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You know what the weirdest thing is? I started this blog in 2002, almost seven years ago. I started writing about myself when I was fifteen and it was probably the most satisfying thing in my life at the time. It had to have been satisfying, I couldn't keep away from it. I tended to this thing, nursed it, fed it, let it grow strong. I took some empty space and made it into a drawer piled high with musings, my favorite things, regret articulated, dreams declared. It was something to me, a healthy bone in my body.
And now the only thing I can say is that I've been busy.
I work as much as I can, which is around thirty hours a week. When I'm not working, I'm commuting to school, attending classes, doing my homework at the burrito shop, taking dance and boxing classes, I've started running again.
What is this? It's weird. I cannot say how weird it is.
I move. I go. I eat a can of soup and drink of mug of tea, leave early, and wake up before the cat. I say yes, and sometimes I say no. I hear people are having sex. I hear people are leaving for Europe. I hear people say, I love you, You are selfish, Can I buy you a drink? I'm feeling poopy, Can I finish that?
And I don't ask questions or wait for answers. I watch faces, my friends, from across the table. I listen for clues and facts and wisdom. And then I go to bed, because I have to be up before five tomorrow. Sorry, guys, gotta go to bed.
Sometimes I miss my old self so badly it hurts. Those days, I feel like I'm the first white man to step onto the Great Plains. I hold my musket tight; it is 1541. The wind is dry and winter is coming. My men are tired of wandering, so tired they do not speak. I am hoping to find here a city of gold. But I might die in Kansas first.
I do not feel that way tonight. Thank God, I am not Coronado tonight. I am twenty-two.
Tonight I pulled on my sneakers and a light vest with inside pockets in which I hide important things. I left before Hannah took off for class, before Kevin came home, before it was even dark. It started to rain a little, but not enough to make the leaves on the sidewalk collapse. I ran through the shuffle of leaves, I ran to 42nd Avenue and back. My quads feel solid and ache a little from the last run, but in a good, ready way, they want another go, I let them go. Everything smells sharp and good in the dark. I can taste the air, the bits of wet that lick my cheek, I can taste the leaves hanging slick and yellow from the trees and basil, someone is cooking with basil in the house I just passed.
I am not afraid of folly tonight, because tonight, everything in me is awake. I am not searching for a lost city, I am winking back my own sweat and touching my feet to the pavement. One Two Three Four, upon coming home, I brew a strong cup of tea, and lip at it carefully, it is still singing from the kettle, Alive Alive and blooming.
I want to ask, oh I want to know, am I doing this right? Am I the right girl? Have I the Right Life? Or is it coming and on whose back?
But the answers don't come. What comes is the tender pain as I come down the stairs in the morning to brush my teeth. What comes is a Scan-tron. What comes is arms around me before bedtime, just because. Breakfast with the bros after work and a hand on the elbow on the way out. Kickball in the park until dark, cigarettes glowing in the outfield.
[photo: ryan mcginley] | | |
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I am old and small, untouched and set aside. Hannah says to me, Someone will find you, but I can't tell if I'm supposed to believe or pack those words in salt. I pack them, just in case.
It's true, my heart can't serve two masters. I wish it could, I wish it could serve twenty-seven in one sitting. Then what a thing I would be! I would have fifty-four hands and bow in all directions, I would pray with the one hundred thousand tongues, and say thank you, thank you, thank you to my right and to my left. thank you, thank you, thank you.
But I have tested it, and it's true. My heart is jealous for one thing. I will always have to pick, and never lightly.
Oh, Lord, I feel worn down tonight. I cut off an arm and shrugged, "I hope that's not weird," as I sawed and sawed... The blood is bright and flat, there's nothing complicated about that. I said, "Thank you," when it was over, and even laughed a little, because I could only see in black and white, it was so easy.
Now, having but one arm, one eye, one heart, I wash my face carefully and try to see clearly. What to do, what to do. The world is still diamond cut and spelled out perfectly. Time never stopped, it clips on and on. Where is the sadness, where is the goo. Not yet. Not yet.
I am old and small, untouched and still spilled out all over the kitchen floor. Oh, what a mess. After dinner, I wash my face and brush my teeth, comb my hair and go to bed. Though I feel alone, I am not alone. And the blood is bright and clean, so true and so full of everything else, I cannot believe it will ever hurt (later, it will hurt). Isn't it funny, I held it out, I wanted less all this time, just one less.
