Ancestors

In a dream I rode on a bus with aunts,

Aunt Maude, Aunt Belle, Gloria.

They placed their ancient hands on mine,

gentle as moths,

as each of them said my name.

Road Trips for NAMI

Just talked to my friend Gregory. I have now been published by him in his online profile. "My friend says I am Buddha's brother." He is--infinitely kind and gentle. We traveled all over King County a couple years ago giving talks for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Alliance). He used to complain that I made him miss the exits because I would bring up an interesting topic just before we were supposed to turn. "Did you know that Churchill called his depressions 'the old black dog'?" I'd say. "Really?" Gregory would say and then "Damn, I missed it." At his request, I worked hard to stop distracting his driving. After a year, we knew each other so well, we were like a married couple. We're less like that now except when we are.

Colors Passing Through Us

Today at writing group, we celebrated color with the help of art supplies and Marge Piercy's marvelous poem, Colors Passing Through Us. After creating an explosion of crayon on my paper, I wrote this: "When I see this color, kind of a neon green, I feel happy. I saw it on the collar of a woman's coat yesterday and had to restrain myself from touching her coat. If this color was a room, I'd go missing. If this color was a boat, I'd never come home. It is a singing color, my mother belting out a Christmas carol, my two sisters playing the flute in church, Chopin, a lone whistler on a quiet street. This color says, Marry me, and I say, I do. We go to Vegas. The preacher, of course, looks like Judy Garland and, hat low over one eyes, she winks with the other and is this color. This color is the last Olly Olly In Come Free of summer and I am twelve and say to myself, I will never get tagged out again, and I am right."

The Skype Incident

Today, my friend Bill set me up for skype, however, my computer has audio but no videocam. He tested the system later in the day. I was just out of the shower and sitting on my bed half-naked when I pressed on the receive button. I got confused about what could be visible and yelled, "Did you see me?" He and another friend were watching a football game upstairs and were helpless with laughter. "Yes, we did!" they finally sputtered. Their faces were live and mobile. I was being incinerated by embarrassment before I realized they couldn't have seen a thing. Both of them nailed an impression of my voice to repeat at dinner. Dead-on. I swear I try to live like a dignified lady and I never quite pull it off.

Fly Fishing with Doris

I dreampt that Doris Day in her slightly scruffier later years made me a sandwich. Then she and I and several others went fly fishing off a cliff side. The sun was out, and Doris, who was in fine form, caught a salmon. Although it was sunny and breezy, I and a boy I didn't know, sang Singing in the Rain loudly and off-key.

In My Dreams

Sunday afternoon and we're all home, except Phil. Projects upstairs, down. The dryer clanking. NPR on the kitchen radio. "I'm going to be emotional," a woman said as I listen on my way to the restroom, having no idea of context. Then the woman is emotional and the NPR reporter so graceful about it. Deb is blending apples from the tree. Bill is sawing. I'm cleaning as usual. Light dapples the house. It is fine to be my age. It is fine to have arrived here. In my dreams from childhood, this should have been one.

Early Zines

"Burke's Printing Poetry [was] the essential text for aesthetics, design, and letterpress production of handmade poetry books. Craftmanship is meditative, and it is in a way devotional," he wrote. "We watch our hands leap to the work, well trained and eager.

From Ink under the Fingernails by Bob Rose in the anthology, Fishtown and the Skagit River.

The Round Sound

Odd thing about circumstance. How you adjust to it. If someone says, "Go be green. Go live in that green cube." If things are strange enough, you become green without questioning. Thirteen years ago, I spent the night at Harborview with my sister and my brother, wrapped in sheets, sitting on the floor of a waiting room, leaning against the wall in silence, being green. A Japanese chaplain came by about 2:00 a.m. and my sibs, both born in Japan, seemed happy to talk to him, to have something familiar handed to them like a gift. I listened, having not been born in Japan, but happy to hear the round sound of voices.

Right Now

Today I got off the bus at Westlake to a jazz band, men in black sunglasses playing trumpet, trombone, tuba and drums. A little girl kept running from her mother's arms to the middle of the square. She would stand two or three feet away from whoever was playing, laughing. I wondered, "Who are you? Who will you be? Are you falling in love with something huge and beautiful right now?"

