Stretch

Blues on Mr. Vice

2006-01-11T21:11:00.000-08:00

It is over now. It is done. My quest to find connections over the Internet has reached its conclusion. And so has this blog. The vice of all vices, that which turns my blues into technicolor monsters. And for what? Some kind of perverse attempt at finding my voice in a mainstream medium. Gross.

I've lived as The Hermit ever since I began to post my writing online. This blog is actually stifling me creatively. I'm not sure how this is so, but it is. This blog is not really a reflection of me anymore. It's a reflection of someone I used to be, and the culmination of the prayer:

Dame la muerte que me falta.

I am not a blogger. I am a poet. I am a wild, radical woman. I am a death dancer, a shadow who dares the waves on the beach to strike. I am not a new age zealot who believes she has any answers. I do not believe in finding answers. I believe in being the question. I am the stars' lover and the colt's hoof, an alchemist of food and drink. I'm a private person, not an exhibitionist or a narcissist. You'd probably miss that unless you knew me. And nobody reading this does.

This is the end of the charade I've been playing with myself.

Mostly, I am tired of all this old shit. So I am letting it go. I am diving into the world of flesh and bone and rock and tumbleweed and reality and me, and keeping my laments silent, as they should be, and my desires close to my skin.

May love always find you.

Straddling the 5 & 6 (add 2,000)

2006-01-01T00:52:00.000-08:00

It is impossible to live on Earth. We live in Earth. Under sky as well as over it. Above and below ground we stalk and whisper. It depends on your perspective. From the frigid reaches of space? From a fingertip's position on a globe? From gravity's stubborn insistence that we stand, just here, just so? Perception changes.

I'm working on changing perspectives to change my perceptions.

Can polarities merge and produce a third? A third option uniting "either/or," beyond even the scope of "and"?

Is all this suffering really necessary? A big ape has more humanity.

Human beings. Learning. To be human.

Free Association

2005-12-30T14:01:00.000-08:00

I wound up un-submitting the opinion letter for publication after I posted it here. I wrote it in a fit of anger (rage) that needed venting because it was churning around in me, seeking release. I thought better of it because, while I imagined it would strike others who agreed with me as being spot on, it would also have further divided me (us) from him (them), and that's the gap that needs to be bridged. I don't have any idea about how to bridge it, but I realized that I would have just strengthened his opinions and made myself into a target for his anger and on and on and on, thereby furthering the process of escalatory retaliation that fuels violence. Self-restraint is very hard for me to practice when I'm feeling something intensely. Where is the line between expressing an explosive emotion and keeping it locked up inside you? I'm never quite sure. The impulse to be a butt-scuttling stinging little beastie likes to stay close by, but that doesn't mean I have to give it free reign.

Here's what happens when I don't find expression for explosive energy: Liver Qi Stagnation. Which gives rise to depression and all manner of physical problems, problems I'm grappling with right now. It gnaws on me like this (written yesterday):

Back trauma. Who knew it would destabilize me for three months when it started? I've realized a lot of things about how I deal with pain. Things, truth told, I'd really rather not have to confront because they're scary and ugly and they stink.

I've been marveling all morning at my capacity to use up my strength to soak up the pain that's spilling around me, that I can't contain, and can't release, and can't heal. Fundamental problems for me -- using my energy to marshall through problems that I can't resolve, or can't figure out, or feel beholden to, like a degrading lover. My problems in a way are my darlings. They never leave me. Not even when I ask. They stalk me wherever I go because they just care so much. And fundamentally, these problems are not mine and I am not theirs and I don't want them anymore. I think I know how to proceed away from them except for this damning, constant pain, way deep in my pelvis.

It's an exercise in helplessness and futility to make progress, and heal, and feel stronger, and then be shoved three steps backward down to where you just emerged, and to do so over and over again until your energy is depleted and there is nothing you even recognize in yourself anymore except that familiar sense of misery and doom that wants to survive and take your life force with it.

How maddening it is to jeer at myself for being so weak and accuse myself of lies and cry at my own cruelty and realize that something dark and sinister in my psyche has taken me hostage and I do not have the foggiest idea how to diminish its power because I feel no power and I hurt and I'm afraid and I'm so, so sad.

Here I am, in my paradise, and every time I try to be out in it or tend my home or animals or even seek out help to put my skeleton in better alignment, I am back at zero, and I want to be at one. So you can be in hell in paradise. Christianity should know about this.

Yeah, that's fun stuff, eh? I'm aware of the potency of that kind of expresssed emotional experience and how it frightens most people. I'd be lying if I said it didn't frighten me, too. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling ashamed of these kinds of self-destructive, heavy emotions. I know that they gain power when they're stuffed, but in the physical state I'm in, I can't vent them through vigorous exercise (tried that, which rebounded badly in the form of more pain). I am so blocked and fuzzy that I have trouble articulating them creatively -- articulating anything at all. This morning I finally recognized that I have come to a dangerous place within myself. The things going on within me are violent, and aggressive, and primal, and if I do not restore some balance, they will consume me. I have been here before.

What is different about this place I find myself in is what I know now that I didn't then, what I learned about my body/mind/spirit in acupuncture. It takes discipline and profound self-love to apply this knowledge, even though I am aware of its efficacy. It's the only way I know to treat the fear and worry charging around in me, wreaking havoc and chaos and disrupting any kind of flow. My own narrow-minded binary tactics of moving from one extreme to another have made me a victim of my self. Again. Time to stop the cycle.

Body, I say to you, let's make friends.

Letter for the Opinion Page

2005-12-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

The letter below is a response to a couple of impassioned letters written by the same man and pubished two weeks successively. I direct myself to him and others who share his views. I'll let you know if it runs or not. (I submitted it with an introduction to the editor so it'd actually have a chance of running.)

