Happy. Thank you. More Please.

It is spring in Seattle.

Sometimes this means the rain lingers until mid-July. Grey hangs heavy on the city, clinging to building corners, closing in on the streets, swirling down on pedestrians and dogs until both escape into Starbucks, Tullys, [insert independently owned coffee shop name here] to forget the sky in alternative milk lattes and scones. In these years, the temperature slowly creeps from 40 to 60 degrees. This gradual change goes unnoticed by most as it is hidden by clouds, marine winds, and predictably constant precipitation. Sometimes it stays this way until July, when residents collectively plan a mass exodus south to California. Seattle is not for the weak at heart. 

Fortunately, Seattle has sprung into an off year. Last week was mid-May. Last week hit 80 degrees over the weekend. Pedestrians and dogs stumbled into Eden like parks, high on sunshine and Vitamin D, claiming that here - Seattle in the Spring - is paradise on Earth. How quickly we are to forget. How quickly to forgive a weather system that would have us all strung out on caffeine, vitamin supplements, and anti-depressants just to get through an eight-to-five work day. Being native to Washington, I pull on my shorts and tank tops with the rest. However, I remain distant from the hope that summer has finally arrived. I emotionally prepare for the heartbreak of the inevitable returned rain. Seattle Spring is a fickle lover. 

---

I took my lunch break at 9:30 this morning. I had been at work for 20 minutes and was struggling to pull my thoughts into an order that resembled something more organized that a bowl of tangled spaghetti noodles. If my thoughts stopped making sense to me, how was I going to convincingly portray their meaning to co-workers? Rather than serve out a bland mess of gibberish at my upcoming meetings, I took immediate intervention and left my work for coffee and a morning stroll through the park, justified by my promise of productivity once I returned. 

At one point during my walk (eyes finally opened by coffee consumption), I passed underneath a tree making an impressive display of spring, covered in purple blossoms that looked like snap dragons. I picked up one of the blossoms from the ground, convinced that something so beautiful and abundant must smell like a weed. But it didn't. It smelled sweet, delicious, fresh. Floral, but not overwhelmingly strong. Sweet, but not sickeningly so. How can it be that on a beautifully sunny day in Seattle, a large tree is covered with purple blossoms and smelling like nectar? Is it right to have so much good in one place? Is the existence of this tree, on this spring day, withdrawing too much from the invisible bank of goodness? Will the universe turn against this display of indulgence? 

With my hands cupped around the blossom, I breathed in the scent to see if I could use it up. Could this scent grow sour or bitter after being smelled. It didn't, but I was so lost in the moment and my thoughts that I didn't notice a car backing up toward me, only three feet away. I noticed the car and the driver noticed me and we both agreed to stop our current trajectory and avoid catastrophe for another day. However, being an odd person tilted toward eccentric behavior and thoughts (and now an odd person struggling with the meaning of death in life after my uncle's passing), I continued the scenario out in my head and visualized my own death. The car backed into me (in my head) and I was left broken and dying on the pavement. Blossom still in my hand, I bring it to my nose to smell it's perfume while life leaves my body. In this scenario, would the scent grow sour or bitter? Would the experience change if I knew that this was the scent of death? It didn't; it remained the same: sweet, fresh, fragrant, light. The universe doesn't seem to care about made up death scenarios when parceling out scent. The blossom still smelled beautiful, even to the not yet existent dying me (in my head). Stubborn and stoic, this blossom with it's beauty and scent. Stoic in it's indifference to the happenings of the world around it; stubborn in its unwillingness to compromise a good existence with something more accommodating. 

The whole experience of the blossom, the tree, the sun and spring reminded me of a little quip my friend mentioned while we were hiking last weekend: "Happy. Thank you. More please." When you are given something that is good, you acknowledge the fact that you are happy. Thank the universe for sending you such a wonderful something your way. Meanwhile, let it know that if more of the same should find its way into your life, you would be ecstatic to accept it. Previously, I would view this acceptance and acknowledgement of something good as opening myself up to unnecessary pain when it decides to leave. There is vulnerability in happiness, if you are always preparing for the misery. I couldn't get to the point of contentment and thankfulness, I was too scared at the fleeting nature of the moment. And so it would leave, just like I knew it always would, and I would be back wallowing in misery even though I never left that misery when things were good. I was holding the spring blossom to my nose, searching for the bitter scent of death. Could I just let it be a blossom, on a sunny day? 

