"Burning the Old Year" by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

Rx bottle

Sometimes when you are hiking barefoot you need to put on a pair of shoes. This is one of the things I have learned so far during these nearly two weeks in Los Angeles.

I am so homesick, so much more painfully than I anticipated. I thought I would luxuriate in having a quiet room and a bed to myself for 12 nights, but instead I sleep barely at all and anxiety has taken up permanent residence in my throat.

I turn on the TV and mute it just for the sense that the silent people on the screen in the corner of my right eye are here with me too.

I think partly I am scared of being evaluated after so many years of being (to an extent) the sole arbiter of my success

I think partly I am overwhelmed by the pressure to live up to the standard established by my former student self: unmitigated perfection

Of course I am not perfect now and I wasn't then, not in any way other than grades on paper, and today I'm a wiser and more conscious and more self-aware person and I can breathe into that and feel my feet on the ground and remember who I am and provide my own validation

Also I am stressed about time--about getting it all done when I am feeling in many respects so utterly burnt out

Probably more than anything else it's that I want this so badly, and I did it. I'm here. And because happiness or "getting" what I have for so long wanted, for lack of a more articulate way to say it at the end of this long and sleep-deprived day, feels so foreign to me that whenever I do feel it I quickly begin feeling the anticipatory pain of losing it

Maybe I don't need to assume that everything good that happens to me will soon be gone

Maybe I should keep my focus on the reality of my situation at this moment, which is that I am endlessly lucky and enormously grateful

Crash

Because I crashed for the first time on downhill skis I now know that I can crash while downhill skiing and that the act of crashing, inherently, does not spell disaster. What's more, I can now be certain that the woman who serviced my skis did so according to my DIN specifications, meaning that my skis will eject me from their grasp in the event that I crash and an ejection proves necessary. This is why I ejected from my left ski when I crashed, but not my right: Because my right leg remained perpendicularly oriented toward my ski at the time of the crash, while my left leg smashed into the snowy bank at an odd angle and thus required ejection from its ski in order to avoid twisting my leg into ghastly proportions. Because my left ski did eject me, this gives me comfort that my skis are likely to function properly and helpfully in the event of future crashes. While I still hope to avoid crashing whenever possible, the experience of having crashed leads me to believe that I am likely to be okay in the rare event that I crash again in the future. This has proven a great comfort to me, as prior to crashing for the first time on downhill skis I had been greatly resistant to the possibility of a crash.

Walk-a-thon

The people whose lives are affected by Alzheimer's, whether because they themselves are slowly losing the mind and personality and memories they've long held to be their own or because they love someone who is thus affected, don purple shirts, grip the strings of purple helium balloons, and set off together on a mile-long walk along paved neighborhood walking paths. In the months prior to outfitting themselves with purple shirts and purple balloons, the people who are now walking have asked, or maybe even implored, their friends, colleagues, and families to support their efforts by donating maybe $10 or $25 or even $50 toward their cause. They have set what feel like ambitious fundraising goals: $150 or $250 or, more rarely, 1,000 dollars. They hope their months of effort and ingratiation and, in the cases of people who are otherwise not accustomed to walking one mile at a time, physical preparation will aid the people and organizations that study Alzheimer's and perhaps expedite research into possible and effective treatments for the disease that is gradually or, in some cases, swiftly stealing their lives or the life of a person or several persons whom they love.

The paths on which the purple-appareled people are walking wind their way along a quick-moving creek that is fed by snowmelt from the mountains above before meandering through a local neighborhood. The neighborhood is filled with multimillion-dollar mansions situated on plots of lands that alone cost sometimes a quarter or half a million dollars. The mansions are inhabited for perhaps two weeks or two months or, in exceptionally rare cases, six months out of each year. During the months in which the mansions are not inhabited, the buildings' owners reside instead in their multimillion-dollar mansions elsewhere in the country. They fly between their two homes on private jets that are given special takeoff and landing privileges, even if it means inconveniencing the hundreds of passengers who sit waiting aboard the commercial aircraft that depart occasionally from the valley floor.

Apologies

Prove it, I said. Act like a partner who is sorry to have treated his wife that way over, and over, and over.

