tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4925838060805353932024-03-12T17:34:30.737-07:00waterwheelhghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-44469377724007914002015-07-30T10:22:00.000-07:002015-07-31T10:20:41.092-07:00Songbook reading (7/29/15)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
I am
not going to do the obvious. I’m not going to stand up here going on about the
Grateful Dead and synchronicity and LSD and bare feat and the sky, and how the
sky looks moment by second when you’re dancing barefoot in the grass with a
head full of acid.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
already beat that horse dead enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is totally different. Not about the Dead. At all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This,
this is about Phish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
synchronicity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
LSD.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
bare feet,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
the sky.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
how the sky looks when you are dancing barefoot in the grass.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
Ok, maybe a wee tiny little bit of Grateful Dead. But Phish, the Dead, the acid.
They’re even not what this story is really about. This about live music.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is a story of how you find your way home if you are me and home is the bones
inside you skin.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s
still about synchronicity, though. And the sky.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because everything, every fucking thing, is
about synchronicity and the sky. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Sky’s grey when I
leave Portland, just enough mist to finally burn the heat off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a Tuesday morning, two Phish shows waiting
over the mountains in Bend. The drive’s a only few hours, not far, but God damn
it’s been a long road getting back to here, this place where I can take two
nights in the middle of the week to dance out in the desert.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
And my soul needs
live music the way my lungs need air.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I’m riding
shotgun, my housemate in the back seat and the woman behind the wheel is one of
my oldest, dearest, bestest friends on this earth.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We’ve seen a lot of life together her and me, marriages and divorces,
and kids and Cancer, Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs. Burying our dads. She
watched both my daughters come into the world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
All that life hasn’t
left me much room for music. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was forever
too busy and too broke for a show. There were stretches I didn’t have three
bucks for toilet paper let alone three hundred to go play like this. I got too
far down to even remember how it feels when you’re wrapped up inside a song,
how good good can be.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was so far from me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
When Phish
announced Bend, I wrote it off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
already booked all week with a teaching gig. Didn’t even try for tickets. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I’d only seen
Phish five times, four of them back in the early 90s. Before all that life came
at me. My one current show, Eugene last fall, it was fun but it didn’t take me
out of myself, into myself, the way music can, the way Dead did, the way Phish used
to way back when.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
So I was bummed
about skipping Bend, but it wasn’t killing me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I told myself the time for going to another show would be right when the
time was right. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Like say, low
enrollment blows out my teaching gig, and two tickets for these sold out shows line
up like nothing and there is still an open bed my friends’ rental with not a
vacancy town. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something like that. It would
just fall together. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
A little synchronicity
showing up right there where it always is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
And us, we’re in
the car, rolling down the backside of Mt. Hood, blue desert sky breaking open
to the East. I’m quiet with nerves. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Nowhere else I
want to spend this midweek weekend, but 10 people are staying in our house. Ten.
Three of my close friends, five acquaintances and one guy a total unknown who
jumped in even later than me, The Dude of Life. But that’s another story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I am awkward with
humans I don’t know well. Actually, I’m pretty awkward with humans I do know.
Mostly people terrify me a little. Not the people themselves, just talking to
them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
And I’m careful to
not expect too much from these shows. I go in cautious. I know what I want. I
want catharsis, note by note. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
It’s heavy order
and expectation is the quickest way to kill it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
promise myself to walk in expecting nothing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An
hour pre-show I lick a small drop of liquid off my shaking right thumbnail. When
I say shaking I mean trembling so hard the woman with the vile has to hold my
hand steady to get it on there. Last time I dosed Clinton was in the White
House and my age began with the number 2. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I don’t know if
I’m more nervous about where this acid is about to take me or the possibility
whatever it is I keep telling myself I’m not searching for in the music
actually will not be there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
what I’m searching for is me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At
first it’s Eugene all over again when I want the Cincinnati Zoo, circa 1993.