The pull of death in the fall usually spurs me on toward crazy. The trees are so beautiful that my eyes tear up and hurt when I look at them. The world is dying, giving itself up to some place where I cannot follow. Thrown into the grey of winter, I would despair that this now, this is the last moment of beauty I will every see. I died along with the world, or at least wished that I could die with the world.  Sadly, it took me 29 years to fully understand spring; to fully believe the fact (obvious to most) that ultimately, life not only follows the death of winter, but follows it abundantly. I can look at a tree, thick and fragrant with purple and rejoice in the existence of the tree, abundantly good. I can say yes I am happy, thank you for this beautiful gift during my stolen morning walk, and please don't hesitate to send me more. If it is sun that follows, I'll repeat the mantra again. If it is rain, well... I'll enjoy the sound of the water on the roof and windows.

I now have facts of which I believe with full and unabashedly assured faith: Spring follows winter. When the night is tired of the dark, dawn will break over the mountains. Rebirth can, if we are looking for it, come out of death. 

Happy. Thank you. More Please. 

I'm in love with my life right now. It is abundantly good. 

 

Recovery - Step One: Nurture Something Good

I feel it mostly in my chest.

It builds and pushes against my ribs and upper back, threatening to burst open in flames and ash with each passing day. A deep inhalation releases the tension and shoots through my body with pokes and needles. My breath is the blood flowing to a limb that has been far too distant and deeply asleep; that limb is my voice pushed dormant by tragedy, depression and disappointment.

How many experiences does it take to lose your voice, to have it catch in your throat and burrow down in your heart like a dense and tiny mustard seed? How much time does it take before that same mustard seed cracks open, springing to life at even the smallest rays of hope? Like a whisper in my head, I hear an echo of someone saying that faith the size of a seed can rearrange landscapes. In faith I take that cracked seed in my hands and begin to nurture it toward germination, finding warmth - hope - in the belief that a mustard seed is enough. I am enough.

I take another breath in and with it the pokes and needles. Nothing brings me more into the present than my own breath. I close my eyes. My chest expands with a rush of air into the empty cavity around my heart. I feel the slight vibration in my throat and slight stretch of my ribs. The chair beneath me pushes against my body. My body centers and pushes back against the chair. Breath like blood flows into my body, an awakening, a baptism of my seed in tears, sweat and blood when water flees and dries up.

I read once that our breath forms Ham-Sa, Sanskrit for "I am." The inhale whispers Ham, the release vibrates Sa. Ham -pause- sa -pause- A primordial teeter-totter giving us strength as our lungs mingle the external atmosphere with our body and blood. I -pause- am -pause- ... I -pause- am -pause- ... I -pause- am -pause- enough, my mind fills in the pause between exhale and inhale. I -pause- am -pause- not damned. I -pause- am -pause- loved.

As Ham-Sa teeters up and down in my throat and my mind fills in the pauses, I feel something different well in my chest, close to my seed. It also teets and totters with my breath, bringing with it a refreshing rush like cool water, crisp mountain air, rain at the end of a long summer day. Lord Jesus Christ, it starts. Have mercy on me. Lord Jesus Christ inhale... Have mercy on me exhale...

Together the three part orchestra of my body, mind and heart builds a harmony, each part intricately woven into the other by the rhythm of expand and release. ...crescendo: Lord Jesus Christ, I ...diminuendo: am -enough-, have mercy on me. ...rest... Lord Jesus Christ, I ... am -loved-, have mercy on me. ...rest... Lord Jesus Christ, I ... am -not damned-, have mercy on me ...rest.

The music plays on. I see the first hint of growth pushing at the crack in my mustard seed: a very small lime-green fissure in the smooth yellow shell. My voice, timid, out-of-practice, and drowsy with the sleep of 11 months begins to emerge, pushing against my chest and back. Tragedy, disappointment and depression - I feel something stronger - recovery, forgiveness and grace. I am ready to start writing. I am ready to nurture something good.

That, for now, is enough.

Memory Eternal

Happy Birthday, my Uncle Tim.

Time doesn't heal yet. The shock of your death is gone and I know, with a sinking, heavy, trap-door feeling in the bottom of my heart that you are not coming back. I will never see you arguing with Todd at family holidays. We will never climb another mountain together, standing on top of the world and feeling alive. You will not be the reckless Sheriff of BANG! who blows himself up with dynamite in the second round. We will not go running, camping, boating. You will never approve or disapprove of the guys that may or may not choose to hang around.

No, time is making things worse, more real. I don't want to wake-up; I want to believe that our family gatherings will inexplicably pull you from your dark hiding like a moth to the light and you will suddenly be with us again. Instead, there is an underlying silence that was once filled with your laugh. A disjointed confusion sits in the room like a white elephant: elusive, blurry around the edges, and something that everyone feels but nobody wants to mention.

Staying asleep helps a little.

This week you have been in my dreams. Trembleys are on the family trip, trying to get on with life after your death. We do things, we cry, we fight with each other. Through it all, we know that you are dead. We board a boat and when I look back to check on my parents, you are there with your arm around aunt Kim. She is crying, looking at the ocean and thinking about you. You are holding her. Then you look at me. You turn and look at me and smile. You see me. and you smile.