Kinds of protein

Yesterday after leaving the house at 7:30 am and skiing for so many hours at nearly 12,000 feet above sea level and clomping back to the car with skis and poles in my hands, a snowboard in his, and no food in our stomachs, we stopped at the Qdoba by the exit to eat a late lunch on the car ride home. I requested the taco salad, at which point the Qdoba employee gritted his teeth, shook his head balefully, and asked me if I had seen the notices posted on the doors and on the glass case between us, which stated that Qdoba was not currently serving romaine lettuce because the CDC had cautioned against it. I informed him that I had seen the signs, but that I would like a taco salad anyway, albeit without the lettuce. I intended to create a lunch from the ingredients still on offer that day. After wiping down the silver-sheened counter the Qdoba employee asked me which kind of rice I would like, to which I replied brown. Then he asked if I would like black or pinto beans, and I requested black. Next he asked me what kind of protein I wanted, meaning did I want chicken or steak or perhaps the other meat that I was unable to identify from behind the glass, to which I replied, trying to sound cheerful and not judgmental at all, lest the Qdoba employee think I was being in any way judgmental, Actually, I'll just have the beans.

Doing my eyebrows

For several decades I have neither felt nor expressed the desire to do my makeup, including the desire to learn how to do my makeup in the first place. Yet this week I found myself watching YouTube tutorials about doing your eyebrows, and a couple days after that I had added two eyebrow-related makeup products to an online cart and proceeded to purchase them. One of the products is an eyebrow pencil, and according to the tutorials I am meant to draw the shape of an eyebrow -- any eyebrow shape I want, though I'm advised to create a particular shape if I want to complement the shape of my face, which, according to a chart I found, is either square, round, long, oval, or heart-shaped, and it is further advised that determining the right eyebrow aesthetic for my face shape and my particular brows is based on a rather complex series of measurements from the inside of my eyebrow to the outside of my nostril and from the outside of my nostril diagonally across my eye to wherever that line abuts my eyebrow -- around my existing eyebrow, and then use a special tool to smudge the eyebrow pencil into my actual eyebrow hairs so it looks my newly shaped eyebrows are filled with hairs even though it they partially filled with eyebrow pencil. According to a Buzzfeed article entitled "10 Tips for Beginners That'll Make Your Eyebrows Fleeker Than Fleek," I am supposed to use a special tool to comb my eyebrow hairs upward before lining them in eyebrow pencil, but because I am new to all this and the YouTube tutorials that I watched prior to purchasing eyebrow-related makeup products didn't stipulate that this tool was a necessity for doing one's eyebrows, I have not purchased an eyebrow brush, and I'm not sure if I will, because I am not yet sure whether I intend to continue doing my eyebrows. The second makeup product that I purchased is meant to be used immediately after lining my eyebrows with eyebrow pencil. Depending on the source you consult, this product is simply called eyebrow gel, or, possibly, a spoolie. When I consulted the Buzzfeed article after purchasing my eyebrow-related makeup products, I was at first dismayed to read that a spoolie is an essential piece of equipment in anyone's toolkit of eyebrow starter essentials, because I had purchased an eyebrow pencil and eyebrow gel, but, to my knowledge, I had failed to purchase a spoolie. Imagine my relief when I did some more research and discovered that eyebrow gel and a spoolie seem to be two terms for the same product: a sort of tiny mascara brush for the brows. Twice now I have attempted to use my new eyebrow pencil and eyebrow gel, the first "actual" makeup that I've ever attempted aside from some eye shadow at high school dances and the eighth grade formal, with mixed results. On the first instance I neglected to conduct the series of measurements recommended before applying eyebrow products for the first time, and I swiped the eyebrow pencil and gel too far down along the outside of my eye, creating a kind of upside down "U" shape from the inner edge of my brows to the far outer corner of my eye. I did not repeat this mistake a second time, making sure to finish lining my eyebrows and using my spoolie before reaching the section of my brows that curves downward from the bony arch of my eye socket. The results, I think, were more successful, at least according to the standards established by the YouTube tutorials and the Buzzfeed article. Even my husband, who to my knowledge is not generally a fan of a made up aesthetic, or who, at least, has never referenced pejoratively the fact that I have never been inclined to wear makeup, remarked on the fact that my eyebrows looked "good," though it's not exactly clear what that means. Nevertheless, I found myself feeling unsure about the results, though it is unclear whether that is because the results failed to create a positive effect, or because I am unaccustomed to seeing myself in makeup and thus find any application of makeup, and my concomitant reflection in the bathroom mirror, to be irregular and maybe even slightly disorienting.

