Dawn over the Williamsburg Bridge and birdsong in the Village. Revisiting the old apartment, the old rooftop, and remembering how many nights were spent staring out at that magical skyline. Manhattan. So close, and still a world away when I cannot touch you. How long ago, and still, how much these walls are home.
Numbers traded and suddenly the car drops you in broad daylight. Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in. My hands they shake, my head it spins. Jittery, I giggle down Hudson street and contemplate morning on my stoop.
How can we sleep, when we have so few minutes to live? How can we close our eyes, when new angels appear behind every unexpected corner? I lie down, but my eyes dance along newborn birch leaves, stretching their limbs toward the gray dawn. Calling me pretty names, New York. How long ago, and still, how new I love you.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
In Stereo
My roommate bought a new stereo, was blown away by the sound. She turned up the cello suite loud as I tripped down the neighborhood to get the mail of a friend who was away. While I was there, I opened the window to let the evening breeze through, and the same concerto came streaming in from the street, from the lone musician I have passed on that street corner before. He always picks the quiet evenings, when the night is dark and soft like velvet, to play his pieces. I sat in the window and watched the smoke curl into his music, as a wind blew in from the west and chilled my weary skin.
And slowly, slowly, I began to unravel. Petal by petal slipped from my shell onto the window sill, down the fire escape, and onto the sidewalk, and that's when it happened. After such a long day of sneaking around my purpose, with endless excuses for my ineptitude, words began to whirl around my head and stream onto the pages. For a short moment, (always too short, these moments), the street disappeared, the lights, the rustle in the trees, the takeout food scents. For that short moment I was only in the world of the Word.
That world is painted a little differently than the supposedly Real one. But the music sounds just as sweet. If only you hook it up right.
And slowly, slowly, I began to unravel. Petal by petal slipped from my shell onto the window sill, down the fire escape, and onto the sidewalk, and that's when it happened. After such a long day of sneaking around my purpose, with endless excuses for my ineptitude, words began to whirl around my head and stream onto the pages. For a short moment, (always too short, these moments), the street disappeared, the lights, the rustle in the trees, the takeout food scents. For that short moment I was only in the world of the Word.
That world is painted a little differently than the supposedly Real one. But the music sounds just as sweet. If only you hook it up right.
To Edward Dahlberg
Don't use the telephone.
People are never ready to answer it.
Use poetry.
--Jack Kerouac, Scattered poems
People are never ready to answer it.
Use poetry.
--Jack Kerouac, Scattered poems
About Time
Apparently we are all plagued by procrastination, by always doing all the things we need to not do, especially when there is something we really need to be doing, and now. And apparently, researchers, these men and women of Truth, have come to the conclusion that people who forgive themselves their procrastinations, tend to do it less the next time around. (http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/05/cure-for-procrastination-forgive.html)
But I don't know. I remember my youth, when I was a very unforgiving girl, when I was strict with myself and relentlessly punished for my faults and my sidesteps. And it seemed the whip was effective at correcting my misbehaviors, even if it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Who cares what goes on inside when the surface looks so pristine and put together.
I grew up and decided to forgive myself, to enjoy the lusts in which I dug my fingers, to allow imperfections in what I put out and remember that deadlines rarely meant death, after all. And perhaps I was a calmer soul, perhaps I was less rigid, more alive and my smile more genuine. But I was not as productive, I was not as Good, and I hardly procrastinate less now than I did then, I only do a worse job when I get to it.
I took today off. I scheduled a day without interference, without so much as the requirement to get dressed or answer the phone, so as to allow the word to flow, so as to permit creative ambition the space it requires but never gets. Already afternoon, and although I am still in sleepwear and endless cups of coffee in a row on my dresser, I have still not a single word to my name. How long do you wait for inspiration, before you pack up and resign the day to the garbage can?
It just seems that if I didn't cut myself such slack, these words in my head would be on paper a long time ago. The alarms have gone off, so it's about time.
