What Will We Do? Soon, Said I, Will Know

Consider the osprey drying out her wings. Neck and face white, bent water wings outstretched just so; she, shaking them off perched high on a dead tree, no leaves. She sits. Quietly.
The rain has stopped. And she is stooped.
And you?
You are thrilled to see this excellent bird, precision fisher, gorgeous gal of the sky just sitting.
*
Consider the infant. The pink-cheeked tiny life who can not know why she cries. The mom, the dad -- they 'shhhh' and 'it's okay' until they just can not take it.
And I want to run to them and say 'shhh' and 'it's okay' and hold the tiny so they can breathe.
I do not and I am amiss.
*
Animal is animal is animal.

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.  

Freeze Tag

Brett Elizabeth thinks I'm a better writer than I actually am - she decided to tag me in this blog-fellow-writing-linkage activity that I surely don't deserve. She did it, though. She extends too much grace to me. She's my writing mentor, overall life coach and best friend - so, if she asks me to do something, I will.

The rules: get tagged. Tag two people. Answer questions. Hope your tag-ees answer the questions. The two people I'm tagging: amazingly smart, witty, and genuine Katie Pruitt and Danee Pye who is a crisp well of creative ideas, grace, and elegance. Once, they both worked together to keep me alive. I owe them more than I give - I regret it almost on a daily basis. (I am sorry)

They both deserve your readership, but mostly, your respect as amazing people and great writers. 

The questions:
1. What are you working on? 
MFA. That's what I'm working on -- holy shit. And life. I can't express the amount of overwhelming all things are right now. I'm lucky if I can spit out a poem once a week. This winter was a wick to all goodness in my life - sopped that shit right up and has left me a shell. Summer is working her sweetness and I'm trying to pick up the little pieces of shiny that might be left and shake them down into this hollow mess of a heart. School and staying alive, that's what I'm working on. Artistically, I'm working on line breaks. And how to handle negative critiques. I have in my headspace an idea bumping into braincells -- I'd like to write a series of HOW TO poems. I have two that I loved writing; I think it'd be fun. And also, poems on or about or mentioning saints. But those are future messes to tidy up at a later date.

2. How does your work differ from other writers in your genre?
I don't know. I'm figuring that bullshit out as a I go. I'm a strong defender in the idea that no poem is original - I'm' just telling it from my fucked up perspective. So, in that way, I guess I'm different: I'm a foul mouthed hillbilly who has a serious drinking problem laced with an ever decreasing self-worth. Putting it that way, though, tosses me in the bag with lots of you chumps out there, right? :) I once had someone tell me my voice can sometimes be "Southern Gothic". I'll hold on to that. Oh, he also said I had a knack for creating moments and disregarding narrative. I don't know if that was a positive.

3.  Why do you write?
Like Brett, and I suppose many writers, I've written forever. There was never a genesis like, it just always was. I have a weirdly saturating sadness that I can't understand - so I put words together. Over christmas I found an early story (holla' to my fiction roots) I had written maybe in the first grade called A Sad Day. It was about a baby bird who died. AAaaaaand, there you go. Basically: I write because I have to, you know?

4. What is your writing process? 
Well... that has changed significantly since I've started this Bennington gig. I used to get really sad (so easy to do), drink cheap wine or whiskey, and write the night away. Now, I get all fizzy-stomached and nervous and think about how shit is going to get shoved through a meat grinder. I try to suppress that. And then I write. Lately, I haven't been happy with anything I've created. And it's been a hurtful few months. It'll happen again. In the mean time, I carry my notebook where ever I go. I get ideas from phrases I hear during the day or standing in line for coffee or wrangling the ache I have for western adventures. It comes and goes and if it's not there, I write anyway. Not so much a process. Just a way of life, right?

Thanks, Brett. Love you.

Only The Good Die Young

I want to tell you about poetry school. I want to be able to say, shyly, "Who woulda' thought, you know?" and you say, in sweetness, "I thought. I always thought" in the kind of way a dad would say. Except we would both know that you've been worried about my trajectory.

Teach me to change my oil, would ya? And while we're at it, can we conquer the country roads with a manual shift?

Let's sit on the porch and gossip about your neighbor lady, but the good gossip. The "can you believe how earnest she is about keeping strangers out of our yard?" gossip. And the "She's honestly still kicking" and "She never NOT talks about her surgery" gossip. We'd start every sentence with: "I mean, I'm not talking bad, but.." We'd finish (probably) a 12 pack of beer and feel fulled up with the meat of a good-goddamned autumn night.