The music is good. The music is great. The band is tight. And, their energy is
way up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’m restless. I can’t
settle. Every time I start to I climb all the way inside a song, start feeling
the notes tendril around me, something bumps me back and I’m just high in a field
in the desert on Tuesday in July.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some
of these tunes I know pretty well, others not at all. When they launch into a
brand new one, I have no clue it’s a debut. All I know is the opening riff
sounds vaguely like the Dead and up along the bottom edge of one fluffy white
cloud in a blue, blue perfect sky there’s an impossible rainbow. A full
spectrum turned up bright by my polarized lenses. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it doesn’t have a thing to do with acid.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just
like that, I’m in. I wish I had words. I can say it had a Little Feat feel. The
rhythm and melody and keyboards rolling off like New Orleans. None of that much
matters though. All that matters is this: I am deeply, madly, instantly in love
with this new one. Blaze On. And note by note, I am gone. Total ego
annihilation. Space dust.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
bare feet in the grass and my head in the sky. The harder I shake my bones the
better my skin starts to fit. I got nothing but love for everything and
everyone. I got nothing but love for this music. I got nothing but love for me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s
no place like home. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
And I remember all
through my body what comfort feels like.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I wish I could
live for a single moment inside a book the way I feel inside this song. Where
music’s not a sound I hear, it’s the perfect place I go. All my awkward melts
away.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
And it stays gone
through the second set and the second night and back at the house and all the
way to Portland. There’s pieces of me in these songs I haven’t seen for years,
decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of them just waiting for me
to come around. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Sometimes the only
path forward is back, gather up what you’ve spilled along the way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All
week I’ve been dancing down the street. Pumping those Bend shows thru my
earbuds, singing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>thank the Gods for
Phish and the Grateful Dead before them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
For all the music
makers everywhere and the tunes that build my bones back solid.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Note by note.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thank the gods for
synchronicity and psychedelics and blue, blue desert skies.<o:p></o:p></div>
hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-51568319042677923522015-07-03T14:19:00.001-07:002015-07-03T14:19:34.269-07:00c'est la vie ChicagoAll these stops and starts, the pieces crystalizing in my spoungebrain then slipping out the holes before they hit my fingers. Me I'm sitting here, sweating here, earbuds shoved into my head trying to trade out cafe noise for a crappy audience recoding from Santa Clara last weekend, second night, the Grateful Dead.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Bobby sounds so far away I can here every mile between me and Chicago this afternoon. Feel it too. Inch by inch of I'm not there. 2121.1 miles. Oh, Chicago, how I jones.</div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I tell you a little secret. I held the tickets to all five shows in my hands last week, laid my prints all over those thick paper strips of magic. They weren't any of them mine to hold. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And no one to blame but myself.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Excruciating as it is to watch this reunion scroll up and down my facebook feed, I didn't even try to get there. Didn't stamp my mail order envelope, didn't dial the ticketBastards, didn't choose a single one of these precious final five.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Fare The Well, boys.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My arm is sore from the reach around. Not so easy to pat your own back. Congratulations, Goodman. You had the good sense to not dump every penny of your life's worth into one more irreplaceable, unforgettable, last station stop on this ride. (Even if you could have written off every penny. Even if you surely could have found someone to let you write about. Even if you for once in you turned your back on desire to give intuition and responsibility a big fat bear hug.) But these three days, you'll never get them back. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You are the grownest kind of grown up now. Middle-aged champ. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ce Lest Vie Chicago. See you on the screen. </div>
</div>
hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-9197176616963496272015-01-20T00:37:00.000-08:002015-01-20T00:50:38.489-08:00Here's where I come when there's nowhere else to go. Home? Maybe that's what home is. Blank page, blank head, blank fingers. Just for a week. Every day for a week. Here's how it starts. I'll come back home.<br />
<br />
It starts abstract like this. Saying nothing just to stop saying nothing at all. Obtuse until I can relearn language. I mean, what I mean is, until I can learn to tell stories again. I mean, until I'm not afraid. I'm mean, until I can, no matter that I'm fucking quaking with every key stroke. I mean, until I remember courage. I mean until I don't give a fuck.<br />
<br />
For now just me on the couch, leaned back in pillows, breaking down the last two minutes, two hours, two weeks, two years, two days, two decades. Two girls asleep in two rooms down my one short hall, and Amelia with her brand new spine. Low fever sleep. Twelve days post surgery. I'm out on the couch trying to turn thoughts into sense. Trying to keep myself from tabbing over to facebook every time my mind stalls, trying to find a new place to live. Trying to find my same old home.<br />
<br />
It's half-way through January, the winter of spring. Out on my walk today Camillas blooming, cherry blossoms. Fucking cherry blossoms in January. Mama earth she's just as confused as me. <br />
<br />
I don't know what I come to say. I'm just breaking down a week of hospital sunrises, Keeping watch while my babies sleep.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-8201701891130859862013-11-27T08:01:00.001-08:002013-11-28T06:34:18.337-08:00It's raining in the desert when we hit the runway. Whole trip bumpy from start to finish, or at least that's what the pilot says. He says expect turbulence the whole way and he cuts off drink service and no one gets up to use the bathroom, but really it doesn't feel much different than any flight I've ever taken. It's late when start. Past bedtime before we taxi. The girls read. Lila nestles into my shoulders, buries her head in my lap for sleep.<br />
