The part of me I landed on since even before Maryland I have pretended not to see but it's sitting here finally staring back at me. This happens some days your one-eyed blindness comes a-reckoning.
There is fine gray rain-light in my back room at Ocean Pines. The quiet truth is you can't go back again. If you know me you know words flex in and out and taunt and haunt my head, you know fire propels and burns my guts and runs my legs and doesn't let me settle, you know the arrows of these things draw electric on my skin and you know the deep quiet places I like to disappear from it all into mellow trance and stare. You also know there's a shine that transmutes everything and illumines the muscle of my heart and leads me and that most of all for this heartlight I will and do forsake all.
My father leaves for golf after coming back for a rain jacket. It is near 60 out today. My mother is on a plane to Mexico. Miles from here my cousins are in cozy nests each with their loves and this of course is the only thing that makes sense. I try not to be jealous or misunderstand. The first beach boy I ever loved has wrung me up and washed me out which is exactly what I came here to let him do. All of it is past now Kel, can you be past it, too? HOME. Where I stand it sits out like a soft grassy tump just above some fast moving blue waters. They are crystal clear. To write this makes me also see the Ocean City pier. There is above it a sky that is soft and pink-yellow with the warmth of a season-worn sun. The waters are tracking and quicker than they've been in a long time and yes, that's it. I don't have to cross them, and that is what it is to stand here. Because you can go back you can go back over and over and again to the many dark falls just behind you oh but to stand here, on the grassy tump with forested woods thick and deep just steps away from my feet--and so many cliff sides on the shore to the other side. You also don't have to. You also can just sit shoreside, and breathe. You also can scoop handful. You can drink girl, you can drink. My god this thing will move you, you can let it, can stop the canvassing and cutting of jungle vines can stop all the bloody poison you keep ingesting in your veins. You don't have to cross these waters again because there's no place else left to go. You can jump in, right here, and let the waters wash you through.
Or you can just stand, too. Stand in this peace awhile, on this sturdy ground. Appreciating the scenery. The where you've been.
Showing posts with label the men from when i was wild. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the men from when i was wild. Show all posts
January 4, 2015
November 13, 2014
Love letters, from Laguna.
The coffee shop I like to go to is on PCH. When I first moved here from HB coffee shop was the very first thing I looked up. You can sit in the alley and see and speak with the sea. A corner away is the beach where at the top of the street an oak tree stands so great-big and enchanted I am certain you can get to Avalon through there. Seriously, there's even a random statue of Pan on that corner which always makes me think about the artists then hippies that mapped this town. Supposedly, Ken Kesey lived on my street decades ago when it was a commune. There is an unfinished, always under construction straw-bale sprawling mansion which is the first house on the right and most times when the man is up there under the tarp with the yellow light on slapping on some earthen adobe I think of that. The free love vibes that built all the funky houses, tucked away back in the canyon where I live. The folks in and around town comfy-clothed with the little lippy smiles that embody that, still.
Sometimes people in their frenzy get under my skin which is what happened yesterday. I was in the alley fusing creative writing with thesis research and had really dropped in to the flow. This hetero couple shows up, he was loud, she louder and that's one of the first things I learned to hate about Southern California. The obnoxious warm-up suit men with too white teeth, yoga pants women with fake tits fake face or at the least fake blonde hair. These people always talk too loud and are purposefully drawing attention to themselves. Often they have a little annoying fuckn dog.
Our coffee shop almost never gets these types, who in my experience don't take the time to meander and sip and stare at the sea. Anyhow I got up from the alley as soon as they sat down and went inside to the high top in the window. It had just cleared out and the man was there, beginning the afternoon ritual of roasting the beans. It's the only coffee shop I've ever been a regular at that roasts their own. The whir noise and knee-deep smell has become part of the atmosphere for me of love.
It was a little after four so the sun was muted by the horizon clouds. Hazy orange light came through the front window in a slant from the blind pulled half down. I was writing and thought I saw a guy I knew. It started me thinking about how many men I've dated since I've been here. A lot. Real, adult dating. I don't drink so not talking hook-up or first night sex followed by oh shit what next. But like, I meet men on the beach or out and about or for a while on the dating site and then the customary phone calls and get to know you dates.
A face from the past was on my radar yesterday, we talked for a few minutes about how much we have in common because of our beach lifestyle. He made me think about this. Specifically: I have dated a lot of good, just not right for me men. Since right around when I moved to Laguna two years ago it started with a lifeguard in Newport and pretty much since has not stopped except for last year when I took three months off. When a funny outspoken Brazilian guy who drank too much got me playing the bullshit hang-out games I was so good at in Ocean City before I came west.
I am actually single right now, not dating anyone. Enjoying the golden silence, considering the momentum of my life. My life, built by me, measured out in breaths I take in and out and choices I've made. Clear seeing, looking out on a life made by my own two hands! I have only four months left of school, including this month. I am not ready to talk about that yet, but it is there like a new part of my breath and I am tending it everyday. As a rule, since a gnarly gnarly break-up in 2008, I keep my love life tight and quiet on the internet. We broke up the same month I got on Facebook, so it's sorta been how I reinvented. Figured out who I was, separate from a man. That's six years behind me now though--and in the orange haze light, that sun that spilled over my hands like it was meant to feed the ink from finger tap to screen, this all amounted in my head yesterday. Thinking on the men that have showed up as I've walked this whole, wild way made me pause and see this whole, wild way:
My god, I have been in Laguna over two years now. That is longer than I have ever lived anywhere, ever! Since I first left my mom's when I was 18. I have stayed in one place. I stayed! Even at Philosopher's Terrace, where I had my name on the lease from 98 to spring in 02, I still left to go live twice with mom. Alcohol and drugs. They'll do that shit to you.
