Remembering Dee Dee and Donald

To me, it is Saint Patrick's Day, not Paddy's Day.  There is no green beer, Guinness, "Car Bomb" shots, green outfits with stupid sayings on them.  There is no fake jig dancing, hopping up and down and kicking, pretending to replicate the ancient skill of folk dancers.  

I sing songs this time of year about hunger strikes, about the the occupation of a people by another people, wrongful imprisoning, about gruesome war crimes, about terrorism, and about the love between families, between men and women, between men and God.  I sing songs about celebration, such jubilant celebration that men whimsically drank far too much and celebrated, because the stakes were so high and they had won.

Monday is about remembering.  It's for Delia Neylan Schmitt, my late grandmother, who was so proud to be descended from Ireland, and passed that nationalism onto her children, and her children's children.  It's about Donald Staszczyk, born on St. Patrick's Day, my grandfather, whose legacy and life looms ever larger in my own.  The loss of them both this time of year is palpable.  I can taste it, smell it.  

Saint Patrick's Day is solemn; it really is a high holy day.  On Monday I sing songs for men and women I have never met, but who stood up to oppression, fought and died for something greater than themselves, or just decided that they should give their families a better life.  Saint Patrick's Day is for all American immigrants, and we celebrate how similar we are.  The themes and struggles of the Irish people are transcendent to all peoples, and through their song, we can examine them in a closer way.

Shakespeare, it was believed, would always play the ghosts in his plays, and the characters often had the same general message, "REMEMBER ME."  That is the greatest honor we can have for any one person, to keep their memory alive, their legacy.  It's why we build statues, print faces on money, name institutions, and sing songs.  On March 17th, on the high holy feast day of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of the Republic of Ireland, we remember the ghosts of the past, both those from legend and from our own lives.

Now that's a holiday I can sink my teeth into.

Victoria

Victoria

(Don't you dare call her Vicky)

You have given me the space tonight

By your beautiful Smile

Your pleasant Southern Voice

and well-intentioned listening

To relive the most harrowing and best month

Of my life on earth. 

So while I may have left you with a small scallop necklace

It is I that is grateful. 

You have shone a fresh light

Into an otherwise routine set of anecdotes

You allowed exposition on ideas that are not easily

Deciphered in an elevator pitch. 

"Oh I went on this trip to Spain for a month"

"I walked the Camino de Santiago - have you heard of that?" (As I wince)

No, I got to speak of Joe

Of my family

My faith

Of that moment atop O Cebriero

When my life had a compass bearing again

I got to tell my story of Cristina

And seeing James' bones

I spoke of it all magnanimously

And with purpose

Because I'm proud of it all

So Vicky

Sorry I can't help it

Victoria - 

Wear the little shell close to your heart

It's travelled thousands and thousands of and thousands of steps 

since being found on the pathway

Touch it when you need a reminder

That you're already on your Camino

It started the moment the stirring began inside you

You can train by choosing to be the better version of yourself tomorrow

And do your best to believe in other people. 

Ultimately, I can't help but trace this back to you

More and more as the months drag on,

I arrive in the familiar and all-too-telling location

Next to your memory. 

I miss the place you had in my life

More than anything. 

How you let me take care of you

How we danced around the kitchen

While you cooked 

How you were someone I could miss

And someone I could love

How you could absorb all the giving

I was willing to give

I felt so deeply that I needed to outwardly show you 

How much I cared

To perform it in front of you

To tap dance for my lover

So she wouldn't leave. 

No ones ever shown me how to love

I've never learned what adult love really is

Or, if I have,

I'm terrible at it. 

Tragically and woefully terrible. 

So congratulations!

You've still managed to shine a Mirror

To Myself

I again see the Little Boy there

Ready to dance. 

"Yeah - exactly."

This is nothing quite so human

Than the first breath beyond a broken heart

The flag waiving, limping

Dejected breath

The Reminder and Alarm

all at Once

Of One's own fleeting humanity.

I feel so impossibly behind everyone else

No matter how I see it

The latest Bout

Was like being called up to the major leagues

For a single day.

Why am I so undeserving of Romantic Love

From someone I respect and desire?

Why are my actions, all done in the spirit of support,

Always perceived as "too" much?

Why am I the last man standing

Walking

Down Columbus Ave 

Medicating with Music?

Songs come on,

I say "Yeah - exactly"

And exhale.

I am drawing in my fences again. 

To Life:

Why must you do this to Me?

Thankful

It is so beautifully diverse 

In opinion

In look

And still so almost-similar

These tenths of percentages of difference

That separate he from his aunt

Create enough space by which

Love and real care can flood in

A life enveloped in family is a life worth living

The lofty pursuits of career and culture

Are not unlike chasing the elusive first high

The needle never feels as good the second, third, fourth, or fifth time around

The pills never as potent 

I don't speak from experience 

But all who have raged with those demons

Say the same thing:

The first taste is the best. 

Yet family can age and transform

And seeing a cousin weep in front of us

Over her lost sister

The prayer, over our food,

Looks in both directions:

Thank You for what we will eat

Together

And use to work on our future benefit

And at the same token

Thank You for the gift 

Of all those before

Those silent, large-looming figures

Such as Gabriel, or in my own life,

Donald

Who are the backs upon which we stand. 