<br />
It's a different kind of trip to Phoenix this time. Out on my parents back patio, the cool night air and the lights from the pool, traffic lulling off in the distance and the chlorine still stinking out my skin. My body holding all the heat from a long soak in the spa. Used to call these things hot tubs, but now they're spas I guess.<br />
<br />
Plane sounding over head but I can't see it. Can't see much out past these lights. Lone palm silhouette, but not even. Just a faint stripe of trunk lit up white from below and then nothing. No top, no bottom. And even that white stripe I can only see if I look hard enough. Find the right spot. Hot tub heat draining out of me. Chill night air taking over inside.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's a different kind trip this time. Everything the same, but not the same at all. We are one less. There's no mistaking all the ways my dad's not here, but still forever seems like an impossible time to be gone. In the house everything as it always was. Except his chair is empty and the TVs not blasting me out of bed in the middle of the night and there's no snoring.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-75729086639356527052013-11-19T06:16:00.005-08:002013-11-19T08:08:50.134-08:00Night Walking Part Two: Houses(Note to self: no more two part posts. The is a blog for fuck sake, not an essay. Get it all out in one go or get what you can get and get out. Move on. New days.)<br />
<br />
When my head gets quiet enough its just my feet hitting the pavement, soft wind, traffic in the distance and a far off train whistle blowing out my favorite sound. The lonesome possibility of motion.<br />
<br />
It's the pull to keep going and the pull to turn home and every now and then a the little nudge of Daisy's nose against my leg. The blissful absence of direction against the realization I know exactly where my legs are leading me. Past the neighborhood houses and the big church and down the hill across Sandy and the downtown buildings all lit up against the sky, back through the brickers and manicured gardens of my old apartment complex. Circles of yellow light on the lawn. The place I landed the first time I left.<br />
<br />
I've been doing this lately. Revisiting old places I've lived. Or driving near but not driving by. A few days ago I got half way down the block that dead ends into the first place Scott and I lived together in Portland, a little wood heated two bedroom down in the trees beneath the Halsey bridge. Turned the car around though. I didn't need to see it again. But tonight I keep going, past the fountain with it's lion heads spiting a constant steady stream into the bowl below. Same fountain I circled, toddler at my knees, hot August day of a different lifetime. Tonight is Daisy at me knees, nose to the ground.<br />
<br />
Sometimes when I'm walking it's totally confounding how all these people can have houses to put their lives in. It's such a simple thing. Houses and houses and houses. Still, in this moment its all so far from me, how they get them. But that's not the truth either. If your counting, I've lived 22 places since the day I left my parents house for college 25 years ago. That's only tracking places I stayed more than a month or paid rent or held a job. I know exactly how you get a place. I'm a fucking expert on rentals and house hunting and camping on beaches. Getting a place is not the issue. It's how you keep a home that blows me to pieces.<br />
<br />
All the lights are on in my apartment tonight, shades down so I can't see in and I'm glad for that. In my head it still looks like mine inside. No time has passed. All the air tight in my chest. Every breath I feel it. The the big, old grandma oaks lined up along the side walk. This was my view. All the nights I smoked cigarettes out my bathroom window while the girls slept in the bedroom. I want to know what I knew when I lived here.<br />
<br />
I don't want to leave amd I can't stay. I want to walk further into the night, but I have to turn home. It's getting colder and I have to pee and sometimes that's all life is. Meet the simple needs of our bodies and keep going.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-64259919605375302812013-11-17T10:07:00.001-08:002013-11-17T17:53:38.441-08:00Night Walking (Part 1)Really this should count as yesterday's writing. It was all in my HEAD last night but my day started at 4 a.m. and the walk was so sweet and the bath was so hot and the steam was so soothing my fingers couldn't overcome the call of my down comforter and my dog and my bed full of pillows - a trifecta screaming sleep, sleep (poppies will make them sleep - and NO, there were no actual poppies - I just like that line. And I like how my mind is free associating right now. Wake up brain it's time to get going.)<br />
<br />
This morning, still in my bed, coming into the same grey blue half-light I walked out into last night, not enough light yet to define the clouds, just the promise of what will be.<br />
<br />
Last night though, I guess it went the other way. Started under late clouds, smoky cloud laced patches of blue. Sunset time but no sun to see. Just me and my dog, leaves rain-pasted to the cement, one last fan-shaped leaf hanging off the a low branch of a naked little Ginko.<br />
<br />
Fall isn't usually my favorite season. Truth is, I see the leaves falling and something in me drops with them. I've never understood how some folks feel all their possibilities surge when we're coming into winter. The time for slowing. Hibernation. Sleep. Nah, that's not the whole truth. I sort of get it. Something beautiful and infinite about striping naked and slipping into a long, slow dark. It's the new burst of life you get on the other side. Again and again. Dark to light. Dark to light. Dark to light. Usually I'm more a Spring kind of girl, picking up energy as the days stretch longer. This year, though, it's like I've never noticed autumn before now. I'm in love with colors and the changes and contrasts. Spring in reverse. These early dark no time hours.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
I crave the wide open. My little house, the ceilings are high and the colors are easy - blues and greens and the perfect orange-yellow blend on the living room/dining room/kitchen walls - the kitchen is modern, the closets are big and the fakewood Pergo floor always hides the dirt, but this space doesn't let the outside in. Out every window it's fence or hedge or wall, little bits of sky above the neighbor's roof. All I want is out.<br />
<br />