I almost left, last summer. I almost fell back, like a wise woman can slide a minute
into dumb girl hang out games, to my old style of cut and run.
Last week I was picking out furniture for my sun deck, this little wooden alter built up out of the side of a Laguna Canyon wall. Underneath, my compost bin. Attached to post, my hammock swings. I just bought fins, snorkel gear, got my wetsuit out to live in my trunk for easy access. It would seem rather than making cut and run plans, my intent is to snuggle even further down and in.
What contentment, to nod at the coffee roaster, glance up from the orange-gold on my hands. It doesn't feel melodramatic anymore, like something I need to figure out. It just is, easy as how the same sun that rises will eventually go down. Love letters, from Laguna. From and to my heart, my soul. They are my own :)
Sometimes people in their frenzy get under my skin which is what happened yesterday. I was in the alley fusing creative writing with thesis research and had really dropped in to the flow. This hetero couple shows up, he was loud, she louder and that's one of the first things I learned to hate about Southern California. The obnoxious warm-up suit men with too white teeth, yoga pants women with fake tits fake face or at the least fake blonde hair. These people always talk too loud and are purposefully drawing attention to themselves. Often they have a little annoying fuckn dog.
Our coffee shop almost never gets these types, who in my experience don't take the time to meander and sip and stare at the sea. Anyhow I got up from the alley as soon as they sat down and went inside to the high top in the window. It had just cleared out and the man was there, beginning the afternoon ritual of roasting the beans. It's the only coffee shop I've ever been a regular at that roasts their own. The whir noise and knee-deep smell has become part of the atmosphere for me of love.
It was a little after four so the sun was muted by the horizon clouds. Hazy orange light came through the front window in a slant from the blind pulled half down. I was writing and thought I saw a guy I knew. It started me thinking about how many men I've dated since I've been here. A lot. Real, adult dating. I don't drink so not talking hook-up or first night sex followed by oh shit what next. But like, I meet men on the beach or out and about or for a while on the dating site and then the customary phone calls and get to know you dates.
A face from the past was on my radar yesterday, we talked for a few minutes about how much we have in common because of our beach lifestyle. He made me think about this. Specifically: I have dated a lot of good, just not right for me men. Since right around when I moved to Laguna two years ago it started with a lifeguard in Newport and pretty much since has not stopped except for last year when I took three months off. When a funny outspoken Brazilian guy who drank too much got me playing the bullshit hang-out games I was so good at in Ocean City before I came west.
I am actually single right now, not dating anyone. Enjoying the golden silence, considering the momentum of my life. My life, built by me, measured out in breaths I take in and out and choices I've made. Clear seeing, looking out on a life made by my own two hands! I have only four months left of school, including this month. I am not ready to talk about that yet, but it is there like a new part of my breath and I am tending it everyday. As a rule, since a gnarly gnarly break-up in 2008, I keep my love life tight and quiet on the internet. We broke up the same month I got on Facebook, so it's sorta been how I reinvented. Figured out who I was, separate from a man. That's six years behind me now though--and in the orange haze light, that sun that spilled over my hands like it was meant to feed the ink from finger tap to screen, this all amounted in my head yesterday. Thinking on the men that have showed up as I've walked this whole, wild way made me pause and see this whole, wild way:
My god, I have been in Laguna over two years now. That is longer than I have ever lived anywhere, ever! Since I first left my mom's when I was 18. I have stayed in one place. I stayed! Even at Philosopher's Terrace, where I had my name on the lease from 98 to spring in 02, I still left to go live twice with mom. Alcohol and drugs. They'll do that shit to you.
I almost left, last summer. I almost fell back, like a wise woman can slide a minute
Last week I was picking out furniture for my sun deck, this little wooden alter built up out of the side of a Laguna Canyon wall. Underneath, my compost bin. Attached to post, my hammock swings. I just bought fins, snorkel gear, got my wetsuit out to live in my trunk for easy access. It would seem rather than making cut and run plans, my intent is to snuggle even further down and in.
What contentment, to nod at the coffee roaster, glance up from the orange-gold on my hands. It doesn't feel melodramatic anymore, like something I need to figure out. It just is, easy as how the same sun that rises will eventually go down. Love letters, from Laguna. From and to my heart, my soul. They are my own :)
On their Facebook page! Me in the alley.
I put their sticker over the Starbucks logo on the plastic cup I reuse.
Which cracks people up. It goes everywhere I go.
November 5, 2014
You know, like from Peter Pan?
I left Jan's and had tacos then got Starbucks and got on the road. On the 73 the veins in my forehead were so thick I think you could jump them like rope. Like tangle them out from underneath my skull bone or apart from the muscle up there and use them for sidewalk games. That's what traffic feels like. Trying to untangle the jumprope jarble from my brain.
I'd been so calm too--what the hell is all this red brake light on the toll road? The whole damn reason they make an elitist toll system through the rich part of south county is so entitled brats like me don't have to deal. Just eww. No I didn't actually think that last part that's just me making fun of the southern cali-chick in me. Elitist. Entitled. White. Bratty-ass. Chicken. Me.
Anyhow. I really do have issues with road rage but I haven't in a long time. The way the 73 runs up and down the coastal hills is like a smooth finger along the backbone of the land and feeling her long slow in then out--up then down--breath touches me in that inside place that hummms with quiet rest. The moon fat and white to my left. I love that stretch of road. It's why I originally moved to Laguna. Almost three years ago now…or anyhow come May. I had to take the toll road for an ESL conference to San Diego and was wowed by the rolling canyon up-downs. Green expanse this side of the 405 with no construction and dirt hiking paths? Woah what is this magic land? I didn't know a thing about Laguna. I'd only been there once, and that was dancing. And it was dark.
