All 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.

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.

Just how it is inside this change.

***

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.

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."

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.

I said "Yeah?"

She said "You're good at doing dishes."

***

My waking dream.

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.

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.

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.

1 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.

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. i'm 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.

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.

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.

will not drunk blog.

no, no, no she will not.

she will lay her head in feathers

let the night pass through the

dignity of quiet.

Smell the latkes in her skin

gentle reminder to let things be

just as they are

to trust always

the spaciousness of dark

seducing the muse

First. I make no promises.

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.

(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.)

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.

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.

wide as the air

Rumi kicked my ass at the i-ching this morning. Guess that's as good a place as any to open this new space. My morning game. Picked up The Essential Rumi from the top of a pile of books in the top box in pile of boxes in the never ending ruble of my living room, where all good boxes go to live and die and hopefully, maybe, one day get unpacked and integrated into the larger ruble of my life.

Opened the end of my question wide and cut the pages with my thumb.

What do I most need to learn right now, I said.

Page 70.

Bismillah

It's a habbit of yours to walk slowly.
You hold a grudge for years.
With such heaviness, how can you be modest?
With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?

Be wide as the air to learn a secret.
Right now you're equal portions clay,
and water, thick mud.

Abraham learned how the sun and moon and stars all set.
He said, No longer will I try to assign partners for God.

You are so weak. Give up to grace.
The ocean takes care of each wave
till it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know.
You're trying to live your life in open scaffolding.

Say Bismillah, In the name of God
as the priest does with a knife when he offers an animal.

Bismillah your old self
to find your real name.

Thanks, Mr. Rumi. Anything else?