tastes like chicken
7 or so years before I would eventually meet her, Kara Simon was somewhere in the Richmond area of Virginia patiently folding over xeroxed pages to create volume 2 of 'Tastes Like Chicken', a collection of her poems. As the two of us became closer, and started pushing books and music onto one another (some of my Blake and my third or so copy of Actual Air will remain within her collection), we eventually got around to sharing some of our own writings. Well, actually, it was me that had to do the getting around--Kara had a performer's streak to her and had no qualms about sharing her creative side, whereas I'm a chickenshit and lack the type of confidence that she had an abundance of. Anyways, at some point, I was handed 5 unstapled, folded over pages of her words with her name and an 804 area code phone number on back.
Kara took her own life on 29 April 2005. Aside from an old note from last fall left under a wiper blade and then found again on the floorboards of my old pick-up on the evening of her memorial telling me that I was living in a weird buiding and why couldn't I hear her knocking on my windows, these are the only words I have left from Kara.
This is the first poem from 'Tastes Like Chicken' II:
we were young
and we were all taught to swallow shame and pretend pride.
and we would spend time
walking around and looking for satisfaction:
something easy, a quick trick
a distraction
something to spare us.
how can you answer when you don't know the question.
silly?
an empty mind is what you get for an empty life.
waiting for the next explosion of insignificance.
whose life is deeper. yours or mine?
it is foolish to have pride.
be truthful.
--Kara Simon
Love to you, girl.
Kara took her own life on 29 April 2005. Aside from an old note from last fall left under a wiper blade and then found again on the floorboards of my old pick-up on the evening of her memorial telling me that I was living in a weird buiding and why couldn't I hear her knocking on my windows, these are the only words I have left from Kara.
This is the first poem from 'Tastes Like Chicken' II:
we were young
and we were all taught to swallow shame and pretend pride.
and we would spend time
walking around and looking for satisfaction:
something easy, a quick trick
a distraction
something to spare us.
how can you answer when you don't know the question.
silly?
an empty mind is what you get for an empty life.
waiting for the next explosion of insignificance.
whose life is deeper. yours or mine?
it is foolish to have pride.
be truthful.
--Kara Simon
Love to you, girl.
posted by sqrl at 9:49 PM
9 Comments:
days go by in a paler shade without kara in them. she bled poetry, breathed music, smiled philosophy. she is sorely missed. i miss her. from jeanette winterson, one of our first connections:
"You'll get over it...' It's the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The articulateness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?"
thanks for sharing the Winterson quote.
jb . . . those initials aren't ringing any bells. do i know you?
i don't know who you are either, actually. ha! this is jenny, i'm an old friend from college. kara and i kept in touch for years through letters and phone calls. i was up in anchorage a couple of summers ago visiting. who are you?
i'm jason.
syl cleared things up a bit for me. i've heard of you--kara had spoken to me about you before. texas, right?
yes, i'm in austin. i was in va beach for the memorial service a few weeks ago and was able to see sylvester, kristin and the fam. we read through a lot of poems that i remember kara writing years ago. it's all very upsetting. anyway- i really appreciated your post and felt compelled to add something to it.
glad to hear you made it out there.
the note i mentioned finding has a strange story to it: i had sold my pickup to a friend when i left town about a month before. maybe an hour after the service i hopped in shotgun with him to go grab some beer, etc. as i was climbing in i noticed my coffee cup shoved under the seat and when i grabbed it, a scrap of paper with that very distinctive handwriting of kara's came into view. now, i'm not really one for superstition or the like, but the coincidence of it all and the somewhat cryptic message in that lettering of hers had me pretty upset and dumbfounded for quite a while. . .so many seemingly random acts happening in a particular order to lead me to that one little note. . .
anyway, how in the hell did you find yourself here? it's kinda weird to me that a friend of kara's that i don't know would actually read this crap.
it would have to be the obsessive searching for kara on the internet that brought me to your doorstep. i think i just keep hoping to find her in here somewhere. are you in anchorage?
not currently. i'm out in bristol bay for work until august. anchorage is home, though.
not too sure how public you want all this to be. if you want, i can be reached at:
jasonlessard@hotmail.com
searching for a special friend has led me to this very sad end...
Our paths crossed by some strange twist of fate on the mystical and magical island New Zealand. I can only say that I am so much the better off from having met such an amazing and inspiring person for a brief few weeks.
toniideas@ananzi.co.za
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