Jan said some stuff near the end of our session though and I guess it pissed me off. That's the part that challenges me as a therapist. My job isn't to tell you what to do, or how to think, or any of that. My job is to help you feel understood. Truly seen, witnessed for what's true in you.
In this way you get to become stronger in who you really are.
And my point today to my therapist was that Wendy, you know like from Peter Pan? Wasn't just the mama in that story. She didn't just play the good girl role, in fact she got to explore never having to grow up, too. She got to have all the same fun as the lost boys and Peter Pan. And that's a hell of a lot fun…So it's not all just stunted, to be enchanted by Never never land. It would be if Wendy didn't know all the subtleties of her role.
But if she does? Does that mean Never never land is still in control? If Wendy is exploring parts of herself, a conscious choice of subversiveness? I got all triggered because I didn't feel like my therapist heard my point. I told her as much, and now I am sitting here wondering: so is it Jan's job to align and hear where I, speaking for me back then, as a wild grl Peter Pan teen, stood? Or to challenge adult me now?
And is there truth in her point, since I'm pissed? That I still love for the enchantment to take control? And if that's a role she's gonna take with me, to challenge me--how do I feel about that, working with clients, challenging them?
Is it something I'd want them to leave with…to have bulging out their brains? I trust her, a lot. And am willing to ride this to see where it leads. I drove to see my clients, with that rope-vein jumping like nuts outta my head. I chose to just focus on a secret I know about, which is were all crazy, just working it out in our own ways. And working it out or covering it up or whatever we each do looks different for us, each and every one. All of us have our own very unique styles of crazy-management. It's a wonder we make it from day to day.
Tonight I for one am happy that at least for today, I didn't ram in to the back of any cars. I actually laughed at myself freaking over a couple brake lights, running those up-downs, grateful to have a bank account, a means to afford a fast track, the little unspoken gifts that made it so I wasn't in traffic on the 405. And now, it feels good--I like how you're there waiting for me, like you used to be, sweet ol familiar blank screen.
I'd been so calm too--what the hell is all this red brake light on the toll road? The whole damn reason they make an elitist toll system through the rich part of south county is so entitled brats like me don't have to deal. Just eww. No I didn't actually think that last part that's just me making fun of the southern cali-chick in me. Elitist. Entitled. White. Bratty-ass. Chicken. Me.
Anyhow. I really do have issues with road rage but I haven't in a long time. The way the 73 runs up and down the coastal hills is like a smooth finger along the backbone of the land and feeling her long slow in then out--up then down--breath touches me in that inside place that hummms with quiet rest. The moon fat and white to my left. I love that stretch of road. It's why I originally moved to Laguna. Almost three years ago now…or anyhow come May. I had to take the toll road for an ESL conference to San Diego and was wowed by the rolling canyon up-downs. Green expanse this side of the 405 with no construction and dirt hiking paths? Woah what is this magic land? I didn't know a thing about Laguna. I'd only been there once, and that was dancing. And it was dark.
Jan said some stuff near the end of our session though and I guess it pissed me off. That's the part that challenges me as a therapist. My job isn't to tell you what to do, or how to think, or any of that. My job is to help you feel understood. Truly seen, witnessed for what's true in you.
In this way you get to become stronger in who you really are.
And my point today to my therapist was that Wendy, you know like from Peter Pan? Wasn't just the mama in that story. She didn't just play the good girl role, in fact she got to explore never having to grow up, too. She got to have all the same fun as the lost boys and Peter Pan. And that's a hell of a lot fun…So it's not all just stunted, to be enchanted by Never never land. It would be if Wendy didn't know all the subtleties of her role.
But if she does? Does that mean Never never land is still in control? If Wendy is exploring parts of herself, a conscious choice of subversiveness? I got all triggered because I didn't feel like my therapist heard my point. I told her as much, and now I am sitting here wondering: so is it Jan's job to align and hear where I, speaking for me back then, as a wild grl Peter Pan teen, stood? Or to challenge adult me now?
And is there truth in her point, since I'm pissed? That I still love for the enchantment to take control? And if that's a role she's gonna take with me, to challenge me--how do I feel about that, working with clients, challenging them?
Is it something I'd want them to leave with…to have bulging out their brains? I trust her, a lot. And am willing to ride this to see where it leads. I drove to see my clients, with that rope-vein jumping like nuts outta my head. I chose to just focus on a secret I know about, which is were all crazy, just working it out in our own ways. And working it out or covering it up or whatever we each do looks different for us, each and every one. All of us have our own very unique styles of crazy-management. It's a wonder we make it from day to day.
Tonight I for one am happy that at least for today, I didn't ram in to the back of any cars. I actually laughed at myself freaking over a couple brake lights, running those up-downs, grateful to have a bank account, a means to afford a fast track, the little unspoken gifts that made it so I wasn't in traffic on the 405. And now, it feels good--I like how you're there waiting for me, like you used to be, sweet ol familiar blank screen.
June 24, 2012
In my swim suit with my wild ocean hair
On the 5 today I looked at the coastal mountains around Toro Canyon. I call it Route 5 and pronounce it "root" like I'm from back east. Which I am. Derryn makes fun of me because that's how she says it too, like she's a British African. Which she is. I love my life there is nothing else to say and driving and seeing all the green and high white light and blue that's exactly what I said. Man I love my life. I must've said it ten times this weekend. Moving here is one of the best decisions I ever made. I say this in to my headphone piece. Driving on root 5 on the phone. I know me too Muller says back to me. Me too.
