two things

poetry. i wish i had the patience to read poetry. patience.

i just watched something on natalie merchant's new album - all of it poetry to music. she talked about how she used to not get it. she used to think she wasn't deep enough, thoughtful enough...complex enough to get poetry. but then she realized she didn't need to make it more difficult than it was. so the whole interview reminded me of an art hounds i heard where a mn woman strongly suggested that we all read a new poetry book by another mn woman who was up for an award. i just found a sample and i read three lines and all i could think was "get on with it!" not cool, dude. slow 'er down. give 'er a try. in through the nose and out through the mouth. foreign. sure i go to yoga, sure i love reading mags in the bathtub, sure i have no problem laying on the couch doing absolutely nothing...but hell if i can read a poem without getting antsy. i'm gonna try though. i'll see if i can find that book at the library and just give it a better effort.

secondly, the interview - let's just take a sweet time out here: i don't have anything against natalie merchant, but i've also not been a big fan. that's why i find it hard that my two takeaways from her interview were so...profound? for me anyway. cause it takes a spark to get me on this damn blog! - anyway, the second part of the interview that really struck me was that she purposefully chose a few poems that highlighted the loss of innocence. growing up. the likes. and it really got me thinking...when did i grow up? the first and only thing that comes to mind is pretty benign. very personal to me, but nothing drastic. i'll have to put in a little more thought if i want to nail down another one. but my first thought was the story my dad told me the weekend we were together for my grampa's funeral. an old family story that's been around since it happened in 1985 was that my grampa wasn't able to make it to my dad and stepmoms wedding because he slipped in the tub and broke his collarbone. the story didn't come up often - if ever, i guess - but that's how i remember it. i was 7, that's what i was told...and i'll say i never questioned it. ever. but the story my dad told the weekend of grampa's funeral was that my grampa got drunk at my aunts b/c he was so pissed that my stepmom wasn't taking the berger name...and then he fell and broke his collarbone. shit, i don't even know if it was in the tub now that i think about it.

it's hard to explain what that story did to me. i mean let's face it, people's parents get drunk in front of them, stories like precious' are real, life can be awfully fucking grim...but this story that threw my grampa from a pedestal - it just started the whole slow but steady crumbling that is the fact: nothing is as it seems and usually it's a lot worse.

i don't think dad realized it - he certainly didn't mean to hurt me - but it was his reality and he just shared it, probably without even knowing i hadn't heard it before. i vividly remember sitting in that creepy old house - we were staying at winters and that house, unlived-in, preserved from the 60s? 70s? even though i was sitting there with my dad and stepmom, i remember feeling like i didn't know anyone or anything that surrounded me. it was scary and it was - thankfully - not a feeling i'd felt often before then. pretty lucky kid. i know it. as best i can, anyway.