When the women get together...

We laugh until we are crying. And often the laughter is from the grotesque, or bizarre, the banal, made by us delirious, and profane. We laugh until we are gasping for air and yelling at one another so hard because ultimately someone has started gagging from laughing so hard, and this will have a chain effect on us all, and then we will be laughing and gagging each of us, and tearstained and sweaty, and praying in the thinness of breath left to us that we dont get kicked out....

These are the women, my women, the women from whom I came. My grandma, her daughter Karen my mom, Karen's two sister Coni and Lori. Lori's daughter Chelsea, my gorgeous cousin.

In our family, it is the women. The men are periphery, we take care of them. We feed them, we house them, and at times it is clear the approach is that we simply put up with them. I never understood this tolerated approach, but I didn't have words or sight for it, either, and took it for granted. But this year I spent the time, and listened, to get to know why, how this started, where it came from, who we are and where we came from. Where I am headed.

In my family it is the women, and we sustain. We raise children and table the home full of food. The men come and go. When they are present they take center, become large enough to not see us chaining things together, keeping it all moving. Rising and falling in our natural undercurrent. We keep things warm. And while we break the air always with our laughter, we also dont raise our voices.

I think back to my quiet writing room in the slanted attic at Mt.Royal. The time in the fall, just prior to creating my little litmag LaCantalma, that I came out of mediation to the St. Francis feel and rosewood and frankincense smell of my grandmother, dad's mom, the smell and buoyant feel of silence and peace and rosaries that she took on when she would come to me after her death. The fall, time of ancestors and memory. And I stayed quiet and from within said, what would you want from me, Grammy? And she said sure as a whisper on my own breath Your job, Child, is to be heard...

In Gram's family it is the men, five of them, my dad and his brothers. Two sisters, one in Germany far away as she could get, and the other the youngest, the baby, married to her sweetheart from 16, he the man the tribe took very early in. My uncles used to coach him in school, and teach him history, and phys ed.

I've always known the McMullens, the overarching Patriarchy, the men.

But this year, the blessed, the broken, the laughing til were sick, the distinct: the women. The women are who, is Who and How I've learned.

The women that shape the other half of who I am.

Later, after that Fall when Grammy came and reitiated my Call, I was coming over the Mexico border in to California when my mom called to say Grandma's sister Mary died. I had befriended this Irish dude Cahall and he wanted to see the Hopi Indian territory and so he was riding along and it worked out because Aunt Mary was from just south of Sedona, and so we drove to Arizona. And Grandma, as I told her of my travels and the spirituality guiding and gracing me--Crow and the Medicine come to me in Colorado, Durango and Mesa Verde--she grabbed me to her chest to say goodnight and held me, she was chesty and her grasp, tight. She whispered in my ear KellyAnn you better write this all down.

The women the women the women from who I Am. That plain straight dicey humor I get from them. That unanticipated eyeroll of sharp wit. The seeing it all, and letting it pass.

I'm going to Gram, Grandma. I'm staking out and finding my self now. I've been watching and listening, laughing and praying for a long, long time. I've been voiceless and crying, too.

But I found Her, the voice, my voice. And the deep Voice, s/he the great I Am.

I found Her. And I'm writing it all down.

When a woman crosses a threshold...

...she knows that something inside her has shifted, if only slightly. She knows she is on a different trajectory. ~Sue Monk Kidd

And when I left Charles Street felt gritty just like Baltimore County always does to me but the city limits were still encircling me it's amazing all the times it just takes trees to feel like home. And Kirsten is right there are no students in her dorm and Notre Dame is like a castle with the mystery light and funny breathing things holding life that castles, or old, that fairytales make you so much more aware of in a way that uses no words. Sean and I kept trying to make the diner thing happen but everytime I put my heart eyes on they just weren't down there in Fells. So he called back right when I'd made the decision to hike at Patapsco instead and had turned on Northern Ave, it worked out cuz he was only then just leaving his home...

Hiking never happened, rather I had a Beautiful Friday in Old Ellicot and I haven't done that, a real true spontaneous date with me fired by heart and only what the heart can see--in months and months and months. Really, since the time that I lived on Wash Ave and was reading the Artist's Way and had just met Amy and Shaman Bob and believed, believed believed and knew nothing more than this: Belief. And at that time in my life Beautiful Fridays happened every Friday, and I was single, then, too.

