Michelle O’Kane

AKA Feisty

Recent Posts

  • Some year. Some years. Some time. Somewheres.

    Some year. Some years. Some time. Somewheres.

    Bittersweet jasmine breathes around me. Breathes into my breathe. Gradient green leaves flutter around the front door. A familiar green door. Tiny chips in the green paint are snapshots of snowy winters and windy summers.

    I step into a bright room with giant tv and dirty dishes on the nightstand and a tangled mess of yarn on the floor. That is all this is. This is a world, not a home.

    Homes are puzzle pieces I can’t fit together. Momentarily think I’m talking about our cottage in the Castro. The tiny front door, the patio. The 2-story building behind us had an entrance—do you remember Freddy? A missing finger, or a big band-aid? Did he have a guitar? 

    Still in The Castro cottage: exit through the big lack iron gate, turn right, and down to Castro Street. The theater is a block or two to the right, across the street. Past that, a few blocks—for a second I think we’re going to see the ice-cream shop we’d hit on Castro Street, in Mountain View. The last shop, on the right—railroad tracks just next door. I miss Kim’s. Lunch destinations from NASA. I watch these moving memories through a window of crystal-clear glass. 

    Sometimes—I’m having a memory in one of our old living rooms and then I realize it’s just my old living room, in the house in which I grew up, in Cupertino. I would practice my flute near the front window. I would watch my mother, on her knees, in the garden, holding colorful annuals in her soil-covered hands.

    Mountain View house. Front door opened to the living room, to the left, and the small dining area, to the right. The kitchen straight ahead, the bathroom door to the right, the bedroom door to the left, and straight back the back door that led to the small garage. To your BMW.

    Today I woke up in Scotland. Now, we’re in a tavern/pub. It’s upstairs. The damp air indicates it’s later afternoon—the time of day when the air is more damp. We park on the dead-end ally, on the right side of the street; the front of the small car faces the two story building. Up the stairs we go. Shiny, caramel walls hug us as we walk inside. Windows. Stained glass windows showcasing flowers, a cross, a pretty mosaic. On the other side of the windows lingers wet, grey air. Here, in Scotland, it seems like we are often walking through clouds. 

    We are meandering in the highlands, with Cawdor Castle being today (or tomorrow’s) destination. You order soup and a beer. I have cider and a salad. Later I’ll ask you to stop at a market so I can get some cookies. Then I’ll let you eat all of them.  

    Now, a local asks us where we’re from. We are told that this man’s son is currently in New York, but the father doesn’t seem to know why, exactly. He drops his shoulders and laughs. We laugh too. Scottish people have big smiles and big laughs, so it never feels gloomy here. Not really. 

    We haven’t yet been invited to the Scottish boy’s birthday party, that happens later. We’ll see a young man lifted up, while sitting in a chair, and he’ll be carried around the large room to pick up the pound notes his friends and family are waving at him. 

    I’ve been coping better in unfamiliar places. Jay has, without purpose, made this happen. With him. I never feel unsafe. He’s confident, he’s the smartest person I know—this never changes. It took me some time to realize I was safe, with him. It gave me a sense of safety that would grow, allow me to take risks. Taking risks, with Jay, is what forced me to start living.

    I fall back asleep. I want to travel more. I want to go back to that super scary Scottish road that wound and wound and wound. But. I wake up in Hawaii. That’s okay. I love waking up here. Especially Kauai. Especially when It was when we stayed closer to the North Shore. We drove our red rental car to a spot on the road where a sign with a red arrow pointed down, to the sea. We parked next to the arrow, on the highway. 

    We walked through all the trees and mud, and then to the sand. We set up camp. We saw fish. We swam. Every time I got into the water in Kauai I was in awe of the warmth of the sea. I’d no idea that the ocean could be so warm. It wasn’t in Half Moon Bay. Or Trinidad. Or Ireland. 

    It was Hawaii. Watch out for jellyfish.

