I think I’ll let the doctor decide that.
— my four-year old niece to my sister (her mother) regarding possible upcoming immunizations. apparently she said the same thing to the nurse after the nurse told her she would need two shots. that kid! = )
sitting out on the back porch this evening, under a burgeoning moon, a largish dark mass buzzes round me as it heads for the light. shilouetted against a lighter sky as i turn my head: a large lusciously winged moth, wings a fluttering blur around it’s thick bulk.
i duck and as i complete the motion a cutely clumsy tilt-awhilrl of naked pinioned wings, black against the greyed grass, swoops its awkward way past my shoulder and i lose sight of it in the varying shades of dark. i turn again and the air behind me is empty.
the night is also alive with the sounds of frogs chirruping and bubbling their delight; despite the frost, spring is here.
i don’t know, i just live here.
evening now. sun below the tree line and under the cover of cloud, greens giving way to the greys of twilight.
i’m lost in some memory, caught between the old and the new. waiting. interpreting oracles, shifting sands.
it’s too easy to get lost amongst the woes of the world; i remember neither what love is nor how to let it back into my life. yet here is spring, the doves have survived an unprecedented winter, their low coo fills the air with peace and promise.
i’ll pass some threshold soon; it may be a real or imagined place, certainly a number of revolutions about our sun as it makes its own rotation through a galaxy through a supercluster of stars, forty orbits around the sun, a mote in the eye of time yet a part of me is older, far older than that: i began when time began, so did we all. a snapshot of this universe includes our happy/unhappy faces.
amen.
selah.
it was a dream that looked like life
quiet streets
amber lights
the moon speaking of the sun
reading susskind’s book on his tussles with hawking, finally. oh leonard, where have you been all my life, rather, where have i been?
of the popular science tomes i’ve read, and there’ve been many, his opening here is one of the best. science with a liberal dose of the human, questions of self aside.
i can tell this is going to be a wild and crazy ride. = )
book shopping at the goodwill today, sifting for random treasure. came away with l’engle (a wind in the door), le guin (the lathe of heaven), márquez (one hundred years of solitude), woolf (mrs. dalloway), hemingway (the snows of kilimanjaro and other stories).
a book for almost every mood.
i’ve moved around so much these last years, books come and go, leaves on the palm at the end of the mind. transient friends, there when you need them and willing to go when it’s time.
it’s a miracle, a blessing and a curse, finding comfort in the words, minds, and imaginations of others embodied like ourselves, adrift amidst a universe …
mills:
“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.”
— Tender Is The Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, quoted by Riazm.
except evolve around it & beyond it, compress coal exactly so & you’ve got diamonds; compress dark energy & matter just so and you’ve got a universe and people to think about it. voilà.
perhaps all life is suffering because all life is love.
wondering if i made the right decision.
not, at this point, irrevocable. i still have a ticket back to nyc on the 29th…
i have no home but have no problem with that. subways are comparatively warm this time of year.
ha.
i suppose i thought things would be different here. i mean, they are, buried in snow and whatnot, but i’m beginning to wonder if the pnw culture is what will help me build this thing. i miss nyc something fierce…
out here it’s like another time, i can’t explain it but it’s not the future here for me.
*sigh*
move completed. instead, however, of spending wed and thurs in some nyc bliss saying au revoir to favorite haunts, i took alot longer than necessary packing the last two boxes, taking apart my bed, carefully stacking all of my things into the tiniest space (hours and hours of work), sleeping three hours then barely making it to the airport in time (as in almost missed the 2-hour mark).
still, the fact that i made it to the airport in time puts this move firmly in the “good” category (despite the fact that i left my vacuum cleaner behind twice, costing me some $ and several hours, but what i can say, it’s a miele and worth the trouble).
so, what’s next? holidays with fam & friends, then machine building until the prototype’s robust enough to travel, then hello nyc, hello world!~
it was such a lovely evening.
we were complete strangers, random guests at the back40 & he’s married so it wasn’t really a date, it was just having someone nice and smart to talk to over dinner at a comfortable place.
i sat at the bar, it’s the best place to sit at a place like that, i can’t imagine sitting at a table or going there with more than one friend. it’s also an easy place for me to be by myself too so of course the appeal. but it was nice that this night some stranger sits down beside me who is actually pleasant to speak with.
it’s about half way through my meal and into the crowded part of the hour that he arrives. and he’s a normal guy, actor by night, heavily-titled day-job by day. there’s a level of understanding between us which makes conversation easy. he’s okay with the universe, believes in that sort of thing. i told him what i was about to do. it was nice and just what i needed.
it was like kindness to strangers day. a man on the bus needed a map, i had a map so i gave it to him and wished him a merry christmas. kind of like the universe is playing secret santa pals or something.
i got a ‘date’. i gave a map. i heart new york city~
i look forward to many more opportunities for such gift exchanges and i hope you do too.
happy monday~
love
compassion
forgiveness
sometimes i feel like i’m making all of the wrong decisions all of the time.
what is the now and how do i choose in this moment. that’s the important question.
packed. well most of it. & it’s been the most organized move ever. i love it.
everything’s in boxes this time. no bags. not that it was shambles before but it was never quite perfect or even close. this time… small victories, ‘big’ let-down; small victories win. this move is the best ever.
step
by
step
by
step
.
.
.
i’m going to miss you guys… i can’t really think about what it is i’m going to do, too much nervy, just the now. one foot in front of the other.
i am okay. we are okay. everything is going to be okay.
.
.
.
seriously.
.
.
.
à tous, bonne chance ~
i am coming back with the future. it’s still a promise.
p.s. why didn’t anyone tell me i was misgenderfying that noun?
packing is such sweet sorrow
what are these things i’ve collected and placed around me. pieces of other people’s lives, pieces of mine. that line moves across the face of the planet.
i thought about just getting rid of all of it. but what would be the point of collecting again when i get back. a bed, a desk, two chairs (ok a luxury), books shelves and two sets of drawers and the things that go in them. shoes.
knitting, scarves, all the protective layers between i and my environment, refuse to clothe oneself in misery. if i could ask one thing of anybody and everybody in this country. inform yourselves, vote with your dollars. it’s fun and will help keep you alive to a wonderfully healthy and happy old old age.
ignorance, greed, these are the things which breed misery across what is a miracle of miracles, our existence here, in this place.
i’m going to buy it all back with hope faith charity and machines of light.
