ode to the mad woman in the attic

October 02, 2008 candacemorris 5 Comments

1. she has been my memory of a childhood long and easily forgotten.
2. she gave me my passion for books and literature.
3. she can curse, smoke, and drink like a sailor while simultaneously dispensing feminine wit, academic prowess, and fierce fashion.
4. she has, by far, the coolest and most soulful tattoo of anyone i know.
5. the smell of sweet peas and cigarette smoke mixed together on the softest cheeks in the world.
6. cynicism, irony, and sarcasm combined into this dizzying mix of indelible style and the airiest fairy-laughter.
7. she has the biggest of sea-green eyes that throw you a line to climb even the highest of emotionally unscalable walls.
8. she introduced me to eddie vedder, bono, michael jackson, madonna, david bowie, robert smith, paul newman, john coltrane, and thelonious monk.
9. she is the most hilarious contortionist with her mad gymnast skills (of course using her husband as a jungle gym).
10. she, despite being the impetus behind a lot of my own personal fabulousness, is my biggest and most loyal fan.
11. she is very and overly-generous with her resources; her love, her time, her money, her ciggies.
12. she celebrates her husband with genuine vision of his potential and support for his dreams.
13. she reminds me that being an introvert is not a disease and that we are not freaks for being misanthropes.
14. she let me steal her natalie merchant tiger lily tape and play it over and over.
15. she taught me to always and forever be my own person; find my own style, say my own things, read the things i loved, and marry the one i want - and then middle-finger anyone who judges me for it.
16. she is my favorite person to dance with - and every move i know is because of watching her - my own personal delores craig!
17. her soul is attached to dogs in the most mysterious and beautiful way - thinking of her with our childhood dog, nitro, and the english bull-dog she has now, clarence, can bring me to tears in a flash.
18. she taught me how to drink my coffee black, take my vodka straight-up, and imbibe my scotch neat.
19. she will go to any expense to see that i am loved, rested, happy, and intoxicated.
20. she loves things like snoopy, forensics, first editions, roller skates, nancy drew, peanut butter and jelly, sour candy, and lilies.
21. she adores joel with a deep admiration and mysterious understanding that they both carry me.
22. she gave me my first copy of Jane Eyre.
23. she treated me like i was smart. because of this, i believed it myself.
24. she knows my sensitivity levels so can instruct me on what roller coasters to avoid and what horror films not to see.
25. she gave me E.B.Brownings Sonnets of a Portuguese when we were in college, and I will never forget the inscription. "Here's to finding our own Robert Browning."
26. she let me camp in her room for two weeks when i saw Cape Fear and couldn't sleep in my own bed.
27. she never let anyone talk down to me - especially myself.
28. she was my biggest comfort and confidant in the confusing parts of ages 18-21 while attending the most god-forsaken school in the country - my very survival depended upon her.
29. she is the most magnificent of weeping willows; rich with a sad swaying, pregnant with rain and silence; aloof with high, unattainable branches- with solemnity and awe, i picnic under her.
30. she works her ass off.
31. her oceanic waters are dichotomously both eerie and calming.
32. she tears up at the last verse in "Come thou Fount" - especially if i sing it.

"it's never over..all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter. she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever."

the mad woman in the attic

here's to you, my flesh,
mon coeur, mis lágrimas;
the coolest girl i know.
i am forever:
dizzy from your smoke,
buzzed off your cocktail,
fat from your goodly feast,
and well-dressed in your purloined vestments.
fuck yeah.

from your biggest fan and seer of all your great, vibrant color,
even when you think it is suffocated by the gray.

~your little sister, can.