reunion

it used to be a favorite word for me. now it's one i want no part of, unless it be the reunion i dream of. not the throngs of people i didn't know and still don't care about from high school. not the groups of people who share a common interest. none of that matters to me. i'd rather not be a part of those kinds of reunions.

i have to be "on" at work.

to smile and speak to people. ask them how they are, where they are headed. what's going on, pry basically.

and i'm good at it. i even remember some of the details for their next visit.

but i don't care about any of that.

it is not what motivates me. leaning forward and gaining momentum used to be what moved me forward, but that has lost it's allure.

i was needing that summer class to stave off some of this confusion. but maybe confusion is what i need now. a big heavy dose of, just get up, go to work, and accomplish a few things. rather than create, believe, dream.

that i can't see what's coming doesn't surprise me anymore. i've ceased looking. ceased caring. i'm just here now. in this time and space.

but sometimes, my heart gets away from me and wanders into other places, and entertains the lost, houses the solitary. and i must draw it back inside my too limited body, and try to contain all it brings to me.

to compartmentalize these wings, these dreams, these hopes. for they are not for now. they are never for now. they are for tomorrow. for someday. not now.

i wonder whom i'll meet today. that still intrigues me. that a face can stand out in a crowd and be someone to me, in my life. they can penetrate this haze and bring me a point of light, a moment of clarity so elusive on my own.

and then, when i am tired, i lay down and wonder why sleep eludes me. my mind reels and spins, and i wander back through what was once familiar, to find no thing is familiar. it is all estranged. and i am a stranger in my own life.

and i have lost interest in it all. but here i am. in the middle of it still. trying to find my way back to caring. back to believing.

and duty draws me away from these doubts. the place and time i must show up and punch in. the demands it makes on my energies are just enough to sustain me.

until i am home again, foraging for comfort. and finding none.

in a few weeks i will see my sister again. and hold her babies. walk the beaches where i became who i am today. and try not to miss the family that will not be seeing me. whose arms will not embrace me, and whose kiss will not refresh my lips.

but this is how life is for me.

and now, just in time, duty calls.
i must away.

nonperforming

i've never been into dancing before people. very rarely have i done it. twice in denver, once in puente hills, and i'm really strapped for remembering when else. the other times i've danced, it's been in the back of the room in a world of my own. did people watch? probably. but was i performing? no. absolutely not.

so i've started reading my belly dance books for next semester because when it hits, it's really a lot of reading for six months. and, i figure, why not?

this particular book i'm reading is detailing the history of belly dance and it has made me think, this is not something i want to do in public. or for strangers. it is something i will do only for the select few. a handful of women. my lover. that's it.

at my friend's house yesterday, she put on some persian musican and began moving (she is a belly dancer, who got in a car accident and now can't dance), but she floated around to the music, and i was so impressed.

you move so well.

and then i let her hear what i want to dance to, and she said,

it sounds good. you can do it.

because for me, it is not a traditional dance. it is an expressive dance. and while i have the mellow music i need, i have my own ideas and interpretations. so when everyone finally left and our daughters were alone in the pool, we sat in the kitchen and talked.

i think if i perform for anyone at my school, it will be the female art professor, mostly because she is female (and i trust her). the two male professors i trust are not available next semester, so i will not likely choose some strange male to advise me if there is a suitable female.

we discussed the reactions of men to belly dancing and the first performance she did where unknown men were present.

and i am sure, it will not be where i'm going.

where will you do it?

i will be alone or with my daughter, or someone recording the dance.

no audience?

no.

that's easier then.

yes, i don't need an audience.

i just hadn't decided how to go about showing this dance to my professor. but i will let my advising female professor view the entire dance, while the rest of the school gets to see only stills incorporated into my final presentation.

this makes sense to me. it keeps with my preference for nonperformance.

i have a lot to learn, but i won't make the same mistakes i did when i was young, simply because my gut has developed. my sixth sense rocks.

i kid you not

so i'm here, at a kid's bday party, managed to rustle up a laptop, and i've got to tell you this.

i was pulling my usual antisocial behavior.

showing up late to the party, sitting in the livingroom, reading with my mp3 player on, and finally the hostess convinces me (actually, it was my girl), to venture outside. to brave the wilds (you'd think i never went outside), but when i'm in an indoor mood, i like to stay indoors.