hard cheese

eating a late-night grapefruit and a few drops of thyme oil hoping they will cure the spinning in my head

all day, every time I stand up. in spite of the energy I think my body is mandating a break

I am more excited for my future than I've been in quite some time, and I am also so, so tired

It's been a rough eight years




I don't think I want to be a politician after all. as if the choices I've made haven't precluded it

perhaps I should trust them



At the same time I do think I'll be ready soon to be more active again



listening to those sad podcasts realizing the women talking are describing my life



I am at risk of being compromised by my own success


I will not let myself be trapped



I am watching my friend travel farther and farther away from me, into the astral plane, and the other one on wheels


What I am considering is that perhaps the surest path to greatness is by saying Yes to the Universe moving through the person I really am


I have spent so much of my life being sick, but I'm getting steadier. Now I get it: what you don't confront comes with you



Did you ever love me? Do you?



These many years later I can only vaguely picture all the penises I've known



I wrote a lot of smart things in my head earlier but now I can't remember them

"At the Justice Department November 15, 1969" by Denise Levertov

Brown gas-fog, white

beneath the street lamps.

Cut off on three sides, all space filled

with our bodies.

       Bodies that stumble

in brown airlessness, whitened

in light, a mildew glare,

       that stumble

hand in hand, blinded, retching.

Wanting it, wanting

to be here, the body believing it’s

dying in its nausea, my head

clear in its despair, a kind of joy,

knowing this is by no means death,

is trivial, an incident, a

fragile instant.    Wanting it, wanting

          with all my hunger this anguish,

          this knowing in the body

the grim odds we’re

up against, wanting it real.

Up that bank where gas

curled in the ivy, dragging each other

up, strangers, brothers

and sisters.    Nothing

will do but

to taste the bitter

taste. No life

other, apart from.

We were going to go skiing but then we did not go skiing

I am not in my twenties any more.


When he's on, he's wise.



It takes me half the day, two walks, a run, and 30 minutes of at-home cardio before I finally settle in for the day.


I have named my collection. All's that's left is to write it.




When I read the literary magazine, which I began reading as soon as it arrived in my post office box (or rather I should say as soon as I picked it up and brought it home from the post office box since I am not entirely sure, actually, when the literary magazine arrived in my post office box)--a fact that runs counter to the arrival of previous issues of the same literary magazine, because they felt so heavy and I have felt so heavy and therefore reading something heavy has felt like it might be the stone that finally sinks me--I am reminded that I am not, in fact, a writer whose work is regularly published in or even considered for publication in esteemed literary magazines. In fact I might be a pretty amateur writer, and yet here I've been thinking that I was worthy of being an esteemed writer even though I haven't been practicing and I haven't been very brave. It will take some time to get up to snuff.


Likewise I think I have thought I had one of the best opinions about everything, when there are people whose whole lives are devoted to serving refugees in camps, if you know what I mean, and here I am writing silly stuff and in some respects not doing all that much of substance with my life.

I am so glad to be going back to school.


I've spent so long telling myself I can do everything that I haven't focused much on doing anything.


He says I should try being kinder to myself.



On the one hand I miss sleeping with multiple people in the week, the titillation of sitting on the bed with a man or a woman friend when one or both of you is considering the possibility of touching or otherwise stepping beyond the conventional bounds of friendship, the get-up-and-go to climb aboard a citibike and ride it all around Georgetown and sing in a choir and read guerilla poetry and have lots of sex with lots of people. On the other hand, life is change.


You're at a different stage in your life. Stop holding yourself accountable to a standard you maintained when you were a different person. 




Did I wring every drop out of them? 

It doesn't matter. It was perfect. 




I think I have a bit of an issue, I say, and I feel a little better simply for having said it.

"Is this leading to a good result?"

The only way to become free is to become aware, to really see that This is leading to a good result, or This is not so skillful, not wholesome.

We forget that the next moment is just as impermanent as this moment, so it’s not going to offer resolution of anything. 

like the flowers, we are all unfolding in our own way, in our own time

  

All quotes from this article

The last Halloween on Earth

"I know bile intimately"


Pop culture is a crutch.

An excessive amount of animus


He's got a lot to prove. He left during patisserie week. 

