Day Dream Sky

Standing in line at the cafe.

I eavesdrop on the matrons in front of me espousing the artisanal toast options.

In between chat of avocados and sea salt

I think about you.

Wondering how it is that I seem to have fallen

Again.

Again.

Again.

In love with you.

There is this continuous deep dive into you.

I question the $5.62 I spent on the latte,

Then reverse the thought of scarcity,

Settling, as I do at table, abandoned and

Left to me at just the right time so that I may contemplate

Delirious sun setting splendor through the

Corporeal windows framing the street scene.

The palimpsest of my desire for you underneath that sky,

Like the twining of Christmas lights around a telephone pole,

Wrapped up in you.

Once my latte arrives, I sigh with pleasure.

It was worth the cost of admission.

Like you, it is the best in the city.

Reminding me too, of our moment there months ago

When I sitting ensconced in the window seat fervent with fresh love for you

Scribbling poetry about you into my notebook

Whilst you texted me from the long line sprawling out the door,

“Are you hungry?”

And when I didn’t respond, too wrapped up in my poem, you

My muse,

Brought me back a salad with my coffee.

I saw the text as you were walking back with the plate,

My response would have been, “hungry for you,” but a salad will suffice.

For the moment.

That reply died on my fingertips as I was too caught in the splendor of light

Falling though the window, making you seem already a nostalgia piece.

You lit up, loved up by the glittering filament of sunshine splayed across your face.

I regarded that space today, from a different table, marveling at how

I catch the feeling of you with all my senses.

You embody me.

I am entwined with you.

A double helix.

An infinity sign, worn in silver on my wrist.

Possessed and pleased and dressed up in pleasure, encircled.

The gift of the Universe in a little blue box.

What I once thought was a hoax.

Soap opera.

Dramatic invention.

Fairy tale.

Fable.

Why!

Turns out ’tis true.

There is love and then, there is you.

Inflamed I sit now

Amongst the hum of humanity, the clatter of cups and spoons.

To find myself

Transported to you.

Not for naught this love for you.

Love notes scrawled on a legal pad

Dressed up in a leather-bound folder

My Balthazar baby, conversations on the sidewalk after brunch.

You are everything and everywhere.

Tattooed, literally into my center.

I hold you tight.

I am content.

Knowing, for you told me so,

That I am your dream baby.

Knowing.

That I am.

Now and always.

Your,

Baby girl.

Someone Loves You Very Much

She said to me and gave me a big hug, “such beautiful flowers!  I saw them backstage.”

I smiled.

I am loved.

I feel pretty astounded right now.

As I sit in the quiet of my home after a very nerve filled night, did that all really just happen?

Surrounded by love, engulfed in love, friends came out, unexpected classmates came out, hell, one of my professors came out.

I wonder if I can get extra credit for doing the lecture?

I jest.

Sort of.

I got there right at 4 p.m.

Literally found parking a quarter of a block away.

How the hell that happened I don’t know, but it was magic, just like the rest of the night.

Surreal.

Overwhelming.

Wonderful magic.

There were flowers waiting for me when I arrived.

I felt so special, so touched, so very loved.

I got a chance to connect and talk with all the performers, to get up on stage early, to feel what it was like to wear a wireless microphone and have something clipped to the back of my dress.

Very glad I wore a cardigan to hide the battery pack, that was serendipitous.

I got to get good and nervous.

I got to practice breathing.

And praying.

I did that a lot.

A couple of times in the bathroom in the green room and then again kneeling down by a couch when everyone was in the wings, just to get centered, just to ask that I carry the message, not my mess, that I be of service, that I let whatever was going to come out happen and not get in the way of it.

I was so pleasantly surprised by the community that came out.

The show, as predicted, sold out, and at one point there was a line of hopefuls sprawling out from the door.

I think everyone got in who wanted to get in, but I was far from that area, having had time to connect with friends I retired to the back stage to calm down and drink water.

I could not eat.

In fact.

I didn’t eat dinner until I got home a little while ago.

I just didn’t have it in me and I didn’t want to have food get my stomach upset.

