—SOMETIMES IT’S OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY

 

 

when bombs still fly

   & the prophets finally agree

        but their minds go blank

              except for a few

                  important details

 

last night

I saw God

& he saw me

& for once

we agreed

that nothing

was changing

that the mortar fire

& rockets

would keep on

flying until all

the glaciers melted

& the seas rose

& the feral anger

& preconceptions

& misconceptions

drowned like

prayers that go

unanswered because

they’ve never

been said

or shared

or thought of

in the first place

& when we were

done discussing

I wept

& God wept

& Lazarus

wept too

but he was busy

beating his head

against a beam

over & over

until nothing

was over

& nothing we

could consent to

made sense

but the folly of

war & hate

& the lack of loving

your neighbor

like yourself

which we all agreed

is the first requirement

of love

 

—THERE’S ALWAYS THE WEIGHT OF WHAT YOU THINK VERSUS THE WEIGHT OF WHAT YOU KNOW

 

 

…Happy Friday, Happy Weekend. I hope both are good to you.

 

…It stormed hard here yesterday. Broken branches everywhere. Scattered pine cones, cedar, detritus, etc.

The power went out twice. That’s country living for you.

But this morning, around 4:30, I saw the beaver swimming across the lake. He seemed to be in a hurry to get to where we was headed. I hope he’s meeting up with a friend, or at least someone he loves.

 

And if you are to love,

love like the moon loves.

It doesn’t steal the night.

It only unveils the beauty of the dark.

    --Isra  Al-Thibeh

 

 “It’s daunting to put your emotions about something really personal on display. I haven’t spoken much about this chapter, and I don’t feel like I owe that to anyone, but I owe it to myself as a creator to flesh out all these emotions that I’ve felt, and I do that through song. It would be strange if I didn’t acknowledge what happened in my life creatively, but it is scary to be like, ‘I’m about to share my most personal thoughts about me, about this other person, about a union that I had with someone.’ I mean, I’m not a ruthless person. I care about other people’s feelings. So, it’s kind of scary." Casey Musgraves

 

“What I came to learn: boxes have a way of folding that children cannot learn.” Kerrin McCadden

 

“Maybe one day, when we’re older, we will accidentally run into each other and apologize for all the trouble we might have caused.” R.M. Drake

 

“You cannot change anyone, but you can be the reason someone changes.” Roy Bennett

 

“I feel like I’m losing, but I know I can’t really lose unless I stop fighting. I take a deep breath and remind myself—baby steps…baby steps…baby steps. That’s what I’ve learned on bad days; deep breaths, baby steps and as long as I keep fighting, I am winning. Keep going.” Stephanie Bennett-Henry

 

“It sounds fake but you really do have a lot of silent lovers on this planet who look at you and wish they had your smile, your hair, your humor, your manners, your intentions, your poise, or else they are simply cheering you on. Some are just too shy to tell you they admire you. Remember that when you feel alone.” Ella Mai

 

Then you meet this girl who tells

 you to go to a park and sit on the

swings. And you laugh at first, but

   then you smile. Because there’s

    very few people who can help 

     you purge the outdated parts

    of yourself. And you’re hungry

   again. For another day. For life.

      You’ll soon hope that you can

            keep her, forever.

                      --T. De La Garza

 

“I’ve learned to do what you tell me.

Make myself small.

Shut the fuck up.”

              --Alexis Rhone Fancher

 

“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.“ Hemingway

 

 

—I REMEMBER SUMMER DAYS

 

 

yesterday’s poems

 

 

I tie them in

red and green ribbon

place them in a bottle

with a stopper

fling my heart

into the sea

watch the waves

collect and caress it

watch it pulse

bob and float

fighting its way

back to you

 

—WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

 

 

terracotta

 

even from

such an awful

distance

I paint you in

terracotta red

color of

your lips

flushed cheeks  

and chest

primed labia

let’s dance

in nothing

but the warm

sultry summer air

I’ll wash your hair

hold you like china

fold you into me

if you let me

plait our breath

with promises

of gold eternity

oh god

gawd oh

gah oh gah

closer please

there’s no one else

I’d rather

dance with

like this

than you

pinkie swear

 

—IF I CAN ASK ANYTHING ELSE OF YOU, CAN I ASK THIS: HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT?  

 

 

Eternal Sunshine

 

It’s late

is it even evening where you are

is the moon dressed in garters and

a hockey mask

holding a sabre overhead

how heavy and clear

is your water these days

I have been thinking about nothing

but you

since the beaver broke

through the dam

I couldn’t get out

of prison with a pardon

couldn’t get you

off my mind

even if I had a lobotomy

so I’m here

chucking spears in a mirror

that looks too thin

for its own glass

a million grains of sand

washing up like

the poor dead

on India’s shore

 

 —EVERYONE FALLS DOWN SOMETIME, YOU JUST GOTTA KNOW IT’LL ALL BE FINE

 

 

Mother Says

 

Mother skims my eyes, seeing poverty in them, seeing forfeiture maybe, or else some kind of awful addiction plopped down in the cornrow of my future. Next, she spits into her coffee cup=turned ashtray, the lit cigarette inside hissing, Chhhhitt.

