...............
Another love poem?! This is what happens when you exist on a steady diet of Pablo Neruda. You turn into a complete sap.
I had a close encounter last weekend with a close encounter from last summer. I always knew he wasn't My Man, but nonetheless, even to this day, every time our paths cross, my heart leaps and my instinct is to love him. For no logical reason.
But of course these things are never logical....
my instinct has always been to love you.
upon seeing you, in the flash before conscious thought,
before we engage in the ritual dance of hi’s and hellos,
my heart brightens, turns toward you and beams …
and my awareness follows…
it’s you.
you are a color I have never seen
you are a word only heard in distant dreams
you
a dark silvery shadow
a partial eclipse
half hidden
deep eyes
closed lips
you
a whisper half heard
a glint that flashed and faded
and left me holding songs for you
and appetites unsated
you
and your heart half shaded
we parted ways
the sun shuddered,
swayed,
dimmed,
sighed
and in time
continued to shine
the moon slowly blinked 17 times
and now when we meet
my heart still opens wide
even though you’ve long since retreated with the tide
but now I just smile
and simply say
hi
you
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Transitions.... AGAIN?!?! Getting the heart and the head to get along.
So I don't want this blog to be too diary-ish, but my current situation swirls around in my head everyday.... any fresh perspectives on the the situation are welcome.
Transitions...
I feel another big one at my front door.
Funny -- growing up I always had this idea that after you finish school and find your mate and have kids and get your career on, you hit cruise control and everything just kinda plateaus. It's so glaringly clear to me now that it is never-ending -- our changing morphing shifting learning is the very fabric of life. So get nimble, right?!
The last few years have been a practice in nimbleness for sure. When I look back I am astonished at how many boxes I've packed and moved and unpacked and repacked and removed and.... you get the idea. Each new chapter involved a different bedroom and a different hairdo. And all of this was just the physical representation of the accelerated course my soul has been on throughout the packing and moving.
It all began with The Break-Up (like so many things do!). I thought I had found My Man and that we were embarking on The Rest of It together. Nope. So there was the disassembly of Life With Max -- the wretching, rapid move into storage, couch surfing and tear-stained pillows.
Then there was the year of The Urban Monk Warrior Superhero. I unpacked boxes and shaved a mohawk and entered my self-imposed healing social exile into a focused stint of meditation, running, counseling, raw food and school.
Then I repacked and moved again into the 9 month gestation in isolation ... The Hermit In The House At The End of The Dirt Road in The Middle of Nowhere chapter. I spent much of this time finishing my coursework and final collection at school.
This quiet gestation gave birth to more storage and gypsy time which ended in a stint in Bali where I happily lived out of my suitcase and designed a line of clothes in celebration of my completed course in fashion design.
Then back to San Francisco and friends' couches. I'll never forget the day when I was feeling so ungrounded that the most comforting thing I could think up to do was to pull my station wagon up to my storage unit, pop-up the back, raise up the door of my unit, gaze at my Things from the hatchback and smoke a cigarette (something I had quit doing before that day).
Luckily, I found a place for next to nothing, moved my boxes into my new home and unpacked again.... only to find out that, unluckily, I had moved in with a certifiably crazy woman. And I mean Certifiable.
So there was repacking and moving and unpacking down the street with a couple of guys that seemed pretty cool. Then they both tried to kiss me within the first month and I realized that it wasn't the ideal home situation.
Obviously it was time to get my own place. Work was going well so I also decided that career-wise, it was high time that I get the rest of my own teleprompting gear as well. Surely after finding the most magical cottage on the planet and focusing on building my freelance business, I would be content and settled, right? I could unpack for awhile this time. Exhale. Pass the moving boxes and baton onto some other wandering soul. Right?!
Ya I dunno.
You see, I felt wide open and unattached upon my return from Bali (years of this nimbleness practice will do that to you). I felt very unattached to San Francisco and felt a pull toward Brooklyn or Manhattan. However, I had just spent all my money on my project in Bali and as soon as I got to San Francisco, I started receiving calls for work. I was surprised I hadn't been forgotten and was thankful for the work. I thought I'd save up some money and then maybe head out there at a later date.
Then I kinda forgot.
Until I visited my little sis in Brooklyn last month.
