Tomorrow We Can Drive Around This Town

All these things and what to do with them/ we carve up the world all the time.  - Richard Siken

There are parts of me everywhere. Lost in slate along my favorite lake's shore, in the sunshine that sets my hair on fire, at the bottom of a Gin and Club Soda, the crease along the spine of my favorite book, on the curve of every word I write, under my husband's fingernails, balling up on late summer leaves, in the quiet fizz of neon... just everywhere. I'm noticing this more.

I'm doing a thing where I'm listening to those tiny parts of me scattered around this world. It's proving to be beneficial on many levels: heart levels, brain levels, social levels. It is a good exercise on what is right and what is well; I'm excited about what this means for me. But also, sad.

Leaving the winery was not an easy decision; the dissonance is (still) tangible. I learned so much under the guidance of Eric and Dennis,  blossomed with creative freedom,  honed skills I knew I had hidden somewhere, made incredible bonds with people I would have never come across... Two-EEs has been good to me. But lately there has been a fragrant and deafening pull for elsewhere. I noticed when the pull was more of a subtle tug, and now I'm listening.

So. Onward! as they say.  

Heaven's Waiting on Down the Tracks

Jesus was either 30 or 32 when he volunteered to hang on a crucifix and die for me. Not SPECIFICALLY me -- not that he had visions of a small blonde sometime in the future, pouring wine, bad mouthing creeps, wearing all black and bright lipstick, and writing poetry -- but ME in the large sense. ME meaning you and me and my black cat and your mother and your mother's best friend's brother and his wife and his side chick and the person who checks out your library books. You get the meaning. The man was 30 (or 32).

Now, whether or not his dying for ME did anything in the cosmic scene  -- he felt he had to do it, so he damn well did it. He was a kind man, or at least he was rumored to be (except that one time he lost it and flipped tables (but who HASN'T done that)), who thought about other people constantly. He told the truth, though he sometimes talked in puzzles. And, if you ask me, suffered with anxiety. (How can one be part of the holy trinity and NOT have anxiety? Especially if you got the human third.)

This isn't about Jesus. It's about me. You knew that already, but I needed to point it out just in case. I'm a 32 year old human being. Let me be honest: there are only a select few of you I'd die for -- there are even more of you I'd NEVER think about dying for. I'm not like Jesus at all. But I'm going to start embracing his fervor for doing what I need to do.

I don't know exactly what that means though I have some ideas. And I feel the stir. I feel the stir and I know it's happening.

I Got the Month of May

Let me tell you about what I did yesterday: I got out of bed, made my husband coffee, packed him a lunch, did chore related items, showered, marched up to my office and polished off a 20 page paper (31 pages with Works Cited and an Appendix).

Today: I got out of bed, made my husband coffee, packed him a lunch, did chore related items, went out to breakfast, and saved a nest of baby sparrows. It's true.

I watched a Blue Jay fly up to where I assumed a nest was - all the while 7 sparrows are screaming at him - so, I saved the day by hopping out of my car, clapping my hands together and screaming, "GET OUT OF HERE, BLUE JAY". He and 5 sparrows flew away and immediately, the petite female jumped right in the hole. I save birds in public. 

I've been taking walks when anxiety dips his toe in. I made hummingbird food. Bought pink roses. Wore my husbands dirty shirt. I'm doing important work, you guys. Every single thing I've done today and yesterday I register on the Extremely Valuable scale.

Three years ago, I was in the Painted Desert. Last year, in an emotional one.

And this year, I'm a better human than I've ever been.   

Feelin' Myself

I put my bed by the window because why wouldn't I? Why not wake up and look right out to a virgin Vermont morning, Green Mountains in the background? Why not be taken with a baker's dozen of crow minding their own business against a hazy-blue sky?

Sorry I'm bragging again. But I can't stop.

This is hallowed ground. I feel like I paint it like this: writers and deer and birds frolicking and bonding around a crackling fire, a world where poetry is even more a blood line than usual - and other people acknowledge the importance while braiding a bear's fur... I mean, it's not REALLY like that, but kind of. And books stacked up to my knees wherever I walk. And (this is a truth) a Red Tailed Hawk living in the trees near my room. Chickadees screaming their names and hopping from branch to branch -- and me, a part of it.

When did it become a reality that I, a poor girl from flat-Indiana, might actually be a writer by way of the mountains of Vermont?

Amen.

Tuesday I Get a Little Sideways

Somedays this girl wakes up wanting wine, and maybe to die, but just a little bit. Instead, I make coffee. Some victories are palpable. Listening to that one song by Ray Charles that always makes me cry can't be an option on mornings like this, so on second thought, I'll listen to Brooks and Dunn. Sure, I'll think of my dad, but the good stuff.
"Jukebox plays on drink by drink."

My grocery list should be longer than it is; it reads: Peroxide, Cereal. I should add "booze", but we don't have money for that.

Before the morning is over, I'll make the bed. I'll put away the dishes and polish off this pot of coffee. I'm going to waste a few more hours daydreaming of running away. I might research New Mexico towns, look for jobs in Labelle, Florida, and apartment search in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
"I like my women wild."

I'm trying to make good decisions. That's why I'm listening to country music.