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.

before the snow

leaf shadows
and raccoon
paw prints
criss-cross
the sidewalk
until I can't
tell one from
the other

What I'm Made of This Week

This week I am made of
clumsy and tired and
hurting; please just
let me lie.

Today's Goal

Today's Goal:

Get the tuna

in the fridge.

one of those weeks (2)

the kind of week
when chances are high
that I will accidentally
walk into a men's restroom
again

one of those weeks

one of those weeks
when you can get
the tuna to the
kitchen but can't
quite
concentrate long enough
to get it into the fridge

Yoda was wrong

Yoda was wrong.
Sometimes all there is
is try and try and try
and fail and get up
and try again.  If
I wanted to debate
with the old Jedi master,
I would say, "I will do
the best I can with
the time and tools at
hand" and hope that
satisfied the spirit
of the lesson he was
trying to teach.

beautiful lie

today the skies

give warmth the
lie with bright
sunshine and high
cloudless blues
while the windchill
below blows low
negative numbers

trees without leaves

the ones that have lost the most
are the beautiful ones still coated
with snow even after the sun
has been up for hours

a good day for rain

In the morning it was that rain nearly indistinguishable from fog: big, slow droplets floating lazily and vaguely down.  I love that kind of rain because it coats and collects on the trees and the twigs and the leaves and falls at random with big plops well-spaced raindrops falling in slow motion surprising and relaxing.

In the evening, it was a lovely fog, making everything mysterious.

hope like water

I feel sometimes like a cut
flower, slightly wilted, placed
again in water and revived by
liquid being pulled up
to stiffen the wilty bits, knowing
that someday I won't have
to try so hard.

late October aspens, afternoon

today 

I cannot tell 

if the aspens are 

glowing with autumn 

or just the dying of the light

Elms falling slowly

Two elms, not just one but so intertwined that only their approaching death and the receding of the bark at the base of the trunk showed this: that they had once been separate before growing together into a towering, graceful glory, now tilting as their roots weaken on one side only, so they are falling slowly over, embracing one another still in this grand decline.  Another few steps reveal that a slender elm just past the sapling stage has split its trunk and is propping up two of their branches, and it makes me think of children growing up stronger and taller and broader and maybe one day holding their parents up to the appearance of strong, vertical straightness again until strength fails, parents fall, and children stand alone.

the new baby

Most parents check their newborns to see if all the parts are present and accounted for.  I cannot imagine what it was like for you, friends.  10 fingers.  10 toes.  A whole brain and intact skull.  Pink and not blue.  Breathing.  Alive.  Looking at you.  (You know, at least vaguely with those wizened old person faces and fathomless eyes.)  Not like the last one. 

This one will be easier to dress, too, limbs not already stiffening in rigor mortis, mottled with oxygen-deprivation blue.  The hat can be used for warmth and decoration, not to hide the fact that most of his skull and brain were not there. 

I am praying for the new baby and for you because this fallen world is so dangerous, and I don't want anything more to break your hearts because I am weak, and I just don't think I could take it. 

Health and wholeness and peace be upon you and your house, you and your living son.  And rest for your dead.

the lamb on the porch

When I visited your house, and you explained
the lamb on the porch represented your baby
who died when he was born without his brain
I almost lost it.  I was mostly keeping it together
until I saw that look on your face--the loss and
compassion that allowed you to carry that baby
to term and then let him go when so many other
parents can't handle the same thing--but I had
already committed to not being the damp one,
to not seeing the dead baby pictures I never
wanted to see whenever I saw your faces and
your swelling belly as you tried again to bring
a new life into this world and not, dear God
please not, another lamb onto your porch.

half-finished poem/prayer dissolving into laughter in July

May the sunlight on this perfect autumn day in July
burn out the rage and the ties that bind me to it.
May the wind in the leaves rustle with relief
and blow away all my resentment and anger.
May the semi-stagnant water of this channel
 . . .

Sometimes nature hands you beauty; other times it hands you the straight line, I guess.

Contemplation of moving (on)

Were I to leave, I would miss
this view of the trees and
the sounds of their leaves.

The Snow Angel (Day 3)

An

inch of snow fell in the early morning
blurring your edges, softening the
painful cracks 

in the dry snow around you

now you are even more beautiful.

An

inch of             snow fell

again  early  this  morning

blurring your sharp edges,

softening 

all the painful

cracks in the dry

snow around you, and now

you are                  even more

beautiful.