Word Blossoms

"One never forgets a compliment. 'You looked positively beatific during the exam,' Mrs. Finch, her tenth-grade English told her. 'Staring out the window, a secret little smile on your smile. I was worried, to tell the truth. But then you turned in the best of the bunch.'" Thus, beatific--blissful, saintly, serenely happy--was forever and irrevocably hers" (from Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum).

Up to my Ankles

Read at the Rose on Thursday night. Nervous beforehand. My friend Rachel from work was there and she kept taking my psychic temperature. "Do you want me to hold your hand? Do you want a hug? Another beer?" "It's non-alcoholic," I said. "Oh...well, then beer isn't going to help you." Wouldn't have minded weaving up there and being incomprehensible. Of course, I'd never want to go back. When I told Rachel today I also did Write-O-Rama, an all day writing workshop at Hugo House on Saturday, she said, "Then you're up to your ankles." Don't know exactly what she meant but I like it.

The Best Thing

I go to my gym to greet the dog. Leah is a Sheperd/Golden mix. She sleeps mostly but, when awake, has such quiet eyes. Today, she wasn't in her bed. Jenny, one of the owners, said, "She's in my car. She'd love to say hello to you." The dog had to untangle her ancient limbs and then she immediately pressed her chest into mine, head on my shoulder. It was the best thing. Better than words.

Big Feet

This week, I have misplaced even the smallest of graces. I've lost my angels. Earthen and leaden, I make valleys with my feet.

Meatballs

My reading habit has gotten out of hand. I am eating books. Parts of books even. A binge quality to it. There are things, feelings, I want to avoid. So I serve up a large plate of words, skinny as spaghetti with meatball adjectives.

Richard Pryor

"He was funny but a lot of people are funny. The difference with Pryor was that he was real and vulnerable and raw and accessible." (Susie Essman)

Divine

"We are like a lot of wild spiders crying together, but without tears..." (Robert Lowell borrowed this from his young daughter, Hannah.)

Bus Blues

Worked five hours. Five hours on the bus. At one point on the way home, I found I was leaning back in my seat with my mouth open. I felt like freight. Like a suitcase. I walked in the front door and was offered dinner. I could hardly talk. Doing a suitcase impression is not so great for the personality. Minutes later, really, I found myself laughing about something and then making Bill and Deb laugh. Of course, they had been wonderfully empathetic before that happened.

The Fire

Charles Bukowski once wrote that the gods push him into the fire so he can "yelp a few good lines."

Bach in the DC Subway

"As an experiment, The Washington Post asked a concert violinist--wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a baseball cap--to stand near a trash can at rush hour in the subway and play Bach on a Stradivarius. Partita No. 2 in D Minor called out to commuters like an ocean to waves, sang to the station about why we should bother to live.

A thousand people streamed by. Seven of them paused for a minute or so and thirty-two dollars floated into the open violin case. A cafe' hostess who drifted over to the open door each time she was free said later that Bach gave her peace, and all the children, all of them, waded into the music as if it were water, listening until they had to be rescued by parents who had somewhere else to go."

David Lee Garrison, Sweeping the Cemetery: New and Selected Poems, Browser Books Publishing, 2007.

Vito Sails

David called to ask if he could tell a story about Vito the sailor (my fictitious alter ego) at a workshop at his church. He wants to talk about Vito's "rare and persistent faith." I said, "That sounds like a disease." Felt honored nonetheless.

Friendly Pillows

Managed to wake up in less than my usual Saturday morning morass. A relief to feel befriended by my pillows. The room was flooded by light. When I opened the window, the bamboo was rustling. The bees my housemates are raising below my window were probably rustling too but I chose not to pay attention to them. Just the goodness of wanting to be awake, of having a few errant optimistic thoughts.

My Favorite Critic

"I need an audience," I said to my friend, Dee, on the phone. "Oh, good. Oh, wait a minute, I have to turn off the radio." I read her the poem I'd just finished. About two sentences in, she started laughing and laughed through the rest of it as I had hoped she would. "My dear, the world of poetry would be missing something so wonderfully strange without you." And then because she always closes our conversations like this, she added, "I leave you with that thought."

