In their footsteps

In their footsteps

Fingers cold and numb. They are my bright stars of all time. I saw them not just as singers, superstars, but as children protected by their loving, financially secure and healthy parents. The brother and sister tinkering with melodies, Karen's cry for help, singing love songs to death and making a stimulating and pretty noise in my head. I can't smile, just watch myself under pressure. Even Cinderella once considered suicide.

I thought what they were doing was art. Genius. I just wanted Karen to eat. Now that everyone knows what anorexia nervosa is and how tragic this eating disorder is, self-hatred is tragic, self-pity is tragic and how it destroys the body, especially the reproductive system. And in the last days of her life, I wonder if she could even manage to make and eat breakfast, or was it just swallowing a handful of laxatives and diuretics that got her through the day, a coriander leaf. Where the hell was her four-leaf clover? Anorexics, I no longer adore them as I do now writers. I adore poets more. I miss her. I miss Karen Carpenter and the clothes she wore to perform. I wonder what her voice would sound like now, her albums, what she would look like if she performed or toured in Japan. If she had had that station wagon and those kids. Why on earth doesn't anyone want to wear a kimono around the house? Skip anorexia. Something else has taken your place, triumphed.

It's called suicide disease. So if you are special, gifted in some way, exceptionally intelligent, brilliant at falling in love, not falling in love, not being the marrying type, being divorced or flying solo or having affairs or being promiscuous type then perhaps this advice is for you. You can either take it or leave it. Behave yourself and eat all your vegetables on your plate, because in the end women are more designed for revolution than men. You will be rewarded with a cool glass of pineapple juice or orange squash. Swallow it. Soon it will taste like getting lasagna meat on your bones that have long felt like an infidelity, like vitamins, the aftertaste in the hospital mouth and yet you won't gain weight. They will ask for yogurt and ice cream. You'll tell the nurse that today you're craving a salad, a tomato sandwich, wilted lettuce, and nothing else, and she'll just give you that death ray stare until you want to punch her in the face. You'll pinch your skin even though you're thin, on death row, but what they don't understand or understand is that mom never said she loved you.

You just weren't loved enough, good enough and your parents are going to tell that handsome psychiatrist who's married with a daughter and a son that you're a superstar, why do they have to tell you of all people that they love you? And instead of your mother taking your hand or stroking your face like you're a kid again, you'll think, I need a Band-Aid and your mother will tell you to stop sulking. "Karen, you would look so pretty if you would just eat. I have some recipes. I made a list. I brought a tapestry.' And I'll think to myself, do you love me, see me? I have to get back to the studio. I have to make another hit record. Maybe you were disobedient and had to be punished for something you did as a child that you can't even remember. You didn't obey anyone or follow the rules. You can't even remember when Last time you ate a pizza crust And the sweet psychiatrist will ask you why you're doing this to yourself? Are you sick (is that crazy)? He assures you that he's here to help you, but you can't help but look into his dreamy eyes and believe him.

The whole world loves you. They have fans in Japan and maybe even Jericho. Maybe they'll groove to your hip beat in Tel Aviv. You want to tell him these things, but then you might think he's going to prescribe something to you. sleeping pills. No, not such a good idea. She feels tired. Do you think about death, about dying? The sweetie (the psychiatrist) asked. Is chocolate a food group, a protein, where does it fit in the hierarchy of the food chain, Karen wanted to ask. Why do people keep saying, 'Death by chocolate?' or things like, 'Can we be friends?' "Why do I feel so disadvantaged when I'm supposed to be the denim-wearing All-American girl? The brunette with barrettes in her hair. Am I too rich, too out of touch with reality like all the greats, the great artists? What I really feel is that I'm a failure, that I'm doomed. I seem to have this complex. Life is complicated enough as it is. I know, why am I not fascinated and fascinated at the same time by the sadness and other people's lives, their cruelty, their survival, my guilt journey, my survival equipment. I don't understand this doctor, and the doctor who wanted to impress her told her that all anorexics suffer from a kind of perfectionism and that she only had to love the people who loved her and they would love her back.

You see, doctor, I want my mother to acknowledge me for who I am and not the person, the pose, the pout, the singer who sings love songs, but I don't think she does. In fact, I know she doesn't. Anorexia has taught me a lot about death. You won't survive if you don't eat. Doesn't a boiled potato with its brains mashed like confetti taste like an exotic fruit if you haven't eaten it for months? And turkey tastes like chicken on Thanksgiving anyway. "You're special, Karen. We've always known that. I mean, she's always had that extraordinary voice and she and her brother have always been so close.' That's her father. He smiles warmly at her, but it's just an image, a figment of her imagination, and instead of making her feel closer to him, it feels like he's killing her. She can feel that spark, but her claws are out, she feels like she can't function or be productive anymore. She's sick, sick. It has a kind of suffering that we can deal with ourselves and don't involve outsiders. We don't make ourselves look bad, we laugh at our own expense.