so, out i go.

i take a seat in the hot sunshiney, and feign interest in the conversation. but it gets to be too much to me, and i retrieve my books (always my failsafe).

so, everyone gets up to go inside for things going on (and i lag behind). the lady i'm walking in with says,

i don't like crowds.

and i say,

neither do i.

so we stand outside talking. on the steps just on the other side of the sliding glass doors, so we're not out of eyeshot when everyone reappears from the basement, but we're still out of obligatory chat proximity.

i am even interested in what she's saying when suddenly i feel a pinprick on my derrier.

then another.

i had been sitting by the garden with my legs up, my habitual, comfortable pose. feet propped up on something, bare of foot. always.

well, this inquisitive little wasp thought i was some breed of lily never explored and takes it upon himself to venture in.

and up. when i stood.

i start feeling prick after prick on my hind parts, and decide, i must figure out what is going on. i realize (i mean, come on, how many stings does it take to figure out you've got a wasp in your pants?)

i dash up the stairs and say,

i have to go inside.

and i blow past the lady and into the restroom, remove my capris and find, mr. striped butt crawling around inside.

i turn my thonged hind to the mirror and discover several, not just one, not just two, somewhere in the neighborhood of five to seven stings on my butt.

and i flush him.

what else could i do with him, really? i had to put my pants back on.

and when i came out, i finally got my friend's attention and self medicated with a shot of benadryl (after calling my husband and hearing him laugh as i explain the situation), he is my pharmacist. i never know how much of what to take.

some consideration was given to using the discarded pint size ziploc to ice the area, but it was decided more coverage was needed to adequately ice the bitepattern and a gallon bag was produced.

the children and adults were much amused by my shoving a gallon bag of ice down my pants and leaving it there.

a pot of coffee is made to counteract the sleepiness of the benadryl, and then, when my buns started getting numb, i laid off the ice for a while.

i'm not sure if i saw stingers, i've never been stung before. but i did see red areas and i have a smidge of discomfort.

truly, i do not invite these woes to have something to write about. it just happens.

i can't figure out what, if anything, the meaning of this latest exchange could be. everything has to have meaning in my life. but i'll let you know if i ever figure this out.

withdrawals

it hasn't hit me yet, what i am losing. i can feel it getting closer and i keep moving away. i'm not ready to face it, to look it's cold dead eyes on square and reckon with loss again. i just can't take it.

so today, until tomorrow, until saturday, i will believe it will be as it was. as it is. though as it is, is not the best it could be. i must remember this. that is my strong tonic at this moment. by opting for delusion, i must reckon with the fact of that delusion, and the fact is, my child would suffer most if we stay.

she can't intimidate me,

my girl said. after telling me all the children would dive into stalls when godzilla would walk into the barn.

except me,

she'd say.

i would just stand there and ignore her

(my approach to godzilla, and i love my girl for being brave enough to hold her ground).

incredulous at these stories, i would tell her,

no adult should try to frighten a child, ever. no adult should ever try to intimidate a child. unless they are not right in the head--and those are the kinds of adults you get away from.

we walked the grounds and looked at the run-down state, such beautiful grounds in their prime, i imagine. the grandstands erect rusted metal, with no boards for sitting and walking.

the screen of the announcer's box flaps in the wind.

looking at discarded metal from grandstands in giant piles. nicole says,

it doesn't take a genius to figure out that that is dangerous. any child or horse could get hurt on that. horseriding is inherently dangerous, the key is, to minimize the dangers. but they don't do that here.

right.

we stood at the paddock where the young thoroughbred and bandit were waiting to come in. i said to nicole,

i am having trouble with someone who can't mend fences. the disarray of these fences, nearly every fence on this property needs tending. is such an outward sign of an inward state.

she looked down the length of the paddock. and said,

yes.

we walked in to get the horses, and bandit was raring to go, the perstering flies are torment at the moment. but i circled him around so nicole could exit first because her thoroghbred doesn't like to wait. or follow.

bandit and i lingered a bit in the field. i moved him from patch of clover to patch of clover. then we went after the ponies.

could you come back for some lessons if you needed to?

things don't tend to end well here, even when you try. a lot of trainers, with followings, have come and gone from here.