Mr. Baker, I am not interested in having a debate with you as it is obvious that your mentality is fixed, in much the same way as your values are fixed and your income is fixed and your inflexibility is fixed, locked solid. You see the world in black and white, equate elitism with educational level, not class, and believe Fox News is fair and balanced. The fix we are in as a world is a product of narrow-minded binary thinking such as yours, and frankly, sir, I'm just not going to encourage such a dysfunctional, pompous discourse by engaging you in one. Rant on, shining diamond of a defunct era, rant on.

Somehow you still believe that liberal is a bad word and you wield it as some kind of sword to cut down free-thinking people. (Newsflash: It's not a sword.) What you call facts is what I call spin. According to you, my facts are biased because my sources criticize your political affiliates. By all means, continue to spin your cocoon of denial in tandem with your media spinners. Whatever makes you feel secure.

What really pains me is that our country no longer practices democracy and we will never rise up together to protest the lies and corruption of our present regime because people like you would rather deny that such a reality exists, count their money and faux security in the form of the bodies and minds sacrificed for a rich man's war, and believe that poor people are poor because of some inherent character flaw, like laziness or something, and rich people are rich because they deserve to be.

So please, continue to buy your expensive pooches and cars and beachfront property. I don't care what distractions you prefer. But when that ocean is pounding on your doorstep, and you're still debating whether global warming is a fact or not, clutch your money to your breast and hope it saves you. Because it won't, sir, and that's a fact.

Respectfully yours,
Jaimie O., Lincoln City

Jupiter's Gifts

2005-12-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

I walked into a very bizarre and unlikely coincidence last evening. The Ghost of Selves Past decided to pay me a visit.

Now it is true that Michael Lutin wrote a very compelling bit on Thursday about how the New Moon in Sagittarius and Jupiter in the 12th house signified receiving a beneficent gift from the Universe where you least expect it (beneficent as opposed to the kind of "gift" that leaves you with puffy eyes). I thought, well, hells yeah, I am definitely in need of some happy surprises, but I really doubted that anything "miraculous" was going to occur. And it didn't, at least on Thursday. We did score a free, living Christmas tree, all potted and everything, after Doug spied it on the corner where we live, with the sign "Free Christmas Trees" giving us the go ahead to snatch it. I was very stoked about that cosmic gift because we couldn't have afforded to purchase one, even though we desired a tree very much, the undead kind anyway.

Happy surprise. Good fortune. But that wasn't the biggie.

Last evening Doug and I decided to splurge and went out for some Thai food. Our server seated us in a nice nook by the window and I sat down with my back to the corner, facing out. (It felt important that I sit there.) As I'm thoroughly examining the menu, I happen to glance up as people are being seated at the table directly in front of us. I noticed one of these people immediately because, from the back, she reminded me of a woman I knew in college. Same build, although somewhat larger, blue hair, same type of dress -- punk meets bohemian. The chances of it being her were miniscule, however, and it was impossible to know for sure until I saw her face.

So there I sat, feigning interest in the menu while glancing up every few seconds, hoping to catch a glimpse of her mug. I caught one of the people she was with looking at me very deliberately a few times, felt it intermittently when I wasn't looking, and this strengthened my suspicions that I was looking at the back of someone I knew from another era. Also, that I was being discussed by this former friend, GLBTA champion, and women's studies cohort.

I knew for sure it was her when I saw her turn her head to look out the window. Also when she turned toward the waiter to order. I even heard her voice. Unmistakable.

Let's just say that I had many visceral reactions to my certainty that she was who I thought she was. When this suspicion was confirmed, and therefore no longer a suspicion, I realized that I was faced with a decision: pointedly avoid her or greet her warmly. Initally, I was unsure of what to do because this person at one point donned a persecution complex, shined herself up to her full drama queen glow, and made a huge row out of something I was never even able to comprehend, declaring war on the women I surrounded myself with and, consequently, me. I tried to be friendly for a while but was always ignored. Perplexing. Ultimately I wrote her off as juvenile and to be avoided.

Since we'd spoken on friendly terms before I left Iowa, I figured all that stuff was ancient history. Plus, I was amazed to realize that it was her in front of me! Pretty fucking incredible. Then the issue became, shit, am I going to revert to old tendencies if I initiate contact with her? Have I really changed? Am I still that wretched creature who clawed her way out of the nightmare that the Decorah experience became?

Since I wasn't sure, I decided to marinate on it and began to eat my noodle soup, managing to master the chopsticks (finally! victory is mine!), while remaining involved in the conversations I was having with Doug and myself, somehow, simultaneously.

Maybe it had something to do with being able to eat with chopsticks after many failed attempts. Maybe it had something to do with the endorphin rush I was enjoying from having tossed caution to my backside's wind and gone at an aerobic workout with gusto, to hell with my uncooperative back. Maybe the reassuring flow of conversation with someone I can be totally real with bolstered me. Probably unequal parts all three. I decided I had changed, and there was nothing to fear.

When she finally stood up to leave, I put down my chopsticks and exclaimed, loudly, friskily, "Is that ____ ____?"

Nothing.

Evidently, it had been decided that any attempt on my part to make contact would be hastily avoided. I watched with interest and amusement as she awkwardly pushed in her chair without turning around -- at all. The body language of all three of them spoke volumes as they stalked briskly to the door, e.g.: my fellow alumnus kept her head turned away from me as she exited and got into their truck, which was parked allmost directly in front of me. It was painfully obvious that she knew I was there and didn't want to face me, literally. Sad, huh? Some people never change.

Pleased to say I'm not one of 'em.