I ate a banana before showing up and that really did tide me over quite well.

The nerves made it impossible to have any appetite.

I was told later that my nerves did not show at all.

And I know that to be the truth because when I got on stage they completely dissolved.

It really helped to be under the lights.

I couldn’t see a single face in the audience, I could barely see the balcony seating area, it was all just a melding of lights and laughter and voices.

I got to tell my story and it felt pretty damn good.

I added to the narrative I wrote.

I subtracted.

I got into it.

I haven’t really a good clue what I said.

But I apparently invited the entire audience to come to my graduation in May.

OMG.

I didn’t remember doing that until afterwards when a woman came up to me and asked to hug me and said, “I want to come to your graduation!”

I was like, oh snap, I did do that.

I met so many lovely people.

I was told so many lovely things.

It seems almost too much to even tell you what was told.

I wish you could have been there.

I really do.

I’m still pretty jazzed up from the experience and I’m not really sure how I am going to wind down.

Some hot tea I suppose.

Writing this always helps.

“You are such a writer!” One of my friends told me after, “you tell such a good story, it’s just so obvious that you write.”

That was a compliment.

I do like to tell a story.

I have told a few.

I am sure I will tell a few more.

I was asked, “what’s next?”

I don’t know.

I have to nanny in the morning?

I was asked to keep doing the storytelling, to do something else, to perform.

“We put you in this spot for a reason,” one of the producers told me as I was waiting in the wings, getting reading to descend the steps and go up on the stage.  “We wanted to build a crescendo, we really believe you are going to pull it all together, you got this.”

I think I did.

It was divine.

And it was more than me, as it usually is when I get out of my own way, I just got to become a vehicle for the words and the story flowed and I was happy telling it and excited and sad and oh so grateful.

So, so, so grateful.

I got asked about my blog.

I told folks the name, but I don’t think anyone will really find it.

Since I’ve gone off social media with it, it barely registers.

And that’s ok.

I thought about that a little tonight.

There were times when I wanted something big and important and fascinating from this blog–money, fame, applause, who knows, but something that would make me renown and also pay my rent.

Or buy me a house.

You know.

But that didn’t happen.

If anything, the reverse did.

It became a vehicle for something small and special and unique and sweet and mine.

Also, yours, really, it’s yours too.

Do you know how much you inspire me?

You do.

I love you.

I so do.

Perhaps I imagined you out beyond the footlights, a smile on your face, happy listening, to my little story.

Maybe you laughed a little.

And maybe in some small little way.

I got to be closer to you.

To another.

To this love and song and poetry that carries me forward.

An on ending stream of gratitude and grace.

Yes.

Grace.

And.

Happiness.

Joyfulness.

Freedom.

And love.

OH.

Yes.

That.

The love

So much love for you.

So much.

Iterations

Of my muse follow me throughout the day.

A murder of crows.

A swooping in the sky, twirling and diving.

Soaring on updrafts of wind.

Silent I watch from the other side of the window pane.

The wind in the avocado tree.

The palimpsest of leaves shifting, the russet where the sun has kissed

Blemished the succulent texture and left a burnish there

Like how you have burnished my heart.

Brushing it with the softest I love you whispered in my ear.

I recall the first time I heard you say it.

6 point font.

So small.

So soft.

A fingerprint of love I had to dust for.

Uncertain I had heard the words.

Were they spoken.

Or.

Thought loudly.

A shining soft brightness though.

A fortissimo of piano strings.

And then.

The softest Debussy notes.

Suite number 3.

Bergamasque.

Claire de Lune.

And I feel you there.

Under my skin.

Arousing me when I least expect it.

The call of the sky to me through the plate-glass.

The press of you inside and out, the slip of tongue,

A gliding soaring fragrance of jasmine cool in the night on my skin.

A whisper of wood smoke from beach bonfires.

The drift of a country ballad lament from a passing car.

My musing, my muse, chasing me through my day.

The last thought at night before I sleep.

The first thought in the morn upon awakening.

Always I awaken.

To this moment.

