How Do I Get There?
I.
excuse me. I’ve been driving for a while.
This gas station is the first sign of life I’ve seen.
We’ve been looking for 196 North Macintosh court for a while. The directions said we had to take a left on the street we were just on a few miles ago, but Macintosh court isn’t there. There’s a Macintosh street, and Mapquest told me of a Macintosh Avenue, but an avenue would be going the wrong way. I... I’m really confused.
You’re the only attendant, here... You’re the only one that can help me. This is the address.
How do I get there?
II.
I just got out of college a few months ago. Just got my degree. I feel important now. I know the career I’ve studied for. Now I’ve got to get the job of my dreams.
I filled out a ton of resumes. Got a few calls back. Now i’ve got my first interview. I’ve got my interview jacket on. I answer all of the questions right.
I see the offices. I think:
excuse me.
This is what I should have.
Am I doing this right?
How do I get there?
III.
I am a 28 year old woman.
I am doing well on my own.
I’m the one with the car. I’m the one with the plan.
People always look to me for answers.
I look around me. I am pleased.
And then I see my high school friends, married, sometimes with their high school sweetheart, and with a kid or two.
Different life from me.
I’ve been the beacon all along, but here I am, on top of the mountain, the one with the answers, alone.
And I think: hey, I’m a girl. Maybe I should want that. Maybe I should want that white paicket fence and the two point three kids, and that man I can lean on so I don’t have to be the beacon.
I look down at myself, and I think: this is what I am. I look at these suburban families, & I think: is this what I should want? My clock is ticking. See this? This should be my plan. Who will sweep me off my feet? Where is my man? Where is that dream? How do I get there?
I look out my window and see that insanely tall man walking down the street with the girlfriend that’s five foot two, & I wonder if this girl has a father-figure complex, & I wonder if this guy needs a small girl that he can break into two pieces, or if he needs to feel dominant over everything in his life...
Isn’t the tall white male dominant over everything already?
So I wonder: why is this insanely short girl dating this insanely tall man? Why are they taking from the gene pool these (albeit neanderthal) men from us tall women? Is this fair? How do I have a chance at a tall man when these short barbie doll women stop me before I can start?
I see these images, these people, walking down the street hand in hand, and I wonder: how do I get that image I dream of, how do I get the dozen roses, how do I get that box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, Hell, I’ll settle for Sweetest Day, how do I get those generic symbols of love? How do I get there?
the fourteenth
grade school, lace and construction paper cut outs -
mimicking our hearts with school glue, a
sixty-four pack of crayons,
a doily, perhaps, and a child’s scribblings,
“Be My Valentine.” The beginning of every cold February
the classes of children are taught to make enough little hearts
for everyone, so that no one may be disappointed,
so that everyone can be your Valentine.
Nonetheless, one little child’s construction paper mailbox
come February fourteenth
always had less than everyone else’s.
And then it gets easier as the years go on
mommies buy little packs of Valentine cards
for their children to sign and give away to all the little
children at school. Saves them from having to
make all those cards,
the glue and the glitter and the cut-outs are messy.
Every fourteenth, second month
when I was little
I remember daddy bringing heart-shaped boxes
home for all the girls -
myself, my sister, my mother. I can remember mother now,
her candy box on her ironing board, thanking him once again
for the lovely gift. And so it goes.
And the card shops get fuller this time every year
husbands saying “my wife will kill me
if I don’t get her a card” or young women complaining
“my boss told me to get a card for his wife”
And the flowers seem the same, don’t they? Carnations
arranged in a big ball atop a little basket. Red,
yellow, pink, white. Lovely.
All the adornments of the holiday. Don’t stop short of the best.
A girlfriend said to me once
she’s sure boyfriends break up with you by the
beginning of February so they don’t have to
buy you anything. So they don’t have to say they love you.
Last year I spent Valentine’s Day
taking those chalky hearts with messages on them
and scribbling my own on the back.
“Screw You”, “Go Away”, “Leave Me Alone.” I never
liked the taste of those candies.
And the Valentine’s Day party,
where all the single people were thinking,
“Please give me someone to go home with. Don’t let me
be alone tonight.”
And the women getting lonely
and the married couples arguing
and the suicide rate going up
And the woman looking at the carnations on her
dining room table
holding the card in her hand that says “love, Jake”
wondering why it doesn’t feel good yet
I see all of this harted at a time that is supposed to be good & I wonder where that light at the end of the tunnel is & I wonder where that cloud’s silver lining is. & I try to remember what love is like, & I try to remember the hearts and candies and flowers and sunsets & all that other crap that is supposed to make you happy. & I try to remember those Harlequin romance novels that I never read, where someone is rescuing the damsel, riding away on a white horse in to the sunset & I wonder, Where is that in real life? How do I get there? How do I get out of this cycle? How do I get out of this downward spiral?
Consider the stars, so small, so unfathomable. So beautiful in the night sky. How do we understnad this love for what we always see in the starts, what is always just out of reach? How do we get there?
We go to the moon, and try to learn, We send rockets to Saturn’s moon Titan, to learn what our planet might have been like when this solar system was created. We want to learn. We want to understand. Because we are in love.
I think everyone loves the moon. We hear of romance under the moonlight. I remember looking at the moon through a telescope when I was 6 years old. And historically, scientifically, I think everyone was transfixed to their televisions or radios when man first landed on the moon, there seemed to be a moment of awe, and inspiration, and amazement when there was that one small step for man, that one giant leap for mankind.
Scientists have deduced (in trying to guess how this planet got a moon, and how necessary it is for our weather patterns), that when the moon was first formed (one theory was that it was formed off a rogue planet they call Orpheus), that the moon was first much, much closer to Earth when it was first formed than it is today, that it may have been only 14,000 miles away, and not at the current almost 240,000 mile distance it’s at now.
Astronomers now estimate that because of gravity’s change, the moon, every year, is a mile and a half farther away from the earth. If you remember the moon looking so big when you looked at the night sky when you were little, well, you may have been right.
Laurie Anderson, while studying with NASA as their Artist-in-Residence, learned from scientists at NASA during the cold war and during this country’s desire for nuclear testing, they considered setting off nuclear bombs on the dark side of the moon. Because, you see, no one sees that side of the moon, and the radiation would be a safe distance from the Earth.
When I heard that, I thought: what would setting nuclear explosions on half of the moon do to it’s orbit? What would that do to it’s effect on our weather? And consider the earthquake that caused the Tsunami in Asia a few months ago slowed the rotation of the planet for a second - so would these explosions on the moon affect our rotation, or possibly our orbit?
And then I thought: why would anyone, ever, want to destroy a heavenly body we so need and don’t know enough about? Why would anyone want to destroy something that so many people are so infatuated with, that so many people revere?
Astronomy is like a forbidden love affair, something you can never reach, but something you can always hope for, something you can always admire from afar. Something whose constancy can give you hope, even if only when you’re standing outside in the night and looking up at its perennial beauty.
Expanded show coverage at http://www.janetkuypers.com and http://scars.tv, with images, video mp3s of live and studio tracks, and all of the original writings (included the expanded poetry listing).
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