And it all came rushing back in -- the sights the sounds the textures the colors the conversations the nitty gritty city dirty real east coastness off it all woke me up from the lazy hazy lull of west coast living.
The truth is, I've never found my groove again in SF since The Break-Up in 2005. Now I feel like I'm in a bit of a dead end relationship with San Francisco and it may be time for another break-up of sorts. My relationship with San Francisco is familiar, it's easy, it's comfortable, but it is no longer feeding my soul.
The learning curve of the last few years has been steep. With each move I have stretched and learned and become a slightly different woman. I've grown and changed so much that I am no longer resonating with much in San Francisco. I've been a little bored and uninterested in the culture and believe that I most likely have learned what I came here to learn.
It's as if I'm in an eddy at the edge of the river swirling around and around and not really going anywhere.
My heart is telling me to jump back into the current and head east. My gut is telling me that that is where the growth is. But my head is pulling hard on the reigns. My voice of consciousness from the Midwest is telling me that it makes no sense to go there without a job lined up. And if I'm planning on continuing my life as a freelancer with my own teleprompting company, it could be a very very challenging transition to go somewhere where no one knows me. My voices of self doubt and fear tell me I'm not ready -- I don't have enough money to make a transition as a freelancer and I don't have the skills and resume yet to get a decent job in fashion. I fear that I may go there and end up broke and feeling ungrounded.
I take all that and weigh it against my heart which is tugging at me like a kid tugs her mother's hand as they pass by the candy shop. I want to go noooow!
What is the most wise, brave way to move forward? I don't want to be impetuous or immature by packing up and moving and then find myself spending a couple of years getting on my feet again. Am I really up for another uproot? However, I also know that I don't do well ignoring my heart. I never have. I want to be challenged and grow and evolve -- in the most graceful, wise way possible.
What does that look like?!
Transitions...
I feel another big one at my front door.
Funny -- growing up I always had this idea that after you finish school and find your mate and have kids and get your career on, you hit cruise control and everything just kinda plateaus. It's so glaringly clear to me now that it is never-ending -- our changing morphing shifting learning is the very fabric of life. So get nimble, right?!
The last few years have been a practice in nimbleness for sure. When I look back I am astonished at how many boxes I've packed and moved and unpacked and repacked and removed and.... you get the idea. Each new chapter involved a different bedroom and a different hairdo. And all of this was just the physical representation of the accelerated course my soul has been on throughout the packing and moving.
It all began with The Break-Up (like so many things do!). I thought I had found My Man and that we were embarking on The Rest of It together. Nope. So there was the disassembly of Life With Max -- the wretching, rapid move into storage, couch surfing and tear-stained pillows.
Then there was the year of The Urban Monk Warrior Superhero. I unpacked boxes and shaved a mohawk and entered my self-imposed healing social exile into a focused stint of meditation, running, counseling, raw food and school.
Then I repacked and moved again into the 9 month gestation in isolation ... The Hermit In The House At The End of The Dirt Road in The Middle of Nowhere chapter. I spent much of this time finishing my coursework and final collection at school.
This quiet gestation gave birth to more storage and gypsy time which ended in a stint in Bali where I happily lived out of my suitcase and designed a line of clothes in celebration of my completed course in fashion design.
Then back to San Francisco and friends' couches. I'll never forget the day when I was feeling so ungrounded that the most comforting thing I could think up to do was to pull my station wagon up to my storage unit, pop-up the back, raise up the door of my unit, gaze at my Things from the hatchback and smoke a cigarette (something I had quit doing before that day).
Luckily, I found a place for next to nothing, moved my boxes into my new home and unpacked again.... only to find out that, unluckily, I had moved in with a certifiably crazy woman. And I mean Certifiable.
So there was repacking and moving and unpacking down the street with a couple of guys that seemed pretty cool. Then they both tried to kiss me within the first month and I realized that it wasn't the ideal home situation.
Obviously it was time to get my own place. Work was going well so I also decided that career-wise, it was high time that I get the rest of my own teleprompting gear as well. Surely after finding the most magical cottage on the planet and focusing on building my freelance business, I would be content and settled, right? I could unpack for awhile this time. Exhale. Pass the moving boxes and baton onto some other wandering soul. Right?!
Ya I dunno.