And later I spent the whole afternoon with Baby Maren laying across my chest, or sat just chillin with her my arm around her and her wizening eyes taking it all in. When I left Man's house I put baby powder in my hair cuz it was dirty and I forgot til Sean and Kir reminded the night before that that's the old trick to make it look clean. I had my ol summer BoHo dress on and it was good and right cuz Indian Summer was in the hills and trees. I bought mums for Mandy and little gourds for me and LDbubb from a Harvest stand in old EC. And when I left Man's and little Maren and baby Derreck too I smelled like baby powder from my hair, but also like that warm milk and tender baby smell and powder, which was from them. And the writing and inking that all that morning had opened me so wide and was still on especially after the antiquing and vintage stores all morning long. That trick of Fall and that dark- bottom glow: the everything passes ache that is true. And even after the Boat Show traffic it still fired and opened and led led led me, all the way til Easton that gentle wide open glow. Illustrious light that is sharp sometimes but edged last night and softened I am guessing by the Fall, which Is the glow. I smiled a lot and when I got there I was late and Susan and Jeff were already getting to know Laura, too. Which makes me so happy when people I love get the chance to love one another, too.

Po'Girl rocked I realized how much I love that harmony sound and when she started clogging it was like I had a body memory of sitting on the ground: and then it got me that quiet gentle o, mm-hmmm cuz I remember but only in my body the sense of being in diapers and bandannas and the cloggers on the stage at Pappaws shows vibrating the ground.

During the intermission Susan asked when was the last time I lived somewhere without a roommate? And I said immediately January 03 til January 04 I had this studio with one room off the side the room was my writing room and sacred space it had slanted ceilings like this so you couldn't barely stand and I angled my arm like one half of an X. And, I said, it was the only time that stands out as when I got to be Wild Me, I completed my first real writing project then tho I didn't know that's what it was at the time. But then that was also right when Brandon and I first fell in love and he lived with me practically, too, he stayed every night for sure and that was until January when he truly moved in for good. So the answer, is never, really, and she was smiling and nodding her head. And it was yet again one of those times throughout the night and all day, too, where I felt so brimmed over with hope and love that my heart gave a little burst.

And then during Girlyman who I'd never heard before right after this girl sang somewhere different now which is when the tears came and flowed out and out of my heart and I had to breathe deep to keep from a sob, the words came to me, a twist on a funny postcard RJ sent us once: I dont know where I'm going, but I do know where I Am. Which is different from the past months and the real verse on the postcard I dont know where I'm going but I know I'm on my way. And that's just it, that song was all those lonely nights and my broken and bleeding, but still ravenously, or staggeringly, or just quietly, quietly beating heart with all the doubts and not knowing what or how or who or when.

And I am past that now, I realized. I am past that, and moving out now, and on and beyond, again...

127 Goldsborough. or, What's in a Place

I am still in my bath robe.

I am still in my blue fleecy bathrobe and my saggy butt longjohns, the yellow sun is making green light all over the place and the blue sky, and shiny river, are making me happy.

I am picking up KRuss tonight from her new spot on Charles St, Bmore. We are going for dinner than to see Brandi Carlile sing and sing and sing my themes.

Tomorrow Walsh and me and Susan and Jeff are going to see Girlyman but really I am going to see Pogirl, I CAN NOT believe they are playing in of all places, Easton. Teee heee!!

But I should be in Seattle. It is 2:30, I'm in my robe and longundies, the gorgeous fall is sighing and I should be on a plane to meet Larry Mt.Rainer and the city streets. I've been looking for a place to go, ready to get on the move. I booked a 10 day trip to the PacNW, was supposed to fly in to SeaTac for a few glorious harvest days, then bus it to Detroit, OR and sit in the hotsprings and do yoga at Breitenbush. Then Beth was gonna pick me up, and take me to the Coast.

But the other stuff, the other intentions I been yearning and turning around and again--they came up instead, to improve and challenge my circumstance. Teena hinted that she couldn't afford to keep our home here at Choptank open for the winter, which was alright cuz I'd been on Craig's List for months. I just didn't expect for her to come home and say alright it's for sure--you'll have to go go go--just before my trip to the Pac NW.