Cast your vote. A or B? (You don't have to give reasons, but you can if you want.)

made it back home safely. love, the hydrologic cycle

There is a kind of snow
small and hard that sifts
down onto the garages
and makes the parking
lot light look like a column
of fairy dust is sifting toward
it sparkling in a spotlight
pointed upward sending
a message back to clouds
from whence it came:

made it back home safely.
love,
the hydrologic cycle

What to do when you're dizzy (again)

stop

grab the nearest wall

breathe

when you feel steadier, start moving again

repeat

Oh, Fortune Cookie

On the day someone tried
to use my credit card number
to fund his or her Cyber Monday,
the fortune cookie says,

Today will be lucky and
memorable for you.

Hahahahahahaha.  Oh,
fortune cookie, you are
quite the kidder.

a summer memory - the storm 2013

The trees crushed by the storm
are slowly dying, leaves still
waving in the fitful wind, like 
the scraps of that road-killed
crane I saw on the roadside
waving helplessly as the traffic
passed it by.

Prevention

The son, who had recently started school for the first time said, "Um, my favorite color is pink."  He hesitated.  "Is that okay?"

"That is just fine, baby," his mother said.  "People are allowed to like whatever colors they want.  No one can tell you that you are wrong for liking a color.  People can have different opinions about colors, but just because someone has a different opinion doesn't mean yours is wrong." 

Perpetuation

The son, dressed in a white, wife-beater t-shirt and ragged, cutoff jean shorts (and neon orange tennis shoes) exactly like his father (whose tennis shoes were white), brought the son to the desserts and told him he could pick whatever cupcake he wanted.  His son looked up from the corner of his eyes to be sure his dad meant it, half-flinching in the way of too many sons who want nothing more than to avoid angering their fathers, and then he pointed to a neon pink frosted cupcake.  His father nearly shouted, "No!  Not pink!"  The boy flinched and curled in on himself, and the father grabbed a yellow cupcake and then dragged his son by his wrist back to their place at the picnic table. 

Later I hear that the orange shoes were a compromise because they were the closest to pink his father would allow.

Thanksgiving 2013

The school bell rings
summoning imaginary
students to class and
releasing them from it,

and I don't even twitch
at the sound because
those bells have not
ruled me for years.

On hold to Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto

The only thing that made
all the waiting on hold
with the computer help
desk bearable was the
hold music--Beethoven's
Emperor Piano Concerto
(No. 5 in E Flat Major,
Op. 73)--because, even
though it is a terrible
recording with pops and
scratches, I can't help
snickering because the
last time I heard this
lovely piece so much, it
was threaded through an
anime tv show where none
of the characters were
very likeable and all
died brutally by the end,
along with everyone in
the entire world, and this
humorous incongruity is
what keeps the rage at
bay through wasted hours.

Today (November 30)

today

I am changing

my calendar early,

so I can start at least 

the last month
on time

Orion on the couch again (early November)

Orion's back on his couch on the clear nights
lounging on the horizon waiting for the snow
to fall, waiting for some other constellation
to talk him through his pre-winter blues and
get him up on his feet again, ready to face
another dizzying elliptical trek through the darkness.

The Calendar (October)

I turned to October late,
but the picture grew so
lovely to me by then end,
I didn't want November
to come.

a dream so bright

the dream I woke from was so bright

it took half an hour for me to realize

it was a dark and cloudy day

the trouble with autumn

the trouble with autumn

in the Midwest is that

there are no blue trees

to complete the rainbow

How to love the broken

I don't know how 

to communicate

through all the broken 

glass and spikes you

have wrapped yourself 

in that you are loved 

and liked and you

do not have to be 

like your mother

or let her have 

this power over you

anymore.

Eclipse with clouds and rain

Somewhere above the clouds tonight

was an interesting eclipse I wish I'd seen:

half the moon in the shadow of the earth

and half reflecting all the sun. But it was

completely overcast, autumn cold and

drizzly, and all I could see when I looked

up was the rain and the city lights 

reflecting down off the clouds, and I

wanted to know how to show love 

to this broken person in my life, but 

I can't see past the clouds and the cold rain.

October haiku

.

rain falls on the roof
winter comes to steal the warmth
the trees bleed and rust

.

.

the tree on the left under a solidly cloudy sky

the tree on the left
is glowing with such brilliant
gold in the gloom that
at first I thought the sun
had come out and spoiled
my lovely, melancholy day

ordinary moments

Today there were 3
fortunes in my fortune cookie.
Good fortune or bad?

Two of the fortunes
were lost in translation, but
the third, at least, is
worth contemplating:

There are
no
ordinary moments.

Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, Spain

The travel website says
you should leave at least
half an hour to fully enjoy

the cathedral.  It has 34
chapels, a unique exterior
and interior, and it would
take me hours even to glance

over all the glorious light and
shadow, especially because
the windows were built to
make the nature of the light
change inside as the sun
moves across the sky outside,

something I would never
have noticed on my own,
because who can sit still
and watch surrounded by
all that soot-stained stonework,
imagining the raising of the
keystone and arches with

ropes and pulleys and
sweat and blood
and Plague and Inquisition
or the time it burned for
11 days and almost fell apart.

The travel website is silly
to think 30 minutes can
contain all that beauty.

It's probably a good
thing I will never go there
because I would weep
at all those tourists

who could see all
they wanted to see
(who thought they had
seen everything
there is to see)
in 30 minutes.

Things not to do before bed because they are not relaxing

Things not to do before bed because they are not relaxing

• Read John Scalzi's Whatever blog
• Catch up on email
• Read anything about your alma mater continuing to embarrass itself
• Do anything on Facebook
• Read any comments on anything on the internet
• Look at houses you can't afford or houses in neighborhoods you can't live in
• Add your own thing here

another good thing about working 10 hour days (aside from being employed, which is great)

A good thing about working
10-hour days is that, if it is this

hot outside, by the time you 

leave work, the temperature is 

less dreadful, and you don't 

have to overload the power grid
with your AC quite as intensely.

ways to drown out the shouty people

Ways to drown out the shouty people in your apartment building when you want to relax and enjoy your days off work

• Play opera music loudly (even if all the ones you need to listen to have Kiri Te Kanawa, who is not your favorite soprano)
• Play your favorite fighting anime loudly
• Keep the AC on constantly
• Other suggestions that are actually relaxing?

on ode to back porches (the one I can't write)

I want to write an ode to back porches
because it's not possible for there to
be too many praises for such places,
but I can't remember how to write one,
and I'm too lazy to get up off this
padded porch furniture from which I watch
the grass growing when I open my eyes.

against the dying of the light

There is still a month of summer left

technically, but the longest day is two

months behind us, and I am half-sick

of shadows already, trying not to sulk

or rage against the dying of the light.

A good reunion

My voice today

is still a little bit

hoarse from talking

to people I love

but only see once

a year or even less

frequently, and that

is one way to tell it

was a good reunion.

With age comes wisdom or something

"PushPushPush!" the
water class instructor
shouted, and I

                                         am finally learning, so I

didn't.

last month's dubious omens

Dead fox
Rotting crane
Gleaming dragonflies
This summer's omens?

sawdust gleaming red

Chain saws cut through the trees blocking the trail leaving behind sawdust gleaming red in the sun (because of my slightly tinted sunglasses)      tree blood solidified     every day more of the red is leached and blown away and scattered      soon no one will know what happened and what died here so violently

What I've learned about bathing suits and water physical therapy

• Don't get anything with metal underwires.  Sure, it gives you extra support, but it's much harder to get on (and especially off when it is wet, and you are sort-of crippled).  If this is a bathing suit you'll be wearing regularly, the underwires will start to rust before the suit itself gets worn out.  (You might not mind this if you made mistake the next mistake.) 
• Don't get a tankini top (even if it has adjustable ties on the side).  If you have a larger bust and a narrowish waist and are generally tall, you will spend a lot of time getting gracelessly tangled with the ties as they float gracefully in the water around you, always wherever your hands need to be.  You will also end up basically wearing a bikini and revealing a lot of your waist. This is true whether you try to use the ties to keep the suit close to your body (which requires you to cinch it so tight that it shortens to the point where your tummy is on display anyway) or whether you leave it long to shorten the floating straps.  Water is buoyant, darn it.  And your suit will float up quite happily, anchored mostly by your underwire lines, if you have them, making you glad you are in a pool with a bunch of old people who are hopefully not affected by this display of excess flesh.
• Don't get a suit with a skirt if you are trying to use it to cover up your thighs.  (See above.)
• Don't buy/wear a suit you really like.  A suit worn occasionally over the summer and cleaned well can last for years.  A suit worn weekly will be lucky to last you 6 months of moderate water activity.  So if you buy a suit and like it, for the love of all that is durable, don't wear it for PT.  And if you are looking for a suit for PT, don't buy one that you love and adore because when you realize that it will wear out faster the more you wear it, you will find reasons not to go to the pool for PT.  You do not need more silly excuses not to go.  So just wear the cheaper, less-attractive suit for PT, and save the good suit for when you are with people who care how you look.  (Or when you are with people you care about looking at you or something.)

