Poltergeist Love, the power-full prayer. & the hokey pokey.

Ha ha when the people say you're still writing?What's that book about anyway?  Yes I'm still writing yes I'm still writing what's it about?  Well what's life about?  Up to your own two eyes.  Human hearts and the poetic voice oh unfair unjust world.  Ha, the sun.  We rose up out of the primordial goop-funk amoebic then with gills then feet then thumbs.  Now voices.  Sing, speak, speak the earth the roots and the moon.  About this stuff.  That's what it's all about.  That's what all this is...

??

I walked in to my room two months ago with the vaccum cleaner in my hand and smelled the most real smell of him one of the many many hims in the long list of powerfull hyms oooops did i mean that, misspell of course of course (i have devil eyes!) i did.  I have poetry leading up to this.  I smelled him and laughed, there was a shadow on the wall this happens so often with the openness the other side of the creative wall that i laughed but also, angered, quick chased him off.  started to rerun the vacuum then had to tell someone so of course i told kel.   now this:

i have written so long, so long so long (nights at truslow first time back room paul asleep in sleeping bag down coated warmness of woodstove heat trapped inside tall pine trees at truslow spring-truth please those long, terrorizing days o would you come voice or death something, be raised all those terrible days at anngar farm.  o and let's not forget oregon?  the time first, knelt on my knees ordered a used computer over the internet came in a box banged up set it in the corner of the trailor on a small table barely a foot off the floor beach days so much sun tree afternoons so much rain and i would kneel there, write and of course pray) i have written and written and waited so soo long for this and now i am here, having written it out every step and abracadabra open sesame code it took to bring me this far.

erika printed out all i'd given her by the end of august 14 months of submish.  hundred plus pages?  nothing congruent.  now congruent as a dream! funny how that says as a dream as if in the sleeping sense with only one eye opened and not knowingly de dos mundos there is ever anything relevant to see.  as if sight is relevant without it too.

Finally, i am there, this is not a dream. i can smell pine strong as spirit it is real right here with me and on fb another stooopid sign, i say to the muses


ooo holiest of holy all things as one all dark and light all encompassed version of all things encircled and the encirclement of all that ever was and this voice and the outter that handles it, and ever on, and the still uncapsized moment prior to breath, o all love and creation and loss, set it all aside now as i poool from this flood as i pull under and go down to come up with all i have within, set is aside let me do thou work holy of all most especially of my name you have the quality just help me with quantity show up to the page

i am set up now, my ducks in a row.  this is fun, the most exotic strange poetic-practical place i have ever been.

What's Rad: Alone in the Wilderness--Dead calm and zero degrees....

Dad and I are flipping back and forth between the Ravens game and Public Television, where they are showing Alone in the Wilderness.  It's a movie made of footage that a retired man named Dick Proenneke took in 1967 when he decided to move in to the remote mountains and hand-build a cabin and live for the next 35 years.  It's phenomenal, peaceful, reverent in its simplicity.  So much lately--as I've risen each day before the sun to go in and open the new coffee house here at the beach that I am helping create--I stand in the clear cold air and smell the trees and see the stars and I think about being outdoors in the fall, living on the road in the tall deep forests and high mountains.  How touchingly pure and wondrous that time of my life was, waking up in the tent, frost-covered, seeing my breath, coming back to life each day with the sun.  I hope Brandon knows about this film.  God did we have an amazing time living out on the road...  Anyhow Alone in the Wilderness is rad, the footage stunning and inspiring and the timing impeccable, as if meant to help me celebrate the wild spirit in me so happy to be outdoors and free to roam...

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Bliss-List. & Venus.

O my gosh.  This link is so on-time for me, it came my way via We'Moon which if you dont know about them--ladies especially--well you better ask someone.  No seriously We'Moon is a fabulous group of gals out in Southern Oregon whose collective puts out the We'Moon datebook, keeping us Wise-Soul-Livin/Lovin-Women (and men, too, or the ones who love us & who we love) connected to the earth and the moon tides.  This is the only way to be for me so their message on FB about Venus going direct yesterday was so in line with the boost of Free to Be Love and Light that returned to me in the past 24 after a nondescript time period of feeling sort of nebulous in that area, a little off or blahhh.

