the last dragonfly (gathering strength)

garnet dragonfly
rests on summer sun-warmed toe
before autumn comes

riding in circles

He is riding his bike in wide circles, passing between my garage and my car in the sort of test of skill small children set to themselves while I try not to fall off the ladder in my garage as I organize and restack moving boxes.  He passes through again and again, and I lose my balance a little each time I see him out of the corner of my eye, but I never actually fall, and when I am finally finished, on the hood of my car (precisely centered) is a sprig from the crabapple tree I refer to as the cherry tree, and it makes all the half bugs I find in my hair for the rest of the night matter less.

now it is autumn

purple twilights fall

more frequently now, like leaves,

now it is autumn

Life and fortune

Sometimes life

is--like my most 

recent fortune cookie 

("People try thing, because they 

just don't want it enough")--

pretty much incomprehensible

to the folks on the ground.  Hang 

in there, anyway, and maybe try 

another fortune cookie?

she is dancing

We are in the orthopedic shoe store, and she is maybe 3.  She is dancing around me, spinning and giggling and trying to be sneaky and noticed at the same time in that inept and charming way 3-year-olds can, and I make eye contact and smile a small sun smile at her as she twirls by in her unsteady orbit, and she smiles hugely at our shared secret and keeps turning, and eventually her mother or grandmother notices and blessedly laughs instead of being needlessly angry, and the grace is sweet and thick among the smell of leather and aging.

the first mystic

He said, "He

was the first

mystic I ever

met," and some

day I want to

write a poem

about that, too.

When I am not sleeping (much at all)

It's like every bit 

of progress and forward 

momentum disappears into 

the brain fog, and I am 

left with only 

the weariness and 

the grimly-held 

hope that the switch 

will flip again 

soon, so I can 

get the normal 

inadequate amount 

of sleep and 

recapture my 

scattered wits 

and will and 

write on.

the difference between

I have been thinking about 

the difference between

thinking you are the puzzle

and 

thinking you are a piece, 

thinking you are the tapestry

and 

thinking you are a thread, 

thinking you are the body

and 

thinking you are a member of it.

revenge of the dragonflies

I longed
for more
dragonflies,
but when I
sprawled on
the deck, they
tickled me
to distraction.
We studied
each other.
I wondered why
I love them so
much more than
other insects
with equally ugly
or even more
beautiful faces.
Jewel colors?
Sporty wings?
Pest-hunting
prowess? Inability
to do me any
real harm?

another sleepless night

a moon so bright 

the shadows 

of the tree 

thrown on my 

white curtains 

at night were 

visible to me even 

in my blindness

I blame Stonehenge

Between the cryptic
tonsils and the tonsilloliths
(don't look up pictures),
I feel justified in blaming
Stonehenge for all my
throat illnesses.  And
lack of sleep, too?

watching dragonflies

the cold comes

suddenly and I

have not spent

nearly enough

time watching

dragonflies from

deck hammocks to

last me through 

the long winter

nostalgia or eyeball floaters

was the sky

a clearer blue

when I was 

young, or could 

it just be that 

there are 

more floaters

in my eyes now

that I am older

?

nightmare dogs of sleeplessness

At night

the light

from 

unevenly

spaced poles

can make 

even Tiny

Adorable

Dog into a

terrifying

creature of

nightmare

moving too

low to the 

ground with 

far too 

many 

legs and

its usual

silence so

endearing

in daylight

leaving me

jolted

breathless

with fear

clutching

my mail

and frayed

self-possession.

TAI - > TAD

What is it about just knowing

that Tiny Adorable Illegal Dog

is not, in fact, actually illegal,

that makes me want to cuddle

and pet it even more despite 

the fact that legality 

has nothing to do

with allergies

?

small victories? a (terrifying) glimpse into my head on a bad day but at least not on a pike or anything

Missing a deadline because you are not sleeping well and thus are terrible at adulting is really irksome.  I felt like I was a plastic bag on a windy day getting blown around from one thing I needed to do to another and then all of a sudden there were no more days left.  (However, I did manage to exercise enough self-restraint to keep myself from replying with a number of mean things to a guy being a(n incorrect) grammar/writing jerk to one of my friends on Facebook.  That was a heroic effort today.)  These are the times I think I will never really be an "author" instead of a writer.  (This is not actually an awful thing because I'd rather be a writer even when I am not sleep deprived and scattered to the four winds.)  I already have no desire or motivation to get my work out there like one is supposed to do, but when a call for entries that seems tailor-made for my work comes, and I am a space cadet due to sleep deprivation for a couple weeks and miss it, it's frustrating, and I want to wallow in self-recrimination (which would be easier if I didn't keep getting distracted by everything in the world), but I also know that melodramatic wailing and stressing out is something I need to avoid (it's really bad for me because it kicks up the pain that leeches the sleep that scatters my brain all over the walls of the house that Jack built).  Did you know that sleep deprivation by itself causes symptoms that look almost exactly like fibromyalgia?  They did studies (that are totally illegal now) once upon a time.  (Seriously, Blogger, I promise fibromyalgia is a real word.  You and certain members of the medical community who also don't believe in it are not helping.)  I'd love to promise to do better next time, but if I'm honest with myself, I'll probably be sleep deprived next time because I am always sleep-deprived to a varying degree, and I just want to throw up my hands and give up, but that's not good either.  All of this thrashing makes me more tired, but the pain makes me not sleep.  I LOSE NO MATTER WHAT I DO OR DO NOT DO.  Therefore, I am going to go read a book, so the day is not a total loss.  Here's hoping I have the self-control to stop reading book at a reasonable time in order to not make things even worse . . .