You're trying to do art; a lot of stuff's bothering you 

Don't hold the pose; let the pose hold you


Am I the first one to think of that?


Hey chef Anna Maria, it wasn't a jambalaya contest. 


We're made of flesh.

Kaya is beautiful and I love her.



Mutated (surrounded by walls)

What if my dad is using doomsday thinking to cope with his own mortality



I believe in teaching that is accessible and practical at the same time that it is challenging, affirming, and uplifting



I can clearly see the flaming embers of hell.


I'm just going to weigh off some currants. 

"The only way to escape the corruptible effect of praise is to go on working."

  ~ Albert Einstein

Hawthorn Ham

So many writing ideas and also I'm so tired. I write for the love of it and I write more when I have concrete justification. Does that make me less of an artist? Maybe. I don't know. But a self-aware one. An artist who leverages her self-awareness to write more, because really that's what she wants to be doing more of, it's just that she's developed so many awfully unaligned habits


I miss our accountability


I had forgotten that I had agency over anything


I understand that our outsides can be a reflection of how we're feeling on the inside and also they can be a mask for it. I have not felt as good as it might look from the outside

I'm sad that none of my friends asked how I was doing when I was living alone.



I'm sad in general today, not sure why, or rather I have so many possible reasons why that I'm not sure which one might be today's driving force. Hanna is restless; we've been inside all day; it's the first day I've spent inside possibly all year. In half an hour I will press myself up off the couch and we will go hike the snow-muddied trails where coyotes prowl at dusk

Mountain lions, too, but they don't make noise or otherwise call attention to themselves. If they don't want to be seen they won't be. Picture the largest housecat you've ever met and multiply it by whatever integer zooms it up to 180 pounds and seven feet from wriggling nose to tail


The last time we were camping together she slept and I laid tense and breathless listening to a fox scream


The last time he and I were camping together our tent froze over in early July. Hanna pressed between us in her den of quilts and we triple spooned for warmth


Computer algorithms create fabricated synchronicities. Is it faith or capitalism?


Starting in 24 days I am really going to apply myself to something for an extended period of time

Also I already have been--for more than two years now I've been teaching something that I love


After driving with my partner to the woman-owned ski shop and laying down a credit card for performance boots so that I can learn how to downhill ski this winter and for the rest of my life, because I live in the mountains where I have since childhood felt I belonged, it occurred to me that in some ways perhaps I am leading an even more remarkable life than I'd expected

"How Wonderful" by Irving Feldman

How wonderful to be understood,

to just sit here while some kind person

relieves you of the awful burden

of having to explain yourself, of having

to find other words to say what you meant,

or what you think you thought you meant,

and of the worse burden of finding no words,

of being struck dumb . . . because some bright person

has found just the right words for you—and you

have only to sit here and be grateful

for words so quiet so discerning they seem

not words but literate light, in which

your merely lucid blossoming grows lustrous.

How wonderful that is!

And how altogether wonderful it is

not to be understood, not at all, to, well,

just sit here while someone not unkindly

is saying those impossibly wrong things,

or quite possibly they’re the right things

if you are, which you’re not, that someone

—a difference, finally, so indifferent

it would be conceit not to let it pass,

unkindness, really, to spoil someone’s fun.

And so you don’t mind, you welcome the umbrage

of those high murmurings over your head,

having found, after all, you are grateful

—and you understand this, how wonderful!—

that you’ve been led to be quietly yourself,

like a root growing wise in darkness

under the light litter, the falling words.

parallelism

Castanets clicking shoulders spasming stomach contorting the theme is exorcism the theme is embodied the theme is integration hear it Take me to the river dancing grief lakeside can't be me can that gold-bathed warrior really be chest broaden shoulders pull back I have healed my spine she/I walk regal through forest frog rabbits deer lions we pay our respects removes broadsword from sheath redacted swallows me

shoulders arms wrists hands twitching stomach contorting absorbing stillness happens when integration is complete. I found you. Tears roll. Dance in-outside grief exorcism castanets Amazonian warrior woman dressed in leather shining gold fighting for higher consciousness


I bow my blue-grey wings to the great blue heron. I bow my brown-white wings to the red-tailed hawk. I prostrate my woolen sides to the bighorn. I take honored to red-furred fours before the grey fox.