The point is.  I have a Bliss-List of 50 things I want to do in/with Life.  Do you have one?  My list is the raddest and it has things on it that have been checked off like: Re-Find your Music-Self; See Madonna live; Take Month to ReConnect to Earth and SOul on Your Own etc; as well as things that are in progress like: Write and Publish your book (to/about Tribe of Mad Genius' Following Their Own Code and Path); Engage in Ecstatic Alive Living in Unison with Life through Earth Cycle and Tides; Lovingly Focus Time and Energy on Family and Relationships etc; AND there are things on there that are yet to be braved, for example: Live in Mexico in a Village and Paint and Do Art and Speak Spanish with Amigos; Get Certified in Permaculture; Camp for a month or two or ten On Foot in the Woods or Mountains; Finally Just Surrender to Being a Beach Rat Surfer Girl and Never Wear Shoes.  Etc. 

I am writing my book, and remembering the infinite potential of lovelightpower-within.  I am totally avowed to one thing and one thing only (as I write this from the surf-shop in town with the guy who just educated me on everything I need to know to be out in the ocean the whole cold winter through...) and that is TO LOVE THE LIFE I am living, and Live the Life I Love.

I'm glad I have my Bliss-List, and those We'Moon gals, to reconnect me when I forget.

LOVE POST. For my blog.

Hmmmmm.
What to say? 

What to say?

(I am doing a lot of letter writing.  A lot, it is taking the place of the uber-personal nature of telling on my blog.)

What to say!?

(I am doing a lot of book writing.  A lot, it is the most lively I ever feel.)

Blog!  I miss you.  You are always here for me and I just wanted you to know that.  I wanted you to know that I love you! and no matter what you're the center of my heart and yes I wrote that the correct way--you are the center of my heart not in the center, but the center itself because I can always count on you no matter what you never ever go away, even when I feel lost I tell you just that I feel lost and guess what?  There you are, words, sense of lostness, sense of heart displaced and found now! on the page.  Blog I love you, thank you.  What did they do?  diPrima, her gals, Rich, Lourde, Shange. Shange!  WHAT DID THEY DO?  diPrima she said it all just mounted up.  Swallowed them, all the work, all their creations, all of it, unseen.  Without a button to hit labeled Publish Post.  Without a stat counter, 27 hits, 42 hits, 16 page views 53 total hits today.  Without anyone else to affirm: yes I hear.

O madness.  O necessary need for me to like me enough to think I have something worthy to say.

The ocean is singing, hear it?  I walked down on the beach and the surfers on 50th and 48th were angels with slick black neoprene skin.  The sun was so shiny and the sand so right.  I. Wanted. To.  Swim.  The ocean is blessing, hear it?  The winter is coming in crumbly white cappy waves but it doesn't make any of it any less in love in fact it says I am here!  I am here I am always, always here and, I am music.  This is how I sing.

The ocean is blowing its ocean smelling wind in from the sea.  It's the sea when it takes you places and the ocean when right out your door.  What about La Mar?  You say, well that's when she talks to the moon. 17th and Grand.  No cell here.  Good it's better that way.  Girl with the cat-slit eyes in the coffee shop where I always go: dont close that door, I like the ocean blowing singing wind!  The blessing's! On me.  The blessing's on you, on we on us all.  How could I miss this?  How could I miss this all before? 

I have been clean 10 years today.

I am holy, human, alive.  Well.  The sparkling sea.  The rest of my life.  The words.  Vintage shoes in rose and brown snake skin looking leather.  POETRY, poems told by the wind-singing blessing-giving ocean the far out way out sea.  Blog you are my battery.  White screen.  Heart.  Beating center. Of my life.

Thank you!

 

WAITING

I am a waitress.

Do you understand the implications of that sentence?