I wake up thinking that regardless of what happens, if my dead uncle turns to me and smiles, perhaps I am not so worthless or despicable. This fight -through trauma, depression, rejection, and grief- could be worth the return of myself. I hear journeying from the afterlife is not done easily- much like the journeying through life. And yet you were there. Tangibly. Smiling.

I miss you. Happy Birthday.

Be Back Soon

It was my intention to provide a link to my new blog over a month ago, before leaving for Mexico. But life has a way of getting carried away and here I find myself a month into my travels and a link still lacking. Here it is, my delightful readership. If you were not already aware of the switch, my Mexican adventure can be followed here:

www.twohandstofeet.blogspot.com

Be back soon.

Goodbyes and Good Riddance

It's an odd feeling to go through your already small room and get rid of everything you have stacked up and stored away for 27 years. First go the clothes and books that you don't find absolutely necessary. Then with a little more anxiety, the clothes and books that do seem necessary. Next go the toiletries you won't use, but still feel are wrongly labelled as trash because they could be used, someday. With "necessity" and "someday" now in ever growing garbage bags, you move to the furniture. Easier to part with beds and dressers emotionally, but by sheer volume they make themselves troublesome. Two stops at two different second-hand stores later and you are left with the unexpected layer, sentimentality.

You neither need nor want the raging letter correspondence of Summer 2006, the countless mixed tapes, or the ridiculous photos trapped in happily-ever-after. But there they seem to be, at the bottom of every drawer, box and folder. You put them off, instead going through and throwing out tax returns, pay stubs from 2005 and old term papers on Keats and gender. Soon your possessions, your life work of 27 years, fit hap-hazardly into five pregnant trash bags. They flank the walls of your room like an overweight audience, waiting to see if you have the strength to continue. You are at the center of your room, surrounded by a tornado of papers that should be meaningless. It is now that you decide the importance of life change.

Here is my advice to you: Start with the best relationship first. As you hold a book of poetry or a favorite letter in your hand, think about the long and messy break-up or ever approaching wedding. When you land on a particularly grand and happy picture, think of the late night fights and all the times you were made to cry. Then let them go with the memories into a trash bag that looks like all the others. With the best of the worse times out of the way, the rest of the relationships slip from your fingers. Before you know it, pictures and promises and every lie you believed as true is in that trash bag and ready to be gone forever. Grab the red ties, cinch the bag closed and rid yourself of the burden of a thousand heartbreaks. As you cry from exhaustion and emotion, feel the growing strength of a you crawling from the rubble, still in one piece in spite of this lonely journey. Be that strong and dust covered you and clear your throat with a Nalgene full of water.

Grab your backpack, start the car. With the steering wheel in one hand and your prayer rope in the other, let the yellow lines wash over you in three foot sections, increasing speed with your speed until they blur to something consistent, constant. As your direction veers south and you drive, perhaps for good and perhaps still crying, feel the cool wind finger your unfettered hair and drink down the freedom of the darkening night sky.

Pulled from Within

What is it within that causes us to so readily petition the skies with an array of emotions? What is it that prompts us to gain our answer from the caress of the wind?

Do birds, who fly so free in the expanses we merely theorize, wonder at the skies?

To My Nephew

Dear Baby Aidan,

You should come out now.

There is a whole host of people who have been awaiting your arrival and we all look forward to meeting you. Your family is very nice and your parents will make sure you are never short on love. You also have a nana, nannee, papop, tia and uncle willing and anxious to adore every fiber of you.

I know the process of being born can be quite scary. We have all gone through this experience at some point in time. But don't worry, chances are you will not remember anything. And the world is so beautiful when you take the time to look at it. You will not see it for a couple months while your eyes develop, but believe me on this one. The world is worth the fear of birth and the waiting on cognition and development to take it in.

You will like the sun. Sometimes it comes out in brilliant rays and holds you captive and warm. Sometimes it rains, but I think you will like the rain as well. If you let it, it will sing you soft lullabies of pitter-pat while you drift off to sleep. And I can't wait to introduce you to mud, the marriage of rain and earth made perfect in puddles and dirt pies. It is not always so nice to stay clean. Mud helps you deal with the inexplicable impulse to be dirty and happy.

Today is a good day to be born. Spring has arrived in this city and sits anxiously on the tips of branches. The world is pregnant with flowers ready to burst forth with a silent TADA! You are also ready to bloom into the beautiful person you were created to be. You can be my littler flower, of course, until gender differentiation sets in and you become my little bear or warrior.

Don't be afraid. On the other side, there are twenty and more pairs of arms outstretched and ready to show you that the world is truly wonderful.

