i'll let you know when i get there

When I finally decided I was done with organized religion, one of the many sticking points that I just couldn't justify was the whole business with the tree. The first one, not the one that became the cross. This showboating tree with special, forbidden knowledge in the middle of the garden, how rude to set such a stage as that. Introduce the gun to the story and it will be used etc etc... This irritating, broader idea of creating creatures with curiosity and logic and then expecting them to suspend it when the big voice from the sky says "because I said so."  It is the opposite of Montessori.  It is a pyramid of ego.  I do not find this creator character to be loving or kind or deserving of deference.  In my sincere attempts to understand or find some land that I could anchor my belief system to before drifting away altogether, conversations almost always ended with, "it's a leap of faith... that's what makes it special."  Even in matters quite serious-...

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 ...

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

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

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...

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...