weekly wanderings

Last night at 3am I awoke from a sound sleep, my daughter’s voice sounding in the night, but the call was not for me and as she fell back into a restful sleep I lay still and made the attempt to go back to sleep. While I was lying there I had these notions and writing prompts running through my head, a list of things to do, but I thought, no, I will not write these down, I will lay here and be still, and I will go back to sleep.

After a time, and a false start, I did go back to sleep, but since when I awoke this morning I felt just as horrible as if I hadn’t slept, then I’ve just learned an important lesson – next time I will turn on the light of my cloudy vintage lava lamp, and write down those thoughts with a pen onto paper by the greenish-yellow light cuz now that I am here, in this quiet space, they are elusive, floating through my head, the barest hints of images forming in my mind, but as soon as I try to hold onto one of them they disintegrate, like so many other grandiose notions within the time space continuum of every day life, and the consistency of weekly coffee and cookies on Thursday evenings.

This day, this week, this month, perhaps it could even be said, that this year the only consistency within my life has been this space of coffee and cookies, and so what do I do with the consistency? I change it up just a bit, make it into just another mad dash from one obligation to the next, and suddenly this quiet space of coffee and cookies has become too quiet, the coffee too hot, the cookies too plentiful, and my mind is stopped in its tracks and cannot remember a damn thing from those thoughts between that indescribable moment of sleeplessness and sleep … those moments when your mind is finally quiet and you can truly hear what the muse is trying to say to you, truly hear the definition and conjugation of her words, rather than the glimpses received during the bright lights of day, it is this time when the muse speaks clearly and concisely, and it is that time of night when I should be writing – cuz, seriously, who needs sleep anyway?

a dollar short for lollipops

‘A day late and a dollar short’ is no way to live the American dream and yet, somehow more and more people are experiencing it this way. There is never enough money to go around the table, there are always too many mouths to feed and the longevity of the dollar is pretty close to the second it takes for your employer to transfer the funds into your account and viola! The dollar is spent, the money did not sit long enough in the bank for it to change hands, and the world continues to turn, the days continue to pass and time flies like the winds of change, blowing us around at a moment’s notice, too fast for our minds to comprehend the atrocities of the spirit of things gone bad.

Time becomes irrelevant in the grand miasma of the soul and the world turns without you, no longer caring for the inevitable push towards the abyss, we stand on the edge blown by the breezes of time immemorial, lending a helpless ear, too tattered around the edges as we come apart at the seams of disintegration, defeat and despair, waiting for the winds to change and bring forth a new day filled with sunshine and warmth, as well as love, luck and lollipops :)

the shape of things

lines drawn across the page

forming shapes that form letters

letters that form words

turning back across the page

forming images in your mind

collecting in your soul

and riding your body

into the dreams of imagination

myth, legend and lore

coalescing and creating

eons of a bygone era

shrouded in mystery

for the mind’s eye to

conjure and play and

hold onto for another day

when paper and pen

come together again

a bird's tale

A bird sat in the mud. One leg bent down at an awkward angle, the other was tucked in and held close to its body. The crippled leg had been bitten by an alligator. The bite had happened over a year ago, the wound had healed nicely, no infection took hold, but the bird could no longer bear to set this wounded foot within the mud.

The other birds thought this notion of regret was worrisome and grew weary of this bird’s eccentricities and proclivities towards meanderings and feats of grandeur too blithe to remain unheeded in the night. And so the flock chose to take to the night, fly away to the dawn of a new day without this silly creature, they left it behind to contemplate the feeling of the ground swaying beneath its single clawed foot, rather than stand for another day’s light to shine against the silver toes tucked amongst the crystalline blue and virulent green of the bird’s feathers.

harvest season

this year i have harvested
a new life
a new job
a new story
on an old way of living
close to the ground
to the bone of things

this year i have harvested
time for myself
time for my family
time for each other
on an old path traveled
by many around
to the marrow
of the matter of things

this year i have harvested
truths about myself
truths for myself
truths within myself
on an old song
sung 'round the fires
close to the ground
gnawing on bones
to get to the marrow
of necessity long forgotten

this year i have harvested

transitional cycles

The year is 2010. The month is September, the day is the 21^st and the hour is 3:37am.

In this year, upon this day of the month, it is the autumn equinox and the Harvest Moon is setting in a clear night sky, the stars of the Big Dipper barely noticeable by the moon’s full evening light.