I look forward to meeting you and hearing your first little cry.

With love and affection,

Your Tia Katie

By the Bottle

I don't drink Irony by the glass, I drink it by the bottle.

At first it goes down a little bitter, as irony does, but by the end of mug one -because we were drinking this irony from mugs as first class ladies do- the subtle hints of fruit came out over the alcohol. Of course, by this time we also smelled more of alcohol than popcorn and our heads whooshed a little when we felt the need to stand up. Sometimes we would stand up just for the fun of the whooshing.

Irony doesn't give you a headache or hangover; it lingers slightly on the back of your tongue reminding you that life goes on but that it doesn't need to be all bad, just a little bitter to swallow before you get used to what's next.

Wind Storm

This was a present for my cousin's birthday. I could see her using a windy day to dance with the stars. Happy Birthday, my beautiful and talented cousin!

Dancing Stars: Part 1

This week my morning walks to work have greeted me with rain and wind. Fortunately, I walk with a bright pink umbrella borrowed from my roommate. Drawing inspiration from my walk and utilizing the lack of social activity filling my evening, I watched a movie and painted.

I wrote this on the back of my painting:

I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

I have been told that something this cute doesn't function well alone and that he could use a few friends. I wouldn't mind looking at an army of silly, dancing stars.

Tuesday Night

Setting: I live with three counselors. Tonight I came home to my roommates watching a movie.

Me: "What are you watching?"

RMs3: "Interrogation"

Me: "What's it about?"

RMs3: "A therapist."

/pause/
/look from one roommate to the other/
/burst out laughing/

Let's be hypothetical: The Power of the Editor

I am currently writing a 100% hypothetical, non-autobiographical, fictional scenario in which a protagonist deals with an ex-boyfriend. In this scenario, the protagonist sees some pictures which she really didn't care to see to confirm a truth that she knew to be so, intuitively, but didn't really care to think about. Pictures paired with the holiday memories of a year past make for a great birthday present. Thrilled with the findings, the protagonist struggles with the best way to process through the past.

In this completely hypothetical story, the protagonist is named Nancy. Nancy can be a bit impulsive and has a tongue to cut like a knife, so rather than take frustrations out on small animals or complete strangers, Nancy decides to go straight to the source. Letters, presents and pictures are brought together in a box of waned happiness. The plan is delivery on the doorstep of the offender, with a note to cut to the soul, and perhaps a car covered in dog feces. As an editor to this scenario, I persuade Nancy against the feces idea with the reasoning that the task of collection alone would prove a shitty process. Nancy reluctantly agrees and moves on to the soul cutting note.

Carried away with emotion, Nancy can not be trusted and I step in as the writer and editor of this situation to guide her words. She shows me draft #1:

"Have a great f*cking life, B*tch! I hope you choke and die."

I give Nancy props on her ability to capturing blatant precision in such a moving statement. However, if I were to give a note in this situation, I might be a little less forthcoming with emotion. That way, the recipient couldn't immediately write our dear protagonist off as being crazy and embittered. Nancy assures me that she is not crazy and embittered, just very angry. I tell her to keep thinking and writing.

The next morning, the sun is bright and the sky meets Seattle around the edges in a flurry of pink and purple. Nancy comes to me early in the morning, hopeful with draft #2. It reads as follows:

"There are so many things I would like to say to you that I am actively choosing against voicing. I could say things to shred you down to a raw and empty soul. But quite frankly, there is no point and I know any tears you shed will not be sorrow at hurting another person but horror at being found out. So I will leave it at this: I am done praying for you, but I sincerely hope that one day you find something to make you a better person- someone with honesty and integrity.

Take this box of lies- I am done with it. I don't need it to hold me back from where I am going. Perhaps you will find something in the refuse worth recycling.

Thank you for so thoroughly dismantling and cutting me free of the false hope that Christian boys are at all worth the skin they inhabit. While you wallow in the filth of what you are, I will be flying with the stars."

Nancy seems happy, like she has said everything she wanted while still remaining as civil as the situation would allow. I take her note with me and ponder it throughout the day, agreeing to meet that evening. It is better than the first draft, for sure, but something doesn't seem right. As her editor, I'm determined to identify the problem and discuss it with her. Then it hits me, this note is filled with "I" statements. For a situation needing this level of sensitivity and caution, I would opt out of writing myself into the note. After all, why put yourself out there to be counter-attacked when you are already the one hurt in the first place? This will not do, and I tell Nancy so.

She is crushed, but she agrees to try again. Several days pass and she returns, reluctant and confident. Draft #third-time's-the-charm:

"You didn't get away with anything; you are still a liar and a fake. Maybe someday you will see the value in honesty and integrity. For the sake of those around you, one can only hope.