Fresh flowers in a Mason jar.

Love notes passed in lyrics.

Archipelagos of dreams scattered through my veins.

You on the doorstep.

Wry and amused with me.

I forgot to invite you in but like the second time you said I love you,

That time in 12 point font, I realized that there was never a need.

To extend.

That invitation.

As you belong with me and I with you.

Without question.

Without doubt.

Ferocious veracity.

I thrum for you.

Cello strings and vibrations.

Music of the spheres.

Muse of mine.

Kissing time.

Scattered across my chest like freckles.

Rose petals of song.

And the romance of seeing the world.

Tinged by the filter of you.

All things poetry.

All things love.

And.

Eros.

I drift.

Lost.

Upon this sea.

Until you anchor me.

Again.

 

The Practice Of

Showing up.

Showing up to yoga.

Showing up for my recovery.

Showing up for my internship.

The practice of showing up here now that my readership has been cleaved in minute pieces and no one reads the blog anymore.

Not exactly true.

I know that the folks who subscribe are still reading, at least they are getting the blog in their email whether or not they read it I can’t always tell.

But.

The readership that I used to have from using social media has dwindled to just about nothing.

On one hand.

GREAT!

I’ve gone dark, my blog is not being read, it’s not search engine popping up in response to my name and whatever therapy clients I have now or those who will follow in the future, won’t find my ruminating thoughts if and when they decide to Google me.

On the other hand.

Sad.

Not horribly sad, but a little sad, teeny tiny bit sad, just a touch of sadness like a hint of vanilla on a sugar cookie, fleeting and gone and sweet to taste with hints of nostalgia.

I miss the interactions I used to get from people seeing and reading my blog.

But.

I am still here, still showing up, still doing the deal, and it is for me, ultimately that I continue to write for, to please myself, to find all the hidden caches of words in my soul and delve them out, throw them up on the screen and try once again to frame my own world experiences through these scintillating verbs and nouns.

I don’t always succeed.

But when I do.

Oh.

The happiness.

It is joy.

And one side effect of not writing the blog for a social media audience is that I have found myself less abashed to put my poetry up as a blog.

Once in a while I have done that before, written a poem and posted it as my daily blog post.

But recently.

I have been writing a lot more poetry and I am happy to have the forum to throw it out to the world.

The poems get almost no hits and they seem just for me, a sweeting expression of lush moments in my current life.

There is so much pleasure for me in the poetry, I cannot even express it.

The passion it lends to my life, it is a grace, and I am so happy to be pursuing it more here and in my life in general.

Having a muse helps.

Having a line, an image, a word sometimes that captures my attention.

And then.

I am in thrall.

I am writing and the words unlock and open themselves and spread across the sky, backlit with poems that have come before and the surprise of the new moon in the sky over the horizon of the darkling ocean.

I have a gift.

Not everyone will agree with that.

It is like someone who sings, slightly off-key, with fervor and love.

You have to love that person to put up with the passion of what they are creating, but in that loving, in that allowing of the story, the narrative, the poetry, the witness grants the artist succor and the work becomes a gift.

I don’t know where all the words come from and I don’t care, they fly from my fingers, wind themselves around my heart and ensorcell me with abandon and wild loving.

How could I not show up to the page?

Just for the chance to dip myself back into that pool of words and images and love.

It’s really all about love.

Love.

My words just outpourings of infinite love and thus I do know, even if I protest that I don’t, that all love is around me that God surrounds me, that God and love are interchangeable.

What came first it does not matter.

I use love in many different forms.

And.

Oh.

Does love use me.

And I am a grateful servant to this master.

Supplicating upon bent knee, bowing my head to rest it against said sweet skin.

The skein of it binding me as it frees me.

Lost in this world I have no rumination of leaving.

Only to examine and frolic and let my curious heart go.

And the words.

Oh.

They astound.

The feelings fleet and fast and forever changing and then changing again.

Yet.

A constant.

A consistent feeling.

A naming of those things that bind me and I know.

I know intrinsically, without worry or grief for what it belies about my heart, that I am this artist, this is my calling.