(the barns are mostly empty now. just a few horses in barn two, and barn one is mostly full. they are losing most of barn two with nicole's exodus. not because the barn is so small, but because it's so empty.

it doesn't make sense to run off the people who are here.

i mention, but then realize, not much about these folks makes sense. and i feel guilty, somewhat, for not helping minimize the owner's arguments. but if her argument was with my skin color, nothing can be done about that.

so, denial will not work long for me, because my brain won't let me just ignore the facts. i don't want to embrace lies, delusion, it is a bad precedent.

so i will let myself grieve again. for those knights whom i have loved and now will lose in body. they will exist in a place i cannot see, and i will have them, hold them, only in my memory.

the verdict is

today my girl's riding instructor told me, quietly, she is likely going to leave the farm she's got five horses stabled at, and go to one just a bit farther from us. but what's ten more minutes to get to those you love? the owner of the current farm is simply nuts. there is no other way to put it. and i finally heard it from nicole's ears myself.

i'm sadly relieved. but my bittersweet life continues. i won't get to see bucky anymore. and this leaves me sad.

but i understand why. will he?

if i have to lose someone or something, instead of my girl, so be it. that is always the way a parent would go.

as we were driving from the farm today, my girl said,

we have to bring the camera and get lots of photos of bucky.

this may be the last time i see him, (except that my new tat happens to feature his glorious mug, and that of his stablemate, prince.

i had to find some way to keep them near me forever, and as luck would have it, i got it done, and i'm grateful for it.)

one cannot know what one will lose in this life, we can only cherish what we have been given. be close to it for as long as we can, and try to remember, my mantra,

that which is mine will come to me.

i'm greatly relieved, and i'm sure, some time today, or late tonight, when i do my reckoning, i will find it incredibly sad that i can't see bucky anymore. but he is not my charge. and i have been faithful with what i have been given.

there is nothing else for me to do, except walk away.

that has always been what it comes to for me.

and while i leave with five, no, six, new companions. i wish there were one or two more who were going to be physically present with me in our new haunts.

what will these eyes see? where will we go? whom will we meet?

i do not know.

my girl is going to be preparing for her first show. and bandit welcomes my handling. he's yielding more and more to my touch, and i'm grateful for his trust. he is an innocent.

but then, so is bucky.

peace. out.

wide awake dreaming

she had a dream about you. confirming my beliefs. and yet she said,

but i don't remember the details.

i nearly decked her. but was glad to hear it all ends well.

how does it?

it's a mystery.

i still know no more than i did a year ago. less, in fact.

but, what can i say, i keep moving forward, if that means anything.

and tonight at work, the welcome wagon departed and i got a shitload of grief from a couple of the kids.

my nj best friend walks in and says,

what's wrong?

nothing. i'm fine.

but those who know me, know me. what can i say. i wear no poker face. i was not meant to.

the trouble began when i started changing the way things is done. when i worked my first night shift at my new digs, chaos reigned. i couldn't believe they functioned that way. there were, literally, holes in the counters i kept trying not to lose cups to.

syrup containers were everywhere and in no particular order.

the place was a disaster. i come to find out, this is how the person who trains me cleans, and runs her closing shift. she takes everything apart and moves it all around and cleans. the whole shift is done in this quasi madness, but it gets done. they are used to it, that is how they have always done it. until tonight.

so tonight, it was my turn to run my first closing shift (i opened alone on sunday), and i did it completely different. i took one station apart at a time, so there was never chaos.

i told the kids,

just work clean. as we go along and clean things, if you make a mess, just stop and clean it up. this way the store stays in order while we work, and we clean as we go.

makes sense to me.

but the girl who gave me the warmest welcome last week, stood there and looked at me,

i don't know what to do, everything is different.

not everything, just some things. and i like to keep things in place for the new people.

the new guy said the chaos doesn't bother him, and she let me know this, and i said,

i'm new. it bothers me. i couldn't work like that last week. i need it in order to be functional.

she said,

when the shift comes in (the girl who trained me), she'll want it done the way it's always done. and this might work under new management, but it wouldn't work the way it was before.