"I'm returning these lies. Maybe somewhere in the refuse you will find something worth recycling. Just make sure to mean it this time around."

With this note, as her editor, I believe she has finally said what she had hoped while maintaining her own integrity. Will she still follow through with her original plan and give the note and box to her offender? As the writer of this fiction, I still haven't decided. After our work together, I am more concerned about the development of my character Nancy than the ultimate outcome and feelings of a worthless boy. I have the power as writer and editor to decide. What will I do with it?

Mexico-In-My-Heart

I was only gone to Mexico for two weeks. I shouldn't be experiencing the level of culture shock that I am. However, now that I am back, I can't decide which reality is less real: the lure of warm and relaxed Mexico or the busy, cold-shouldered running about of Seattle. Right now, Mexico stays stubborn in my mind and I try to fight off the illusions of missed priorities so screamingly present in the States.

Mexico won over my heart in record time. Part of me is happy to be in Washington, home for the holidays and gasping awe at the snow covered mountains. An equally big part wants to make good on new friends' promises of travel companionship and lodging- buying and boarding the next plane ride out of town and saying hello to the life of a gypsy. I am still in shock at how simple and fulfilling life can be. With the scrambling and working and keeping the nose to the grindstone of the American work ethic, we still haven't found the things that make happiness a lifestyled reality. I have laughed more in the past two weeks than an entire year.

I like who I am in Mexico. I laugh and smile constantly. My eyes turn bright and my step seems so light that I must be flying. The unnecessary is stripped away to leave the raw material of life and living. My reality : Ganas de vivir! : Desire to live. This is sketched on an artisan's arm that agrees to teach and force me to speak Spanish. The memories of Mexico are locked like gold in my memory. I pull them out, warm and shining, to illuminate my eyes. Smiling, they see through the illusion -the smoke and mirrors, bustle and burden- of everydaylife.

When asked the reasons for my current high, I answered a friend this: For years beyond years I have been placed in a culture where I feel I don't belong. I have been tossed and blown about dark waves that almost drowned me in the obligations and unmet expectations I felt forced to believe. Thread by thread my soul unraveled to these things, thinking no other option was available aside from painful submission. In Mexico, I experienced a solid ground I have searched my life through and back. My feet planted finally and standing after so much uncertainty felt solid. My full height realized on this ground, my head feels as if my thoughts soar with the clouds and stars.

I don't aim to condemn the past that budded me, but rejoice in the future blooming and pruning I hope my future holds. I'm back and adjusting to the cold, but from inside out Mexico-in-my-heart warms the tips of my being. I am happy; heart, mind and soul happy. My eyes smile and see the beauty in everyone I pass, if only they could see that same beauty. Mexico has made me a better person and the world around me, even in Seattle in the dark winter, glows life inspired.

Mexico, te quiero. Regresaré.

Fuzziness of Language

As of last night, I have been in Mexico for over a week. My body has nearly adjusted to an 80 degree temperature change, I have adapted my wardrobe to accommodate the tastiness of my skin to a myriad of bugs, and I no longer risk giving myself intestinal unrest by almost drinking tap water. This time abroad has convinced me of the human body´s ability to make do in all the different ways we try to break it down and shock it. Go bodies!

A development I was not expecting is the way immersion into a different language takes your mind hostage and blurs its edges so thinking becomes nearly impossible. So many nights I sit with my journal, curled up under the stars, staring at a blank page while the colors and images of Mexico stay stubbornly locked away in my head, unwilling to make themselves into cognitive thoughts. Words thoroughly escape me. Or, at the very best, I am left with a stew of Spanglish splattered together in little better than a first grade reading level.

However, even with language adaptation is possible, if not discouragingly slower than the ways a body adapts. When I first arrived, nothing made sense. I was left smiling the vacant smile of a gringo foreigner, nodding agreement at who knows what propositions were presented to me. I`m sure in the first several days of my stay here, I agreed to buy anything from vendors, said yes to eating animal brains, and agreed to go dancing and make out with random local guys. I did not make good on any of these smile-nod promises and have more than likely supported the impression that Americans are either stupid or dishonest. After my first full Mexican day, my mind felt fuzzy and confused, suddenly unable to comprehend the speech presented.

This started to pass relatively quickly. By day two, I could understand most of the conversations happening between my friend and various venders and locals. I would listen, wide-eyed and fuzzy brained, catching snippets of words I understood. Day three I could let people know that I understood most of what they asked, but couldn´t speak in return. I was surprised the things I didn´t remember from 8th grade Spanish class, and how little those things really mattered in understanding and being understood. I felt adventurous by day four and could order frutas y cervezas from the little tienda. I feel a growing urge to try out language, especially with children and older people who speak a little slower and laugh with you rather than at you.

