accessibility

one of the things i always talk about, perhaps not so much in words, but in my whole manner of being, is accessibility.

the poets who know me, know i make this the plumbline.

but tonight, as i sat with world class musicians, who know me as poet, who give more more respect than those closest, i wonder.

what is accessibility?

what does it mean?

i see the creatives walking around in their own little bubbles. consumed with thought, idea, imagery. it is hard to penetrate this world. to even know how to let down the bridge for another to cross over.

and when one does, it's a wonderment (as one i love would say).

my bridge grows rusty, and i feel locked in, in many ways.

into what i cannot explain.

you have to have your own personal bubble to understand mine.

wrote a ton of poetry tonight. and i don't know if it is simply crap or if it is accessible. it's a curious thing to be around creatives who can draw that out. to be around souls who can throw down with me creatively.

it's been a longtime. a very long time since i've felt matched and my kindred is gone.

who then cares to understand
and how do i find the words for this place.

xongx

weary blues by madeline peyroux


Weary blues from waitin’
Lord, I’ve been waitin’ so long
These blues have got me cryin’
Oh, sweet daddy please come home

The snow falls ’round my window
But it can’t chill my heart
God knows it died the day you left
My dream world fell apart.

Weary blues from waitin’
Lord, I’ve been waitin’ so long
These blues have got me cryin’
Oh, sweet daddy please come home
Oh, sweet daddy please come home

Through tears I watch young lovers
As they go strollin’ by
And all the things that might have been
God forgive me if I cry

Weary blues from waitin’
Lord, I’ve been waitin’ so long
These blues have got me cryin’
Oh, sweet daddy please come home
Oh, sweet daddy please come home


...


god by tori amos


God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you
God sometimes you just don't come through

You make pretty daisies pretty daisies
Love I gotta find what you're doing about things
Here a few witches burning
Gets a little toasty here
I gotta find why you always go when the wind blows
Tell me you're crazy maybe then I'll understand
You got your 9 iron in the back seat
Just in case
Heard you're gone south well
Babe you love your new 4 wheel
I gotta find why you always go when the wind blows

Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall
Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky

God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you
God sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you
God sometimes you just don't come through

...

bells for her by tori amos




And through the life force and there goes her friend
On her Nishiki it's out of time
And through the portal they can make amends

He would you say whatever we're blanket friends
Can't stop what's coming
Can't stop what is on its way

And through the walls they made their mudpies
I've got your mind I said she said I've your voice
I said you don't need my voice girl you have your own
But you never thought it was enough of
So they went years and years
Like sisters blanket girls
Always there through that and this
There's nothing we cannot ever fix I said

Can't stop what's coming
Can't stop what is on it's way
Bells and footfalls and soldiers and dolls
Brothers and lovers she and I were
Now she seems to be sand under his shoes
There's nothing I can do
Can't stop what's coming
Can't stop what is on it's way

And now I speak to you, are you in there
You have her face and her eyes
But you are not her
And we go at each other
Like blank ettes who can't find
Their thread and they're bare

Can't stop loving
Can't stop what is on its way
And I see it coming and It's on its way

breathtakingly beautiful

that's the kind of crap i'd say to someone. i tend to gush, but only over certain people. the ones who draw it out of me. it is not often i elicit said gushing from these giants whose feet i scamper around trying to keep from getting squished.

it's tough living in the land of brilliance, one begins to think they can do just about anything. so many bright folks for company, such winsome words, and wise counsel, how can i not shine?

today, in my own little fearful and trembling world a giant looked down and said,

this is breathtakingly beautiful.

and i am inclined to believe him.

i want to write beautifully, not just tragicly (is that even a word?).

i want to actually be published, but on my own terms, always on my own terms.

obscurity then is the price i pay.

and sometimes, when a giant says,

look how you've grown!

i see a bit farther, i look a bit longer at the horizon and how i long to go there someday. and maybe, maybe today i'll just try.

blaze of glory

i wouldn't be the first to go up in flames, shall we say. but sometimes i wonder if that isn't why people hang around the periphery of my life, to see if this will finally be the thing that makes me combust.