So.

I fear not when I am not read.

For having read the book of my own heart.

I am healed.

And for that.

Graced.

Grateful.

Awed.

Loved.

 

Going Dark

I have been scrubbing my Facebook page of all my blog posts.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

It was actually an interesting little trip down memory lane.

It was good to see the pictures and posts and the blogs and to see how steady I have been in my pursuit of this endeavor.

I suspect that as of this blog the readership will go down.

Down  a lot.

But so be it.

It’s the price I pay to get to continue doing this, my little love, my bunny, my pet project for the last seven years.

I will happily sacrifice readers to keep doing the writing.

I was talking with a friend and my words ran away with themselves.

I got so excited about writing and poetry and I just started gushing.

My heart raced.

Words get me all crazy.

I’m not a crazy cat lady.

I’m a crazy poetry lady.

You should have heard me reciting Shakespeare earlier.

I got all kinds of excited.

Ah, Old English you do me so well.

Heh.

Today I actually had time for poetic pursuits, not so much writing it, but perusing it, looking up some old favorites and wondering to myself if it weren’t time to go replace some books of poetry that I used to have in my small library.

When I moved to Paris back in 2012 I sold off all my books.

All of them.

It still hurts to think about a little, some tenderness there, but I wanted to throw myself at the Paris experience and I knew I wasn’t going to pack a bunch of books up with me and carry them across the pond.

No.

I sold them.

I stored a few personal belongings of my own, small framed art works and pictures, my notebooks, my own writing, in a friend’s garage, but aside from that I got rid of everything else.

Books.

Clothes.

Shoes.

Everything but my bicycle and some clothes in a roll on suitcase.

I came back with that same roll on luggage and my bicycle.

And.

Ten dollars.

I don’t regret it, but yeah, I did have a moment today when I realized I had sold my copy of Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets.

That I didn’t have my complete works for Shakespeare, leather-bound from my undergraduate days.

Or.

Sigh.

My collection of TS Eliot.

Also from undergrad.

And.

Oh.

My OED.

My Oxford English Dictionary.

I sold that too.

I think this may be the first time I have ever admitted that in writing in a public forum.

It was a graduation gift from a set of girlfriends in Madison who were my best friends for years before I moved to San Francisco and became a raging drug addict whose friends wanted nothing to fucking do with her whatsoever.

I managed to keep that damn dictionary through years of moves and geographics and even pretty damn far into sobriety.

But.

I decided to let it go.

It was for God to have.

It was always Gods.

I went into Alley Cat Books on 24th Street a few months ago to see if the OED was still there, I was on my way to an appointment and really did not have time to stop in and look, but the last time I had been in there, the dictionary was still there.

Granted that had been over a year and a half ago.

I didn’t see it, but they had re-arranged the store and I was too shy and pinched on time to ask the clerk if they still had it.

One day I’ll replace those words.

And one day these words will be replaced.

All words are infinite.

All moments meaningful, lustful, alive, here and present and a live and loved in my heart.

I don’t have much contact with any of those old girlfriends, but they live in my heart.

And I won’t ever forget what it felt like to get that gift at my graduation party.

I can still feel the weight of it in my hands and I knew the moment it was set in my arms what it was.

I was blown away.

To be seen for what I love is important.

Although not important enough for me to have to do it, the writing or the reading, all good writers have to read too, I love an audience, but I don’t need one to write.

God is my witness.

My heart is my muse.

I am a channel and I don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going to go.

Only that it will.

These words.

Into the ether.

Into the void.

From out my fingers, from out of my heart, with passion and providence, into the universe.

Perhaps the words will fill the voids between stars, the emptiness that needs be filled by poetry until all the worlds are seemless and held in beauty, together under the great bounty and soulshine, the light will cover the dark.

Or not.

I don’t know.

I can’t ever really know.

I will just keep writing and trying and falling and stumbling and getting up again.

I believe I will fly one day, if not this day, then the next.

And every word I put down an attempt at faith in something so much bigger than I, a tiny glimpse, a sliver of honey and lavender crystals, a shining cello note, a sting pulled, a plucking, a bewitching, an enamourement, a leap,  and love tossed I jump.