Part 2 of some ramblings in honor of 6 years of blogging (yes seriously, technically)

It's kind of fun for me to read back through the years.  Some times are more fun than others, for sure, but mostly the super non-fun times are the silences, the spaces in between posts that sometimes stretch on and on.  (Or sometimes I was sacrificing all my creative energy to gulping down the entire catalogs of certain authors, so silence does not necessarily mean rough seas.  It could also mean selfish ones. : )

There was a thing Blogger offered once where you could get a print out of your blogs like a book, and I think I would really like to do that some day.  All the typos that got through would hurt my soul deeply, but I want this more-recent writing to be available to me so that in the rare chances where I see a call for submissions that I am actually drawn to, I can look through my 450-page monster thesis to see where I was from 2003-2009 and then continue looking through the blog pieces I've written since I started in 2009 without having to stare at a screen and scroll for days (which basically makes me want to stop looking).

I love weaving together readings by combing through what I've written and searching for strands to draw together and braid into some kind of story.  Right now, that story I can page through ends in 2009.  (Someday electronics might rule the world and be able to emulate this to my satisfaction, but that day is not here yet.  I hope it comes soon-ish and is accompanied by anti-gravity bras and other useful technology.)

With that, it's obviously time for bed.  : )  Cheers!  (And thanks for reading, faithful ones.  You are the cherry on top of the sundae.)

the moon tonight

the moon tonight is red

on a field of dark blue

with clouds obscuring

and magnifying it as it

watches the fog grow

Part 1 of some ramblings in honor of 6 years of blogging (yes seriously, technically)

In honor of my 6th blogging anniversary and because I felt compelled to write every day again, I challenged myself to blog here every day for a month.  I more or less succeeded (with some instances of cheating), but there were 30 blog posts in 30 days, and I don't want to stop, even to get back into the discipline of just trying to do 1 blog post every day split up among the 4 blogs I have, so they are all updated regularly.  Forward momentum is powerful, and I don't want to hobble it by setting arbitrary rules.  All that's to say that if you are one of the few family members and friends who reads here regularly, the flood will not be abating for a while.  (You're welcome.)

I recently wrestled the haphazardly unpacked stacks of my notebooks from over the years (starting my second year of my MFA apparently), and there was so much drafting in them that never made it onto a page for even the cursory editing efforts I put forth here that I could seriously post one every day for several years before I had to start coming up with new material.  I totally want to do that some day.  But I also want to leave room for the NOW, so this can serve as more of a record again, a slightly humorous (when possible) way for the limited folks I've told about it to know I'm still here, still thinking too much, and still really obsessed with teeny tree frogs.  (I sort of think they're my current muses but not actually really at all.  They're just cute in an ugly way, and they can hang in there with the best of them.)

TAI and Bujold's new story

When I staggered out of bed this morning like a tremendously clumsy yeti, TinyAdorableIllegal Dog (TAI for short from henceforth) was whimpering fit to break your heart.  He was so loud that I could clearly hear him from my second floor condo with two doors in between us.  The sound was so pitiful that I nearly flung open the door to see if it was dying.  Then I remembered that I was not clothed for company and that I can't see a darned thing without corrective lenses.  I lumbered away from the sound and into the bathroom.  I have no idea what caused TAI to make that sound, but I hope it never happens again because I will cry.

The day ended sort of better.  I was donating plasma to get money to pay for my allergy meds, and I was reading the new novella by Lois McMaster Bujold, and I was just having a grand time.  (Not with the donating because DudeBro put the needle in kind of wrong, so it hurt a bit more than usual and was kind of bleeding.)  I was just giggling and occasionally snorting and grinning my face off because LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD NEW STORY YAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!  It's in the 5 Gods world, and it's great, and I've barely started it, really.

Actually, I have no idea how close I am to the end.  I want it to go on and on and on and never end as I often do when I read Bujold's stuff.  I hope it at least gets me through one more donation.  Two more to go before I can afford both allergy meds!  Wish me luck!  (And health and copious plasma.)

All I wanted to do today

All I wanted to do today
was lie on the deck
reading a book.  When
I am very sleep-deprived,
I do not adult well at all.

Can I quit this club?

The infographic said 1

out of 10 

people has 

pain

every day

and I thought

Really?!

9 out of 10 people 

DON'T?

What is that 

like?  It sounds

awesome to not be part

of this 10% club. I don't

remember what it's like

not to be in this club.  

I've been 

in it longer

than not now.

Does this tithe

of pain count

toward some total

I do not understand?

Would I feel

any better 

if I did

understand?

Doubtful.

Augtober melancholy

first
unexpected beauty
of a random scrap
of filmy white plastic
gliding in for a landing
from the dark grey sky and then
                                                         leapingflapping back
                                                              into the air
                                                  with a flick of
                                                        the wind's wrists

next
stub of a severed
rear windshield wiper
waving regularly

                                        faithfully (futilely?) 

despite being
disarmed

and 

this 

last:

lavender twilight

summer (plums)

p l u m s

plums plums plums

plumsplu msplums

plumsplu  msplums

plums     plums

forests burning somewhere

Friday the light that fell 

from high windows cast 

an odd shade on 

corporate carpets: 

orange-ish pink.  