Breadcrumb

A day burdened by unimaginable lethargy and the lyric, "You sheltered me from harm, kept me warm..."

Soap

Clean clothes. The feel of them. Resting on my skin, fresh from the dyer and, therefore, unwrinkled. Not bliss. A small quiet victory. A little headway into the chaos. All about soap.

The Sailor Man

My friend David emailed me that Vito is making another appearance in the newsletter David publishes to support the mental health program at his church. Vito is me. According to my cover, Vito is a "compact, handsome man [...] brave as any sailor." It's odd to read about yourself thus disguised. Even odder that, in my mind, I am now referring to myself in third person. What does Vito need?

The Stories

Gave a talk with a sweet man. Had fun ribbing a Norwegian in the audience. Did a little stand up. A talk I could have given in my sleep except I never can--always want to give something. Lovely responses afterwards. Came home. Was aware walking in how much I wanted someone to be waiting. As I had said earlier, "to tell the stories within the stories."

This Rich

I wonder how I ever lived anywhere but here. I'm down in my room now but just a few steps away is a tremendous light. And conversation. If I stay long enough, someone is bound to touch my arm or say my name. Never thought I'd get this rich.

Easter Morning

Where did he go those three days? Did he rest in some place between the worlds? Did he descend to wrestle with more demons? I like to think his body, human as it was, stayed in the tomb, but his spirit was attended to by angels in some kind of heavenly spa for spiritual super heroes. You know, the whole bit: pedicures, cucumber face masks, massages, delicacies served on silver platters. Quiet. And love.

Like a Bird

Saw a cheesy movie and got inspired: the idea of finally having the courage to stop soldiering and settle down. What would a day be like without the undercurrents, the fraying of the wire I seem to need still? Last night, after my speech, my evaluator in Toastmasters added a word to a line I had used to give me a compliment. "[Her] self sang like a bird (ee cummings.)" If I was truly at peace, would I sing like a bird more often?

That First Cup

Lock-down until 11 a.m. There are those pleasant lie-ins where I turn and shift and turn again, catlike in my contentment. Not today. My cells were slamming their tin cups across the bars, urging me forward, but I could not move. Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys had more than his share of mornings like this. "Sometimes," he once said, "that first cup of coffee is an act of courage." Just so.

Graces

I am reading a book. Bill walks by and pats my head. "Good night, sweetie." The smallest things.

Only the Dog

"A more recent attempt to explore the modern mysteries comes from John Banville. His new book, The Infinities, assumes the gods are still hanging mischievously around our world. The novel unfolds in a single day in the home of Adam Godley, a brilliant mathematician who lies comatose on what appears to be his deathbed. As his family and various friends tend to his needs and squabble with each other, only the dog notices that the messenger god, Hermes, is floating around the house." (From To the Hellenic and Back, Jeremy McCurter for Newsweek, March 29, 2010).

Felicity Huffman

Cried so hard on the stairs last night I left a salt water pond on the step below me. That and snot. Crying, done well, is a messy operation. I've seen it only once captured on film like that, in all its endearing viscuousness: Felicity Huffman with her therapist in Transamerica. Remarkable.

Outside

Sometimes the simplest act, opening windows...and the cold air comes and the sound of birds, a distant car. The world has not stopped just because you have. And maybe it's your one act of affirmation the entire day. Or maybe you think, what's going on down the street that I must know? But for now, the air is bathing your face, your tired eyes.

Wandering

Got lost somewhere around Boren in the rain. Just tromping around. Trying to find my friend Gregory's house. I often seem to get lost when I feel lost. Some kind of muted despair keeps me walking in circles. He finally had to come out and find me. As I suspected, I was only blocks from his house. "I'm so happy to see you," he kept saying. Perhaps he was worried I had been swept away in the deluge or had wandered off to Lynnwood. Or was just happy to see me. As I was to see him.