We walk the dog's pace and she leads, slow and scent bound, stopping for leaf piles and tree trunks and I don't yank at her leash to pick up the pace. A promise I made to her putting on my boots. "You lead tonight," I said. Because I never, hardly ever, let the walk just be hers. And my boots aren't really boots, just a pair of rainproof Columbia hikers. They're not even mine. The boots are Roxie's, the green tie-dye socks are Lila's, the fleece came from a clothing swap my neighbor went to last spring, the rain shell from the lost and found at my (almost) ex-MIL's school, and the orange t-shirt with darker orange stripes is the last thing my dad bought for me a couple days before he died. The hat I bought myself.<br />
<br />
I want to walk and walk and watch the night until my legs can't carry me, no hurry to get home. Cold wood smoked air on my face, full moon backlighting the clouds and we don't take the usual route down around the golf course, through the park, past the big houses on the ridge because I'm tired of going the same old way. We follow neighborhood streets away from the traffic on Sandy and Fremont to blocks without much light. Turn and turn until I lose track of where I am, a walking dream, not lost, but never sure of my exact coordinates.<br />
<br />
It's where I am. Inside and out. A walking dream. Not lost, exactly, but not quite sure.<br />
<br />
The dog stops for a sniff. I'm leaning toward a left turn but she goes straight on and I follow. As we walk, I make up rules for our route. Simple: walk as far as you can, do not drop in on friends to say hello, leave the phone in your pocket, when you find yourself headed somewhere familiar turn away, recalculate, keep walking.<br />
<br />
Houses and houses all lit up, each it's own complete universe, self-contained and strung out across the galaxy of my neighborhood. I love looking in. Moms and pops and kids around the table, laid back on the couch and for a few seconds I watch the shows they're watching as I pass. I want what they have. Or what I think they have. We do this, idealize other lives, not because we can't empathize with their realities, that they too suffer. We do it because we want to believe in their happiness. Isn't it better that way? We see what we want them to have. We want them to be happy. If their lives are simple and easy, made only of joy, then lives like theirs could be ours, too, right? Attainable.<br />
<br />
When my head gets quiet enough it's just my feet hitting pavement, soft wind, traffic in the distance and a far off train whistle blowing out my favorite sound. The lonesome possibility of motion.<br />
<br />
(to be continued or more later)<br />
<br />hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-42837080339468870772013-11-16T04:25:00.000-08:002013-11-16T04:25:21.555-08:00Because I said I wouldI swore to Tracy I'd give this a go. One post a day, every day, for one week. Maybe didn't swear but I said I'll do it if you'll do it and I said it sounds like a good idea and I said if I write every day I won't be not writing anymore.<br />
<br />
I hearby promise to stop writing about not writing. It doesn't actually count as writing anyway. It's like, well I can't tell you what it's like. I don't have a simile to insert here.<br />
<br />
Straight to the points. Let's get this out of the way early. Here's where I am:<br />
<br />
Already I'm a day late. I This week of posting was supposed to start yesterday, but I figure better late than never.<br />
<br />
Melting into the couch, goose down comforter, close to letting my eyelids win. But that's not what I mean. I mean I'll just go ahead and say right here these last seven years have been like this: six houses (actually four houses, two apartments), five moves - twice the landlord needed to move back into my place, twice to leave my marriage and once to go back. And I'm not feeling eloquent these day. I'm happy with simple coherence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-25631349500087692262013-11-13T11:37:00.003-08:002013-11-13T11:40:24.747-08:00Got my favorite table in my favorite little writing coffee shop, back wall, full view of the room. It's been that kind of morning. My girls were out of bed fast and out the door on time. Teeth brushed, shoes on, breakfast in bellies, lunches in hand. Every light on the school commute was green. And I'm happy with my hair.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sun through the high windows warm on my face, one beam straight to my table, coffee steaming. Buenas Dias.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-18790775234201327052013-11-12T13:58:00.000-08:002013-11-12T14:01:15.339-08:00Sitting here in Case Study, Americano on the table, computer on my lap - make myself at home - the way I've always done. I'm literal like that. It's not called a table top, this little machine of mine. My BFF. And anyway, you don't get the cozywarm legs if the computer isn't on your body. Personal space heater to counter all that fall coming in through the open cafe door.<br />
<br />
Me, I'm the woman in the big purple headphones without the first clue what to write. I'll tell you a secret: my head is packed with sounds and thoughts and ideas, but these days every time my fingers get within three feet of the keys it's all poof, gone, right of the rails. Empty. It's empty up there. I got the music beyond the edges of my headphones, come and go traffic, a broom across the floor and the barista chatting up a guy at the counter.<br />
<br />
Devices all around.<br />
<br />
Out past the window, toddler unsteady stepping the sidewalk in the rain jacket both my girls wore at her age. Purple hearts up both yellow sleeves and butterflies taking up the front panel real estate. Lila was in that jacket back when we lived in one of the brick apartments across the street, whole of our lives crammed into 720 square feet. I could spin sentences all through the night, put breakfast on the table in the morning, drop them at preschool and make newspaper stories until pickup.<br />
<br />
Back before Facebook.<br />
<br />
The leaves have dropped and budded and spread their colors and shed their colors, again and again and again. My girls have long legs to carry them steady now.<br />
<br />
And I'm still here.<br />
<br />
Got a story for you, but not the first fucking clue what it is. <br />
<br />
Stick around. I swear, I'll find it.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-38836081168798891672013-08-11T17:38:00.002-07:002013-10-09T13:11:29.036-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
I offered up my goods to the devil or the gods or the universe
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whatever bigger than everything entity has the power to make
such backroom bargains</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I said tell you what <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Give me 9 to 5 with bennies and a 401k<br />