After she was gone, I had a revelation of sorts. A full realization of how much I am not the person I once was. How much progress I have made. How much reason I have to be proud of myself. And I felt a surge of self-confidence and pride, and I felt like some bad spell had finally been broken. I laughed and laughed, and felt freedom.

I don't know if it makes sense that one non-interaction like that with someone I used to hang out with could change how I perceive myself. Probably not. I can't quite connect the dots myself. But that space of 45 minutes peeled away another layer of the old, and now I see potential all around, just waiting for me to realize it.

The Blueberry Review

2005-11-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

What comes to mind when you think of herbal tea? Green tea? Wimpy, right? Uninspired. Droll. Don't hippies drink that stuff? Oh those smelly hippies. Sure, tea is easy to pick on, and why not, it's not like it has feelings or anything.

What if I told you that one sip of Celestial Seasonings Blueberry Breeze Green Tea would dispel the above stereotypes? You'd scoff. Sure. Because you're cynical, jaded, and under stress. Your scoffing would be warranted, though, because you would begin to suspect there was something special about this tea BEFORE you sipped it -- as soon as you poured it (or watched it steep in the saucepan like I do because a teapot just isn't a necessary item according to the fundamental laws of utilitarian budget restrictions). You'd notice that its reddish-purple color is familiar because it appears to you at sunset. You'd stare and fret about what would happen if you spilled such a vibrant color on the carpet. You'd spill it, yet it would not stain. You'd sip, and realize it was divine -- this, the ambrosia of the Gods -- but you'd still wonder how it would taste if you drizzled some honey into the cup -- just a little -- and squeezed some lemon into it, never minding the seeds escaping the pulp.

Then you would taste again. You would delight in the way the sweetness blended with just the right amount of tartness, remniscent of fresh blueberries but without the staining properties. You would gaze at the Blueberry Goddess on the package and love her and the artist who conjured her. Stress would drain from your body as you sipped, content in the experience of beauty joined with perfection.

You would then climb into bed, ready for sleep. And then you'd lie awake for hours, because it's green tea, silly, and it's caffeinated.

Solar Return, Lunar Surprise

2005-11-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

It took turning another year older and the energy of a full moon to realize that an extended cycle of my life is complete, one that has encompassed several cycles of sun and moon. Another begins. I find myself in that awkward transitional zone between what has passed away and what is yet to manifest and be seen.

Perhaps that is why no words are coming. I sit in front of the computer and try to express myself, but there is a gap between what I am experiencing and my ability to process and articulate it.

After reflecting last night on the past year of my life, I realized that my friendships from the past have faded in importance, that I no longer cling to the old to show me who I am. There are certain people who will always be dear to me, but there is no one and nothing to hold me in stasis anymore. It is disconcerting and freeing to experience myself this way -- unnerving to realize that I am friendless, in the sense that there is no one, save my sister or mother, with whom I can share my new experiences. Though I may be friendless, I am not in the least alone.

Yesterday was a day filled with love and promise. My beloved and I explored some of the coastline to the north and saw two fawns, a doe, and a buck along the way, as well as many varieties of birds we couldn’t identify and enough green to soothe the most agitated Liver. We watched Raja race along the beach and felt the freedom he embodied as he extended himself to his full range and speed, the Greyhound in him alive and well.

Last night I crawled into bed feeling alive and changed, and was startled to see the moon in all her full splendor hanging above, beaming on me through the skylight. Doug was sheathed in shadow. Mars stood off to her right, a red and mighty encouraging presence. It seemed an important portent of things to come, though in exactly what way, I couldn't say. I let myself fill with their light and after an unknown amount of time had passed, drifted peacefully off to sleep.

I have so much to be thankful for. I have so much to learn.

Gibberish Speaks

2005-11-13T16:09:00.002-08:00

I am hearing a convergence of voices -- a threnody whispers on the ceiling, water licks down the walls and shivers my spine in the absence of knowing who I am, where, outside the forests of enchantment, I should go (where to work? where to work?) to find the right sequence of numbers, to silence the fear of not enough.

I am tinder. I smoke. I am flame sizzled by spent water. I should be happy
now, feel glee. But change is a cruel companion and the constancy of the unknown assaults me.

oh how the phantom sags
light shrugs off the dollar
but there is no money to be wasted now
no time to be content
as flesh wallows in debt
and sauces
but there is comfort here, mute comfort
that waits for this madness to depart and leave me with

a vocabulary so bruised that it hides.

# # #

I don't know if the above made a lick of sense. Welcome to my world of not making sense. Mercury is immobile now, waiting for the backwards two-step to begin. Pardon me for my incoherence. Given the circumstances, it's normal.

I think I feel better now, and will now shower.

Closer

2005-11-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

Blinking now
pinching this salted husk
awake.

Breath of the ocean, rise,
that I may salute you
with laughter and tears
stand before you and tremble
as you soothe the form torn
by pain and memory.

Gray
fleshy
luminous darkness
backbone
reaching forward
to the neck
never there.

Beloved of Tiamat
roll deep
dive where eyes
only seek, cannot penetrate.
Linger fat there then
linger long
on the cusp of foam and mystery

waves roar.

Untitled

2005-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

I have been attempting to render the experience of Monday into words. It's still not right, but as incomplete as it is, I need to see it posted to help me see where it's wrong.

We arrived here safe and sound last week. Please pardon the gaps between Arizona and Oregon. I'll fill them in as time allows.

Blinking now
pinching this salted husk
awake.

Breath of the ocean, rise,
that I may salute you
with laughter and tears
stand before you and tremble
as you soothe the form torn
by pain and memory
with your grey, fleshy
luminous darkness.

