PostCard to Boo

If there were room on the back for all a heart can hold, for all I have to say, I'd print this pic and put in the mail today so that it could get to you by the morning and you could tape it to your wallet or your suitcase and my love for you would go to Costa too, a talisman to guide you and protect you and keep you safe...

What would I do if it weren't for you? From that very first walk ions, whole LIFEtimes, ago. Cannon Drive when I first told the truth about Josh and all my heart had to hold and fear and still to give. How I talked and talked forever and thought the Catholics in me will never live this down. Talking out loud about my depression for the first time. How good it felt to know by blood and bones and a house that's home that you were those things walking, right there next to me: my own home, my own quiet steady place that will never disappear. That no matter what I had to say or changes I had to make you wouldn't judge, or leave me, or stop showing your love....

Remember our first big dip? Last year? I was barely myself back then, just cracking open that little precious egg of me. I didn't even tell you I was coming said meet at Dumser's for a surprise!! And you. You! Confused but still eager, willing, to jump right in! Still a baby, barely through gradschool by then, still with the bandage wrapped long around your arm named comfort, those visors that we all have to rip and rewear, rip and rewear... How I worried, but never ever once lacked my belief in you.

How amazing you are with your wide and boundless heart, your refusal to lessen or back down. How you stay so gentle, so tender and loving through this--through life! How you never let it harden you, just keep notching it up a step in return. How wonder-full you are, how centered on the wonder, the what next!!? in this life. How inspiring, how big and soft and fabulous you encourage everyone else to be---

It's sad about the house, it's funny we haven't talked just with each other about this yet. Usually we talk about it all, and before everyone else knows, too. But our rule, let our parents do their own thing? Keep Us to ourselves, not get caught up in the McDrama. I love you, Boo. What would I do? Without the walks, the swims, the frozen drinks?! Thank you. For the late nights, dark. The quiet tears. The lunchin skeezy jokes. For the dangerous dancing, thank you. For my spirit, found again. And the couch, again and again, night after night, all these years. But especially this year. Summer 09. For past midnite thank you darlin. For the waiting up. Cigarettes. Facebook. Tears. Laughter. Dark. The little nest of us. The love.

Mike, do you have ANY IDEA what a good thing you've got?

Travel well, sister. Shmunk-in! Friend. I love you more than words or a heart could ever say

Bones & Love

Every night when I come home the first thing I see is the river. Or, what I ought to say: every night when I come home, the first thing I see through my windshield is the expanse of black above my head and the crazy mat of stars through the trees in the driveway. And I get out of the car, and the first thing I feel is the river.

No matter what my day's been like, no matter what is otherwise on my mind or bogging up my head. I pull into my driveway, ease the Versa far back near to the old boat that hasn't been used in more than a couple seasons, park and have the door open before I have time to think. And then, on impulse, as a matter of muscle memory and also, of something deeper programmed in me, some part ancient and respondent to firesmoke and the hush of trees, I breathe. I take a deep breath and let it all out and what happens is from inside me I get a soft smile, and I go still. And then, I can feel the river. I can feel her moving, can feel her in that place in my belly and on the back of my neck--same place where you feel when, say, a storm's coming on.

And for that brief moment, all is well. I know peace.

I moved here, to the town of Choptank with it's 20 or so houses, on the Choptank River, last November. I rent a room in an old house two up from the river. This house has modern painted gray-taupe siding but still looks old because it is. It was originally built in the 1830's. At night you can feel the life in its walls, all that it has breathed and seen. In the morning, where I come to the front porch to write, you can see the river out the window to my left.

At the time of my decision to move here to Chop, I lived in a six-bedroom farmhouse on a 400-acre-farm that grew soybeans and feed corn. That's a lot of land, a lot of space, a lot of air to breathe. I basically lived there on a deal with the owners to tend their property and upkeep the old place, the owners were distant inlaws of the magnificent man I was living with and was in love with and enjoying life with since the fall that I got out of college, in 2002. Brandon was my best friend, he was who and how I processed one of those strange times of transition that makes us humans so sketchy and uncertain: time of what-next or in-between. I loved him with every last blood inside my heart, I loved him so it was how my bones moved. A sweet, adoring love that saw nothing other than him, nothing else outside of us. He was all I knew, and all I ever hoped to know.

