thoughts on broken things at ten thirty three p.m. before bed. and for rachel.

you cannot stop love from loving, you can only remove the sun it grows by, the water it thrives from, and hope that when you come back to it, it will be dead. But waiting for it to die, when you have fostered it long and graciously and with joy and hope, is like smothering a living thing with a pillow, gritted teeth and weeping, waiting for the struggle to be over. But it takes so long. I cannot wait for it to sputter and give out, and yet I wholly hate the idea of loving it’s death, it seems cruel and against myself, like animals who eat their young. I think it is very much alike, actually. We were never made for any of this. For death and loss and severing. Logic and emotion were, I think, meant to be peaceable companions.

Logic was a refreshing blow to heartsickness for this past month, but that’s over now. I can’t punch it down anymore I simply have to let get me a bit before a keep going. And it hurts, its going to hurt and only God knows when it will end. But it will end, and God does know it. But all this taking heart has me weary. Everything is well, really, its just bearing it for a while. And I think tomorrow it will be different, and the next day too. But for tonight I have to recognize the awfulness of loss, of a pivotal person becoming a string of memories, of trying to purge love without forging bitterness, of losing an anthem of joy for a moment to listen more carefully for the low lament weaving these days together.

And just suddenly, the logic is back and I know I need this so drastically, because if I didn’t rid myself of the thing for which my life seemed to so easily yield to, I would never ever find my footing. And I need footing now, I need solid things beneath me, I need to plant seeds, have faith, learn and become. I need to know Love better than anything else, I need to let it make me whole, learn to receive it, give it, walk in it, and teach it. I need to be more me, before I seek out the character of someone else.
Guys aren’t even cute anymore anyway. I find contrasting colors more inspiring, specifically orange and blue.

Sometimes the irregularity of existence that ensues from living in a body that is meant for supporting and raising life forms can become quite exhausting.
It's surprising that, no matter how painful or painless the process is, I find a base and instinctual compulsion to wear sweat pants, or pajama pants, or maybe yoga pants (its all the same thing, I'm just not sure what the correct termonology would be. irrelevant, really.) Anyway, the basic point is that I want to build a nest and sleep for a week, in yoga pants.

Things that happened today or recently that I think are worthy of note:

1. I moonwalked into a ladder and now sport a swarthy bruise on my left calf

2. today at work the power went out, I saw the sad blue jay that caused the outage. it was extremely graphic and voilent.

3. I have befriended a young squirrel. I feed him peanut butter, chips, crackers and other superfluous scraps as often as can, and he no longer runs away from me. hoorah!

4. I am working on a fabulous name for said squirrel

baby deer fawn

I want to be a Carousel Queen! It seems terribly romantic. Who could resist the dipping charms, the lilting voice, the swirl of colour that is the CAROUSEL QUEEN?!

I couldn’t. And you bet your britches you couldn’t either!

"maybe you should take two" he chuckled

That man told me I should eat two donuts instead of one.
How kind of you, Sir, to so eloquently highlight my frame to the general audience.

Ignorance lets far too many insults fall to the wayside.

Had it been more obvious and more maliciously done. Perhaps you might have felt that little Old Fashioned donut with chocolate frosting smack the smooth side of your smile.
One and a half donuts, and one small, well dressed humiliation slipping off your lips to rouse a few lightly sleeping demons from their sleep. Too skinny. Of course.

Wronged? Not at all, really. I have nothing to harbor but a bad impression, and a renewed sense of a low numbered scale.

There is an ache in my throat.
I thinking I’m coming down with something.
I think something’s coming down with me!
On the surface today was good. But what does that matter, really?
Surfaces are makeup, cupboard doors, counter tops, epidermis, mints instead of toothpaste, plastic surgery over DNA. Good luck, surfaces, good luck.
I keep you around because I can’t very well walk around naked, can I?
I’m fine, I don’t feel pretty or witty or wise, but fine.
I am well fortified. I could pick a color of me today, it would be. . . .
off-chartrues, of course.
Whenever I’m little out of tune for the day, I either journal with far too many words with no destination, or my thoughts come out in the above form. I guess maybe it’s a surface, too. Surfaces have their place. I guess on top of everything else, of course.
Give me giggles and give me rum
Today is done today is done
Give me husband and give me a house
Make him no drunkard, no cheater, no louse
I am a beggar for happiness, please
Just give me your grass and your earth and your trees
I’ve got no legs, so give me those too
I’ve been leaning on everything now I’m leaning on you!
I suppose you’ve got something I suppose you’re hot stuff
I suppose your pockets are just sagging with love
Well I am a beggar and I pick-pocket too
I’ve got nothing to lean on, now I’m leaning on you.
How silly. I just wrote that, I think because my dad used to always recite poems to us with that rhythm so I can never get it out of my head. I hope I don’t get sick. I need to go to work. I’ve been workin’ for my riches.

