Monday, March 4, 2013
some older haiku
*****
spiteful beating heart
compelled to write its proof
waits for spring thaw
*****
wind between buildings
slipping through my fingers
the small of his back
*****
my thoughts are twisted
like morning glory vines, beautiful
but invasive
*****
skinny dipping on a dare
body turned electric
like an eel
*****
moving up, thinking down
in the middle lies my root
a willow tree
*****
wanting what I don't have
I miss the hummingbird
floating by my head
*****
constellations fold
the sky like origami
a stellar peace crane
Thursday, February 16, 2012
signs
Here's a poster that was in the exam room at Health Services in Astoria. Perhaps I should tattoo this on my arm so I won't forget.
I don't really have much else to say today. It's cold and wet and I didn't wear enough layers, so I'm tired and cranky. And after riding the bus and the MAX earlier, I feel like I should go home and take a bath in Emergen-C.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
a mildly depressing little piece of flash fiction from 2000-ish
"Truth or Dare"
She lay on the mattress, feeling scratchiness against her skin without the comfort of sheets. She tried not to think about what she'd just done. Tried not to think about where truth or dare had led so early that morning. She opened her eyes and turned her head towards the light coming in through the window, thinking that nothing about college was the way she had thought it would be. Friends lasted as long as their promises. Roommates never understood the pain. And somehow, the only thing she knew for sure was the comfort she found in a jukebox that played sad songs.
She closed her eyes as the sun peeked into the room. She didn't want enlightenment just yet. Nor did she want to see the walls that surrounded her. She just wanted to be back in her own bed. She'd been offered a ride home earlier that night, but she said she'd just walk home in the morning. She made that decision. And she knew what would happen because of it. Hell, she knew what would happen before they even decided to come back here. Intuition is a beautiful thing, she thought as she curled up on her side. Too bad it doesn't help with the minutes after.
She opened her eyes and stared at the pool of light on the mattress, confused that the warmth of the sun didn't quite reach her body. She sat up then, slowly shifting to her knees to kneel as if in prayer. She watched him get dressed in the middle of the quiet room. It was then that she really noticed the cold, holding her tightly like it wouldn't let her go quite as easily as he had just the moment before. She wrapped her arms around herself and he must have finally noticed. He looked at her and said, very practically,
"You're probably bleeding a little bit."
And that was that. She nodded and reached for one of his t-shirts, putting it on as he tried to wake up her best friend who'd been asleep next to them. Then she crawled along the floor picking up her clothes. When she found them all, she somehow walked towards the bathroom to get ready for class.
She lay on the mattress, feeling scratchiness against her skin without the comfort of sheets. She tried not to think about what she'd just done. Tried not to think about where truth or dare had led so early that morning. She opened her eyes and turned her head towards the light coming in through the window, thinking that nothing about college was the way she had thought it would be. Friends lasted as long as their promises. Roommates never understood the pain. And somehow, the only thing she knew for sure was the comfort she found in a jukebox that played sad songs.
She closed her eyes as the sun peeked into the room. She didn't want enlightenment just yet. Nor did she want to see the walls that surrounded her. She just wanted to be back in her own bed. She'd been offered a ride home earlier that night, but she said she'd just walk home in the morning. She made that decision. And she knew what would happen because of it. Hell, she knew what would happen before they even decided to come back here. Intuition is a beautiful thing, she thought as she curled up on her side. Too bad it doesn't help with the minutes after.
She opened her eyes and stared at the pool of light on the mattress, confused that the warmth of the sun didn't quite reach her body. She sat up then, slowly shifting to her knees to kneel as if in prayer. She watched him get dressed in the middle of the quiet room. It was then that she really noticed the cold, holding her tightly like it wouldn't let her go quite as easily as he had just the moment before. She wrapped her arms around herself and he must have finally noticed. He looked at her and said, very practically,
"You're probably bleeding a little bit."