Tell me the importance of measuring twice, cutting once. Tell me the mistakes you've made, that seemed big, but now are small.

Is everything permanent? If not, why does it seem like concrete has filled the little sacs in my lungs?

We should be crazy one night and buy expensive tickets to a rock and roll show. We can sit and eat up the night; poison it with sentiment. If you wanted, I'd let you tell me about when you fell in love with mom, what it was like in the 80s, the first time you heard Guns'N'Roses, why you stayed with mom, what it was like when your children were born... If you wanted, I'd listen all night, after the music died with the moon. Maybe we'd drink a little bourbon and I'd promise my first born would have your name. Girl or boy.

Maybe one day I'd call you and cry, but I'd call you because I just needed your voice to calm me, like it did when I was a tiny with an upturned nose. You'd say, "Did I ever tell you about that time we were in the abortion clinic - and I looked at your mom and your mom looked at me? Did I tell you what I said?" [Silence] "I said, 'I think we can do this,' and so we left." And that would appease me. That would reaffirm me that at least two people in the whole world, so big/so small, loved me before I even existed. And I'd stop crying. We'd probably make dinner plans. Afterwards, I'd help you weed the garden.

Anyway, I want to tell you about poetry school. But you're dead.

All the roads we have to walk are winding

What about this skin I have? What am I supposed to do with it once it's clean from a perfect September? And, while I'm asking questions, what does it mean to wash the shadows off? Where do we go?

But what about the unkind?

But also, the divine?

These questions are irrelevant.

Irreverent.

What Sunshine Do You Bring?

I'm writing this for you. Not actually, because knowing would be something completely different. But I think I'm writing this for you. You eat the day, tenderly, with just a tad bit of salt. And the way you brush your hair? I love it. That's why I'm writing this for you. Also, you walk like pop rocks, and I dig that. You talk to me, sunset colors in your voice. Oh, and the hushed sound of wings ripping through air.

Don't be confused. This isn't a love poem. I don't write those.

I just wanted you to know, that a few times a day, I write for you. In a way that's not actually writing, but in a way where I notice things (because that's what I do, I notice things) and think, I want to write that. I want to write that for you - always.

Here's what I want to say: mortal sins are sins but so are venial sins, but not in the same way.

Love is like that, too.

Love is like that, too. (but this isn't a love poem). It just isn't.

We Will Never Die

Few things are barely connected; most things are.

Two things fucked me up real bad today. If they happened to you, maybe it would have been a passing breeze. And if it happened to me yesterday or maybe if it even happened tomorrow, maybe it'd be just nothing, but today: today, these two things were everything. And somehow, I know they are interconnected by delicate strings.

Here they are:

I watched a beetle die today. Much to my protest, this beetle died. And his life ended in front of me. I watched it. Do you get it? I FUCKING WATCHED IT.

I saw a lonely man today with a lame arm.

goddamnit. both things made me want to die. but somehow afterwards, I felt more. Just.. more.

like the warmth from the sun

Some days are days that last forever. Some days are days that last forever in the best way. In the way that you accidentally smell like sweat because playing in the sand with a bunch of kids is something not to be taken lightly. I mean, you have to start at the feet and end with the shoulders. Covering every inch of a 10 year old with Indiana sand at a swimming hole is harder than you think.

Then, you're not even finished. You have to bulldoze sand under their little necks so they can (comfortably) watch their friends in the water. Do you even get it? Today, it wasn't about the sand. Well, maybe it was about the sand for them. But today, it wasn't about the sand for me.

Little moments, right? Isn't that what it all kind of comes down to? Little moments and reminders and sand on your scalp and giggling kids and connecting in the sameness and falling asleep on the bus ride home and counting Jolly Ranchers. And living and loving and being happy? Right?

I know I'm right. I just know it.

I don't care: I love it

I had a revelation today. Basically, it goes like this: if I'm unhappy - it's on to the next one. I bet you want a little back story, huh?

Yesterday, I was offered another job. Like, she called me. She said, "The whole office voted," she said. She said, "We all want you." Well, anyway, this is troubling because I just accepted a position at that little, local winery right west on 24. The problem is: I want both. And I want school. And I want time to be a real life person. And I want to be able to eat this summer. But I also want to play backyard games and get stupid sweaty and really drunk with a shuttlecock in my hand, at least 2x a week, you know? Is that too much to ask? (probably.)

And let's face it, what a great problem to have. I totally recognize this, and please, don't hate me for stewing... but no worries, because me? Well..

I've made up my mind and it goes something like this: I can do whatever I want. And I damn well intend to.

I Said Things I Meant to Say

My papa tends to things in a way no-one else can.

