resisting the empty drawers' invitation

almost a year has
passed since the
divorce, and
nearly two years
since he left...
so far,
i've resisted the
empty
dresser drawers'
invitations to
fill them with
my clothes...

that would feel
too much like giving
up
too much like
admitting
the remoteness
of the possibility
i'll find
someone new
to share the
last 30+ years
of my life with...

some dreams
die hard
______________

i'm spending
the entire weekend
doing art and
listening to
music

feels good

three carts.... first day homeless

black asphalt, 
concrete sidewalk,
three shopping carts loaded way
too full, like morning light 
flooding the crosswalk 
where she waits, 
in motionless,
silence...
light goes green,
still waiting, still waiting,
still, so still,
waiting...

single woman
my age
hands on one
cart, two left
behind, ready
to push off, but
where to go?
how to get there?
who to call?
what to leave behind?
wandering, wondering: 
when will life change?
nothing makes
sense

in the raw hours 
of morning, long
before night falls 
she feels her
normal life
dropping away
off the cliff, feels
the cloak of
homelessness
drape itself
cold and heavy
across her
shoulders.

chameleon

sometimes i hear myself
conversing with people in the hall
at work, people at the ball park, people
at the grocery store.... and i realize
i have several different voices
and layers of personality...
each one geared to fit the person,
the environment,
the situation, my comfort level...
there are very few people with whom
i feel comfortable being completely myself...
not everyone is able to accept or understand
the weird way my heart
and mind work... those few who do, i truly cherish.

i took my longtime friend to lunch
for a belated birthday
yesterday and as we talked and
laughed about life's strangeness,
i marvelled at how he navigates
all my myriad and contradicting moods,
my fast-paced philosophical musings,
my need for attention. he simply said...
"well, i love you, so that makes it easy."
and that was the truth...
there are many different kinds of love,
and love that makes room for you
to be yourself is the best of all.

fragile

not until you stop at your parents house
and see how fragile they've become do you
give up on the idea of finding a way to tell them what's
really going on in your life... shelter is all you want to
provide... comfort and assurance that all is well
in your life... so you hide the ring finger that you've
taken the gold and diamond from, you tell them
pretty stories of tahoe and of your success as a supervisor
and you tell them nothing of what's real.... instead you ask
"what needs doing here?" you say "i'm not the daughter that brings you
homemade dinners, but i know how to work hard... what
can i do to help?" dad says, "your mom keeps tripping on the
stepping stones to the garden. we'll have to take them out some
day when you have more time." i say "i have time now." dad says
"ah, no. it'd take half a day." i say "i can do it in 20 minutes.
get me a pick and a wheelbarrow." so he does and i do.
my mom starts to cry watching me work.... she says
"you have to work so hard and then you come here and do more"
i say "i'm happy to do it. i love being physical and think of all
you did for me when i was growing up." this makes her cry even more.
she wonders aloud what she did to deserve such a loving daughter.
i tell her "you are a loving mother... that's where i learned how to
be loving." i hold her and feel every ounce of her concern as a mother,
and then i realize that my own child is going through
a tough time of his own and hiding it from me
because i am fragile too...
no apple ever falls far from the tree.

heart leap cliff

at work
almost out the door for a walk,
i see a friend
through the control room glass

i motion:"come with?"
he beams a smile and
gives a thumbs up then,
just like in the movies,
he sprints out the door...

i hear his footsteps
following me and his
playful voice calls out
"hey gorgeous!"
i blink and turn...

on his face: a look of pure joy
for me/for escape/for yes...
it feels like a miraculous light
flooding toward me, and

for the first time
in a long time my
heart leaps up lighter
than air but then

drops off a cliff,

remembering
he's married to
the kind of woman i
admire

brass cup accordion

thin and frail
he's walking down
the middle of the vacant
graveled street tucked in a
no-man's land between
the busy bridge and a freeway
where commuters fly by
in their oblivious stupors...
except me... i'm captured
by this apparition of a
starving musician,
his accordion trails him
on a tiny pair of wheels
with a rickety metal handle
which he drags behind
him slowly, his other hand
clutches a small brass cup
that looks more like a
miniature spittoon with its
small rim bending outward
like a silent beggar's hand...
as i pass him, i note his
buck-toothed smile and receding chin,
a dark slab of hair hangs
across his face like a half
drawn curtain, he leans in
the direction he's headed
still nothing about him hurries...
it's like he's a glistening
bubble floating by, but more
precious and fragile

the right illusion?