We howl



Like the coyotes before us, three or four on that rigdeline over there, sounds like an army, sounds like they're playing, sounds like they love each other, sounds like part of me anxious to go inside. There cooking peppers onions quinoa chicken and apple sausages on the electric skillet and the hotpot learning how to host we cook for him we listen to the Grateful Dead we laugh sometimes and exclaim over the color purple in paintings


Like an itch like a compulsion anxiety building until the release, get back to writing, you're on the right track, remember who you are


Today's extra hour spent cross-country skiing six miles into the backcountry, back down again knees ankles aching from forcing way through cold-hardened snow

Imagine how much easier in powder. Look how beautiful

From "Mind Wanting More" by Holly J. Hughes

But the mind always
wants more than it has—
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses—as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.

"Choices" by Tess Gallagher

I go to the mountain side

of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow

on the mountain. But when I look up,

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in

the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree,   

an unseen nest

where a mountain   

would be.

                        

                              for Drago Štambuk

There's just as much inspiration here

And then can you believe it I, me, got a hankering to watch a football game for the first time in at least a dozen years. And then can you believe it when we looked up the schedule that was available in our area Penn State was playing Michigan in the prime time game. And then we put on the game and I sat rapt for the next several hours, yelling at the TV occasionally get him or stop im stop him stop him yessssssss, thinking about kaiser rolls with a little mayo, a little mustard, turkey and Swiss and some romaine lettuce and a slice of tomato, generous side of gherkins and dill pickles, Martin's potato chips, remembering the door open to the green-treed yard and my mom yelling, dad on his feet with excitement, missing my siblings, my parents, my childhood dogs. And then can you believe it we won.


All week we have cared for two dogs and Hanna has loved it and aside from needing to wipe down two wet bellies after that chilly impromptu dip in the river so have I



Yesterday we drove the dogs up, up until rain turned to snow and then we hiked through a winter wonderland--snowy creeks, meadows, wooden bridges over water. Evergreen forests tall enough to make you crane your neck


Don't go back to sleep 



Hanna you've got this

Four pumpkins perched comfortably about the living room as if they owned the place, one on top of the bookshelf, one on top of the crate tipped sideways and filled with cookbooks, board games, old magazines, one on top of the speaker out of which we blasted 1990s concerts while deep cleaning the apartment with the windows open

As I write Wilson sits on my chest pressing the top of his head into my mouth and I with my arms extended 'round either side of him rest my occasionally kissing lips on his sweet orange little fuzz head


So many vivid dreams this week I'm pretty sure Ben Stiller wanted to fuck me

What I enjoyed more than knowing that he found me interesting was cussing out that dickbag who squeezed my right butt cheek

Most of all what I am enjoying is my waking life--so many family cuddle times and sleeping better and writing more and eating well and reading poetry and remembering to play a bit and, as my guides have suggested, dancing




After we hiked through the creeksides and meadows and forests in snow we all piled back into the car and exclaimed over the fun we'd had

We're all in our amygdalas

Don't put me on a pedestal; I'm no longer willing to do the work to stay on it

Letting myself be a human being these days


Is his desire triggering to me?

When he doesn't ask I slide off the couch and onto my knees


I'm happy for you that you're getting married. I hope it goes well

Life changes go with it



I trusted everything but my own experience

Walk the snowy trail with my tongue sticking out


I'm a see-er

Genius doesn't work on humanity's timetable



Two nights ago four happy dogs of all colors shapes and sizes surrounded me as I dolled out treats and it was one of the best experiences of my entire life



Culture has taught us to worship something that isn't our own hearts


Remember the sound of coyotes howling

"The last time we met you said YOLO to me"

Sick but still a 20-mile bike ride, worth it

Lying on my back on the couch hair wet from showering

Waiting for the comforter to finish drying so I can put it on the bed, too cold now to sleep without it



I thought of a really cool line earlier

Last week I saw three hawks fighting in the air in front of a cliff

Today during my bike ride I saw two hawks, but this time they were resting on branches in miles-apart trees



Now that someone has told me I'm good of course I'm worried about being a quack

People condescend to my chosen letters and so I don't tell many people

It's not that I care what they think, it's just that I'd rather not deal with it



Amazing to realize that I am needing less external validation. In the past even one person disliking me would be agonizing. Now in many cases I truly do not care

For some reason I am remembering walking and biking through that playground park on the sleepy west (west?) side of that middle-of-the-state town, leaves aflame with Fall



In just a few weeks I have written nearly 30 pages. What will I accomplish when I'm doing this regularly for two whole years? A lot of pages. A lot of writing. A lot of processing. A lot of understanding. A lot of healing. A lot of focusing. A lot of liberation.


