These Dreams Of You

Flash through my body.

Flush my skin.

Swarm me in sunshine and ghostly kisses.

Daydreams swaddled in cotton candy colored love.

Wildflowers and butterflies.

Clouds that bound bucolic over the blue sky.

High above me, my heart soaring out like pigeons flocking towards pinnacle roofs and crosshatching stovepipes.

I sat and watched the sky today.

Thoughts of you breathless in my chest.

Words to songs tucked into my ears.

I felt as though I was in a movie montage.

A silent soundtrack that no one heard but I.

Although I suspect that you heard the melody as well, despite the miles between us.

Always this connection.

Electric and poignant.

Soul bound and heart-rending.

Soft poesie in the corners of my mouth, which would curl up like a swallow swooping through twilight.

He gives me love, love, love, love.

Crazy love.

God the need for you.

The need that swallows me, wraps me up, carries me away without my control or consent.

Powerless.

Vulnerable.

Swept away.

I watched the sky a lot today, I think that has been spoken too already, but the clouds and the palm fronds and the trees leaves cutting into those gauzy masses had me softened and bending and wistful.

Wistful that still haunts me and lingers.

A burnished ache in my breast.

As though I have a blazon there, a lighthouse beam of love.

I think to myself.

All the thoughts of you, innumerable, a veritable encyclopedia of thoughts on you.

A reference book writ on my heart.

I long just to hold you tight.

So baby, I can just feel you.

Yes.

Dearest.

I am listening to Van Morrison.

Wishing I was dancing with you to the music and not longing for you while I listen to it.

Thoughts of you whilst you lay, way over there, lay, oh, so far away.

How I miss you.

How I love you.

Let me not count the ways.

I would curry no sleep, only the counting, which is infinite, endless, and full of untold depth and mystery.

Like your eyes.

I just want to come home.

Come home.

And see your eyes.

Your eyes.

Looking at me.

That way.

You know the one.

Yes.

Like that.

Just.

Like.

That.

And the hope is.

The wish is.

The desire is.

Fervent and deep.

That you’ll come running to me.

Hey, come running to me.

Oh baby.

Please.

Won’t you?

Please.

Come.

Running to me.

 

The Disruption of Love

Astonishing this renaming of myself.

As the magic man comes to me.

Leading me.

Leaning into me.

Learning me this new language of passion.

Fledgling on this path of unknown sometimes I startle.

A deer in the woods.

A flock of starlings rise in my heart.

Murmurations of love painted across the sunset sky.

Your face in the light.

Center of my attention.

The planes of your cheekbones.

The shape of your eyes.

Curvature of your lips, the smiles dancing there

A minuet of Mozart.

Slain back, surrendered to you, all distance

Drops, shatters, soft, like petals falling from the shaking boughs

Of apple trees.

Caught and cradled.

Through sunrise.

Moonset.

Feathering kisses across my face

Summoning me into velvet darkness where

Stars splatter with spangles of bright desire.

Astonished by you.

Conjured,

I lay myself before you.

Heart splayed and open

Beating like the wings of the birds flashing against

That burgeoning dusk.

Creating patterns of mystery I never

Knew

Abided within me.

I rise then.

Kissed alive.

Anew.

Graced.

 

By you.

Home

Sweet home.

I’m not there yet.

Even though I am home.

That’s not the home I am talking about.

“Welcome home,” he shouted into the dusty air, “ring the bell.”

I rang the bell.

I skipped the rolling around in the dust though.

Fuck that shit.

It’s dusty enough up in this mess.

Yup.

I’m planning my return trip to the playa.

It’s a little early, I suppose, but I am going to get my little early ducks in a row.

I’ve decided that I am not working this year.

I am going to go and just have fun.

I am going to stay with a different camp than I have before, I’ve been a member of the camp since it’s inception and have spent time there, and have friends there, and one of them mentioned to me that it was time to come out and camp with them this year and not work and really enjoy the festival.

The art.

The joy.

The get about and the get around.

I found out my when my first weekend of classes will be for the fall semester.

Last year they fell on the same weekend of the event and I was not able to go for the full amount of time.

I went up early and left early.

I was only there four days.

It was lovely and I’m super glad I went, but it was not enough and I didn’t get to see any of the burns because I left Wednesday morning of the event.

By plane.

There is that.

It was one hell of an amazing experience to fly out of Burning Man.

I don’t know if that is necessarily happening, but I’m going to let it all fall together.