During this time of year, summer’s harvests have come to an end and the change of seasons has begun again. Early morning fog is beginning to collect and rise from Lake Wyola and the first frost of the year can be smelled within the winds that dance with the fog along the waters of the lake.

During this time of year, transitions abound. School begins as summer’s heat recedes, vacationers return to their warmer climates, and the lake becomes quiet and still, the reflection of the moon’s full light has the chance to shine bright and still against her waters once again and time passes on into the next cycle of life.

During this time of year, I am in transition. My body, my soul, my very being becomes pushed and pulled in so many directions that moments of quiet contemplation become rare and if I am not careful I will fall to the ground and let the first frosts hold me within their stillness into the change of the next season.

During this time of year, I am the one who holds all of these things together. My body, my soul, my very being becomes full and laden with summer’s harvests and as I ride the waves of the changing waters, so frequent that movement from one to the next cannot be seen by the casual observer, I am also aware that I am the one who rescues those who are in need. I am the one to carry them to a calm shore, allowing them to rest a moment before they plunge back into the waves. I am the one who brings them warm drinks and sits with them beneath a blanket, attempting to create a sense of peace before they take off on their next adventure. I am the one who saves them from drowning, but who will save me?

grandiose verbosity

within the past 24 hours i have had bright light shined upon the inner workings of my subconscious mind. these realizations are so new and shiny that all i can do is stare at them in wonder, bask in the glow created by the newness of their reflections and be held within their stillness and silence for just a moment before the muse takes me by the hand and pulls me into her embrace.

one of these notions of enlightenment is this: within 4+ years i have written 400+ pages on a story that has held up to the rigors of life. transitions of children beginning school for their first time, husbands going back to college for the third time, family members falling into sickness and death, disgruntled employment, unemployment, self-employment, part-time employment, all mixed in together to form this thing we call the american life, for surely this was never the dream once thought to be capable of being achieved by every american ... or is it? is this truly what the american dream is all about? is this truly all the world has in store for me?

somehow i doubt i have followed the path that had been laid out before me. in fact, from the very beginning i seem to have taken digressions and been observed to be content with the many diversions that life has to offer for those who are willing to look beyond the well-worn road and into the depths of the darkened forests and hidden valleys of past, present and future.

and as always happens in these ramblings of my conscious mind i find myself not within the space i had intended to create but in a space that i was led to, for surely i could not have imagined that i'd be sitting here, blurry-eyed and weary, when all logic and propriety would have me sleeping in my warm bed next to my warm husband as our children slumber in their beds.

yet, here i am, slightly chilled, drinking an even chillier beer wondering what the hell i am doing, especially since i've been awake since 3am, shouldn't my body want to sleep by now?!

you would think so! and even i would have thought so and i did make the attempt but as soon as my body was relaxed enough to make rest possible the muse took hold of me, placed ideas and thoughts and possibilities into my head and now i find myself here.

since this is not an unfamiliar place for me to be at this hour, of this day, during this week, i am mostly comfortable within this space of time, but a part of me wishes i could turn this off long enough and fast enough for my mind to rest when my body rests ... just a small part though, which is obvious since i wouldn't be writing this if my body had its say and i wouldn't be writing at workshop, and for that matter i wouldn't be writing anything at all if my logical brain had a say in the matter. after all sitting at a computer typing away the hours of a weekend only leaves long lists of things to do which go unfinished and pages and pages of unpublished works that elongate into the nether regions of my mind as quickly as my fingers can fly across these keys.

16 ways of walking

16 ways to take a walk … hmm … ummm…gosh! I don’t know! What is it about the number 16 anyway? Why is that number so enticing? Why not 17, or even 18? How about 21? Or 5 or 10? Is 16 the average amount of things needed to jog your memory, make it move from one step to the other so fast that your mind does not have the chance to question? What about the number 32? … hmm … yes, I suppose 32 ways to take a walk would be asking way too much within this space of time … so, okay, fine, here are 16 ways to take a walk:

place one foot in front of the other, count 16 steps on the right foot, then count 16 steps on the left foot and you’ll get a total of 32 steps in the right direction. However if you’d prefer to move in the wrong direction then you’ll need to take 17 steps backwards with your left foot and 18 steps backwards with your right foot and then turn yourself around 16 times 16 times 16 and then you’ll be going exactly where you want to go!

