can't say

i'm not grateful for them not letting me leave until i have rescheduled teeth maintenance. apparently, i need it. looking after myself isn't one of my fortes. what can i say, bad habits die hard.

but yesterday, when it felt like they shoved a folding chair in my mouth and opened it, i was trying not to drown in my saliva, and they finally remembered i was there and it wasn't the hood of a car they were working under--and suctioned me. my arms fly up and i start tweaking because the little latex gloves they wear tickle my mouth and the work being done seems to always be deep in my mouth so i drown pretty rapidly. hate that.

the conversations they don't need to have include flesh eating viruses, especially when a. i can hear them. (which i can, i'm right there, they are working in my head) b. the dentist is wearing a bandage on her face. c. i can't ask clarifying questions (have you asked questions with people's hands in your mouth lately? not gonna happen).

i got a chatty hygenist too. she didn't ask me yes or no questions either. things like, how many children do you have? where are you from? shit like that. meanwhile, she's digging around in my mouth and she's nice and all, but i just want to suffer through my biannual torture, and get on with my life.

so the dentist numbs me up and i realize, they walk up to you with those big needles out of sight. then they spring 'em on you. long needles, injecting stuff into your head. usually i'm good with whatever they give me but yesterday i needed a second shot of something. and then, back to work, drilling away like a road crew working the street.

and i crank metallica just so i can get through it. i'm a wimp, what can i say.

but if they didn't pester me for my next appointment, i wouldn't be falling over myself to go back. at least my kid has really good teeth and never needs work. she's only ever had one cavity in her life. gotta love that.

i don't think i like dentists much. even though mine is very kind. and, perhaps gentle. i don't know. her hands feel like they are huge and she's always digging around in my head. not good. so not good.

schemes

would you consider.

yes,

he says.

and i wonder.

a lot of things are up in the air right now. where my girl will be. where i will be. what tomorrow holds (but that is always up in the air). for now, i am just grateful, reveling in the sweetness of reunion. to be found. cherished. remembered.

i thought, for so long, that i was the only one who remembered the way i remember. but he spent an hour tonight reminding me of who i am. where i came from. my roots.

they've been buried so long. and all i knew back then was pain.

you always looked like you had so much to say, but wouldn't let yourself. or couldn't find the words.

so when i signed his book i wrote,

thank you for remembering the girl who could not find her words until now.

i have them now. utterance.

but even so, i cry. cry with delight. cry with awe. cry with wonder.

it's a good cry. the best cry i've had in years. and the schemes i can cook up. i hope i can get off work to make it happen. i have to get off work. have to.

something about a road trip, and the mascarade ball where i'll be a belly dancer and actually have to choreograph something for the guest of honor.

you will dance for me?

yes. of course.

the way it looks from here, i'll fly out to my old haunt, and meet up with a long lost friend. we'll do the ball, then either drive back to la, or fly out from there. likely we'll do a return trip. kids. you understand.

but it will be wonderful. my feet on the dashboard, the tunes cranked. all that time to catch up.

i don't know. i don't know how it will be. what tomorrow holds. but then, i've never known. all i can say right now is reunion is sweet. and i'm loving every minute of it.

never forgotten

i thought i was the only one who held memories dear, who loved people i'd lost, who had slipped through my fingers. and here you are. here you are. loving me.

it's hard to describe, what this feels like. it feels good.
good is hard to quantify. hard to get down in words, because it's so elusive. so transient. that's why i never trust it. it goes away too fast. whereas pain, with all the deadening, all the dulling i've done to get past the pain in my life, it was still there. throbbing in my brain like some bad tooth with gnarled roots.

but joy. happiness. sweetness.

how do you describe this?

i'm giggling again. my god. like a schoolgirl. it's crazy.

i'm laughing with the kids at work. they are wondering what has come over me.

and everything is okay.

the soundman came in today,

sorry i haven't called.

no worries. things happen when they should. you can't rush them or they go bad.

exactly, i was trying to tell someone that today.

this is how our conversations go. we are on the same wavelength. oddly enough.

poor guy, just like me.

so, i wait. not patiently, i never wait patiently. but i occupy my time with what is required of me. by necessity. by demands made upon myself to keep myself moving forward. i'm as sad and fucked up as the next guy, but i refuse to stall out.

i think, when i finally woke up, when i finally swallowed that blue pill (or was it red?), i was amazed at what awaited. though yesterday in my haze of exhaustion, rounded out by a migraine at ten pm. i just had to muddle through.