    I was sipping a cranberry martini that Jay had made—

    Remember when we ran into my flute teacher on a flight between Dublin and London? In London we stayed on the second floor of a biggishh B&B. We went downstairs for breakfast. I kept giggling because I was eating breakfast in London. 

    I was 19.

    Outside the breakfast room, to the left, was a hallway to the kitchen. On the right was the large, brown door that led to the street. We left the building and turned left. We walked down the road. It was my first time out of this country so I thought the walk was amazeballs. 

    Sometimes, as I write this, when I write words, I momentarily think I’m talking about our cottage in The Castro. The 2-story building behind us had an entrance—do you remember Freddy? Was there a missing finger, or a big band-aid? Did he have a guitar?

    To leave the Castro cottage: exit the open giant, black iron gate, then right, down to Castro Street. The theater is a block or two to the right, across the street. Past that, a few blocks—for a second I think we’re going to see the ice-cream shop we’d hit ON Castro, in Mountain View—the last shop, on the right, and the railroad track, on the other side of the small blue building. 

    And then we drove up the hills. And drove down to the beaches. And stopped in Woodside. Cause there’s a million ways to be free. You know that there are.

  • She Is I

  • Once Upon A Tree

    Once Upon A Tree

    I wake up every morning and realize I’m alive. I find myself on a sofa in a living room. I stare at my hands and think about how they still work. Sometimes I can’t control my emotions, and my mind feels like a storm of conflicting feelings. It’s hard to make sense of these emotions, and some days are tougher than others.

    My phone tells me it’s Saturday, and as I wake up, I try to piece together where I am. The bright room with too many windows and empty glasses makes me think I’m not at home. I live with two roommates, one of whom is my eleven-year-old son. I struggle to remember where I am and the people around me. I often wake up feeling confused and in pain.

    I have been living with my best friend, Louise, for over a year, but I struggle to remember things clearly. I’ve distanced myself from the outside world and find it hard to leave the house. I often struggle with the memories of my past, even if they are painful.

    I recall an experience of getting a piercing, and it reminds me of other things I’ve been through. I find myself walking outside, aimlessly, and sometimes to places that aren’t good for me. The mental and emotional turmoil I face makes it hard to make positive decisions and move forward.

    Overall, I’m struggling with remembering events, staying connected with people, and finding a sense of purpose. It’s a daily battle, and I often feel lost and disconnected from the world around me.

  • Retrograde Amnesia: My Infinite Rediscovery

    Here is what is this about. I don’t know what I’m about. Most people ignore me now and I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know why, and even if I knew why, I wouldn’t remember anyway. I’m a handful on my best of days. My best of days happened decades ago. I can hardly live with myself. And I’m not. Nobody is.

    Time is something that speeds by on a billion schedules, and patterns its way around the world in an interactive lacy web. Life billows. I get tired easily and right now I’m busy imagining the reality of slitting my wrists. But that sounds like a lot of work and I’m tired.

    I’m this tired because I hardly eat. Also, my brain has stopped functioning, which is exhausting. For once, this isn’t on purpose. The soldiers battling in my brain. I haven’t blasted them with shotguns full of vodka and smokey bullets of xanax. I haven’t made it to the store yet. I haven’t made it anywhere at all.

    I have a past. Once, I had a mother and a father and a sister. I never knew my sister, but I heard she was a perfect baby. I had a first husband. They’re all dead. Ken’s dead, too. Today, Koko died. I wish I drive by Koko’s woodland home in Woodside, like I did every day when I lived as her neighbor. I want to be driving, in my 4Runner, by her old home, I wish I could see my old home, I wish I could see where my memories were born.

    I am overwhelmed, usually because I’m on the floor, and everything is tall. I’m so hungry that when I try to eat I just puke. My throat and my fingers have been on a break. I feel like I’m washing away. I feel like a melting pile of snow. I feel like I should be in the forest, climbing redwood trees. I feel like I need a nap but I can’t sleep. I want to die. I want to live. I want to live a different life. I want to write something good. I want to write it well.