He is going back to Ocean City where we are from. He goes next week. He tells me all these guys from back then say hi Kel and I am like that's so crazy. Because that's what I sit and do write about the beach and entertain their ghosts while I do. I can not see the end of from here how will I ever finish this book who knows but damn am I enjoying the road. I got three rejections letters this month. BLAUAUAGHH I continue and will continue to go. I am in Starbucks now after spending the weekend at Derryn's timeshare in Oceanside. Assing up with her puberty-aged sons. Laughing at Youtube videos they recommend. Seeing how viley immature I am and my sense of humor. Muller knows this part of me too. I am sundrenched and peaceful from being sea-witness again and again. I am full from sharing with a true wild woman friend. I am full and satiated in that salty way of sand stretch skin. I am happy especially to be beside my coffee shop window two blocks from my house in Huntington. I haven't been home yet am still in my swim suit with my wild ocean hair. I love my life the sun the blue skies the words the yoga bike rides the water good food and laughing friends. It doesn't end.
I am enjoying looking out the window you know? Nodding my head at this life and this ride. I've made a decision about some things ruminating in me which have to do with how to commit and how to begin. I am 35 which is old to some but to me brand brand new, or anyway quite young. I have the whole world in me and also around me and I see it and say yes to it and that is an amazingly fruitful way to be. One I've had to learn and learn and relearn again. I like to learn and am a teacher which means learning's my job. So I will look out and say yes this is it where I am and also how cool, the view stretching so far in all directions, the view and all the where's and how's I still will go.
He is going back to Ocean City where we are from. He goes next week. He tells me all these guys from back then say hi Kel and I am like that's so crazy. Because that's what I sit and do write about the beach and entertain their ghosts while I do. I can not see the end of from here how will I ever finish this book who knows but damn am I enjoying the road. I got three rejections letters this month. BLAUAUAGHH I continue and will continue to go. I am in Starbucks now after spending the weekend at Derryn's timeshare in Oceanside. Assing up with her puberty-aged sons. Laughing at Youtube videos they recommend. Seeing how viley immature I am and my sense of humor. Muller knows this part of me too. I am sundrenched and peaceful from being sea-witness again and again. I am full from sharing with a true wild woman friend. I am full and satiated in that salty way of sand stretch skin. I am happy especially to be beside my coffee shop window two blocks from my house in Huntington. I haven't been home yet am still in my swim suit with my wild ocean hair. I love my life the sun the blue skies the words the yoga bike rides the water good food and laughing friends. It doesn't end.
I am enjoying looking out the window you know? Nodding my head at this life and this ride. I've made a decision about some things ruminating in me which have to do with how to commit and how to begin. I am 35 which is old to some but to me brand brand new, or anyway quite young. I have the whole world in me and also around me and I see it and say yes to it and that is an amazingly fruitful way to be. One I've had to learn and learn and relearn again. I like to learn and am a teacher which means learning's my job. So I will look out and say yes this is it where I am and also how cool, the view stretching so far in all directions, the view and all the where's and how's I still will go.
May 29, 2012
That dumb happy headless fury
It's been 17 years since I've seen this kid and we talk for hours each time one of us calls. It just goes on and on.
He lives in Hollywood now and he knew me when love was easy as giggling. My heart was whole and pure once and I trusted it and never gave it's direction any doubt and this was that last and final time, before the feeling of broken or thinking too much, before I felt afraid. We talk for hours, we laugh until I have no breath and have to take my sunglasses off to wipe at my eyes. We talk about Kevin and the memories are so tender at the edge it makes it hard for me to believe I ever let myself stop feeling that way.
We were kids. He tells me he remembers when we first met when he was 13. That I was with Konan at the Fractured Prune. This makes sense, they had the best donuts in town and Ko and I were going up the alley by that age to buy cigarettes at the Quality Inn from the machine. They cost a buck then.
I tell him about when I first met Kev. I was 12. He worked the Beach Club back when they still had video games. He bummed a smoke. Kevin's been gone 5 years. Last week was the anniversary and that night I put a pic up of us on FB not knowing it was his memorial day. I got teary when Ryan told me yea Wednesday was his date I thought you knew that and then we wowed low and quiet for a minute sure as we have been a few different times that Kevin's the one reuniting us. Then we told more stories and laughed and sniffled some more. Ryan was his best friend. I asked him remember that time you guys came up to a rave with me and we stayed with my mom and you never broke Beavis and Butthead the whole entire time and ma thought there was something wrong with you two? We laugh that hysterical crying laugh that only the oldest friends do.
He tells me stories that happened in the years in-between. I can literally see them. I can see the faces Kevin made, his wide or black star eyes, see the postures Ryan took as he gives me each detail. He's a story-teller and a carny and most of all one of the old school beach boys and talking to him is like finding a part of myself I knew for a long time was real but then eventually one day just decided had been made up all along. It's like proving myself right after convincing myself for so long I wasn't. A feeling of peace that matters finally and only to me. I just never ever thought I could talk about this stuff again. Not with someone who was so immediately right there. I feel so grateful. I feel so living--in this certain kind of brand new way.
Kevin James was my friend since we were 12 and my love for a little while during a time that most people call the best summer of their life. I loved him. We shared the sweetest innocent romance and it was the last good and pure thing I ever had. It was too sad and too far gone, too hard to think of til now. I loved him with that dumb happy headless fury we love with at 18. The memories are endless and I didn't even know they were there, all lined up side by side in some lost little corner of this sorta busted heart. Who knew? I feel him live as if he were here.