The sun was a large 

red-orange ball 

when it set.  

The moon (just past 

one quarter) is coppery.  

Forests somewhere 

are burning, and we 

are far enough away 

to only see the beauty 

it adds to the light.

good things about the rain

Good things about the rain and cooler weather this week

• regular demolition of spider web blocking my deck door 
• How many times will it take before it gives up and goes far away to more welcoming surroundings?
• Hopefully this many.
• more tiny tree frog fairies on the windows at work

Midwestern weather whiplash brought to you by the start of a new school year

Several days 

of scorchingly 

melting August 

followed 

by a week 

of November

:

this Midwestern

weather whiplash

brought to you

by the start 

of a new

school year?

empty fortune cookie

empty
fortune
cookie


full
of
possibilitiy

Keep on going

Four froggies clinging
grimly to windows
every time I passed.
A personal best of
sorts, and I swear
one was showing
V for victory.

This week's mushroom miracle

I have learned that, if the mushroom pieces are big enough to spot but small enough to swallow whole without chewing, I can eat mushrooms.  (Works for lima beans, too!)  It's the squeakiness when I chew them and the texture that doesn't agree with me, not so much the taste.  Does this mean I will be cooking with them?  Um, probably not really so much, no.  Unless they repel spiders.  Then I would be cooking them every day.  Seriously.

When I can taste . . .

There was a day last week that I could taste.  It's pretty rare and seems to happen maybe when general inflammation is down, my allergies are more at bay, and the barometric pressure or whatever it is aligns and then, behold, I can REALLY taste things despite a nine-times-broken nose, and all the allergy and sinus problems.  It is kind of glorious, and it helps me understand why people like eating food.

Normally, food is something I eat because there are nutrients and stuff in it, and it fuels me.  If it tastes like blah all the time, that's actually kind of convenient.  I can eat healthier food that may not taste great (and might thus be cheaper).  If I could taste well, maybe I wouldn't go near it.

On that most recent tasting day, I was in the big cafeteria at work (not the mini version we have in our building), and I had some food that was amazing.  (Those green beans!  That chicken fajita wrap full of peppers and onions!  Droooool.)  So sometimes food tastes amazing.  Thanks be to God.

Dear Spider, please!

Dear Spider,

Please

go somewhere

else to build

your work of 

art.  It is 

splendid; I 

appreciate its

complexity

and its beauty

and your

industriousness,

but your art

is in an inconvenient 

place.  You are big 

for a spider, and I

have no idea if

you are venomous 

(though I am likely allergic to you even if you are not), 

but in a contest 

between you 

and my vacuum, 

my vacuum cleaner 

would win.

(Until you crawled out in the middle of the night to wreak spider vengeance on me and then sleep on my nose, so you'll be the first thing I see in the morning, so I can wake up too paralyzed by fear if your venom hasn't already rendered me dead, in which case, the sleeping on my nose would be kind of overkill, don't you think?  Let's be reasonable here, as much as we can.)

But I'm not sure 

it would kill you, 

so there would have to be 

flailing and smashing, 

and neither 

of us would 

enjoy that at all.

Please, for the love 

of God, go 

build your lovely 

web somewhere 

else.  

(Seriously.  Even in front of the screen door instead of the door I actually use.  Go now.  Please.)  

I wish you well 

there

in direct proportion

to your distance 

from me.

Sincerely,

Someone Who Wants to Use Her Deck Again Some Day Soon.

Give me justice!

Imagine me, if you will, in that Japanese trope from crime shows where the victim lies facedown, with one finger outstretched in the act of writing (using her own blood) the name of the murderer even as she died.  You see the letters M-O-S-Q with the tail of the q fading. If I die unexpectedly in the next few days, it had to have been the mosquitoes, who are, no doubt, in their evil lair right now, drunk, satiated, and thinking they are above the law. Don't let them get away with it! I demand justice.

Stay tuned . . .

we are kin, the frogs and I

three tiny tree frogs

cling to windows high above

the place where you leave

God of the stars

Dear God,

Thank you for stars 

I can see even in 

the middle of 

the city.

who wouldn't cry

The sun was already out of sight, but it was still a dreamy, shady 80 degrees, and I went out to the deck and set up the hammock (even though I've already REALLY overdone it this week), and some of the new neighbors were there, but they weren't swearing, and their illegal dog was acting really weird, and I wonder if they also don't realize that when the signs get put on the grass out front that it's been treated to make it look soft and lush and inviting and is now extremely poisonous to pets and children, the poisoning also applies to the back, and I wonder if the tiny, adorable doggie has been poisoned or is just trying to whack underground moles to death with her skull, but then I get back to my book, which is nonfiction and makes me cry anyway because I'm so tired, and it's so beautiful on the deck now that I've swept away the dead neon green and black wasp and the last bits of sunlight are showing me the glowing spider webs above the neighbors' yard, who wouldn't cry?