And that was that. She nodded and reached for one of his t-shirts, putting it on as he tried to wake up her best friend who'd been asleep next to them. Then she crawled along the floor picking up her clothes. When she found them all, she somehow walked towards the bathroom to get ready for class.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
and here's a poem from 1997:
Mask of the Butterfly
fragile strength
painted
on translucent flight
with whispered wings
floating
through the mist
landing for a
moment
with unassuming grace
fleeing too quickly
for possession
to be made
My first tattoo was a butterfly, for a very specific reason. I was told once that if you touch a butterfly's wings, it will die. The best way to enjoy them is to just pause and smile and let them flutter on by. So when I got my first tattoo at 18 (16 years ago for anyone interested) I wanted something that would represent all the people who had (and would later) come into my life for a moment, staying long enough to light it up in some way and then eventually moving on.
Good-byes are hard, but some people aren't meant to stay in your life forever. Here's the paradox, though: I'm the one who has never stayed. I'm the one who flies in with all my color on whispered wings, and only stays long enough to make one or two friends worth saying good-bye to. And then I leave. And I hate that. I'm tired of starting over, of trying to reinvent myself every time. And reinvent is a misnomer by the way. What I've actually been doing is uncovering the pieces of myself that, for whatever reasons, got buried long ago.
I'm ready to stop leaving, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm where I'm supposed to land.
And what will happen when I finally stop long enough to let someone touch my wings?
fragile strength
painted
on translucent flight
with whispered wings
floating
through the mist
landing for a
moment
with unassuming grace
fleeing too quickly
for possession
to be made
My first tattoo was a butterfly, for a very specific reason. I was told once that if you touch a butterfly's wings, it will die. The best way to enjoy them is to just pause and smile and let them flutter on by. So when I got my first tattoo at 18 (16 years ago for anyone interested) I wanted something that would represent all the people who had (and would later) come into my life for a moment, staying long enough to light it up in some way and then eventually moving on.
Good-byes are hard, but some people aren't meant to stay in your life forever. Here's the paradox, though: I'm the one who has never stayed. I'm the one who flies in with all my color on whispered wings, and only stays long enough to make one or two friends worth saying good-bye to. And then I leave. And I hate that. I'm tired of starting over, of trying to reinvent myself every time. And reinvent is a misnomer by the way. What I've actually been doing is uncovering the pieces of myself that, for whatever reasons, got buried long ago.
I'm ready to stop leaving, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm where I'm supposed to land.
And what will happen when I finally stop long enough to let someone touch my wings?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
and here's an untitled poem:
our conversations became
less about creating
(art music writing)
and more about negating
(rules conditions categories)
it can’t be this
we can’t be that
I love you but
but what?
there is no but in
I love you
only I
and you
and the love between us
but
that sentence didn’t fit
inside his missives
no matter how I tried
to diagram it
because I only know
the basic subject verb
agreement
I love
it’s the other parts
I never quite get right
the punctuation
and inflection
the order
and the nuance
I think I got
a faulty education
in the language of love
learned its letters
incorrectly
out of order
some completely absent
maybe my inability
to properly conjugate
is rooted in
not knowing
how to spell
perhaps I should
go back to basics
before attempting
sentences
learn the alphabet
before I write a novel
Thursday, January 12, 2012
You did what?
Sometimes when I tell people about my 5 year trek to Portland, they look at me with admiration and tell me things like "you're so brave" and "good for you!" At first it confused me, since my life feels like any boring old life. But then I step back and really look at the past few years. I really have done some amazing shit. Not cure cancer amazing, but pretty damn cool for this lazy-ish pseudo-Southern girl. So here are some of the highlights:
1. Bought a one-way plane ticket from Lexington to Spokane and moved to a small North Idaho town that I had never visited and where I knew only one person.
2. After a 6 weeks working in a pie shop, I got my dream job at the East Bonner County Library. Seriously folks, it was awesome and I have never worked with a better group of people!