But I don't know. I remember my youth, when I was a very unforgiving girl, when I was strict with myself and relentlessly punished for my faults and my sidesteps. And it seemed the whip was effective at correcting my misbehaviors, even if it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Who cares what goes on inside when the surface looks so pristine and put together.
I grew up and decided to forgive myself, to enjoy the lusts in which I dug my fingers, to allow imperfections in what I put out and remember that deadlines rarely meant death, after all. And perhaps I was a calmer soul, perhaps I was less rigid, more alive and my smile more genuine. But I was not as productive, I was not as Good, and I hardly procrastinate less now than I did then, I only do a worse job when I get to it.
I took today off. I scheduled a day without interference, without so much as the requirement to get dressed or answer the phone, so as to allow the word to flow, so as to permit creative ambition the space it requires but never gets. Already afternoon, and although I am still in sleepwear and endless cups of coffee in a row on my dresser, I have still not a single word to my name. How long do you wait for inspiration, before you pack up and resign the day to the garbage can?
It just seems that if I didn't cut myself such slack, these words in my head would be on paper a long time ago. The alarms have gone off, so it's about time.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Omnia Mea Mecum Porto
Sweltering heat, we had to get out. As we turned down first avenue, a young homeless man walked ahead of us, tugging his belongings in a shopping cart behind him with a leather strap. His boots, his jacket, a tangerine, a crumpled oreo package. I pushed the stroller slowly along behind him, crossing 61st, 62nd, 63rd, his tan muscles flexing with the effort of navigating his shell along the sidewalks. As he drank his bottled water, I reflected how proper he was, with his neatly shaven skin and glossy curls atop his head. His back so straight; when did I walk with such proud strides last?
On my trip to my parents', I unearthed a few boxes in the garage that I had packed a year ago, when my entire life was either sent to storage or forced to fit into airline weight limits. Here was a picture frame, an old record cover, a metal Coffee sign that I bought in Natchez, Mississippi near the restaurant where they flipped your corn bread for you. Here were reminders that I had a life in a whole other world, a life that I loved and had painstakingly been building for so many years.
It took me years to put together that life, to gather bits and pieces of foundations that would anchor me to a city, a country, a person I hoped to find I could be. It took all those years, all those pieces, to realize that who we are cannot be taken away from us, cannot be lost in the move. Years to learn that the people we love are with us to the ends of the earth, because they are the foundations we built within ourselves. I left behind the couch that my parents bought with their first proper money and that I loved so much, the bookshelf my great-grandfather sent to my grandfather when he was away at college, the orange lamp I discovered in my ex-girlfriend's mother's barn. I boarded that airplane, and I brought with me the person those things had made me.
All my things I carry with me.
I am never homeless, thus.
On my trip to my parents', I unearthed a few boxes in the garage that I had packed a year ago, when my entire life was either sent to storage or forced to fit into airline weight limits. Here was a picture frame, an old record cover, a metal Coffee sign that I bought in Natchez, Mississippi near the restaurant where they flipped your corn bread for you. Here were reminders that I had a life in a whole other world, a life that I loved and had painstakingly been building for so many years.
It took me years to put together that life, to gather bits and pieces of foundations that would anchor me to a city, a country, a person I hoped to find I could be. It took all those years, all those pieces, to realize that who we are cannot be taken away from us, cannot be lost in the move. Years to learn that the people we love are with us to the ends of the earth, because they are the foundations we built within ourselves. I left behind the couch that my parents bought with their first proper money and that I loved so much, the bookshelf my great-grandfather sent to my grandfather when he was away at college, the orange lamp I discovered in my ex-girlfriend's mother's barn. I boarded that airplane, and I brought with me the person those things had made me.
All my things I carry with me.
I am never homeless, thus.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Star Bright
I sat on the porch, in the dark, silent, still country night and looked at the stars. You never see them shine this brightly in the city, and I thought, have I really lost this much touch with myself? I who am perpetually a girl of nature, wanting always that connection with the soil, with the air, with the unending expanse of the universe. I spend my days in artificial lighting and noise pollution, concrete under my nails. But for these few minutes, as my cold breath dimmed the view with its clouds, I was a part of this planet, again.