That same year my dad came back in to my life in a hands-on way because of a sad and serious depression at mid-life. And my mom sold our house, the one that me and my brother and her had always known, the one in the county between Annapolis and B-more. And she moved back in with my dad, first time in 15 years, to the beach.

Last night I was out late in the county. We met Brian, my brother Sean's best friend since they were five, and his little brother Little Sean, and their folks and our folks for dinner at our old favorite spot for crabcakes, Hellas. Their mom, Ms. Louise, helped raise my brother and me. It was her birthday last night, first time all of us have been together seriously since I dont know when. When we were growing up ma would drop Sean and I off at their place 6 in the morning on her way to work in the city. Ms. Lou would get us ready for school, breakfast, uniforms, carpool. Me and the boys would scream and fight or laugh and play. Nintendo and VCR movies on tv for hours. We were lucky, blessed, charmed-life kids. BMX bikes and kickball in the deadend when we'd come home from school. Anymore when I am home, like last night, I am so, so grateful. I am so aware of how good it was, and wistful in the most tender of grateful ways. And I miss it so much.

I was born in Baltimore City. I remember the market at Cross Street when I was only old enough to stand level with people's knees. I remember what Old Bay smells like on the salty Harbour air. I remember imagining how close the big boats were to the sea. I remember what it feels like, to have a river of living move under you, and that river be no more visible than the concrete at your feet.

It is hard to put this in to words. The bones of me, the true substantial life-time blood. I can say only that when the time comes to know you again, when the time comes to reclaim the flesh of who you are, you know it. You know it in a way that you will fight and pray not to recognize. You know it in a way that feels awful, like fear and hate and pain. In the most secret, darkest places in your brain, in the stomach tight breath that draws you awake at night, in the weight that sits just above your neck, you know it. And when you know something as distinct as Time, there is simply nothing else to know.