<i>one thing I can hold onto</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, perhaps, a little something extra for a weekend at the beach </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anything, I said, anything will do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
smite me to a cubicle life<br />
of gray office damnation</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I said you can have whatever you want,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
you can have <i>this</i>. These,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
all my words, take them<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
every letter, sound and syllable<br />
yours for the low, low price of one eternity in stability</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I said please.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Motherfucker, please.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
They're yours all yours, I said<br />
I don’t want them anymore,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
pulled my fingers from the keys and waited.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Weighted</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the leaves turned orange and gold and brown, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the rains painted their colors across the sidewalk,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and washed them into oblivion<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
days got shorter and the days got longer and the flowers
opened and<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
fat red tomatoes split guts and seeds onto the garden floor<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and nothing<o:p></o:p><br />
Turns out the devil don't need writers neither</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-66000656745998498442013-05-29T23:29:00.003-07:002013-05-29T23:29:54.672-07:00writing just makes me tired these days. all the work of organizing thoughts into sentences, I'd rather just lay down my head, let the words scatter out over my dreams and piece it back together in the morning.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-49779705051287023612013-05-07T06:05:00.001-07:002013-05-25T11:10:01.858-07:005:02 a.m. I'm up before the anxiety. Light in the sky, but not enough put color into day yet. Just a few birds calling out their good mornings and I've already been in and out of the shower, thrown a load into the wash. Dog curled nose under paw and tail wrapped around, not quite snoring, beside me. All quiet from the bedrooms. Until I type all quite from the bedrooms and then, right on cue with the keystroke, a rolling over kind of sigh. Roxie narrates the night just like me. Talks out loud all through her dreams, but mostly just the bad ones. Lila's a quiet sleeper. Snugs her self in and once she drops off she barely moves again. These early morning birds are my favorite. Connection to the outside.With the high laural and the fence and no front of the house it's hard for the outside to make it's way into the place. Isolation. Makes it hard to hear myself.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-82904448529035783772013-03-22T23:22:00.000-07:002013-03-22T23:22:10.273-07:00hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-4853083627946018252012-12-25T15:12:00.003-08:002012-12-25T18:39:37.175-08:00Between Want and Waiting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://rahul87ahire.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/hope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://rahul87ahire.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/hope.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I had a moment of inspiration a moment ago but I lost it to the Facebook. Not Facebook exactly. To the restless grey not-my-holiday-anymore Christmas. Not restless exactly. Not unless I stop to think about it. Me on my orange couch in the back of someone else's house, no tree, no decorations, back to a lifetime of Christmas as it always was, Christlmasless, but not as it is for my kids. Daisy curled beside the couch and the holly outside my window swaying with the rain.<br />
<br />
This is Yule.<br />
Quiet in all ways.<br />
<br />
Last night the annual Christmas-eve tree decorating party. Longest standing tradition my girls have known in a life where nothing stands for long, and the first real hours I've spent inside the old place since I jumped that ship four months back. All those rooms I put together. Shelves I painted and painted again. My furniture. My table. My spider plants hanging down over the mantle.<br />
<br />
All this morning I read. The rain comes down and down.. Granta, Marie Claire, the CareOregon provider directory. Pandora busts up the quiet with Schuman and Chopin and I peek in on your holiday while my neighbor vacuums upstairs.<br />
<br />
The rabbit cage smells all the way into the living room.<br />
I owe my dog a walk.<br />
<br />
Caught between want and waiting. Folded up around myself in Roxie's bean bag at the dead end of my house.The phone gives me quick facebook hits of Christmas around the world, or at least around the constellation of my world. Soak up a little satisfaction (or something like it) from the joy pushing out of those stills. Picture of the world just how we want to see it.<br />
<br />
It's not there, what I'm looking for. And it's not here either. It's dripping down off the bamboo outside my window, inside my mirror. Sometime this morning, early, I lay myself down on the floor. Keep that knot tied up inside my throat when I'm talking to my girls. Let it slide apart in streams when the phone goes quiet. Alone is just a song we sing ourselves anyway. By myself is how I chose today.<br />
<br />
Something's in this quiet.<br />
Gently used gift I'll force myself to find.<br />
Sit here in it and in it and in it until I can unwrap.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-61390633208613708212012-10-09T14:38:00.000-07:002012-10-13T08:20:51.542-07:00Coming AroundTwo things that happened to me this week:<br />
<br />
1. I lost a notebook I'd been writing in for a good five years out at the Edgefield on the last Saturday in September. It was handmade and spiral bound with Roxie's little pink baby hand prints on the front cover. The two hands that left those marks couldn't have been more than about 18 months old. Inside the pages were three quarters full with lists and thoughts and hand scribbled notes for the slowest first draft of a novel ever penned. Weird stuff, but I like to run it all together like that. Shows how life was on all those days between.<br />
<br />
Weird night, too.Full moon and all. But that's a story for another time. Let's keep this here on point.<br />
<br />
I walked into the show with the notebook, a sweater, my wallet and a ticket shoved down into my big old purple show going purse and I walked out with the sweater on my back, wind rippling up the leaves, never noticing how light my bag was. Just a wallet and my keys left in there. I don't when I first knew the notebook was gone. Long past any place I could go back looking for it. Probably 4500 people on that lawn. One little notebook, no name inside, probably bagged up with trash and rotting. Why bother calling on lost an found.<br />