I laugh at all manners of corny jokes in a way that doesn't seem forced or annoyed. I balance trays the size of small Volkswagen's on my shoulder without spilling any of the glass-encased liquid-bearing weigh-the-same-as-small-boulders drinks that impare your ability to make good decisions when it comes to what is appropriate for a retiree to say to a smiling chipper young lady. I recite with a genuine smile answers about any and all of the food on our menu and  I dont bat an eye when you ask do we have salmon EVEN THOUGH DESPITE YOUR FIVE MINUTES OF STARING AT THE MENU NOWHERE DOES IT SAY WE HAVE SALMON and I already told you the catch of the day.  I SEPARATE YOUR CHECKS. I make you smile even when you are short or rude to me, because I truly believe that serving you is a way to be of service and lift me up out of me, a way to touch hearts that are charged with being in my presence for the hour or so that you are, and I really mean that: making you feel good is my goal. I can remember six things at once. Including cocktail sauce for the guy in the corner two soda refills at the highboy that kid needs extra napkins (oh god somebody sit those kids down before I "accidentally" spill the Volkswagen on them) ask the kitchen to get that salad out before the soup for the man who just decided at the last minute he wants a salad too oh god I wonder if the boys are in the kitchen check and see if the boys are in the kitchen no they gotta be in the kitchen because table 101 is still waiting on that steak up-cook get the steak up-cook out oh that works perfect because you can drop the bill to the table next to them, ok check on the steak up-cook grab the naps and coc say hi to your two new tables on the way let them know you'll be right with them and o yea, that table Jen just picked up says they know dad dont forget to go by and smile, and make an ironic comment about golfing in the cold and let them know how he's been.  I remember all this and still I keep my cool--I smile! when you come to me with an impatient look on your face waving a credit card at me wanting me to stop everything else I am doing now in order to SEPARATE YOUR CHECKS.  I SEPARATE YOUR CHECKS.  Oh wait, did I already mention that?

I am a waitress.  I listen to your problems and also to your complaints and I smile anyway even though you are 68 years old and just tried to pick me up.   You think it's okay to sit down all eight of you and run me back and forth because I am young and that is my job--which I make less than $3 an hour doing and you still seperate your check, all eight of you, eight seperate burgers or rockfish sands with water to drink and then you each leave me one dollar and some change.  I smile anyway.

KNOW WHY?

Because I am a writer and even though waiting demands my physical energy it leaves my emotional untouched, which is what I require to give it all to the page.  And it teaches  me about life, again and agian reminds me the basics of human nature.  People just like a little attention, and to feel good.  They like to be warm, and full.  So simple, so very very simple. The people I work with have fun, they dont stress, it's great. I am almost always so happy to be around them that by the end of the night I feel light and renewed, no matter what.  And then I get to come home late and leave work at work when I walk out the door, which is AMAZING. And even though I'm keyed up adrenaline-full it's cuz I got my exercise tonight, and when it was all done I assed-up with the guys in the kitchen until I was chill enough again to remember life's all good.  I am responsible for your happiness but only for the hour or so you are in my charge, and 9.5 times out of 10 we both walk away authentically smiling.  And whether or not that means anything to you at the time, it's hell of a good practice for me.

I have been a teacher,(a good one), an intake counselor, a resource manager, a team leader, a troubleshooter, a secretary, a tech-writer and in all things those roles easily still come out of me.  But the one thing I've done on and off for 17 years now that might well be the most useful and far-reaching role, especially when the mutherfuckingwheels are fallin off this bitch, is WAITRESS.  Because 17 years has taught me how to smile and keep it cool, and to trust.  Tonight, even tonight even this too shall come to an end.

Santa Fe. Stop and Say OK.

I got stuck in Santa Fe once.

It's a funny place to get stuck, you would think that there's lots of cool stuff going on but the reality is I'd been living in the woods and my clothes were dirty and in my hippy frock over my cut-off baggies and the bandanna wrapped around my dirty hair the fancy ladies in the art shops that I thought I'd enjoy downtown ended up tailing me the whole time cuz I guess they thought I was a thief.  Every place more or less turned out to be like that--catering to wealth, and it pissed me off and when we tried to leave we got stuck, literally. The town is a circular lay-out, not a grid, so every time we thought we were heading the right way towards the desert and on to the highway towards Tuscon and a buddy of mind we'd end up circled back where we began.  Santa Fe is bordered on one side by all these fabulous adobe houses on flat brown cactus land as far as the eye can see, and on the other by the the Sangre de Cristos and a National Forest.  We didn't know about Taos then, the community and spiritual devotees around there, all we knew was that we hated our first experience in Santa Fe and were tired and wanted to get out.  So after that first day we headed up in to forest where we could set up camp and stay.  