    But I don’t know what good is, and things are never well enough for some people. I want to stop dwelling in the comprehensive state of my racing pulse, my speeding heartbeat. My mother’s voice.

    I am forty-three. My mother died when she was forty-three. She died right after surgery to remove her brain tumor. The last time I saw her, alive, she was on a gurney, sedated, her long, curly brown hair looking like it was being mulled into a cap. I watched her being pushed, under a blanket, on the gurney, through blue hospital doors, that closed. Quietly. That was the last time I saw my mother breathing. Two days later I saw my mother again. She was in a hospital room, dead. Her bed was against the east facing wall, and there was only one bed in the room.

    I learned that there were always a single bed in those rooms—the dead people rooms. Dead people and machines that should be beeping and moving. The machines in those rooms were also dead. I felt so shaken, like when I had stood behind the shuddering glass at the one-hour-photo, where I worked, last year. That was the ’89 earthquake. Everything shook, rolled, dropped, broke. Seventeen seconds of rolling destruction. And invisible force. It was such a quiet, deafening shaking.

    Like now. Like inside of me now. Looking at my dead mother. Like now. Me. Standing in a ray of sunlight, on the weirdly soft hospital floor. Always, hospital floors were softly quiet. The wheels of wheelchairs and gurneys were loud. Rolling around, squeaking. Everything was always, it seemed, rolling.

    I felt more shaken by how little I felt as I looked at her, sleeping without breathing. She still had that cap on her head. It was the only time I ever saw my mother’s hair look so lifeless. Today, I am alive, technically. I often wonder if my mother and I had brains that weren’t built to work for more than forty-three years.

    I want to see flowers. I want to feel warm water. I want to feel waves crashing against my back. I feel stupid. I feel smart. Do I feel smart because I’m so stupid? “Feelings” are supposed to be shown, not told, when writing. I want to feel happy. I want to eat. I want to know. I want my hair to not fall out. I need a break.

    I need a brain. I want a break that lasts me the rest of my life and beyond. I don’t want to remember being eight years old with my gymnastic teacher’s hands in my pants. I’ve been working for something since I walk to my 3rd grade classroom, in Eureka, Ca. I walked out the front door of our house on Myrtle Street, turned right and walked five blocks to Lafayette Elementary School, on Park Street.

    I want my hair back. I want my life back. I want a sandwich. I want ice-cream. I want to eat without puking into the nearest toilet. I want to sleep. Forever. I want to live. Happily. Indefinitely. I want to hold my newborn son, every one of these days.

    I want to be in love and mean it. I want to hide in a lake. I want to hide with fish. I want to write about people who exist, and who are good. Instead I’m swimming fiercely in shallow water. My knees hit rocks. I taste blood.

    I remember the metallic, plastic, blasting sound of my typewriter exploding on concrete seconds after I dropped it from the wooden 2nd floor deck, on which I stood. Single black keys with white single letters then scattered around the typewriter, wordless on the grainy grey ground.

    I remember brown leaves drifting around my brown typewriter, like ballerinas, floating in the blasted air. I want to see the brown leaves drifting across the scuffled concrete of my patio. I want to look between the brown patio stairs and see the ground. I want to hear the shuffling sound of shoes as people walk on the other side of the fence, unaware of what they’re missing over here.

  • Disaster Girl. Ces’t moi.

    Disaster Girl. Ces’t moi.

    Disaster Girl. Ces’t moi. If I recall correctly, I earned that nickname right after I shattered my tibfib during roller derby practice. Tahoe Derby Dames! Anyway.

    So. On September 27th I was ordered to go the ER because I was anemic. So I went. Had a bunch of scans. Gave blood got blood. Went back home. And then, 6 hours later, the Parkland ER called me and ordered me to come back because ACUTE PANCREATITIS. Again.