He is making bat houses this spring. He raises worms. He feeds his birds. His flower garden is unparalleled. He adopts stray cats. He heals my heart whenever I'm anxiously sad. He makes sure his wife doesn't forget her evening pills. He is attentive when anyone is speaking. He loves to watch a good game of ping pong and always cheers for the winner. He might disagree, but it's always respectfully. He compliments servers. He sends me newspaper articles he thinks pertain to me. He lectures about life lessons (I listen).

He shares what he has - all the way from his worm-tea to bean dip to space on his houseboat in the summer, any summer. He fixes things, and paints things, and hangs things for my nena. He knows just when to hug me. He says the phrase, "grab and growl" before any meal. Sometimes, if we pray, he says: "So mote it be" at the end (which might be a freemason thing, but who knows? more importantly, who cares?) He listens to the Babs. He taught me to water-ski, to cry in public, to drive, to shoot free throws, to be kind and most importantly, to be happy no matter my circumstances.

I'm still really working on that last one. I suppose that's one that comes with age.

Have I told you lately that, basically, I'm the person I am because of him? I'm sure my dad was just like him - I never got a chance to know that. But if I'm anything, it's lucky. And loved.

i've already been here once, and now, again

I forget, you know?

I am, in the tiniest way, part of this earth. We are lucky bastards to breathe in tall grass and blue herons and sticky burrs. We get to drink down the wind and walk through may-flies all a tizzy and we get to know what it sounds like when 15 ducks fly off water together.

And sometimes I want to die. And sometimes I want to live forever. But I always want my naked feet to decompose in the mud.

We took serious pause yesterday when we saw a deer skeleton - laying disrobed and basic in definition only. We didn't pray, but we did. We felt vibrations and grief and hope. And without saying a word, we both knew - our future is with the dirt and the crows and every single hair that used to cover that doe. We live, we die, we live forever.

Amen.

my heart feels unprotected

I do the things I need to do, you know, to function. Brush my hair, wear clean underwear, pet my cat, blow out the candles at the end of the night, drink wine, occasionally dust, wash out my cuts, eat some fruit, smile at strangers, text, sit criss cross applesauce, and work on my posture.

I wear a bra mostly, I cry alone mostly (except for Fat Tuesdays. On Fat Tuesdays, I cry to boys who let me), I shave my legs (sometimes) and listen to sad songs on lonely nights. I breathe heavy as I fall asleep. I remember nice things and feel nice. I try not to remember bad things, but, like everything, that's hard to do.

I fall in love. And out of love. But mostly, in, at least 3 times a day.

I participate in normal human activities. Sometimes, I even enjoy it.

Sometimes.

let's talk over mai-tais. waitress, top it off

Life shifts often. My skin comes off everyday and my hair falls out and my finger nails grow, get dirty and I bite them off, but here I am, the same human. Kind of.

The shifting. The death. The life. It's all too much at times. The standing up tall and watching everything change, that's something else, too. I barely can stand it.

All of this to say: I'm getting old. I can see it around my eyes and in my blood. And with the friendships I've cultivated for so long. The shifting. The slow transfer and melting away and putting our hands into the cold river that never stops - these things tell me, you know, nothing fucking stays the same.

And I mean it: nothing.

causing trouble in the dark

I want to tell you guys everything. Everything. Poetry news, school news, friend news, gossips, wine times, dancing and fights. I want to tell you about how I lose hope in all of those things at least 3 times a day, but somehow regain it back. I also want to tell you that I'm in love with Ke$ha in a way I can't understand or describe.

Also, I need to start running again. I'm not balanced at all - but I can't find it in me to run before work and I'm so slain after work, so what do I do? Don't answer that.

Did I tell you that 2013 is going to be the best year yet? I have good feelings for it. There is only one little hiccup and that's surgery. On valentine's day. But after that, no speed bumps. Smooth sailing. Only a little bit of sadness, but an appropriate amount. okay?

take everything away

Everyone knows a writer.

Don't tell me that doesn't make you feel overwhelmed. Because I know how it makes me feel. All void-y and let down and like maybe, just maybe, somehow I got short changed. Don't worry, I'm well aware that this whole post (up until now and probably on and on and on) is a snug Woe Is Me sweater. I get it. And tomorrow I'll be fine.

And if we're honest, I'm fine right now.

Kind of.

you may as well get what you want

I drove to the top of a parking garage tonight and stood on the roof of my car. It sounds insane, doesn't it? It is a desperate act of an unbalanced human. It has to be, right?

I haven't figured anything out.