 

Brother comes out naked but for goofy=huge basketball shorts, his muscles gleaming from sweat after a workout.

 

Mother’s eyes linger on his pecs. She smiles. Squints catlike. Says, “You look like your father before the rock got him.”

 

For a moment, we three share the same trailer air that smells like roots and scorched sassafras. For a moment, we three are waiting for the phone to ring, but Sis, wherever she is, always makes us wait.

 

“Gonna grab a shower,” Brother says, making his puckered nipples squiggle.

 

“You always miss the action,” Mother says.

 

“I am the action,” Brother says, and Mother laughs without sound. Takes a dead drag from her cigarette. Exhales a sour, radish burp.

 

“Quit your goddamn staring,” Mother says to me.

 

I find my shoe laces. Stretch one out long in my mind, then make a loop so it’s a noose.

 

“You’re going to end up just like him, a dead rat,” Mother says. Meaning Dad, Mother says. Mother says. She keeps flipping over the same tarot cards, the ones that mark me guilty.

 

The phone never rings, just sits there, clinging to the wood-paneled wall like an odd bone.

 

“She wasn’t calling for you anyway,” Mother says. Mother says. Mother says.

 

My eyelids itch. My eyeballs, too.

 

“Goddamn it, go ride your bike or something. Get hit by a car,” Mother says, so I stand and leave and decide to take her advice this time.

 

—WE WOULD HAVE HAD SOME CUTE KIDS

 

 

                                               Yourself

 

Sit in a dark room by yourself, or alone by a river at night, or anywhere else where there is solitude. Begin to take hold of your breath. Give rise to the thought, "I will use my finger to point at myself," and then instead of pointing at your body, point away in the opposite direction. Contemplate seeing yourself outside of your bodily form. Contemplate seeing your bodily form present before you in the trees, the grass, and leaves, the river. Be mindful that you are in the universe and the universe is in you: if the universe is, you are; if you are, the universe is. There is no birth. There is no death. There is no coming. There is no going. Maintain the half-smile. Take hold of your breath. Contemplate for 10 to 20 minutes.

--Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness, Beacon Press, 1987

 

—WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT ME, THAT I HAVE AGREED TO THIS RECORDING?

 

It’s actually a miracle just to be here at all, with a few truly great friends, and to keep muddling through, grateful if sometimes perplexed.

 

We’re going to save the world by repeatedly busting the dread that looms over us like a blimp.

 

My husband says that ninety percent of what is beautiful, meaningful, and useful in the world is visible in a ten-minute walk.

 

“Why?” is rarely a useful question.

 

When people know you too well, they eventually see your damage, your weirdness, carelessness, and mean streak. They see how ordinary you are after all, that whatever it was that distinguished you in the beginning is the least of who you actually are. This will turn out to be the greatest gift we can offer another person: letting them see, every so often, beneath all the trappings and pretense to the truth of us.

 

Sometimes the movement of grace looks like letting other people go first.

 

When you’re with an awful person, you’re not around a villain, you’re with a person who’s suffering deeply, starving for love.

 

Darkness can be so soothing when you know it won’t last forever.

 

Tasks bring us presence.

 

Love is supernatural and homely, soars and sags, is oceanic and a shared tangerine.

 

Love is being with a person wherever they are, however they are acting. Ugh. (A lot of things seem to come more easily to God.)

 

In the end, love will have to do. 

 

             --all Anne Lamott

 

 

—I KNOW THAT’S NOW HOW YOU PLANNED IT, BUT IT’S NOT THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD

 

…I read eight books last week, the majority of which were stellar, though all were quite different in subject matter and style.

One was Anne Lamott’s newest work of non-fiction. I believe I’ve read every book of hers that is not a novel. This latest one—Dusk Night Dawn—was written during the pandemic, or on the edges of it.

As always, Anne provides some nuggets of philosophical gold to ponder.

I excerpted my favorites, but will break them up into two posts, one for today, and the next Wednesday.

Please enjoy…

I have learned in my third third of life that forgiveness is a grace: you can’t force it, you can only set the mechanism to Receive.

Seeing is a form of pure being, unlike watching or looking at. Seeing is why we’re here.

When everything keeps expanding, there is still room in all of us for breath, which is what keeps us alive.

When we try to get difficulties to conform to our way of thinking, we often push them toward being fancier, and thus absurd. We strip away the grace of what is real, and true, and maybe even lovely.

Jesus is big on people evolving.

I’m not suicidal, but sometimes I wish I was dead.

Ninety percent of the time, this is the solution: Tell it. Cry if you can. If you can’t, sit in a dejected posture, hunched over, and stay with this a while. It will shift, and become less acute.