2 butterflies exhausted

Two butterflies
on the deck dancing
with each other reminded me
that I can still appreciate beauty
even when I am lying on the couch,
too exhausted to go outside to
play with them.
One  was a
swallowtail
of some kind, brilliant
yellow and black in the
rare sunlight, and I have
a particular love of swallowtails
even if they are not blue.  This
is rest done right, my friend
with no chance of ill-timed
dizziness to cause
         resting-
           related
             injuries.

Today I am grateful for (2)

Today I am grateful for

• 2 teeny tree frogs on the same window pane at midday
• 2 deer walking across the work parking lot in the cool of the evening after I got out of the gym
• 2 AM bedtime after not-enough-time with two old friends and two new
• weather too gorgeous to be believed
• 2 functioning hips to walk to the ice cream place
• 2 dollars to spend on ice cream

that night (and early morning)

I wonder if I am better 

at being present 

here and now or if I 

am just finally as good 

as I used to be when 

I was a child.

Farewell to the Lady

The July painting on my Pre-Raphaelites calendar

was "The Lady of Shalott" by William Holman Hunt. 

This awful reproduction made me long to see

the original test painting again with sharp 

lines of threads snapping and unraveling like

whips, like the lady's life when 

her curiosity got the better 

of her self-control.

Sleep deprivation and spiders: definitely an awesome combination

It is not as if I imagine that the second the door shuts when I leave in the morning that all the spiders descend from the ceilings, raise a tiny cheer, and then start licking my toothbrush or peeing on my pillow.  Really.  

It's just that I hate the way they only seem to come out when I don't have my glasses on, and all I can see is this fuzzy moving blobby blur like the mosaics they use in Japanese comedies to show you where a cockroach is.  (I know they're not cockroaches because they are too small and because spiders move differently from insects, so I can tell even mostly blind.)   They just seem much larger than they actually are because of my lack of ability to focus on anything further than two inches away from my nose.   I know this, truly, I do.

I'm fairly certain they're not making faces at me.  But again, I can't really KNOW this without my glasses on.  I am not going to set up tiny hidden spider cams around my house.  That would just be silly.  

(I blame all this on Allie fordrawing pictures of scary spiders.)  

Also, it's not like I want to destroy all spiders.  I just want them to be sneaky and not get caught by me.  Because if I catch them, I have to acknowledge their existences, and if they flaunt their existences, I have to end them.  (Why don't they LISTEN when I tell them to go away, or I will kill them?) 

I am trying to be reasonable here, spiders.  We can coexist as long as you live lives of fear and secrecy.  Why is that so hard for you?!  Don't you want to live?!

It may be that I am not being fair or reasonable about this.  Maybe they are starving because there is a lack of bugs for food in my house.  Maybe they are crazed by hunger and can't help staggering around in a daze the one time a day I am in the master bathroom.  Maybe I should have more compassionate thoughts toward them.  

I just can't.  And I'm okay with that.

northern sky, sea grey

Did you look
at the northern sky
this morning?

And did it look 

like the ocean from 

where you are?  

There was this band of dark blue-gray clouds low on the horizon and a bank of fluffy grey and white clouds above it, and it reminded me of the shoreline leading to the ocean in Wales on an overcast autumn day, layers of blue grey with some whitecaps.  I took a picture, but it didn't do the view justice.  It looked like I could walk out there and put my toes in the ocean again.  I knew it really wasn't the ocean, but the beauty and transporting other-worldliness of the effect made me miss the real thing, homesick.  I thought you might understand.  I hope you do.

a summer moon

I called to tell you

to go outside and look

at the moon right now

because it hung above

the river banks an

impossibly huge and

pitted pewter coin

ready to fall.

about the moon

I called to tell you

to look at the moon, but you

didn't answer me

About resting badly

for Liz, who is probably right

"You're doing it

wrong," she says

on Facebook in what

I imagine is the aggrieved-

affectionate tone the

Bloggess' long-suffering

husband Victor uses

when he says it to

her.  I think she's right

because other people

would not encourage

resting so much if it

did as much damage

to them as it somehow

does to me.  Does

anyone know where

I could learn how to

safely rest?  Are there

classes for this sort

of thing?  I can't see

the solution as: stop

resting because being

exhausted is bad

enough, but it's worse

when I add resting-

related injuries to the 

mix.  There must be 

a way for me to learn 

how to rest more 

safely.  Maybe

if I practiced it 

as often as I am 

supposed to, I 

would be 

better 

at it?
It can't
hurt
to
try,
right?

it takes two

Sometimes

you need two

teeny tree frogs

to get through

the day

and

two great friends

to get you through

the night.

why I'm writing this July off as a loss

Two things I learned this July:

1. Classical music can be hazardous to your health.
2. Resting can be dangerous.

I just wish it had happened AFTER I shifted the books

I suppose it was
inevitable that I
would trip and fall
on the hammock

because no blessing
has lately come to
me not accompanied
by cursing. This

is why resting has
not been particularly
restful for me
lately.

Brahms like clouds

I was trying to figure out why 

I kept thinking of clouds when 

I listened to A German Requiem, 

and I think it's because, 

in the Requiem, Brahms

--like those majestic 

piles of middle-high 

clouds--simply 

refuses to be 

rushed.

first tree frog fairy sighting

Yesterday was the first day
I spotted a tree frog  clinging
to the third story window.

I was afraid they were not
coming this year, since I
had not seen any in June.

Maybe they come this late
every year with the cicadas,

and, like everything else
these days, I just forgot.