if you have 15 minutes,

first watch this, then come back to read

the rest of the blog...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU


at age 10 on the school playground,

my best friend and i had a favorite

"sport" that involved two adjacent

swings. the swing set at our catholic

school was industrial strength, with the

thick iron poles planted firmly in the

asphalt, the structure never rocked

even a micro-inch no matter how

wildly you were swinging... so my

friend and i discovered that if we

sat in two adjacent swings and each

walked backward as far away diagonally

from the other as we could, and then ran full speed

in an arc toward eachother, the chains of

our swings would spiral around eachother

winding us up into this ball of energy

and then reach a point of maximum

tension which would then begin to

uncoil in a wild spin full of centrifugal

force that left us giddily dizzy and giggling

with uncontrollable joy. each time we

made the charge toward eachother,

i discovered i could make the ride

even more intense if i leapt into the

air and leaned outward as far as i could

just before our chains met, and being

the intensely physical person that i am,

i strove to charge faster and lean out farther

each time. this was all very wonderful until

that moment my left forehead hit the

unforgiving solid pole planted in the ground.

i bounced back as if my head had been

a rubber ball hitting a wall and stars

dazzled me blind... i nearly lost

consciousness, but i am a hard headed

one, so i dismounted the swing and

walked to the nurses office where a

huge knot the size of a golf ball formed

on the left side of my forehead....

to make a long story short, i often wonder

if the damage to my left brain (the place

where linear thinking occurs) has left

me predisposed to experience life more

from a right-brain perspective.

having watched the scientist in

the video (linked above) describe

the expansive sensations of her spiritual

awakening and realizing her descriptions

perfectly echo some of my most profound moments

of spiritual enlightenment reached through

meditation, i'm left in awe and also feeling

perplexed by the idea that my brain function

can so intensely affect my perception of reality...

which in turn makes me realize the zen buddhist

concept of everything being an illusion is

is for me a deeply true wisdom.

barefoot pajama gardener

fair morning light blinks me awake
through green jasmine leaves...
gardening barefoot in my pajamas

tending to the garden
was my spouse's thing
now he's gone and
taken his green thumb
to more exotic gardens

i'm almost shy getting
to know my garden here
timidly coaxing it to
become my new friend

asking it to accept
my imperfection, my
clumsy attempts to provide
what things it needs

nobody but a garden
wakes as early as i do
nobody but a garden
has enough life to take
up all my morning energy

(um... wait, that's not exactly,
completely true...i have to admit,
there've been some times when
a man drew bliss from all my
good morning energy)

i'm reminded of this
noticing how kfog's acoustic sunrise
seems to be featuring songs
i'd interpret as encouragement
to those of us stepping into
springtime without a true love
by our side... songs like
csny "carry on"
the who "bargain"
chris isaak "solitary man"

all these make me
relax and let go of the idea
that i am alone in being alone,
make me realize i'm really
pretty happy here by myself
gardening barefoot in my pajamas

go out and love the world

one profile question on a buddhist dating service asks "what three people would you like to have dinner with?" my answer was: jesus because he was a rebel for love, leonardo da vinci because he was a visionary inventor and artist, and laurie, my writing teacher because she is brilliant, courageous and would ask tough questions that would set the conversation on fire... (i didn't choose the buddha because i imagine him to be an enigmatic man of few words, and who wants that at a lively dinner party?) anyway... one guy responds to my profile saying he liked that i would invite jc to my dinner party. and i thought "wow. i never think of jesus as having a nickname, but yeah" and then this morning i notice that my favorite columnist in the sf chronicle (who's agnostic by the way) shares the same initials: jc. i see a lot of similarities between the two jc's... they are both outspoken they both preach love and they both are/were very charismatic. so i read jc's article this am after my beautiful swim on this gorgeous spring morning and he's talking all about torture... not exactly the same groove i was in but that's what i also like about both jc's... they shake things up and make you think, they take risks and encourage us to open ourselves to love one another... here's the link to jc's article: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/ now go out and love the world.

seen

the winter sun, low in the sky
baking a coral glaze onto bare branches
of tan birch trees lined up waiting for
this moment of benediction
_____________

young sepia skinned girls gathering
under cypress trees on the cliffs
above the ocean, waves crashing
against the earth, their soft voices
speaking in their mother tongue,
headdresses woven with stones,
shells and urchin quills rest like
crowns on their glossy black hair,
the shells dangle and clatter in the wind
their fathers walk by with their flutes
and stringed instruments, playing a
song that weaves itself between the
sound of their voices and the sound
of the waves...
this was my beautiful dream
last night
___________________

the curve of my son's neck, his
face drifting downward to kiss his
beautiful girlfriend goodbye with
the glow of the tiny porch light mightily
holding back winter's darkness