i'll let you know when i get there

Are you? 

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.

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 ...

I went to a talk about particle physics at the library. I only understood a fraction of what was said; it was like listening to an entirely different language. After a good effort of trying to keep up, I sat back and spent the rest of the talk just appreciating that there seemed to be a good number of people in the room who did understand what she was talking about. Hooray for humanity! We are so interesting and interested in so many different things! We are so collectively capable! I go to these kinds of talks often enough, and that's usually how it goes. I remember writing poetry about quarks and covalent bonds through my undergrad Physics classes. I remember listening in awe to Dan Miles talk about the Higgs boson discovery thirteen years ago.  I knew nothing about it then and understand just slightly more now, but I remember really being in awe of his wonder.  Wonder adjacent, I suppose. More of a science gal in fancy than in fact, but still I go. The part tha...

Reclined at a ridiculous angle, waiting for the numbing gel to set in for a cavity fill, I stared at the ceiling and saw a commercial for a local funeral home that advertised using the faces and birth - death dates of a few recently departed.   It made me feel weird.   What an impulse we have.  The remaining.  The desperate instinct to send into the world some signal when the absence is felt.  He lived!  She lived!  We get the park benches and the plaques and the slabs of concrete and apparently the commercial spots.  Such a raw need, to feel that they will go on.  Some foreshadowing plea that somehow, might we all. Meanwhile, moths seem to be eating our winter wear and I'm afraid to check my collection of old journals and writing that are also stored under the bed.  What if there are holes in it all?  It occurred to me the other day that when I go, there's a strong likelihood that someone might just take a few glances and trash the...

A few years back, neon burst back into fashion favour for a season or so.  Little blurs of highlighter yellows and pinks could be seen against the grey of the Pacific Northwest.  Loud little waves from strangers. I remembered that moment the other day, driving through the rainy city where everyone had returned to their black jacket and generally neutral attire.   That neon- I missed it and I didn't.  Mostly, I wondered where all those clothes had gone.   In a heap on a beach somewhere? Landfill? Where does any of it go... the colours and people that for a time feel impossible to ignore? I guess ultimately I prefer the well-worn.  Neutral over neon. Not the ability to command, But the power to stay.  

I like the light in my own home- soft glow of the evening kind and warm until the nothing of night. I like my own sounds- neighbours in the hall I hardly hear. The refrigerator sounded so loud for that first week but now is just the din of days plucking on in the corner like an undemanding friend. It's nice to travel. Healthy, probably. Lucky, of course. But it's never right- the light.  Eviscerating white or in the wrong place. The water, a trickle or an assault.  No drawers contain quite what they ought to. All I see are the uncleaned streaks on every other wall (though mine I barely notice at all unless I'm in the mood-  usually in the spring and fall).  Even the places that make you say  "I could get used to this" are not for me. They are not places I really want to be.   I want to be where I am with a closed door and an open window and no plans. 

Remember when America had a president who was a reader?

When it rains it pours we say sink or float leaves for boats  in  a perfect puddle the playground is ours and the rain picks up we are singing we are swinging and everything is new for a couple of hours the grey arrived along with fall thoughts dad worries electric bill went up temporary crown broken mom split a gut laughing at an inside joke from childhood and the kids grow and grow and grow until we are all very old rain, rain splish splish splash thunder lightning listen- CRASH! Oh now feel it when it rains it pours centrifugal force and I see the grey and it smells like rain and I feel it I feel it Alive and afraid to lose. Less and less light on incredible views melancholy right on cue and I feel it

near the speaker, a question: "what if  the future  you fear  is coming?" if that feared future arrives or is here already in some seed form, it changes nothing. little matters.  still. curiosity matters.  still. hope matters.  still- sights & sounds & a warm blanket on cold feet & busy ants moving things  Night skies drowned out by light pollution Other people's trash Replying always replying Mixed drinks mixed media mixed reviews mixed feelings ALL of it IS still happening. & if/when that changes, well don't we humans  just kick the can move the line hit refresh acclimate? when the future I hear is coming arrives it will just be another day of the week & we will go on pushing snooze & dropping crumbs &  canceling plans & charging devices & worrying about a new tomorrow drawing near.