It's good to see them again
this year always every time.

Can I have an open sing of Brahms' German Requiem instead of a funeral service when I die?

When I die, instead of a funeral service, I think I would like to have an Open Sing of Brahms' German Requiem (in English, since few of my friends understand German).  It should be conducted by someone with the intensely dramatic, passionate enthusiasm John Hoffacker brings to it (make sure there's nothing above him in reach).  If the soloists could be as good as Justin Staebell and Kristin Morant, it would be amazing.  Since I am not rich and because it's worked pretty well all the times I've done it, I'd recommend all volunteer orchestra and choir with my friends mixed in with whatever voice part they want to listen to (a hard choice since they've all got good stuff) and right up against the orchestra because that makes it even better than a recording.  I might recommend Hamline United Methodist Church, which is a physically and sonically beautiful space, (and so there can be an organ).  I'd like to request a harpist, too.  This is what I would like because this music is so powerful that even when all the instruments aren't there, and nobody can get all the way through the end of the third movement right, and my voice is shot before we finish the rehearsal, which should ruin everything for me and make me miserable during the performance, being a part of the words and the music and the skill with which they were assembled by Brahms and pieced together by an orchestra and choir leaves me with joy, hope, confidence, and peace in the love of God and the place He's prepared for His people to rest.  Those are the kinds of things I'd like people to go away from my funeral carrying.

progress

I had forgotten a game

I used to play when I rode

down tree-lined sidewalks

where I would sit up as tall 

as I could to try to brush 

the overhanging leaves with 

my bike helmet.  Now that I

do not have to be hunched, 

deliberate, and slow when

I ride, I remembered and

played it again today.

Everyone who plays this 

game is a winner.

on a beautiful day in summer

I am trying not

to let it matter

that I can no longer

remember the color

of the spring blossoms

on the backyard

crab-apple tree

of my youth.

the first thing

The first thing I liked about this home 

was the pink tree out front in full bloom. 

Not that pale pink kind, though that 

is lovely, too, and not 

the really dark, deep 

pink but the middle-darkish 

pink that smells of heaven and keeps 

it's fruit all year round, so it is 

beautifully dressed even in the winter 

when the other deciduous 

trees 

are only 

bones.

First anniversary

On this, my first

anniversary of owning

a home, I am grateful

that I have this space

to inhabit and infuse

with blues and greens

and peace and rest.

Yesterday's guilty epiphany

How can He

give you rest

if you will

not take it?

To the white moth perched on the only part of the ceiling that is not white but red

To the white moth perched on the only part of the ceiling that is not white but red:

You are beautiful
and baffling.  Perhaps

you should stay inside
where it is safer and

your inability to use
your camouflage is less

likely to get you
killed and eaten

by something more
grateful for your

mistakes at fitting in
than your success

at standing out.

3 things I don't love in late spring

Three things I don't love in late spring:

• cottonwood fluff drifting
• mosquitoes
• dead turtles smashed on the sides of the roads

the song of the temporary car

My temporary car sings me soothing songs of welcome when I get into it and when I turn it off, it caresses me with a few chords of farewell.  It is huge, with a cavernous trunk and four doors.  The rear-view mirror is magically treated to prevent glare from sun or high beam behind one.  It has digital readouts of the temperature inside and outside.  There are lots of numbers displayed.  The radio is touch screen activated.  It has power everything; I am careful not to accidentally hit any buttons or knobs or levers because I have no idea what they will do.  (One of them is probably a seat ejection button.)  The temporary car is quiet and smooth.  It accelerates and breaks with no stomping required.  It does not even have keys.  It has no rust of dings from impolite other people's doors.  Did I mention that the trunk could comfortably sleep at least 3?  They give you these courtesy cars at the dealership to tempt you with luxury.  Don't you want a better car than the broken one you are bringing in to be fixed? they ask with soothing siren songs.  Don't you want this car?  And I say No.  I can't even figure out how to work the air.  I don't care about or need all the fancy knobs and levers and numbers.  And if I got knocked off a bridge into the water, and the electrical system shorted out, I would die trapped in this fancy temporary car tomb.  No, I don't really want this car.  I thank god for my low-tech car.  Yes, my cheap little car has two spots of rust on it (curse you, hail storm), and driving it is a small wrestling match, and it hurts to roll down the windows, and it has been mercilessly dinged by other cars in parking lot battles, but the 6-year-old I took to see Peter Pan said the seat-belt buckling chime sounded like Tinkerbell, and this car is mine until death do us part, and luxury has never tempted me away from practicality.  (Also, I know that my little car has no eject button and that if I end up in the water, I can crank and open my way out to safety.)  My car is my own, and I will not be tempted away by another.

hoping for a rainbow

After the torrential rain,
hail, and wind gusts made me fear
for my windows
and forced me
off the road, I
was hoping
for a rainbow. 

And there it was.

between me and the sky

I love spring because
there is something
between me and the sky
besides the naked
bones of tree branches.

mourning dove

On the day my uncle finally dies,
I can hear a mourning dove 

on the roof of my home, and 

I cannot bear to do anything 

that makes noise because then 

I might miss 

hearing it sing.

Fortune cookie lie

You are the master

of ev'ry situation:

fortune cookie lie.

this is how I know it is almost spring

This is how I know
it is almost spring
the tree in
the front yard has
dropped nearly all
its berries
held safe
throughout the winter.