<br />
Four days later, 5:20 a.m., leaving for my morning ride down the empty pavement into town for work and there's a little brown package on my doorstep. Tied up neat with a blue twine bow. My little notebook inside with a new entry on the first blank page:<br />
<br />
A cartoon. Two fairies handing off I don't know what to a bunny rabbit with a little Thoreau beneath the frame:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nancymorris.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/CloudCastle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.nancymorris.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/CloudCastle.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: black;">"<span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."</span></i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">I do believe in </span><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">fairies, I do believe in fairies. I do. I do. I do.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.98666763305664px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">Now, I have my suspicions about how this book found its way home. All of them wrapped up in love. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">But I'm not asking. Let's just call it magic and let it be so.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span></span>
</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">2. I asked the cat from my "ask the cat" deck what I most need to know about my writing right now.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 17.98666763305664px;">That cat just said: "Wake up!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><br /></span>
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<br />hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-10682856211849544052012-09-19T06:42:00.000-07:002012-09-22T06:14:41.866-07:00Deja Vu5:51 a.m.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBV0o8KqVSvicSlk_97BBFr0E3exUDl6nUxNeUAyAwVE5k8a5lWnslKrNMv8jGNxvHf1iP2vrd28N-JRxPmTvSZ6bdRK_c2sJaxANeVM6JyTIRRdM5feZI4ackpbzuO_ZYUScNM-bE8u9/s1600/Sep+19,+2012+6:39:48+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBV0o8KqVSvicSlk_97BBFr0E3exUDl6nUxNeUAyAwVE5k8a5lWnslKrNMv8jGNxvHf1iP2vrd28N-JRxPmTvSZ6bdRK_c2sJaxANeVM6JyTIRRdM5feZI4ackpbzuO_ZYUScNM-bE8u9/s320/Sep+19,+2012+6:39:48+AM.jpg" width="320" /></a>Almost like mid-day. Been listening to the fan click its way though the hours since 3:38, keeping time to the crazies in my head. Here in this bed it's hard to keep my fingers on the keys. I want to scatter my thoughts out over the laundry and the dishes and the facebook. Across the kitchen floor. Not think them at all.<br />
<br />
This whole past year spinning by in broken shadows cast out from the fan. But I'm still here. Still trying to figure out where here is, too. New digs. This light green room and the constant of my futon bed hard beneath by hips. Let it blow over my bare skin, light and cool from the ceiling down. Culture shock changes keeping me up at night. And my girls bunked next door, stacked one above the other in their dreams.<br />
<br />
I got my life in boxes all around again. Dog at my feet. The curtains pulled open wide with the night coming in. I got some lovely flowers in the patio out back, but no front door. No street view, horizon pulled in tight around me. Hunkered down in the back of someone else's life. Strangers.<br />
<br />
Nothing to see at this hour anyway. Just night pressed black against the windows, keeping still until the sun comes. And like a friend once said, I wan't watch it come to see how light emerges from darkness, remind myself: now and forever light always emerges from dark.<br />
<br />
I don't want to share my daughters. There. There's the truth. I said it. I don't want to send them back to him for half the week and half the year and half their lives. No, I don't. And I don't care about fair. Who's to say what's best anyway.
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
There's fresh made chicken soup in the fridge, my first, and smoothies leftover from last night's new blender. Damn right, it's different this time. And still the same old change and change and change. Right here where it always is. Constant culture shock. Reset the compass. Re-calibrate and go again.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-78999356101640995612012-07-20T01:15:00.001-07:002012-07-20T01:23:28.130-07:001:04 a.m. Halfway under too much comforter, hot and cold and pushing myself toward I don't know what. All the books piled up beside me can't say. Sleeplessness is just the place I go in the middle of the night. But we got hours to go before the middle of the night comes into this here Camp. Sunset still burned across the insides of my eyes. Head pounding how it does, down the the tight spots in my jaw, up where the hinges tie in behind my check bones. So this is 42. Not so far shy of 43. And nothing feels so soothing as that train whistle hauling far off on its way to somewhere. No such thing as poetry without motion.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-68425457486565037872012-05-30T11:36:00.000-07:002012-05-30T20:06:35.981-07:00two more thingsEvery now and then the spambots latch on to an outdated post from my old, decaying blog and bomb the shit out of it. I have no idea why this happens. The logic of it, I mean. The pattern. Has to be a pattern, right? Some SEO equation my brain can't calculate. A word that's trending tucked down in there somewhere.<br />
<br />
Why now? Why 20 nonsense ads posting to the comments of a five-year-old post in less than three hours? Me being me, I can't look away and I can't let it go and I can't pass up an opportunity to scream synchronicity.<br />
<br />
But I don't even have to raise my voice. It's all right here, a shout out from me to me, circa 2007, from the end of the journey I'm starting again.<br />
<br />
I gotta believe I got new wings sprouting.<br />
<br />
Thanks spambots! It's good to be reminded.<br />
<br />
Originally posted Oct. 27, 2007:<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
two things</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
The front of the card says "Faith is believing that one of two things will happen,"
SHE SAID. "That there will be something solid For you to stand on
-- Or that you will be taught to fly."</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
My mind catches first on the sound of the words and how she said changes the rhythm changes the sentence. Changes the resonance.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
How SHE SAID is brilliant because She Said Makes this:
Faith is believing that one of two things will happen.
