and asked if she was going to join them, and then he looked at me and asked me as well. Again it felt good to know that I was included, almost without question.

At one point in the discussion, Melsen asked about how it was to have real family and chosen family in one room mingling together. Leila and Davi acknowledged that there were some awkward moments, like at the opening when Ellie yelled something about getting high and then was introduced to Leila’s father, but that’s also what it’s about. This is their family portrait. It’s one family—not easy, not smooth, but real—past and present and ever evolving and blurring.

I thought a lot about where I fall in this family. Of course there are friendships and bonds to the other Oberlin kids there and almost a matronly relationship to my little ruggers, but I am glad it doesn’t stop there. Leila’s older brother buys my drinks and I shove Davi’s little sister’s shoulder instead of saying hello because it means the same. Leila’s mom gives me a hug when I extend my hand and says she has never met me yet she feels like she knows me. Interesting how before we all know each other (and since many of us will probably never really completely know each other) we live in the stories that the person that connects us tells. This thing, this art, this show, that’s not even mine, but kind of is--I wanted all my people to see it, to be reminded of how we are all connected. (and affected.)

jon

(that's him on the right... i'm in the middle.)

You know that thing, those things, you hold on to. One moment in time… maybe you don’t even remember the exact place or time or the person… but usually you remember the person and one sentence. And maybe not even the exact words, but the essence. And because you have remembered it again and again it has been revised and given another angle of meaning each time it is remembered.

This is what I remember: I was in Seattle. It was January-term, my sophomore of college. I was twenty—such a frustrating age, so close to finally being an adult. I was living with my brother for the month. He had a one bedroom apartment and he was hesitant for me to come to stay with him, but also encouraging. He is twelve years older than me. He left for college when I was six years old. I date my earliest memories by whether he is in them. Little kids see everything one sided. They understand the roles of those that are there to comfort them, but they don’t understand what it means to the comforter to be able to comfort. Children are completely genuine in their roles. They don’t realize they are benefiting anyone by needing, they only know to need. They aren’t pretending. They really can’t reach the door knob. Or tie their shoes. Or defend themselves against big brothers. But bigger brothers can do these things. And in doing so, they can move from needing to be needed. I slept on a futon that I rolled up and stored in the closet during the day. I worked at a community center three days a week—batiking pillows cases with the kids and painting the walls of a reading room blue. I did my own batiking the rest of the week. Jon had set up a “studio” for me on the porch. Half of it was roofed so I could be out even on the warmer rainy days, with the escaping drops hissing in the hot wax. For the Christmas before he had made me a set of frames for stretching the fabric. They could all be screwed together to make one huge frame. Or used individually for smaller pieces. During that month I stretched and waxed and dyed and waxed and dyed and ironed four large squares of fabric. Jon thought it was a good start. I was able to really experiment with the materials, he told me, suggesting that none of these squares were yet art. He is always the most critical of my work. I promised to make him something for his apartment in thanks for the frame, but it didn’t happen that month. We drank a lot. And smoked a little. We sat on his porch and it was the first time I had spent that much time with him since I was six. Since I could remember. We talked about our family and about the roles we each play. He likes to tease me about being the baby. About needing. About getting my way. In agreement, I told him I thought I was probably a brat when I was a kid. I remember having a friend over and thinking she was getting too much attention, so I spun in circles with my play purse loaded with wood blocks. I spun my circles closer and closer to her until the blocks hit her and she cried. And then I was scolded and she was comforted and it all back-fired. That’s all I remember but I’m sure I was a brat. Jon said he remembers that I was always reading. That I brought a bag of books with me everywhere. Even before I could read the words. I would just look at them. And no one could tell me that I wasn’t actually reading. He remembered the day I was born. He said I was smiling. He said that everyone else was smiling. He looked at me and said that our family got better the day I was born.