    So then I went back to the Parkland ER. Got admitted. Was not allowed to leave the hospital for 8 more days. Etcetera.

    As is common with lengthy hospital stays, I was attached to the bed through my hardworking IV pole. And a built-in bed alarm. Then, on my last couple of days, I was released from the alarm. YAY! I was able to, with IV pole in tow, go the bathroom all by myself.

    Of course, on my way back from the bathroom, a wave of vertigo washed over me and I fell down. I crashed to the gross hospital floor–and brought the IV pole with me—yes–the heavy-as-rocks pole landed on me. (Yes, that is what she said.) It was a pretty nasty fall, which I know because of the gigantic bruise on my upper thigh. (That other big dark bruise on my leg was not induced by this fall. It’s a bruise from bad blood.) Anyhoo. Just another day in Feisty Falls Down world.

  • Wild nights – Wild nights!

    Wild nights – Wild nights!

    September 18th. Parkland Hospital called and told me to come back to the ER. I had been home from the Parkland ER for less than 24 hours. So I went back. The doctors had just now noticed that my pancreas was being a dick. Again.

    On the 24th I was able to, while hooked up to my IV trolley, roll around like a crazy person, which, as you may know, I am. I was staring through overbearing windows when the sky started piercing the air with sharp streaks of lightening.

    Obviously, I immediately rolled back to my iPhone, which was on the tray table thingie. Then I rolled back to the window. Then I started filming. 

  • Wherever you go, there you ar—where was I going?

    Wherever you go, there you ar—where was I going?

    Scotland. We’re driving the silver rental car over narrow, gravelly road. Our destination, the second-floor Scottish pub, resides on a dead-end ally. Then we’re parked. Right side of the street, the front bumper pointing to steps that lead to giant Woden doorway. Up the stairs, then through the ornately giant door.

    Shiny, caramel wood walls. And bar. The left side of spacious the pub is all glass. Windows. And random stained glass–flowers, a cross, a colorful, happy mosaic. Outside is grey. Wet. Scotland feels like we’re always walking through clouds.

    Now: Vegetarian food hunt. J sits on a bar still, and I climb onto a bar stool. Onion soup, shouts the white writing on the chalkboard. We are meandering in the highlands, with Cawdor Casting today (or tomorrow’s) destination. J orde soup and a beer. Ireland, Scotland. I never acquire a taste for beer. I have developed a taste for cider. cider an. And some fried stuff. Later I’ll ask J. to stop at a market so I can get some cookies.

    Now, a local asks us where we’re from. We are told that this man’s son is currently in New York, but the father doesn’t seem to know why, exactly. He drops his shoulders and laughs. We laugh too. We’ve observed that Scottish people have big smiles and big laughs, so it never feels super gloomy here. Not really.

    We haven’t yet been invited to the Scottish boy’s birthday party, that happens later. We’ll see a young man lifted up, while sitting in a chair, and he’ll be carried around the large room to pick up the pound notes his friends and family are waving at him.
    I’ve been coping better in unfamiliar places. J. has, without purpose, made this happen. I never feel unsafe with him. He’s confident, he’s the smartest person I’ve ever known—that never changes. It took me some time to realize I was safe, with him. I’d never known what it felt like to be safe. It gave me a sense of safety that would grow, allow me to take a lot risks. Taking risks, with J. is what forced me to start living.

    Making a few stops along the way, I wander back to sleep. I wanted to travel more. I wanted to go back to that super Scottish road that wound and wound and wound. I then woke up in Hawaii. That was okay. I loved waking up there. Especially Kauai. 
    It wasn’t our honeymoon. It was when we stayed closer to the North Shore. We drove our shiny blue rental car to a spot on the road where there was a sign that pointed to the right side of the road. We parked there and hiked down a slippery path, down to a beach. We walked through all the trees and mud, and then to the sand. We set up on the beach. We saw fish. We swam in endless Every time I got into the water in Kauai I was in awe of the warmth of the ocean. Every time. I’d no idea that the ocean could be so warm. It wasn’t in Half Moon Bay. Or Humbolt. Or Mendocino. Those were the only oceans I’d been in, until I met J.

