Some Insight Into My Vonnegut Thing on a Night When I Miss Him

I have one tattoo on my body, and it's a tattoo I got impulsively out of grief that is not necessarily justifiable. This tattoo is located on my upper right rib cage and it says So It Goes.

There are a lot of authors to whom I have emotional attachments, but in most instances those attachments extend to their work and not far beyond. J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey may have literally saved my life on a couple occasions. I understand that that sounds like an extremely dramatic statement, but it might seriously be true. That said, I had mixed feelings about Mr. Salinger as a human, and when he died, my biggest question was whether or not they would find unpublished manuscripts I could enjoy. (Selfish, buddy, so goddam selfish.)

Recently, I was sad when Ray Bradbury died, Tearful when Maurice Sendak died, I have many living authors with whom I would love to correspond forever. But Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is the one I can't get over, and I feel like I owe myself and everyone else an explanation.

First of all, his fiction.
       The man wrote novels that were interwoven with one another without being necessary to one another's survival. This requires both foresight and careful respect for one's own work, both of which are admirable qualities. He also wrote a character who was representative of himself without being masturbatory, which is practically unheard of. He also managed to make everything about respect for human life and intellect without making those qualities so pure that they became mythological. He was also alternately funny as fuck and tender as can be. His short fiction is probably some of the most underrated in the American universe. He wrote what he knew and extrapolated it to otherworldly environments, and he was good as shit at it, which is why terms from bokonism became part of his everyday expression of himself.


Secondly his non-fiction:
     If you take the time to read essays and opinions that Vonnegut published from the beginning of his career until basically his death, you will find one underlying theme: the value of human life and the dignity that all people deserve. This should not be a surprise, seeing as it is basically the point of all of his fiction, as well. However, seeing it out in stark terms from his own heart and in his own, unfiltered voice, makes it more real. If you have not, everyone in the universe should read the letter he wrote to a member of a school board who decided to burn "vulgar" books: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html. Everyone should also check out the collection Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons.
This was a strong, principled man with a sharp mind that was backed by a compassionate heart. Too often we forgive nastiness or cheapness from people who are perceived as intelligent.

Thirdly, his life:
     We so often think of successful thinkers and artists as tortured people and fuck ups and individuals deserving of leniency when it comes to judgment because of their artistic contributions. Vonnegut needed no leniency nor would he have asked for any. He raised his own children as well as several of his sisters to be successful, honest adults and never even spoke badly about military careers despite his experiences with Dresden.

All of this combined, plus the times when I chose to lean on Vonnegut's humanism and kindness as opposed to nastiness and anger that so many other authors and artists offered, left me feeling like Kurt was a grandfather figure, an American humanist who we could not afford to lose. When he died in 2007 I was really, truly upset. Five years later, in April of 2012, I still felt like I was mourning. Every time I read something of his or even something that REMINDED me of him, I would feel an honest hole in myself. I felt like I needed to pay tribute to my man, declare myself one of his people, and remind myself of what he would say about his own, or any, death: So it goes.

I know this might not seem rational, but it honestly made me feel better, and I still think of my boy Kurt as a family member, and no one can change that.
It is never a mistake to say goodbye.

Motherhood and the Decimation of an Angst-hole

My son, Charles Anthony Pumilia, was born on Tuesday, January fourth at 5:52 PM. Just as I suspected he would, he arrived in an undramatic fashion after just seven hours of active labor. He was perfect.

I thought that, upon getting the little guy settled in at home, I would immediately rush to my sketch book, notebooks, and even to this blog to commemorate and fawn over him in a "creative" fashion. As it turns out, I have yet to touch a sketching pencil, and aside from facebook updates, this is the first I have written about him.

This is partially due to the fact that the old "Caring for an infant is a full time job," axiom is completely true. I spend at least eight hours a day just nursing. Add to that diaper changes, baths, cuddles, and wardrobe changes, and my time is pretty well spoken for.

Still, I have quiet moments like this one where I could sit down and paint a picture or write a poem. I often choose instead to just watch the baby. I find him to be completely enthralling.

Having created something so completely unlike anything I ever created before has kept me in the moment. Art and writing require a sort of mental check out; a break from reality during which one must retreat into her own head and fish out the bits that need removal, massaging, or grooming before smearing them across a page with an eye towards either entertainment or self-therapy. Now, watching my child's facial expressions while he sleeps is endlessly entertaining and snuggles from him provide unmatched therapy.

I have always known that my creative impulses, and thus the work I have done in various artistic fields, stem largely from holes or gaps I felt in myself. I will almost certainly never again produce as much poetry as I did during a stretch of time in 2003 and 2004. In six or seven months I filled five, five subject spiral notebooks to the brim with verse, much of which has been deemed "good" by various readers, and a small percentage of which has been published.

The cause for such a rush of creation during that time period was a desperate search for a teenage identity coupled with a fair amount of angst and some mind-enhancing activities. My periodic unhappiness and instability needed an outlet, and thus I bled onto a page, rather than down a sink drain as some other "arty types" choose to do.

In the spring of 2005, while I was in my second term at Tulane and certainly at my most nihilistic, I wrote over 200 pages of a single spaced, 10 pt. novel in less than two months. It was almost definitely my most emotionally tumultuous phase, and it resulted in a manic flurry of word vomit in the form of a dark and melancholy monologue that will never be finished for various reasons.

The point I am trying to make is that I have always used creation as an emotional outlet, which is not unusual. Perhaps unfortunately, that means that as I have gotten older, happier, and more stable, my desire and need to create has diminished. By the time I got pregnant, I had only a very tiny angst-hole in my soul left to fill.

Now, I am filling that hole in the simplest of ways. Rather than absorbing my energy into myself, I am bouncing it off my little one to be consumed by the ethos. I am filling my hole by staring into the tiniest, steel-blue eyes and singing "You Are My Sunshine" on repeat. By kissing little foot arches and tickling minute ribs. By waking up in the middle of the night to petite whimpers that sound remarkably like Nicki Minaj's entire catalog of work. And I can't feel any holes anymore.

I have been told by numerous individuals who make their living in various artistic fields that the arts need not be an escape from pain and unrest. That Elliot Smith and Vincent Van Gogh are the exception and not the norm. These people claim to project positive feelings into their art. They hope that their work can inspire and entertain on its own. It need not be laden with hard-wrestled traces of their demons in order to have worth.

I never really believed any of that. I thought it was a grown-up line used to mask the unchecked adolescent torment that all artists must still possess. However, I might be changing my mind. I have a tiny, tiny, perfect face peering at me out of a fish-themed bouncy chair right now, and its vaguely simian expression is making my heart swell a bit. Maybe, if I can find a way to massage this love onto canvas and paper in the place of the formerly smeared pain, I can create something beautiful.

If not, it isn't really a big deal. My most beautiful creation is right in front of me, and I am pretty sure he is hungry again.