dead trees still standing strong

A couple of days after I watched the rain driven sideways in 80 mile per hour winds, I went to my park to check on the trees.  (When exactly did I start associating myself more with dead trees, I wonder?)  All of my dead trees were still standing.  Everywhere around me were scattered the dead and dying,  trees and branches that had been fully alive until some time during the storm when they just couldn't take it any more.  They were still vibrant green, leaves still mostly full and healthy but starting to wilt because they had been cut off from a firm connection to their sources.  I placed my tarp carefully and with a small sigh of relief that my trees were untouched.

Come, Lord Jesus

The coffin
is the size
of those cheap
styrofoam coolers
 you get at gas
stations and the
teddy bear
beside it looks
off the frame
into some distance
I can't see
blue and white
flowers cover
the top of the box
and I want
to live
in a world
where this
doesn't happen
but I don't
live there
not
yet

Another time I don't know how to pray

Just another time I don't know how to pray.  I mean, what
do you say to someone you lived with for a year years ago
who just nearly died and did lose a baby not yet ready to live
on her birthday.  All empty words and assurances feel heavy
in their emptiness.  I would not add to their pain, not
knowingly, and I don't know what I could say that would not
press on the pain of this gaping wound.  "I am praying for you,"
I say, and think, "that your faith will not fail, that this will not
break you or break you apart, that God will hold you up and
hold you together and sustain you and wrap you in peace
and love as you mourn for your dead baby as you grow a year
older and feel a hundred years older."  Some things you just
can't say.  Oh, Lord, teach us how to pray.  Oh, God, please

wanting to own that water

On the first day of physical therapy across town, I stopped in a cafe to wait out the rush hour traffic that lasts for 3+ hours, and I saw this painting for sale.  Blues and greens and all the luminous shades in between and black layered on each other: it was beautiful.  I loved it immediately, and I wanted to buy it, to support this artist of water from a lake I have never actually seen.  I wanted to look at it every single day I was home, to rest my eyes on its restless beauty.  But I could not afford it.  Not when I need new orthopedic shoes because the ones I've been using for longer than the doctor says I should are completely losing their tread, and I keep slipping and skidding on carpet and wet concrete, the motion tugging at the tear in my hip. 

But when I looked at that painting, sidelong glances every minute or so, every time I looked at it, I just grew to love it more.  I tried to tell myself that I could start wearing my boots outside until Winter came again, that I could ask for money for my orthopedic shoes as a Christmas present (and maybe it would work this year), that surely a couple of slips and falls are worth it to be able to daily look into the depths of Lake Superior as rendered by this artist who loves the same colors I did (or at least loves this lake made of colors I love), that I might never again find a painting I immediately connect with and love so deeply.  Dangerous thoughts for someone in my position.

I have not returned to that cafe after other PT appointments since that first day because I try not to test my self-control when I can avoid it.  I am practical. 

Sometimes I hate being practical.

another weekend

Now ends another weekend
when I didn't catch up on email,
didn't write enough, didn't read
enough, didn't sleep enough,
didn't make it to church, didn't
do enough research, didn't
cross enough things off the list,
did spend time with loved ones,
did get a bit sunburned, did have
ice cream, did the dishes AND
the laundry, did exercise and
watch clouds and play with kids
and think too hard about things
while reading a book that didn't
have the depressing ending I
was expecting

love allergy

snow falling in June
thinking of you sneezing now
cottonwoods drifting

the only thing that's good about snow in April

the only thing that's good
about snow in April
is the poetry

sunlight in April

sunlight licks the frosting off the treetops
sloppily spilling globs of snow
to shower all that is below

from April, with snow

It's hard to go inside today to work when outside all the trees are coated with thick, wet snow, lovely clothing, unfortunately so temporary until the wind picks up or the sun comes out or gravity wins.  Someone was out skiing yesterday or this morning, and the track leads right past the door in to work.  A single bird is warbling cheerfully; all the others are huddled under cover, confused at this unsprung spring.  At least the snow keeps the geese away.

happy to hear the birds

It is 10:47 am, and I am
already exhausted
but still happy
to hear birds
celebrating
the return
of spring.

scabs and life

I am not used to scabs.  Now that I have one again, I find myself wondering if one of the reasons that Neosporin and a band-aid work so well to leave less scarring is because they soften the scab, protect it from being a hard thing sharp enough to cut and tear itself and the skin it is protecting.