I rescheduled, which is just what was meant to happen, for the moon had already helped me to see. Or to clarify my intentions, that is. Fullmama moon who just passed--Second Harvest--The Big Plain: how simple and easy it is to accept your own truth, or truths, what is standing still inside of there when a moon like that can help you to see. I put my intentions out, easy easy easy now and just like that on Monday driving to work saw the Place in my dreams.

I called the number and she answered and I went right over and she let me in.

I signed the lease BEFORE we figured out that she knows my mom and the crones, is one of their friends.

Funny, mom was so good about just listening too, on Sunday night while I ate with her and pop and tried best I could to be hope-full and brave.

Here are the Places where I have lived, where I have made my name and placed my bones and called them each by name, as the background of the Place soaked in and defined me too, just the same. There are stories, fantastic, fabulous, heartened and truth-full stories from each one, tragic and frightening sometimes, too. And characters. So many characters my heart at times has brimmed beyond full...What's in a name? So much, so much. All that's in a Place: So much stories, so much details, so much answers and questions to tell...

6th Street

The Drifthood

Wash Ave

121 Mt. Royal Ave

The Pickup in the Woods

The Trailor in Waldport

Willow Street; or Lincoln Beach

Truslow Road

Anngar

& the one where I went to live, for a story, a place and details all my own

Choptank

Which is also the one where I have now 10 glorious days to do absolutely nothing with but luxuriate. To fully, and buoyantly breathe in and experience the Fall. To, as I did all morning, lay in my robe with my back on the dusty wood of the pier and the sun shining down. Breathing. Smiling. Exhaling and reveling in what I've found. Thinking about a year. One year and what can happen. One whole turn.

Choptank you know I'll never ever let you go...but thank you anyway for moving me along.

MUSE-IC makes me feel good, like me

I saw this unreal show last week. Elizabeth and the Catapult. My friend Jeff invited me. It happened at a venue that I can walk to from work--the coffee shop where I love to do my writing! Jeff's wife Susan is the reason I am a writer and now Jeff is the reason that I am amped for live music again.

Nite Cat's been redone to fit about 40 to 50 people in it's back room and Mangold Entertainment who books for Peir Six and Rams Head is bringing in the music. They added a corner stage, heightened the ceiling so that the timber frame is now exposed and painted it black. I am not one to know about acoustics and the effect that building aesthetics have on sound, but if I were I'd figure that the reason for the change. That, and it looks cool.

So, the band. At one point I looked around the room and thought, this must be what it was like when people saw Jenny Lewis play for the first time. Elizabeth's vocals and presence are both that good and the band, musically, is just the right trippy blend of circusy sound and entertainment, and raw but cohesive beauty that vacates the center of my heart in a hot breathy way and makes my blood run funny and fast, so that the swell just makes me move or cry with joy. God-damn did I come back in to me that night, it was the end of a long day of intake, end of an even longer week--and I'd been trippin that day a little over having to make some big decisions and so almost backed out of our plans. Next thing I knew tho there I was listening to the opener this singer/songwriter guy with great long folky lyrics and funny stories about his granpaw and a voice that actually sounded better without the mic. That part of me, the poetry in the middle of the night the mamamoon star earth worshiper who speaks and believes in the ancient tongue, in live fires and barefeet, in six or seven people sleepy in my kitchen for pancakes still punchdrunk with wildeyes, that inner spiral me lit up in a way it hasn't all year, and seriously, like I said, my breath quickened.

The only other time that happened this summer was when Brooks played me his solo stuff on his Ipod.

By the time Elizabeth, whose head from behind the piano and under her fedora kept bobbing up and down like a muppet at the end of the show when the grand performance in the big hall came on, and who also had the widest sexiest smiling eyes that closed and opened just right the kind with a secret and laughter in there, started really singing that fabulous loud voice smooth as the curve of quiet night sky, the words came to me and the poetry was all bubbling up and I was, a couple times, so touched I was laughing out loud.

Ahhh, muse-ic. What you do to my soul.