She was bent over on a block under the bridge  Slowly standing  With her walker  On a heat dome day. "Are you doing alright?" I asked as I passed And she immediately, urgently shook her head "NO" White whisps loose under her hand and bent over like a cane.   My mind prepared to get her water or walk her home or even something more extreme when she said "My daughter and granddaughter passed away a few days ago and I am just beside myself." "I'm so sorry. That's devestating." And more sincere, useless words said. "THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD." She said with anger at the injustice as she slowly walked away. 

when you see the black speck in the clear water, you scoop it up urgently, not sure how long it has been circling, and when you suddenly see its little legs moving in your palm,  A Miracle!   "you're alive!"  you will think with delight here you are here you are there you go there you go step onto this leaf you're free you're free and you will think yourself a little noble to have saved a life! something profound something powerful how benevolent of you to have seen and thought enough to save And later it will find you. Like a message a memory hissing air from a tire something about the way those small lives are quite different, actually something about colonies they way their entire lives are harmonized inseparable from the whole and the quickest search reveals that an ant separated from its community wanders alone, confused until it dies What happens when there's something bigger? What happens when, soon, we are small and some giantic force through some fund...

oh, they will say how you spent your lives clicking letters on a keyboard one at a time an endless list of chores waiting in lines on hold fueling and refueling wondering things and sometimes never finding out when  now the answers  are right there and everywhere  in an instant and there is time  now for everything and nothing left to do

Midlife is using tubes of mom's makeup to  paint over a rift in the earth. Cotton swabs for understanding. Cupcakes for good enough. Midlife is a soldier in a Santa suit. A shadow. A string. Complexity. A single Crayon from the box. Pleas written in a frantic hand on a sign saying  LOVE

Funny how often, all these years later, I still think about a solitary napkin placed on a side table. On the napkin was a dog on a skateboard with the question "What's the most OUTRAGEOUS thing you saw today?" Next to the table sat Dick; it would be the last time I saw him. Somehow, he looked almost the exact same as I remembered him from thirty years earlier, when he was only 65.   When you live far from your hometown, visits like this aren't so unusual- visits that you know will likely be the last though none of that is said in the presence of the other. There's a greeting and an exchanging of memories and eventually small talk. Full of heart, really, because your purpose there is just to be there. A choice in how to spend an hour after years or decades of absence. That afternoon, I was there. Dick's wife had died years before and he had moved from the home I remembered to a small apartment. When we arrived that day he was sitting in his living room in compl...

 from a dream Who am I? What is my purpose?  What is real?  Is this all there is? Interviewer: How do existential questions land differently in your 30s and 40s? Me: In your 30s you're really cavalier with your responses.  "Who's asking?" "I don't have time for this."  "I don't know, you tell me."  All the bold flippancy of an anonymous account in the comment section. In your 40s, you realize in a panic, "OMG, this is ACTUALLY a test."  A timed one at that.  In your 40s, you break into a sweat and get to it.

It is hard to know if here could be anywhere. How can you tell? It is where I am. I carry some sadness with both of my hands.  It is about the amount of a spoonful and the color of a mountain.  crows yelling flower smelling bikes belling They've cleared so many trees from the park and there's no telling if that was the right thing to do. Depends on who you ask. A lack remains a lack. old growth slow growth the air feels rich and wise years and years and years to shape the rings funny how many things you still may not know about  home  an entire effort may be felled in an instant only circles left to inspect I remember.  I remember. Through the trees that still stand- the sea. If you save a capsized boat - if you can make it float-  it is yours to keep.   The water is moving. The water is calling. The water is deep.

A specific kind of green.  Beans and garlic and a curious deer. Trying to grow a kiwi for 30 years. A swing on every tree branch.  An empty water bowl.  1-2-3-4 who ya gonna root for? The boys in the bus are State Champs. Honk honk a yellow blur past. I am only one person. I am only one person. Way up high  Heat lightning sky on a still night  Later, rain Out of the window A crack open for the cats  Dodging familiar faces in common places. I just lack the capacity for being this needed. Candid photos. Humility. She'll sell you vibrations in a patio chair. Wind storm collapsed the barn. Blew the roof right into the air. Uh-oh Arms reaching What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing? Let's walk one more block To honor the grief of what will never be. I am only one person.  Slow drives past the places we've lived and the places we've worked and the places that once contained our hours and years.  A turtle on the trail. slow down slow dow...

Right at the crescendo The part with the bells I was thinking of Act 3 Emily  Trying to really realize it Forty years later and the place smells exactly the same. I wondered how often I'd stared up at that same stained glass. Taken refuge there during recess. Been embarrassed by my growling stomach during morning mass. Flipped in the hymn to those same tired songs, lead by the same proud, warbling voices. The unchanging feels more like something arrested than something eternal, noble or true All eyes on the middle aisle during communion parade. Everyone watching each other sideways. Is there a true prayer lifted in that entire hour? It's hard for me to imagine what even goes on in these minds.  Any more "You must increase, I must decrease" would have had me an agitated dust speck, forever lifted to a light beam and then forced to rest again on those same worn pews. A dark ancient cave. Shadows on the wall.  But I've seen too much. Grown too tall.  The ...

Already a small homogenous group  convinced of their own importance race to the top of an anthill have we ever worked less like a colony? have we ever been less like a hive? what I wouldn't give for a queen a softer energy footsteps becoming leaps I hope when they arrive they are able to see in us a quality  we no longer  seem willing  or able to see in ourselves