It is beautiful the way we as a people remember

The way breaking bread with our blood

Seems to be instinctive and necessary

I return home full of not only belly but of life

A slice of pie in an otherwise insular group of people

The laughter is sincere

The well wishes are doubly so

So today, Donald and Delia

I toast to your memory

Not a holiday will ever go by 

Where you aren't thought of

And deeply missed. 

The family to me is fascinating

In it's inability for me to read

The family is not something we chose

These groups of people are thrown together without any other criteria than genetics

And from this connection

Comes support

Boundless selflessness

Laughter

Humility

And respect. 

We check in with those elder than us

And bask in our achievements

I marvel at their wisdom

Their prowess for cooking

Their ability to mean what they say

To say what they mean. 

Layla, I hope more than anything at this moment

That your sister and Gabriel are indeed enjoying Thanksgiving somewhere "up there" as you put it

You deserve it, as do they

And today of all days,

I am so thankful to have shared a table

With your beautiful family

While I think of my own

And it's own beautiful moments 

And diverse people. 

Family is all we've got

And it's all we need. 

I am done living in fear

Over something real I feel

In fear of it's rejection. 

Never again. 

Chili

3 can diced tomatoes

1 large can crushed tomatoes

1 large can kidney beans

1 reg can white beans

1 med pkg stew meat

1.5 lbs 80/20 ground beef lean to fat

1 white onion

1 large bar hershey's dark chocolate

4 large carrots

2 bottles of high alcohol chocolate stout

1 large bottle of cayenne pepper sauce

2 shallots

4 garlic cloves

1 cup sugar

Salt

Pepper

oregano

cumin

1 large red pepper

1 large yellow pepper

1 large green pepper

In large heated saucepan on high, add stew meat, and cook until all sides are browned. 

In large pot with steep sides, add crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes, salt and pepper, heat on medium

Once browned, add stew meat to large pot.

Add ground beef to saucepan, brown meat as well. Finely chop the meat as it cooks, so few large clumps remain. Add punch of salt and pepper to meat.

Add ground beef to pot.

Add kidney beans, white beans to pot.

Finely chop garlic, shallots, onions, add to pot

Dice peppers and add to pot

Add 2 bottles of beer to pot, turn heat to high until boil. (about 12 minutes)

Once boil is achieved, reduce to low for simmer.

Add chocolate bar and half bottle of cayenne pepper sauce, stir and cover. Let cook for 10 minutes.

Taste, add more cayenne sauce for desired spiciness.

Add 1/2 cup sugar, stir, and taste for desired sweetness.

Cook on low for at least 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes, scraping bottom.  Optimal cook time is 3 hours.

The best damn chili you've ever, ever eaten.  I promise you.

I need a record player as soon as possible
And Astral Weeks on vinyl
Sundays will be perfection
Sweet smells of whatever I'm cooking
Red Wine Flowing
Dark Beer flowing
I believe I have transcended

Just call me the Hoover Dam
Because there's a lot
Being held back
And trickled out
Bit by bit

The List

I made a list of things I want to put in my new apartment
The what-would-I-always-want-for-all-reasons-occasions
It starts with "ice cube trays"
Followed by "record player"
It's not a wish list, but more of a checklist
There's "small bar" on there
And "mop"
More than anything, I want to make a space
That I can feel wrapped and rapt in
The place that is home
This entire journey began 19 months ago
On Mercer Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd St.
Where I had my life completely flipped upside down
Where I paused, looked around to soak it in
And watch as the Pit in My Stomach,
Now completely unnecessary
Was regrettably handed his pink slip
And Evaporated.

You don't need a Pit in your stomach
About moving South, about uprooting and leaving
About desperate attempts to change someone's mind
That had already made her mind up
When she drops you like a bag of potatoes.
The Pit, as redundant as the office worker
Absorbed in the merger
Who's counterpart in the existing company
Already does her job.

You don't need a Pit
When you look around
To see the indifferent faces of NYU students
And realize that very few people give a damn about this
And while you are loved by so many
thankful for this
You and you alone must wipe off the dust from the boots
And take the next step.

There is no Pit
When you call your sister
Your Mother
Your Father
Your friend Ann
And you break it to them
That you lost her
And you probably didn't have to
If you had only bothered to at least
Entertain the idea
Of talking about the Future
And formulate a plan
To move up and onward.

You don't need a Pit
When you start rationalizing to others and yourself
That it ALL had to do with WHAT you do for a living
And a salary line
Even when you cringe each time you verbalize it
Knowing that it's bullshit.
But when the lines go silent afterwards
What else is one to think?

There's no Pit
When you can't eat
Taste buds dead and decayed
Nothing ruins the taste of peanut butter
Than unrequited love, Charlie Brown.

There's no Pit
When you do indeed take that one step forward
And another
And another
And the finality of the situation
Provides this peace and serenity
The cabs and walkers all return to slow motion
And you hit shuffle
Dig the inner earphones deep
And the choreography that is New York, NY
Commences.

There's no Pit
When there's nothing at stake anymore.

At the bottom of my list
The what-would-I-always-want-for-all-reasons-occasions
I have now written
"Grown Up"
It's immediately preceded by
"Xbox"
Fair enough.