    Someone said, “Be careful. Watch out for jellyfish.” That freaked me out. But it was okay. When I was with J. I was okay. I knew I always would be okay

    I woke up. I was in my art gallery. I loved my gallery. J. came by to set something up on my computer. I’d been looking at the DWR catalog. I wanted to get J. something nice. I wanted to get him something to sit in, something that was beautiful, and wouldn’t be uncomfortable. I wanted him to be able to be comfortable and didn’t tweak his back. I was researching the Eames Lounge Chair. And Ottoman. It was beautiful. I knew he’d love it, but wouldn’t ever buy it for himself

    I was sipping a cranberry martini that J. made—when I started waking up. In this room. In Dallas. I hadn’t opened my eyes and I don’t want to. Ever.

    I never wanted to believe all of the things I knew were true, about me, for other people. I’m a piece of shit. And I’m insane. It says so right on my medical records. So far today, so many times, I’ve wished I could rewrite my story. And, now, I see a life, my life, that hasn’t stopped living even though I’m no longer living there.

    Every day I wake up all over the world. I think about how to stop the incessant waking the fuck up. So far, none of my attempts have worked. The other day, I woke up in Ireland. We’d just hit a cow. And I went to sleep in Dallas. By myself. Knowing that the biggest memory loss I’m living with is the fact that I’m hardly a memory, for anyone, anymore. I hope that, soon, I wake up in that little white villa, in Andalucia. We drive to the convent, with that 5′ wide, windy road, and we ate those delicious chocolate treats the nuns cooked. J. purchased a flower from a nun. He gave me the flower. I hope that I wake up again here, soon. And that I never go back to sleep.

    I find some yarn, at the bottom of a bag of of a tangled yarn. I know this yarn. This yarn is a soft merino wool. It’s been dyed by an artist in California. This wool is varied in hue, all shades of deep green, like a bunch of olives. The strands of this yarn are not too thin, just thin enough. It’s a very strong and beautiful fiber.

    I pick it up, it’s as strong and as soft as I remember. I don’t want to know why I have it. I don’t want to know that I have it because I want to knit him a hat with this yarn. I don’t want to know the exact pattern for this yarn that, perfectly, will reflect the red in his hair. I drop the yarn. I’ll pick it up again.

  • Sheep Go To Heaven

    Sometimes it isn’t weird
that a fluffy sheep is sheared
to bring people like me some peace
with a wooly gift of fleece
Magical colors , painted wool
People like me--drool
We see warm works of art
Our hands is where they start

  • When did you know?

    When did you know you were right handed? When did you know you liked ice-cream? When did you know you thought puppies were cute? When did you know you think eating animals is gross? When did you know you liked music? When did you know you were intimated by intelligent women? When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Throughout my life, people have often asked me: “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?”

I never knew/know how to answer. I never wanted to be a writer. I just was/am a writer. When I’m standing in the shower I think in fully constructed sentences. A lot of my writing starts in the shower. I process everything I hear, everything I observe, everything I as if I’m writing those things with the typewriter in my brain. I’m constantly translating images into words, into sentences.

Also, I am a brilliant consumer and of sugar and writer of poetry.
The man who just told me he’d keep me safe woke me up from a nap.

    Anyway. When did you know you liked chocolate? I don’t know. But I started writing about chocolate ice cream when I was five.

  • Broken Face

    Soooo my bones are starting to stick out. Or break free.

    This particular bone was sticking out more and more it was really freakin’ me out. WTF? What bone is this?

    Then I remembered. I broke leg during roller derby. I could never see this—whatever this is— until now. Creepy as fuck. But hey, so is my entire body bla bla bla. . .