it's her perogative to tell me to redo what i've done. but i'm the shift and i'd like to try it this way. we are still doing everything, just not taking the place apart at one time.

then she made comments to the other "partner" (they're called partners not associates), about things i think were intended for me, but whatever. high school here we come.

meanwhile, i'm trying to train the new kid on the bar, as i can see he clearly does not know how to make some of the difficult drinks.

ultimately, she ended up stocking the floor, and doing more than i think she normally does in the way of work aside from cleaning because the priorities were different. i ran the shift completely different than the other girl, which makes sense.

and by the end of the night i said,

do you still hate it?

she said,

no, it makes complete sense. i just didn't understand what you were doing.

i know, i didn't tell you, i'm sorry about that.

the thing is, i'm not inclined to tell the whole world my plans, i like to just do what i do. which i'm guessing, doesn't work for everyone.

i wanted her to know i needed her help and experience, so i said,

i need your help. if i've missed anything, let me know.

i think you got everything,

she said. and then through the rest of our closing, things went smoother. which was good.

i don't like to have tension between me and others. i don't mean to be stubborn and change things.

but i figure, if you work clean, there is no need to spend an exorbitant amount of time at the end cleaning. so i kept up with the dishes, i kept up with the trash, and removed it from the back room when it built up.

so when the shift who was training me arrived, there were no dishes, no trash, the floors had been mopped (as much as possible), restrooms cleaned, drains cleaned, and most of the barware sanitized. we had her entire shift to do customer service and just a few more essential cleaning things that simply cannot get done until close. and i had shift duties to perform, closing tills, counting the safe, and a couple breaks.

it all got done and we clocked out on time. i think i covered everything, i guess i'll find out.

friday night i close alone. get off at midnight, home around 1am. we'll see how it goes, but i look forward to being on my own, i work best that way.

and now here i am, wide awake, wondering where you are and if you can hear me.

the key to my liberation

i don't want to do the dishes. i didn't want to take my kid to the pool. i didn't want to go workout. i'm wanting more, always wanting more.

but i took my kid to the pool, went and worked out, and soon, i will go stand at the sink for an hour and scrub dishes.

i will be glad when they are done, feel that peculiar sense of satisfaction, that caring for others, tending responsibilities brings.

just now though, i feel like curling up in a ball and sleeping for about a week. i don't think i shook that tired that stalked me last semester, and i better find some rest this next two weeks before it starts all over again.

i don't want to hear about whose dying and how. i don't want to be afraid of anything. i want to believe the hawk still flies and there are dreams that do come true. but today, none of that feels real.

it all feels distant and i'm tired, too tired to fight my head which nags at me, the facts of the matter. too tired to say, damn logic, i'm going with my heart.

my heart just wants to find some peace, and at the moment, that means yielding to the dictates of the head.

i wanted to tell you more of the clown story, but i never came back around to it. it became about me just staying awake, and not passing out at 7pm, so i can wake up at 4am. i have to work until 12 tonight, so maybe these irregular schedules are messing with me. i'm not sure. i'm not sure.

i did see bucky saturday, he was golden like a ripe wheat field, glistening in the sun, his sleek scarred body smelled so good to me. i ran my hands along his flanks, and kissed his grey muzzle. he nickered as we approached and whinnied as we left. he usually silently receives me, but it's been a long time. too long. and his stablemate was indoors, for some reason. so bucky saw us at prince's stable feeding him a cookie. bucky probably was grateful to get a whiff of one so familiar on our hands.

i keep sneaking around trying not to get in trouble, but i think that is the worst way of being someplace. i'd rather just do what i'm going to do, than slink about.

my heart needs rest. how does one find rest for a weary heart. where does one go to recover the certainties they once stood upon and grasped in strong hands. hands that are now empty as the moonless night. empty as the winter pond.

and i didn't go to the rez this week, but last time i was there, just overhead flew a swan. a lone swan. and i was glad to see him, and wondered where he was headed.

there are so many questions that flood my mind, and sometimes, the mind needs to just idle rather than rev higher and higher.

the dishes are calling to me. and i will go do them. they may hold secrets for me. they may release some mystery and wonder. the remnants of yesterday, the sordid bits that i pick through and try to comprehend. it's all i know. it's all i know.