Thinking about it now, I easily remember coming down across the mountains of the southern border of Colorado and coming around a great wide corner out of the woods and seeing the low land laid out before us and singing like a song, it swept me whole and sudden and clean inside and took my breath away, it stopped Brandon mid-sentence.  That's the energy the shamans talk about, some swift but beautiful collusion between mountain elements and the dry and drastic desert flat-land that was so stunning it was almost visual.

That first night in the Santa Fe Forest some kids came up the forest road massively tripped out on drugs, the next morning this hippy dreadlock girl whose name I cant now remember came over to our tent to say hello and to make sure we made it through the night undisturbed by the kids that were freaking out.  She was sad with a sad spirit and on her own, we talked a long time that morning over coffee it turned out it was the anniversary of when she'd given her child up for adoption.  She gave me a turquoise necklace and I gave her a tourmaline because it helps with forgiveness of the self. 

We tried to leave again that afternoon and got stuck again.  Literally, traffic and double backs that made us lose our minds.  We regrouped, decided to find a community center where we could shower, then decided to surrender to the flow and set up in the woods for a few days, hoping the stuckness would pass.  The sunset that night after our shower put orange and sherbert light all over the dark greens and browns of the adobe'd plain.  It was the most outrageous display of sunsettingness that I have ever seen.

Turns out there was a free speaker at the Masonic Lodge that we were meant to hear over the weekend.  We'd been, since around the time of full moon over Fourth of July when we camped deep in the Black Hills of South Dakota, sort of following these very serendipitous experiences based around growing knowledge of indigenous cultures living in unison with the land, and the deeper idea of the earth itself in its varied forms holding its own systems of magnetic energies called lay lines.  Now I remember, the first place that info came (in addition to Gary Snyder's writings on animism, but we brought him along) was in Maine which was literally our third stop, in Southwest Harbor by Acadia.  And then it just kept coming, from everywhere, in every direction.  The speaker at the Lodge stood there and tied it all together.  It was pretty amazing.

I dont have any money, none at all, to pay bills right now or much less to move to Baltimore and coming to terms with that has been real tough.  But I realized something the past few days and that's that sometimes for reasons you dont even know, where you are is where you're meant to be.  Even if at first it feels or looks maddening and kinda like your stuck.  My book is writing itself.  I have work on the horizon.  I'm gonna hang out in the forest a while I guess and be grateful for what's going on right now exactly where I'm at.

For Kelly J and Beth

Here is a poem I wrote last night in the margin of Women Who Run With the Wolves:

I meet her: La Llorona, she says
I am ruined.

There is shadow
of death mask
of blood &
dirt
on her face.

I tell her
Come close,
close to me.
I listen to what she tells me.

In this way
she knows:
she has been saved.

*    *    *
It is hard to keep doing what we do, I think to myself.  There are roots to roast, clothes to put away, an attic to be cleaned out or at least climbed in to--to make room for storage--cushions to be brought in off the porch and at least four calls to return since yesterday.  There is being nice to one another, and noticing the weather.  This is without school, without the reality of a lover that I yearn to cradle--of course I never let reality stop me--without children or a husband, without even a regular job.  This is without even contemplating time to write.  Still it goes, our funny programmed ways of continuing: falling from bed to floor in expectation of repetitive shelter and food.  Once we get to the other side of ourselves, have confronted all it is we have to own the love and the fear we then have the choice, and it looks like La Loba, La Mariposa, Skeleton Woman, La Inocente, She With Seal Skin...All the stories our mothers or their mothers ever told, great ancestress, great lovers of children, of men, of each other, great tender warriors and wipers of tears.  Kel, what we talked about yesterday on the phone, Beth what we talked about days before.  I say Clarrisa Pinkola said it best and she said it in her book last night to me, before bed. 

...it is standing still long enough to let the spirit find you.  It is said that all that you are seeking is also seeking you, that if you lay still, sit still, it will find you.  It has been waiting for you a long time.  Once it is here, dont move away.  Rest.  See what happens next.

Ahhh, beautiful.  Amen Amen.

To believe in this living...