i'm not always giggling, that's for damn sure. i'm lost. completely fucking lost. sometimes, though, i get it right. sometimes, though, i remember there are people who love me, and whom i love. even if i haven't seen hide nor hair of those people for twenty seven years. they have not forgotten me, as i have not forgotten them. and to be remembered, to be sweetly sought after all this time. to be embraced in words. there is nothing like it.

no thing.

and i am, once again, grateful.

because i believe in love. the transformative power of it.

and sometimes, every now and then, i get to revel in it just a bit.

adrift

the chief is back from ecuador. i have slept all day. only now do i rise and attempt some semblance of schoolwork. i've read five books, may try to cram in a sixth. but at the moment, i'm adrift.

so i will let the waters take me where they may and enjoy the journey.

i will jump through the hoops i've designed to be in my path. it is how i move forward. i cannot plan more than this. i cannot navigate the day without some external impetus. thus, the degree.

and i try to let the six armed woman lead me. to watch her swell with power, and to embrace it as my own. she is, in fact, me. i have always been this powerful. i just had not fathomed the benefit of four more arms.

and i am grateful for them now.

salmon swim upstream

so, i should have realized it was a dead end conversation the moment it started. i probably should have tried to change the course it was running. but i'm not inclined to force my friends to say only what i want to hear or in ways i want to hear it. because i simply don't like that done to me. amen.

anyway, i sat there, getting lectured and pissed off. it carried me through most of the day, that frustration, but then i realized, there is nothing can be done. why argue. why be angry.

i don't know. i'm tired, that's all i can say.

ten hour day at work, fitting in time with the kiddo in the gaps, and friends crunched in anywhere they'll fit on top of that. i was not made for this much social behavior. it's just not me. i can't keep up.

i don't remember when i was last alone, and when i came home from residency (aside from my dark muse, all i wanted was to be alone). i got the alone that day. but that was the end of it. and i'm tired. i don't remember what i'm supposed to be doing or why. and what does it matter, really.

i was lectured about my parenting, by one i trust not to lecture. and if you know anything about people parenting, you don't say shit. amen. but i've always listened to friends because my friends are not your run of the mill hey how you doin' types. my friendships are deep. strong bonds.

it all sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me now. and i'm fried. too fried to make heads or tails of what is going through my mind.

all i can say is, i'm tired. and there is no remedy for what's ailing me at the moment.

six arms and deadly

the six armed woman. she reared her head today. i faced off with my boss and i told her i will not get angry and stuck. i will promote. i will move forward. she cannot stop me. i was all power today.

it was unexpected (that was just honest).

it started out like any other day. but sometimes in work settings, i rise up. i find the strength to stand up for myself.

ultimately, i laid it out for her.

that was a bullshit complaint, i should have been defended, it never should have been a sit down conversation.

bottom line.

uh, uh, uh.

was how it went.

what will happen. i don't know. but i won't be robbed of power again. i've had enough. it's time to move forward, to move on. doors will open.

sometimes a girl just has to lop off a few heads to get her way.

i'm not here to judge you,

i said.

but i won't be stifled.

uh, uh, uh.

it's always the same.

and the support i need will come. the vindication i need will come.

no one fucks with a six armed woman.

remember that.

hearing me

today, i spent the better part of it alone. well, mostly. a lot of cyber contact which doesn't really count. but the moments stretched out in the sun, were rich with words. i could hear so many refrains i know to be the beginnings of poems. so many paths i need to walk down, i just lay there and heard them.

at class tonight we discussed how connected my best friend is energically, and i am that connected emotionally. it is not easy to be a live emotional wire. it is like being plugged in to a nuclear reactor, being the nuclear reactor. and sometimes, i just have to let off the steam. to vent the pressure building.

today was a more relaxing vent, no freaking out, just feeling it congeal into words that will become something someday.

i can't explain this. my process. i know i need to, to articulate it. to show people the how of what i do. but it's so much about being alive. being alove is what i wrote first. alove. i like that hybrid. alove. i spend a lot of time alove. i hope to spend equally as much time alive. not sure if i do.

alive is difficult. alive is painful. alive is confusing. alive is uncertainty embodied. alive is trial and error, for me, mostly error. but we stumble on and try some more. that is what alive is to me.

i don't have any answers. as metallica sang for me today,

no i don't know the answer. i don't even know what the question is.

how much i spend my life in that place. careening. i do a lot of that. it's the leap first aspect of my being.

and the powerful woman, the six armed, the devil woman stirs.

and i stand, open armed, saying,

come. and welcome.

it's time. time for me to speak these things. i hear them, whispers on the edges of my consciousness. i hope they scream from the page when i finally write them down.