from the brown, leather-bound journal
where the poems are
18 july
2004
Watching
a lightening storm
San Juan River at
Navajo Dam, hurried
to put up the tent
and tarp
after trekking all day
around Mesa Verde
sage brush
mountain mahogany
morman tea
pinon
to learn of a
new plant, I
glowed & he,
he who is loyal,
is protector
shined at my delight
~
I started part two of my book today, which came from the same day in 2004, out of the other journal the one that held my downloads, and most private thoughts of all.
March 30, 2011
March 27, 2011
An enourmously calm reserve.
Thirty degrees feels different in March than it does in January.
Last night in the dark beside the bay the cold air didn't even sting my face, and the three inches of snow we got some time after the pubs and clubs closed and I got home melted by the time the sun was yellow and sky blue at one this afternoon. Mom and dad and I prepared food for the week all afternoon. Dad's lost 37 pounds. In the morning I watched the original True Grit on AMC then later switched to Sex and the City on E. The whole final season was on, I called Katie, we talked low Sunday talk while I laid under my redtent blankies laughing and listening to her, and Carrie Bradshaw, and periodic interjections from mom and dad.
Later they asked about my travel plans, we sat over dinner discussing my route or at least the places I see myself visiting, or feel in my heart is the right way to say. The Blue Ridge then Tennessee. The Gila's, canyonland, then Colorado. Cali and all of the Pacific NW. The mountains and the green green trees, all the stars. The mama mar, the 101. Traveling, just me! Ah god I can barely contain it all.
They're so good about it, mom and dad, and always have been. The easy to confuse life of mine that could be labeled slacker by those who don't know me or have different values. Dad gave me portions of his salmon for the week, his brown rice, roasted vegetables. I sat down and asked for their input: help me brainstorm what I need to put in order, what needs to be prepared and gotten done and what I need to get. By the time we were done the list, on small paper, was three pages long.
It was 2006, towards the end, I told them. When I prayed the terrible prayer and agreed not to just ask myself, but to patiently pay attention as I answered what it was in life I really wanted. It's taken til now to know most those answers, and it was that journey from then to now that helped shape and glisten the me that can fulfill those things, my goals and hopes and dreams. Mostly tho, it's taken til now to trust in the reality of my inside life, where the wild spirit and heart lives, and to pay attention to its guidance and listen to its nudges and calls. The wild inside place that most in the world don't revere or believe....Preparing to travel this time around is so different now because I know me and know most of all that place in me, I don't even blink when others show fear or awe, or incredulousness which is what I see, mostly, time and again. You're going to leave your job?
To follow my heart?
YES YES HELLLLL yes, I am.
It doesn't even matter what comes next, after I set out for the road, but yes for you reading with this concern: I do have a Plan B. There's a lot to get done now though and it's all written down, it spans from car tune up to credit balance transfers to purchasing camp stoves and rope, tarps and an ax that is the right size and cut for me to use. I am excited, but mostly, full of an enormously calm reserve. It's been growing and growing.
Like the fast melted overnight snow, I can feel it pooling. It's so soon to flow.
Last night in the dark beside the bay the cold air didn't even sting my face, and the three inches of snow we got some time after the pubs and clubs closed and I got home melted by the time the sun was yellow and sky blue at one this afternoon. Mom and dad and I prepared food for the week all afternoon. Dad's lost 37 pounds. In the morning I watched the original True Grit on AMC then later switched to Sex and the City on E. The whole final season was on, I called Katie, we talked low Sunday talk while I laid under my redtent blankies laughing and listening to her, and Carrie Bradshaw, and periodic interjections from mom and dad.
Later they asked about my travel plans, we sat over dinner discussing my route or at least the places I see myself visiting, or feel in my heart is the right way to say. The Blue Ridge then Tennessee. The Gila's, canyonland, then Colorado. Cali and all of the Pacific NW. The mountains and the green green trees, all the stars. The mama mar, the 101. Traveling, just me! Ah god I can barely contain it all.
They're so good about it, mom and dad, and always have been. The easy to confuse life of mine that could be labeled slacker by those who don't know me or have different values. Dad gave me portions of his salmon for the week, his brown rice, roasted vegetables. I sat down and asked for their input: help me brainstorm what I need to put in order, what needs to be prepared and gotten done and what I need to get. By the time we were done the list, on small paper, was three pages long.