Opposite Direction is playing in the corner it's half-time the Ravens are up and Jotto's on her way to meet dad and I for half-price pubgrup and orange crushes for them. They are Sue and Rich's favorite a talented band that plays mostly 70's covers. Last summer they were here listening to the music every single Sunday. John Prine is on right now. My heart tweaks, I look out the zipped-up plastic window-side at the harbor, the big local fishing boats, the seagulls fighting just above the water of the bay. It is perfect blue and gold out. The kind of day that makes people just stare wistfully at the sea. It's November in West Ocean City and when the sunlight goes low and yellow across the dusk sky I walk to the top of the street past the fish hauls and wharf boats to where you can look directly across the water to the inlet, the roller coaster and water tower of downtown each high on the horizon, and I take pictures in my favorite light of the day. It's cold out, my hands get so cold I cant feel my fingers walking back to Harborside to meet dad.

My cousin Timmy turned 21 here, Sean and Jamie and some of us spent the Sunday after they got engaged here, two Christmas' ago Seanie when she walked to the ladies room sat at these exact highboys and told me he was going to ask Jame to marry him. We told her we were crying about our Pappaw when she came back.

It's nice, these little places we find ourselves when we happen to find ourselves "in-between." Jotto and I sit at the corner and watch enough of the 4th quarter together to know that the Ravens are going to win, then she leaves to get her son. I happily agree to help her paint her new apartment later this week and yet again, as I hug her to leave, this feeling of absolute gratitude washes through me. This sense of utter thankfulness that is translating today as satisfaction, just simple in-moment satisfaction, for the good things that exist in my life. It's the same exact way I feel looking out the window, listening to Sue and Rich's favorite band cover John Prine. When she leaves dad grabs my arm and gushes O sis! I love this song. It's Ventura Highway. We turn on our stools, rest our backs against the bar and jam with the band. I am smiling, not wildly happy or sad, just smiling. Content with me and dad, the outside water and light, the music, with what is...

RE-POST: List. If I were Queen For A Day

This is a re-post, originally featured on my blog when my blog was just a baby and me just an obnoxious grl trying to learn to learn her voice in public. Now, I'm still as obnoxious if that translates to bravery and exploring/standing your ground AND I feel I know my voice in a true way, too. Thanks Web-Log! I go back to this post every so often, because the voice is there clearly for the early days, but more, I like the reminders:

LIST
1. NO CELL PHONE USE IN RESTAURANTS OR STORES. Obnoxious cell phone use is Western entitlement at its best. I don't care if its your sister or Aunt Jodie calling just for a sec get off the phone and focus on the task in front of you. Also, you are in full right to not call people back if you are currently involved in something else, even if that something else is the very important necessary for your soul mandate of DOING NOTHING. This stress and always being busy and worry of us and our culture is compacted by the insane idea that just because we all have cell phones now and Gen Y never knew any different that we all have to call each other back right away! Or feel guilty for it if we don't. No. Engage in the life in front of you without deluded expectations. When it is time to be on the phone, then be someone fully engaged with your friend or loved one or business person or whatever on the phone. No excuses.

2 . LEARN TO BE ALONE. QUIET. BY YOURSELF. I don't care who you are, I am suspicious of anyone who can't sit a while doing nothing but sitting a while in the presence of their own soul. Take mandatory quiet time or time-out time with you and you alone. This is different than doing nothing. Though it is, after the initial restlessness dies down, a genuine relief to take a big breath and say to yourself, No, no, there is nothing left to do right now other than just be me with me. Make it a custom. Explore the world you are unto your self. Should the Death face come today, or the hangman or the angel and It stands there and says to you what good did you do, you can say to Yourself, I knew quiet. I surrendered to what I came here with, to what I'll go out of here with. What more courageous thing could there be?

3. HOLD DOORS OPEN FOR PEOPLE.

4. SMILE. On both number three and four: The following is perhaps the most simple principle there is, applicable to or perhaps even relegated by the beating heart. We like to feel good, we don't like to feel bad. We ALL have this in common, even the birds and the deers and my cat and your dog--just for them good is food and bad is danger of predator. Feeling good is a contagion as is feeling bad--literally, the chemicals behind each of these emotional reactions do nothing but stimulate more of the same chemicals. Chemicals are the body's ensured unconscious response to see to it that those good experiences are enhanced and repeated and those bad are feared and avoided. There is great , great power in this. So do your part! Make a small difference every day. Help people feel good. It will make you feel good, too.