Choptank, you healed my soul. I am the river of me again. It was a fucking hard and awful fight and I hated how many times I had to let go. But here I am, on the shore again. How can I ever thank you? How can I ever thank you, Life? How can I ever thank you enuff...?

~~~

The song that helped birth this post: Wharf Rat, The Grateful Dead. O, Jerry. I love you. I love your guitar. You touch the myth inside of me.

Monday Morning Reflections

I'm writing right now to bring my self in to my life this morning because work beckons and with it like always on a Monday the steel wall inside my heart and that is no way to start the day. And it doesn't matter that in bed today like most days I began by sighing and smiling and centering and quiet and talking almost immediately to the Powers that be: carressing my self in to the transition of morning, quieting and alighting that deep electric, that inner quiet line of harmony and free, my ritual check list of what I am laying there, grateful for...Simple as it is by the time I am content and in the kitchen aware of me, waiting on coffee and reviewing the day to come, my body well-slept and the outlines of the room surrounding me, the fresh sight of clean that comes in the morning when one is grateful but gratitude is more part the tapestry then it is of surprise, what is there is simple sunlight, dust and shadows, and me, and another same old day.

And I think yesterday I had the most amazing hike, it is September, fall has been coming since the first Harvest Lunar Llamas showed its earliest signs and that was all the way back in July. What she needs now, the earth what she is now and therefor what we find inherant of ourselves as well in either fight or fright, surrender grace or strain, is to call forth from within a big, big rest. A huge reflection. And further, what this means, great! anticipation over what is stirring there, what is being prepared, what is yet to come....

And mercury comes out of retro tomorrow and this review has been so great for me, so clarifying and healing, like how high fire burns away the imperfections. And on my hike yesterday what I thought of was, this is it, thank you thank you for the witnessing. O time of great passing, merc will turn this week and most people wont even know why by the weekend they will feel cleaned-up and better versions of themselves as if just come out of slumber with the cozy haze of sleep and magic still fuzzy on their shoulders and sparkling their eyes. And life will be different, and fast-moving because that is how it happens, the change of the tides.

And next week I will go away for a while to the PacNW and when I return it will be a new time, a season full of new. Thanksgiving suddenly will be here and then of course the darkness, the season to renew. And as she is showing us now, be prepared for a long, lowdown night. And I am glad for it, have fought hard for this peace, and am resolute now in the changes that are absolute, and sure to come.

EQINOX blessings :o)

fall is here. here's a question. how much living can be done in five days?

answer is a whole year's worth, one whole round, if your lucky, awake enuff, and you wanna~~

"Today is the Fall Equinox, the day when there is equal day and night all over the planet. This perfect balance between light and darkis symbolized by the sun's entry into the sign of Libra the Scales, beginning a time of year when we reexamine our relationships and try to reestablish harmony whever it has been lost...."

it started thursday that wiley day of weird energy and everyone was feeling like moving under water, day of unresolved surfacing and what means Will come to an end...

started the day wide awake in my sacred space as the night before the last of the martyr diadelmuertos figures called to me all the way from annapolis and so i went, running, to my favorite shop i drove all the way. and there she was, day of lost spirit de mujer ReFound. she was in purple, appropriately, waiting just for me. to usher in the dark moon, remind what lay in waiting, in the night, remind not to be frightened of learning to see. of what can not be seen.

o mamamama aint it something how you come to me

friday was a moon day o so much friggen soul. and passion too i guess they come one and the same. which means all the men called, and just about all at once. funny looking again and again what's in my darkest dark. what is my grace.

saturday i could barely breathe the yellow light was so clean. i lay in the yard in various places and drank wild tea and slept or read or slept. and read. all day.

sunday--could you hear me, i know you were me, mom. how i tramped and stomped my feet until there was nothing but me. and you--we rewoke just for you. then i am certain you were in all our dreams

monday day of final light itself of course was cock-eyed. i cried a lot, and saw that musicians more than most have lots of ego, which means pain.

the wind blew, the tide changed right as sam pulled up tho. right on time for the last summer plunk to commence. he built a fire. we went in. holy baptism, means of ritual, tradition
and rights

also, i had returned to the farm. not ours but his by family now. walked the fields with him a long time and reveled over the past three years, equinox 06 truslow road to now.

reveled in all that he's built. realized there is nothing you can ever really miss.

my head hurt after that and that is why it was right to swim.

later at home i smiled. slept long in to the nite then woke at 3 in time to celebrate the balance almost gone.

by the light of the first sun this morning i took the last of my sage in now say o holy shift, remind us ever of the Great One

~~~and blessings to all, and harm to none~~~

m

My First Time

Suzette had this raspy voice and a laugh entirely unanticipated. It used to shoot out of her mouth and hit you in your chest then explode up your neck and down your back, cacophonous echo blast of megaphone and hot air.

She worked the Fool the Guesser one stand up from me on the Pier.

In September the tourists went home, it all sort of started when Felix came in early August which was also the time I kicked Kevin out of the house for the PCP. This left us, Suzette and me or the hot Tico Kiki who was way older which then meant like 35, with lots of time to holler back and forth to each other on our mics. Hurricane Felix was a big one and I got on the local news screaming kooks go home--the reporter was on 9th street, three up from us where the old deadhead house was, we learned from them early on where not to buy our drugs. Jerry died that summer, it was almost omen-ic: Deadheads by then couldn't be trusted a lot of them were tweakers, everybody knew. I imagine the reporters edited me out, we didn't have a tv so I never knew. We didn't even know the hurricane was coming. I got off for my afternoon break and came home for a puff or jay and a swim or some food hopefully someone had some otherwise it was soft-pretzels from the Pier for free the only place I could surely get hooked-up. Sparky was the only dude around though, he was a squatter one of those 9th street kids. Besides Black Mike and Little Kid, the only ones still down to hang after I kicked Kevin out, there was Sparky. Sparky I never trusted cuz of the deadhead squatter thing but we still hung cuz my roommate thought he was the shit. He never had anything to offer he just came looking. We had nothing though since Kevin and the boys went, nothing at all. So instead me and Sparky just took a swim and it's the only time I ever remember the Ocean slamming me again and again like a hard wood board. I swam hard but never never got to a place where she was settled and smooth so I could just float and roll. Like I said the Hurricane was coming but we didn't know. No one else was on the beach though! Mom somehow got in touch with me and said to put all the stuff on the floor up so really that just meant my books and music on the lowest shelf. The pots and pans earlier in the summer, since we didn't ever wash them, all got thrown out.