That there will be something solid for you to stand on
- Or that you will be taught to Fly.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
Hallmark card</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
into
This:</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
Faith is believing that on of two things will happen.
SHE SAID.
That there will be something solid to stand on -
Or that you will be taught to fly.
She said has that little roll of an up down wave with the water breaking on you will be taught to fly.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
I read it three, fours times listen to the sound of every word hitting the next. I'm a nerd like that.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
I go to the meaning that faith is knowing you will be ok. And my mind takes it apart. Beleiving one of two things will happen. Something solid to stand or be taught to fly. Standing or Flying?
Ripped up that way I read a choice in it.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
Stand or Fly?</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
For two days I pick the card off the bookshelf and read it as a question. Ask, ask, ask myself. Which one would I chose?</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
The Ground or the Sky.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
I look up to remember clouds know all the answers.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
Like tea leaves and old gypsy women.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: #f3f3f3;">
and I think, me, I'll take the sky.</div>hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-59598749712095062332012-04-27T12:40:00.001-07:002012-04-27T21:04:15.909-07:00I was headed for the final school pick-up of the week last Friday. Same stretch of road and traffic lights and businesses I drive every day to get the girls back and forth to their education. Sun glasses on, windows down, first tease of summer blowing through the spring and I'm taking it speed limit slow. Plenty of time to make the 3 o'clock bell.<br />
<br />
Traffic's moving about the same pace as me. Stopping and going in both lanes. Nobody fast, nobody slow, nobody in hurry. Except for the blue pick-up behind me. First I don't notice him there crawling up my bumper. Then I don't care. He's honking and waving me into the next lane so he can get by and I have room to speed up, but I just keep my pace. I like my lane. It's the lane I need to be in, but not just yet. It's the lane I want to be.<br />
<br />
He honks again. And I wave a friendly hand up, hold my position.<br />
<br />
I don't know why we do this on the road. Rage out at each other. My mood is high and I just keep smiling, a little sad for this guy and his hurry. A little smug, too, if I have to tell myself the truth. Lane beside me wide open.<br />
<br />
Soon as there's space to make a move, the guy jams his blue pick-up out around me, quick enough to cut me off, and slams the brakes so I come up just short of his smashing into him. With that summer wind coming early through my window, I tell myself this guy can't get to me. He can have his road rage to himself.<br />
<br />
I laugh. <br />
<br />
I laugh for me because have to, and because I have my days, too. Mostly, I try and remind myself there's nothing on the road worth raging at. But, I have my days. All his anger gets him out in front of me and that's it. We're still stopped at the same light. Wherever he's going, passing me isn't getting him there any quicker.<br />
<br />
I laugh for me, not at him.<br />
<br />
That's not what he sees. His door opens and he's out on the road a step or two toward me screaming goddamn bitch and asking if i think i can control the road? the harder he yells, the louder I laugh. Laugh him all the way back into his truck.<br />
<br />
And out of nowhere my laughing is crying. For this guy and for me. For whatever hurts him so bad the sadness comes out at me as anger. For whatever I'm doing to make him feel worse. <br />
<br />
He stays right in front of me, slow as Sunday, taking back control of the road. I keep my distance. Light by light we start and stop together, and I let the space between us grow, foot by foot, until I make the my turn for the school and he goes on his way. But I can't shake him.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-90818139549101004422012-04-17T13:00:00.004-07:002012-04-17T13:10:17.099-07:00It's spring and the flowers are smelling fine and the clouds are grey and the dog smells like dog. No amount of bathing takes the smell from her. No floral shampoo. I ran my car through the washman yesterday and the kids squeelled at the big bristles coming over the window, and now the red paint shines, but inside the car still smells like dog. Lenny the handyman came by today. He fixed a broken window in the front door, screwed a drawer back together, adjusted my ever-running toilet and replaced hinges on the sticky garage door. I wiped down the kitchen and vacuumed the living room before he arrived, but the house still smells like dog. WHich right now smells a little like stale smoke. Has she been out rolling in cigarette butts?hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-33699393534502549432012-02-01T11:56:00.001-08:002012-02-23T10:15:35.425-08:00All last night I wondered lost through my dreams. My subconscious doesn't know a thing about subtlety. Just me walking rooms and rooms and rooms for a party I never quite make, though I find some of the people I'm searching out. They're always on the way to somewhere else. A couple steps ahead of me. There's an award ceremony I barely miss. More I walk the more there is. A maze of a warehouse, endless rooms expanding every step. A restaurant. A bar. A magic show where some exploding trick sends me running, smoke and fire at my heals. And then basketball and tennis and swimming rooms before I find the street. Not the right street. Or maybe the right street. Who can know if you exited the same door your entered when the building won't keep still? The car parked where I left my car is not my car. The sign that wasn't there when I parked says two-hour parking. Tow Away zone. And I'm up before I bother looking. <br /><br />At the gym this morning I run the elliptical straight through to nausea, hard as I can, my legs go shaky and the sweat runs down burning into my eyes, but I can't run the restless out of my skin. Can't slip out of my body and can't keep still in it. <br /><br />Just how it is inside this change. <br /><br /> ***<br /><br />Lila and me were working on shoe tying on the floor of her classroom after school. She got the got the first crossover pulled taut. I tried guiding her little hands one bunny loop through the hole of the other to finish, but the loops fell apart in our fingers.