However, by learning a new language, I seem to be trading the older one out. At one point, I found myself in a loud internet cafe, trying to type out essay questions on childhood development and psychosocial tendencies. My brain was in a funk. I couldn´t remember simple English words or sentence structures. Even typing a simple email to my parents was laborous and nearly impossible. As loud Spanish was exchanged around me, I found myself trying to incorporate Spanish words in place of my forgotten English ones. I walked to the hotel in a daze and took a three hour nap.

I didn´t expect language acquisition to fully capture any form of developed voice and have a new respect for travel writers. I don´t know how they do it. Hopefully, this is just another aspect of adaptation I can encourage my body and mind to accept. I look forward trying.

In Mexico

Five star sunsets...









...every single day.

First Frost

Midnight skies cross the void, causing festive merriment and crusting the grass with one million dancing, singing, laughing stars. This night, first frost inverts the world as the universe crunches beneath my shoes. I'll puff out white clouds of stilled adoration before cold bones and screaming blue fingers blind my sight with apathy.

I went to a concert known as "The Rounds," a collection of artists brought together to make a larger whole. I watched dozens of artists celebrate the beauty of the world. Painters painted, poets spoke, and musicians traded songs like playing cards. I was, in every sense of the word, audience to the art created by camaraderie and collaboration. My seat as observer grew increasingly uncomfortable as all my senses stayed tuned to the beauty before me. By encouraging artists to play and collaborate with each other, relational dynamics form and further separate the distance between performer and audience. We observe the budding friendships, secret love affairs and artistic rivalries, understandings and misunderstandings that grow in the stage light but quickly fade and die with the approaching day. Rather than interaction between performer and audience, we sit entranced and slightly voyeuristic at the artist/artist bonds. This left me with a feeling of guilt and shame. Why could I not be with them? What sets me so profoundly in audience- in waiting- while others so joyfully and beautifully arrive?

The stars are set like diamonds in the sky. I know this image and set of words has been placed together before Petrarch and Shakespeare. However, this realization does nothing to take away from the ever growing beauty of this deepening night. Sometimes the best thing to be said remains in a silent acknowledgment- a brief nod from my end of eternity back to the giants of art and expression. I like to think they nod back. That way silent understanding can sit in the space of thousands of years and on the first frost of the season, stars can be diamonds.

Would I- if my arms stretched high enough and my fingers proved as strong- would I pluck those diamonds from their thrones and store their beauty in my pockets? Would I put them in my mouth and suck them down like hard candy in an attempt to infuse inspiration into the fibers of my being? Could I call myself an artist, a writer, at that point or would I need a whole bucket of twinkly, lemony jawbreaker stars to ease this nagging appetite of insecurity? Perhaps I am the force separating myself from the stage and given the chance to make my soul fly, I clip my wings for some unknown and driving fear of rejection.

Fear can make an audience of artist. I attend wonderful performances and enjoy them, but am left feeling unnerved, as if a desire so deep and strong is awakened at the mere suggestion of art. Restlessness drives me to a bar at 12:00am. I sit scribbling to candlelight, drawing inspiration from stars distant through foggy windows and courage from a brimming glass of pinot noir. Here in the deafening noise of pop music and pick-up lines, I can be artist, or writer, or anything at all. The anonymity spurs me on to greatness.

Perhaps the fear of becoming is the yawning, lethargic shadow friend that remains ever looming. The fear of, not becoming something narcissistically outstanding, but distinctly myself. Instead of stepping past the shore and into the waves, I find ways to distract myself. I choose one relationship after the other to define the bounds of my existence but am left bitter when my universe is too small. I open up within another's world where things are safe, predictable, not alone. I give myself completely and wholly over to outstretched and pulling arms for a solid eight months before resenting the embrace I not so long ago thought safe. I shudder and cringe at the weight of limp arms. I stop eating in an attempt to disappear from a reality turned nightmare. I run away, leaving behind an empty, wanting embrace that I once filled. I vomit the cycle like wine from my pores. These aged dreams stink like cheese I've never liked. I am single and unnerved, standing at the brink of the unknown. Greatness? Ruin? Truth? Dare I step beyond this shore and into the dying night?

The waiter announces last call. Is this my last call? Guys struggle to secure the phone numbers and nightcaps cumulative of a night's work. I listen and watch. I am the awkward, quiet girl, sitting in a bar during happy hour- writing. Even here, I am audience, watching people pass and placing myself distinctly outside normal. Perhaps my anxiety comes from balancing one position of audience with another. I listen and watch. I read. I lose myself in the lyrics, lighting and staged laugh of performers. Maybe I need to break the limbo like bread dipped in wine, all in feet first. Maybe I need this last call and one more glass of pinot noir. After all, nothing is more futile or finite than a lack of alcohol.