I don’t need to know where I land.

The leaping.

Well.

It is enough.

It always is.

 

Much Better Now

I opted out of dancing tonight.

I opted out of a girl’s dinner.

I just wanted to go home.

It was a long day.

LONG.

It was a hard day at work and despite wanting to process the shit out of it here, it’s not my business to share.

Suffice to say it’s been a challenging week and I’m super grateful it’s done.

I went to do the deal after work and just felt at peace, sitting in a folding chair in a church and listening.

Sharing.

Letting go.

Solution is not trying to figure out what I need to do next, it’s just doing the next thing in front of me.

And despite wanting to socialize a little, I really just wanted to come home.

Yes.

I know.

It’s called isolation.

I just needed to recoup myself from the week.

I will go fellowship tomorrow night.

I will.

I already promised myself that I would.

And I really like the spot that folks go to on Saturday night after my thing with the people who got that problem like, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

They head up to Brenda’s, a soul food place with fried chicken and grits and lemon pie on saltines cracker crusts.

I can’t eat much.

But I did have a damn nice bowl of red beans and rice with andouille sausage last week.

And.

Conversation and lightness and sweetness.

Which I need.

I do also have a date tomorrow.

I know.

Like I said.

Word got out I have a membership to the MOMA.

He messaged me last week while I was people watching in the cafe and sipping my coffee.

I agreed to a date for the following Saturday, which is tomorrow.

I’m not real hopeful, to tell the truth.

Not to be pessimistic, it’s just that I don’t see it as sustainable.

He doesn’t live in town.

Story of my mother fucking life.

Ha.

Albeit, he’s not super far away, 22 miles, 25 miles, where the fuck is Menlo Park anyway.

Anyway, he works in San Francisco, thus the connect, so I figured, oh, just fucking practice, just go out.

I could have gone out tonight, I could be dancing right now, but I did, I did, I did, just needed to come home, to take a scalding hot shower, to take care of myself, to let the week slide of my shoulders and down the drain.

Sometimes it’s easier for me to commit to going out on a Saturday then it is a Sunday, I’m realizing this, as I write, maybe that’s what I will suggest, next time let’s make plans for Saturday.

I’m not so beat from the work week.

I realized today too.

I have been working more hours than I did last semester.

The new family that I split my time with has asked me fairly consistently to work an extra hour here, and extra half hour there.

Mondays I work 9 1/2 hours to 10 hours.

I’ve been working more, of course I am a little more tired.

And I have not gotten as much reading done as I need to do.

But I’m not here to beat myself up.

Yes.

There’s some hulking big papers on the horizon and I sort of don’t give a fuck.

I’ll write them, I’ll get a bit anxious, and then I’ll do the work, like I always do.

Always.

I have two papers due for the next round of classes.

One I will write on Sunday.

The other I will write next Saturday and Sunday–it’s a big one and will probably take me two days to kick through it.

Which is fine.

I will have a clear weekend and another week to knuckle down on the reading.

Tomorrow is probably my last day to have any “free time.”

I’m going to get up and do my morning routine and writing.

I am going to scooter to my nail place and get a manicure.

I’ll go on my MOMA coffee date and see what happens.

Depending on timing I may go grocery shopping before I hit up my 7p.m. commitment.

I really don’t think the date will go that long.

I’m not trying to jinx it either, just, I don’t have expectations.

Which means I won’t have resentments.

Fingers crossed.

I don’t resent my decision tonight either.

Both offers, the dinner and the dancing were last-minute invites.

I hadn’t made plans to do anything tonight, so it wasn’t like I committed and now I’m feeling sorry for myself.

Nope.

Happy to be home listening to my G. Love and Special Sauce.

Because sometimes I need to go back in the day.

I had an ex-boyfriend in my early twenties who was a huge G. Love fan.

He introduced me to them and once in a while he would amuse the hell out me singing about his “baby’s got sauce,” it always made me laugh.

I was with him for five years.