Life is funny. That's all.
He lives in Hollywood now and he knew me when love was easy as giggling. My heart was whole and pure once and I trusted it and never gave it's direction any doubt and this was that last and final time, before the feeling of broken or thinking too much, before I felt afraid. We talk for hours, we laugh until I have no breath and have to take my sunglasses off to wipe at my eyes. We talk about Kevin and the memories are so tender at the edge it makes it hard for me to believe I ever let myself stop feeling that way.
We were kids. He tells me he remembers when we first met when he was 13. That I was with Konan at the Fractured Prune. This makes sense, they had the best donuts in town and Ko and I were going up the alley by that age to buy cigarettes at the Quality Inn from the machine. They cost a buck then.
I tell him about when I first met Kev. I was 12. He worked the Beach Club back when they still had video games. He bummed a smoke. Kevin's been gone 5 years. Last week was the anniversary and that night I put a pic up of us on FB not knowing it was his memorial day. I got teary when Ryan told me yea Wednesday was his date I thought you knew that and then we wowed low and quiet for a minute sure as we have been a few different times that Kevin's the one reuniting us. Then we told more stories and laughed and sniffled some more. Ryan was his best friend. I asked him remember that time you guys came up to a rave with me and we stayed with my mom and you never broke Beavis and Butthead the whole entire time and ma thought there was something wrong with you two? We laugh that hysterical crying laugh that only the oldest friends do.
He tells me stories that happened in the years in-between. I can literally see them. I can see the faces Kevin made, his wide or black star eyes, see the postures Ryan took as he gives me each detail. He's a story-teller and a carny and most of all one of the old school beach boys and talking to him is like finding a part of myself I knew for a long time was real but then eventually one day just decided had been made up all along. It's like proving myself right after convincing myself for so long I wasn't. A feeling of peace that matters finally and only to me. I just never ever thought I could talk about this stuff again. Not with someone who was so immediately right there. I feel so grateful. I feel so living--in this certain kind of brand new way.
Kevin James was my friend since we were 12 and my love for a little while during a time that most people call the best summer of their life. I loved him. We shared the sweetest innocent romance and it was the last good and pure thing I ever had. It was too sad and too far gone, too hard to think of til now. I loved him with that dumb happy headless fury we love with at 18. The memories are endless and I didn't even know they were there, all lined up side by side in some lost little corner of this sorta busted heart. Who knew? I feel him live as if he were here.
Life is funny. That's all.
 |
| Me and Ryan, 1995 |
Kev and me, 1995. Ocean City, MD.
December 6, 2010
From When I Was Wild. OC & Coming Home.
It was spring time I was fine you looked finer with your brown hair long then and the body you still took care of we were eighteen I had bleach in my hair and a checked blue shirt tied at the belly I wanted to say was gingham, but was not, we were suburb not country kids and you took me on a picnic under the power lines so I tried to play the part. It was hot for the spring and the pot made it so we couldn't tell was that just the heat or was that melting in our minds. You loved Jesus but wouldn't admit it, and late at night we'd get in fights because it was a misogyny thing afterall for you who secretly didn't trust his mom, who thought the world was going on fire because the women were aloud to speak again the weird thing is you an Only Man back then...only one never turned on me but loved me better when I got to use my tongue. Voice people, this is about voice not sex. But we did that too didn't we, the hot kind the teenage kind wicked and innocent out back in the car at parties or the church parking lot or the one time under the tree in the graveyard on acid our bodys seemed so big, then small, our arms wavery my breath its own language echoing off the red coming off the trees.
I wore dark purple lipstick then, or red, and had the hottest little body remember I used to show off my tatoos.
There were all those others at the beach, it was never easy for me to talk about that. Part of it was how I hurt you when you and my one friend went off walking down next to the ocean. That was the night, or more next morning on the boards yellow mist of sun trying to make up its mind am I heat making dry this water or light making clear this new day from the dark that I knew that I was different for good that I had made my choice, without meaning to. Seeing what I was capable of. As if you'd ever cheat on me. You know that night--two of the four guys I was smoking with are dead now? We were on acid then, too. One of them I never even write about. He was a mean little fuck, we used to get drunk and I'd run my mouth and the one night over in the Meadows at that one place when they were living with RayRay we had a flinching contest where I let him hit me hard as he could, as long as I got to hit him back, and again and again we hit one another and I stood and took it all 108 pounds of me thinking I was a man. And that was the choice, there were always two in me la santa y la diabla, and that is the night I ran off with the devil holding my hand.
God damn did we have fun. I heard from someone on the periphery back then this week--this happens enough, private messages thanking me for this blog--that I would say it happens regularly and so thank you all publicly for reading it makes me feel so, so good and this is a shout to all you private ones reading along, and a specific story just for him. I remember you and some others were living uptown on 143rd doing the more mellow surf thing I only made it up there for example when Jesse or Kareem came to town because hidden in someone's wet suit was all the drugs! And anyhow one day I was off or likely just on break from hot assing on the mic to Big and Meth and Tom Petty and The Dead up at the peir (Jerry still alive in the beginning of that summer, dead by the end and vigils on the boardwalk and the 9th street squatters house still there, near where the old, old old Chat Street used to be) and you walked in I think with Mike? and we were in the middle of an all out indoor water gun fight, blue plastic dollar store beach sand buckets filled to the top with oozy automatics and us shooting water or late at night emptied-forties malt-liquor straight in to our mouths...The boys all shirtless only wore only baggies that summer that's how you knew the local rats downtown, so I was always like fuck it I'll just wear my bikini all the time! You who was always on your own buzz keepin it so chill had the most shocked look on your face when you walked in the house--front door always wide open bedroom me and Fannon's then me and Kev's once Brian moved out always closed
--and then it broke, the shock and you smiled like I'd never seen before a light of joy and radicallness breaking out straight from your mouth. You grabbed a seat way on the side of the room one of the bros tossed you a beer and then of course did we proceed. That might of been, but likely was not, the same watergun fight that wound up across the street running the outdoor halls of the Americana sneaking around corners and hiding behind doors when I camped out upstairs at the dirty frat guys (I used to stand in the alley out back and cus those fuckers out all the time even back then clear to me down the center how we were different and stood on different lines) on their front porch and waited until Jeremiah gave up and then dumped an entire bucket of water on his head when we was walking back surrendered to the apartment. Remember that shit? We kept a baby wading pool out on our front porch to chill in and would add ice in the afternoon to keep all the beers more cold.
