A Poem

To love you is such a simple thing
I open my eyes, I breathe, and there it is
smiling into my eyes,
with its lovely fingers twining about mine

Some moments it is so big there is a swelling
in the space behind my navel,
and my belly feels full of warmth and knowing

and a poignant not-knowing

I look at our love
and I know I cannot know its birth

I don’t remember if it lay in the shallows, waiting,
between my toes,
while I looked for you without knowing your face

I don’t remember if it sat, curled and sleeping,
somewhere within me,
or if it tagged along one midwinter morning,
when I was too busy to notice a small shift in the wind

Sometimes I am curious,
as it stares at me and I smile at it,
and I wonder if I am allowed to ask our love
a few polite questions-

I wonder if emily post would argue,
or if our love could speak what it would say,
and how

I wonder if it would speak with the voice of divinity,
a rumbling vibration of velvet or stars

would it be lighter than wisps of candy cotton,
soaring through the space between us-

I wonder if it would say anything at all,
or if it would just take my hand in the gray morning
and hold it

gently.

Ho-Hum

At this particular moment in time, I feel exhausted.

My uterus has been stuck in a perpetual ache for the last seven days. My right flip-flop, previously purchased for the rare price of $2 at a local Target, has worn through in a patch at the heel, subjecting my tender skin to the harsh realities of New York pavement- glass, rubble, refuse. My plans to attend Shakespeare in the Park tonight have been flouted by the idiosyncrasies of the virtual ticketing process. And perhaps most tiresome of all is the absence of my most favorite person.

The sky has been particularly beautiful today- a sort of creamy landscape above the building tops, accented by wispy clouds and bright sunshine. There is nothing actually wrong in the world today, and there is even quite a bit right with it, but I feel wistful despite myself. I feel like curling up and sleeping for a few days, which is so unlike me. I crave comfort- a delicious bath, a rich chocolate delicacy, a gentle touch to the center of my back.

The prospect of socializing sounds positively dreadful. So does the prospect of traveling across and up town to my bed. My bed which is covered in the various leftovers and paraphernalia from the last few months of sleeping away from home- stopping by only for deposits and withdrawals from my wardrobe or bookshelf. I am as yet unwilling to put the things away, for though they constantly irritate me with their disorder, I loathe the idea of occupying a bed solo, with only the help of two teddy bears.

Perhaps I ought to just buy a beer or two, bring 'em home, and watch a few movies. Maybe I’ll finish Doctor Who.

Resurfacing Poetry

I was looking through some of my old writings today in search of something in particular, when I came upon this old piece. I wrote it sometime in the fall/winter of 2006/7. I think I like it again.

It's amazing the different opinions one can have about one's earlier work. Usually re-reading my stuff makes me cringe a bit. My writing is so often time/place-specific that re-reading a piece brings me back to where I was when I wrote it, which is often not a pleasant experience. But This poem is speaking to me in a different way today.

So here it is-

Feelings of weight and poise, simultaneously pulling and pressing the skin on my arms toward a place unknown; reaching for a glass that moves mid-blink and knowing I must reach all the same. Without cause or purpose, agenda off missing in action, sending its notes back anonymously. Following their backward prods with one eye on the door and one finger on the trigger. Maybe I could squeeze if I wanted to, but I'll never know because the sound of opportunity is always beyond the next door. Working and running through a world colored only in a heightened shade of gray, distinguishing a base immorality on the surface of every smile, never judging why. Waiting for the order to push through another window, to break another fist, always blaming the pain on that faceless voice, mind paralyzed by the thought that it might come from within. Name-dropping and show-stopping for all I'm worth, which, after the run, isn't much. The ruin and the rain and the sleet, all beating my head and my back.

But the word is yes, and I will try, and that is, in a word, all.

Reading List, 2010 Thus Far

So. One of my goals this year has been to read as much as possible. A few years ago, after I dropped out of Calvin the last time, I set myself a goal of reading 10,000 pages in that year. I surpassed that goal, but then felt like it had been an arbitrary goal post, as reading middle school literature adds pages more quickly than more difficult tomes. So this year I have not been judging by counting chapters or pages or words, but I have been trying to keep a list of the titles. And I've gotten a bit lax of late.

Therefore, as the year is almost half over (sheesh!) and I'm almost 25 (Huzzah!!) I thought I'd post a list of the year in books thus far, so that when the year is finished I can more readily evaluate my progress. And I am admittedly curious, so I'm going to list page numbers here as well.