Oh wait! Crap! That’s only one way! Well, I guess that’s the only way that matters!

editor in chief

within my mind lies an internal editor. a voice that tells me everything that is wrong with my writing ... my grammatical errors are gross and frequent, my plots are loose and my sentence structure is deplorable ... too many commas, frequent run-on sentences, too many descriptive adjectives, not enough dialogue, not nearly enough connections to form the whole of a story and dear god! you're writing about vampires? seriously?! dude, that genre is full! the world does not need another vampire novel!

and it's usually at this point when the other part of my mind steps in and says: shut the fuck up!

and again i begin to write with even more flagrant uses of commas, lengthy arduous sentences with brilliant and vibrant adjectives among pages and pages of zero dialogue with no continuity between scenes and all of it chock full with vampires, squirt guns filled with rosewater and pistol crossbows slung across the back of a butch vampire hunter dressed in doc marten's and leather ... and suddenly my mind thinks ... maybe i should have majored in art so i could have developed my drawing skills and created a comic book? or possibly even stuck with my computer programming skills and created a video game? guess the external editors had more of a say in my life than the internal editor ever did ... and that's all the self-reflection this mind can take for one day, it's possible that notion takes up days and days of self-reflection! whew! i'm done!

spoken power

there are words
that should not be said aloud
not even in utterance
unless they are meant
truly and fully within your heart
truly and fully within your body
truly and fully within your soul

I love you. I hate you.

there is a dichotomy
held within these words

without one
you cannot have the other
without the other
there is not the one

I love you. I hate you.

neither can exist
without the other present
neither can reach
its full potential
without the other present

I love you. I hate you.

these words will always
remain together
dichotomous
opposite
juxtaposed
within our minds
intertwined
within our hearts
forever held
within our souls

isis moonglow

Isis Moonglow traveled the country in her VW camper. She has traveled within this vehicle, created a home within the steel walls and maintained it’s shiny cherry paint finish since it’s purchase on December 31^st, 1969. Many who witnessed this purchase thought she was crazy for the sale, afterall the 60s had come and gone, who in their right mind would want to drive a vanagan if they didn’t have to?

They balked at her investment, thinking her to be a little too new-wavy gravy to make a go of her travel plans, and yet, here she is, still traveling, the vintage cherry vanagan still shining along the Dakota plains, through the valleys of the Sonoran Desert, and over the hills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Isis Moonglow traveled a circuitous route, which when placed upon a map of the continental United States would form the outline of some shape that could not readily be determined by the naked eye, but only with the eye of one who has seen things from the other side, only one who has traveled to the beyond and come back again could truly see the patterns within the laylines across the borders.

This van, her shiny red vanagan, has been preserved in its original state, every inch of chrome still shines, every hinge still hinges silently and completely. The only alteration to the van’s original 1969 vintage happened a few years back. Isis had been talking with a hitchhiker in upstate New York and while she was driving south on I-9 he told her of the advantages of using grease as fuel. By the time they reached the Pennsylvania border he had explained to her all the eccentricities and nuances of such a system, as well as convinced her that this technology would serve her well, especially when one considered the reduction in fumes and the vast quantities of used cooking oil when one was stopping at the ubiquitous fast food joints to make use of their facilities.

This one time she was at such a place she happened upon a woman who had the most fascinating eyes. Isis had stared at this woman for eons, she had admired the depth of the cerulean edges and the cascading rhythms along the azure rays, falling deep within the pools of ebony irises …

Until the manager had been summoned by said woman and Isis was asked to leave this fine establishment for she had not bought any refreshment. Those were his exact words! Can you believe it? “This fine establishment … refreshment …” what were they serving within those air-pocketed white rolls anyway, filet mignon? Isis Moonglow did not think so, but rather than debate this flagrant attempt at distraction by catering to the media-dependent masses and debate the banality of the urbane populous, she chose to get out of the grungy red plastic chair and into her shiny red vanagan, blowing French-fry scented fumes as she exited the cracked and bumpy parking lot.

However to this day, Isis Moonglow, still cannot remember the name of that stringy haired boy, was he even with her to see the despicable condition of those red plastic seats, how could they allow such flagrant neglect to be seen? Astonishing, really astonishing, to think that something once so shiny, so red, could one day be defiled and scuffed to such a state was too horrible to even contemplate!

Think of the colors, man! The colors!