Longest relationship of my life.

And it’s been a long time since.

It’s still hard for me to believe that.

I can allow that to make me sad.

Or.

I can celebrate all the wild and winsome adventures I have gotten to have because I was able to go, sure, I can go to Burning Man.

Paris.

Rome.

New York.

Los Angeles.

Sure.

Let me have that adventure.

I’m down for a road trip.

A side trip.

A walk in the woods, along the creek, underneath the moon or the bright sunshine.

I was riding my scooter home along the park, Golden Gate Park, I always ride home along the park, and I was pondering to myself how I felt.

Did I feel like I was self-sabotaging?

I mean how am I supposed to meet people if I just come home from doing the deal after work on a Friday?

Then I rounded the corner that ends the Pan Handle and begins the long slide of park toward the sea and I saw something glowing through the trees.

What is that?

I looked up.

Is that a kite?

NO!

Oh my God.

It was the moon, a slice, a thick buttery slip of crescent blooming golden buttercup through the pines.

My heart just jumped.

How small my concerns, my worries.

How silly.

When there is a moon like that sailing through the trees.

In the scheme of things me not going out dancing is so small it is fucking laughable.

I take my shit way too serious.

I let the moon glide me home along the road, the mist of the sea rising to meet me as I zipped along, light and joyous and thankful for all that I have.

So much.

So much love.

So much gratitude.

So much.

I have.

It astounds.

Really.

It does.

 

You’re Such A Nanny

My friend chuckled after I admitted that I almost offered him a graham cracker.

“Hey, do you want a gra….oh my god.”

I laughed.

I was so my job at the moment.

I was also just excited to be talking to adults that weren’t the parent of my charges.

Like just my peeps on the street.

I got a text asking what I was doing and where I was and I replied at the playground, my friend knows the one, and there until swimming lessons and the farmers market and laundry had to be got done.

I had already made the roasted cauliflower and vat of broccoli soup during the earlier part of the day.

It was a super sweet surprise to get to hang out with my friend and his lady, also my friend, these are your friends/here are your friends/these are your friends, and it was just a special quick moment of getting to be relaxed and playful with my charges and catch up a little with my friends.

I am so lucky to have the friends I do.

It has taken awhile.

Some relationships get let go.

Some become stronger.

Sometimes I have a friend for a few years then they disappear for a while.

That always makes me sad.

But.

There’s not much I can do except focus on getting what I need for myself and letting that friend do what he or she has got to do to get back to where I am at.

Some do.

A lot don’t.

So the ones that stick.

Fuck.

They are important.

They are cherished.

Plus.

Despite my apparent transparency here.

I don’t have a ton of close friends.

I have enough.

I have just what I need.

I am not complaining.

I am grateful for the amazing friends in my life.

I just am not quite so popular as my facecrack page would like you to believe.

Sometimes I just can’t keep up with it all, the events, the parties, the things, the doings the goings, but I try to keep up with a select few.

And that makes me very happy.

To know that I have friends in my life.

I am a social animal even though I try to act like I’m some sort of lone wolf.

So.

I am quite happy to have a coffee date this weekend, some doing the deal with three different ladies, and a dinner date with a friend who is just had a really big anniversary.

Plus.

I feel good because tomorrow is Friday and I’m almost through my first full time work week after school has let out.

I am getting used to getting up early again and being at the house in the mornings.

I am also happy because I had a little epiphany in the shower when I got home tonight after doing the deal.

I was laughing to myself about the graham cracker offer at the park and then I recalled a brief conversation I had once with an acquaintance years ago.

I was nannying.

Shocker.

It was an afternoon in the Mission and the parents I worked for were hella cool about letting me take there kids everywhere.

Even church basements.

And as I sat in the spot, the metal folding chair more comfortable than the crap running through my brain which was why I was there during the work day instead of after the work day had finished, one of my monkeys was getting fussy.

So I took him out of the stroller and nestled him on my shoulder and crooned to him and rocked him until he fell asleep, heavy in my arms, completely warm, soft, a puddle of love, all collapsed on my shoulders.

