Economic 2009

 

I  used  to drive a Silverado and pay T-Mobile with  cash-back

Now  I  cruise  Valley  Metro, talk on a Trac-Phone and pay with food-stamps

From  elated  to  deflated  just  waitin’  to  bounce   back

For  a  new  New  Deal  before  I  start  tearin’  down  flags

Or  am  I jumpin’  on  the  excuse  to  throw  up  my hands

That  aren’t  really  tied,  and  I  just  wanna  relax

Twenty-six  isn’t  shit  but  I’m  wantin’  to  retire

At least  to  a  good  ole  nine-to-fiver

Wanna be  inspired,  not  just  fucking  tired

All  just  to  get  laid  off,  fucked  off,  fired

Sick  of  sweating  and  bleeding  and  getting  burned

Then  burning  what  I  earned  and  shelving  what  I’ve  learned

Me and my first grader gotta survive  this  economy

Where’d  the  time  and  money  go  on  my  odyssey

I  never  rested  but  I  never  invested

But  there  is  hope,  did  you  get  the  text  message

They’re  handing  out  plastic  cards  again

So  we  can  dig  deeper  while  bargainin’

 

Sam’s  Choice,  Made  in  China  so  we  can  Live  Better

Pile  our  debts  in  the  paper-shedder

Cut  the  tape  on  the  Real  Estate

Stand  in  line  with  your  paper  plate

Homes are vacant, parks are full

Homeless hide in the night, follow the rules

Call  me  a  Communist,  but  don’t  make  it  sound  so  ominous

Mama  said  share  and  share  alike,  I  say   promises,  promises

Portrait of the Artist at 25

 

The  color  of  my  collar  is  the  Working  Class

Financial  survival  off  the  sweat  from  our  backs

This  construction  trade  just  fell  in  my  lap

I  bit  the  sweet  treat  and  succumbed  to  the  trap

This  addiction  to  the  money,  this  love  of  the  road

This  pride  in  being  the  only  girl  I  know  who  knows

The thrill of climbing up the iron  in  steel  toes

I  start  feeling  naked  without  my  hard-hat

Some  days  I  work  so  long  and  hard  that

I  come  home  with  no  patience  so

When  she  whines  I  yell  back

She  wants  to  play  but  I’m  ready  to  crash  out

“Mommy’s  tired,  Baby,  but  at  least  Mommy’s  around”

Nighttime  sometimes  I  wake  up  and  stare  at  her

Wondering  if  this  is  all  fair  to  her

Living  so  busy  each  moment,  switching  schools  and  hotels

But  it’s  McDonalds  or  college  if  this  shit  fails

This  capitalistic  contribution  to  America

Really  furthest  from  the  intentions  of  we  who  construct

Maybe  we  just  never  grew  out  of  playing  with  Lego’s

Just  supporting  our  own  however  we’re  able

Dreaming  in  fables,  of  a  day  we’ve  got  more  than  just 

                                                        Food  on  the  table

Shit,  I  can’t  afford  to  fix  my  bones  and  teeth

Thanks  to  the  gluttony  of  the  monopoly

And  I  gross  more  than  the  average  American  so  I  shouldn’t  complain

But  I  look  at  my  tax  deduction  and  I  feel  fucking  raped

That  didn’t  go  to  getting  this  road  I  wander  paved

Doesn’t  get  my  childcare  paid

Taxes  for  blood  for  oil,  the  American  way

But  I  just  try  to  get  by,  telling  myself  “Of course  you  can”

Not  eating  out  of  a  garbage  can,  not  being  supported  by  a  man

I  just  wish  I  could  avoid  the  way  of  this  country

I  just  wish  that  I  didn’t  need  their  money

If  I  only  had  free  time,  I’d  do  great  things  with  it

If  only  I  didn’t  have  to work  so  much  in  this  life,  I  could  live  it

I  know,  I  know,  I  sound  pessimistic

I  know  nobody  owes  me  shit

But  it’s  hard  to  be  a  single  mom  and  work  so  much

I  got  a  couple  girlfriends  who  just  want  to  give  up

They  call  me  crying  about  the  bills  they  can’t  pay

I  tell  them   “Wipe  your  eyes,  ‘cause  life  is  great

Your  baby’s  love  is  one  thing  life  can  never  take  away”