And here I say like Hemingway, Salinger, David Foster Wallace, Rilke, Jeanette Winterson and Shakespeare. It's impossible to be perfect all the time, Mother Carpenter would probably say. We are not like other families. We are not dysfunctional. What does the word even mean? I remember her as more lively. Was that pretty much what her mother seemed to say, or what should I bring the next time we come to town? I think her mom wanted her to bring me some hard-crust pizza, hot dogs, Chinese noodles, cheese, and something to stitch while she watched the reruns in the tiny TV room, but Karen just wanted her mom to say, "I love you." As if they were making vows to spend the rest of their lives together and only have eyes for each other. For Karen, food became almost earth-shattering. She wrestled with the fork over the food on the plate until she thought perhaps she needed medication instead of the tender, loving care of a suffocator who folded away the kimono that was mostly bought for her by Karen in Tokyo, thinking it was a loving gesture to a loving mother who put it in a cupboard in the box it came in and forgot about it.

Eating became increasingly difficult for Karen, and she was never more passionate about it than when she was a “chubby teenager,” as a music magazine put it years ago.

“I'm fine, Richard. I'm ready to work. I want another number one album like you wouldn't believe. The music scene is constantly changing. We have to keep up with the trends, with what's current. We are still world champions. Let's open a bottle of champagne and celebrate my homecoming. " she told her brother. They all acted like she was fine. Karen Carpenter, sweet girl, superstar, acting like everything was fine. Everyone put up a brave front. 'Yeah, yeah, everything's going to be okay,' her father said as they sat down to eat like pilgrims around the Thanksgiving table. 'The Carpenters all together again. One big happy family.'

Well, Karen, I'm going to be a beast now. I will be honest with you because I feel like someone who loves you and is close to you needs to be. You look like a wreck. Why don't you take care of yourself, take care of yourself first? This doesn't look good for the Carpenters, for the team. How can you feel so detached? I want you back.

The real you. The way you dress now doesn't impress me. SALAD IS NOT A FOOD A FOOD GROUP DOES NOT EAT REGULAR YOGURT. You will die if you don't eat this turkey breast. Also have some sauce. You think being skinny and getting skinny are the same thing, but they're not. You were beautiful then, but now you've become a monster, but her brother knew that if he had said that to her, he would have driven his mother crazy and his sister would have cried, cried for a man who would have held the door for her after she brought her home after a night of bowling. But he never did. When you waste yourself, it is initially intimidating for the atoms and the particles that make you up. You think you can go back to the way you were. And you often think to yourself, how am I supposed to fix this? Skinny is the new great looking. I felt like I was being deeply admired, deeply adored for the first time in my life, when I staggered or stammered, I staggered and stammered pompously. I didn't need prayer. I needed to be worshiped. There was the old Karen, the singer with the amazing voice, the drummer, part of an award-winning trio, the first carpenter to be signed to a record label, the romantic vocal poet and the new Karen, the skinny, skinny version of herself.

So the big ones. First. A Hemingway tapestry. Where-every-thread-appears-harmoniously. I want to put my hands in his pockets and wonder what I will find there. In the lining of the fabric of his garments. Will I find the disease of alcoholism there or scribbled notes (bits) of his phenomenal writing? Then there is Salinger. What enthusiasm? Pathetic delight that's tearing me apart at the seams. The man, his mind, his imagination, his dialogue characters (I wanted more of his genius, of Holden). I want to body surf in it, swim with the fish and show them my shark teeth and how I can put them to good use. He had far too much imagination in him. I think he was pursuing love or was much more in love than being in love. David Foster Wallace is forever masked in a hellish fabric experiment. I'll miss him. Karen Green will miss him infinitely more. His-life-was-short-but-beautiful and he was good at sketching-the-forgetfulness-of-forgetfulness. Rilke hated the celebration of Hemingway’s Paris in every way.

But of all of them, William Shakespeare beats them down. He is my cocaine, my jam, my cheese on toast, French toast, tuna sandwich and papadum. I think he was most vigilant about dying young for love, for human violence. On the surface he was conservative (when it came to pornography, adultery, family, children). He didn't watch his children grow up and play with kittens, stroking the ears of puppies. I think he lived alone when he wrote. He was a great all-rounder and a real nobody at the same time. Turning out all these sonnets, piece by piece, poetry. He never ceased to amaze. But I wonder about his scar tissue. His wounds bind me. I find them sexy like words like mitochondria. Hemlock. Poison. Gourmet chef. Lobster. Gift. Christmas presents under the tree. Explore. Talented-with-tools. Brilliant-with-instruments. The-sign-of-a-man. An overwhelmingly caring woman. Opinion. Probability. Rope. Catholic. Winterson was also a carpenter who made drawers (with secret compartments) out of words. They all made beautiful carpenters. Children also have skills, stages and spotlights.

Bulbs and holy ground, plant them in fertile soil where the bulb grows and the filament flashes with so much gratitude and a halo appears.

Inspired by A George