3. Watched my 1st PacNW 4th of July from the middle of Lake Pend Oreille. If you've never watched fireworks from a boat on a lake, I highly recommend it.
4. Ate venison stew and wild turkey caught and prepared by friends. (also had explained to me how to tan a deer hide with its brains)
5. Somehow acquired 2 dogs and a cat.
6. Rode my bike to work every day until it started snowing--then I strapped ice trekkers to my boots and walked...in the snow...uphill both ways. Okay, so not the uphill part unless you count the snow berms.
7. Finally hiked Mickinick. It's a difficult-rated trail and most of the time I tried to hike it I never even made it to the 2-mile mark. But the last attempt found me 3.5 miles up a 2000 ft elevation increase looking out over Sandpoint and the lake. And my belly was full of wild huckleberries, which certainly made the climb even better!
8. Road trip from Sandpoint to Denver. This is rivaled only by my previous bus trip from Lexington to Denver a few years before. But the road trip took us through Montana and Wyoming which are infinitely cooler than Missouri and Kansas.
9. TRAIN TRIPS TO PORTLAND!!!
10. Knowing the names of the mountain ranges surrounding me...the Cabinets and the Selkirks....and not too far away, the Bitterroots.
11. Flying around the lake and those mountains in my roommate's brother's little 4-seat plane.
12. Leaving it all behind to move to the Oregon coast. (This involved convincing one of my best friends to pack her life in Kentucky into a u-haul and drive across the country to join me on the coast. It also involved a 9 hour drive with my dogs and cat after not driving for 2 years.)
13. Astoria. It's a really big hill---that I walked up and down every single day.
14. Getting the job that has apparently propelled me on my current shoe career path--Gimre's Shoes, the oldest family owned shoe store west of the Mississippi. 2011 saw their 119th anniversary!
15. Two consecutive Christmas days spent looking for sand dollars on the beach.
16. Climbing to the top of the South Jetty at Ft. Stevens State Park.
17. Completing the 2010 Columbia Crossing--a 10K walk/run (I walked) that starts in Washington and continues over the 4-mile Astoria-Megler Bridge that spans the Columbia not too far from where the river meets the ocean.
18. Waking up every day to an amazing view of the Columbia River.
19. Did I mention the proximity of the ocean?
20. Finally finally finally moving to Portland!
I met so many wonderful people along this 5-year journey, too many to name without inevitably leaving someone out. And I consider myself the luckiest person in the world because of each and every one of them! I also fell in love a few times over the past few years. And while none of theme were quite right for me, they were each beautiful and amazing in their own unique ways and I wouldn't want to imagine this adventure without them. The past 5 years have been more full of life than I realized while living them. So maybe another resolution for this year will be to focus my awareness on life as I live it, instead of just getting through the days and wondering what comes next.
Although, I do wonder what's coming next. ;-)
1. Bought a one-way plane ticket from Lexington to Spokane and moved to a small North Idaho town that I had never visited and where I knew only one person.
2. After a 6 weeks working in a pie shop, I got my dream job at the East Bonner County Library. Seriously folks, it was awesome and I have never worked with a better group of people!
3. Watched my 1st PacNW 4th of July from the middle of Lake Pend Oreille. If you've never watched fireworks from a boat on a lake, I highly recommend it.
4. Ate venison stew and wild turkey caught and prepared by friends. (also had explained to me how to tan a deer hide with its brains)
5. Somehow acquired 2 dogs and a cat.
6. Rode my bike to work every day until it started snowing--then I strapped ice trekkers to my boots and walked...in the snow...uphill both ways. Okay, so not the uphill part unless you count the snow berms.
7. Finally hiked Mickinick. It's a difficult-rated trail and most of the time I tried to hike it I never even made it to the 2-mile mark. But the last attempt found me 3.5 miles up a 2000 ft elevation increase looking out over Sandpoint and the lake. And my belly was full of wild huckleberries, which certainly made the climb even better!