Taking a sick day

It feels like a waste for a weekend day, but I'm really feeling awful, so I am taking a sick day today.  Just as soon as I finish the laundry.  And the dishes.  And the bills. After that, I am going to lie on the couch, propped in a posturally correct position to do one thing: watch foreign DVDs with no English vocal track.  (When I do this, I can't multitask by doing other things while listening to the show.  I have to focus on this one thing.  [Whether I can or not is up for discovery.]) 

I will not

• obsess about how I should be  cleaning the floors or researching hot water heaters or using the voice recognition software to dictate quotes from books I've read to get those shelves cleaned off. 
• waste time looking around the internet for information about how to get rid of broken toasters and frying pans. 
• get bent out of shape that I can't write ALL THE THINGS. 
• take apart and put back together my tiny Christmas tree (in sad shape after two guests knocked it off its display shelf).
• read (my elbows, wrists, and hands,  are killing me), and I won't even take notes on what I'm watching. 
• berate myself for not sorting through files or any of the other cleaning tasks that remain from moving into this space all those months ago.
• think about how sleep deprived and tired I am and how much I dread going to work and having to interact with people when I feel this unwell (my patience and filters are just gone, and I say things sometimes that I just shouldn't).
• think about how helpless I feel in the face of this pain and inability to sleep.
• worry about how much more my back hurts or why it feels like I have bruises all over it.

I will

• work hard at not curling up into a miserable ball because that will make various things hurt more tomorrow.
• look out the window at the trees and the sunlight.
• remember to get up and drink water. 
• even eat something, if I am feeling less sick. ( I probably should; if this is an allergy/weather change nausea, then getting some food in my stomach to dilute all the snot draining into it is probably a good idea.) 
• rest as hard as I can. 
• hope that tomorrow will be better.

these small acts of self-sabotage

Why is it that I seem to be most compelled

to write when I am in more pain and know

that writing will make the pain worse?  I am

so ornery sometimes.  Are these small acts

of self-sabotage or attempts at redemption?

I'm sure it has nothing to do with my clumsiness

How is it
that in any
bottle of
medicine
with an even
number of
pills I need
to take 2 of
I always end
up with a
single pill?
Seriously?!

when the magic happens

Why must it always snow only
when I cannot look properly?  It's
only when I'm driving or at work
or lying in bed calmly despairing
of sleep (and sometimes even
sleeping) that the magic happens.

the tree in winter

I've told you about some of the house
problems, but have I told you about
how beautiful the tree out front is even
in winter?  Those dark, sharp, gnarled
branches and their deep burgundy jewel
berries and the long shadows they cast
from the streetlight just next to them
in the thaw or on soft snow glittering
like tiny diamonds takes my breath
away every single night I live here.

Let it Go: college magazines from 2004-2014 edition

Why is this still so hard?  I have about a decade's worth of my undergraduate college's magazines that it's difficult to throw away.  This reluctance makes no sense.  It's not as if I am going to read them.  It's not as if someone else needs them.  Recycling them so they can be something useful like toilet paper seems obviously preferable to having them lie around gathering dust.   

It's just that it feels so final, like another acknowledgement that I have given up my dream of teaching there.  As if, if I were to apply again, they would get up to the contract stage and then say, "Do you have all your alumni magazines?  Did you read them all cover to cover" and then when I said, "No," they would have to regretfully inform me that since I didn't keep the  magazines and now couldn't read them all cover to cover, they couldn't hire me.  As if my problems with them theologically and otherwise would even let me get to that point.   

Time to let go.  Maybe a symbolic, purposeful burning ceremony would be better, but I'm pretty sure my condo association has a rule against that.  To the recycling bin with ye!  May you be made into bicycles for the poor in other countries or toilet paper or printer paper or something else people will use.  Seriously.

The 12 months of 2014: A sort of Christmas letter?

WITH NO RESPECT TO MAKING IT SCAN CORRECTLY or making the numbers really match, here is my year in review.  If I write more about a topic, I'll link to that post from below, and I'll keep changing the date of this post, so this will be at the top.  Probably.  Keep checking back or wait until December 31st.  The choice is yours!  (And thanks for stopping by. : )  Purple bolded text indicates there was something added to that entry most recently.

1. twisted ribcage: There were a lot of snowstorms last winter . . . 
2. oratorio performances (pub sings, music-y funtimes):  Less than a month and a half after #1, I was singing two performances of an oratorio . . .
3. houses outbid on (or why the elderly are my tribe but won't accept me): It was such a seller's market.
4. plasma donations
5. uneven subfloors
6. months house hunting and not enough reading books
7. writing drafting readings
8. small group departures
9. doctors appointments: (Short catch-up story - got hurt working for TSA after I graduated from college and have been dealing with chronic pain and poor health since then.)  I've given up on getting anything like justice from my former employers, and now it's all about trying to figure out how to live with the pain and be as healthy as I can with the resources I have.  Pain.
10. terrible green sludgies
11. pilot lights out
12. months unpacking: Found house.  Packed in a month.  Will unpack over the following 12 months.

A Very Good Day

It was around this time last year that I was

sitting in the Homeowner's class before going

back to my roasting hot apartment where I

got to hear the shouting and fighting of

all my neighbors. 