Linger fat there then
linger long
on the cusp of foam and mystery

waves roar.

Was Not Was

2005-10-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Possessed
by an emotional intelligence
greater than the sum of your rational parts
I am the antithetical
in your discourse
and your discourse is a sham.

There is no alpha in my being
no omega
just a circle
a spiral
getting me deeper down.

Around I go
a death throe
of paradise.

Audre Lorde . . .

2005-10-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

. . . is my favorite poet. She has influenced me more than any poet, and I'm always shooting for creating the kind of rhythm and flow and beauty and impact she wrought with words. A self-described "black lesbian feminist warrior-poet mother," Lorde died of cancer in the 90s, leaving as her legacy some of the most brilliant poetry and prose of the 20th century. Her writing always reflected her activism and her courage.

Her poem below is appropriate for this time of year. I hope you take from it strength and an appreciation of your own complexity.

The Women of Dan Dance with Swords in Their Hands to Mark the Time When They Were Warriors

I did not fall from the sky
I
nor descend like a plague of locusts
to drink color and strength from the earth
and I do not come like rain
as a tribute or symbol for earth's becoming
I come as a woman
dark and open
some times I fall like night
softly
and terrible
only when I must die
in order to rise again.

I do not come like a secret warrior
with an unsheathed sword in my mouth
hidden behind my tongue
slicing my throat to ribbons
of service with a smile
while the blood runs
down and out
through holes in the two sacred mounds
on my chest.

I come like a woman
who I am
spreading out through nights
laughter and promise
and dark heat
warming whatever I touch
that is living
consuming
only
what is already dead.

The Unpredictable

2005-10-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

What is the difference between being trusting and being foolish? If I knew the answer to that question, my mind could release the death-grip its got on the moving problem.

First of all, I have to marvel at the difference in people in Oregon, at least those I've spoken to. I'm not even there yet, and already I feel welcomed. I anticipate having friends again! I anticipate wanting to participate in my community again! There is something softer and friendlier and just plain endearing about the folks I've been speaking with over the phone, and it contrasts the feeling I get interacting with Arizona residents. People in the desert are harder, rougher, crustier, like the desert itself. I don't know if it has to do with the lack of water here and the surplus of it there, the difference between red state and blue state residents, or my own perceptual distortion. I guess I mention perceptual distortion because I got caught up in some New Age hocus pocus for a while. Wayne Dyer, guru of the New Age movement, insists that people are the same everywhere and how you feel about them is a reflection of how you feel, relate, think, and thus, interact. I disagree.

Four Oregon residents I've spoken with over the phone have now stated that they hope I come in and see them or contact them so we can get together when I'm finally in town. One woman is going completely out of her way to contact people she knows with rentals and has offered to go scout out the neighborhoods of the homes we're considering. I am turning over as many rocks as I can find, and Jo, the delightful woman of the last sentence, popped up smiling from one turned over yesterday. She has nothing to gain from helping me, as we can't afford the property she and her husband own. How refreshing and stunning, as in, I'm stunned. People in Iowa are warm and helpful (something I very much took for granted during my formative years), and encountering a similar spirit in people again makes me feel really happy. Thankful.

I'm hoping to work at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and barring that, I can still volunteer there. A very nice public relations woman for the Aquarium has helped me make contact with those in positions to give me a job. (As far as the available jobs in the coastal area go, I'm going to have to be flexible.)

So again, I return to the question, what qualifies as trust -- that your needs will be met, you will have a roof over your head, food to eat, the means to pay your bills -- and what qualifies as foolishness? We have no guarantees that we will find affordable housing once we arrive. Having pets makes our options very limited. Rentals we can afford are snatched up very quickly. But from my investigative perch, looking down into the jaws of the unknown, I see my fear is holding me hostage again. What I can see from here is a hospitable community and magnificent surroundings. We need to be there to snatch up our own rental. We are leaving on All Hallows Eve. Trick or treat? Indeed.

Worst-case scenario: We blow our wad on a temporary rental we can't afford for more than a month, I do whatever work I can find, and we find a more humble abode once the roof over our head is secure. My mom and sister caution me over and over about taking unwise risks. I ask you, what is an unwise risk? I don't think I've ever taken a real risk at all so I don't know. I'm always too scared of the bottom dropping out from under me and leaving me prostrated before an angry and punitive Father God, which I don't believe in anyway -- just leftover conditioning from childhood.

I need me some more pioneer spirit!

# # #

Michael Lutin is huffing and puffing about water being unpredictable. I believe him. We've seen the evidence of this all over the globe. And yet, I'm still moving surfside. My parents' house burned to the ground as soon as they moved to the farm.

Life, Mr. Lutin, is unpredictable. I refuse to live mine in fear.

# # #

I've not been paying a lot of attention to the news, save for Eric Francis' blog. I just hope Prezzy Bush buys a big package of Charmin. His backside is going to need it. He'll just have to remember to remove it from the roll before inserting it inside his drawers. You never can have too much cushion.

Choosing Love

2005-10-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Today I am supposed to be packing. My body has other ideas. This time, my upper and lower back have decided to go on strike. I never finished that post about how I originally injured my back ("Eclipsed by a Garden Cart"). It goes like this:

Just one class short of an English major, I was working on an organic vegetable farm by the name of Rock Spring Farm in northeastern Iowa. The Blanchards did not permit kneeling while working, which meant I was always either bent over from the waist or in a squat. I don't know if you've ever tried squatting or bending over for 8-10 hour days, with upright breaks consisting of hauling a poorly maintained garden cart over hill and dale, through the fields, to the compost pile and back. I hadn't before, and I imagine it would have been fine except for a few factors:

1. I am built like a halfbreed Italian farm girl. I carry my weight around my hips and ass. No lithe frame here.

2. The garden cart, as mentioned, sported one, then two, flat tires. I did not know how to be assertive enough to demand that they repair the cart so it would function properly.