It was 2006, towards the end, I told them. When I prayed the terrible prayer and agreed not to just ask myself, but to patiently pay attention as I answered what it was in life I really wanted. It's taken til now to know most those answers, and it was that journey from then to now that helped shape and glisten the me that can fulfill those things, my goals and hopes and dreams. Mostly tho, it's taken til now to trust in the reality of my inside life, where the wild spirit and heart lives, and to pay attention to its guidance and listen to its nudges and calls. The wild inside place that most in the world don't revere or believe....Preparing to travel this time around is so different now because I know me and know most of all that place in me, I don't even blink when others show fear or awe, or incredulousness which is what I see, mostly, time and again. You're going to leave your job?
To follow my heart?
YES YES HELLLLL yes, I am.
It doesn't even matter what comes next, after I set out for the road, but yes for you reading with this concern: I do have a Plan B. There's a lot to get done now though and it's all written down, it spans from car tune up to credit balance transfers to purchasing camp stoves and rope, tarps and an ax that is the right size and cut for me to use. I am excited, but mostly, full of an enormously calm reserve. It's been growing and growing.
Like the fast melted overnight snow, I can feel it pooling. It's so soon to flow.
March 20, 2011
whatwould we do
music
is whatwould we do w
out music i said to you it was
in a song we were dreaming the
words we wrote on the etching of
gold spilled out from our hands the
music sound had the fillingness of
muscles the muscle self only the
bodyfear can allow it smelled like
rain,
cleanse make whole sit a while
i told myself and her~and Her& katie
&walsh heard bc they both called
then, too & Beth, back now
her first trip to her moon Black Venus
she said to me, La Katrine or
la mamachalupa this makes me laugh tehee
she who
knows
music is whatwould
whatwould we do
i told them go down, be-
gin with your self go down the long
map is labled shudderskin start, it hurts
to start i know
shudderskin tight, just breath then breath
under will get you below then
within.
clockwise or counter--
widdershins
i gave them both candles w out
thinking it is whatwould power
do to begin
whatwould we do w out mus
ic dear whatwould we do Him
him him him all the dear sacred hymns
all the chastined greatly going but not
really *it IS love* *it IS!* *is IT* him HIM
HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM
haha black venus on the quartz beach in the keys with her gnosis you grls
cldn't hide, now she chimes MUSIC live
--the buds in the trees
wake up to your own life. i tell her, She tells
me. wake up, your life's sweet as deliverance of
prism spun from delight of shadowless rain
it is not pain it is the calling back to your self
by your self, it is holy as you are it is your name.
it is whatwould happen if you were called first thing
by your sacred given lifename. you heard now
you cant pretend not to hear mUsic
again~
is whatwould we do w
out music i said to you it was
in a song we were dreaming the
words we wrote on the etching of
gold spilled out from our hands the
music sound had the fillingness of
muscles the muscle self only the
bodyfear can allow it smelled like
rain,
cleanse make whole sit a while
i told myself and her~and Her& katie
&walsh heard bc they both called
then, too & Beth, back now
her first trip to her moon Black Venus
she said to me, La Katrine or
la mamachalupa this makes me laugh tehee
she who
knows
music is whatwould
whatwould we do
i told them go down, be-
gin with your self go down the long
map is labled shudderskin start, it hurts
to start i know
shudderskin tight, just breath then breath
under will get you below then
within.
clockwise or counter--
widdershins
i gave them both candles w out
thinking it is whatwould power
do to begin
whatwould we do w out mus
ic dear whatwould we do Him
him him him all the dear sacred hymns
all the chastined greatly going but not
really *it IS love* *it IS!* *is IT* him HIM
HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM
haha black venus on the quartz beach in the keys with her gnosis you grls
cldn't hide, now she chimes MUSIC live
--the buds in the trees
wake up to your own life. i tell her, She tells
me. wake up, your life's sweet as deliverance of
prism spun from delight of shadowless rain
it is not pain it is the calling back to your self
by your self, it is holy as you are it is your name.
it is whatwould happen if you were called first thing
by your sacred given lifename. you heard now
you cant pretend not to hear mUsic
again~
March 18, 2011
Lesson 34. Blooming late was better than not at all.
I wake in stages.
4:50. Loud Ocean 98 music. (The breathing room of five extra minutes in the morning felt sooo luxurious, and sneaky, too--to switch from a 4:45 alarm to 4:50. Isn't that silly?)