G.K. Chesterton

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

The Amaryllis

The amaryllis bloomed in the kitchen sometime between yesterday and today. Just unfurled itself quietly. Our household greeted its pink quiescence with a photo shoot after dinner. Bill filmed us with his i-phone. I turned off the light. Deb and Phil took shot after shot, the flash on their cameras turning the flower orange in the dark. Phil set his timer then and we gathered ceremoniously under the blossoms, arms around each other. There really are those moments when the ground comes back.

Now

Caught up with me.

Then

Emily Dickinson once wrote, "After a great pain, a formal feeling comes." But what about before a great pain? That's where I am. The pain is just to the left of me, giant on its haunches. It will take its time. Knows it will come to me. Must come. If I were my friend who is Yugoslavian, I would be embracing the pain. I would be dissolved, my fists raised, cursing. But I am Norwegian enough to think I can stare the pain down. At least hold its gaze.

A Ticonderoga

I've started to write in long-hand again. I used to write with pencils pre laptop. When I write, even here, I do so with expectation. I am the hovering face over every word. With a pencil, all my words are free to be boring, ordinary, not unusual, not blessed, just the product of lead. They can be leaden. The callus I got on the third finger of my right hand which has been vacationing all these years is now rising again from the insistent pressure of a yellow Ticonderoga.

God in the Chair

Sam Keens describes his spiritual quest at age eleven in his marvelous book, Sightings. "I [could not] make any sense of the central Christian theodrama in which a loving God supposedly staged a bloody sacrifice of his only begotten son in order to satisfy his internal sense of justice. The passion play in which the lamb of God is sacrificed to take away the sins of the world revealed a god at odds with himself, a god in need of psychotherapy."

Just This

Really, the smallest things save me: a bendable straw in a cold beverage in a tall glass.

One Short Step

Rough couple of days. Felt down earlier. The only comfort food I could think of for dinner was cereal. Went to my cupboard and discovered that for mysterious reasons known only to God and Allah I had stowed away an empty peanut butter Puffins box. I stood crestfallen in the middle of the kitchen until Bill said, "Sweetie, would you like some of mine?" Then, Phil, my new housemate, said, "No, mine." The two competed, ran to show and tell. Phil's had macadamia nuts, Bill's, pecans. Suddenly, I was standing in a circle of light being vociferously offered cereal. Sometimes it is only "one short step to the good ground" (May Swenson).

Bird on the Fence

Woke up anxious again. It really is a thinning of the blood, anxiety. The sky is falling--or the ceiling. My check will bounce. My life will bounce. I lie there and become thinner than I remembered. Anxiety raises her flag but there is no color in it. A rock has agreed to accompany me during such spare moments. A powerful rock from a powerful place. Touching the rock, I did a meditation. Felt a little better then. Just now, a robin flitted to the fence outside my window. Landed. Flew away. Returned. Head crooked to one side. So light. So unafraid.

Tours to Heaven

I got five minutes into my angel speech and forgot the rest of it. Really, it was surreal and wonderful because I didn't care in the way I've cared. Here I was in a contest against a guy who delivered a speech more polished than mine. Though, I had props. My molting wings were a hit with the members of my queer Toastmasters group who adore frivolity. ("I loved it, " John said.) When I was ten, I was in a spelling bee and was eliminated for not capitalizing November. As I sat ready to be called to talk, I told myself, "Honey, it's okay if you don't capitalize November." It was okay. I had a moment after I sat down when I fussed inside. My competitor gave a better speech. But was it better or just different? The kind he does well. I'm good at pretending be a tour guide to heaven, to demonstrating halos and wings, to insisting that, upon arrival, you travel on a conveyor belt to the main office with stops for coffee and snacks. At the office, you meet the person in charge. "I call her, 'the boss,'" I said, "but you can call her god if you want." That got a laugh. I had an audience responding in all the right places. I won. So did he. Maybe I don't get competition anymore.

No Wings on Sale

Bought wings today. Bill found me in Aisle 9 contemplating a petite pair. "How do these look?" "Wimpy." Buying wings on sale seemed wrong, anyway. I checked the next size. Not quite right. Then ... massive wings. Bill helped me try them on. I said, "They're vacuum sealed." He ripped open the package. "Not anymore." In the mirror, the wings rose over my shoulders. Perfect. "When we get home," Bill said, "you should run up and down the driveway and shake loose the loose feathers." I did, down falling around me like snow. Bill laughed and laughed.