i've complained about work off and on since i got the job. the a/c has been mostly off since april, and it was a HOT summer.

well, it's off again.

and i talked to the district manager of our store who said,
"I DON'T CARE"

and that was it for me.

i clicked into activist mode.

i who hates politics. i who hates anything even smacking of activism, got my blinders on and called the only number i could find.

i just got off the phone with human resources and i told them they could use my name to speak with the person who pissed me off.

i'm all about taking responsibility for what i say. but i just want to see some action. we're dying in the heat, and i've lost the optimism of my earlier days with this company.

something about, i don't care did it.

hmmm.

we'll see. i should probably put an application in somewhere else just to be on the safe side.

i'm not angry, yes i am.

that is how the dialogue in my head goes. back and forth. i think i've finally zenned out and then someone does something in traffic and i'm a sailor again.

sigh.

such is life.

so, i just keep moving forward. unable to stave off the unwanted feelings, or as metallica calls them: the unnamed feeling. i just keep moving forward. looking at something unbecoming and saying, yes you're hideous, but there you are.

reading this book about christianity versus tribal religions. and whoa, what a mindblower that is. i hadn't thought about how absurd much of it looks from the outside (why i hadn't thought about it is probably the essential perspective of subjectivity one must possess to be a part of any group).

we're going to drink koolaid and aliens are going to pick us up, great idea!

no, not so much. but there you have it. cults are formed everyday with that whole thing in mind.

i've realized, i'm not wanting to be a part of any group. just peek in the doors of a few, but not walk in and sign up. never been much of a signer upper.

more of a let me forge my own way kind of gal.

and so i shall.

sometimes i think i understand the pattern of my life, that i see some strange design coming together, but i confess, i have no clue. it's a crazy quilt at best, my life. and i don't know that the one doing the sewing has any real idea what the outcome will be. any ultimate design.

i realized playing chess with a friend briefly that i move shit around to see what happens. i never really have a plan or strategy. i just do the next thing. very blind that way. perhaps it's the kind of life that would lead one out of a labyrinth because panic would never set in.

once in a house of mirrors, i felt a tad discombobulated, and then just looked down and followed the floor pattern, it was so easy to distinguish there which way to go, while looking around made my head spin.

i didn't like being in there. and i won't go back. but at least if i ever end up in a mirrored house, i can find my way out, that much i know.

in thinking about the dark things, the ugliness of my life, writing a lot about it right now, i've come to realize that i can't produce the effects i want.

i can't make myself to be other than i am right now.

so if i'm angry trying not to be angry doesn't help.

but i am trying to be aware of my anger in the moment, because perhaps then i'll see the triggers and learn to cope with them better, somehow.

i don't know. as usual, i don't know much of anything. though i sure use a lot of words to get to that point.

peace.

die hard.

so much to do, sometimes i have to just stop and write to figure out where i am, where my head is at. and there is only one reader i want to read who won't, so why do i bother? i just don't know. because i hope.

a friend told me,

that is the problem. hope. it's holding you back.

and i didn't understand until i read a passage by thich nhat hahn, that talks about

hope being always for tomorrow. it is not for the moment.

he said the same thing,

kill hope. (or let hope die, something like that).

it made perfect sense to me, but i am finding hope dies hard.

it still springs up in me though i try to douse it and squash it out.

i can't not hope.

just like i can't not be grateful.

even when my life is in the shitter, i am still grateful.

when i'm so weary and exhausted, i'm grateful i'm still functioning.

gratitude just rises up without my even trying to be grateful.

sometimes, i think my life would be easier if i could just be ungrateful, but i'm so damn grateful, i can't be ungrateful and i don't really understand it.

what is there in my life to be grateful for?

i remember when times were really hard, and i had to scrounge around for something to be grateful for, i'm breathing in and breathing out (i think i phrased it, i breathe in, for that i'm grateful).

things have not gotten that bad in those ways.

once you've been on the skids like that, it's hard to take even hardships negatively.

i'm so fucking grateful.

but i'm using bad language a lot lately.

i think i'm also angry. frustrated.

and that is something that needs to change. but how?