                                             Now, I am sitting

in my quiet home watching snow fall on

the evergreens outside my study window.  

I have turned on my Christmas lights,

and I am writing.   Later, I will be at a pub

singing Christmas carols and seasonal songs. 

For these blessings, I

am truly grateful. 

Amen.

About that Christmas letter

I should be writing my Christmas letter, but it's cold, and I'm tired because I overdid it at PT today because the pool will be closed for a week and a half, and I already missed the restorative stretch and strengthening class earlier this week because I was supposed to have a big presentation, which I remembered to dress up for (which apparently crowded out the memory of the need to bring gym clothes and then the presentation got rescheduled anyway.  The pain has been flaring up lately, so that was unwise, and I could beat myself up over it and many other failings, but the Christmas lights are on in my new home, around  the window and my crooked, fake, tiny tree, and the humidifier and furnace are combining to make white noise music, and I am tired, but there are no neighbors shouting at each other or their kids, and  I am in my chair with a blanket, and I am writing until my hands tell me it's time to stop for real.

what is worse

Do you know what is worse
than considering giving plasma
in order to pay
for Christmas presents? 

The fact that I might
not be healthy enough
to give plasma
in order to pay
for Christmas presents.

If all I cared about was the pain

then I should not have held
the baby, but I refuse
to reduce my life to
the reduction
of pain
if it means
I can never hold
the babies.

Uneasiness (October 30)

In the dark,

windy, cold,

     leaves

skitter unsettled

                       unsettling as they

                    scuttle

                beneath

                   the headlight beams

across the road giddy and

                  unpredictable like

                         kids

           on Halloween

   night.

a position without pain

The restorative yoga teacher says

to move to a position where nothing

in your body is calling attention to 

pain, and I snort and think that there

is no such position for me, and I wonder

if there is such a position for anyone, 

and then I think, surely there must 

have been such a position at SOME

point in my past, and I realize that,

if there ever was, I can't remember 

it right now, and the grief is another

dull pain I add to the list of pains to

ignore right now while I try to focus

on just breathing in and out and in.

When packing is like prayer

Each book and each box
a hope for something better
or at least something new

the sky today

the sky today 

is a summer sky

heavy darker blue

that tells me it's already 

above 80 and only

getting warmer

Today's list of things to look up

Today's list of things to look up
includes the difference between

• hydrangeas and lilacs
• herons and cranes

Wow, this house hunting thing is a full-time job

I've been drafting a lot, whenever I can spare a moment, but there hasn't been time to polish (even the normal little bit that I usually do) and post.  Sorry!  I am still alive!

Seller's Market

The day after I lost
the first house I let
myself really love,
the email says,

"Please let me know
if you would like to see
any of these homes."
And I want to say something

impolite to the email because
right now I don't want to see
any homes I might love and will
lose because I just don't have

what it takes to win this game
and my hope is bruised and
broken and may never recover,
but thank you for asking, email.

hope when it forgets

hope springs eternal when
it forgets how low the
ceilings are and it has
memory problems anyway
because it can't sleep
long enough to remember

Possibly a red-bellied woodpecker drunk on spring

It stopped me cold
an unexpected bird
smack dab in the middle
of the sidewalk. Orange
hat classy black and
white checked feathers
breathing hard and fast
in gasps neck twisted
to the left long sharp
beak unmoving.  It is
spring and I imagine
this giddy fellow just
learned that this area
may look like air but
the glass around the
parking garage is bad
to discover head first.

only offered 95

sometimes it's hard

to tell the difference

between subconscious wisdom

and subtle acts of self sabotage

For your shopping amusement

I love the way it looks when the birds of prey
perch on the light poles over the highway
dangerous and ready.                        

The seagulls 
perched on the light poles in the grocery store 

parking lot like ugly hats just look ridiculous.

the problem with excellence

Once you have seen
                        (been)
excellence, it's hard
to go back to
good enough.

To Don't

Today

I want

to lie

like a cat

in the

sunlight

and the

moonlight

as 24 hours

pass by

with 

nothing

in them

I need

to do.

Chant of the overcommitted and chronically pained

Dishes,
              I will wash you
Clothes,
               I will fold you
Books,
              I will read you
Socks,
              I will match you
Bookshelves,
              I will dust you
Floors,
              I will sweep you
Bathtub,
              I will scrub you
Sun
              I will bask in you
Chair
              I will rest on you

if I make it through
this week

the Lord gives, the Lord takes away

God knows exactly
how much you can
handle.  It's just that
this grand sweep of
human history and
His plan for it are
not all about you, so
sometimes you get
more than you can
take, but He takes
that all into account
in the end.

Time to go to bed - searching for a place

All the old houses I looked at today had floors
that sloped in places and threw people off
balance.  It was a familiar sensation to me, that

half-falling, the disorientation, the catching.  I
wonder if that familiarity would make it safer
for me to live in a house with crooked floors because I

am used to the dizziness and know the tricks not to fall
over.  Maybe I would get used to the crooked
houses faster.  At least  I would have something

to blame when I half-fell and caught myself for
no reason anyone else could see.  Unless the crooked
houses multiplied the half-falls into whole falls.  Then

again, I'll never know unless I live in one, and it seems
I can't currently afford anything in really livable
condition now.  The work injury and the debt it

generated have crippled me more financially
than physically, more than 110+ years have sloped
these floors, more than I care to dwell on while I am

searching for a place to live that isn't here.