Bed Time

The witching hour. I'm gathering my resistances, but, instead, send tiny armed forces across the floor. Winged horses and knights with their swords drawn. They are circling my bed as I chant the spells of protection. Soon, somehow, it will be morning. The queen looks back. She's literate so she quotes Archibald MacLeish: "What love does is to arm. It arms the worth of life in spite of life." Her smile is bittersweet.

A Shadow Visit

Spent the evening with David in his office. Tried one of his bacon gum balls, a gift from his fun-loving wife. Truly dreadful. We talked books and movies. He generously did my taxes and fed me soup. When he went for spoons and napkins, I sensed a spirit in the room. She was me six years ago. Thin. Size three. Eating coleslaw and jo-jos for dinner, covering, in her depressed mind, all the major food groups. For years, David spoon-fed life into her. "You can," he kept saying. "You will." She was there for a moment, not even a shadowy sense of a shape. To remind me, I think, of where I've been.

Not Good

Not a great week-end. Have a crow on my shoulder, and he caws plaintively. Says he understands my grave decisions. But does he? Trickster, he can see the past, present and future like a chalk drawing on a sidewalk. Sees everything at once. Won't tell me what he sees. Can't say he is good company then.

The Best Part

In Ophelia's in Fremont, I climb the loft to the children's section. A cat, one of several in the store, glances at me, meows. I scratch his head. To be a bookstore cat will be my next incarnation. Not much will be required. The best part.

Here

It's late, and the world is still. I just took a shower. I have clothes. Shelter. Friends. Work. My life is full of such luxuries. Outside, in the dark, so many without. A prayer for them here.

Stories

You remember something you thought you had forgotten. What it could be like, maybe. What a shock that she understood a story you read out loud that no one else has ever understood. Makes you wonder, would she understand other stories, not just the ones you read, the ones you carry, that bend you, have almost broken you.

6:00 am

morning

whatever ghost

howled outside my window

last night

has been tucked in somewhere

she sleeps with me

Dog Day

Day off. Ambitious plans. Balance my checkbook. Finish my column. Write a proposal. World Peace. Okay, not that. Spent about three hours just decompressing from the stress of the last several weeks. Dogs know about this. Are not embarrassed to lie down, head on their paws, think tranquil scenes of nothing. I found myself sighing. Turning. Repositioning myself on a pillow. Tossing a pillow off the bed. Retrieving it.

Leaf Shadows

I told a friend this week that when I'm really stressed, my right eyelid twitches. As if a small crane have been assigned to pull it continually slightly to the right. Only a bit of a twitch now. Candles lit. A gothic thriller. Patter of rain. Bigger breaths then bigger breaths. When I turn the lights off, leaf shadows all over the ceiling.

Flirtatious Books

I go the library always with a sense that the world can begin again. It's marvelously quiet in there and marvelously loud. The books are kicking up their skirts in one endless can can, pretending to be circumspect and bound by convention but flirting with all humans. "Pick me! Pick me!" Even the oldest books, the classics, are not above revealing a discreet ankle or wrist.

Chippewa Saying

"Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all of the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky."

What's Next

All I can do is keep walking even if I have no idea what direction my feet will take me. Who will walk with me. The important thing is to be in motion. Or maybe that's all wrong. Maybe standing still is the best thing. Standing in myself and next to myself in the stillness. If there's a way to do that.

First Meal

I woke this morning in finely worn flannel pajamas, pink with pale brown cats. I clambered out of bed, from under a mound of comforters, and followed sounds to the kitchen. My housemates, Bill and Deb, said, "Would you like french toast?" I said, "Yes." Company was coming. Another family. "Do I have to change?" "No." Minutes later, Alex was there at the door with his baby whose blue eyes know everything. Coffee was brewing. Pears were sliced. Deb asked me to sample a butter from Hawaii that tastes like key lime pie. Max, who is four, came through the door hauling a bear as big as he is, his mother close behind. The heavenly scent of maple syrup. The baby sang through breakfast.