i don't really know. even when i was in fifth grade i cussed like a sailor. i swear, i had a bad mouth.

but now, i don't even hold it back and it's bad.

i'm not sure how one goes about changing their life, but mine could use an overhaul in many areas. this being one.

i guess i'll just have to take it moment by moment.

my daughter is reminding me when we visit her cousins i need to not cuss.

i say,

yes, daughter.

she says,

when do you need to start practicing?

now, probably.

but i keep failing. so i will try again tomorrow.

i'm angry. that is what it comes down to.

my sister and i were discussing our emotions and my two are hopelessness and rage. i vascillate between the two pretty regularly.

but i'm also grateful and hopeful.

strange.

i don't understand it. but that doesn't surprise me.

peace.

devour them

belly dancing and tai chi classes started again. and while i have no time for them, i enrolled, forcing myself to take time for myself in this crazed autopilot of a schedule which has become my life.

my bohemian of a teacher, thin as a rail, cut like a stallion in his prime, she's a sight to behold.

she's explaining her theory of teaching more now. spent some time at the beginning of class, lecturing, i guess you could call it.

seduce yourself, this dance isn't really about performance.

which is quite the revelation.

mesmerize yourself, and draw others in that way. devour them into the dance.

a phrase i particularly liked.

all this while she is adoring the movement of her hands and arm, up, then down, circling her writsts slightly, tipping her head forward to gaze demurely.

then we start with the isolations and she kicks our asses.

this woman teaches pilates, yoga, belly dancing, pole dancing, and God knows what else. watching her move, she's taken to standing right before new students so they can put their hands on her hips and feel her bones move, that way they get the idea of the dance (i get the idea of the dance, and have not yet once had to hold her hips--which would be weird). though she did hold my hips last class and told me to sit into my hip drop deeper. but my thigh was burning and it was tough. i had been doing lifts and drops for about five minutes at that point. plus, i work out before i go to class.

got weighed and measured last time i went to work out, and i knew i'd fallen off the narrow road to slimmer thighs when work started scheduling me endlessly.

so now, i try to go thrice a week, but end up going as i can.

i try to eat healthful meals, but do the best i can.

it is all better than it was. i am working out more than i was, eating better than i was. and my sins of late shall be forgiven.

besides, winter's coming and i get to pile on the sweaters and purple ugs i love so much, so who's going to notice a few more inches of me?

no one around here, that's for sure.

devour them into the dance.

that is my new motto.

remember how to fight

perhaps i've never mentioned it, seemed like ancient history since i've been doing this blog thing. but i battled carpal tunnel for a few years in my past. dark years. a time when i could not write. deprive the artist his art and he must adapt or fall apart.

i'm too stubborn to fall apart. not now. not when so much i've wanted is coming together, perhaps not in fullness yet, but it has begun.

i turned in my first paper this past week. some 33 pages when only 4 were required. overkill, yes. but i was writing about poetry. something i can go on and on and on about. my professor, gracious intrepid soul that he is, enjoyed the work and had much helpful input.

of course he got me on the fragments. but i have to ask myself, what is a sentence? a unit of thought or a unit of grammar? if it is a unit of thought, a fragment is also a thoughtunit. a poetic, thoughtunit.

my prof says my fragments create a wonderful rhythm if i would just connect them. since i have to adhere to the rules of grammar, i will oblige. though, i do not know if i can spot them all myself. i must make this known to him. the fragement is as wonderfully whole to me as the grammatically correct sentence.

i come by it honestly being a poet.

i lay down tonight and tried to sleep but could only cry. so i got up to do something other than just blubber the night away. though i must now save my arms and wrists and hands, i can write a bit.

i trust it will be well. that my body is just saying, remember to rest. and rest i do. today, after waking up at 10, i went back to bed and woke up at 2:30. so much for a day off. but at least i'm rested. sleep has been a luxury around here that i don't indulge in often. i sleep because i must, but not because i want to.

there is simply so much going on in my life right now, that i have to creatively hibernate, and for me, that means sleep.

homeschooling in earnest now, it looks to be a good year.