I hummed a lullaby under my breath.

I have two go to’s–the classic “Hush Little Baby” and one I made up that consists of a couple of bars that I hum.

I couldn’t tell you what key it’s in.

Perhaps the key of gratitude.

But.

It’s affective.

I cannot tell you how many babies, toddlers, children I have hummed that little ditty to, rocked to sleep, held through teething bouts, calming them down at the park after a scraped knee or a startled dropped plate shatters on the floor.

I would later, much later, realize, fuck I am dense, hit on me after the deal was wrapped up.

“I don’t know that I have ever envied a two year old more,” he said to me, eyes a twinkle, “what I wouldn’t give to be held in your lap having you sing me a lullaby.”

God damn it.

Even writing that I can tell he was hitting on me.

I however, was busy bundling the monkey back into the stroller and keeping the other one, I specialize in nanny shares and almost always do double duty, busy with the snacks and the milk.

I tucked the blankets around them and smiled.

I walked away.

And I wonder why I am single.

Gah.

Anyway.

Total digression.

All this in a flash in the shower, the lullaby, the song, the oh!

Oh!

Oh!

I got it.

I got it!

Lullabies and Love Songs.

My book!

Er.

Well, my chap book.

I’m not sure how much I’m going to get, but it has been needling at me to put together a group of poems.

Hmm.

Or should it be.

Love Songs and Lullabies?

Not sure.

But.

I want to gather my materials.

I have tons of poems scattered through out my notebooks.

I want to go through them and find the pearls.

There’s a lot of dross.

But there is gold too.

I will also mine this blog.

I have some poems tucked in here too.

I got super excited.

I have something to report on for the podcast and I have a real sense of it.

I can see it very well.

And I want it.

I want to do this.

Lullabies and Love Songs.

That’s the one.

That sounds good coming out of my mouth.

Oh.

Happy.

I like having a creative goal and I don’t know that I’m ready to go back in and try and re-work my book yet.

I also do want to find one of my old short stories.

I have an idea to polish it up and submit it to Glimmer Train for their emerging authors contest.

I have had a short story published, but the circulation, I’m pretty freaking sure, was under 5,000, which was the cut off to be considered for the contest.

Anyway.

I am going to do this.

I usually do.

When I put it here.

This blog.

My blueprint.

My happy.

My graham cracker.

Heh.

My crumble bum muse, tumbled out like grains of sand from the park expedition, harmonies of love and joy and the sweet hands of a little boy riding my shoulders calling my name out gleefully as we stride down Valencia street.

Can’t ask for more

My life.

So.

Fucking.

Good.

Your account has been deleted

And goodnight.

No.

Obviously I am not deleting my blog.

I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I did that.

Although I am beginning to think that I may supplement my blog.

I know.

In what fucking time?

But.

It’s been suggested a few times, by quite disparate people, that perhaps I want to start a podcast.

I apparently have the voice for it.

That could be fun and I do like to listen to myself talk…

Anyway.

I digress.

The account I deleted was my OkCupid account.

I realized after last nights blog and a little pity party after the fact, which quickly turned to anger, then a gentle, soft reminder, hey, kid, be nice to you, you’re doing the best you can.

The fact is that I know what I want and I can’t have it.

Yet.

And.

Further.

That being on this online dating site was not fulfilling me, it does me no justice, it does me no truth, it does me no love, it’s a flat representation of me.

I decided somewhere mid day to stop trying to date.

That was the realization.

That was it.

I know what I want.

I know where my heart lies.

So stop betraying my heart and stop trying to date on line.

It never worked.

Has never worked and yet I have had that damn account for years, I have disabled it twice and deleted once.

Now, officially deleted again.

I had a moment of realization that trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results was just as debilitating as beating myself up for wanting to have some different kind of romantic experience.

The fact is.

I know love.

And I don’t have to be searching for it.

I have love.

I can look inside.

I can feel it flush on my face, the sound of drums rolling through my blood.

The fire of carnations, the salt rose and topaz.

I almost didn’t delete it though.