I lay there staring at the stars; they twinkled, as they will. I think I was hoping for a shooting star, and I wasn't sure why. There is no wish granted as they plummet, and still I thought if I could just see one fall, I would know the universe was taking care of me, that I was being looked after. But the streaks of light always seemed to happen just outside my line of vision. I gave up, shivered, walked inside.
You can't go home again. I do not belong here in their white family worlds, their church on Sunday and Pink buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken for a social movement. Their streets built more for cars than for people, orchards disappearing quickly in favor of the latest box store. Their bubble of awareness barely larger than that of their congregation. I do not belong here, and yet, for split seconds, I wish that I might.
Life seems easier, when spent in blissful ignorance.
I wish I may, I wish I might
know the wish I wish tonight.
I lay there staring at the stars; they twinkled, as they will. I think I was hoping for a shooting star, and I wasn't sure why. There is no wish granted as they plummet, and still I thought if I could just see one fall, I would know the universe was taking care of me, that I was being looked after. But the streaks of light always seemed to happen just outside my line of vision. I gave up, shivered, walked inside.
You can't go home again. I do not belong here in their white family worlds, their church on Sunday and Pink buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken for a social movement. Their streets built more for cars than for people, orchards disappearing quickly in favor of the latest box store. Their bubble of awareness barely larger than that of their congregation. I do not belong here, and yet, for split seconds, I wish that I might.
Life seems easier, when spent in blissful ignorance.
I wish I may, I wish I might
know the wish I wish tonight.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Coming Out
How easy, to look down on those Rocky Mountains and lose every single word. To get in a car at the airport, breathe fresh air, stretch limbs and emotions until no ink remains to be painted. I did not grow up in this valley, I never lived in this house, but it is home. It is where my parents exhale and, as such, it is a place where my soul can rest as well. And while it does, I have nothing to say.
And still we sit there, over crab legs and clams and another glass of wine, and speak of the Heart. 27 years of being their daughter and they still do not know who I am. Or they know, and I am simply the one pretending otherwise.
27 years of being taught to expect only the best, only the extraordinary, from oneself and from others, and now the question did we leave you empty-handed?
Answers are hard to come by, but sometimes I think they were not the point in the first place. I balance along the narrow beam, eager to please but so anxious to hold on to the last safe space, the last fortress of solitude where the person who is me can fit without qualms.
If I one day hope to have People read my words, I will have to let them read me. If we one day hope to have people truly know us, we will have to let them see us.
I drink water to alleviate the rush, to combat the altitude. May whispers in the margins, but the Mountains tremble with snow. In a guest room the size of half our apartment on Morton, I crawl into the furthest corner, I sleep heavily and dream bizarre circus dreams with swings. Exhausted, by the quiet, the dark, and the endlessly familiar. I assess the head on my shoulders; I contemplate the leap.
And still we sit there, over crab legs and clams and another glass of wine, and speak of the Heart. 27 years of being their daughter and they still do not know who I am. Or they know, and I am simply the one pretending otherwise.
27 years of being taught to expect only the best, only the extraordinary, from oneself and from others, and now the question did we leave you empty-handed?
Answers are hard to come by, but sometimes I think they were not the point in the first place. I balance along the narrow beam, eager to please but so anxious to hold on to the last safe space, the last fortress of solitude where the person who is me can fit without qualms.
If I one day hope to have People read my words, I will have to let them read me. If we one day hope to have people truly know us, we will have to let them see us.
I drink water to alleviate the rush, to combat the altitude. May whispers in the margins, but the Mountains tremble with snow. In a guest room the size of half our apartment on Morton, I crawl into the furthest corner, I sleep heavily and dream bizarre circus dreams with swings. Exhausted, by the quiet, the dark, and the endlessly familiar. I assess the head on my shoulders; I contemplate the leap.
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