Later, it will hurt. Later, I will wonder, why why why.
But that's okay. It's okay, I know. Whether someone finds me, or I am never found, I remain, set aside a cyclops, There I will Be! One thing! And true. | | |
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I Like You
I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it's special
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, "Remember when you told me something special?"
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
you think it's important too
We have good ideas
When I say something funny, you laugh
I think I'm funny and you think I'm funny too
Hah-hah!
I like you because you know where I'm ticklish
And you don't tickle me there except just a little tiny bit sometimes
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That's why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you
I like you because you know when it's time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Too late, it's a quarter past silly!
Sometimes we don't say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
then you are getting ready to jump
HOORAY!
That's because you really like me
You really like me, don't you?
And I really like you back
And you like me back and I like you back
And that's the way we keep on going every day
If you go away, then I go away too
or if I stay home, you send me a postcard
You don't just say "Well see you around sometime, bye"
I like you a lot because of that
If I go away, I send you a postcard too
And I like you because if we go away together
And if we are in Grand Central Station
And if I get lost
Then you are the one that is yelling for me
And I like you because when I am feeling sad
You don't always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can't stand the others being so googly and gaggly every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It's awful when the other person isn't
They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could just about punch them in the nose
I like you because if I think I am going to throw up
then you are really sorry
You don't just pretend you are busy looking at the birdies and all that
You say, maybe it was something you ate
You say, the same thing happened to me one time
And the same thing did
If you find two four-leaf clovers, you give me one
If I find four, I give you two
If we only find three, we keep on looking
Sometimes we have good luck, and sometimes we don't
If I break my arm, and if you break your arm too
Then it's fun to have a broken arm
I tell you about mine, you tell me about yours
We are both sorry
We write our names and draw pictures
We show everybody and they wish they had a broken arm too
I like you because I don't know why but
Everything that happens is nicer with you
I can't remember when I didn't like you
It must have been lonesome then
I like you because because because
I forget why I like you but I do
So many reasons
On the 4th of July I like you because it's the 4th of July
On the fifth of July, I like you too
If you and I had some drums and some horns and some horses
If we had some hats and some flags and some fire engines
We could be a HOLIDAY
We could be a CELEBRATION
We could be a WHOLE PARADE
See what I mean?
Even if it was the 999th of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
That's how it would happen every time
I don't know why
I guess I don't know why I really like you
Why do I like you
I guess I just like you
I guess I just like you because I like you.
[photo: kathleen durkin]
[poem: sandol stoddard warburg] | | |
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After nearly two weeks on the east coast, surrounded by family and old friends on the lawns of a love celebration, i am home in Portland wondering how to be at home here again.
It is late, I need to sleep so that in the morning I can wake up. I will write more later. But tonight, I feel the edges of my unease shifting like plates under the ocean somewhere far away. I want to give it away to someone, put it down, and crawl into a great lap of wisdom, wrap my arms around a warm neck, and rest assured. | | |
| Next week, I will be with my family. It will be so full of love, the stuff you don't have to guess at, the old stuff, it is for real. One night I went out singing with my friends. We had dinner and drinks at someone's house and played bocce ball in the grass strip alley. Long after dark, we drove up to a little saloon in North Portland and sang karaoke. We sang and danced for a long time, until we were hoarse and tired. It was a gorgeous rowdy time. That night I went home and slept well. But a boy I kind of liked went home with a friend of mine. They slept together and then she got her things together and left. It was early in the morning. Two days later, she came over and told me. What do I do? she asked, It was really good. I don't want to hear that, I said. She laughed and said, I know. She didn't know that I liked him at all. I hardly knew. I mean I don't even know. So I asked Glen, my new roommate to come sit with us. He came in and asked all the right questions, and he gave my friend some good advice, really solid stuff. I appreciated it. Thanks Glen, we said. Not a problem, he shrugged. He acted all cool about it, like he does this kind of thing all of the time, Love Doctor. Don't worry, I said to my friend as she left, You'll be okay. How come some people can be so careless about something like that? Maybe I mean care-free. How do some people find themselves in accidental moments of such intimacy? I was waiting in line at work, I was on my break. An older man with aviator sunglasses and a handlebar moustache came up behind me and grabbed my waist and tickled me. You're not supposed to be on this side, he teased. I jumped out of his hands. That's inappropriate! I blurted out. I ran away. What is this world? There is no tenderness here. | | |
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