3. I had weakened first and second chakras from a few unsavory bouts with depression. Survival issues having to do with money have always stalked me as well. It was no different then.

One rainy summer day, I was hauling swaths of remay (a covering for particularly bug-sensitive plants, like arugula) up a hill to the barn using the cart (walking in front, pulling it behind me). It was hard going because the ground was saturated with water and very muddy; I used the force of my will and brute strength to get it there. My back was very sore after I had accomplished this, but I was accustomed to perpetual soreness in the evenings, so I unloaded, went back down the hill, out to a field, muck caked on the wheels and my boots, loaded up with salad greens, hauled it back up to the cleaning shed, and just as I was about to clear the incline, I felt something clench up and radiate pain into my lower back. I teared up from the pain, stopped, gritted my teeth, and managed to heave it up into the shed. (Why I didn't stop at this point is a good question, especially for $6.00/hr.) One of my bosses saw my face, asked what had happened, and sent me home with a command to ice it and call in the morning to let them know how I was.

I took the next day off, had a three-day weekend, and stayed off of it as much as I could. The next Monday, as I was getting ready for work, I bent over to move a crate of filed paperwork to where I could rifle through it for something I needed, and my back tightened and clenched and pain returned, only this time, more severe and hot. I somehow made it to the phone, left a message, and crawled into bed, where I remained for the next four days. During this time, I decided that my back was not worth $6.00/hr. I left a message for them stating that I didn't think I could continue working for them, asked them to call me back, and waited, feeling guilt and shame that I had failed them as the most intense part of their growing season approached. I never thought to shift more of the responsibility for my injury onto their shoulders. So when they offered me no worker's compensation or money to see a medical professional, refused to give me my last paycheck in a timely manner, and accused me of being irresponsible and unreliable as well as a liar, I was incensed, hurt -- these people had become my friends, their sons my devoted tag alongs -- but believed that they were right to blame me. Of course, my injury must have been entirely my own fault! Most importantly, they were right, a stronger person would have sucked it up and continued on, pain or no.

And therein is the crux of the problem. My typical approach to difficult situations, ones in which I am weak and in need of care, support, help, is to shrug it off, suck it up, and march onward. I have learned how to be assertive since this incident, but somewhere along the line I have learned to suffer well and despise myself for my failings, thinking if I am weak then I deserve to suffer. Even as I write this, I see how ridiculous it is to operate this way. I suppose I am finally being given an opportunity to change this maladaptive approach to my problems. This could be a watershed moment for me.

I went very deep last night into an old wound after tweaking my back again, and I think I understand where this practiced self-loathing comes from. When I hurt myself the first time, I couldn't afford to see a professional but went anyway, hoping that they'd pay me by the time the check cleared. I had a therapeutic massage and some reiki and felt wonderful afterward, that is, until the check bounced.

Now I have an opportunity to care for myself in a way I didn't then, to love myself into wholeness. When a wise woman recommended that I get some kind of treatment for the nightmares I've been having, inwardly I scoffed, thinking I was strong enough to weather the discomfort of my predator dreams. I bought some more Valerian and decided we couldn't afford it. I didn't think I was worth that kind of self-love.

But I've discovered a little girl inside here somewhere, crying, cowering, whimpering, afraid. I think it's about time that I showed her that she is lovable, that there's nothing wrong with her, that I'll keep her safe from harm.

# # #

I was outside by the creek yesterday and watched butterflies flitting, almost everywhere it seemed. It occurred to me that autumn is the time for transformation.

May I finally become a butterfly.

Rain In with Cats and a Restless Dog

2005-10-18T13:57:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting on the couch, an afghan tucked around me, smelling the rain scent, listening to cottonwood leaves drip as water percolates down through the thirsty soil. Air is chill. Wind is gusting. Kitchen reflects last night's feeding. There is an insistent ache in my skull; the shadow of a migraine looms, threatens. I am pausing between keyboard strokes to press on the acupressure points my acupuncturist urged me to use whenever these boogers hover around me. I probably triggered it by injecting too much spice into last night's dinner -- cabbage, tofu, and peas are cooling, but I couldn't resist the red pepper punch.

Free association is something I have been relunctant to engage in on my blog because what my mind reports to my fingertips reveals more than I would often like. Take the last post, for example. I might as well have written "UNRESOLVED PAIN" all over it. A part of me judges such undainty exposure as indicative of weakness. Too, I do not know how to be truthful without scaring people. Scaring people by being yourself is something no one wants to shoulder. How I have generally dealt with this:

Pretend well.

It's necessary for me to trot this out now because this is something I wish to change, have been working on changing in my interactions with people. Online, however, it's easy to fall back into this habit. Truth is, I am scared about our upcoming move. Lots of thorny issues with finding housing.

This upcoming move represents the first time I have moved somewhere because I wanted to. Not for someone else's benefit or under some dire need for change and healing. I am terrified of all the things that must fall into place in order for us to set up house in Oregon. I am terrified that we won't have enough money to get a nice place to live, and I'm so very tired of living in squallor. Intellectually, I am aware that I need to trust the universe to support me, but after six months of high intensity personal problems, fanny red and swollen from the swinging I've been doing by it, I am terrified that the past will continue undermining my best efforts. I know people say, "Wherever you go, there you are," but my experience has demonstrated that every place has a different feeling and causes different aspects of yourself to come forward. And I'm not running away from myself; I'm moving toward new opportunities and experiences. There's so much to do, and so much that remains unknown. I will attempt to be here now and walk through my fears and apprehensions in trust, but man, oh man, there's a quiet, stifled aching going on here. Question marks around the horizon.

