blessing people, blesses people

i'm getting a part-time job. for many reasons, not the least of which, i don't mean to miss any more poetry shindigs if i can help it (though my availability in terms of time is now an issue, at least when i will be free, i can afford to go).

it's no great secret i'm not rolling in dough. i never have been. i'm like all native people when i have money, i give it away. i haven't had much money to give away of late. but i still try to give of my time and talents. at least i can do that.

so the new thing at grocery stores is selfcheckout. being impatient, i like this option, plus, it is one less person i have the potential of barking at (i must save my niceness for those i deal with, eliminating an actual person here or there is a good thing in my book, but i'm from LA. people are bothersome. i'd much rather do automated anyday. which reminds me, i went to the bank and did the drive up window instead of the atm. what a pain that was. it takes five seconds for me to make a deposit in the atm, but i kid you not, i must have waited at least five minutes for this human to complete my transaction. sheesh! but i didn't want to get out of the car and they didn't have a drive up atm. i was stuck.)

so, the cash dispenser for these selfcheckout machines is down in the crotch region. and unless you've got eyes down there, you might forget your money. at least the last couple times i've been there, the ladies in front of me have forgotten theirs.

the first time it happened, i didn't pay enough attention to actually give the lady her money. i walked around in the parking lot looking for what i believed to be her. brunette with a bob. that was all i could remember. my girl didn't pay much attention either, so when we went back into the store, i turned the money in to the customer service person, my girl said,

that is what a girl scout would do.

i am a girl scout.

she smiled. and we left.

last night, i'm shopping, i am supposed to get $6 change. there is about $100 sitting in the little money spitterouter. so i grab it, cram my groceries in a bag, and run out to the parking lot, knowing i saw this lady and she was sooooooo damn slow bagging her groceries, i'm sure i could catch her.

i went up to one lady, and it wasn't her.

couldn't find her. so i prayed.

then i saw her getting in to her car, that phone pressed up against her ear. still yammering on. oblivious.

ma'am!

yes.

she stepped out of her car.

did you check out in front of me?

yes.

you forgot your money.

i'm sorry.

no problem, it's your money.

i'm sorry.

(she kept saying, which is so not the right response.)

anyway, a lady a couple cars over got this grin on her face like she'd done a good deed. and it made me smile. blessing people, blesses people. that is all i can say.

i need to not only pay attention to the lady in front of me, but remember to check that cash area to keep from having to crush my bread and sprint out of the store to catch the distracted souls.

i don't want money that isn't mine. i don't want pity. i just want to do what i was put here to do. and last night, that was sprinting out of the store to one distracted lady (who still wasn't finished with her phone call when i walked away from her).

i'm mailing off my poetry entry for the discovery poetry prize. keep your fingers crossed kids. it's a big deal. i'd like to win. the prize is publication, a read in nyc, and $500. Lord knows, i could use a few bucks. but the kind i earn, not the kind i steal.

peace.

size does matter

when i first thought of writing this little ditty, i was holding a small salad plate and putting my eggs and toast on it

(eat breakfast,

the lady at the gym says).

so i use small plates, sometimes a shallow salad bowl for dinner (i've never had an aversion, like my sister, to food touching. i like it all mingled together. my palate sucks my husband would say). once in a bible study talking with some folk, they said,

you can lose ten pounds by just decreasing your portions when you eat.

(that may not be the exact amount of weight, but it was significant enough for me to make a note of it and incorporate it into my life. i don't eat regularly, and that is another issue: 5 or 6 small meals--or a meal then snack, preferrably protein is the mantra. i'm lucky to eat two meals a day, i just don't live to eat folks.)

tonight, for workout numero dos, i bumbled into a crowd of large hineys in unmatching duds. i was in heaven. i got nothing against the small hiney set, except, well, mine is bigger. (why is that a good thing for men and not for women?) i don't know.

i didn't talk much, but my girl was there laughing at me as i made silly faces, i am decidely more approachable with my child in tow, than not. kids make you drop the facades. plus, i was doing this chorus line kick that nearly floored me. everything seemed to lock up on the ascent. so i took it easier. did lame little kicks rather than showgirl kicks. i would sure like to break out some old karate moves, but it's been a while, and there isn't the floorspace. bummer.