You see, I felt wide open and unattached upon my return from Bali (years of this nimbleness practice will do that to you). I felt very unattached to San Francisco and felt a pull toward Brooklyn or Manhattan. However, I had just spent all my money on my project in Bali and as soon as I got to San Francisco, I started receiving calls for work. I was surprised I hadn't been forgotten and was thankful for the work. I thought I'd save up some money and then maybe head out there at a later date.
Then I kinda forgot.
Until I visited my little sis in Brooklyn last month.
And it all came rushing back in -- the sights the sounds the textures the colors the conversations the nitty gritty city dirty real east coastness off it all woke me up from the lazy hazy lull of west coast living.
The truth is, I've never found my groove again in SF since The Break-Up in 2005. Now I feel like I'm in a bit of a dead end relationship with San Francisco and it may be time for another break-up of sorts. My relationship with San Francisco is familiar, it's easy, it's comfortable, but it is no longer feeding my soul.
The learning curve of the last few years has been steep. With each move I have stretched and learned and become a slightly different woman. I've grown and changed so much that I am no longer resonating with much in San Francisco. I've been a little bored and uninterested in the culture and believe that I most likely have learned what I came here to learn.
It's as if I'm in an eddy at the edge of the river swirling around and around and not really going anywhere.
My heart is telling me to jump back into the current and head east. My gut is telling me that that is where the growth is. But my head is pulling hard on the reigns. My voice of consciousness from the Midwest is telling me that it makes no sense to go there without a job lined up. And if I'm planning on continuing my life as a freelancer with my own teleprompting company, it could be a very very challenging transition to go somewhere where no one knows me. My voices of self doubt and fear tell me I'm not ready -- I don't have enough money to make a transition as a freelancer and I don't have the skills and resume yet to get a decent job in fashion. I fear that I may go there and end up broke and feeling ungrounded.
I take all that and weigh it against my heart which is tugging at me like a kid tugs her mother's hand as they pass by the candy shop. I want to go noooow!
What is the most wise, brave way to move forward? I don't want to be impetuous or immature by packing up and moving and then find myself spending a couple of years getting on my feet again. Am I really up for another uproot? However, I also know that I don't do well ignoring my heart. I never have. I want to be challenged and grow and evolve -- in the most graceful, wise way possible.
What does that look like?!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Lovespell
I fold this spell into the shape of kiss, reach for your wrist, place it in your outstretched hand.
Eye contact.
Kiss unfolds to reveal a map. Of my heart.
Click "street view" and we're on your stoop
drinking tea
smiling sweet
pondering the origin of the breeze
lamenting the decline in picnicing.
If I was beside you on your stoop, would you feel inspired to court me old school?
Bring me flowers and bouquets of sweet words
inspired verse
trace my neck with whispered words?
run ahead of me to open car doors?
I wouldn't settle for less
but would consider settling for more.
For you, I'll let down my hair and wear pretty skirts
make you soup with love and sweet desserts
stitch your name on your bowling shirt ;-)
cuddle you fiercely
love you dearly
sing your name clearly ... out of tune but endearing.
But....
what did you say your name is, dear?
I couldn't quite hear.
Are you near?
I know you're there
just not sure exactly where.
So for now I'll just tuck this note behind my ear....
tend to my garden
keep weeding out the fear
grow my heart bigger
wait for you here.....
casting spells
hoping you'll hear.
Eye contact.
Kiss unfolds to reveal a map. Of my heart.
Click "street view" and we're on your stoop
drinking tea
smiling sweet
pondering the origin of the breeze
lamenting the decline in picnicing.
If I was beside you on your stoop, would you feel inspired to court me old school?
Bring me flowers and bouquets of sweet words
inspired verse
trace my neck with whispered words?
run ahead of me to open car doors?
I wouldn't settle for less
but would consider settling for more.
For you, I'll let down my hair and wear pretty skirts
make you soup with love and sweet desserts
stitch your name on your bowling shirt ;-)
cuddle you fiercely
love you dearly
sing your name clearly ... out of tune but endearing.
But....
what did you say your name is, dear?
I couldn't quite hear.
Are you near?
I know you're there
just not sure exactly where.
So for now I'll just tuck this note behind my ear....
tend to my garden
keep weeding out the fear
grow my heart bigger
wait for you here.....
casting spells
hoping you'll hear.