Hahahaha. I live here again and barely ever think of that stuff, those times anymore. Fannon gone, Kev. Blugh Kev. Phil...
Una Santa, y Una Diabla. The poetic imagination and living our own myths. Last week I was chilling one night over with these friends of mine, hanging out with this girl from the county but who I never knew back then only met down here at the beach, an old friend's friend. I got to telling stories and of course because I am writing so much again and also because I am a McMullen and all those all those all those late night convos as a girl, or around the table basement at Grammy and Pop's or any single one of the aunts and uncles the Jameson and laughter and warm remembering every time, because of all that and because of my myth, my heart my spirit where the saint and the devil collide I am a wild women, full of the spirit and the ancient forbidden gnosis which is just know-how which, common sense people is just know thy self, this wisdom business that penetrates so deep within. And so for all of that of course I am storyteller, La Cantadora she who knows. And so chillin last Wednesday late night, and Saturday too I got to telling some stories of my own, I have a lot, and a lot of them some of the most important ones are from the beach they all, so much happened right here.
So without meaning to I am gathering bones again and doing it near the ocean in the northeast wind under the winter sky. It is so important, this archeology, these bits and pieces scattered everywhere it is the real work it is the poet's work it is the work always always always of recircling the brave warm or coolly shadowed places we continually label or even disregard that when we are still live deeply, live on, within. In the end these are known and called by that most powered word of words, home in the end I choose not to go with the howl scowl on my face but the wicked happy satiated smile of she who knows that peaceful all-knowingg grin, so right now today and tomorrow's today and each and every step I take I say Amen. Amen Amen. This is all real and really happenening, this is life it does and it did.
I wore dark purple lipstick then, or red, and had the hottest little body remember I used to show off my tatoos.
There were all those others at the beach, it was never easy for me to talk about that. Part of it was how I hurt you when you and my one friend went off walking down next to the ocean. That was the night, or more next morning on the boards yellow mist of sun trying to make up its mind am I heat making dry this water or light making clear this new day from the dark that I knew that I was different for good that I had made my choice, without meaning to. Seeing what I was capable of. As if you'd ever cheat on me. You know that night--two of the four guys I was smoking with are dead now? We were on acid then, too. One of them I never even write about. He was a mean little fuck, we used to get drunk and I'd run my mouth and the one night over in the Meadows at that one place when they were living with RayRay we had a flinching contest where I let him hit me hard as he could, as long as I got to hit him back, and again and again we hit one another and I stood and took it all 108 pounds of me thinking I was a man. And that was the choice, there were always two in me la santa y la diabla, and that is the night I ran off with the devil holding my hand.
God damn did we have fun. I heard from someone on the periphery back then this week--this happens enough, private messages thanking me for this blog--that I would say it happens regularly and so thank you all publicly for reading it makes me feel so, so good and this is a shout to all you private ones reading along, and a specific story just for him. I remember you and some others were living uptown on 143rd doing the more mellow surf thing I only made it up there for example when Jesse or Kareem came to town because hidden in someone's wet suit was all the drugs! And anyhow one day I was off or likely just on break from hot assing on the mic to Big and Meth and Tom Petty and The Dead up at the peir (Jerry still alive in the beginning of that summer, dead by the end and vigils on the boardwalk and the 9th street squatters house still there, near where the old, old old Chat Street used to be) and you walked in I think with Mike? and we were in the middle of an all out indoor water gun fight, blue plastic dollar store beach sand buckets filled to the top with oozy automatics and us shooting water or late at night emptied-forties malt-liquor straight in to our mouths...The boys all shirtless only wore only baggies that summer that's how you knew the local rats downtown, so I was always like fuck it I'll just wear my bikini all the time! You who was always on your own buzz keepin it so chill had the most shocked look on your face when you walked in the house--front door always wide open bedroom me and Fannon's then me and Kev's once Brian moved out always closed
--and then it broke, the shock and you smiled like I'd never seen before a light of joy and radicallness breaking out straight from your mouth. You grabbed a seat way on the side of the room one of the bros tossed you a beer and then of course did we proceed. That might of been, but likely was not, the same watergun fight that wound up across the street running the outdoor halls of the Americana sneaking around corners and hiding behind doors when I camped out upstairs at the dirty frat guys (I used to stand in the alley out back and cus those fuckers out all the time even back then clear to me down the center how we were different and stood on different lines) on their front porch and waited until Jeremiah gave up and then dumped an entire bucket of water on his head when we was walking back surrendered to the apartment. Remember that shit? We kept a baby wading pool out on our front porch to chill in and would add ice in the afternoon to keep all the beers more cold.
Hahahaha. I live here again and barely ever think of that stuff, those times anymore. Fannon gone, Kev. Blugh Kev. Phil...