forgot my mp3 player again, but the lady there was the one who took my delicate digits. i guess because she knows the sordid details i somehow feel i don't have to hide from her. and there is that connection of her being the one who shows me how to do whatever it is i'm supposed to be doing.

this tall reed of a lady jumped in the circut one machine ahead of me, and spaced out at one point, didn't move at the appropriate time, so i jumped ahead of her two machines. these people. causing traffic. i hate it.

i also realized, the last two minutes of a workout seem to stretch out to infinity, whereas the first fifteen, seem to fly.

i kept my heart rate up, didn't get two glasses down the gullet before i went in but i'll try to suck down another tonight.

large glasses, because, size matters.

the beautiful people

did my first workout tonight. the place was full of perfect women with tiny butts and matching excercise suits. i fit right in.

i tried not to let it bother me. hating to be judged externally. i didn't say more than two words to anyone. and wished i'd brought my mp3 player along to keep me company. i really doubt they'll ever play tori amos or metallica. and this sweating to the oldies crap they play is really not for me.

i try not to be antisocial, but chit chat comes hard to me. i'd rather be silent. it makes more sense in my mind to just be silent than prattle on about nothing. (like i do here. ha!)

i've almost finished my second big glass of water today (that was my goal). i got my heart rate up where it needed to be, put in my time, and lit on outta there.

i'm not desperate for people to talk to. i'm not into updating strangers about my life. it's not the kind of place you can have a conversation with only one person in hushed tones. and those are really the only kinds of conversations i care to have at this point. the kind that two people lean into each other and have.

my best friend in seattle pulled over on the freeway, the 91 in california, not a small freeway, once. she and i were talking and she stopped right in the middle of the offramp because i clammed up about something.

she called me a couple nights ago, and tells me she has stopped on the freeway again (i don't know the freeways in seattle or i'd tell you), and she is sitting by the side of the road talking to me. she sat there for at least an hour. i didn't realize she was doing that (when i did, i kept asking her to drive home).

my other best friend in texas said,

if you come back, i'll quit teaching.

why,

i said.

to spend more time with you.

it really left me speechless. have you ever had friends like this? people who rally around you and hold you up. people who know you so completely you believe their counsel and trust them to be utterly honest even when the topics get really brutal.

those are the kinds of people i'm used to talking to. so if you want me to spill my guts on a step machine, it ain't going to happen. but if you spend some time, don't mind my colorful clothing and not regulation size hiney, then we'll get along just fine. (did you know the air force pilots have to have a regulation size hiney to fly?) wild.

needless to say, i won't be flying jets any time soon.

oh, no!

there is a poem i wrote some time back. about things i don't want to know. i learned one of those things tonight. my sister gave me a membership to a gym. they checked my oil and looked under the hood, introduced me to the machines and told me my body fat index. oh Lord, that i could have done without.

i've never been thin, but i'm short. so on those graph charts that say how thin you should be, i should weigh something i've weighed only once when i was ten probably. (see, i'm trying to do all this without spilling my digits. very delicate digits there).

i applied for my passport today. the lady told me,

they are probably going to reject your signature.

great,

i said,

what do i do? that is my signature.

you remember those spirographs from back in the day? they make those swirly patterns? well, that is how my signature looks. so i said,

please photocopy my social so they can see that i actually sign that way.

and she did, said,

it might help.

can you photocopy my license? it's signed that way there too?

no, they can access it.

she said.

it looks like a child's scribble, not to be demeaning.

she was trying to be nice, honesty is brutal sometimes. if i can dish it out, i sure as hell better learn to take it, eh?

i've hung it up over at ma. i was a burden i think. something about setting myself up as the wounded artist. i don't know that it is a show. it just is. i'm a wreck. how it comes across on the page, if i seem to be feigning woundedness, i don't know. but i do know it was time for me to walk away from yet another group.

i read to a crowd of hardened nj poets the other night. i was so well recieved that it is hard for me to miss anyone passing from my life these days. there is just so much happening in terms of art.

when i went to the gym tonight the lady sharing my delicate digits asked me,

what is your occupation?

poet.

i said.

i've never met a poet before.

hopefully, it will go well, i will drag myself back to the gym where i was rebuked for not drinking enough water (i drink tea and coffee.

they dehydrate you,

she says.

you must drink water!)

fine. fine. and i must work out three times a week. it will help my head. i've needed a new diversion. excercise will do.