I trust the Chiropractor

Why does it hurt more

to be straightened than crooked

like the winter trees?

Against all odds

After a day

of blizzard winds 

and bright sunshine

beauty still clings

to the trees

stubborn and

undaunted.

Tomorrow, remind me about the beauty

Tomorrow
remind me
about the beauty of today
if I seem to forget it
remind me if I am limping and wincing and taking my limit of ibuprofen and if I seem puzzled by this
remind me that I didn't leave work early even though I should have and had permission to do so and that was stupid because I might have been able to tell if I was even on the road had I left earlier and the snow would not have been so deep in the parking lot
remind me that at least it wasn't really cold and it wasn't raining or sleeting or blowing yet
remind me that the snow in the trees was that wet snow that weighs down the branches and sometimes glistens when the trees are warm and melt the snow just enough to make it liquid
remind me that my car got stuck in the parking lot 12 inches away from my garage, and I had to shovel my car clear and it took 4 attempts at clearing before I cleared my car enough to get the car moving again
remind me that I preemptively shoveled the area in front of my garage clear for 10 feet to maybe help tomorrow not be so bad when there are six more inches and several layers of ice and I have to get up and leave early in the morning for PT
remind me that I was planning to exercise as soon as I got home anyway, and it's good to vary your exercise routine so that it doesn't get boring
remind me that the snow was so very beautiful as it coated the trees like extra gravity, bending, burdening, turning them down, bowing into graceful lines that belie the strain that is so obviously there if you look, threatening each joint with more potential brokenness
remind me that I twisted my knee and wrenched my hip but that it wasn't the bad one and that I pushed my arms too hard and my obliques were sort of screeching at me by the end but that I only (over)did it because there was no one else to do it for me because I couldn't just leave my car there all night or it would get towed because tow-trucks are about the only things not getting mired in this foot-deep icy slush and it would be way harder to pick up the car at the tow lot because even buses were going off the road and if it took that much effort to make it to work on top of the pain, I'm not sure I'm willing to go even though there are three meetings I have to attend
remind me that I stood and watched the snow in the parking lot lights and the flakes were so thick I could see both them and their shadows falling for minutes
remind me that I fell but it wasn't fast and hard and sharp and that I took too long to figure out how to get back up because thank God there was so much snow that was so wet and slushy that it cushioned the fall
remind me that I iced things down immediately in a manner of speaking by falling into all that ice and slush and then took some ibuprofen to keep the inflammation down and then took a hot bath to preemptively ease the stiffness already creeping up and that I chose not to exercise on my little stair climber and showed restraint (after the fact still counts a little) and rested as I could and put the ibuprofen and some water by my bed, so when I wake up, if things are bad, I don't even have to get up
remind me that the snow and the branches were so beautiful that the pain didn't matter enough to pull me away
remind me

that I got home safe where it was warm (too warm because everyone is panicking and turning their heat up, but maybe that's better for the stiffness)

remind me that I had to stay up late to do the music tonight because all the warning signs indicate I will not be able to even use my fingers to plink out my usual pitifully poor attempt at a tune tomorrow, and I have a second audition in three days and I've never seen the music

remind me

that I had to stay up even later to write because tomorrow will not look the same and I might be in too much pain to write about the beauty and I choose to write about the beauty now 
remind me that I stood watching the trees gleam, white frosted and heavy-laden like elder statesmen, until my hair dripped with melting snow and I could feel it trickling down my neck
remind me that I could not help the other people foundering in the parking lot later that night as I sat in my apartment with the blinds open so I could watch the snow fall
do not remind me that I am 34 and that there are plenty of people my age AND YOUNGER who have it way worse physically because it will not really help me as I am likely pathetically allowing myself to wallow in self-pity and I promise it will be a brief wallow
remind me that the snow was  so very beautiful  if I forget keep  reminding  me because I want the beauty to matter more than the pain I am in remind me

because tomorrow, 

when the blizzard winds have passed through 

and scoured clean away the lovely snow tracing the lines 

of the trees and branches and twigs

and what I have left

is the pain

remind me 

that the pain is not all I have. 

41 cent Yoda stamps

Postage is going up soon, and today is a vacation day. I did the cleaning Saturday and the resting Sunday, so today, I think, is a good day to write letters, so I can someday be through the remaining 41 cent Yoda stamps and on to 42 (and eventually the 44 and 46 and the forever stamps for which I don't have to pay supplemental postage). I wonder if it's a good plan not to start until after the impossible snow stops falling.  You never quite know with impossible snow how long it is going to last.

other impossibilities

the weather guessers say:

0% chance of precipitation

today as I sit and watch

the impossible snow falling

praying for other impossibilities

to the three

To the three kind folks
who saved me when
I was wracked
upon a tricksy
ninja curb
disguised
as snow:

many,
many
thanks.

warm enough again

Finally it is warm enough
to snow again.
Alas.

today the winter dancers

the trees are extra dramatic

leaning lunging lounging

all horizontal surfaces

coated in white

"Mitochondrial Fatigue"

This diagnosis makes me
want to read not Google
or WebMD but A Wind
in the Door by L'Engle
because the mitochondrial
problems there were solved
by singing if I remember
true and I want this all to
be healed by singing too.