That woman had been waiting her whole life for a chance to walk the runway, and even though it was a surprise and she hadn't been practicing she was beyond ready to deliver



You just step up to the plate and play ball

"Vivas to those who have failed: for they become the river."

-From "Vivas To Those Who Have Failed: The Paterson Silk Strike, 1913" by MARTÍN ESPADA

"Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

From "Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz

The way I look

at it, I’m passing through a phase:   

gradually I’m changing to a word.   

Whatever you choose to claim   

of me is always yours;

nothing is truly mine

except my name. I only

borrowed this dust.

"Poem Without An End" by Yehuda Amichai (translated by Chana Bloch)

Inside the brand-new museum

there’s an old synagogue.

Inside the synagogue

is me.

Inside me

my heart.

Inside my heart

a museum.

Inside the museum

a synagogue,

inside it

me,

inside me

my heart,

inside my heart

a museum

Do not turn off the system

Installing...


I am sad that my sister and brother in law didn't respond, but also I know that I have been the one not to respond and it wasn't personal


It's really shitty that you didn't have anything kind to say

Also

Thank you for helping me to release you


Perhaps that's the kindest thing you could have done

I thank you and I release you



I wish I could tell all the people I haven't responded to that I love them

Because I didn't tell anybody what I've been through nobody knows what I've been through

Therefore it is harder for them to understand the radio silence

Still I wouldn't have listened even if they'd known, and that's why I didn't tell them

A save of everyone's time




I watched the movie where the tiny people migrated underground except for the poor tiny people and the people who wanted to stay above ground to help

Chin up fists up




The orange tennis ball sits beside the green tennis ball and around my waist is a pair of extra-large green and blue plaid boxers

When I stand up, they fall down, which is why I've rolled the elastic about six times and use one hand to hoist them skyward whenever I walk from one room to another


Carefully picking our way among the red stones

He says they remind him of home





We walk together
Eight legs, three hearts, the mountains
The red stones like home

79% 88% 91% 100

After we wake in the middle of the night to care for Hanna and then wake a few hours later to hike to that remote alpine lake amidst piles of red stones, we drive home down the long dirt rode through the migrating cattle and stop at the Hawaiian place to pick up some takeout

For lunch I eat raw tuna, thinly sliced cabbage, pickled onions, white rice and hot sauce

I wash it down with a bite of almond butter and some low-sugar orange juice


Raw tuna? Who is this woman! 


But then I remember that tuna salad was one of my favorite foods throughout my entire childhood

No salmon for me, thanks


Nevertheless, these days I eat tuna maybe 2 or 3 times per year because people are eating too many of them

I do not suffer for it



The spicy ginger from Vietnam is so good, though at a certain point it hurts my teeth

I am sad that I may not be able to visit my brother in January


I am so excited that I will be going back to school in December



Shall I start writing haikus again?



The lake is so deep
and so eloquent, bugs script
across the water

think of class 3 as all the stuff you can do

I want you to be in


At the exact right moment I channel the force





I've figured it out--what makes animals so beautiful. They are both animal and spirit, wholly





Sucking a grape popsicle remembering how good it was to be a kid in the summer





Earlier I really felt it--how privileged my life is. A reminder to seize every bit of my freedom, and still not forget the people and other creatures in cages



I will be teaching creative writing at the local jail



The wheel spun and because I am writing I flinched--then remembered I'm not with that guy any more and grew thankful



Crinkling cellophane and the gentle sound of 27,000 people talking


We lay down the yoga mat and all four of us converge



How big is Dick's stadium


What's that on the table? 