5. BE CONSISTENT. Stick to your word. Do what you'll say you do and don't say you'll do something if you can't or you wont or you have to drag your feet about it because secretly it makes you feel bad or stresses you out or drains your energy. If you change your mind don't fear the consequences or make excuses. Simply see to it that your actions now stick to your new word.

6. RECOGNIZE WHAT YOU RESIST PERSISTS. Simply put, wherever you go there you are. What you don't want to deal with will constantly nag and drag you down all quiet or loud until you are forced to confront it in an explosive manner. Be good to yourself--have courage to look at your nagging good or bad feelings even if initially scary and running you down. This is called preventative action. Or personal responsiblity. Be easy on yourself when yet again you slow down only to find, oh damn, my eyes were closed again.

7. TRAVEL. I don't mean go to hotels and restaurants for 7 nights and 6 days. I mean get out on the road in your own state or in a foreign country and find the things and try the things the locals do there. See a new part of the world with new eyes but with the same precious sky and earth and sun. Keep yourself fresh, vital. Come home and see how very alive and boundless you're able to feel in your own little home corner of routine and regularity. PRACTICE THIS.

8. REMEMBER INFINITY. At its base level the world, our whole universe in its entirety is nothing more than endless amounts of protons neutrons electrons and that odd space in-between. The very base level application of this: anything is possible. ANYTHING. That makes everything ordinary extraordinary, and everything extraordinary actually quite ordinary. Modern science itself is a mere hundred years old! As recent as the late 1800's people actually believed that the size of one's skull actually determined not only their intelligence but their superiority--making women and non-whites "scientifically" incapable of certain levels of intelligence and inferior as well. Stay open. Don't settle.

9. TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Be brave enough to try something different for the sake of your own infinite human spirit. The most dangerous thing isn't conformity, it's unconsciousness. Recognize the world for the series of opposites that it is. Whatever action you take throws equivalent energy in the opposite direction. So if your a peace lover go militant for a day. A godlover go totally nihilist tonight! A warrior soldier sit passive attentive Zazen all morning, action of non-action. Counter-balance yourself. Stay fresh--open yourself to the content of this--avowing yourself to the experience of the present, not a dictate of your own reactive unconscious measures.

10. FORGET WORDS. Forget words, forget lists, forget all you've read. Words are words. Yes, they are the first form of contractual obligation of action. Yes they harness the power inside of you in sound form given out to the air and to ears or the eyes and to the breath and the water and the fire of the sun. They are the first tangible form of action after your thoughts. But action is every step you take. So forget words, this list, all you've ever read or heard. Touch down within yourself until you realize, until you know for sure that who you are is how you be. Make your own list. Be your own King, Queen.

11. BREAK THE RULES, every one, on your own list. Remedy your unconsciousness. Don't be afraid of it. If you are accept you are. Then love yourself, forgive. And open again, again, again. It's the surest tool you have to bring you closer to other human beings or breathing or living creations.

12. CLOSENESS IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. Realize the choice is yours: closeness could be the very reason that you're here.

Harvest-End After-Wedding Thoughts

Really, I wasn't expecting this.

Friday night is a cross-quarter though, the last holiday of the harvest year, lunar Samhain (which I still don't get that people dont understand this stuff about life, it's so simple a part of understanding to me it's commonsensical. How can one look at something easy for example as the rising and falling of high and low tide and not get the import of movement of sun and moon?? Anyway. Not here to soapbox or vilify or happily call movement magic, but it makes me roll eyes even so...) And so be Friday what it is, this time of year isn't about a quickening as much as a great still, in order to show what is just plain TRUE: what's before me now is the truth, on every level, try as I wish to or strain as fear causes me sometimes to, in order to see or choose not to see.