The next night I wondered back in, just to see if anything was happening... And got to watch Charlotte Martin perform. She was good, a lot like Tori Amos which I admire the beauty and talent of but not enough to listen to multiple songs in one sitting cuz they just start to sound the same. I was happy I went tho, it was a great way to spend Friday night and at one point she asked the audience who there was from Easton or the general area and only me and two other guys raised our hands. It was packed house. I was impressed. The guy that opened for her, Matt Duke, was equally good in an intense I just pricked my finger on a stickerbush kinda way and it hurts and I dont want to look but have to...He disturbed me but made me laugh too, the best thing he did was cover you are my sunshine which makes me think he's tender and actually hasn't found his comfortability with this, yet? I'd see him again if he headlined.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow for 10 whole, sweet clean days!!!! I am seeing three shows, too, at least...! I'm thinking a lot about when I was little and used to dance in my tights in the driveway to the boombox Lisa Lisa or Prince or Miami Sound Machine, then in middle school at the sock hops on Friday afternoon god how good was Rob Base!? and then later still when I was teenagy and pissy and would throw myself brutally in to the middle of the pits at the old firehall shows. Fishkiss Mustard Seed Magic or S.Q.U.I.D VRKOLAKA (i looooved the drummer!) of course the PeeTanks, too. Sonic Youth at Michael's. The Beasties too many times to count. The HFStivle when it was only $6 for ten or 12 bands!? Getting Veruca Salt's autograph when they played the second stage. Stars in my eyes....Flannel shirts and Doc Martens.

What it's like in the winter to stay long up late, with poetry and paints and witching hour muse-ic all fluent and braided and what I have in common with the most eternal space.

It's Wednesday in October in Choptank, I've been up on and off since 2am. The fog is lifting, there is a great pale blue sky coming on the West horizon. I have 24 days left here. I am alive, shining.

Change's gonna come...!

Thank you life & of course holy amen.

Last Day on the Beach

In 2004 in October I was living temporarily on my buddy Larry's floor in Seattle. This was after five months living in the mostly undeveloped sections of the National Forests across the US. There was a fierce and bitter election going on, and I felt more at home living in the woods. It's the most patriotic I have ever been: connected as I was to "my" land. After all those days of dirty corduroys boots and bathing with a plastic bin, Seattle was a good time. We went to China town everyday, took long walkabouts that lasted for hours and hours along the Puget Sound and between the red brick alleys and up the long, long steep hills with the yellow leaves falling over the streets. At night we brought back harvest foods for dinner from the market. First time I ever tried honey crisps and homemade apple cobbler was our desert most of the nights I was there.

After about three weeks of that the land was calling us again, so we planned a camping trip in to the Olympic Mountains. It was glorious a blue and green day and clear mountain air when we ferried over the Sound and got on the road to Port Angeles. I was ready. We hiked 21 miles in 2 and a half days I had what felt like the most heavyass pack on my back since it was the gnarliest uphill back country trail I'd ever done. We gained several thousand feet each day on switchbacks but the alpine meadows and icy streams, the ponds and the fresh pine smells made me happier than I'd been the whole trip, all five months. I felt like what I was doing, step by step slowly slowly slowly uphill, was reviewing the whole of my time on the road. Conquering the path before me just by picking up and putting down one foot in front of the other, over and over, again and again. When I finally got to the summit I sat with the most satisfied, satiated exhaustion that I think I have ever felt.

It was glorious. I had done what I came to do, and there was nothing left now other than to carry on with the path ahead. I reveled in it, in that quiet settling peace that encompassed me and everything about me. It was the kind of satisfaction that sinks in without you knowing it and becomes a larger part of who you are.

A week later I was home on the Atlantic Coast to visit my mom. She took me to the beach so I could say hi and take a swim. It was gray, the end of October and only the surfers were out. It was colder than I remembered, but nothing like the feeling of freezing that numbs your toes on the North Pacific Coast. I changed on the beach and jumped in.

The Atlantic raised me. I love her the way I love inner calm. I've always, since I was small, ritualized my first swim of the season--it's the kind of info that my brother and I call one another with just to affirm the specialness--Had my first swim today--you been in yet? Usually I mark the end of the season with tears, just a few, but they always come. That year, right after my hike, and after spending months away from my Mama the Atlantic, and my mama, at home, what I needed was to reconnect, to bathe in something eternal and sure to me as me. What I needed was to take the plunge, to rinse it all off, to remind that at the end of an uphill climb what comes is rest and rejuvenation.

Every fall now I try to take that plunge, and today was the day, and sure as I am sitting here now at the Pines, I believe today was the most glorious beach day that I saw, all summer long. It started out with thick fat fog. Grey-white and the dark line of the ground.

Season's over, I am clean. I am at the summit, looking all around. I am contemplating, getting ready to take the next step but in which direction? From here I can see, all around....