I am starting to understand what it's like to feel human. I feel like a rose dropping her stiff outer petals, revealing the soft ones beneath



I ask for my chocolate and he is so nice about it

That yogurt with the honey on it



An imperfect life, wholly

The motorcycle has ridden away into the sunset

In my memory I sit on the dock of the inner harbor living up to its name as I sheltered in that familiar place, paused for a moment between the shoulders of my two new women friends, perhaps the first I'd ever had, in between two worlds I did not know but between which I was traveling


I'm sorry John I owe you a phone call or at least a text



I just let myself be the sidekick to everybody's life. In retrospect it's so sad

I didn't know that I was allowed to live my own




I remind him to be nice and he does it


I remember when I wore black tights and combat boots everywhere and I went out dancing three or four times a week

I remember when I

I remember



I remember






Four ordinary men quietly became one of the most successful musical collaborations in the history of our country, and if that balding head isn't enough to teach you something about the power of passion and joy then you've gotta zoom the fuck out




Everything's right so just hold tight 

and I brought sliders

Ew at the sitcom laughing over

Real car in a fake parking lot

She tried on the bionic arm to get over him, and it fit



Then she could control things





Where have I heard this story before

This is a sacred space dedicated to healing 



The bookbag rests in front of the bookshelf which is covered in books

He comes home and I throw him a Welsh accent and he rolls with it

I'm in a bookclub

I still don't know how I feel about forgiveness

Does that make me a bigger person or a small one?




Don't really think I have a role model. Maybe no one could live up to the perfection in my head.

I am trying to be free of it.



Fake fridge in a fake kitchen in a fake relationship fighting

I don't want to be apart ever again.



I am proud of my mom for going to Morocco.

I know how the ending could be horrible and perhaps at some level I think that if I know the ways it could be horrible then I'll be able to prevent them from ever turning out that way.

In reality you cannot prevent a mug from breaking just because you know it could.



And so I worry a little as the sun goes down.


My mother would not have sat with me.

But she did schedule me an appointment.

In this moment I think I understand that she did most things out of love.

And a small portion of it from fear.

Which I have also.

Because my mother is human, and so is her daughter.

"Why do you want to get married under the water?"

It takes a little whisky and too much Hulu to finally get going. It's been a few days and the impostor syndrome has started to creep its way in. That being said as soon as I start again I feel whole again.


After I called the insurance company the kind woman asked for the mileage reading on my 19-year-old car and I ran outside in bare feet and braless and told her. Then when she asked for my credit card I ran back inside again

What kind of dress do you think you'd wear under the water? 


The fact that there are people getting married underwater makes me think I should spend more time being myself.


You are not the lowest hanging fruit.



We laughed while bouncing down the rutted dirt road and backed up to read the hand-etched sign: long-distance cell service, a joke



When I first saw the Polaroid picture that I took to be funny I was horrified to see that the angle and perspective of the shot made me look about three feet wide. Then I watched the young woman give the eulogy at her husband's unexpected funeral and remembered that it so does not matter

What matters is having someone with and for whom to take the funny photo in the first place



I am seriously considering buying a remote cabin in the woods


You are welcome to feel joy

"From Blossoms" by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes

this brown paper bag of peaches

we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road where we turned toward   

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into   

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

You have never been my husband.

I think loving my dog is helping me heal residual mother issues.

I have to let her be herself.

She is getting the hang of being whole; I'm so proud of her



I always thought I was an old soul but lately I've been wondering how ....



I think this time finally did it. I think I'm done, and I thought it three days earlier while dancing my face off and gazing up at the moon. Thank you. I release you.



Today I did it I put my hat in the ring and said yes please, I would like to be considered for the option of doing with my life what I deep-down-truly want to do


Now I understand people who talk about not doing things because that's what others expected! Only in this case it's my own expectations I'm defying.

Or rather those of the inner critic, good 'ol Ic, making a new premier in stronger form because he realizes that I'm breaking free

Thanks for your concern, buddy. I'm keeping an eye on things.




Holy shit I really did it. Every word of it was me. The essay and the portfolio that I whittled away on. Every bit of it has me right there in it. Holy shit I really am me. I really said it. This really is my life.

From "The Bones of August" by Robin Ekiss

Is it necessary

                      to remember

      absolutely everything?

purple mountains majesty

After I said no for the fourth time and then no also to them I went for a bike ride to clear my head

Took a chance on a rain storm and enjoyed the payoff of wind at my back for the whole ride home

At one point as I pedaled hard and fast alongside a wet wooden fence a robin swooped in on the other side and I swear to god for a few moments there they were racing me, and I cried out in delight and in contradiction of the song I'd been belting along with David Berman all my happiness is gone but not quite and not really



before that when I walked Hanna down by the river a snake slithered in front of me, that's been happening a lot lately, this time out of curiosity and due to the sheer preponderance of snake sightings I pulled out my phone and googled their significance. It seemed spot on but also I can convince myself of pretty much any meaning or lack thereof

Am I picking up what the Universe is putting down, or am I being oblivious or ungrateful? Is it all in my head?