4:50. I hit the snooze. 5:00. I turn on the light. 5:06, :07, :08 I sit up. Maybe 5:13, :14, :19. Depends.
It's not til I've literally soaked in hot shower water that I am fully functioning.
I wonder how many of us do this? Wake in stages. The part that's always the same is always the same: snooze button first, then the light, then the little mantras. I bet most people, probably all do this some kind of way, at least I bet we all have our own little funny personal rituals that bring in the day.
Here's why this is on my mind. It is officially now one year that I turned in my resignation to the community college and left behind what had become, in the way that decisions happen by not making decisions, a career for me. Eight years of getting educated on our social structures, on people, on non-profit work, on the education system and state and local and governmental fundings, and most of all on the lives and dynamics of the working poor in this country. And I left because I was burnt dry, my job as a teacher and intake counselor not the first thing in my life that I'd left for that exact same reason.
It took me all that, every last breath of exhaustion and frustration, it took every mistake I made and goal I set and student I met and high-horse I rode to bring me to the place of finally saying my life is too short, Life's too short, to not focus it on exactly what I love. I packed it in, and moved to the beach, thinking I was on my way to breaking in to the writing field in Baltimore after saving money for the summer.
Life taught me though, as it does. And even that, perhaps especially that began a new series of waking. In stages. First the bare bones: counting my blessings. I was 33. Single. Career-less and moving back in with mom. What was there to account? Let me tell you I cultivated my riches. Surrounded by 21-year-olds who didn't sleep, beached it on their days off and jammed their weeks with double-shifts and late nights outs? A full year of only work, 12 hour days, and living in a midshore town with no friends, no family carried me through the misery of breaking up my long-term relationship, and now here I was surrounded by such different dynamics. There was something to learn here from this new life, and so I submitted. The beach, the literal sand and sun and sea, brought out blessings that are inborn in me. These young friends, and my family, and the hilarity of working in the restaurant biz again brought out the rest.
And how else is there to say it than to say it: I've waken in stages. Here I am, the onset of my thirty-fifth year and I think I've actualized me enough to really say: I've bloomed, like come in a daily way in to the self I could've been. On the outside what's to show? I still live with my mom. I own nothing--but a car!!--it wasn't until my second job last month that I actually even had a savings account! But I am all of me, all the me's I felt ashamed of or squandering after, all rolled in to one. So I bloomed late. It was what I wanted when I left Brandon those years ago. To be my Self. And the tragedy? So few people take the Time to give themselves to the long process it takes. So few people, I believe, bloom at all.
The reason I know I've sprouted? Because here's what I intuitively have learned this past year, my lesson number 34 if you will. There will be several more series of awakenings, lots more stages of life in which to develop and grow through, more and more. I've no plateau, there is no "finally"--just periodic glimpses afforded by Life's grace to see exactly where were at, and take stock of the road over which we've travelled. Those moments, I believe, that better help us identify where we want to go. I will take it, being a late bloomer, knowing well and loving, especially loving, this woman I am travelling with. And more, knowing that I am constantly in flux with Life, in this ever ongoing swaying or frenzied dance. Constantly unfolding.
I bloomed late, and am still budding, even as I anticipate the next seeds that fall. I've awakened to myself in stages, recognizing that little awakenings, and the rest or times of submission that eventually open our eyes are so far the best parts of getting to go through any of this at all.
I wonder at these little wakings. How many other people do that, too?
4:50. Loud Ocean 98 music. (The breathing room of five extra minutes in the morning felt sooo luxurious, and sneaky, too--to switch from a 4:45 alarm to 4:50. Isn't that silly?)
4:50. I hit the snooze. 5:00. I turn on the light. 5:06, :07, :08 I sit up. Maybe 5:13, :14, :19. Depends.
It's not til I've literally soaked in hot shower water that I am fully functioning.
I wonder how many of us do this? Wake in stages. The part that's always the same is always the same: snooze button first, then the light, then the little mantras. I bet most people, probably all do this some kind of way, at least I bet we all have our own little funny personal rituals that bring in the day.
Here's why this is on my mind. It is officially now one year that I turned in my resignation to the community college and left behind what had become, in the way that decisions happen by not making decisions, a career for me. Eight years of getting educated on our social structures, on people, on non-profit work, on the education system and state and local and governmental fundings, and most of all on the lives and dynamics of the working poor in this country. And I left because I was burnt dry, my job as a teacher and intake counselor not the first thing in my life that I'd left for that exact same reason.