<br /><br />She said "I love you, but you're not one of those moms whose good at teaching things." She meant I am not patient. She said. "It's ok, mom, you're the only mom I want. You're good at lots of other things."<br /><br />She meant the way I can't keep still inside my skin, keeps me from teaching. I don't know what I'm good at. The way my insides crash against the edges of me, rolling waves that cannot break the boundaries of me and cannot settle.<br /><br />I said "Yeah?"<br /><br />She said "You're good at doing dishes."<br /><br /> ***<br /><br />My waking dream. <br /><br />I sit on a rock river bed and swallow tiny smooth pebbles. Perfect stones formed hard with everything I am not. One by one. I hold them in my mouth. Here is patience. Here is calm. Here is peace. <br /><br />One by one. They slide through me, cool and reassuring, the way you feel the path of water down work your throat. The way the first swallow coats your insides everyplace it touches, cools the veins. <br /><br />One by one. Peebles settle in my toes and knees and belly, another and another and another stacking all the way to the top of me, displacing my restless, weighing into me something solid and sturdy. Something whole.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-71649579368297139872012-01-18T01:19:00.001-08:002012-02-29T07:43:16.793-08:001 a.m. it's me and the dog and the snow coming down and coming down and kicking so much light back into the sky it could be anytime. Doesn't matter. And doesn't feel late, just the kind of quiet worth staying up for, the world all to myself and covered so fresh it seems like nothing could ever hurt. <br /><br />The way snow sits on the trees and pulls them down makes them into something new. I almost wake Roxie, pull her from her bed to give her this moment just in case its melted by morning, to give her this moment of me and her in the middle of the night and the confetti sky dropping down, to give her something to hold when we tell her we're taking it all back. <span style="font-style:italic;">i'm</span> taking it all away again. because that's the truth of it. me. this is not consensual. there is no us. least i can do is load the winter with little bits of sparkle when I can. But I keep it for myself.<br /><br />Just boot soles squenching down on snow, the dog breathing, the flakes coming fast on my hood. Loud enough to be rain, but its not. And I walk. Nowhere to go. This is my time. Even when I don't want it. Back here through the looking glass to turn it all inside out again. What I mean is: fuck this cryptic poetic bullshit, words, snow fallen words to cover the muddy underneath. What I mean is I am gone.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-91637991189767527802012-01-10T00:00:00.001-08:002012-01-10T09:38:52.678-08:00<a href="http://saananaveri.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/nov-full-moon.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://saananaveri.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/nov-full-moon.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> If I could get myself up of this couch and up the stairs and into the bedroom, which is really just the office and my same old futon by the wall, I would put my legs beneath me and start walking. But I'm halfway out and you can hear the bedroom snores right through my office walls. Better to sit here, feet on the cushions and the full moon outside for company.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-60870883478748195342011-12-23T23:08:00.000-08:002012-01-18T11:32:39.319-08:00will not drunk blog.<br /><br />no, no, no she will not.<br /><br />she will lay her head in feathers <br /><br />let the night pass through the <br /><br />dignity of quiet.<br /><br />Smell the latkes in her skin<br /><br />gentle reminder to let things be<br /><br />just as they are<br /><br />to trust always <br /><br />the spaciousness of darkhghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-492583806080535393.post-61439472128986050552011-12-02T09:20:00.001-08:002011-12-03T10:22:37.618-08:00seducing the muse<a href="http://disheveledhobo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/the-summoning-of-the-muse-1993.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 658px; height: 468px;" src="http://disheveledhobo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/the-summoning-of-the-muse-1993.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />First. I make no promises.<br /><br />My Muse, she's the bees knees when she comes around, but let me tell you, her work ethic leaves a little to be desired these days.<br /><br />(Just kidding, Sweetie. You know I love you. I respect you. I do not understand your mysterioso ways, but I trust you implicitly, honey cakes. See me bowing down? Smell the tea on the table, those candles burning on the mantle? For you. All for you, baby.)<br /><br />Fuck. I've already lied to The Muse. There's no tea in my cup, it's coffee. And there are no candles burning. Nice start. <br /><br />She knows anyway. First one to call bullshit on me every time. I got my fingers on the keys, though. That's got to count for something.hghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03252661510924861565noreply@blogger.com0