So  I  take  my  own  advice  at  the  end  of  a  hard  day

Take  a  deep  breath,  sit  with  my  daughter  and  play

This  time  is  now,  all  we’ve  got  is  this  minute

Stop  whining,  stop  worrying,  and  live  it

So  easy  to  say,  so  easy  to  write,  to  rhyme

But  I’m  in  the  habit  of  living  like  I’ve  got  no  time

For  a  while  I  got  too  wild  and  she  slipped  from  my  arms,

                                                        My  precious  child

And  oh  the  hoops I  jumped  through, and  oh  the  papers  I  filed

Now  I’m  pretty  quiet,  sit  on  the  sidelines

Sometimes  I’m  scared  to  talk  to  people,  just  like  my  four-year-old

Who  does  as  I  do  and  not  as  she’s  told

And  I  never  tell  her  I’m  a  perfect  example

And  I  know I  never  grew  out  of  my  temper  tantrums

Talking  to  people  I’m  still  stuttering  “but”  and  “um”

I’ve  never  grown  up  but  I’ve  learned  to  own  up

To  the  mistakes  I’ve  made  and  to  put  them  behind  me

But  I  will  always  have  their  scars  to  remind  me

I  think  they  are  telling  me  to  stay  busy,  don’t  go  crazy

In  my  little  spare  time  I’m  self-educating

My  spiritual  beliefs  turned  upside-down  a  year  ago

My  security  blanket  got  a  hole

That  ripped  into  a  new  exploration  of  my  mind

Maybe that’s  why  I  always  get  so  quiet

It’s  never  the  same  when  you  talk  about  it

I  lose  my  words  and replace  a  lot  with  “…and  shit…”

But  I  can  go  absolutely  forever  with  a  pen

Until  this  notebook  runs  out  of  paper

And  I  have  to  add  some  more  with  a  stapler

Scribble  down  more  lines  in  the  margins  later

I’m  teaching  my  daughter  how  to  write  now

I  wonder  if  she’ll  love  it  like  I  do

She’s  always  scribbling  and  making  up  stories  and  songs

And  saying  that  she  writes,  too

But  I’ll  be  so  proud  no  matter  what  she  decides  to  do

And  I  plan  to  be  the  kind  of  mom  who  will  introduce

Her  to  all  kinds  of  options,  arts,  philosophies

Nourish  her  growing  intellectual  needs

She  won’t  grow  up  so  ignorant  like  me

Fall  for  loser  idiots  like  me,  give  up  on  school  and  quit  like  me

Maybe  it’s  a  fantasy,  that  she  will  learn  from  my  mistakes

But  I’ll  watch  for  the  warning  signs  and  I  might  not  be  too  late

One  thing  I  know  is  I  will  never  push  her  away

Always  be  there  with  clean  sheets  for  the  beds  that  she  makes

To  say:  “I  love  you,  Haley,  you’re  my  life

You  and  I  will  do  just  fine,  always  do  better  than  just  survive 

sticking  together,  using  our  minds

I  lost  you  once  and  how  I  cried,  for  your  return,  my  precious  child

And  until  I  won,  I  fought  and  I  fought  that  fight

Now  here  we  are  together,  and  everything  is  right”

She’s  got  a  daddy  somewhere  that  never  really  tries

Lives  in  fantasies,  on  drugs,  and  in  lies

I  replaced  him  once  with  not  a  helluvah  guy

Just  a  step  up  for  a  guy

Whose  initial  chivalry  was  a  clever  disguise

I  got  his  name  in  ink  and  I  had  my  head  up  his  ass

She  says, “Mommy,  if  he  says  he’s  sorry  will  we  go  back?”

I  tell  her  “sorry”  is  just  a  word  and  we  don’t  need  a  man

Don’t  need  Spokane,  we’re  Arizonans

Yeah,  here  in  A.Z.  I  got  my  broken  family

My  big  brother  is  my  closest  branch  of  our  tree

But  very  recently  my  parents  excluded  me

It’s  hard  not  to  be  bitter,  even  harder  to  trust

Makes  me  question  the  concept  of  motherly  love

How  quick  she  replaced  me  with  my  child  and  gave  me  up

Took  my  child  and  tore  me  up  in  front  of  a  judge

While  my  daddy  stood  back  with  his  palms  up

Now  I’ll  shut  up---It’s  over  and  done

Now  I  don’t  have  to  answer  to  anyone

It’s  hard  doing  my  own  thing,  I  barely  know  how

For  sure  it’s  an  adventure,  and  I’ve  got  my  fears  and  doubts

But  this  time  is  now,  all  we’ve  got  is  this  minute

I  close  this  book  now,  that  I  may  go  live  it.