I stand here, at the brink. Should I remain solidly ashore or ease into the ocean, black with night and filled with crashing waves and sirens' voices? I feel closer to the stars when swimming but danger looms among the rocks. I have been told this truth in stories fresh from my birth. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

I step out of my car and into the lawn, realizing the grass is alive with millions of dancing, singing, laughing stars. Grace has brought the skies to my feet when my arms fell short. Here, in the first frost, can I dance among the universe of dreams and forget the what-ifs and why-nots of cemented and crusty habits. In the sparkle of the sky above I imagine a thousand giants- Shakespeare, Keats, Steinbeck, and Lewis- cheering me on with twinkling eyes and brimming smiles, whispering a lullaby to guide me through the crushing rocks and waves.

An Enchanted Forest

It is not every day that I find magic in the city. No, that's not quite right. I'll try again...

It is not every day that I allow time to find magic in the city. As I rush from point A to B, I award very little attention for the slow moving pace of nymphs and creatures everlasting. But they are here regardless of my notice, hidden in the cracks of sidewalks and the limbs of painted trees. I was given a short break in my otherwise task filled day to meander a park and forget the city. I found an enchanted forest among the populated hills and concrete blocked buildings. Magic jumped from a crevice, shook off the sluggishness of eternity and said, "Yes, life is worth living. I will show you."

I was led, hand in hand with Eternity, to see the gift of Autumn.



We walked first through the ravine floor- black with mud and fertile from years of vegetation falling in on itself. The warmth of a spring sun encouraging trees to reach and stretch toward the bluing sky, grow large with maturing green, sour at the retreating day and collapse heartbroken and happy to the earth below. The sun will leave the trees here, sleeping quietly while hearts mend, courage builds and life erupts once again from the false graves of decay and mud. Among the trunks and roots of giants, I felt the tension of this delicate dance outside myself; my own yearning sundial assuaged by the cyclical nature of this and all seasons.


From the ground, we climbed out of the mud and to the skies, mimicking yawn and stretch of spring while surrounded by a restive dying. The beauty swept my breath away as hills of golden tree tops spread out in every direction. Where had the city gone, less than half a mile away? I watched leafy bodies bigger than my two hands give themselves up and float gracefully to the ground far, far below. The wind they disturbed whispered from the ravine, Goodbye now, until we meet again. Here, in the enchantment of this forest, I was flying. I could watch leaves and let them fall without feeling the familiar pull on my own body to glide with them. Goodbye for now. Sleep sweet until we meet again.







In the fall, I feel driven to the brink of sanity by a nervous fear. I watch as the world grows more and more beautiful with the break of every new dawn and every waning evening. I panic, knowing that this moment is the most beautiful I have ever seen- no other moment in my life will surpass the glowing reds and burning yellows completely filling my vision. Life takes on an urgency to live- and to live to the fullest, instantly, for tomorrow we die. But how can I gather my rosebuds, I think desperately when the world is conjuring up the biggest grand finale I have ever seen? How can I forgive myself if I miss the standing ovation and chance of encore? So instead I watch, entranced in the dance of the dying world without realizing that I am not myself dancing and dying. The line between performer and audience becomes hopelessly blurred.

From my perch at tree canopy tops, I am momentarily gifted with sight usually reserved for gods and immortals- Eternity introduces me to the strength and perseverance of an endless cycle between sky and earth and tree and light. Tomorrow the beauty may be gone, but only dead for a season before returning once again. The natural world has a strength to push past death to rebirth that I am not meant to follow lest it destroy me and I collapse on myself in one fatal breath. Perhaps we experience rebirth in the end, but my strength comes in moving through rather than up and down and up again. Returning to the city from the park, I am finally ready to let go and whisper with the approaching night, "Yes, life is very much worth living."

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Something is in the air. It spins around my head and makes me dizzy. It fills my lungs and the weight of it allows breath, but only so and laboriously. This strange and intoxicating air passes into my veins and bewitches my blood, speeding up my heart and making the surrounding world feel crowded and small- the box top sky begins to drop down and the sides of tree limbs spread their arms to grasp and hold. Everything is suddenly overwhelming and I feel the need to run. Change drives my racing heart like an engine and a voice whispers with the wind nothing, nothing gold can stay.

I shuffle papers on a desk that doesn't belong to me but someone with more permanence. I advert my eyes down to the fake wood surface and pretend that this morning is like every previous morning. I try to breath deep and calm the whisper's intensity: then leaf subsides to leaf/ and Eden sinks to grief,/ so dawn goes down to day/ nothing gold can stay. Blaring on the radio, the falsetto voices of middle class white acoustic guitarists- wedding music, I have come to call it as I continue to lose friends and family to happy ever after- doesn't help the situation. No, they only make this crawling, itching feeling worse as they spew promises of love that I don't believe exists.