Seven Twelve.
Its after work.
Three more hours before:
a. going to bed
b. putting it off
Will tuna fish and crackers be dinner? Probably. With no mayonaisse, and out of the can by fork.
Day three and I love my job. I love my job like a love playing hide and seek, driving go carts, listening to good music, candy bars for fifty cents and coffee for free. Real.
"Really?"
Yes.

Its anarchy, and its sanctioned.

We work, but project by project, and the next project isn't ready for us, so we coast it out. And when we are not practicing anarchy, I find the work really satisfying. Its a great deal.

Pow! Wow!

Chris and I went to a Bradley Hathaway concert last night. Jon came too. When I say concert I really mean someone's living room that I don't know, but it didn't matter. We showed up at a house, paid our five dollars. There were lots of children running around and people that probably knew each other. Anyway, the show was historic.
First this married couple danced around the living room with a tambourine and a guitar and sang songs about how much they loved each other and got up very close to everyone's faces, awkwardly, but it was okay. Then a guy sat down with a banjo and a tambourine jammed around his foot, and he played incredible songs and stomped tambourini beats that he shouldn't have been able to stomp, but he did. We were wowed and we clapped joyously. Then Bradley Hathaway's group got up and they played so vigorously it was like being at a pow-wow (I've been to those, legit ones, I know what it's like.) Wonderfulwonderful, and it was great to see so many humans crowing out raw songs and bent over instruments with hands moving so rapidly you couldn't see them anymore. I think everyone loved, at least we did. So fun.
I realize that every time I do something fun or interesting I want to draw a picture of it, or sketch it. That's great, but then I realize about cameras. They work really well, I just forget about them.

It is Saturday, seven fifty five p.m. It feels like Sunday, which is unfortunate, because tomorrow Sunday will really show up for sure and I won't be ready for him, I'll tell him he's late and shut the door. But I'll see his shadow under the door and know that I'll have to let him in at some point, because really, he's there anyway, of course muttering under his breath about homework, monday, and prayer; dragging evening in with his heels.
Meghan and I happily made our way back from the Red Rooster Inn this morning, and with lavender steamers in hand, trotted to the thrift store. She purchased some articles for journal embellishments and I, having recently envied Chris' really smashing looking mug sporting his name in all its nineteen seventies glory, found myself scrounging through the mugs (which were a keen "three for 25 cents." Clinking and clattering through mugs I found three little goldies! with other peoples names on them. I like it better that way, I'm just going to keep my eye out for more now.

a dream i had

The sky was huge, black overarching us. The feeling of near death was enough to curl our hair as we crouched in the tall, but still too short grass. My brother and sister were bent low next to me and our eyes were fixated westward, I wasn’t sure whether we were victims or perpetrators, the feeling of danger and heroism was so mixed, but we sat like cats, our bodies leaning into our gaze. Away across the field (too far away maybe, but our eyes were uncommonly well) was where they were shrouded and clustered together, they slumped into one another as if they weren’t used to having their secret beings out in the open. There they were, maybe three of them, their grayness meshing with the grayness of the sky and the grayness of the tallish grass. They all billowed with the wind in unison. On horses, I suppose unicorns, though they were covered in cloaks of grey, with holes in the mantel where eyes should be, and instead of twirling cones placed beautifully on their brows, these were more like glinting knives that flashed across the field with each movement. We knew they saw us, we knew it, we wanted them to see us? My brother pointed his index finger and raised it to the sky. I could see its black silhouette, oddly, too oddly, resembling the shape of those horses’ spears. He was trying to fool them, as stupid as it was, we did the same, my sister and I. They looked and they knew it was us, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore, we were epically brave, of course. And then we were off! We sprang up and ran at a brilliant speed. We became the dangerous ones because we were not afraid. The pent up adrenaline let us run unthinkably fast and I was almost laughing because they were so stupid, and we were so brilliant and free, like shooting stars.
We didn’t need to know where we were going to get there. And presently we found our sanctuary. Safety is the only destination and one knows it when one arrives. She, the woman in a large apron and the dress constructed out of some rough fabric, flung open the door of the large thatched cottage to let us in. She was not unfriendly. She was practicality. We stepped inside. Everything was just a little too dirty to be America, but of course, because this was Morocco! Morocco is fun. She handed us bowls filled with an uncertain soup mixture, I balked for a second, perhaps it would make me sick, this strange Moroccan soup. But I tossed the thought aside. After all, we were uncommonly free at the moment. Why not eat some strange soup? So what if I throw up a thousand times later? But I had to call Chris, so I asked the boy if there was a phone.

tonight

If I could do anything in the world that I wanted, this would be it. I would gather up my thousand journals and stuff them into leather bags. I would jump on my pony and we would take off across the countryside, village to village, the pages flapping out of the bags, out of my sleeves and out of my hair. Grabbing fist fulls of the pages I would cram them into the empty hands of the villagers on the street, they would gasp, some would shout and try to chase me, but they would never catch us. I wouldn't come back until they were all gone, if then.