I am not the same woman I was when I left last week and yet somehow deeply, clearly, I am, through and through. Sean's wedding was beautiful, out of a story book. Perfection, all the clear crisp colors of love and loyalty and friends and family and Fall. He texted Saturday morning to hug Jamie, his almost-wife, we were getting ready she calm as a kitten her dad cooking for us and bloody mary's and all the girls giddy with hair in curls and make-up half-done running around in our robes. Then he texted minutes later that he was so nervous he was puking. I called Brian ASAP he said dad was freaking told me all the last minute unravelling stuff that was causing dad his red-faced growly take-control wild barking ways which is how he loves, and then Brian said too: Dad took Seanie off under his arm for a walk. And that of course set my nerves in and turned my tears on, too. Little brother, o god my little brother this one thing I can not do for you, I was sick with a twist in my stomach and it was us again in my heart us since he was born and I was three years old him this little perfect angel I would over myself love forever no matter what and take care of and protect, and on the party-bus drive to the chapel Sean called Jamie freaking out where were the rings and Jamie cool and collect handled it and my eyes heavy with tears because this is her job now and thank you life for making her so tender and right for him, so gentle and loving and beautiful and strong. And I swallowed the tears because she said NONE! and I knew that's what she needed, peace not emotionalism but I don't do well with that, quelling my emotions so during the ceremony hives came out on me and I wasn't right the rest of the night, which was ok, because the bubble of pure and love around them was. And not only was Sean always who I vowed to protect, but in older years he was more like a dad: showing me how a man could and should and can be, and so I guess this is how I learned to let him protect me. And he knows this, my gratitude, every chance I can I've thanked him for showing such important roles to me. I love him so, I do I do. And Jamie and her family, the tenderness of it all, how beautiful she was and they all are, how touchingly real and meant to be.

And at Erin's after it was all over and before we found the dark cafe for homemade Sunday dinner, my cousin-sister she let me lay next to her and let me cry and listened to the last two months of my life...Acupuncture school indecisiveness and book-writing and unemployment denied, Josh and closing the door on all that, and Sean too and living with mom and dad and when I woke Monday morning in her bed it was alright, I was peaceful again and felt so sure of my life. I pulled to the bottom of her hill and my logic telling me to drive to Ellicot City but instead, sitting there tree-yellow and red hill with peeks of blue brilliant sky between, I turned right because it felt right and drove Frederick Road the four miles or so the long industry and ghetto-lined old faces on the street sunshine drive in to the heart of the city where it meets MLK; and every song is a love-song when you say goodbye to someone and that morning I don't mean Sean. Which was happily puzzling to me but not in a way I had or have the energy to figure out because timing is what it all comes down to--but for the first time in a long time--maybe since ever? My heart is cleaned out of the people that command it, so maybe I finally am getting to be free and have new chances of the what is really best and meant for me.

I asked mom this morning, if Baltimore is what I really care about, and I do I do I love that city, I love it and know it the way I love how my own feet move or my own blood paces up or slows down...how to explain this other than it is where I was born, not perhaps where I specifically grew up but where I was born and where I went to be with family the first 12 or so years of my life so that is intrinsic enough. But this is shamanistic, also, what I learned for sure when I lived on the road after reading about it so many times in so many different indigenous, traditional writings. The land holds it's own energies, the very elements that make up the environment, and it is this that draws the personality then of the culture and the people: either in a way that draws people to flow with it in harmony, or causes them to fight against it because they are fighting, on an elemental level, themselves, their own "nature"...but anyway soapbox again, but is it? I am suddenly re-questioning that idea of home. I've made no secrets about the Baltimore-trance hold that I've been under, but if that is the case then why aren't I there yet? The whole thing with Brooks and Mike Cades showing up again this weekend and that Warehouse dream imploding how it did...

It is all flat, laid out before me now and I in the center looking side to side, like some book I am in the middle of both writing and reading. And that is all I know to do, keep writing. The only thing. My bills will pile up and my friends will continue to call where are you Kel and Seanie and Jame will come home from Mexico and go back to Memphis and finally have some time to relax and love will sit around me like a halo or some place that is waiting when I close my eyes and dream. I'll write this book til it's done, loooord aunts uncles everyone, dont ask me what's next because right now I am content with I do not know, or at least, I will write my book til the end that is all I know to do.

WATCH THIS. The Divorce Papers Between Us...

Facebook users, go here. My God and if you haven't yet, check out Brave New Voices...I literally watched the semi-finals on HBO totally awe-struck. I have hope again bc of these youth...