It took me all that, every last breath of exhaustion and frustration, it took every mistake I made and goal I set and student I met and high-horse I rode to bring me to the place of finally saying my life is too short, Life's too short, to not focus it on exactly what I love. I packed it in, and moved to the beach, thinking I was on my way to breaking in to the writing field in Baltimore after saving money for the summer.
Life taught me though, as it does. And even that, perhaps especially that began a new series of waking. In stages. First the bare bones: counting my blessings. I was 33. Single. Career-less and moving back in with mom. What was there to account? Let me tell you I cultivated my riches. Surrounded by 21-year-olds who didn't sleep, beached it on their days off and jammed their weeks with double-shifts and late nights outs? A full year of only work, 12 hour days, and living in a midshore town with no friends, no family carried me through the misery of breaking up my long-term relationship, and now here I was surrounded by such different dynamics. There was something to learn here from this new life, and so I submitted. The beach, the literal sand and sun and sea, brought out blessings that are inborn in me. These young friends, and my family, and the hilarity of working in the restaurant biz again brought out the rest.
And how else is there to say it than to say it: I've waken in stages. Here I am, the onset of my thirty-fifth year and I think I've actualized me enough to really say: I've bloomed, like come in a daily way in to the self I could've been. On the outside what's to show? I still live with my mom. I own nothing--but a car!!--it wasn't until my second job last month that I actually even had a savings account! But I am all of me, all the me's I felt ashamed of or squandering after, all rolled in to one. So I bloomed late. It was what I wanted when I left Brandon those years ago. To be my Self. And the tragedy? So few people take the Time to give themselves to the long process it takes. So few people, I believe, bloom at all.
The reason I know I've sprouted? Because here's what I intuitively have learned this past year, my lesson number 34 if you will. There will be several more series of awakenings, lots more stages of life in which to develop and grow through, more and more. I've no plateau, there is no "finally"--just periodic glimpses afforded by Life's grace to see exactly where were at, and take stock of the road over which we've travelled. Those moments, I believe, that better help us identify where we want to go. I will take it, being a late bloomer, knowing well and loving, especially loving, this woman I am travelling with. And more, knowing that I am constantly in flux with Life, in this ever ongoing swaying or frenzied dance. Constantly unfolding.
I bloomed late, and am still budding, even as I anticipate the next seeds that fall. I've awakened to myself in stages, recognizing that little awakenings, and the rest or times of submission that eventually open our eyes are so far the best parts of getting to go through any of this at all.
I wonder at these little wakings. How many other people do that, too?
March 17, 2011
Poem. Backwards.
Backwards
I was still in love with Josh.
In the fog-handled edges of the trees
in the photos
from most the pictures on the island
it tells me so
It’s the muted corners that blur
the edges
in to things that are one or the other
but not because the starts and ends
seem all the same
At that point eighteen months had passed
since we'd pained our presence
with physical remembering
But only two weeks since
we’d talked on the phone. I know
because in other pictures there
is the party at the beach
me up too late
with people half my age
me readying
to sleep with someone
way too young
Archiving photos now makes me wonder:
Is this the way we move on?
Travel far away with some new heart
reckless and beating in the hungry hand
walk for miles around and around
a same small plot of strange land.
Do we ritualize the expanding of limits
the exercising of what one is capable of?
And should that too fail us
is it a certainty,
we will tramp back over the path feckless
as animals in the barnyard
oblivious of the routes
we insist on
because as always they will return
us home?
I was still in love with Josh.
In the fog-handled edges of the trees
in the photos
from most the pictures on the island
it tells me so
It’s the muted corners that blur
the edges
in to things that are one or the other
but not because the starts and ends
seem all the same
At that point eighteen months had passed
since we'd pained our presence
with physical remembering
But only two weeks since
we’d talked on the phone. I know
because in other pictures there
is the party at the beach
me up too late
with people half my age
me readying
to sleep with someone
way too young
Archiving photos now makes me wonder:
Is this the way we move on?
Travel far away with some new heart
reckless and beating in the hungry hand
walk for miles around and around
a same small plot of strange land.
Do we ritualize the expanding of limits
the exercising of what one is capable of?
And should that too fail us
is it a certainty,
we will tramp back over the path feckless
as animals in the barnyard
oblivious of the routes
we insist on
because as always they will return
us home?
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