As if hanging onto it would prove something, change something, make it different, make how I feel different.

I disabled it.

Then I re-read the last e-mail I got from a perspective suitor, which was probably one of the cutest requests for a date that I have actually gotten from the site, and I balked.

Come on, Martines.

This is fantasy.

Because it really is, it’s just another way to check out, to not be present, to not focus on what is going on with me, to deflect from the feelings I am having and get lost in the clicking through profiles.

Just another rat in the maze.

I will pass.

I went back and deleted the account.

A few minutes before a friend texted me to see if I was around.

Ha.

Yes.

And free to be present since I’m not trolling for some imaginary internet ego fulfillment.

Rather.

A good talk.

A connection.

Human relationships.

Right here.

Right now.

In the moment.

Just for today.

“Oh, you take it easy, you let the day unfold, I think you are going to be really happy today, you’re going to have something happens that is going to really surprise you, I guarantee it.”

Man.

She was right.

And it was good.

My heart feels in a place of resting that I don’t believe has been available for me for awhile.

I am not unhappy that it took what it has taken to get here, it’s been work unlike any I have ever known.

And the results?

Holy shit.

A deepening of understanding.

A threshold of love I don’t know that I have ever experienced.

A transparency of my self.

So good.

I feel blown open.

Like sugar crystals in a cave of dark velvet splashed with light and lit up.

Incandescent.

Alive.

I also gave myself the thumbs up to be a poet.

I mean.

Ha.

I have been a poet all my life, I was a poet before I had the words to express, but I can recall the images from my child hood, the smells, the press of my senses and that outlet that was always there for me, more true than history, poetry.

Which in its best, done well, is always about this moment.

This one.

Right here.

I have a class in school that I have to come up with a proposal that will help me expand my spiritual experience.

It’s called “Applied Spirituality” and I have had a bit of a resentment about it.

Damn it.

I am a spiritual person.

I don’t want to expand my experience.

I sound like a petulant child.

When it was pointed out I still stomped my feet a little, but I thought, ok, how can I be flexible, what could I change, can I actually add something more to my already rather busy and packed schedule?

My first response was fuck you and fuck no.

But when I react that strongly to something I know that is where the work is.

Then again, there it was, that idea presented to me, again last night, Sunday night and Sunday during the day at school, that I should be doing some vocal work.

“You should have a podcast!”

As I mentioned, I have no idea what that means.

I mean.

I really don’t.

Some exploration there would be needed to figure it out.

But how hard could it be?

The thought that came to me, the first thought, it morphed as I was talking to my friend, it bloomed, it expanded, and got bigger, but the first thoughts was.

Well.

Hmmm.

Maybe start a podcast and do spiritual readings.

Then I had another thought, a quiet thought, a soft voice that was shy at first, but then excited and lit up and exuberant.

Wait!

It should be my own work.

And.

Yes!

I will read poems on my podcast.

And.

Yes!

Here it is.

I will write a sonnet a day.

That will be my spiritual practice.

And if you don’t believe that writing is a spiritual practice, you bring yourself over to my house and I will show you my stacks and stacks and boxes and bins of notebooks that I have written through in my writing practice.

Poetry will be my practice.

Despite feeling overwhelmed at times by the amount of work I was doing in my first semester, I made the time to write the sonnet sequence for my friend I met a Burning Man.

And I can feel it.

I can feel that this is the right thing.

Write a sonnet in the morning, or free verse, or maybe find another lyrical form that resonates, like, hey on Saturdays I’ll write a sestina instead, then in the evening, edit and post it to my cohort and record it as a podcast.

I believe that poetry also needs to be read out loud.

The voice and the inflection, the words of the poet.

That is my proposal.

I am super excited.

And so grateful for this experience.

For this love, love.

This life, this joy, these threads of words and lines of poesie that sing inside my heart, this voice that is not mine.

You know, it is not.

It is God’s.

That I believe more fervently than I can express.

When the words come, even these, they are not mine.

I am a conduit.

I am a channel.

And that.

That.

Oh, that.

Is a mighty.

Mighty.

Fine thing.