After Felix it was all different. Like I said, then it was just Black Mike who slept on the couch every night and also suggested we each sleep with a little switchblade under our mattress. Which is funny to me now, cuz like cousin Joey says a weapon will end up getting you in even more trouble if you dont know how to use it. And I for one, didn't, no one ever taught me how.

But luckily we never had trouble. Kevin moved out, he and his boys trashed our house broke windows and the outside porch lights and tagged all over all our shit, then Felix came and after that everything changed. The alleys were more quiet, there was a lot more of the large grey sky. And when the sun was out it was ethereal again, funny yellow glow. I didn't know it yet but that was the summer I first started to learn: there are tides that come and they move as one and they bring a certain power all their own, and they effect us all.

And the earth is where and how we learn.

By September it was cool already I had the greatest snaked Hoodie I lived in with holes down at the edge for my thumbs. Everyone was gone. Just 14 years ago, that's all, but OC didn't have the condo weekenders it's so full of now. Even my aunt and uncle and grammy who lived summer here were gone, they had to go home to the county to teach school.

Which meant we ditched 6th street for my family's house at the Pines, the girls and I, because it scared us being alone like that with just the beach rats who were hating on us and the ghosts that we heard again and again--no lie, the old fashioned player piano music or loud foot steps upstairs on the outside deck when for sure no one was there, or even the radios in our house that would go on without reason sometimes. Local folklore said the Broadripple on 14th, and our place too on 6th, were the original Bordellos from back in the day. It was mid-1800's that the town came to be. But Wikipedia says the original Pier burned down in a fire in 1994, which isn't true, the fire happened in the winter of 1995, winter after Felix, I remember because we drove over that winter to see. The fire took Morbid Manor and the waterpark, too; I smoked pot everyday in Morbid Manor in 95 then got to ride the water rides for free since I worked there, ran a betting game for the same guy who did Fool the Guesser, Suzette Kiki and me. And that fire took everything, all that, down. 1995 last of the Pier and the Manor, the Riptide Park and Jerry, too.

So me and Chrissy who worked Morbid Manor and loved a guy, Johnny, started hanging at the Pines. It was cool and vacant in town and I learned all at once to love September, the sheet clear blue sky, the white clouds puffy and bright as a smile. The way the water looked suddenly so navy blue. September, goddamn I learned to love you.

Suzette invited us over for for spaghetti that's how I found out she was into selling and smoking crack. She got arrested later that winter which I learned the same night as I heard about the fire at the Pier. It sucked cuz she had a little one, I dont remember his name anymore he had brown hair with flints of yellow curl, he was three-years-old. Guess he'd be 17 now hope he's not in jail. That night over spaghetti when I first found out about her drug of choice, it was the first time I ever got that gut-twisting sweaty-necked premonition-chill. It was September, the streets were flat and empty but she lived all the way downtown so the air from the inlet was coming off the water and was damp with a terrible cold. The sky was low and hung with thin grey clouds.

Addiction is a hell of a fucking disease.

In September now I come here every year weekend after Labor Day and have a reunion with old friends. Last night we were up to 3, boardwalk, dancing, talking, laughing and lots of quiet on the cool, white sand. Round 2am I walked past sixth street, Kevin is dead, I'm 9 years clean.



Everything is changed. And also, September, the clean earth and shushing sea, is just the same.