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The Last Years of Long Beach

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Passing the lagoon, I see a woman bent with time park her car and slowly lower herself into the water for a solitary swim. It feels like witnessing this ritual makes me part of something sacred. A coyote prancing down the sidewalk midday. People stop to stare and I, in momentary confusion, shout, "Is that your dog?" Every Friday night there is a car chase somewhere in LA and now that we have all the tv channels, we can usually find it to watch. Once in awhile it ends somewhere near and we hear the helicopters hovering overhead for hours. Wandering walks. The light hits just the right way and the air is dense and the day feels both unspecial and extraordinary. I look down at my hand and have a profound experience. Hard to explain. My hand suddenly seems to me entirely unfamiliar. These prints and lines, with me all my life but changing too, seem so much a part and so fundamentally separate from me in this moment, that it temporarily stops me in my tracks. Hard to ...
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what if courage makes everything beautiful

It's no surprise that life surprises. It's the one thing we can know. Maybe the only true true thing is to hold it all loosely. To let go but not to drop. To let it rest while it will- stop when it stops. Don't ask more of your hand than what it can. Don't make yourself smaller with a closed scared fist. lines on the map of an upturned palm whatever falls, don't resist
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anguish

It almost sounds cute like something to squish or at the very least, poetic. Instead, I can barely move out from under the heavy  nothing
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Need

I want you to know that I have grown used to the lines by my eyes. They are mine. When I see them now, I do not startle.   Recognition. I want you to know that the robots let me go. I tried to call The New Yorker to bargain down my subscription renewal. Instead, I was greeted with a robot voice. Instead of connecting me with a human representative, it cancelled my subscription and ended the call. Goodbye. I want you to know that it can flip like a switch. Topics that consume so much energy, anticipation, intrigue... all the bigs, at any moment, can become nearly repulsive.  I do not want to hear one more word about it. Unsubscribe from the podcasts. Close the blinds. Cancel the library holds. And all that rejection leaves a massive nothing and a dull ache in its wake.  Filled in the rabbit hole. Staring at dirt.  Next. I want you to know that the past doesn't hold me with much of a grip. I remember some things in flashes, but mostly the fog has settled in. Large stre...
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I am sick to death of content.

Are you? 
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safety

Maybe I should return to writing everything down. Is anything really safe in a cloud? but then there's the other reduced to rubble Is all of life just a dull slate grey? or is that just the shell tender cracked a part  or piece  an obvious lack just a child inside who will watch and repeat  patterns and cycles joys and defeats and barely understand it at all London Bridge check the news dull slate grey and bomb bright hues sun up sun set all those basic needs unmet What connects me to you? something borrowed  sometimes blue walk a mile stay the night still adjusting to the new late light walls intact and for now we're alright And luckier than we know.
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three women

I was two blocks from work and barely on time when a woman with a dog stopped abruptly in front of me and pointed at the sky.  I was startled enough to ask, "What do you see?" "The birds. They're migrating early." And then she fell in step with me as though we had planned to walk together.  In the course of two blocks, I learned about her sleeping habits, what she's learned with age, her hormonal imbalance that, even at 73, makes life unliveable without hormone replacement therapy.  She stayed with me, stride for stride, and spoke in such a confessional,  comfortable way I started to wonder if maybe I knew her- maybe I had met her before.   "This is my stop," I said.   "Oh, you live here?" "No, I babysit here." "Ah." "Well, nice to meet you.  What was your name?" "Joyce." "Have a great day, Joyce." Joyce ___ At the end of the check out line at the grocery store, a woman with bright purple ...
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