Una Santa, y Una Diabla. The poetic imagination and living our own myths. Last week I was chilling one night over with these friends of mine, hanging out with this girl from the county but who I never knew back then only met down here at the beach, an old friend's friend. I got to telling stories and of course because I am writing so much again and also because I am a McMullen and all those all those all those late night convos as a girl, or around the table basement at Grammy and Pop's or any single one of the aunts and uncles the Jameson and laughter and warm remembering every time, because of all that and because of my myth, my heart my spirit where the saint and the devil collide I am a wild women, full of the spirit and the ancient forbidden gnosis which is just know-how which, common sense people is just know thy self, this wisdom business that penetrates so deep within. And so for all of that of course I am storyteller, La Cantadora she who knows. And so chillin last Wednesday late night, and Saturday too I got to telling some stories of my own, I have a lot, and a lot of them some of the most important ones are from the beach they all, so much happened right here.
So without meaning to I am gathering bones again and doing it near the ocean in the northeast wind under the winter sky. It is so important, this archeology, these bits and pieces scattered everywhere it is the real work it is the poet's work it is the work always always always of recircling the brave warm or coolly shadowed places we continually label or even disregard that when we are still live deeply, live on, within. In the end these are known and called by that most powered word of words, home in the end I choose not to go with the howl scowl on my face but the wicked happy satiated smile of she who knows that peaceful all-knowingg grin, so right now today and tomorrow's today and each and every step I take I say Amen. Amen Amen. This is all real and really happenening, this is life it does and it did.
May 11, 2010
Leaving
You know it's legit when you gotta call mom.
Except that's not true I didn't call her, she called me, because it was Monday and that's what she does--on her drive from Ocean Pines to the county, to Anne Arundel where I'm from and where she stays every Monday night at a friend's house because she works at Maryland General, top of Howard Street in the city, every Tuesday in the operating room. She called and I was finishing up talking to Brenda at work and without thinking about it before I was even out of the cafeteria at the College where Brenda and I were, I called mom back.
Another important lesson you are learning is not to be afraid to start over. This is the chart of new beginnings...which there will be alot of....Your connection to God or the Source is extremely important and that is why you will continually need to be alone, make clear your intents and listen to your own inner council. Forced new beginnings probably seem to occur without rhyme or reason...However, when you learn to do what you want, what your passion is, finding those projects that charge your battery, as it were, you will find you will be instinctively attracted to those situations that will not let you down. Self trust is the most important lesson for you to learn.
I sat on a bench in a cement courtyard in the clear sun, the cold air, the green fields and sounds of route fifty traffic beyond the brick buildings of Chesapeake College. I sat on the bench and talked to my mother, and listened to her, and cried. I cried the way I cried when I first left the farm, the cry and ache of grief and goodbye. It was late in the afternoon, and the few students left on campus kindly went in different directions.
When I turned thirty Gretchen, who is wise woman and wolf woman to me, which is teacher medicine, (this link is where she works--an artic wolf sanctuary in the coast ranges of Oregon) gave me an extensive, 11 page single spaced reading of my natal chart that her long time wild woman friend of over fifty years did for me. I was living on Truslow Road then, had literally just started a line of intention and prayer influenced by Gandhi and Women Who Run With the Wolves based on the idea that I was discontented in life due to self-compromise and not following my heart. The birth chart was so eerily on point, so exact to the actual detail in more than one circumstance that I couldn't look at it again for three months after my first read. Self trust is the most important lesson for you to learn.
It took three years, til now, to come to a place where I can say I am willing above all to trust me, to trust in me and follow my heart and my inner power and guiding song. And this, this final departure of packing up my sweet little apartment on Goldsborough and Hanson here in Easton, where I've only been for 7 months, is breaking my heart. But it's not all of it. I'm leaving. I'm leaving -- Josh, Brandon! Katie and fun nights at Anngar, Amy and Megs and sweet afternoons in the yard! Late nights on cold cements and talks and talks and cigarettes and coffee. Magnolia trees and Play it Again Sams! The puffballs on campus in the spring oh god the geese calls in the fall. Chester River and so many swims and talks and the moon, greasy subs and potlucks, gardens and oh the hot ass dry ass choking ass Eastern Shore sun. Dust and tractors, woods and blackberry growing wild.
I'm leaving. And I am packing, and I dont have energy for this anymore, and greif feels like train tracks most overgrown by yellow weeds and thick grass clumps with no train there, and the tracks are laid down and part of you--and they hurt in your throat and feel like an incense uncurling on the air in your gut and after a while you just have to surrender to the uncurling....
And O god Kevin who went even tho like Konan said we were just waiting all those years to get the call, and saying goodbye to Brian and how just this past Friday I saw Hupman for the first time in a decade and we immediately cried to see each other and the first words out of his mouth were Fannon...because yes that's what happens after someone dies the crew falls apart cuz it hurts too bad to see one another, and jesus Mike you too and all those angry late night fuck yous after you chose the gun. How fucking much I hate goodbye. Realizing months later, after I was gone from Choptank how leaving Brandon and then losing Josh sent me in to something like ptsd where I was just stuck on loss and looping again and again through the anguish of sudden grief. And remembering Grammy coming to me those couple bad, bad times at Chop...Grammy who came to me again last night even tho it wasn't hella bad, just me and nuzzling under a soft blankey quiet and tender the tears out after talking to mom. Grammy was there, I could feel her near she has a certain way of softly filling my spirit that is specific and settling to her. And now Jenny Lewis is singing to me there but for the grace of god....and I am caught on my breath, and think of what mom said yesterday. I only know to tell you what your Grammy always used to say Kel. This too, shall pass.