I imagine that my anxieties about my past's impact on the present are being reflected in the recurring nightmare I am having again about being thrown back into high school to complete my senior year before I can graduate from college. I hate that dream. I wish I knew how to make it go away.

# # #

An aside to Reya: I would love it if you shared your sister's information with me. Thanks for offering. Sorry to take so long in responding. Fanny gliding again.

The Sound of Coming Home

2005-10-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

The light this time of year and the way sound travels remind me of harvest time on the farm. My parents were the sole farmers of some 400 acres of soybeans and corn, so no matter what year it was, this time of year you'd find mom and dad deep into the harvest: my mom, hauling in loads of grain on the tractor, and my dad in the combine, giant furrows swallowing whole rows of corn in a matter of minutes. They wouldn't make it out of the fields till mid November, generally, around the time of my birthday, but sometimes as late as Thanksgiving they'd be out, and when I was a little girl, I was in the fields with them, late into the night, waiting for that last load to be delivered to the dryers at the middle place or the south place, and my mom promising me that this was the final haul as she swung back into the tractor, throttling up the engine to the tractor's highway speeds, getting her daughter home and to bed.

There are sounds here that are reminiscent of the tractor's high drone, and it is one of the most comforting sounds I can imagine hearing. Whenever I'd hear that sound, I'd know one of my parents, most likely my mom, was coming home. With the final thrust of energy available to them, they'd stay out late into the night, sometimes all night, getting in the crops in time for the snows that threatened to obscure the fruits of that year's labor, with winter days ahead promising time to rest and tend to family life, such as it was until my parents separated and divorced, their crash and burn linked with the demise of their farm, farm and family crumbling from the debt they'd incurred to keep the farm running through drought and flood, the poor farming economy of the 80s and early 90s driving my dad to take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to keep his family farm afloat, and then having to auction off the land, equipment, and his pride, as my mom stood alongside him, wondering why she hadn't kept more informed of their financial bottom line from the beginning. It suddenly became my dad's farm, my dad's equipment, my dad's loss, my dad's money, my dad's pride that was the issue. My mom's contribution was denied. Her time on the tractor was no longer relevant, her sweat and blood and tears invisible, like vapor.

There is much I could write about how my family's disintegration dovetailed with that of the farm, but my point is to instead illustrate the comfort that this time of year represents to me in the annals of nostalgia and anticipation and childhood. The nostalgia I feel when I hear that high lonesome drone assures me that all is well, that a warm bed waits for me, that soon the waiting and harvesting and long strength needed to weather the hard knock of skull against back window of tractor cab will give rise to something else, and whatever that something else turns out to be, it will be restorative and nourishing and a lot like coming home.

Onto the Oregon Trail

2005-10-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

Now it is happening. Doug got the job offer, and we are off to the Oregon coast! I cannot express how wonderful it feels to think about living by the ocean, nor can I explain how easily it's come to be that we are moving there in a few (or two?) weeks. This comes on the heels of me receiving a job offer from the Red Rock News to be a features writer and copy editor. I was waiting to see which presented itself most clearly, and now we are following the road as it unfurls before us. You could say I'm excited, because I'm outta my mind excited. Ready to pop or float, not sure which.

There's an aquarium in nearby Newport, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, that I've queried in the past couple of weeks, but I'm going to have to contact somebody over the phone tomorrow because this email business isn't working. Maybe November will find me working in the library again, or maybe something totally unexpected will come over the horizon in the next few weeks. I feel so blessed to breathe the cool autumn air outside and feel chilly, really chilly, at night again. Chilly and giddy and ready to welcome the changes ahead.

BioAstroRhythm

2005-10-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

What is Scorpio? A Paradox, in Reverse

Scorpio is blue eyes gazing into starry black night, not the Milky Way.

Scorpio is luminous,
a silhoutte brightened by the shadows.

Scorpio is wanting to but not always knowing how.

Scorpio is distraction mindful of itself.

Scorpio is craving.

Scorpio is seeing beauty not skin deep.

Scorpio is laughter bouncing back from unseen walls.

Scorpio is always, always an enchantress.

Scorpio thinks three dimensions are boring.

Scorpio is a dream weaver, a healer.

And sometimes,
Scorpio is full of shit.

Morning in the City in the Desert

2005-10-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Dawn

A twitchy stillness
sallow vibrations
within the early Monday morning rush phase,
unexpected, like love suddenly with lust,
in a valley between canyons and mountains
where the people
(considered a continuous equation)
work, drive, play, eat, sleep, dream, fuck, die
but the gray marauders of the early light bringing the stillness on
always scent the air for danger and pause to wait before stepping
lest a roaming shadow of this era
move to harm them.

Aggressively passive most of the time
the sleeping male relies on his mate
to protect him while he sleeps
she keeps watch like the wild thing she is
like a mother
like a jealous lover
nervous to be on time someplace
she paces and snorts
huffing and stamping when a new potential threat
enters the silence they hollow out from the dirt.

In an overdeveloped metropolitan wasteland of cement
and freeways and yuppies and suburbs
it figures they would rest in this patch of desert
so near their mountains of origin,
wander past their boundaries of descent
and find a new peace, the silent lark, in the fringes of desert in the city.

They broadcast their stillness through the superficial noise
and inane cell phone chatter,
a new wave kind of soundlessness.

Sky kisses the morning while the javelina sleep,
mostly silent, in the city.

Almost Published

2005-10-07T10:27:00.001-07:00

McSweeney's said that they were tempted, but that they had decided against publishing it in the end because they get too many good sestinas to post. They seriously considered it, and that, I think, is a success.