Ten

She’s the laughing little brunette in her social circle

A genuine, empathetic sweetheart girl

Animated, creative, her opinions never belated

She is the brightness while others are faded

Hers is a fresh open mind while others are jaded

No spark of her person could ever be traded

 

She has a voice of reason that can be calm and sure

And a passion in her little heart of gold for the hurt

She’s still such a child, loves puppies and ice-cream

I still indulge her whims as fast as lightening

I still comb her long hair in the morning before school

I’m still glad she still thinks pigtails are cool

She holds her family together like a magnet

Stretches her passions to strangers across the planet

Our coexistence together couldn’t be so perfect if I planned it

Quiet evenings with our noses in novels on the living room couch

She comes to a good part and she reads it out loud

At night I snuggle her like a teddy bear

She’s got her own bed in her own room but we still prefer to share

She’s ten - A decade in… sharp and smart with a goofy grin

Waited for her all day and now she’s on her bike going to a friends

Ten years she’s been my everything; each year we’re closer, too

She’s ten, I’m twenty-eight, and ours has always been a table for 

                                                                                   two

Iron Maiden: Life of an Ironworker Mom (an article)

Los Angeles, 2006

          In the dark of dawn on the top floor of a hotel room in a suburb of L.A. I can’t remember, I watch the bedside alarm clock until it is about to ring, then shut it off. Like a farmer’s my body knows to wake up before it is light. In the other bed, my four-year-old daughter stirs. She will be the first child dropped off at daycare, as well as the new kid, and she will be the last one picked up, too. I don’t wake her until I have to, after I have showered and dressed in my levis and long-sleeved shirt and tied my blond hair in a ponytail. Then I shake her gently and she stretches and goes to the window, looking at the freeway spinning below us. “Where are we?” She doesn’t know because she slept as I carried her in around midnight when I drove in.

          I started being a single parent at nineteen, and I started being a structural iron-worker and welder at twenty-two, in Phoenix, Arizona. I never thought I would be either one, but since that is the way it turned out, I made the best of it. Growing up I never wanted anything but to be a writer or a social worker, but college wasn’t an immediate option for me and I had to make some money. I never thought much about construction before, I mean, how buildings are made, and when I was hired by an ironwork company out of Washington state as a driver and laborer in 2004, I had no idea what I was in for.

          My first morning on the job I watched my co-workers, all male, as they put on full body harnesses weighted down with tools and climbed into heavy machinery and up onto the skeleton structure. They were walking about on long beams five inches wide and twenty feet across, high in the air like a circus act. What was I doing here? I reminded myself that I was already making more money than I ever had made before, and that I had a little girl to support. I also reminded myself that this wasn’t much more dangerous than all the cliff jumping at Salt River and rock climbing in Devil’s Canyon that I was used to. “I can do this,” I told myself. “Piece of cake.”

          At first I ran errands and put the gas in the trucks and welders and eventually I began to learn how to use the aerial lifts and I had to put on a harness myself and get on the iron. I will never forget the day I first got on the iron, shaking like a leaf as my boot left the scissor life and I found myself sitting on the beam. Shaking, I tried not to look down or around as I shoved my bolts through the holes at the connection point and tightened them with my wrench. Then I had to make my way fifteen feet across the beam to the next connection. Taking a huge breath I made sure the beamer connected by a four foot nylon length attached to my body harness was tightly clamped to the beam, and I stood. I counted under my breath as I made it across, stepping as gracefully as I could. I was being watched. “Walk faster,” some one called from below. “Stay ahead of the wobble.” I quickened my pace and sure enough, the beam moved less, and soon I sank into a sitting position on the other side, grinning to myself. I was a circus act! 

          After the first job the company began to fly me all over the West Coast for jobs, and I learned how to weld. At first it was difficult for me to keep a steady bead rolling, but after awhile my eyes got used to steadily pulling the bright ball of orange color around under my dark welding hood. I learned to operate the forklift, too, often being the operator who handled most gracefully, but also capable of showing that I am a female driver, being reprimanded for speeding. The hours were usually long, as commercial construction work can be, and often we did not stay at one hotel and job-site for more than a month.

          My daughter and I treated it like a permanent vacation. In every new cities we would see all the sights and buy souvenirs: Disneyland, Vegas, Yellowstone, the Redwoods, Six Flags, Hollywood, the beach. I played with the money I made as well as bought whatever we needed. But life wasn’t all fun and games. Working outside in the natural elements is tough, and we seemed to follow the inconvenient weather around. In Vegas in the summer, drenched in sweat before the sun was up, in Portland in Autumn when the rain never stopped and you had to wear medical gloves under the welding ones so you wouldn’t get shocked. Then there was the physical strength the job required. I was sore all the time from trying to carry my own weight as the guys, swing my beater just as hard, lift up my end of a heavy piece of material. I also once lit my pants on fire with a sheet metal chop-saw and I once slashed a terrific scar in my thigh with a grinder. Countless small welding scars dot my forearms where I couldn’t brush the molten metal off before it burned through my sleeves, and once I even had a huge girder drop on top of the lift I stood in but I was not hurt. But I never fell, and I never quit. Now and then I even had to deal with a jerk who didn’t think the job-site was a woman’s place, and let me know he felt that way in one way or another. I had to earn my place among them, and carrying my own weight with my newly acquired skills and also being friendly but taking no harassment was essential.

