muffle me
can't breathe
hard on the chest
bad things
no space
no reprieve
can't breathe
muffle me

snowsparkle wild-write 2-2-06

Leave your house naked
don't pause at the door
there is no hesitation when
skin wants the sky

My son and i shared a short-lived new year's tradition. When i turned 50 a couple years ago, it felt like instant permission to do things i'd never done before. On that new year's day, when my son and i saw the rain dancing on the wooden deck in our backyard, we tore off our clothes and joined in the dance. I tell you, the feeling was unexpected. The heat of my body floated outward to greet the cool rain. Body, hair and breath caught the scents: fresh, wet, morning. We danced, feet and arms flailing like some crazed vaudvillean dream. Our laughter frightened the cats and my husband. Then, falling back into the house through the open door, we wanted nothing but the whole day to carry this peace, this reckless peace, armloads of "yes you may's."

This new year, my teenage son couldn't find a way for it to be ok to dance naked in the dawn with his mom. So we danced our separate dances with less joy, less exhuberance, less recklessness. It seemed the faintest wisp of what it had been before. Still, it was something.

Being in the writing space and wild writing with all these women sometimes feels like leaving the house naked. Self-acceptance and the way things are held lightly invite me to walk the walk of naked words. Lift things up to the light, never mind the sagging breasts and jowls.

Fight

Last night I was sad. I felt it coming on early in the day, that sad, sad feeling that everything is wrong, that any other perspective is nothing but an illusion, that I am defective—that I have an internal defect that makes me this way, makes me sad and wrong eternally.

I fought back.

"I'm sad because I'm sad," I said, "and it doesn't mean anything. Tomorrow may be different. Five minutes from now may be different."

Today IS different. Not happy, not sad, though I've had moments of each. But yesterday—all that—I know it was about Life of Pi, about the hyena killing the zebra by tearing open its belly and eating its guts from the inside. I know it was about the hyena beheading Orange Juice, the orangutan that was rescued as an infant and raised together with Pi like a sibling. I know it was about Pi stranded on that 26-foot lifeboat, terrorized by the hyena and the tiger, and about feeling sorry for them, for Pi and especially for the animals, who didn't ask to be put on the ship, who weren't willingly moving to their new zoo homes when the ship sank.

I know its just a story. Its all just a story--you, me, the whole thing.

Yesterday I was sad. Really, really sad. The kind of sad that wants to transform itself into despair. "I'm sad because I'm sad," I said. "And it doesn't mean anything."

I fought back.

Juicy

See what you do.
Take the blue from that painting over there and wrap it in something—words, phyllo dough.
Bake with color.
Take a play day.
Reel in a golden fish, melt it down and cast another shape.
Hike up Mt. Kilmanjaro—first you will have to find the trail in the foothills.
Milk a goat.
Milk a sheep.
Feel the warm teats, the warm liquid, the wool warmed by sun.
Hear the bleating.
Sew up your lips.
Sew them together to keep the drivel inside, to avoid saying something you'll regret.
See what you do with a little self-direction.
So much time at the beck and call of others.
See what you do.
Make some spaghetti with codfish balls in a sorrel sauce.
Make chocolate spaghettini with currants and a caramel glaze.
Pray.
Think about whether there's actually anything out there to pray to.
Doubt.
Feel silly for praying.
Pay the bills on time with online bill pay, free from the credit union.
It's great.
Try some other limited time offer.
Whatever you do, don't think of Alicia.
You don't need her approval.
Think of desert sands shifting, the scent of heat that looms in the air, the motorized drone of a passing Winnebago.
Think about how you are great and perfect.
Eat a maraschino cherry.
Think "yuk".
Remember Villa Italian on Sepulveda. Or was it Overland Ave?
Wish you could go there for a square slice of pizza.
Remember how your family always called it Villa Italia, dropping off the final n.
Remember the two large fans in the wall that looked like some kind of World War II submarine turbines.
Really see those big metal blades and the dust strands that decorated their cylindrical mounts.
Remember how you loved them best, how you thought they could save your soul, like those fans were your own personal Jesus made of steel.
Think about how weird that is, and also how normal.
Multiply that type of thinking times all the people in the world, because people do think that way.
There's a lot of bizarre imagery looming in the psychic space of our species, all wrapped up together: tangled gods in the shape of boats, mechanical pencils, suede shoes, an alligator handbag.
See that tree? That peach tree over there?
The fruit is ripe.
Go ahead, pluck one.
Eat it.
Juicy.

your pink lips

didn't anyone ever tell you
not to play with fire?
what are you thinking, putting your hand
in the flame like that,
watching the skin bubble?

a soft snowfall in march
your pink lips kissing a white rose
the outline of your figure in a doorway

why don't you surrender,
lay down your heart?
true, you risk losing it forever
a skulking coyote could make a quick snack of it

but if you said, i'm helpless
if you said, i'm out of love
if you said, i'm emptier than zero
lonelier than god

a nymph would touch a bird in the forest
a wing would flap
you would feel a fluttering in your middle

why don't you retire yourself,
your storytelling?
tell your own story someone else's way
then you will see

Saying Yes.

I'd rather be topless. Her jeep sped off; these words cozied up around her license plate. I leave my car and walk into the divey Mexican place on International Boulevard, and I wonder. I wonder if my two friends seated on either side of me will make a go of it, and try a kiss, a caress, when they look at the stars tonight. I wonder how long we’ll have Martin, I wonder about this as I sweep him into a polka after dinner, after being gifted a free Mexican ballad on the digital jukebox. We dance down the aisle, past our table and our spent margaritas, and his words come out with urgency – “HOLD THE DOORS!" and his wife and Jon immediately obey, and swing the two doors wide for Martin and I to dance into the street. It’s good for the soul, this spontaneous exuberance, this glimmer of celebration for no reason. Something about dancing like this says YES to life. Perhaps it’s the contrast between giggles and the dirty floor. Perhaps for that moment, the tenderness, the connection helps us to transcend it all, and it matters not where we are, because we are being. Because we are joy, because we love, just because the doors are open.

denying my denial

it snuck up on me
this crush
i'd blamed the bubbly giddy laughter
on long work days and little sleep
blamed the animated phone conversations
on too much coffee
blamed the tripping over my words
on having too much to do
excused my probing questions
as being normal for an inquisitive blogger type
but then i did the math
while he was describing his camping trips
and how his interest in gourmet cooking began
23 years ago at age 14
i found myself doing the math
and that's when I knew
the moment i slid that 37 right up next to my 51 years
and gasped at the age difference
i knew i had a crush
a sweet little flickering flame
licking at my heart
filling me with both
dread and desire
and also what i'd asked for
in the depths of my secret soul
a measure of joy and wonder
insensible imaginings and
a sudden loss of balance
unfamiliar to my sturdy self
as if i'd looked down and found a pair of sequined
high heeled shoes glittering brightly on my feet
trembling on the thin tightrope miles above earth
and no safety net in sight