8. Road trip from Sandpoint to Denver. This is rivaled only by my previous bus trip from Lexington to Denver a few years before. But the road trip took us through Montana and Wyoming which are infinitely cooler than Missouri and Kansas.
9. TRAIN TRIPS TO PORTLAND!!!
10. Knowing the names of the mountain ranges surrounding me...the Cabinets and the Selkirks....and not too far away, the Bitterroots.
11. Flying around the lake and those mountains in my roommate's brother's little 4-seat plane.
12. Leaving it all behind to move to the Oregon coast. (This involved convincing one of my best friends to pack her life in Kentucky into a u-haul and drive across the country to join me on the coast. It also involved a 9 hour drive with my dogs and cat after not driving for 2 years.)
13. Astoria. It's a really big hill---that I walked up and down every single day.
14. Getting the job that has apparently propelled me on my current shoe career path--Gimre's Shoes, the oldest family owned shoe store west of the Mississippi. 2011 saw their 119th anniversary!
15. Two consecutive Christmas days spent looking for sand dollars on the beach.
16. Climbing to the top of the South Jetty at Ft. Stevens State Park.
17. Completing the 2010 Columbia Crossing--a 10K walk/run (I walked) that starts in Washington and continues over the 4-mile Astoria-Megler Bridge that spans the Columbia not too far from where the river meets the ocean.
18. Waking up every day to an amazing view of the Columbia River.
19. Did I mention the proximity of the ocean?
20. Finally finally finally moving to Portland!
I met so many wonderful people along this 5-year journey, too many to name without inevitably leaving someone out. And I consider myself the luckiest person in the world because of each and every one of them! I also fell in love a few times over the past few years. And while none of theme were quite right for me, they were each beautiful and amazing in their own unique ways and I wouldn't want to imagine this adventure without them. The past 5 years have been more full of life than I realized while living them. So maybe another resolution for this year will be to focus my awareness on life as I live it, instead of just getting through the days and wondering what comes next.
Although, I do wonder what's coming next. ;-)
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Insomnia
So one of my resolutions for 2012 is to post on this blog at least once a week. Today is my first attempt of the year. And I have no idea what to say.
Insomnia monsters had a party at my place last night and I finally accepted defeat around 3:30 and got out of bed. I made some chamomile tea and a bowl of oatmeal (half of which ended up on the floor because I was partially brain dead and didn't think of the consequences of pouring boiling water into a cheap deli food container) and then I worked on a couple of art projects I had started earlier in the evening. So I was productive at least, and by finishing one of the pieces I was able to make enough space in my head for a few hours of sleep.
I have set many art and writing related goals for this year. Added up they seem a bit overwhelming, but by taking them one at a time I'm finding myself already in a more productive creative rhythm. One painting almost completed, 3 mini pocket shrines started, one altered book done and shipped to its inspiring recipient, 5 haiku penned, and I think I feel a poem coming on. All of this since Monday!
I have also decided that my next tattoo will most likely be a faery mermaid with wings that look like the fins of a beta fish.
Insomnia monsters had a party at my place last night and I finally accepted defeat around 3:30 and got out of bed. I made some chamomile tea and a bowl of oatmeal (half of which ended up on the floor because I was partially brain dead and didn't think of the consequences of pouring boiling water into a cheap deli food container) and then I worked on a couple of art projects I had started earlier in the evening. So I was productive at least, and by finishing one of the pieces I was able to make enough space in my head for a few hours of sleep.
I have set many art and writing related goals for this year. Added up they seem a bit overwhelming, but by taking them one at a time I'm finding myself already in a more productive creative rhythm. One painting almost completed, 3 mini pocket shrines started, one altered book done and shipped to its inspiring recipient, 5 haiku penned, and I think I feel a poem coming on. All of this since Monday!
I have also decided that my next tattoo will most likely be a faery mermaid with wings that look like the fins of a beta fish.
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