    

Flagstaff, Arizona, 2008

          The skeleton of the new Flagstaff Medical Center looked beautiful covered in a blanket of snow, but I was not looking forward to shoveling it off. I put my new car in park and crossed the ice to the concrete slab where the guys were gathered around the boom truck warming their hands around coffee cups. They greeted me as the foreman spread the blue-prints across his truck bed. “Cassandra you take this west half of the building and make sure all the ledger is welded,” he said. I had been working for this fabrication shop and iron erection company since moving to Flagstaff, so my daughter could start kindergarten. Traveling wasn’t an option if I wanted her to do well in school, I reasoned. So I had taken a pay cut, set my vacation lifestyle aside, and rented a beautiful house with my brother.

          I warmed my hands on the exhaust of my welder, adjusted its heat, and pulled my harness over my back. At least I wouldn’t have to carry that much weight today, no heavy tools or bolts, just my chipping hammer and welding rods and the steel plate I used for scraping snow. I could still barely buckle my harness over the thick Carhart coat with several layers underneath. I let my scissor lift warm up while I wrote down my measurements on a piece of cardboard with frozen fingers. I squinted at the drawings. Some things I still had some trouble with. A shadow appeared beside me, and a guy on my crew I hadn’t met before said hello. He complimented yesterday’s welds and helped me find my measurements on the blueprints. “What made you want to do ironwork,” he wanted to know. Ah, the million dollar question. I told him the story of how I had been hired as a driver after meeting some ironworkers at the hotel where they were staying (and I was working) in Arizona. But then I added something different. “It’s not a lifelong career,” I said.

Phoenix, Arizona, 2010

          “So what exactly can you do?” I stared back at the big, hulking foreman, his sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos of spud-wrenches, women, and skulls. I was insulted. Just because my hard hat was pink and I was as pretty as the girl tattooed on his arm didn’t mean I had showed up at the job-site unskilled. “What needs to get done, boss?” Testing me, he sent me to the roof, seven floors up, with no aerial lift, to bolt up. I took the ladder to the beam on the first floor, and took the next ladder to the beam on the second, and so forth. At last I stood overlooking all of downtown Phoenix, and way down at the foreman’s tiny hard-hat as he stretched his neck to look up at me.

          I shoved the bolts through the holes at the connection point, having trouble with one so I had to stick the bull-pin in the one next to it and beat it through. In the hot summer sun I bolted up all morning, and when lunch came I made my way down, throwing off my tools, my harness cutting a sweaty X into the back of my T-shirt. The foreman caught up with me as I neared my truck. “Hey, welcome to the crew,” he said, grinning.  I had passed initiation, but I wasn’t surprised like he was. I knew by now that I was comfortable with what I did.

          I had started going to college online to become a social worker in 2009, and moved to Phoenix for job opportunities and warm weather. By 2012 I planned to quit ironwork and have a desk job, and have time to follow my other dreams like writing and joining the Peace Corps. But for now I had to put up with the latest iron work company. I had developed quite an issue with dating ironworkers, having fallen in love with two of these wild, arrogant men already. Unfortunately the lifestyle that comes with the job usually includes drinking, womanizing, and partying, and neither one of them proved that stereotype to be wrong! So here I was, 27, still single, and with no opportunities to meet men outside of work between parenting and online college! I knew I would be alright though, as I kept providing for my daughter and looking toward the future.

Globe, Arizona, 2012

My hard-hat hangs on the wall of my library and every now and then I put it on my head, and nostalgia for the incredible career than fell in my lap overwhelms me. I wish my grandpa would have lived to see me do construction, as he had done. But I live knowing that my daughter, now in fourth grade, will never question a woman picking her own place in this man’s world. In 2011 I graduated with a degree in Human Services Management and next year I will also have my bachelor’s in Sociology. For two years I moved to my hometown and worked for several more ironwork companies in the Phoenix area, commuting more than a hundred miles a day. The economic problems of the decade took their toll and I was also laid off several times, struggling to make ends meet, having little work experience besides construction under my belt, and being spoiled to the decent wages I was used to.

The last company fired a foreman over a sexual harassment issue I owed it to myself to report, because after eight years on the field as the only woman, there comes a time when a woman just takes no more crap. I was waking before sunlight to drive for an hour and a half, work for ten hours, drive back, and do schoolwork late into the night, and the precious time I got with my daughter was very little. But looking back, I know why I did it, and I know how. I had to make ends meet for my daughter, and to prove it to myself that I could run with the bulls. And I summoned the strength and bravery that was in my heart all along. I am after all, evolution’s greatest success story: Woman!