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