I decided in my heart to go last Sunday and then I did some research and discovered that the low-income ticket application will open in a few days.

I need to update my profile and the minute it opens, February 15th, I will be applying for it.

One of the big reasons that have always worked the event is to get into the event.

But.

I don’t want to work it this year.

I want to actually go and not be tied down and when I researched a little I discovered I could definitely afford the low-income ticket and I will apply to it.

Then yesterday I discovered that the first weekend of the fall semester for my cohort will be the weekend before the event.

Thank God.

I can go!

Well.

I won’t quite say that yet.

I still have to clear it with work.

I will ask on Monday if it’s a possibility.

I already have a lot of my vacation time tied up to my trip to Paris in May, but I do have some days that are not accounted for and I want to use them for the event.

I may have to do some negotiation with the family in regards to it, but I think that they will be amenable to me going.

I sure do hope so.

It was me doing a happy dance today when I told my friend before class that I found out the weekend dates for the fall and that there was not a conflict with school, it set my day, I was super pumped.

Granted that feeling dissipated, class work was challenging and showing up for it and being present for the material made me completely forget about the event, about travel times and dates and plans and things and stuff and more things.

But.

When I got home and said “hello house,” I smiled, my eyes drawn to the print on the wall, a photo shot from above, from an airplane above the event and I remembered quickly.

Home.

And it will be the ten-year anniversary of my best friends passing and me taking his ashes out to the Temple.

It will be my 11th burn in a row.

It is a part and parcel of me.

There are experiences that I have had there that I cannot rationalize or explain.

Love and light and dirt and dust and spiritual transmogrification.

So many times.

Not just once, but time and time and time again.

Dancing the tango with a beautiful 24-year-old man from Norway who was tall and blonde and yes, heh, Nordic, with a gorgeous sweet accent and the bliss of being kissed under the stars, bent backward and kissed as though every song of the stars above depended upon the breath in and out of our bodies as we melted into the dust.

Riding out to the trash fence at sunrise on the art car “A Horse With No Name” and seeing the shots of fire thrown out against the playa, piercing and bright and bathing the dust with golden smote, softening the blue smoke bathed mountains with flames of light.

Running into a friend unexpectedly in a church pew by an organ and telling him a fairy tale in the mid afternoon heat and swelter.

Reciting poetry underneath the upraised arms of the Man and the face of the man when I looked into his eyes.

“Do you know how easy it is to fall in love with you when you recite poetry,” he said.

Why do you think I recite poetry?

I want you to love me.

And somehow.

I don’t know how.

I don’t need to know how.

I find myself easier in my person, able to let that love in, to be scaffold with it, to allow myself to be exactly who I am, hair bedecked with flowers, standing tall in cowboy boots with polka dot socks and my crinoline blowing in the breeze, my umbrella of poesy flowers opened to shelter me from the sun, face bedecked with smiles.

I am somehow more me and entirely at peace with who I am and how I am and it’s not so weird, it’s just me, and I’m not that unique, I mean, did you see what she was wearing?

Or not wearing.

Of course I want to go home.

It’s home.

Anchored in between the Black Rock Mountains and the Calico’s, underneath the rising moon and the setting sun, the howl of love that whisper whips across the playa until we are all crying out of our aloneness a coming together, a community, an expression of magic, yes.

That.

Magic.

May I always be a part of that kind of love and mystery.

And.

Yeah.

Fingers crossed.

I’ve cleared the first hurdle, school conflict, now to ask off from work for event.

Then.

I’ll get a ticket after that.

And.

Soon.

I’ll see you in the dust.

I’ll be there to welcome you home.

I promise.

 

Hello Monday

Let’s be friends.

It started out well.

I woke up and went back to sleep.

That helps.

Sometimes I wake up and I am awake, I can’t go back to sleep, the brain is too busy, the mind has had an espresso without telling me and has finished the New York Times crossword puzzle in black ink and is impatient for me to see its plans.

Today.

I woke up a half hour before my alarm and said, no, rest, let your body rest.

I was planning on going to yoga anyhow and my body does need some rest.

I can feel that I have gotten a lot already, so much really, from the practice that I could get compulsive about it, but I don’t want to be unbalanced.

That being said, yes, I did go today.

I won’t be going tomorrow and it’s unlikely that I will on Wednesday either, those are my two days that are challenging.

Thursday I will and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I’m in school.