If you're wondering, it was awesome. Just standing there taller than the mundane shit around me - people walking on the sidewalk not knowing that a looming petite girl was wavering right above their heads. Scurrying around, quickly, probably thinking about sweeping their floors or grocery lists or it probably really doesn't matter what they were thinking - I was just there. Existing in a solitary moment. Breathing and breathing. Wondering how I don't ever know what to do about how I feel.

Life is moving. And it makes me do a lot of standing still.

I'll See You in Heaven (if you make the list)

There are big things to write about all the time. And mostly, I don't do it. There are HUGE things that should be completely unavoidable: meaning of life, ancient atoms forged in the sun, Buddha, Gandhi, Jesus..all being born from the same mother - you know, big stuff like that. Mostly, I'm all selfish and little and petty and "my problems this" and "my problems that".

Today is going to differ this way: I'm going to talk about good, solid, salt of the earth stuff. And it's going to revolve around my mom.

My mother was a tile setter - one of the first women in Indiana to move past her apprenticeship and become a full fledged Journeyman, you know, Master. Not kidding. She worked hard as fuck for the money she made; she'd haul bags of dry concrete mix up and down stairs, she'd work in the freezing cold or smouldering heat surrounded by construction men, who, more than once, taught my worldly mother a new colorful phrase or two. My mother essentially became "one of the guys" by working her hands to the bone.

Before that, she was a hairdresser. Before that, she was a teen mom. And before that she dropped out of high school to ran away to Texas, following a boy with blonde hair and big teeth.

She decided to have me, despite having made an appointment for an abortion. Can you believe that? She was actually IN THE WAITING ROOM before she and my dad decided, "you know, we can do this..." And they did do it, people. Here I am.

She has given me her work ethic. She taught me to fry an egg perfectly, in bacon grease. Devotion and loyalty and to utterly lose my shit when a bee or a mouse or a moth is around. I know, because of her, that I'm strong. Even though mostly I'm insane, I know I could take this world on. I have learned through observation that we can all move past our pasts. She was beat, emotionally and physically, and while I was young, she was better to me. She always told me she loved me. There wasn't ONE NIGHT that I spent with her that she didn't give me a ridiculous amount of "good night"s, and "sleep tight"s, and bed time kisses.

She instilled in me a serious drive to always have clean sheets. She never once told me I was ugly, or a whore, or stupid like her dad told her a lot. She only spanked me with a belt once. She let me listen to Nirvana and Violent Femmes and Green Day. She didn't ever give me permission to date that older boy, I mean, I did anyway - but I also got that from her.

So, what I'm saying is this: most of my life was good. The "men standing around with one foot on the truck's bumper drinking beer and women gathered around clucking about weather and kids and men" good. There were some hard times - some of my deepest wounds are from her, but some of my strongest characteristics were cut from her mold.

This post is for my mom - and if I'm ever a mom, I can't wait to tell my daughter about the good things her grandma has done.

wrap you in my colors and keep you warm

Yesterday was the day - the last of our rabies vaccines. And for celebration, Andy and I went to the zoo with our closest friends. Then had pizza at our favorite pizzeria. After that, we came home and slept. The vaccine turns our legs to stone after a few hours, and causes our blood to slow slightly and we get SO tired. (*NOTE: I don't think that's what *really* happens, but it does make us sleepy). After this, you know, Rabies Summer 2012, I've learned lots about the proverbial self. I have. However, I can't really piece those together to make coherent thoughts... the one thing I do keep coming back to is: I'm very happy I'm not dying of rabies.

I feel at ease knowing I won't have to watch my partner die of rabies.

No hydrophobia. No inflammation of our brains. I won't have to ask someone to shoot me in the head. You know, lots of things to be happy about.

I'm often very afraid of death - this was no exception. Especially during those sleepless nights. I would lay awake and JUST KNOW that my hallucinations were rabies-induced. I thought the incubation period sped up and I for sure had the full-blown, very mature virus eating away my central nervous system. I thought about my brothers and my mom and what me dying would do for them. Are my grandparents going to miss me like I'd miss them? Would they think about how I learned to water ski just to impress them? I would stew about Andy, would he stay in our apartment, would he move back to Missouri and help his mom around the house? Is he going to sell my clothes? Would his next wife want babies? Please fucking tell me he wouldn't date someone in this neighborhood. Would my little black cat pine for me? And I'm not kidding, I worried about dying in a hospital room... and as I would cry and cry and cry, I would swear there were bats just flying around trying (TRYING!) to get in my house.

I know. I'm crazy. It's true. (And really, really selfish.)