Maybe I'll rate them, too. . .

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen (331)

Naked, David Sedaris (224)

Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott (239)

The Somnambulist, Jonathon Barnes (384)

One Big Happy Family, Rebecca Walker (288)

Searching for Mary Poppins, Susan Davis and Gina Hyans (320)

The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell (248)

The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby (140)

Hamlet, Shakespeare (171) Admittedly for Humanities

Candide, Voltaire (144) Also for Humanities

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth, by e.l. Konigsburg (117)

The Prydain Chronicles (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King), Lloyd Alexander (701)

Litttle Bee, Chris Cleave (266)

Push, Sapphire (177)

The Prisoner's Wife, asha bandele (219)

Crooked Little Heart, Anne Lamott (324)

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, J.D. Salinger (92)

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, Carl Sagan (304)

Atonement, Ian McEwan (368)


Whew!! Which makes a grand total of 5,057 pages read since Jan 1st. Crazy how it's almost exactly half the 10,000 mark. . .

Recent Excerpt

I don’t know if stars can be jealous or sympathetic. I don’t think that stars have feelings, but it’s amazing to me how much power I have given them in my life.

It’s amazing how much power they have given me.

When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter at all to me if stars are benevolent beings or personified lights or epically distant clusters of reacting chemicals- what matters is the feeling I get whenever I look at them. I really do mean whenever, as even in passing an upwards glance met by stars is ultimately an invitation for time to stop. Or maybe just to slow. But a warmth touches my heart (or some viscera at least near my lungs) and again something catches. I lose all interest in watching where I step, so long as that light is flowing directly into my retinas. So long as that feeling of profound connectedness, of ancient wisdom or guidance, or perhaps even the simple but unprecedented feeling of being nurtured is there, then I can feel like there is still beauty in life- like my life is worth living. And that is all that matters to me.

Balancing without Acts

I don’t know how to walk a balance beam and trust that it’s not going to move of its own accord. It seems the most natural thing in the world to me that it should suddenly toss me off, or that a gigantic gap might appear, or an earthquake might force me off. I know what to do when the unexpected happens. When the center of my gravity is shifted without my approval, or when the only ground allowed to me is removed. Uncertainty and disloyalty I can deal with, but security? What is that? How do I take care of myself in such untenable circumstances? How can I possibly cope with a secure balance beam?

Either way, I needed something and I couldn’t grasp it in that moment. Walking on a thinly edged balance beam, arms stretched toward the ends of my vision, seeking some semblance of a straight path. For all the pressing on thin air my palms do, every second or third step comes only after an intense wobbling- an almost catastrophe. And there are no mirrors with which to watch the terror creep up in me. I walk, toe to heel, toe to heel, focused so intently upon my next step that I am utterly ambushed by the sudden cramp, the seemingly unavoidable tension that wracks my ankle, grips my leg, and threatens my body with collapse. It is all I can do to pause mid-step without flailing my arms toward some imagined pole or arm. Anything to keep from the desperation of a fall. Anything.

And the unintuitive reality is that the more I reach for help, after the fear has set, when I’m shaky and threateningly near a meltdown, the more I seek to grip, to squeeze tighter on whatever air is before me, the less secure I am.

I must put my arms out, straight as the wings of a blue jay on the soar. I must step. Only one foot at a time- That is all. Toe to Heel. And again Toe to Heel. And I must learn to breathe. Breathing with each step. Breathing between each step. Breathing to fill my arms with soul. Breathing- that simple action I can repeat without fear- to remind myself that the beam below my feet is solid and beautiful. It goes on and on and my feet are sure upon it. I can learn to let the old expectations pass.

Joy Joy Joy

I realize that I've been absent from this blog for an inordinate amount of time, and I'm sorry.  Life has been just about as busy as possible.  

Between 4 part-time jobs and school, there hasn't been much time for deep ponderings or feminist rants to be transposed to the blogosphere.  Even now, this update isn't to discuss anything thought-provoking.  I'm just really, really happy.  

I met someone, and it's springtime and I'm in love.  I'm a little crazy about this guy.  I feel as though everything is right with the world, as though I'm walking a golden path set straight ahead of me.  Perhaps I'll devote another blog entry to the difficulty of identifying as queer while in a heterosexual relationship.  Perhaps not.  At this moment I just wanted to share my joy.  

Because it's pure joy.