So here it is, on my site.

Black Tides Under a Restless Night

You aftershave is poison
a potion prepared for your face after anointing it with water
when you cut yourself, and you bleed,
and it hurts like a sunnuffabitch, baby,
but with my touch, I say I can heal,
I can heal you with my touch.

As I wonder about your touch
if it would be poison,
a scorpion to sting me, not heal,
perhaps a breeze on the water,
where ocean salt tastes like tears, baby,
where waves plead and make my heart bleed.

But as I bleed
I speak to you of rivers that do not touch
of whether I will ever conceive a baby
whether my womb is poison,
whether it would fill with foul water
or after birthing, heal.

Chiron speaks of wounds that never heal
always picking the scab, waiting for it to bleed,
the eternal peroxide bottle on standby for water,
you, for a mother’s hands, a gentle touch,
me, for the hot thing to relinquish its poison,
for the moon to speak my name, baby.

I will not eat the meat if it comes from a baby.
I pray for our culture to heal
while we both wait for it to eject its poison,
believing that to live is to bleed,
for the dead do not bleed or feel a lover’s touch
and blood is always thicker than water;

water is not thicker than blood.
And my pillows sigh as they wait for you, baby,
my ivy tangled in the cornfields waits for your touch,
for our shackled souls to heal,
though every 28 days I bleed,
glad to be alive and know the fear of poison.

My soul bleeds water and by firelight I heal,
for it is a blessing to bleed and by a full moon wait for your touch,
but some still say that your touch is poison.

For Love of a Dog

2005-10-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Editor:

I recently had an experience at the Verde Valley Humane Society that I think fellow animal lovers may find interesting. After all the press surrounding neglect and abuse allegations at that facility, I assumed that there would be no obvious signs of ineptitude or neglect when I visited to meet the dog I’d found online, having determined that my future dog would come from the V.V.H.S. because I wasn’t convinced that everything was hunky dory there, especially considering the Letter to the Editor by the Cornville resident who volunteered there ( ) and despite having been cleared by the authorities of any wrongdoing. I also fell in love with the face I saw on my screen, described as the mug of an Irish Wolfhound/German Shepherd mix.

I’d left several messages the day before, while the facility was closed, notifying them that I wanted to meet this dog, and I followed up my phone calls around noon the next day to make sure he was still available. He was, but I was told the facility closed at 1 pm that day, and I assured the receptionist that I would be there, but I was driving from Camp Verde, so please bear that in mind, but that I would be there as soon as I could, say half an hour.

After being trailed by two police officers for the majority of my drive down Why 260, I arrived at the facility, excited to meet the dog and make arrangements to adopt him if we hit it off. The receptionist refused to allow me back in the kennel area because it was 1:00 and they were closed, the computers were down, and that was that. I explained that I had just called about a dog, and all I wanted to do was meet him, that I was sorry I had been delayed due to driving a steady 55 all the way from the outer limits of Camp Verde. After I protested that the dog was there to be adopted, and that it was her job to facilitate adoptions, and that it would only take a minute, she sucked in her breath, shot me a look, and dialed a kennel attendant to open up his kennel.

When I met the dog, I knew he was the one, even though I was dismayed at the lack of energy he displayed, not standing as I approached, not even sitting up to meet me when I entered the kennel, kneeling to pet this beautiful giant prostrated on his side, his backbone protruding visibly through his skin, his face gaunt and narrow, ribs clearly defined, his hip bones jutting and sharp. I declared my intentions to adopt him, went back out front and thanked them for their help, and asked if I could take the paperwork home with me, thinking I could fax it in the next day. The receptionist told me I was not allowed to fill out the paperwork at home, and when I asked why, she said those were the rules and that I would have to come back in the morning. As I protested such a silly rule, telling her that work would prevent me from making another trip across the valley, and that the dog was visibly malnourished and weak and needed to be adopted as soon as possible, another vehicle pulled up and an older gentlemen walked up with his granddaughter, wanting to look at the puppies. They, too, had driven from Camp Verde and were puzzled at the sign that said 10-1, thinking that the humane society was closed during these hours instead of open. She told them they would have to drive back tomorrow, as the facility was closed. They left, and at this point, she became openly rude and nasty with me, telling me they would only hold the dog for me for 24 hours, even if I couldn’t return the next day, and I turned my back to her and walked out.

When I returned home, I immediately left a message for the director, describing my experience of a half hour ago. I advised her that I had just alerted the media about my experience and expressed my confusion that an animal held at her facility would be in such poor physical condition, although I had no way of knowing how long he had been at her facility, and that I would wait to speak with her before I came out, guns blaring, alerting everyone within reading distance that more investigations were needed about the Verde Valley Humane Society. I never spoke with her, although I returned twice more to the facility within the next three days.

I discovered my dog had been there for two and half weeks, the same amount of time in which the gained approximately five pounds after I assumed his care. And, miraculously, the staff was wonderfully accommodating and friendly when I returned.

My dog is wonderful, steadily gaining weight week by week and filling out to his full size and magnificence, and I can’t imagine life without him now. I wonder why the people charged with rescuing and protecting animals in the community fail them so miserably, and the public they serve. I sincerely hope that no other animals waste away in the Verde Valley Humane Society, and that when an animal in Camp Verde is found in a hot metal trailer during the last part of July, that our animal control personnel respond by rescuing that animal, not walking away because it’s time for them to also go home for the day. My mom is a nurse in the OR, charged with people’s lives every day, and most days, she doesn’t get to go home when her shift is over. She stays, and takes care of the needs of her patient. Shouldn’t those responsible for animal welfare do the same?