I know death is close always. It may be in 20 years, 2 days or 6 decades... it's still close and scary. I know these things pretty intimately, but never have I courted the idea that it was actually happening. This was sobering. The anxiety caused everything to be urgent. And true. But guess what, dudes?

I feel better. And honestly, do me a favor... IF I DO DIE, do NOT let Andy date a hipster.

Thanks in advance.

my darling, dear, love you all the time

Oh, Jesus Christ, summer. I pine the year away waiting for summer and it's here and then it's gone - just like that. To be fair, it's still summer, but autumn is teasing me. "Right around the corner," I hear her saying. I'm devastated. Broken-hearted, they say in some parts of the country. But it's fine, you know, cycles and spinning and life and all that mumbo-jumbo.

This summer will always be the bat summer, you guys. 2012: The Summer of the Bat. Rabies-Summer 2012. The summer where we learned that yes, in fact, Andy is the brave one of the two of us. The summer where we learned that I know exactly what a bat sounds like, even in my half-awake-kinda-drunk state. We found out that despite Andy being in somewhat mortal danger, my ass will HIDE in the bathroom, lock the door and shut the transom. We learned that rabies is not eradicated from the human species and that the vaccines are incredibly expensive. I discovered that panic attacks can actually make a person long for alcohol, valium, in-patient mental care and sleep... boy, did I miss sleep. But, it's over. We're four days away from completing our Post-Exposure Rabies Regimen. I can chill the obsession of reading about what it's like to die of rabies. I can STOP the google searches "Indiana Brown Bat Flight Patterns", "Brown Bat Rabies", "Bat Babies"... I *can* stop, but probably I won't.

Other things happened this summer, too. Seriously. I took a badass southwestern vacation. Stomach viruses caused me to get a meth makeover.(SPOILER ALERT) A blind girl won Master Chef. I did stand up comedy (not very well). I was invited to participate in a poetry reading. Darth Vader visited the library. And you know, other things, but let's face it. Rabies is scary and I can't get it off my mind. I know the chances of us actually having been bit by that damn bat are really low, but not low enough to where I'll put my life on the line to actually test it. Which means one thing, guys. I actually care about my life.

So, use that. When I start to bitch, tell me, "don't start that belly-aching, girl. You like your life. You got that rabies shot."

And I'll have to agree.

her eyes were clear and bright

Can I just let you in on my life for a moment? These past few weeks have been absolutely bat shit crazy. I'm not even kidding in the slightest. In a nutshell: rabid bat, quarantined cats, rabies shots, panic attacks, insomnia and dissolving friendships. That's enough to fill a year, huh? I won't go into extreme detail, but just let me tell you it's bad when the only option you can muster is: beg the love of you life to leave you. He needs to divorce me, I told him, because I'm nuts. I'm crazy and I'll only drag his life down the tubes and he deserves better.

Sounds like a goddamn party at my house, huh?

It hasn't been. 
But, I'm going to tell you about a few good things. I'm going to bottle up my exhaustion for a few minutes and harness the good. You know, block the jive, baby.

1. Don't you just love it when birds run across the road? I do. I know I've mentioned this somewhere on the internets before, but seriously. It's one of my favorite things.
2. Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. Gimme that americana all day long - I'll sip it through a straw in the afternoons and take shots of it after dark. I can never tire of these dudes. I love them. I think, somehow, they know I've devoted my life, in a small way, to them.
3. I got lots of new (free) amazing makeup, two pairs of sweet earrings and two new dresses. This is fabulous, you know, for vain people like me. I like how I look mostly, except for that 3 pounds that just won't budge. (Hey, I told you I was vain).
4. Even though my job sucks all my life force through my nose, I'm still pretty damn good at it. I was spotted at a local farmer's market by a little girl who just stopped, dead in her tracks, and said smugly, "I know you. You are the librarian who did the Star Wars program." Yes, girl. Yes, I am.
5. I have this person in my life who will do things for me without questioning..like check the house 6 or 7 times a night for bats. He will let me sob on his chest at 330am. He puts his hand, spread wide, over my sternum with just the right amount of pressure and reminds me, "breathe in. breathe out. breathe in. breathe out" when every single thing in the whole wide world is exploding my body apart. When all I want to do is die, he reminds me that it's okay to be alive, mostly. He doesn't mind how badly I sweat when I cry. He doesn't care that I have all the building blocks in place to be absolutely insane. He doesn't even mind that stubborn 3 pounds.

He likes me enough to not abandon me, even when I beg him to. And even after ten years, being together is a joy. And despite the uneasy few weeks, I have a constant.

I'm lucky.