This too
this too
this too shall pass. I just want for you to be peaceful Kel mom said. Not to have to struggle so much. No shit I answered, the struggles been all about learning to hold my own reigns ma. I'm there, now. This is what I've been struggling towards these past years.
Getting to be set on the ocean, the wide open calling ocean of me. And trusting the direction of the breeze, the tides, wherever they will take me, will flow me. Being at one in surrender and trust. The ocean the breeze the wide open calling, all of me...
Right. Good reminder, and now I recall in the time of vision at the end of Harvest last year, in that space of timelessness at Halloween when I moved here to Easton. And knowing that more than anything my month in Oregon would be one great rest. Just juicy, and savory, and replenishing from within.
O fucking god amen amen amen.
Except that's not true I didn't call her, she called me, because it was Monday and that's what she does--on her drive from Ocean Pines to the county, to Anne Arundel where I'm from and where she stays every Monday night at a friend's house because she works at Maryland General, top of Howard Street in the city, every Tuesday in the operating room. She called and I was finishing up talking to Brenda at work and without thinking about it before I was even out of the cafeteria at the College where Brenda and I were, I called mom back.
Another important lesson you are learning is not to be afraid to start over. This is the chart of new beginnings...which there will be alot of....Your connection to God or the Source is extremely important and that is why you will continually need to be alone, make clear your intents and listen to your own inner council. Forced new beginnings probably seem to occur without rhyme or reason...However, when you learn to do what you want, what your passion is, finding those projects that charge your battery, as it were, you will find you will be instinctively attracted to those situations that will not let you down. Self trust is the most important lesson for you to learn.
I sat on a bench in a cement courtyard in the clear sun, the cold air, the green fields and sounds of route fifty traffic beyond the brick buildings of Chesapeake College. I sat on the bench and talked to my mother, and listened to her, and cried. I cried the way I cried when I first left the farm, the cry and ache of grief and goodbye. It was late in the afternoon, and the few students left on campus kindly went in different directions.
When I turned thirty Gretchen, who is wise woman and wolf woman to me, which is teacher medicine, (this link is where she works--an artic wolf sanctuary in the coast ranges of Oregon) gave me an extensive, 11 page single spaced reading of my natal chart that her long time wild woman friend of over fifty years did for me. I was living on Truslow Road then, had literally just started a line of intention and prayer influenced by Gandhi and Women Who Run With the Wolves based on the idea that I was discontented in life due to self-compromise and not following my heart. The birth chart was so eerily on point, so exact to the actual detail in more than one circumstance that I couldn't look at it again for three months after my first read. Self trust is the most important lesson for you to learn.
It took three years, til now, to come to a place where I can say I am willing above all to trust me, to trust in me and follow my heart and my inner power and guiding song. And this, this final departure of packing up my sweet little apartment on Goldsborough and Hanson here in Easton, where I've only been for 7 months, is breaking my heart. But it's not all of it. I'm leaving. I'm leaving -- Josh, Brandon! Katie and fun nights at Anngar, Amy and Megs and sweet afternoons in the yard! Late nights on cold cements and talks and talks and cigarettes and coffee. Magnolia trees and Play it Again Sams! The puffballs on campus in the spring oh god the geese calls in the fall. Chester River and so many swims and talks and the moon, greasy subs and potlucks, gardens and oh the hot ass dry ass choking ass Eastern Shore sun. Dust and tractors, woods and blackberry growing wild.
I'm leaving. And I am packing, and I dont have energy for this anymore, and greif feels like train tracks most overgrown by yellow weeds and thick grass clumps with no train there, and the tracks are laid down and part of you--and they hurt in your throat and feel like an incense uncurling on the air in your gut and after a while you just have to surrender to the uncurling....
And O god Kevin who went even tho like Konan said we were just waiting all those years to get the call, and saying goodbye to Brian and how just this past Friday I saw Hupman for the first time in a decade and we immediately cried to see each other and the first words out of his mouth were Fannon...because yes that's what happens after someone dies the crew falls apart cuz it hurts too bad to see one another, and jesus Mike you too and all those angry late night fuck yous after you chose the gun. How fucking much I hate goodbye. Realizing months later, after I was gone from Choptank how leaving Brandon and then losing Josh sent me in to something like ptsd where I was just stuck on loss and looping again and again through the anguish of sudden grief. And remembering Grammy coming to me those couple bad, bad times at Chop...Grammy who came to me again last night even tho it wasn't hella bad, just me and nuzzling under a soft blankey quiet and tender the tears out after talking to mom. Grammy was there, I could feel her near she has a certain way of softly filling my spirit that is specific and settling to her. And now Jenny Lewis is singing to me there but for the grace of god....and I am caught on my breath, and think of what mom said yesterday. I only know to tell you what your Grammy always used to say Kel. This too, shall pass.
This too
this too
this too shall pass. I just want for you to be peaceful Kel mom said. Not to have to struggle so much. No shit I answered, the struggles been all about learning to hold my own reigns ma. I'm there, now. This is what I've been struggling towards these past years.
Getting to be set on the ocean, the wide open calling ocean of me. And trusting the direction of the breeze, the tides, wherever they will take me, will flow me. Being at one in surrender and trust. The ocean the breeze the wide open calling, all of me...
Right. Good reminder, and now I recall in the time of vision at the end of Harvest last year, in that space of timelessness at Halloween when I moved here to Easton. And knowing that more than anything my month in Oregon would be one great rest. Just juicy, and savory, and replenishing from within.
O fucking god amen amen amen.
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