Outside, the world is suffering through another death, another autumn. Like every year, I don't have the strength to stand by, passive, and watch the beauty fade while my heart breaks again and again. The leaves of every tree, in a blushing but morose swansong, put on their evening gowns and throw themselves from their heights, catching wind before gravity pulls their bodies to the screaming rocks below. Crippled and broken- splayed on rock, pavement and trapped in gutter and drain- the brilliant red fades to brown fragile skeletons.

From somewhere within a well adjusted me, a voice calls into the void that justice can't be so- this dying, screaming, pulling fight and the blackness of the dreadful night- surely there must be beauty that centers and grounds the otherwise fraying horizons of my sanity. A normal me doesn't feel suicidal, but this thing in the air causes me to pause at high places and wonder if my body would fall as gracefully to the rock below. Do not go gentle into that good night No. No, I mustn't give into the the yawning pull of the cliff's edge and the warm embrace of insanity. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I used to chase the sun. While I was out playing in the woods, I would suddenly notice the golden light of a nearly departed day. In near panic, I would turn myself west and start running full speed toward the fading light. If I can only make it to the crest of this hill, I would think hopefully, then day not need leave me here. I can extend it on. Something beautiful was leaving me behind and it was my own weakness, my inability to keep a fast enough pace, that would strand me in the loneliness of the approaching night. The branches of thick, darkening underbrush would tear at my arms and legs. Cold stream water would soak through my shoes and make my socks feel slimy. Sometimes I would make it to the top of the hill before collapsing to cry, realizing that the sun would go on setting and so much land still stood between myself and that lofty brilliant orb. Dirty earth bound and disheartened, I would turn from the last glowing beams of the day and resign myself to await the coming dawn. I never liked the darkness and the night.

To fight the approaching season of winter, I will not stand by passively. I will go adventuring into this good night. Perhaps somewhere among the dancing, dying leaves I will find enough beauty to get me through til dawn.


Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

"Keep Portland Weird"

I took a trip to Portland recently to visit some friends. Portland has a battle cry, of sorts, that you find posted on bumpers, bikes and random local businesses around the city: "Keep Portland Weird." I think street festivals are designed and attended with this goal in mind. While walking the Alberta Street Festival, I was lucky to capture a few moments and interactions that endear me to this city and keep me coming back.


Portland is the land of bikes. There are big bikes, kiddie bikes, bikes with one really large front wheel, pile bikes, bike-cart food vendors... the list goes on and on. If you live in Portland and don't own a fixed gear, vintage, or custom bike, you are a minority.


A cute dog, but not really living up to the spirit inflicted upon her by her owners.


Very nearly every barista and waiter/waitress in Portland is a struggling artist. This explains why restaurant service is consistently terrible and something as simple as a crosswalk bears some mark of expression. I can't figure out if this is a dragon shooting fire or the Candy Land Chocolate Swamp Monster sneering at a misbehaving hand. That Chocolate Swamp Monster used to terrify my six year old self.


I ran into a guy that was super excited about Organic Cotton Candy. I didn't really understand the concept, but I guess organic refined sugar is better than not organic refined sugar?


T.Nice and his college fund. This kid rocked out on a bucket for hours collecting money for college. He is a drum master prodigy and will more than likely get a full ride to the university of his choice.


Snotty little kids with ice cream, balloons and filthy mouths. Luckily, their jests were turned more toward each other than strangers who happened upon them. However, I did get a look after taking this picture telling me they were not pleased.


Autumn is my favorite season in Portland. This is a beautiful restaurant kitchen garden.


Ignoring the distressed cries from below, this balloon made to escape but got stuck in the trees, inadvertently taunting the teary-faced former owner.


My friend was taken in by the brightly colored sugar ice. I could only guess at the color of her urine the next day.


Portland also houses a very large subculture of belly dancers. I once showed up for a belly dancing lesson but the weekly class was canceled. Part of me was relieved, as I didn't have the make-up or bangles necessary to make the experience authentic and my mid-section tends to do better shrouded in clothes.


Last but not least, the Green Gym that provides live music while you work out!! I would say this is the strangest thing ever, but after much contemplation, I would have to give that title to Portland and all its quirkiness.

Art Therapy: September

Trees painted blush
with the kiss of autumn

I wrote that with refrigerator poetry.

My productivity of the last month, only slightly impeded by scattered employment:

Letters Without Lovers: Autumn Sent With Love, 2009

Letters Without Lovers: Birches, 2009

Letters Without Lovers: Quest for a Tree, 2009

Quest for a Tree, Armed with a Quote, 2009