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.