Eclipsed by a Garden Cart

2005-10-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

I turn and scoop me out of this cracked eggshell.
Soft-boiled again. Damn.

I have been reading some very interesting blogs lately, which have re-affirmed my desire to be a part of blog culture. I may be isolated in the desert, but there is some kind of connection forged to other like-minded beings through this machine.

I particularly enjoy reading about how this time of year affects people. Being an autumn baby, November born, I have become accustomed to craving this period of increasing darkness and longer shadows. It feels like coming home as the sun moves from Libra into Scorpio, but this experience is complicated by crawling through the dark of the moon to a solar eclipse. Heavy. Intense. Bizarre. Three adjectives which suitably describe me right now.

# # #

My lower back gave out yesterday, after I'd reinjured it a week ago to the day, tweaking the area weakened and originally injured by working on an organic farm using faulty equipment (hint: never agree to use a garden cart with a flat tire, let alone two; oxen don't even do this). I should not even be sitting here, but the bed-rest regimen was wearing on me, and I won't be able to complete this post until later, but I needed to start it.

Okay, so this is going to be abruptly abbreviated. I'll leave off with this:

I will dance with the dragon instead of fight it.

Bowing to this Loud Feeling

2005-09-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

After Meeting Skeleton Woman

She's a shaker of stones, this one. The original rattlesnake. So hot, she feels cold. So cold, she feels hot. Her language is a code, an amalgam of old words and gestures.

She floats on the dawn, breathes mist in the morning, shudders when she wakes, and howls. Her life, a wild freedom: she lives it in the deep. Awake, and alive where ocean serpents sleep, secured -- she, their secret.

Sometimes she loops back on herself. It feels like sliding down the mountain. It feels like release. She might slip off the planet. She welcomes the rush. Her knees are not brakes on the mountain, more than metaphor. The wind breathes her name.

Tiger striped yellow on black, creature in negative. She climbs on its back, rides air. Moored to the Earth by loose gravity, a magnet to hot flame.

Like steel, forged smooth, her bones. Coal-smoked eyes above a purple tongue, flicks sticky dew when mouth parts to laugh. Voice grained from pain. From guiding ships through wave and mist. From administering the rain.

Her bosom swells to sunset, heaves from enfolding sun in night till dawn. Her afterglow, a rainbow. Her precision, a beat.

For Renee

2005-09-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Drunk on Captain Morgan and Coke, Dances with Broomstick

You always braved the deep spells of my blackness
and looked into my eyes without flinching
your blue orbs fastened on what you saw there
fashioning with bold charcoal strokes
a smile from the grief that held me
captive, roots for this ivy in the corn fields
your long artist's fingers
brushing back, making straight
the remnants of what held me together
weaving onto the warp of me
a design that is held here still
a design made clearer with desert blowing
and heat
a design become finer with age.

We cackled and snorted like bawdy old women
recited Chaucer waving cigarettes
and would've made the dead wretch
blow a thonderdent in his grave.
We were poor, and floated on the morning,
as we waited for the familiar of night
to welcome us into our true skins
becoming tigresses after the moon rose,
stalking off, into the bright beam,
to hunt what eluded us
to pursue what we craved
We became one with the Earth
and we called her by name.

You listened to my bad poetry
my wretched theories about life
my constant analysis of what was wrong
with this planet as I tried to shed
it from me, like a chrysalis outgrown,
and you always believed I would someday
be a butterfly
you never mocked me for remaining a caterpillar.

On the most fundamental level
I am female and I am a tree
and you are roots that feed me,
making me green and wet and alive
like those eagles
we watched soaring over the corn fields
and forests, riding the invisible,
the currents of motion,
in deep, long-necked dives,
rising up again to challenge
the wind, coming up against it,
defending, maintaining position,
no altitude lost, nor progress made,
waiting for the proper updraft
to glide away on, and being a victim
of no one, fly on to new lands
and visions. If our dreams keep us hostage
pursuing us while we sleep
as nightmares, then we
will wage war with the predator,
for that, we know, is its name.

We were the steam-soaked preambles of potential,
now young women, strong and free,
not yet mothers, no longer maids, we
swoop on our own updrafts and heal
to transform
and become ourselves at last, finally.

Back to the Wall, Fangs Bared

2005-09-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Right. Last post had me bitching about lack of publishing opportunities in this area for a hip little filly like me. Now I am embarking on another mission.

Mission Get The Fuck Outta Here.

In order to be successful in this mission, I must be resourceful, creative, and persistent. I must have moxie, verve, and vast reserves of self-confidence. I must not give up even when certain people (who shall remain nameless) will not deign to respond to my queries. I must not allow my working class roots to trip me up. I must not be afraid. Because if you've ever watched (or read) The Children of Dune, you know that fear is the mindkiller. And really, I'm not afraid of anything except my own boogeymen. Stare 'em down, a few paces back, and charge.

Now I must ask, very nicely, if you, Compassionate Reader, will do me a favor. It's painless. Altruistic. And, though it won't get you laid, it might help you feel better about yourself for not commenting sooner. Please tell me:

Who is your favorite indie publisher?

Just type in the name and be off! That's it! Simple! Like drinking straight out of the milk jug! And no guilt! I won't care if that's all you say!

I've got my own list, but there are many out there. I'm researching them all through the Internet, but I need you to two cent me. I need help. There, I said it.

I specified independent publishers because I don't do corporate, mostly because corporate is always doing me. Without my consent. And near as I can tell, all major corporations do is amass wealth for the few while putting their feet to everyone else's necks. And that includes you. Unless you're wealthy. In which case, good for you. Wanna share with the rest of us?

Working-class feminist consciousness marching onward . . . .