an eaglewatching hike coming up this fall and i can't wait. an all day affair, hope i'm up to it. and my girl too, we will hike an appalachian trail i've wanted to brave for some time now.

but i must go, save my arms.

so if you don't hear from me, this is why. priorities. school first. poetry second. chitchat third.

peace.

the macarena is so not dead.

not only did i stay up with our group of girls until after midnight WITHOUT complaining, i stayed in the room with the dj (yes, there was a dj--oh wait, the pc term is "entertainer" i know this because i met one outside the liquor store the other night. i'll have to remember to tell you that story).

while they piped tunes directly at the only table that happened to be lit with good reading light (imagine me sitting there reading a tedious chapter on archaeology of the pueblos--i hate introductions, where they tell you what they are going to tell you--JUST TELL ME! they feel like such a needless waste of time and time is no longer a commodity i possess in excess. but i must read all the pages of a book regardless of tedium because that is my nature).

i'm sitting there, my daughter walks up on occasion to see if i will come and dance with her, which i oblige when the chicken dance comes on (it's such a rediculous song, how can you not dance like a chicken? i am not made of stone).

but the moms were bitches. i hate generalizations, but generally, when there are camp events and all leaders and only leaders are present, these are women who are used to accomodating all kinds and types of girls. not so different when dealing with other adults. many, many times, i am surprised by how open these leaderwomen are. but when it is a mom/daughter thing, i'm often offput by interactions with these ladies. what's the difference? i guess the service nature of leadership brings out the best in people. and the mom/daughter gigs are just fraught with bitches.

but we laughed and got on. i was so pleased when my daughter who had taken to pouting (they all take turns at the pout), jumped at the chance to lead a song around the campfire. instead of grabbing the spotlight (or flashlight) for herself, she rallied her begrudging girl friends to sing along with her even taking time to instruct them in the lyrics there were suddenly so interested in (when she presented the idea of learning songs on the way to camp she was denied, much to her dismay).

but all ends well. and hypocrisy knows no bounds. we sing all kinds of gross songs around the fire, and our girls sing one about the demise of varying animals (in rhyme, no less), and are met with "that's disgusting." which immediately forged that song as THE song for our girls to sing. it will forever be their camp song, the uniter of the girls who were at times at odds.

when they got up to sing, they were asked,

where are you from?

and when they answered one of the moms blurted,

what are they doing here?

sigh. bitches.

we went to our cabin after the "disgusting song"
and guess who our bunkmates are?

you're right. the blurter's group.

whatever, we roll with the punches and move on.
we got woefully lost on the way to camp, and stumbled in a full hour after passing and circling the location. we wandered into another camp nearby who gave us directions. apparently the sign for the camp we were looking for was a big orange circle.

i know that circle,

i said,

we passed it several times.

so through out the time there, we kept joking about the orange circle. we are going to get tshirts made with a big orange circle on them.

we played bingo and the waiting was the worst part. but the girls and i got a case of bingo pox, and laughed our way through.

more pouting ensued for varying reasons and we rounded out the event in rowboats on the lake.

it was a great time.

inspiring musicians

so, i wrote a series of poems, seems all i do is write series, and the musician who is a phenom pianist (carnegie hall calibur), was so inspired by the one i wrote for him, he wants to read them during his recital on saturday and name his first cd after the poem i wrote for him.

holy shit!

it makes me laugh, it makes me smile. it gives me great delight. that my little babies are finding their way in the world.

there is no telling what a poem can do. what mysteries a poem can unlock. what great avenues of soul they will reveal.

sadly, i cannot read my own poems at his recital (HOW I'D LOVE TO!), but i gave permission to have them read, nonetheless.

so often the artist's way feels in vain. like there is no substance to it. it is all mist and cloud. the fog of a soul who is living here and on another planet at the same time.

that my little poem could inspire this wonderful WONDERFUL musician, seems only to be the grace of God.

i'd rather have this than traditional publication anyday.

these little unknown triumphs. these little huzzahs.

now if only i could get off work and read the poems myself.

time to scuttle around and see if i can't make that happen.
my manager owes me (BIG TIME!)

so maybe, just maybe.

peace.