unfeigned light

so i didn't want to just come up with something happy to say. to pop out of the box, because those who know me, who read me would know it were a lie. i had to wait, until the time for my emergence. and today, the liturgy blessed me again. the hymns, called me from the darkness into the light. i don't understand it really, though in speaking with my dear brother in law (saint of God), he said,

the bible speaks that way.

but i've intersected a conversation i did not give you the preface to, forgive me. i was telling him how staid the liturgy appeared to me for so many years. a dead stick in the water. but that was my ignorance speaking. i did not know it. i had not lived with it, and let it live with me.

my family, thirty of us at least, used to cram in the livingroom of my granmda's house and sing christmas carols. in the way many churches still do, skipping verses. today, was the first day i've ever seen this stanza in we three kings, and i've sung that song every year of my life since time immemorial.

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

God so gets darkness. He is not afraid of it. it has not overcome. it will not overcome. i actually listened to my priest today as he described the long darkness which has tried to devour the church. and my heart ached.

we do not get to walk this road unencumbered. we do not get to dart from light to light, though we can try. and perhaps some will be far more illuminated than i, but that is not the road i'm called to. it is not the zipping about from victory to victory in the sense of always appearing to be victorious. these inner giants, these damned darknesses i encounter are not for me to just banish. but to, strangely enough, reckon with. i still believe that.

some of the other hymns that made my inner (the church bells ring now, such a strange glorious intrusion. there again. three tolls. distinct. deliberate. sounding. three more now. penetrating homes and hearts alike. three more. it is noon, the hour of prayer, the catholic church bells now sound a chorus unknown to me by name, but a call to prayer), bells toll. all i could do was bow my head and say,

here i am again Lord, dragging myself back to You. have me. do what You will. here i am.

and somehow, through the liturgy and hymns, though they were penned ages ago, He speaks.

just,

as my brother in law said,

as the bible does.

and this is the light, this feast of epiphany that has broken through my darkness. the Light has not been overcome.

i yield.

darkness comes again, i hear his footsteps in the hall. letting himself in, damn it, he made a key. has access, entry. how can i bar the door, it's too late now. he is here. he is here.

have you ever been in darkness so dark it becomes light around you? perhaps it is the music, perhaps it is many things i do. perhaps it is just how it is. he will come at will and i can receive him or try to hide. i've spent most of my life trying to hide. to run away from him. trying to manufacture light.

but darkness settles in and it won't obey our commands. or wishes. it does not come and go at our request. it merely is. like so much of life. an experience, to live through.

that i could find myself here so suddenly, surprises me. i don't know why. it is familiar territory. i know the signs now. it would have taken me days to figure out why the funk i was in had lasted so long. now, i yield to it. go down with it. and bounce back relatively quickly.

the day dawned with such promise. i had a poem. i overstepped my prayers with pressing demands, and this reminds me why i pray. why i set prayer as a priority. because when i don't (even when i do), darkness comes and i have not sharpened my sword or tested my steel. i'm caught, arms down, in a stranglehold i haven't the strength or will to escape.

but yielding does produce some fruit. going limp often surprises attackers, my sensei once taught this technique for extracting oneself from the grasp of someone who has taken you from behind. i see it in my mind. i hear the kiai. i could fight. and be free.

but i won't.

today, i'll go where darkness leads, and see what happens there. whom i happen to meet. and hope, will be tomorrow's fruit. and feast. today i yield.

bumbling

we come crashing through our lives, carrying baggage, sometimes scarcely able to speak. carrying grief buried, hemmoraging love. we come. crashing, colliding, bumbling into the each other's lives.

my belief at this point is that we meet those we need to meet. those who can shed a glimmer of light, a ray of hope in such a way that we can receive it, or at least tolerate it.

my guttering flickering candle flame has often time, i've been told, been the luminescent beam of God. it doesn't take much. but it requires everything. sometimes, more than i'm willing to give. or receive.

we don't affect one way in this life. though it might be easier if it were so. the concentric circles of influence radiate out, further, and further. we cannot control who the ripples affect. just as we cannot control the ripples that send our bobbing vessel up and down. it just happens.

there is so much beauty here, and mostly, i find it all comes back to people. we get to spend a few moments in the lives, and with those we most need to meet and who most need to meet us.

if we're lucky. we'll be aware of those bumbling along beside us. and if we're immensely blessed, they'll notice, too.