Late Night Notes from a Casual Straggler
Here's a little sumpin I wrote about city living...
Late Night Notes from a Casual Straggler
I clink the empty drink on the bar in front of me
and nimbly excuse myself from the thick steamy indoor revelry
I squeeze out the door and giggle past a gaggle of gloomy glib hipsters
smoking
fashionably moody
ignobly nonchalant
and leave them in their cool listless mist
Cornerside
I tip my hat to the hiccup and hobble of a homefree hobo
haggardly shuffling toward the grumbling underbelly of his underpass alcove
then quietly slide by the open door of a Mission bar
exhaling the musky breeze of the rowdy revelry of ranchero wanna-be's
hootin and hollerin over a madcap merengue melody
they whistle
i smile
Onward still
The searing rumble of a swift skateboard slices through the air to my right
a hooded young urbanite cascading into the night
dimly lit by a stuttering streetlight
a fast moving urban bat
his ipod whispering secrets into his ear
moving to a theme song none of us can hear
Meanwhile the rider looming low at the stoplight
haunts the hood heavy
simmering in the rattle and roar of his souped up DeVille
heaving deep gangsta beats into the streets
shiny wheels
tinted with the gleam of homeyville
broadcasting his ways always without apology
Noted.
I put in all in my poetic pipe and smoke it
then exhale it back into the night
as I weave my way through the dimly lit maze of the late night urban jungle byways.
Late Night Notes from a Casual Straggler
I clink the empty drink on the bar in front of me
and nimbly excuse myself from the thick steamy indoor revelry
I squeeze out the door and giggle past a gaggle of gloomy glib hipsters
smoking
fashionably moody
ignobly nonchalant
and leave them in their cool listless mist
Cornerside
I tip my hat to the hiccup and hobble of a homefree hobo
haggardly shuffling toward the grumbling underbelly of his underpass alcove
then quietly slide by the open door of a Mission bar
exhaling the musky breeze of the rowdy revelry of ranchero wanna-be's
hootin and hollerin over a madcap merengue melody
they whistle
i smile
Onward still
The searing rumble of a swift skateboard slices through the air to my right
a hooded young urbanite cascading into the night
dimly lit by a stuttering streetlight
a fast moving urban bat
his ipod whispering secrets into his ear
moving to a theme song none of us can hear
Meanwhile the rider looming low at the stoplight
haunts the hood heavy
simmering in the rattle and roar of his souped up DeVille
heaving deep gangsta beats into the streets
shiny wheels
tinted with the gleam of homeyville
broadcasting his ways always without apology
Noted.
I put in all in my poetic pipe and smoke it
then exhale it back into the night
as I weave my way through the dimly lit maze of the late night urban jungle byways.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Do we have to call it A Blog?!
Blog.
Such an unromantic word. Ugh.
A bit ugly even.... I wonder about it's origin.
Of course I could look it up on Google and get to the root of it quite quickly I'm sure. But that's the thing with the internet... it's like the twist a plot that never ends... ADD's best friend. One moment you sit down with a clear goal and the next moment you're on YouTube watching somebody's dog in Indiana peeing on a Christmas tree.
But I'm not gonna do it!
Because..... I am here .....
to Blog.
Why?
Well, we'll start with the fact that I am in San Francisco twiddling my thumbs wondering what comes next.... dreaming up new chapters.... weaving loose visions of my new life in Brooklyn where I am writing profusely and creating art non-stop when I am not busy as a successful owner/operator of my own teleprompting company. I figure this life of art and writing will eventually grow and transform into a wildly acclaimed book of some sort which will of course lead to the next chapter where I steal away for 2 months at time to quiet, quaint huts in the tropics where I work on creative projects (probably a book and lots of poetry and also maybe my next clothing line) to the sound of wild animals hooting and hollaring in the breeze. By this time I will have sold my teleprompting equipment and will be living a full spectrum life of pure art, music, dancing, beauty and love. And of course I'll have my personal assistant taking care of the nitty gritty details of life such as car registration and library fines so those unrefined, dull tasks don't sully my art with foggy hues of dishwater gray and such.
And did I mention that I am reading Julie and Julia?
Yes it's true.