My mind wanted me dead, but it always settled for getting me drunk.

Listening is optional: you have to make a conscious decision to being listening harder.

Why am I here? To love this dumb old day. Oh, if only I could remember this.

 

 

—I KNOW THAT I’M TALKING TOO MUCH, BUT I WANNA BE SOMEONE

 

 

 

…Hey. Hi.

I hope that you had a fabulous weekend, and that if you’re a Mom, you got celebrated in a big way.

I spent most of mine working on final edits for my new book of essays. The cover and galleys look so great. I hope someone actually wants to read it.

 

…Speaking of reading, the below are from “The Life of the Mind,” a novel I sort of have a love-hate attitude toward. I suppose that’s good, because writing is supposed to make you feel something—joy, revulsion, sorrow, laughter…something.

Anyway, there were a lot of bits of wisdom sprinkled throughout, and here are the ones I liked the best…  

 

 

--“Feelings can be like catching a cold. You never know ahead of time how sick they might make you.”

 

“Waiting time is agony, particularly when one has no idea what one is waiting for.”

 

“What is the point of any of this, if we can’t be honest with each other?”

 

“True, divorce was hard, but divorce was also a kind of glory. It announced that you had loved and been consumed in the flames, that you had lived; and afterwards, it made you serious and deep.”

 

“Sometimes you resent someone for the wrongs they have done to you and sometimes you resent them for the wrongs you have done to them.”

 

“But it was also true that no one should have to tell anyone everything; that isn’t friendship, it’s extortion.”

 

“When someone has everything, even if you love them, you sometimes wish that they had a little less.”

 

“Sometimes in correcting one set of mistakes you end up making entirely new ones.”

 

“And then, there was something so relaxing about being around a talker. All you had to do was keep them going.”

 

“She grinned with the unmistakable pleasure of watching the person you love do something they excel at.”

 

“Seriously, can you think of one situation that wouldn’t be improved with a glass of water?”

 

“It’s hard to know when something ends.”

 

“In the old days, the post office was proof that you believed in the possibility of reaching someone, anyone. That a letter could arrive.”

 

“No one was perfect, but near-perfection was the natural state of the human being. Made in the image of God, with some room to improve.”

 

“Just make sure to explain how whatever ending you choose gives everything before it meaning.”

 

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at stars.”

 

 

         --Christine Smallwood, “The Life of the Mind”  

 

—I KNOW THAT I’M TALKING TOO MUCH, BUT I WANNA BE SOMEONE

 

 

https://theartofeveryone.com/a-duck-story-by-len-kuntz/?fbclid=IwAR14D7C3VhYxycJfXmpiLHyaAmG-nhbcwEfId0MqaWGSqVBRkpXtr_sUwsA

 

—WE’VE BEEN LIVING ON A FAULT LINE, AND FOR A WHILE YOU WERE ALL MINE

 

 

 

…The other day I woke really, really early and pulled up the news on my computer, and things weren’t looking so hot as evidenced by these headlines:

 

--Shoppers, Workers Describe Chaos After Two People Shot at Tukwila Mall (I live an hour from there and used to work at a store five minutes away).

 

--Portland Police Declare Riot, Post Photos of Damage Done to Buildings

 

--Wisconsin Casino Shooting Leaves 3 Dead

 

--India Sets Yet Another Record With 400,000 New Daily COVID Cases, Total Deaths Topping 225,000 (Although experts estimate both numbers are actually 10 times worse).

 

…That’s a lot of sadness.

But then I had this piece published, in the always fabulous GHOST PARACHUTE, and it wasn’t any happier, though maybe it was a bit by the end?

 

http://ghostparachute.com/issue/may-2021-issue/sucker-punch/?fbclid=IwAR18ZcmMYeMsAgPsBcX3Cn54xFJYWqcJHi7SMmkZCDNCRC238FIOMX8NW9k

 

—I’M NOT CRAZY, I’M JUST A LITTLE IMPAIRED                                         

 

Untethered

 

         Her finger hovered on the television dial, her nails scored and dark gray, the color of pencil lead.  A wash of neon splashed her hip where the images of a Skittles commercial played.   Captain Stubing, her cat, hovered nearby, staring at the candy bubbles showering her knees, some pucks the color of lemon, some like celery or the strained brown of weak tea.

         The cat was his.  He left it for her.  She wondered if the cat ever thought of him, if the cat had a recollection of his voice.  He’d bought her a present once for their anniversary.  It was an old-fashioned stone, an opal or something cold-looking made into a broach imbedded with fine gold trim work.  The day he lef,t she threw the jewel out the window but here it was now, staring up at her like an ogre eye from Captain Stubing’s dish.

         She studied the cat and the cat her.  For the first time in months, she felt the grip of loneliness slip away, like a clasped hand letting go, like a plait unwinding in the wind.