Yup.

It’s my third weekend back.

Which is also why I won’t be going to yoga tomorrow morning before work, I need to finish up my reading and also proofing my papers and making sure they are formatted correctly.

One of my cohort got a hold of me and also mentioned that I better re-check the paper parameters for one of our classes.

And fuck.

She was right.

The format for the paper was different than I had written.

Ie, I hadn’t used the correct spacing for the paragraphs.

Re-adjusted it before heading out to work today.

I had enough time after yoga to hop into the shower, pop into some cute clothes, make up my face, fix the hair, not that it really was going to be performing after getting scrunched under my helmet–yay for a break in the rain!  I was able to take my scooter in to work today.

It doesn’t look good for the rest of the week.

Not at all.

I will most likely be taking cars, I’m not interested in riding my bicycle or my scooter in the kind of rain that has been dumping down.

I would be wet most the day and also, it’s just dangerous when it gets too blustery.

I’d rather be alive with a few less dollars in my pocket.

It will rather blow having to take a car into school, it’s so much nicer when I can scooter in, but again, it’s the showing up that’s the most important.

Just keep showing up.

To the yoga mat.

To the notebook.

To the text book.

To do the deal.

It was great to see my fellows tonight and have a chat with a few friends and re-connect.

Really grateful for connection, and commitments, for contact with people I care about and love.

I get to see one of my people tomorrow and that is always such a good feeling, a little sitting down in a cafe doing the deal and getting down to brass tacks.

Getting perspective.

I actually had a lot of perspective just from going to yoga class.

Seeing how much better I have gotten in just ten classes is pretty amazing.

I’ve gotten my new mat too, super non-slip grip and nice and thick.

It’s amazing.

My feet stick like glue to it, well, not always, I do wobble a lot still in certain poses, but again, today, I stuck a pose that I have not been able to do yet–side plank with one arm down and one arm up in the air.

Holy shit.

That’s a work out.

We did a lot of core work today and as per my body’s demands, I ate a lot of kale salad today.

However.

I think I may have kale’d myself out for a little while.

I got through half of my dinner salad and I wasn’t feeling it anymore.

I wrapped it up and figured I’d nibble on it tomorrow for lunch.

Like the good little bunny I am.

Have you seen me eat carrots?

Please.

And folks wonder why I have bunnies all over the place.

Symbolic rabbit meanings deal primarily with abundance, comfort, and vulnerability. Traditionally, rabbits are associated with fertility, sentiment, desire, and procreation.

Hmm.

Sounds about right.

Thanks interwebs.

Although I’m not procreating at the moment, heh.

I have been writing affirmations about sex and making out.

I am single, sexy, and available to date the man God wants me to date.

I am having amazing sex and make out.

Um.

Ha.

I think I’ve actually been writing: I am having mind blowing sex and amazing make out sessions.

That’s the full affirmation.

Every body deserves that, right?

And after all the wonderful stuff with Burning Man unfolding for me, yes, completely confirmed, time off, I’m going, I’m going, I’m going, ten in a row!

I figured.

Come on.

I stopped trying to write affirmations about the one or marriage or my beloved, I’m like, let’s get down to brass tacks.

Let’s go out.

Hey, do you want to go out?

Hey, do you want to burn?

Hey, do you want to dance?

Seize the mysteries.

Hold them in your hands.

Yes.

Exactly.

I won’t spend my whole day stuck trying to figure anything out, but I’m just saying, I’m open, I’m available, I’m going to keep trying, working at it, taking care of myself, focusing on the good stuff right in front of me.

The flowers I bought on Sunday opening.

The new yoga mat and my new practice.

The music on my stereo, the sweet apples in a blue pottery bowl on my counter.

Going to Burning Man.

Going to graduate school.

Loving my little charges and their sweet faces.

Getting kisses from the pup at work.

Hugs from friends.

Life.

You know.

It’s dreamy and delicious and it’s only Monday.

What wonders will the week bring?

I suspect fabulousness and magic.

Well.

Ha.

I know that I will get that since I’m having dinner with my Puerto Rican fairy godfather on Sunday after I get out of school.

But.

I suspect that there is greatness a foot.

I have a vast warm light feeling in my heart.

The days may be grey, there may be rain.

But there is sunshine in my soul, buttercream and daffodils.

It’s Spring!

Baby.

Magic and mysterious and momentous.

Mythic.

I  feel it.

I really do.