What has always comforted me is the idea that it doesn't really matter; if I believe and act like it is, then for all intents and purposes it is


Tomorrow I will go camp in the national forest somewhere, we'll just drive down a long forested dirt road until we see somewhere that we'd like to pitch a tent, and then we'll pitch it, and we'll cook some veggies and protein on the portable two-burner, and after sleeping under the stars we'll climb up and over a mountain pass to a lake and when we get back from that maybe we'll go climbing

I work so hard to preserve my freedom. The next step is to live once again as if I am free

It was a unique kind of horrid

living in that basement with the abusive rapist yelling at her and masturbating on the other side of the door at the end of the unlit hallway, splitting to the only options in that 300 square foot apartment: bathroom, bedroom, or kitchen, the kitchen two tin foil burners in a 10' X 11' room with a disgusting, street-recovered fold-out loveseat,the bookshelf my father made filled with books, and a set of shelves with utensils, pots and pans, two bowls, two plates, a few mugs; the bedroom the only slightly redeemable space in that whole place, at least there was enough room for the queen-size bed and a couple of side tables, a closet just big enough to hold all else that we owned


still, somehow, I was happy, because after nearly 15 years I had finally returned to live in the mountains where I belong. all I had to do was step outside and I'd be home

I'm not going anywhere

Today I both felt and resisted the urge to heckle a strange man walking by my office window, just for the hell of it. Where did that come from.

My six-year-old nephew follows up with me several times to confirm that I have written a reminder on my phone: Prior to December I am to fly to him in Los Angeles so we can visit a local dog toy store, where, he assures me, I will be able to purchase a hat specially made for dogs, with holes for the ears and a jingly bell on top. He thinks it will be the perfect Christmas present for Hanna.

In the past 48 hours I have determined that many of my life's decisions and inclinations originate from guilt. Thankfully I had dance class tonight, and I knew just what to do: punch and kick and gyrate my hips and torso around, getting all that shit out out OUT. Down with the oppressive letters and up with the liberating ones! I am allowed to do what I want! I am allowed to do what I want! I am allowed to be myself!

I do not have to be perfect. Lord has had mercy on me. By that I mean I have finally—finally—found mercy for myself.

And yes I know the talons will come out; they already seeped in the dark edges of my mind as I sat with legs crossed and forehead pressed to the wooden floor at the end of class. But I'm not going anywhere.

Remembering now pedaling hard and fast down the side of that mountain, tears flying off my cheeks into the wind-vortex behind me, begging I just want to be okay as I am 


What do you know. I accidentally wrote Angels.


I'm not a root. I'm a rose.

I wrote that for the health insurance investigators

what is the weirdest thing you can think of right now


what is your favorite poem in the whole wide world FUCK how can anyone pick just one

what do you do when you've recently discovered that you are nowhere near as impressive as you think you are



as for myself, I remove the clean towels from the washer and transfer them to the dryer. I am careful to remove the lint from the lint trap before turning the dryer on

grass rabbits grass

I wake with the intention of writing; six hours later here I am.

First I read a lot and then I made three sets of quadrants and listed out the pros and cons of all kinds of scenarios before reading again, sharing Reiki with the dog, cuddling with the cat, feeding the critters, doing some laundry. Then of course it was time to take the dog for a walk; I stopped at the local coffee shop for an iced coffee with a hefty amount of soy milk, then we strolled back to the park and sat in the shade for a while, Hanna played with a dog named Spunky while we chatted with Spunky's sitter. At home again I got to work tidying up after a week away, after coming home so tired yesterday that we dumped all the bags inside the door, tucked the perishables into the refrigerator, and called it a night.

Now in a clean apartment drinking black cherry seltzer and listening to Silver Jews here I am, doing this thing that really I want to do with my whole life.



An experimentation in form
tree nodules clustered with rocks and seashells
a grandmother's candle piled high with glitter and intentions

stacks of board games
a purple rock in the shape of a heart
Vietnamese marble carved into an owl
cookbooks filled with recipes much fancier than I am, maybe someday
A jar full of roots