This Is What Happens In May

Somewhere outside of Salt Lake City, you tell him that I-80 runs clear to the East Coast and not twelve hours later there you are, driving your little SAAB to the end of its line, before the lanes merge into I-95 and onto the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. I have walked clear across this country I have seen its wonders and I have stayed. Don't forget that when you doubt your ability to commit to what you love, don't forget that when you think your roots run shallow and unreliable. 

Returning to the office after a week in outer space is a bizarre act of contortion. My mind is all words, my body is all song, billable hours seem about as relevant as raincoats in the desert, why would I spend my time in front of this machine when the cherry trees are in bloom outside the window? 

I keep thinking my spring itch is part of the mental illnesses that wrap themselves along my insides, that my constant running is a symptom of a bone break that never set properly, but what if it isn't? What if this is just another way to be, is just one life like any other and the best thing you can do is not to fight it, but to live it?

It's so novel a concept I can't quite grasp it. What if you are fine the way you are, and you just have to find the right stove for your pot to cook?  

What if you are fine the way you are?

May delights in the periphery. 

Red Eye

It's been a while since I came to the gate at this hour, the familiar motions of a red eye across the continent, the slight ache at contorting oneself into uncomfortable hours to save a few bucks and a day. Revel in extra hours of airport limbo, you love that liminal space where nothing matters and feelings get distilled into drifting announcements, like harmless curiosities you can study from a safe distance. I forgot my eye mask, my ear plugs, it's been too long since I embarked on such a sleep. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe nothing matters. It's nearly May, you are invincible. At the other end of the flight, your dearest friends take on another day of poison in weary veins. Maybe you can share some of your matter with them. It's nearly May, you are indefatigable. There was a time I thought I couldn't live anymore but I don't know that time now, don't understand its conviction. The blessing lies in not knowing that darkness when you're bathing in light. One more hour till boarding. A few more hours till home. 

The blessings are too many to count. 

But it doesn't stop you from trying.  

Hózhó

In the middle of the desert, a sandstone hut is dug into the earth. You weave through buttes and mesas, past spring blooms carpeting the red earth and dress against the evening chill. Roll out sheepskin, go to sleep in the absolute silence of a land beyond lands, there's no way to keep from platitudes. By morning, the blanket of stars give way to a sunrise beyond the eastern mountains, but you cannot imagine what it might be like to grow up thinking this was the entire reaches of the world. He says he knows where his umbilical cord lays buries, he knows where his soul connects to the earth. You think you haven't a clue where you belong, and you are no longer worried about it. We make our own connections, we make our own hózhó. You cannot go finding yourself in someone else's beauty. 

Cannot steal a home and make it yours.  

Bears Ears

Cross a ridge and step into a different eon, time travel in the blink of an eye. The desert continues to amaze, you tell him you see a punishing landscape, he says this is lush, this is full of food and life. You pinch sage brush between your fingers and the air comes alive. 

Later, outside the fancy ecolodge they built in the gulch, you sit in Adirondack chairs along the dark side of the building, looking at the night sky. You see a shooting star and do t tell him, it is yours alone. Don’t make wishes, only promises, only exclamations of gratitude. The universe is neverending in both space and time, you are insignificant in comparison. 

That is the gift. 

You keep it wrapped. Bring it home. Revel in the magic inside. 

Dine'

You don't write, though you should be writing. Your days are all airplanes and road trips, all sunshine and changing seasons, are fodder for stories. Spring explodes around you and you drive ever south, into Red Rock Country, into a back country that feels like it's written into your spine though it is not your heritage. He looks out over the buttes and mesas, the hundred-mile valleys, says this is where my people come from, this is where my art begins. She weaves tales of her people into the tapestry, but says there are stories she cannot tell us. They are not for the summer season, she says, as explanation. He tells us of a tornado that pullled through a few years ago and says that when he asked his family elders, they simply said, That is where They walk and left it at that. 

How can I write when stories like that are being told around me? I am all ears, no voice now. There is no money in my account but am I not on the road, am I not working in ways I neved dreamed possible before? 

It all crumbles around us. Best enjoy the crumbs.  

Rocky Mountain High

The alarm rings at dawn but you are already awake, already a step ahead and one foot out the door. Your driver is Palestinian, you commiserate over choosing this country but his sons are both about to be doctors, what regret could he have. I go back there now and I don't think I could live there anymore, he says, and you rummage through your own calculations to see if the answers line up. 

It's April now, the trees in New Jersey begin to bloom, and even though the Rocky Mountains are snowy and cold, you see it in the sunlight, it's happening here, too. A road trip awaits, a new horizon awaits, this week I lost a job and I haven't had it in me to be sad about it yet. 

It's spring now, my darling. 

In spring we are not sad. 
We run.  

Chuppah

It's the part where they are hoisted into the air on chairs, when the music gets frenetic and the celebrations peak, when you think your own fears would not endure this sort of elation, that's the part you like the least. Maybe only because it does not bring you the sort of joy it's supposed to, and it's the discrepancy that chafes. 

The part you like the most is when you sweet talk the house manager into letting you take a bouquet off one of the tables, and you walk home through Red Hook in canvas shoes with an explosion of flowers in your hands. 

Your doctor looks you over, says you look good but you know she sees only ligaments and veins, only charts for an age group you have yet to reconcile with. There's a group of young girls in the corner of your writing bar who come in to knit together, and you adore them. You, too, decided Mondays were meant for creative corners. The bartender only wants to talk about Europe trips. She scowls every time a new patron enters the bar. You adore her. The youths only order Diet Cokes or bitters and soda. It's hard not to complain about the generations that come after. 

It's sunny out, it's warm out, the people of New York peel the layers off themselves and emerge with smiles from the wreckage. In like a lion, out like a lamb. Everything happens too fast. 

The part you like the most
is the one where you're around to see it.