And just like the thousands of sturdy, feisty, inspired gals that joined boxing gyms after viewing Million Dollar Baby (being a sturdy, feisty, inspired Missouri native, I too, of course, pondered it for a moment, but was too busy learning trapeze at the time to give boxing the proper focus), I am joining the ranks of the wistful wordy thirty somethings who feel like the beginning of their fabulous writing career (and eventual movie deal of COURSE) just might begin right here online in cyberspace where so many miracles seem to be happening these days...
like it did for the woman who wrote Julie and Julia for example....
that maybe anything is possible even at the age of 35...
that maybe now I finally might a have a thing or two to say worth listening to ....
and that maybe it's okay to begin to spell it all out before I have it all figured out.
So okay...
I write a lot of poetry.
I constantly juggle a lot of philosophical thoughts around in my head.
I ingest copious amounts of delicious poetry these days that I love to share.
I pay attention.
I am often confused.
I am often amazed.
I find myself shrugging and laughing a lot.
I know less and less and less.
I love words. I play with them regularly.
I dream of compiling a book of "awakening" stories and paradigm shifts that will include my own.
I am dating... which provides me with anecdotes for at least one book.
I am changing.
And this will be the little cybernook where I begin to doodle and trace these things into words.
Anything from this list and beyond might appear.
And you are invited along in my meanderings ... even if you might be already completely overwhelmed by this New Age of Too Much Information (which I freely admit that I am).
Let the blogging begin... (until I think up a nicer word for it).
;-)
Such an unromantic word. Ugh.
A bit ugly even.... I wonder about it's origin.
Of course I could look it up on Google and get to the root of it quite quickly I'm sure. But that's the thing with the internet... it's like the twist a plot that never ends... ADD's best friend. One moment you sit down with a clear goal and the next moment you're on YouTube watching somebody's dog in Indiana peeing on a Christmas tree.
But I'm not gonna do it!
Because..... I am here .....
to Blog.
Why?
Well, we'll start with the fact that I am in San Francisco twiddling my thumbs wondering what comes next.... dreaming up new chapters.... weaving loose visions of my new life in Brooklyn where I am writing profusely and creating art non-stop when I am not busy as a successful owner/operator of my own teleprompting company. I figure this life of art and writing will eventually grow and transform into a wildly acclaimed book of some sort which will of course lead to the next chapter where I steal away for 2 months at time to quiet, quaint huts in the tropics where I work on creative projects (probably a book and lots of poetry and also maybe my next clothing line) to the sound of wild animals hooting and hollaring in the breeze. By this time I will have sold my teleprompting equipment and will be living a full spectrum life of pure art, music, dancing, beauty and love. And of course I'll have my personal assistant taking care of the nitty gritty details of life such as car registration and library fines so those unrefined, dull tasks don't sully my art with foggy hues of dishwater gray and such.
And did I mention that I am reading Julie and Julia?
Yes it's true.
And just like the thousands of sturdy, feisty, inspired gals that joined boxing gyms after viewing Million Dollar Baby (being a sturdy, feisty, inspired Missouri native, I too, of course, pondered it for a moment, but was too busy learning trapeze at the time to give boxing the proper focus), I am joining the ranks of the wistful wordy thirty somethings who feel like the beginning of their fabulous writing career (and eventual movie deal of COURSE) just might begin right here online in cyberspace where so many miracles seem to be happening these days...
like it did for the woman who wrote Julie and Julia for example....
that maybe anything is possible even at the age of 35...
that maybe now I finally might a have a thing or two to say worth listening to ....
and that maybe it's okay to begin to spell it all out before I have it all figured out.
So okay...
I write a lot of poetry.
I constantly juggle a lot of philosophical thoughts around in my head.
I ingest copious amounts of delicious poetry these days that I love to share.
I pay attention.
I am often confused.
I am often amazed.
I find myself shrugging and laughing a lot.
I know less and less and less.
I love words. I play with them regularly.
I dream of compiling a book of "awakening" stories and paradigm shifts that will include my own.
I am dating... which provides me with anecdotes for at least one book.
I am changing.
And this will be the little cybernook where I begin to doodle and trace these things into words.
Anything from this list and beyond might appear.
And you are invited along in my meanderings ... even if you might be already completely overwhelmed by this New Age of Too Much Information (which I freely admit that I am).
Let the blogging begin... (until I think up a nicer word for it).
;-)
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